#stock market jumps

[sophsweet]

How Capitalist Objectives Impact on Global Public Health

An Oxford University study showed, in June 2020, that despite the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 and two subsequent flu pandemics in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s had proven to be multiple times more lethal than COVID-19, that they had very limited impacts on the stock market at the time. In comparison, the Oxford University article reports that: The evidence we amass suggests that…

[skeletood]

sorry to ask the obvious

but is tumblr just fucking broken

[mulbruk]

there are so many minimum wear war paints left for dead in tf2 players backpacks. they deserve love. they deserve a forever home. they deserve to be given to steam community dot com slash id slash ludicrine.

[iri-vail]

i activated duckduckgo's app tracking protection on my phone and it has already blocked tumblr a few hundred times in the last hour

[newsfeed2023]

stock market | Bullish phase will continue, but some decline is possible after 15% jump

Mumbai. Enthused by the Indian economy growing more than expected, a new phase of boom has started in the Indian stock market due to the increasing investment of domestic and foreign investors. The first fall in February-March and then the sharp recovery has now turned into a new bull run. Because of this, the market has started touching new heights. While the main benchmark Sensex-Nifty has…

[eosnox]

Smart Investors Choose Crypto: Unlocking the Potential of Crypto Investment

[zarnzarn]

TW: jumping on the manwhore au but aftermath, discussion of S/A, read carefully.

Three weeks pass.

Odysseus is carried through them with ecstasy and joy, reuniting and grieving and laughing and rearranging.

But then everything settles down, and-

It was him who'd ordered it. Ordered owls to be carved into every free inch of Ithaka, coveted shipments of the secretive birds for his personal menagerie, sold trinkets in the market. Made no secret of who favoured them, when he had half the houses painted blue.

But now every step he takes in his own home haunts him.

He cannot so much as look to the side before feeling the urge to flinch away, shame growing inside of him until it chokes him up. Cannot look at any owls. Cannot look at any of his men.

("Well, if our captain can't think his way out of it, at least now we know talking filthy works just as well!" One of the men chortles, unaware of how Odysseus' blood had run cold, standing with his hand raised to knock.)

("This day, you've lost it all, consider this as my goodbye-")

("Come on, she's a beautiful, powerful lady! How bad could it really have been, Captain?")

("Captain?" Eurylochus whispers, as Odysseus wipes the blood off his mouth and reaches for his cloak. The ships are silent, even though the roar of the waves has left. Eyes stare at him from all directions, wide and-

Pitying? Horrified? Odysseus can't really tell.

"Full speed ahead," He says, voice ruined, and keeps his chin high as he hobbles back to his room.)

(When the sirens come, all he sees is Penelope. It is nice, at least, to know that he can discard the intrusive thoughts creeping in about natural reactions and forced pleasures.)

("Please- please don't do this, don't make me choose, I'll do anything-")

("Leave me the fuck alone, both of you. If Penelope does not take me back after all of this, it's her choice. But I have to get all of us off this island and it's better me than you.")

"Ody- Your Majesty!" Odysseus reaches into his robes, pulls out the whittling tool and the wood, busies himself as he walks. It's one of the younger men, the ones who'd barely been boys when they left. "Listen, we were wondering if- if you'd come join us at the festival! The- all of the men, really, we've been- heh- missing you since we now have to share you with the rest of the kingdom. We could- we could sing together? Like we used to?"

Athena's prayers.

"You go ahead," Odysseus murmurs, eyes on the carving. "Next time."

"But you didn't come for the last one either!"

"I have-" He hears his own sharp tone, stops and swallows to soften it. He was terrible to all of them, he knows, those last few days aboard the ship, rude and sharp and brutal like all the other royals, where he never was before. "I have work to do. Have a good day. I've heard the new hound stock is coming in today, you should see if you want a pet."

He ignores whatever is said in response, walking on. He wonders, darkly, what they think of him. Do they still think he enjoyed it? That it was a privilege to be had by gods?

("He won't speak to us!" One of them hiss that night, when the lad comes back sniffling and downcast, like all the others. They'd grown up with Odysseus, almost like younger brothers, and all of the younger ones were taking the sudden frigid silence hard. They all were. Somewhere they had lost their friend, left him behind without noticing, until only their king returned. "He cannot possibly think we think less of him for sacrificing so much, for- the gods are impossible to hold up against, he can't think we blame him for-"

"We don't know what he thinks," Polites says, pulling his head out of his hands and wrapping his arms around himself. "He doesn't even look at us."

The men around the fire are all silent.

"He has to know, right?" Someone whispers. "He has to.")

"What did happen on the trip back?" Penelope says, voice quiet, sitting next to him. He jolts. When did he reach their bedroom? "Something did. You have barely touched me since that first day."

Odysseus opens his mouth, but for the first time, he has nothing to say. What can he? She had known, the first second he had turned his eyes from her in shame, and yanked him back in anyway with eyes blazing like a lion, growling that she didn't care what he had to do to come back, as long as he had.

Odysseus doesn't feel like he has.

Penelope carefully takes the whittling knife away from him, as well as the spear he'd carved. "And you have not prayed, after your return."

(He had tried. Had walked right upto the temple steps when everyone was asleep, and then turned around and thrown up in a bush.)

"Have you heard the story of the high priestess Medusa?" He murmurs, staring at the wall. Watches the shadows dancing across. "Athena used to tell me about her. One of her favourite devotees. I never understood why she cursed her, when it was not her fault."

Penelope puts a hand on his shoulder. Both of them are shaking. She has seen the scars, the ones that glow beautiful and bright, left behind by each god who touched him.

"A gorgon, snake-woman, capable of turning anyone she looked upon to stone, gods and humans alike. No eyes upon her, ever again."

The breeze blows in.

"At the time, I thought it to be a curse." He whispers. Remembers the story of the way she had screamed in the temple bower for Athena's help, insane, at the feeling he knows now is violation of self and celibacy both; Athena's chosen, ripped away from one of their ways of worship by force. "Now I know it was a blessing."

"But-" Penelope swallows. "Perseus-"

"Was a mercy." He looks at the ground. "She was pregnant. She did not wish to be. Athena granted her so."

"The shield is to honor her," Penelope murmurs. "Not a trophy."

He hums.

"I-" Penelope starts, voice thick. "I remember when you asked. When we first got married. If I was fine with not being joined with you in bed often, as long as I was satisfied. Was it-?"

"Only her priestesses can have true celibacy, her devotees less, me lesser. I had a crown to continue, so Athena accepted a more lenient vow, when I became her student." He stares out at the sea, the sky. "But I had vowed. I had sworn." A half-sob escapes him, some delayed noise of grief. It feels far away now, and the scars have all healed, but he cannot move past the violation, the stares, the whispers. The shame of betrayal. "I had an oath, Penelope."

"It was not your fault," Penelope whispers, taking his hand like he will shatter like glass. "Poseidon seems to target all of Athena's people. If anything-"

"We fought," He says, turning his head to press his face to her shoulder, shuddering as he confesses it. Abandoned by his own god. "She left. Maybe this is her punishment, all the eyes, all the time. Paranoid that another Olympian will jump out of the shadows, do it again."

"Or," Penelope says after a long pause. "She does not know. Only one way to truly find out."

Odysseus considers.

"Could you," He swallows, throat clicking. "Could you get me- the things from my shrine?"

-

He does not expect her to actually arrive.

He shakes in front of her, for the first time, feeling small and foolish and broken. Wishes he could go back to being twelve, do it all over correctly. "Lady Athena," He says, as formally as he can. "I beg your forgiveness. Please- please, is there anything I can do to-"

"About time," She interrupts, bored. "Finally willing to concede that I was right?"

Odysseus feels bile rise in his throat. "Yes, goddess. I was- stupid, to ever consider otherwise."

Penelope's hand is clenched tight in his robes, kneeling with him.

"Good," Athena says, pleased. "A war well won, all things considered. Our glory will go down in the history books." A pause. "Why are you on the floor?"

"What?" He chokes out.

"You've never kneeled to me once, even when I've taken you out at the ankles, you impudent brat," She snorts. Odysseus feels his pounding heart freeze in his chest at the- fondness in her voice. Fondness. She is not furious with him, not unforgiving. "What, do you want something else-"

She knocks him on the head, flicking him on the forehead playfully- then freezes as he looks up at her. Goes completely still, and he knows she can see what they did to him.

Penelope's hand reaches out to steady him.

"Only your forgiveness, goddess," His voice breaks. "Only that."

-

After, Penelope holds him, crying silently herself as she wipes at his cheeks. Athena sits with her head in her hands, helmet removed, anger finally under control but completely silent. Just sits there at the edge of their bed, bent over, face buried in her own palms.

Finally, she straightens, inhaling. Turns to look at him. "You may not be alive to see it," She tells him, quiet and furious. "But this is their last transgression, I swear to you. I will find a way to get revenge. They will die."

"I do not-"

"They will die. And no vows have been broken." She hesitates, hand hovering over his ankle. Odysseus crumbles, nodding desperately, and nearly passes out at the relief of the familiar touch, sharp and cleansing, godly and unlike the chaos of all the others. "You need not apologise to me about that."

He sniffs, turning his face into Penelope's shoulder. It feels freeing, some latent relief that Athena finally sees him, understands, forgives. She is not the terrifying goddess so far removed, cold and cruel, that he was starting to think she truly might be; bowed over in grief and horror for him, like a friend- he just wishes this was not the reason why.

Her eyes are gold at the edges. Crying. Nauseated almost, at the fact that- her uncle. Her father.

"Would you-" Odysseus wheezes. His heart hurts still, for their fight, for what happened after, for how hard he knows she will take it. "Can you-"

"Anything, champion," She says softly, strained. Gives him a half-smile. "My friend."

"The wings-" He whispers, feeling stupid, but-

"Slow," Penelope murmurs, reaching out to steady Athena as she climbs in close. Her voice is wrecked. She does not say anything more.

Owl wings fold around him, not white or blue or pink, patterned and brown like the mud; home. Home.

"No one will see you," Athena murmurs, and her voice is wretched, but caring. "No one can see you. Peace."

"Peace," Odysseus repeats, and leans into them both, letting the darkness shroud around them like an embrace. Peace.

Home.

[seospicybin]

THE EQUATION.

Seungmin x reader x Lee Know. (s)

Synopsis: Seungmin trusts nothing but numbers and dating you slightly changes that notion until Minho comes and mess the equation. (12,1k words)

Author's note: You guys have been asking for 2min content so here it is. Hope you like x

Unlike people, numbers don't lie. Politics, poetry, promises... those are lies but numbers, they are absolute, they are tangible and they will never lie or betray him. Numbers are what they are: the truth.

And that's why Kim Seungmin prefers to work with numbers, as an analyst at an investment trust company. His job includes analyzing bonds, stocks, and other financial instruments, studying the economic data and the financial markets, and recommending investments. He spends time predicting investment returns through various modeling techniques and assessing the risk of investments.

However, there's one thing in Seungmin's life that he couldn't predict with numbers and statistics, and that is you.

First of all, Seungmin is at the peak of his career, he likes his job and he enjoys what he's doing, in other words, he's living a fulfilling life his way.

Seungmin would rather use the time to bring in billions' worth of investments than waste it on something as frivolous as dating.

That was his initial thought until he met you one random afternoon at a cafe.

It's funny that the cafe is one that he regularly visits to get his morning coffee and somehow, he needed another cup of coffee after work, and of all the possibilities, you were the one taking his order even though you're the manager, not one of the baristas.

Seungmin is not one to believe in such things as fate or destiny but he has no other way to explain it, it feels like at that moment, the universe was trying to bring him and you together.

The next thing Seungmin knows, he's been dating you for six months now, and in those six months, he learned that dating seemed frivolous to him at that time because he hadn't met the right person yet. He also learns that not everything that is not tangible or absolute and not presented in data or statistics are lie.

There are three things that Seungmin believes are true: He likes you, he's happy with you and every day, he likes you more and more thus making him happier and happier.

-

Look at him now! Seungmin gets nervous knowing that he's late for dinner at your place, his foot tapping against the floor of the elevator as it takes him up to your floor.

The second the doors slide open, he walks as fast as he can while cradling the bottle of wine in his arm and carrying his briefcase in the other hand.

Despite knowing the code to your apartment, Seungmin prefers the doorbell. He holds all of his things in one arm to free his hand and presses the doorbell to alert you that he's here, then lets out a sigh.

It isn't much about the fact that he's nineteen minutes late, he's nervous about something else and the thought of it makes his hand fly to the back of his head, getting that weird feeling as he touches his hair that is now short.

The door swings open and your face lights up the moment your eyes lie on him.

"Baby!" You squeal in joy and jump at him, welcoming him with an enthusiastic hug and almost knocking his glasses off his nose.

With the things he carries in one arm, Seungmin can only hug you back as much as he can, and a while later, you pull away and open the door wider for him.

"I have to hurry and stir the sauce," you excuse yourself as you turn around and head straight back inside.

Seungmin doesn't get the chance to apologize for his tardiness, he lets himself in and takes his coat off, then carefully puts his briefcase down on the nearest chair.

He brings the bottle of wine with him as he joins you in the kitchen, "Bought us a bottle of wine."

You briefly glance at it and delightfully exclaim, "Red wine! That's perfect!"

Then you put your focus back on the sauce in the pan, stirring it with a wooden spatula in slow, circular motions, and once it bubbles up, you turn the stove off.

"Okay, now I can properly welcome my boyfriend home," you sweetly say as you approach him with open arms.

Seungmin hurriedly puts down the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter to keep it safe and also, to properly return your hug this time.

"Hi," you mutter with a smile as you put your hands around him and drop them on his shoulders, "I miss you."

It's something else that Seungmin can't find the logical explanation for it but when he's with you, the chemistry in his body drastically changes the second you enter his radar, he feels a surge of dopamine, he feels instant comfort and his body relaxed, and the moment both of your lips collide in an explosive kiss, his heart palpation.

All of a sudden, your lips stiffen against him and you slowly pull away, then bring your hand to the nape of his neck, tangling it in his short hair.

"Wait... did you cut your hair?" You ask with a sly smile on your face.

"Yeah, I did," Seungmin answers.

You take a moment to check his new haircut and at the same time, admire how it accentuates his already perfect facial features and how the dark of his hair adds intensity to his eyes.

"Do you like it?" He shyly asks.

You drop your hands around his neck and pull him close, "I love it," you reply.

Then you lean in for another kiss, harder and deeper while steering his body until his back meets the door of the fridge. You put your whole weight, putting your body against him until your bodies mold into each other.

When he's with you, his brain stops controlling his body and his heart takes over, making the chemistry in his body want only you and you and you.

And, oh, how good it feels that he gets what he wants and you're just for him and him only.

The beeping sounds coming from the oven interrupt the moment and you immediately pull away from the kiss to get to it.

"To be continued," you tell him with a sly smile.

Curls of steam escape the oven as you open it and the mouth-watering smell wafts around in the room, evoking his appetite. You put mitts on both hands and cautiously, take the tray out of the oven, revealing the perfectly roasted chicken.

Aware that you must put a lot of effort into making dinner, Seungmin knows that he, at least, should contribute to it apart from the bottle of wine he brought.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" He asks.

You take your oven mitts off and put them away, "You can open the bottle of wine and bring the glasses to the table."

Before doing what you order, Seungmin unbutton his cuffs and folds the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbow. He starts by opening the wine bottle and pulling the cork open with a loud popping sound. He then brings it to the table along with the two wine glasses he carries in one hand, he meticulously pours the wine and the aphrodisiac smell fills his nostrils as he takes a small sip at it.

The roasted chicken is just as delicious as it looked and the lemon dill sauce is just the perfect condiment, even better that the red wine complements the whole thing. It's such a simple yet heartwarming dinner, that Seungmin finds himself completely at ease and unknowingly lowering his guard down.

"...I think they miss their figures so I said let's increase by 15% because I was sure they'll strike gold with the new product line," Seungmin passionately shares a bit of his day at work.

"And I guess, you were right?" You ask before shoving a spoonful of food into your mouth.

"There was a line around the corner on the release date, I was right," he confirms with a small smile.

And when he's at ease like this, he can comfortably talk about almost anything with you and he's aware that it may bore you.

"Did I bore you?" He meekly asks.

"No," you hastily answer, placing your hand on his hand that rests on the table.

"You know I like it when you talk numbers," you add with a soft smile.

"This is really good, by the way," he says, averting the conversation to the food you cooked so incredibly.

"Glad you like it, baby," you say with a gentle squeeze on his hand.

There are no numbers or data that can tell Seungmin the reason why you like him, neither his look nor personality are that appealing and you are the opposite of that, you're beautiful and charming, you're so well-spoken, and now, you have proven that you're a good cook too.

Once again, he can't find the logical explanation to that but he's lucky to have met you.

Seungmin pours more wine into both of your glasses as you tidy up the kitchen after dinner, he sits on the sofa and waits for you to join him. You put on music through the portable speaker and the slow beat of the song softly plays in the background.

"Thank you," you say as you take the glass of wine from his hand.

The sofa fits three people but you opt to sit on Seungmin's lap, straddling him without spilling the wine in your hand. You take a small sip before putting it away on the coffee table.

"Thank you for the hearty dinner," he sincerely mutters his gratitude and he knows he has said it more than a dozen times already.

"If you're really thankful, where's my kiss then?"

Knowing that it would be a hassle, he takes his glasses off first and then puts his arms around you to draw you close. The hand that rests on the nape of your neck allows him to angle your head as he pleases and then slowly, he puts his lips on yours, conveying his gratitude through a kiss.

"Thank you," he murmurs when he breaks the kiss.

"You're very welcome," you reply.

You lay your hands on his shoulders and then glide them down his shoulder blade, feeling how broad and muscular they are. Then you bring your hands to the back of his hands, gently pulling at the short hair there.

"Did you sync your hair appointment with my menstrual cycle or something?"

Seungmin snorts at the random question, "No. Why?"

"Then why did you get a haircut when I'm ovulating, mmh?" You ask, purposely bumping your nose at his.

"No, that's not—" his words get cut off as you put a finger on his lips.

"Oh, stop playing dumb!" You tell him, putting your finger away so you can kiss him.

You kiss him hard until his head tilted to the back and he has no choice but to give in, letting your body pressed against him.

Seungmin gets light-headed from the kiss as he prioritizes kissing you back instead of breathing, and you know what? It's worth every second of it even though his lungs burn from the lack of oxygen.

Sensing that you both need a breather, you pull away from the kiss and slightly turn his head to the side to place kisses on his jaw.

"I think you should take responsibility for your actions," you whisper to him.

"I didn't do anything," he innocently says with a low chuckle.

His hand trails down your spine and stops on the arch of your back, his nails dug at your clothed skin as you plant searing kisses on his neck with your hot breath tickling his ear.

"I think you should put a baby in me," you softly whisper.

Not only the words secretly arousing him, it's also the way a sly smile blooms on your face after you say it, oh, he couldn't be more attracted to you!

"In this economy?" He asks with an eyebrow raised in disagreement.

"Yeah, you're right but..." You put your hands on his chest and put a space between your faces, "we can start by having unprotected sex."

He laughs at that and puts his hands on your thighs, "And risk to actually put a baby in you?"

You roll your eyes at him, sighing as your hands slump down his chest. With a deep breath, you try again in a way that intrigues him.

"If we're talking about the success rate of birth control, it's 99%," you begin your explanation.

"Yeah, but—"

You stop him from cutting you off by covering his mouth with your fingers, "Yeah, I know. I might have missed a pill or two but that only decreased the success rate to 93% which means..."

You put your hands around his neck and continue with your explanation, "There's only a 7% chance that you'll actually put a baby in me."

He glides his hands up to hold each side of your waist, "And that means 7 out of 100 pill users get actual babies in them."

"Yeah, but I'm part of the 93%," you confidently remark.

"Or you could be in the 7%," he argues.

"Uhh... I wouldn't be so sure. 7 has never been my lucky number anyway," you simply state, adding a nonchalant shrug at the end.

What you said is so out of pocket that it amuses him so much and he thinks that's why he likes you, you're unpredictable. In fact, you're the only unpredictable thing that he likes in his life.

"And maybe this will change your mind..." you say, untying your dress open and revealing enough to show the bra you're wearing underneath.

"How's that?" You adorably tilt your head to the side as you ask him.

Seungmin tries to remain calm even though he gets the urge to just rip your dress open and expose more of you to him. He looks away and stares at your face, but you're taking his hand and making him cupping your breast.

"I'm wearing it for you," you seductively say.

He's feeling the lacey fabric of your bra instead of kneading on your breast, "Yeah?"

"Uh-huh, and it comes with matching underwear too," you share, parting your dress open until it's completely off of you.

As of this moment, his self-control is being tested and he doesn't know how long until he folds. He holds his breath as his eyes travel down your body, quietly lusting at it.

You slowly bring your head close and sweetly peck his lips, "Do you like it?"

He rubs his hands up and down your sides, then looks up at you, "Yes."

"Yes, what?" You lean in closer until the tip of your nose bumps his cheek.

"I like it," he speaks so low it's almost like a whisper.

You smile at his answer and react more by pressing your lips on his lips. The more you kiss him, the more he doesn't want to let go, he just wants to keep kissing you until he runs all of the air in his body.

All of a sudden, you break the kiss with a gasp and slyly smile at him, "This is just one of my two-part plans," you tell him.

"What's the second part then?" He curiously asks with his fingertips lightly tracing your collarbone.

The sly grin on your face doesn't tell much but he knows it is something that will amuse him. You take his glasses on the coffee table and put them back on him.

"Keep your glasses on 'cause I want you to closely watch me take you in my mouth."

With his glasses on, Seungmin watches you take him into your mouth, how your luscious lips wrap around his length, and the way you swirl your slick, hot tongue around his tip. All the while, your hand takes care of the rest that you can't take into your mouth.

Don't get him started on the eyes you're giving him as half of his cock disappeared into your mouth, they're innocent and filthy at the same time, and he doesn't know how you do that but you're doing it so well.

He's sure that his hard cock shows how much he wants you and if not, well then, he just needs to take things further himself.

"Okay, fine, your two-part plan worked," he mutters with his hand tangled in your hair.

"I know," you cockily say to him.

He puts his other hand in your hair and then tilts your head to make you look at him, "Come sit on my lap!"

You obey him, pulling him out of your mouth and slowly, getting up from the carpeted floor. You take a step closer and he stops you right there.

"Just a second..." he says.

He looks up at you as you stand right in front of him, he trails his hands down the sides of your body and then tugs his fingers at the elastic band of your underwear. Without looking away from your eyes, he pulls it down your legs until it drops and pools around your ankle.

One corner of your mouth curls into a smirk as he puts his hand on the back of your knee and lifts it, resting your foot on his thigh. This position allows him to bring his mouth close to your heating core and a whimper falls out of your mouth the second his lips make contact with your tender flesh.

The glasses stay on because he knows how much you like seeing it turn foggy as he goes down on you. He doesn't need to look anyway to please you with his mouth.

He sticks his tongue out to tease your clit in a kitten lick before taking it whole in his mouth and sucking it real hard.

"Oh, baby..." you breathlessly moan as you tug at his hair in reaction to his stimulation.

Seungmin slowly lets go, he replaces his mouth with his hand, repeatedly running his fingers between your folds that your essence drenched all over them.

"Can't wait to be inside you," his voice hoarse and heavy with lust. He then retracts his hand, shoving his fingers coated with your essence, and licks them clean.

Seungmin scoots himself to the back of the sofa and then he holds his arms out at you to help you, but he lets his intrusive thoughts win, he pulls you hard until you fall on his lap.

You're giggling as you settle yourself on his lap and immediately put your hands around his shoulders, "eager, are we?"

He brings your head close for a kiss as you part his shirt open, and he briefly sits up straight so you can take it off of him. He wastes no time to put his arms around you after, drawing you close until there is no inch of gap left between your bodies.

To make it fair, he unclasps your bra and then pulls the straps down your shoulders, you do the rest by taking it off of you, letting it drop to the floor.

He likes how your breasts hang so beautifully on your chest and they look so soft, he can't help but feel them too. As he kneads on them, he can feel the ample flesh mold into his hands.

"Aren't they just perfect in your hands, mmh?" You murmur, kneading them together with his hands.

Yes, they do, he answers in his head and it makes him believe that your breasts were made just for him. He gently squeezes on them as he buries his head in between with his lips resting on your sternum.

You kiss the top of his head and cradle his head in your hands, your fingers lightly scratching the back of his head as you softly sigh, "My baby..."

Seungmin only knows how to dominate, always in control and being on top of the game but with you, he doesn't care about all that. With you, he just wants to be held and taken care of, and ultimately, loved.

Heaven really is a place on earth with you.

And he's about to enter real heaven when you slowly lower yourself on him. No rubber, no layer of protection just like you asked, it's just you and your warm velvety walls tightly wrapped around his length. Both of your lips instantly locked in a kiss again the moment he's fully buried inside you.

It's nothing like he imagined it would feel like, it's a thousand times better and when you start rocking your hips, Seungmin realizes that his self-control is going to be an issue.

As you keep pulsating your hips at a steady pace, you hold on to the back of the sofa for support and keep your face only inches away from his.

"Tell me, baby!" You murmur.

"Do I feel good, mmh?" You ask, then hastily kiss his open mouth.

You don't see him struggling, do you? Let alone able to compute words to answer your question but he hopes you can see how overwhelmed he is as you rock your hips back and forth.

"Cause you feel so good inside me, baby," you murmur into his ear.

"Oh, I can feel you all over me," you add with a hot kiss on his neck.

He roughly pulls your head close to press a kiss on your lips, grabbing a fistful of your hair in his hand as he keeps kissing you as a way to contain his grunts.

"You're close, mmh?" Your lips graze his as you speak.

There's no use to lie, he's inside you and you can feel him throbbing, wanting to shoot his load at any given time now.

"You're just too good," He simply admits, gliding his hands to your back and pulling you close.

"Are you going to cum for me then?"

"Yes," he shortly answers

"Inside me, yeah?"

He nods, pathetically.

Taking that as a confirmation, you pick up the pace, sending your breasts bouncing right in front of his face but his hands are too busy gripping each side of your waist, desperately trying to slow you down but failing.

"Mmh, yeah, cum for me, baby," you murmur before crashing your lips against him.

Surrendering himself to the need, Seungmin wraps his arms around you so tightly that your breasts are squashed between your chest. His eyes are screwed shut, his body is hot all over like someone kindle a fire inside him.

Despite his tight hold around you limiting your mobility, you maintain the pace, arching your back to provide more depth for him and add intensity to it.

"Cum, fill me, baby," you softly whisper with your lips brushing his jaw.

Seungmin is no longer in control of his body, his desire gets to him and takes him where he needs to be. The pleasure keeps on building up and up and he won't stop until he—

"Argh!" A raw groan spills out of his mouth, then he hurriedly plants his mouth on your shoulder to muffle it.

You finally slow down and hold him close, cradling his head in your chest as he relishes the waves of pleasure lapping over him.

As senses gradually come back to him, Seungmin tilts his head up and pulls you for a kiss, a kiss that feels tender and chaste, the kind that knocks your heart open.

"I love you," he blurts out.

"Oh?" You react with a perplexed gasp.

It surprises him too that he just blurted those words out, he didn't plan on saying it, heck! He didn't even think of saying it but now that the words are out, he knows that it's coming from deep within him.

"You didn't say that just because you're still inside me, right?" You playfully ask.

He innocently shakes his head but changes his mind in the next second, "Uhm... maybe? A part of it because of that," he jokingly says.

"I knew it!" You exclaim and squint your eyes at him.

He brings his hands to your shoulders and then cups your face in both hands, holding it with so much care as if you were a fragile object.

"I love you," he mutters with utmost sincerity and his heart hurts from saying those words out loud, in a good way.

"Me too," You smile and softly brush the hair curtaining his forehead, then place a soft kiss on it, "I love you."

His heart is full knowing that his feelings are being reciprocated and that makes him the happiest he's ever been, and the fact that it comes from something that is beyond him is what makes it special. He cups your jaw and kisses you so sweetly with a heart that loves you until it hurts so good.

"Seungmin," you softly call his name against his lips.

"Yes?"

"Can you put more love in me?"

"With pleasure," he gladly answers.

The music that faintly plays in the background is being replaced with the skin-slapping sounds and both of your breathy moans.

You're lying underneath him, hands gripping each side of the cushion your head resting on, eyes shut with a sheen of sweat coating your body.

"Oh, baby, yes," you moan through your gritted teeth.

Seungmin is using all of his strength, thrusting hard into you, and in each thrust, he tries to go as shallow as possible, hitting you right in the spot.

"Oh, please..." you cry and beg, sounding like you're in pain.

"Please, please, please," you beg again, but he knows that you're asking for more.

He's going impossibly fast that the sofa is creaking along to his movements but even if it breaks, he won't stop. He needs to give you your release and at the same time, he can't help himself but get the pleasure of giving it to you.

"Seungmin, please, please..." you beg again, your eyes closed so tightly that tears squeeze out of the corners of your eyes.

It's the way you're calling him so desperately and with so much neediness that drives him to keep going. He grips the handrest of the sofa as leverage and thrusts into you harder and harder that the muscles on his body are strained and his body is close to giving out.

"Seungmin, please..." you breathlessly moan again.

Yeah, that's right, he's the only one who can give it to you and he's going to give it to you just right.

A mix of a moan and a cry rips out of you as your body stiffens and then softens in the next second, overflowing with immense pleasure.

Seungmin slows his thrusting but adds intensity, he can feel it coming as well. With the way you're clenching around him, it doesn't take him long to finally cum for the second time.

He launches his cock as deep as possible to plant his seed inside you and lowers his mouth on yours to fill his need to be one with you.

It's the most intimate he's ever been with someone, it doesn't feel like physical fulfillment anymore, it's bonding, it's trust, and he believes it's what people call making love.

After a while, Seungmin lets go and slowly, pulls out of you. With your legs still spreading open, he can see how your cunt is drenched with your mixed bodily fluid and pulsating, and a while later, he can see the white of his seed dripping out of you and he can't believe how much he cum inside of you as it now drips onto the sofa. It's a highly erotic thing to watch and satisfies him in a whole new way.

"Are you sure you're not trying to put a baby in me 'cause that was..." you can barely finish your words. You brush away the hair stuck to your moist forehead and let out an exhausted sigh.

Seungmin quietly and triumphantly smiles, he hovers above you and places a long, lingering kiss on your lips. As soon as he breaks the kiss, he looks at you and says, "Well, 7 has never been my lucky number either."

-

Since his job requires him to work late almost every night, Seungmin only meets you on the weekends and he'll stay over, even if it means he has to go to work early on a Monday morning.

"Stay," you mumble with your eyes closed, not letting him stop cuddling you on the bed.

"You can sleep some more," he whispers into your ear, along with a soft kiss on your neck.

"No, stay," you mumble again, taking his arm and putting it around you.

It's always like this every Monday morning, you're not letting him go and he'll cave in, then he'll cuddle you for a few more minutes, peppering you with kisses before dragging himself out of the bed.

If he has to choose, he'd rather stay in bed with you all day but he has other responsibilities to do and it involves a lot of people, not just him.

When Seungmin returns from the shower, you're sitting on the bed with his glasses on, your eyes immediately traveling up and down his glistening wet body, but they focus on the towel that lowly hangs around his hips.

"Oh... mama!" You gasp in delight, your teeth faintly bite your lower lip.

Flustered, he hurriedly walks up to you and takes his glasses off of you, then puts them on him. He gives your cheek a soft caress and then kisses the top of your head.

"You should sleep some more," he suggests as he saunter to your closet where he keeps some of his clothes in there.

"Why would I do that when I can watch my hot, nerdy boyfriend getting dressed to save the nation's economy from collapsing?" You playfully remark, sitting on the bed while hugging your knees.

As he chooses what to wear for the day, he looks over his shoulder at you and asks, "Who's going to make coffee then?"

"Oh, yeah, right," you sigh and pout, "you only date me because of my coffee."

"That's right," he responds with a sly smile.

You get up from the bed and come up to him, slipping your arms under and around him for a hug. You place kisses on the skin on his chest, shoulder, and neck, and eventually, your lips find his.

"Wear the blue shirt," you suggest, pointing at the baby blue shirt inside the closet before turning around on your feet, and heading out of the room so he can get dressed.

The blue shirt surely looks good on him but he can't remember wearing it or bringing it to your place, also, it's a bit tight around the shoulders. He heads to the kitchen where you're busy making coffee for him.

"Are you sure this shirt is mine?" He asks in confusion.

"Of course, it's yours, you silly," you hastily answer and then put down the coffee pot to take a good look at him, "What's wrong?

Seungmin takes a seat on the stool that is pushed against the kitchen island, "It's a bit tight around the shoulders."

You deliver his cup of coffee and then run your hands through his shoulder blades, "That's because you have such sexy, broad shoulders," you whisper into his ear.

He turns his head to the side and you immediately capture his lips in a kiss. You break the kiss to place more kisses on his face and neck.

"Now, eat your breakfast, champion!" You order.

You stand there behind the kitchen island to watch him take his first sip of the coffee you make, and as expected, it's as good as the first time had a taste of it and it also brings back the memories of how he met you that night.

"How is it?"

"Perfect!" He answers with a smile.

It's never just a goodbye kiss with you, it's a full-on makeout with bodies pressed and pushed against the wall, its lips and tongue, and occasional bites in between.

Seungmin has to stop you from going in for another kiss as he still needs air to breathe. He holds you close but keeps his face a safe distance away from yours, his height helps with his.

"You have the night shift tonight," he says.

"Uh-huh."

"You better go get some sleep after this," he suggests.

"One more kiss then," you sweetly ask.

Seungmin has no power to resist you, especially when you look at him with crinkles in your eyes. It would make him a bad man if he said no to that.

"Just one," he makes a compromise.

"Just one, yes," you repeat with an eager nod.

He finds you so cute acting like a puppy like that, he has no other reason but to give you what you want. He slowly leans in and kisses you, ever so softly despite feeling like fireworks are going off inside his chest.

"I have to go," he says once he breaks the kiss.

You don't say anything but pout to him, clinging to him to let him know you don't want him to go.

"I'll see you soon, mmh?" He says with a smile and a long peck on the lips as a consolation.

That seems to cheer you up as a smile blooms on your face, you hug him close, embracing all of him before taking a step back so he can walk out of the door.

"Have a great day at work!" You say as you linger by the doorway and with a sweet smile, you let him go.

A couple of days later, Seungmin receives a call from you but it comes at a bad time, he's in a meeting and he ends up getting two missed calls from you.

You know better to not call him when he's working but it seems urgent so he goes to the office lounge to call you back.

"I'm late," you suddenly share right after you accept the call.

"Late?" He asks in confusion.

There is a pause and then you explain, "My period is late."

The moment you both decided to have unprotected sex, Seungmin prepared himself for a situation like this. He knows that other than he needs to take responsibility for it but checking in on your well-being comes on top of his priority.

"Are you okay?" He asks in slight concern.

"I'm okay," you answer.

"Do you want me to come and be with you?" He offers, even though he doubts he'll be able to do that but that's something he can deal with later.

"No, it's okay. I just..." you pause to inhale air, "I just think that you need to know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm about to take pregnancy tests," you inform.

"Okay, well, it's better if you take two tests just in case the result is inconclusive," he carefully suggests, keeping his voice low as he's still in his workplace.

"Yeah, okay," you take in his suggestion.

"Hey, it's going to be okay?" He assures you because he knows that's what you actually seek at this moment, an assurance that things are going to be alright no matter what.

"I know," you meekly say.

"I love you," he says because he has nothing else to show you how much he cares and loves you, and he can hear you smiling at the end of the line.

"I love you too," you say with a slight cheery tone.

The two of you let those words hang in the air and let that be the only thing that exists in this dire moment.

After a moment, you sigh into the phone and say, "Well, I'm going to pee on these pregnancy tests and will tell you about the results."

"I'll look forward to it," he playfully responds.

It's normal for him to feel nervous about the results but surprisingly, he doesn't feel scared at all. If anything, it makes him start thinking about his future with you, and if you turned out to be pregnant then it simply means he'd have another part of you that he can love.

That's all he can think about at work, not numbers or statistics, but how wonderful it would be to build a family with you.

As he's deep in his thoughts, his phone vibrates on his desk. He turns it over to check and fumbles on his seat when he notices that it's multiple new texts from you.

"Guess what?" You wrote on the first text, and below it a picture of the pregnancy tests and both showing negative results.

"Told you, seven has never been my lucky number," you wrote in the following text with a smiling emoji.

It's a good thing that you don't call or you would hear the slight disappointment in his voice, but at the same time, he feels a sort of relief. Well, this only means that Seungmin only needs to postpone his plan on building a family with you.

"That damn seven percent," he jokingly wrote in his reply to you.

As a sort of joke, Seungmin decided to get off work early, and bought flowers along with a card he personally wrote on it that says, "Congratulations on being in the 93%!"

He knows you're having night shift for the whole week so the plan is to catch you right on the closing time and surprise you with the flowers.

Seungmin is not big on grand, romantic gestures like this but it shouldn't be something he should be ashamed of doing. It's all about the intention and he believes that the thing earlier was quite a shock to you so his intention is purely to brighten up your day and hopefully, make you feel better.

The taxi pulls up at the side of the street across the cafe, he can see that he comes right on time as you're locking up the place. He has to walk a little further to the crosswalk while carrying the flowers in one hand. He's watching as you lock up the café and pulling at the door to make sure it's completely locked.

As you hoist the strap of your bag higher on your shoulder, you turn around on your feet and Seungmin hurriedly waves his hand your way even though it's doubtful that you'll see him.

However, your face lights up like you usually do whenever you see him, your eyes sparkle, and a radiant smile. His heart is pounding as he starts to eagerly wave his hand at you only to find out that you're looking at someone else.

A guy comes out of the car parked right outside the café and you walk up to him, not stopping him as he hugs you. It's not just a friendly hug, the guy holds you close and lifts you off the ground for a moment, sending you giggling with your head bumping close to him.

Seungmin unconsciously follows the crowd crossing the street and when he finally gets to the side of the street, he sees that the two of you are kissing, lips locked with arms around each other.

He takes slow, hesitant steps toward you to see if it's really you and you're aware that you're kissing someone that is not him. He stops on his track as the guy spins you to the side and you open your eyes to see him standing there.

In that moment, your eyes meet and the expression on your face significantly turns into a panic one. From the look of it, it finally registered to him that you're fully aware of what you're doing.

"What is this?" He asks in utter confusion at you.

You immediately push the guy you've just kissed to approach him, "Seungmin, I can explain!" You say.

There's nothing to explain when he saw everything with his own eyes, unless you think he's blind or losing his mind, that's the only explanation he needed.

You walk toward him in such caution like approaching a wild animal, "Seungmin, please, wait, I can—"

But he's no longer looking at you, he's looking at the other guy and how flippant he is at this whole situation. He's mad beyond belief and before he obliterates everything around him, he turns around on his feet to leave.

"Seungmin!" You call his name out loud and he can hear you break into tears after.

"Fuck this," He mutters out of spite, tossing the flowers into the trash bin. He ignores your desperate calls and keeps walking away, not looking back.

-

Men lie, women lie, and numbers, after all, can be manipulated which makes it a lie. In other words, everything is a lie.

Even Seungmin is lying to himself, he pretends that he's alright even though the truth is he's far from alright. He can't believe that a week ago he thought of building a family with someone he's only known for six months, six fucking months and you turned out to be cheating on him.

The only thing that he believes in is this anger he feels whenever he thinks of you and it's more infuriating that he can't find the outlet for it. It seems like he has to keep it in until he dies.

His phone vibrates on his desk and he hates that his heart gets hopeful, thinking that it's a text from you when the truth is you stopped contacting him two days ago and he knows it's because he didn't respond to any of them, but deep down, he hopes it's you.

Full of anticipation, he checks his phone and sees that he has received a series of texts from an unknown number. It's probably work-related texts so he ignores it for a while until the curiosity wins over him.

"So, you're the other boyfriend," is what is written in the text.

"Who is this?" He quickly replies.

"It's Minho. The boyfriend," he writes along with multiple pictures of you and him.

If his goal is to make him jealous, he's succeeded at that and now that the goal is achieved, what else there is?

"What do you want?" Seungmin gets defensive.

"Does this mean you give her up, huh?"

It's not giving you up when he decides to break up with you after finding out that you cheated on him. Before Seungmin can compose a reply to that, a new text appears.

"I'm the better man anyway," Minho writes and he knows he does it to provoke him.

What a shame that Seungmin is not triggered and decides not to stoop to his level. Minho is free to think that he gives you up or he's a better man than him, Seungmin doesn't care at all!

However, his ignorance only lasts for a couple of days until Minho comes up with a text that has one clear purpose and that is to light Seungmin's short fuse.

"Come and watch me fuck her better than you did?" Minho wrote on the text along with a video of you, lying naked on the bed with his hand going all over you.

As if that isn't enough, Minho sends another video and Seungmin knows better not to open it but he does anyway. The next video is of him filming himself fucking you through the mirror that he knows for sure is in your bedroom and he can hear your moans in the background.

"Did you say something?" Minho asks as he turns the camera to you.

"Please!" You say.

"Please, what?"

"Please, Minho, I want to cum," you plead with your eyes red and teary.

With the rage that blinds him and jealousy that burns him from the inside, Seungmin rides in the back of the taxi in the middle of the night with both hands balled into fists on his lap and his chest heaving in anger on the way to your place.

He skips on the knocking on the door and punches the passcode into your place, letting himself in. A while later, you come to the door, looking unruly but fully dressed, it looks like he's just disturbed your slumber instead of catching you sleeping with another guy.

"Seungmin," you say his name in a mix of confusion and surprise.

Seungmin would be lying if he didn't miss hearing you call his name but he reminds himself he's not here for that, he came here for something else.

"Where is he?" He asks as he walks past you. He starts looking for him in every room in your apartment while you're trailing behind him.

"Who?" You ask in utter confusion.

"Your boyfriend," he simply answers, pushing the door to your bedroom and seeing that no one is on the bed except for a messy pile of duvet.

"He's not here and I haven't seen him in a week," you tell him.

He avoids looking into your eyes and walks up to the bathroom, pushing the door open with his hand only to reveal that you're telling the truth.

"Why? Isn't he your boyfriend? Shouldn't you with him?" He asks you, going out of the bedroom to check the laundry room near the kitchen.

"Because I needed the space. I got heartbroken when you broke up with me," you meekly answer.

Maybe he was foolish for not knowing you lied behind his back but how dare you lie right to his face now? Seungmin stops looking and turns around to look at you, he scoffs in exaggeration.

"Don't lie to me," he says to you with a sarcastic smile.

"I'm not. I am still devastated that we broke up," you genuinely admit with tears pooling in your eyes.

Hearing someone enter the passcode to your door, you hurriedly wipe your eyes before the tears roll down your cheeks and head to the door to check who is it.

"Minho, what are you—" You can't barely finish your sentence as he presses a kiss on your lips.

"Minho, this is not a good time," you say to him, but he walks further inside while holding your hand.

Without having to look, Seungmin knows that it's the man he's looking for and he realizes Minho was never here, he sent all those videos just to trap him and he fell right into it.

"You came, huh?" Minho says to him with a faint smirk on his face.

That is enough to trigger Seungmin, he takes a step forward and closes the gap between their bodies, "What's your problem?"

You immediately get in between and push them away from each other until there's a safe distance between them, "Minho, please, don't!"

"I don't know why I'm here," Seungmin mutters, pushing his way in the direction of the door.

You block the way and take both of his hands, "No, Seungmin, please, stay!" You beg with pleading eyes.

"Nah, babe, just let him go!" Minho says with a rather mocking tone at Seungmin while leaning the side of his body against the wall.

"You both stay!" You tell both of them, dragging Seungmin back inside and making him sit on the sofa. You glare at Minho next, gesturing him to also sit on the sofa, and with a sigh, he obeys to your order.

They're sitting so far apart from each other and you know Minho is the one who made Seungmin come here, but the damage has been done, you may as well use this opportunity to talk to both of them.

"Now that you're both here, let me explain everything," you say, standing right in front of them.

"I don't need your explanation," Seungmin says without looking at you.

"Seungmin, please!" You beg again.

"The door is right there!" Minho casually says to him.

You know Minho is going to be the problem so you glare at him, "Minho, please?" You say in a rather threatening tone instead of pleading.

"I'm not going to stop you from leaving but please hear me first," you try again while clasping your hands together in front of you.

Seungmin refuses to look at you but he stays in his seat and that's enough, he only needs to hear your part of the story anyway.

"Yes, I'm dating the two of you at the same time," you admit right away and that seems to intrigue Seungmin that he glances your way.

"But I wouldn't call it cheating," you continue and Seungmin looks away again, "Even if that's the case, it only means that I'm cheating on Minho with you."

"What do you mean by that? You're dating him behind my back," Seungmin says with a lot of resentment in his voice.

"Minho knows everything," you reveal, "We've been dating for three years way before I met you."

"Yes, and she told me everything," Minho adds with a wicked smile on his face.

It feels as if the two of you are playing him and he feels stupid for being the joke in this narrative. Seungmin looks at you and then at Minho with a revolted look on his face, "What is this sick game are you playing here?"

You take a step closer to him and slightly bend down to make him look at you, "Seungmin, I swear this is not a game. Our relationship is real and so is my relationship with Minho, we're—"

This is where Seungmin loses it. He's not familiar with this equation. You're dating him but also dating Minho. How can one person date two people at once? And is that even possible? Since when 1+1+1 is two? His brain just can't comprehend it.

"You cheated on me," he says and that's the only statement he firmly stands on, he doesn't care who dates who first and how many relationships you have other than with him.

You take a moment to inhale air and try again, "Seungmin, trust me when I say I never lied to you. I love you and you know that's true," you calmly tell him.

"But you did lie to me about your relationship with him," Seungmin

"Because I don't want to lose you," you hastily respond with the harsh truth.

A moment passes in silence as Seungmin processes your words and you're right, he would have left you a long time ago and the relationship wouldn't last this long.

"I know this is hard to understand but I love you, Seungmin, and I love him too," you say as you point at Minho.

You rake your hair to the back and come up to them, kneeling in front of them as you grab their hands in each of your hands.

"And I know how selfish and greedy I sound but I want you both in my life," you finish with a sad smile.

Minho brings your hand close to his mouth and kisses it, "You know you'll always have me," he says.

You softly smile at him, "Thank you, Minho."

The ball is in Seungmin's court now and you look at him with hopeful eyes, even though the chance that he'll agree to this is slim, close to zero percent.

"Seungmin..." your voice lowers as a second passes without an answer from him.

All of a sudden, he takes his hand away from your hold and in that moment, you tell yourself that, at least, you've tried your best to make him stay and if he still chooses to go, then you have to let him go.

Seungmin's hand cups your cheek and he tilts your head, forcing you to look at him. To your surprise, he smiles and then slowly presses a kiss on your lips.

"You know that I love you too."

-

Since they're all and they both agreed on being in this relationship, you figure this is the chance to put it to a test and see if they can learn how to share.

Minho places a kiss on your shoulder as his hands busy unclasping your bra, he places another kiss on your neck and turns your head to the side so he can kiss your lips.

"It's off," he mutters as the bra is completely off your arms.

You peck his lips and smile, "Thank you, baby."

Minho has no problem adjusting himself to this but Seungmin looks a little lost that you have to keep him close and at times, you have to actively tell him what to do.

As you sit on the edge of the bed, you take his hands and pull him close. Giving him a long peck on the lips before asking him, "Are you nervous?"

"I'm not nervous," Seungmin puts his hands on each side of your waist and places a peck on your lips, "I just wish he's not here."

You chuckle at that and put your hands on his square shoulders, "at first, I thought Minho would be the one having problems sharing," you poke fun at him.

"I can share," he hastily responds, he quietly clocking Minho who's getting undressed in one corner of the bedroom, "Just not with him."

"Can you please try? For me?" You sweetly plead, along with multiple kisses planted on his lips, "Mmh?"

Seungmin knows that he has no other option but to share you, he accepts it with a sigh, "Okay."

"Thank you, baby," you softly mutter, bringing his head close so you can kiss him hard and deep.

The kiss lasts for a few minutes and you eventually break the kiss, gasping for air the second your lips detached. You get on all fours on the bed and take his cock in your hand, slowly stroking it before taking it into your mouth.

You maintain eye contact with Seungmin as your mouth is full of him, alternating between sucking and licking, combining it with your hand pumping the base of his cock.

Seungmin gathers all of your hair to the back and forms a makeshift ponytail with his hand to keep all of your hair away so he can see his cock slipping in and out of you.

Behind you, you feel Minho's hand on the arch of your back and it's gliding down to the curve of your rear, he doesn't hesitate to knead the flesh until it molds into his hand.

Next, he replaces his hand with his mouth, sucking on the ample flesh of your ass cheek hard enough that you believe it would leave a mark.

Your focus starts to shatter as Minho plants his mouth on your heating core, he keeps your ass cheeks parted open so he can plant his mouth deeper in your wetness.

His slick tongue teases your entrance and at the same time, his hand snakes its way to the front to play with your clit, pinching for added stimulations.

You're moaning with Seungmin's cock in your mouth and somehow, the vibration adds pleasure to him as he hand tugs harder at your hair.

It goes on for long until you deem it's enough or else you'll get too overwhelmed to continue. You slowly pull Seungmin's cock out of your mouth, ignoring how your saliva coated his length and dribbling down your mouth. Minho catches you from the back, holding you as you sit on the bed and spread your legs open for Seungmin.

"Go ahead. You can have the first turn," Minho says to Seungmin, always in a tone that borderline mocking him.

You land a hard slap on Minho's arm, "Be good!" You warn him.

"Sorry, honey," Minho apologizes to you along with a kiss instead at him.

However, Seungmin does a good job of pretending like Minho wasn't there, he crawls over to you to place a kiss on your lips before settling himself between your legs. He rubs his fingers between your folds, softly as if he's touching flowers.

He's going to keep pretending like Minho wasn't there and fully enjoying this moment. It's not hard when your body always entices him, endlessly arousing him and inviting him to touch.

With another kiss on your lips, Seungmin slowly pushes inside. He pulls out only to push deeper into you and do it a few times more until he's fully sheathed in your tight walls.

"Mmh, yeah..." you moan with eyes closed, "So good inside me."

He lets himself explore your body with his hands then with his lips next, marking your skin with searing kisses to finally start thrusting into you.

Minho slowly lays you down but keeps his eyes and hands on you, touching you and cupping your breasts as they're jiggling along to Seungmin's slow yet steady thrusts.

He stands on the side of the bed facing you, pumping his cock as he's watching you being fucked by Seungmin, and eventually, brings his eyes back to you.

Using the tip of his cock, he rubs your erect nipples, wetting them with his precum and making you squeeze his cock between your breasts.

"Oh..." you loudly moan, taking every stimulation on every inch of your body from the two men.

The wild glints in his eyes scare you and excite you at once. You're tilting your head his way with your mouth wide open.

"You want it in your mouth?" He says as he pumps his cock so close to your face.

You bite your lips, nodding.

Instead of giving you what you want, he shoves his thumb into your mouth and watches as you suck hard on it before finally putting his cock into your mouth. He grabs the hair on the back of your head, keeping your head still as he drags his cock in and out of your mouth.

"You like that, huh?" Minho says as he looks down at you.

"You like having your greedy holes filled, huh?" He pulls out of you to give you a chance to answer.

"Yeah," you breathlessly answer with your lips wet with saliva.

"You hear that? She likes her greedy holes filled!" Minho says to Seungmin with a wicked grin plastered on his face.

Seungmin is too high on pleasure to care, having sex without protection is still new to him and he still needs a few practices to finally have some self-control doing it.

With your mouth full of Minho, your noises can no longer be his guide on pleasing you but he can tell from the way you're tightening around him. He needs a release as much as you do but he holds it in until he knows for sure you have climaxed.

Minho probably senses that you're so close, that he pulls out of you and offers his hands for you to hold on to. Your chest is heaving and moans are spilling out of your mouth.

"Seungmin, oh, please!"

There you go with your begging and pleading, and it's amazing that it still works on him, hearing you calling his name in such neediness gets him off.

When you finally reach your high, you pull your knees up as high as you can which provides him more depth and tightness that gets him closer to his release.

A few more thrusts are all it takes for Seungmin to reach his high. He keeps his cock deep inside you as he releases all of his seed. His hands are pressing on the back of your thighs with nails dug into the flesh.

Still gathering his senses, Seungmin searches for your lips and when they finally meet yours, he kisses you so hard that he runs out of the air in his lungs.

"So good, baby, that was so good," you mutter to him with half-shut eyes.

Seungmin climbs onto the bed, his back resting against the headboard while you're lying on your stomach in between his legs. You're both riding down your highs with some kisses and cuddles until Minho seeks your attention.

He pulls you by the waist, taking you away as you're about to lean in to kiss Seungmin. You laugh at his childish behavior and look over your shoulder at him.

"I'm not going anywhere," you jokingly mutter at him.

Minho holds you close and lets Seungmin watch as he runs his hands all over you as if he is trying to show him how to properly touch you.

He makes a trail of kisses from your neck and then down your spine, forcing you to bend down on the bed on all fours for him.

"Ouw!" You yelp as he lands a slap on your ass cheek.

Seungmin reflexively holds you by the shoulders, thinking it is something that he's doing that hurts you.

Minho lands another slap on the other cheek harder than the sound echoing in the room and sends you launching to the front.

"Fuck, your other boyfriend cum a lot," Minho complains with his fingers lightly circling your clit.

You shake your head at Seungmin, gesturing him not to take his bait, and bring your mouth to his ear to whisper, "I like it when you cum a lot inside me."

Seungmin holds the side of your head and kisses you, but Minho slaps your asscheek again to get your attention back to him.

"Let's hope he left some room for me to fill," Minho says, putting two digits into your gushing hole to prepare you for his cock.

"Don't be so dramatic, Minho," you poke fun at him.

He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you hard until your back hits his chest. He buries his head in your neck, placing ticklish kisses down the column on your neck while his hands are fondling your breasts.

"It's your turn to not be dramatic," he mutters into your ear as he aligns his cock to your entrance.

"How can I not be?" You say to him.

Without warning, he enters you, pushing his swollen member in little by little. His hands gripping your hips to keep you still as he keeps pushing in until he's fully buried inside you.

"Honey, oh..." you moan as you grope for his head, turning it to the side so you can kiss him.

"I know," he seductively murmurs into your ear, "You feel so good around me too."

As Minho starts thrusting into you, you get back on your fours again and share some of your attention with Seungmin. You crash your lips against him and take his hand, making him cupping your breast.

He affectionately brushes your hair to the side and holds it there before leaning in for a kiss again, kissing your parted mouth as you moan from Minho's thrusts.

"I'm cumming, oh, I'm cumming," you whine as your fingers claw at Seungmin's chest.

Minho keeps chasing his high and riding past your orgasm, sending you into overdrive. Your eyes are fluttering shut from the immense pleasure but Seungmin holds you steady and tirelessly placing kisses on the skin he can land his lips on.

"Just a little bit more," Minho says through his gritted teeth while keeping the motion of his hips going.

You're fisting the sheet underneath you and eventually collapse onto Seungmin's chest and letting him hold you as Minho finishes inside of you.

Minho lowers his body on you, planting kisses on your back and your neck, he then buries his head in your neck as the three of you snuggle on the bed, exhausted yet content with pleasure.

With your eyes barely open, you reach for Seungmin's jaw and kiss him, then turn your head to the side to capture Minho's lips in a kiss afterward.

And you think, it wasn't bad at all for a first practice.

-

The bed shifts as Minho props his elbow against the mattress, you're holding his arm close to your chest so he plants a long kiss on your shoulder before slowly, taking his hand away from around you.

He checks his phone for the time and he kind of already guessed that he should get ready for the day, he has a plane to catch.

He quietly makes his way to the bathroom to wash up and quietly gets dressed in the dark of the room, not wanting to wake the others sleeping in the room.

He helps himself for a quick breakfast in your kitchen, opening the fridge to get a carton of milk and it almost startles him to see Seungmin standing by the doorway of your room with his hair sticking up and his glasses perching slightly askew on his nose.

"Man, you look really good in the morning," he sarcastically says as he takes a box of cereal from the top cabinet.

Seungmin brushes his hair to the back and fixes his glasses, traipsing his way to one of the stools pushed against the kitchen island.

"I believe we have to talk," he says to him in his morning, deep voice.

Minho gathers a bowl and a spoon on the kitchen island. He repeatedly nods as he pours cereal into the bowl first and then pours the milk after.

"That's actually great because you haven't heard my part of the story yet," Minho finally responds to Seungmin.

He takes a spoonful of cereal and shoves it into his mouth, making Seungmin wait as he chews and swallows his food to speak again.

"I'm away a lot for work. I hate to see her feeling lonely and sad. I don't want to break up with her and so is she. I was the one who came up with the idea," he explains, taking another spoonful of cereal and making Seungmin wait again, "I told her to find another boyfriend."

Minho then rests his hands on the counter and leans forward, taking a moment to gather his thoughts in the silence that hangs in the room.

"When she told me about you, I was scared because I kind of set her up for heartbreak by coming up with that idea but she stopped feeling lonely and sad. I can also see that she's... happier," he shares, digging his spoon into the bowl, and with a sad chuckle he continues talking, "I even started to think that maybe she doesn't love me anymore."

It only occurs to Seungmin now that Minho did all that not for himself, he wouldn't bother texting him and sending him all those videos if his intention was only to provoke him. He did all that to force him to come and meet you, he did all that for you which makes Seungmin the bigger asshole in this.

Minho drinks the milk straight out of the bowl and then roughly wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, "What I'm saying is... I just want her to be happy. That's all," he finishes.

This concept of relationship is so new and foreign to Seungmin that at first, he finds it hard to make it make sense but after hearing both sides of the story, it isn't as complicated as he initially thought. After all, a relationship is a state of being connected whether it's people or objects or even concepts.

But it's nice to hear that despite his snarky remarks and flippant attitude, Minho is not afraid to be transparent about his feelings and thoughts, and Seungmin respects him for that.

On the other hand, it convinces Seungmin that this relationship would work because the three individuals are mature and have no intention of hiding things from each other anymore.

"I just want her to be happy too even if it means I have to endure your... attitude," Seungmin enunciates the last word with a sneer.

Minho scoffs and chuckles at that, finishing the bowl of cereal by draining the milk to its last drop.

"So how are we going to do this?" Seungmin asks in genuine curiosity.

"Well... we'll arrange something," Minho vaguely says, putting the dirty dishes down in the sink.

Minho returns to the bedroom to retrieve his jacket, he's sitting on the edge of the bed and places his hand on your shoulder, trying to wake you up with a gentle kiss on your lips and continues placing kisses all over your face until you steer in your sleep.

"Hey, I have to go," He softly mutters with a tender caress on your cheek.

You rub your eyes and pinch the bridge of your nose, "Already?" You ask with a sleepy tone.

"My flight is in three hours," he informs while putting away the hairs from covering your face.

You pout and hum in complaint, stretching your arms out before putting them around his shoulders, pulling him close until he collapses on top of you.

"When will you come back?"

"Next Friday," he answers.

"Mmh, okay," you mumble, holding his face inches away from yours and giving him a long peck on the lips.

To give him a proper goodbye, you get up and put on any piece of clothing lying next to you. You walk Minho to the door for another hug and kiss while Seungmin sits in the kitchen, giving this moment just for the two of you.

"Stay safe. Take care," you tell him as you cling to his body.

Minho places ticklish kisses on your neck, sending you giggling as he holds you tightly. He eventually stops to press a long, lingering kiss on your lips.

"I'm going, okay?"

You nod and fondly gaze at him, "I love you."

He smiles at that and plants another lingering kiss on you, "I love you."

It's not the first time that he's leaving you to go away for work, but somehow, this time feels different, he feels a little relieved that he has someone he can trust to keep you safe.

"I'll be back soon," Minho mutters with a chaste kiss on your forehead.

You're lingering by the doorway, watching him leave until he goes inside the elevator and then go back inside. You're aware that Seungmin is there and you've been neglecting him the whole time you're saying goodbye to Minho.

You smile as you walk into the kitchen and see him still sitting there against the kitchen island, "I'll make us coffee," you announce.

"Okay," Seungmin shortly says with a soft smile.

You start by filling the pot with water and putting it on the stove, and as you wait for it to boil, you scoop some coffee beans to grind.

All of a sudden, you feel a pair of arms wrapped around you and you don't have to look to know it's Seungmin.

"Does it make you happy?" He asks out of the blue.

"What? Making coffee for you?" You jokingly ask even though you know the context of that question.

You put down whatever you're holding and turn around on your feet to face him, resting your hands on his chest as you look up at him and say, "I'm happy."

"Then I'm happy," he says with a smile, leaning in to softly kiss your lips.

The kiss brings back so many things, both the good and bad things you've shared, but ultimately him. The break-up was the worst part of it but now that he's back with you, you feel happier than ever.

"I love you, Seungmin," you tell him, sliding your hand up to his neck and holding him there, "I'll never let you break up with me again."

He puts his arms around and draws you closer, "I won't."

"Good, 'cause I don't know what a menacing man like Minho would do to you if that happened," you jokingly say.

In the end, Seungmin doesn't need numbers or data or statistics, he only needs to learn from his mistakes and as much as he hates his guts, he also needs to learn a few things from Minho and one of them is being a good boyfriend to you.

The white curls of steam escape the cup of coffee as you serve it on the table in front of him, the strong smell of it awakens all of his senses.

"Thank you," he mutters his gratitude with a smile that makes his eyes smaller and offers warmth.

You watch as he takes a careful sip at it with a hand propped under your chin, "How is it?"

He puts down his cup of coffee and smiles at you, "It's perfect."

As of this moment, Seungmin will only look at you as someone he loves and wishes to always be happy, and he'll think of himself not merely as a part of the equation but as what completes the equation.

-

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[fallstaticexit]

Prev / Next / Beginning / Pillowfort

TW: Sim Spice

Transcript under the cut

Nancy Narrates: [I returned home in a daze. My whole self not entirely present in my body]

Nancy Narrates: [And when I closed my eyes for the night, it was with thoughts of her]

[such a pretty threat too] [I am so happy to have met you, Nancy]

Nancy: [moans softly]

Geoffrey: [murmurs] Hey baby, you're home. Malcolm has a cold.

Nancy: Ok, Geoffrey. Go back to sleep.

Nancy Narrates: [I had to get through it, as I always did. I couldn’t allow anything to distract me, especially when I had so much at stake]

Chester: I’d like Nancy to oversee the Dreamer Project.

Nancy: Me, sir?

Chester: I see what you’ve done in Del Sol Valley. I’m impressed, Nancy. That is the kind of initiative that I can trust to lead this business.

Chester: I have observed your work throughout the years. While inheritance is assured, are you prepared to take on the role of CEO? You have the potential, my daughter. Show me what you can do.

Nancy: I-I will. I’ll do great, father.

Nancy Narrates: [My father was ready to see what I was capable of. I had to give it my all]

[laughter]

Dirk: Mrs. Landgraab! Thank you for coming. Early as always. [chuckles] My apologies, I sent out an email that my 9am was running late. Please, take a seat. I have a few things I’d like to address.

[silence]

Dirk: [clears throat] Guess I’ll jump right in. First and foremost, budget is at the forefront, and we’re looking to reduce costs in any way we can without compromising infrastructure. This project has been a long held dream of mine. It’s personal, so it’s crucial that I make the right investment for the citizens of San Myshuno. If you look out this window, you can see the impact the Landgraab Company has had on this city; however, Feng’s portfolio aligns closely with our vision for The Dreamer Project.

Dirk: Lily Feng of Feng Enterprise informed me that they can cut costs by 10% by importing material from Tomarang that is affordable yet high quality.

Nancy: Is that right?

Lily: It is what makes us the best in the business.

Dirk: 10% does peek out interests-

Nancy: 20%! I can cut cost by 20% across the board.

Dirk: Hmm. Here’s how we’ll proceed. I’ll give you both 30 days to come up with a proposal, and whichever meets our requirements best will be awarded the bid.

Lily: Lovely.

Nancy: Perfect.

Dirk: Excellent. Thank you both for your time.

Lily: You know, they say to never meet your heroes, but you’ve been nothing but accommodating. Thank you soo much for the lead, Nancy.

Nancy: ‘Small modest firm’, right? You don’t think this is a fucked up way to ‘get your footing’ and ‘network’?

Lily: [coos] Ohh, did I bruise your ego?

Nancy: Oh, please. I meant what I said. The Landgraab Co. tops the market. I’ve put plenty of no name firms out of business, what’s one more?

Lily: Did you or did daddy do it?

Lily: Like I said, this is a man’s game. You’re either going to ask for what you want or take it by any means necessary. Not that I had to try very hard, you gave it all up sooo easily. I didn’t even have to beg.

Nancy: Funny. When I win this bid, you’ll be on your knees begging me for a job.

Lily: [tuts] Tell you what, when I win, my small firm won’t make a laughing stock of you. Instead, how about you come to my office in that sexy little red dress you wore and kiss my heels?

Nancy Narrates: [Oh, what an infuriating, little-]

Nancy: -BITCH! Excuse my language.

Judith: Oh, no need to apologize, I am living for this darling.

Nancy: And to parade around with that cocky fucking smirk like she’s already won. I want to see her fail so badly. I want to ruin her!

Judith: Then you make sure she knows who the hell you are and that she picked the wrong Landgraab!

Nancy: I can’t lose this, Judy. It’ll be the last thing I do if I did. My god, I’ve never been more stressed-

Judith: Hey, relax, love. Did you get the parcel I sent you?

Nancy: Yes. It said to run a bath and pour myself a glass of wine before opening- what’s this about?

Judith: I think if you were getting off regularly, you could focus properly. Clearly, your darling husband isn’t cutting the bill. So, I made a little purchase to help—clear the tunnels, so to speak. Ah, I have to go. Kisses darling! Have fun!

Nancy: Wait! What am I- [sighs] What am I supposed to do with this..

Nancy Narrates: [I had 30 days to win. I had to focus. No distractions]

[Don’t you want to know what it feels like? I can show you-]

[buzzing]

Geoffrey: Nance? Are you still coming with me to get the boys from practice?

Nancy: Yes! I’m coming!

Geoffrey: Okie dokie!

[canisalbus]

Was at a farmers market recently and there was a giant white sighthound of some kind with a woman. He was standing stock-still nervously staring at this eggplant shaped exactly like his head until someone bumped the table, the eggplant moved, and he jumped about a foot in the air. The woman, who I don't think even saw what happened, just patted his head and told him 'everything is ok' without looking up from her tomatoes, and he just looked up at her with the most pathetic and tearful expression before hiding behind her legs from the produce. Like, I've never seen a dog that looked like it was physically holding back tears before, but now I get it. All I could think for the entire rest of the market was "that's Machete". Felt like I saw a celebrity. I get why you characterized him like that, the sighthounds really are just anxiety on stilts with big watery eyes. Just wanted to share.

.

[copinghex]

Basis | T.S

Summary: "His day had been awful, the stock market crash gave him an awful headache, his family certainly would be against any solution he could possibly find and at last, her words made him stumble and crash"

The house was uncharacteristically cold for an autumn night, the wind whistled through the windows crevices and that was the only sound to be heard, even the maids' heels were silenced by the fall of the night.

The crash of the stock market affected the Shelby company to levels no one could foresee, since everyone assumed their currency was safe in Michael's hands. They were far from bankruptcy, as a matter of fact they would never have to worry about going back to the Watery Lane again, but the concern was inevitable.

The big clock in the hallway announced midnight and Y/N jumped at the sound of the heavy pendulum, usually the maids kept the clock from making any noise so it wouldn't disturb Tommy's light sleep, it seemed that tonight they forgot to.

Before entering her shared bedroom, she waited to see if the bang had woken up her baby, no cry was heard, making it feel like she was alone in the house.

However, she wasn't, Tommy sat at her dressing table brooding with a glass of whiskey, his shoulders hung low and he barely noticed her presence. She knew that state of him very well, he was stuck into his mind, thoughts running in his head like a down spiral.

She approached him slowly, as if he was a wounded war horse. Her gentle hand squeezed his shoulder, the tense muscles fitted on her palm begging to be looked after. 

All Tommy offered as an answer was a slow blink and another sip of his whiskey, the bottle was full earlier that evening and almost empty by then. Y/N didn't doubt he had a high resistance to alcohol and yet, she couldn't help but worry.

"So what have you decided? I know Linda didn't let you speak," she referred to the family meeting they had.

"Nothing yet," Tommy mumbled, "fucking nothing," 

She took the glass from his hand before he could take another sip, a few drops trickled on his trousers and he cursed trying to take it back. In a quick gulp, she finished the drink.

"What are you doing, Tom?" she scolded.

"Y/N please," he sighed, "not now, not fucking now," 

"Look at state of you, stand up, Tommy," she demanded, but he didn't move at all, "fucking stand up!"

Tommy's eyes widened as she pulled him up with all her strength, he stumbled on his stool and firmly held onto her arms, certainly the spots would get sore later.

"Are you drunk?" she asked quietly, the look in her eyes didn't hide the concern and Tommy didn't have the heart to push her away.

However, he didn't answer, instead his rough hands traveled to her nape and tangled his fingertips on her hair. At that moment he was unable to express the relief only her presence brought, he was certain that he'd go mad if he had to deal with everything alone.

Tommy stared at her gentle eyes and she stared back. The face she very much loved was forming wrinkles, gray hair hid itselves in his well drawn eyebrows, above everything he looked exhausted.

Cupping his cheeks, she traced the scars on his cheek and under his chin, a wave of overwhelming affection washed over her,

"You're my basis, Tommy," she whispered, "I know I don't say it often, I know I don't say it enough, but the truth is that none of this would make sense without you," 

Tommy hid the shock her words caused by looking down at his own feet, he was beyond surprised. So he wasn't just an income, someone actually cared for him, the idea nearly brought tears to his eyes, he always thought being loved would be comfortable and relieving, but it only formed a knot in his throat.

He didn't see himself as worthy of love, especially not hers. Tommy couldn't tell exactly when he started to think she should leave him, he only thought someday she would and he wouldn't have the right to complain, because he was well aware dealing with him was a burden.

Noticing a single tear running down his face, she quickly brushed it off and pulled him to her arms. His chin rested on her shoulder as he held his breath, a trick to keep himself from crying he learnt in his childhood.

Nevertheless, he wasn't able to keep up with it when her hands traveled through his back. While one held the back of his neck, the other traced his spine with gentle, yet firm pressure, next moving to his shoulder blades and lower back. 

At last, her embrace became tighter around him, assuring Tommy's silent cry it was okay to come out, if it wasn't for the movement of his back and the tears wetting her clothes, she wouldn't believe such simple words had that effect on him. The truth was, Tommy was much more fragile than he let show. 

"It's alright, let it out," she soothed, petting the shaven back of his head, "I got you,"

Five, ten, twenty minutes passed and Tommy started to try controlling his breath, he knew that if he fully let himself go his cry would become compulsive, the tears would run down without control and turn an intimate moment into a humiliating one.

Slowly, he breathed in and out, laying his head on her shoulder. She tried to look him in the eyes, but Tommy quickly hid his face on her neck, he'd hate to be seen with teary eyes and wet cheeks.

He held onto her clothes tightly, at the same time her scent calmed him down, the gentleness she offered made him want to cry again.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, "I'm fucking sorry,"

"It's alright, love, don't apologize," guiding him to bed, she held him in her arms.

Running a hand through his hair, Y/N respected his wish to hide, the bridge of his nose fitted on her neck as his wet eyelashes brushed on her skin. His day had been awful, the stock market crash gave him an awful headache, his family certainly would be against any solution he could possibly find and at last, her words made him stumble and crash. 

Eventually, Tommy's eyelids got heavy, her warmth relaxed his tired muscles and he felt safe enough to let the worries slip away. He fell asleep with his head on her shoulder.

Realizing he was asleep, Y/N took the opportunity of doing the same, in the last few months sleeping near him had become a rare occurrence. 

Hours went by, enough for the wind gusts to dissipate and a storm to form. The heavy, gray clouds covered the moon in the dark sky, releasing thick rain drops that hit the window with brutal force. 

The noise woke Tommy up, he lifted his head to see his wife in deep slumber, he didn't know how much time passed, but he felt less tired, it had been a long time since he took a nap without waking up from time to time. 

Peeking at the clock at the bed table, he squeezed his eyes shut and sighed, four in the morning wasn't exactly a proper hour to wake up, especially if he had slept past midnight.

A sleepy noise from Y/N captured his focus again, his eyes wandered to the drawer in which he kept his opium bottle and he quickly came back at her. Finally, he decided to not disturb her sleep, well aware he probably wouldn't fall asleep again, Tommy snuggled to her and closed his eyes. He wouldn't say it back, but she was also his basis. 

[soleilchanson]

Hi!! Can you do a fic where toji and yn are play fighting/wrestling and toji accendtly tickles us and finds out that we're ticklish?

Then he proceeds to do it alot now. Like when we're cuddling he'll pin our hands an tickle us. If we're reaching something on a shelf he sneak up behind us and tickle our sides/belly. Like toji is just a big tickle monster

You got it, bestie 🫡

Masterlist

You regretted many things in life- wearing skinny jeans on a hot day, getting a bad haircut that took you months to grow out, and not investing in the stock market earlier.

But the one thing you regretted most was letting your boyfriend find out just how ticklish you were.

It all happened on a regular Saturday afternoon. You were testing Toji’s patience so he decided to battle it out with a wrestling match.

So there were you were, rolling around in your bed with your boyfriend. Every time you managed to get on top of him, he’d tackle you back down and try to hold you down with the weight of his body. You’d slip to the side, get on his back and the cycle would continue.

The fight was in your favor until he had managed to trap you between his legs with his left arm wrapped around both of yours. You tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but it was difficult because he had you right underneath him. His right hand then caught on to your waist to prevent you from moving any further.

“Okay, you win. I lose. I’ll do the dishes after dinner.” You breathed out. Toji laughed and you could feel his chest rumbling because of it. “Told you this fight was pointless. You can try all you want, babe, but you can never win.” He said as he strokes your sides.

You yelped as a response and wiggled even more. “Baby, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Toji, it’s just…”

“Just what? Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m just very ticklish.” You murmured.

It took Toji a minute to realize that even the slightest touch on your sides had you jumping. You were lucky enough to not see the expression on his face because you would’ve been terrified.

“Alright, babe.” He said slyly after letting you go. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

You were a bit suspicious as to why he was suddenly so compliant but you brushed it off. You were finally out of his hold and could breath easily again.

The following days were pure torture.

Whenever you’d stretch your arms, Toji would poke your waist and have you double over to protect yourself. Sometimes, you'd be walking with his arm around you and he'd randomly poke you so you'd end up pushing yourself into his side. It got to the point where you’d have to look around to make sure he was far away enough from you.

The worst was when he’d be massaging your neck. Your guard would be down, you’d be all relaxed and then all of a sudden, his arm would wrap around you to prevent you from escaping and begin tickling your armpits.

It was just another morning. You looked around to ensure Toji wasn’t around before reaching up to the kitchen shelf to grab your mug. Usually, you could tell which mug you were grabbing onto based on the handle. But this time, you were surprised to find out that it wasn't there. It didn't help that you couldn't see into the shelf.

You were sure that you washed your mug the night before. You decided to continue looking for it, hoping that it was just at the back. You put your knees on the counter to reach deeper into the shelf.

Until you felt two hands attack your sides.

You yelped as you fell back into your boyfriend's chest. He secured you by wrapping his arm around your body and situating it right beneath your chest. His other hand began to tickle you.

"You monster!" You cried out, trying to get out of his grip as he carried you to your couch. "You hid my cup, didn't you?" He simply laughed as he threw you down on the couch and straddled you.

"Maybe." He leaned down and lifted your shirt up. You knew what was coming and had accepted defeat. You knew that fighting him was pointless no matter how hard you tried. The man was built like a bear, and your lack of muscles was a serious shortcoming.

Toji noticed your tired face and leaned down. His nose touching yours. "Give up already?" He asked while smirking.

"Yeah, no point fighting someone who always gets what he wants." You tried your best to appeal to his humanity. Maybe he would give up and let you go or even return your cup.

But instead, he muttered a small "good" and tickled your exposed mid-riff. "Toji, stop!" You laughed out, trying to control your spasming muscles. He started laughing along with you. He was enjoying the sight in front of him.

He removed his hands and blew raspberries on your tummy. "Oh my gosh," you cover your face with your hands as you giggle. He soon began kissing your abdomen, poking you on the sides whenever you'd let out a sigh of relief.

"Don't get too comfortable, hon." He mumbled against the waistband of your shorts, his eyes smiling up at you.

"I won't. I live with you, after all." He came up to face you and swapped your positions, with him lying on the couch and you lying on top of him. You were glad he was finally done. "Y'know, I think I've found my new favorite pastime." His arms wrapped around you.

"Toji, darling, please take up something more productive."

"Nah, I find this to be more fulfilling." He said as he kissed the top of your head.

[shinobicyrus]

One thing my brain keeps going back to about Pacific Rim (besides the rad giant robots) is the whole existence of kaiju organ harvesters and their implications.

Like, you have Hannibal Chau, a bizarre and interesting character, but we’re presented with a black market operation that seems mostly interested in the “alternative medicine” uses of kaiju parts.

But my brain demands to know: what does the corporate kaiju harvesting industry look like? Sure kaiju blood is toxic, but there are plenty of toxic materials that have useful applications. Are there chemical companies studying kaiju organs? Big-Pharma jumping on the kaiju bone-powder bandwagon? Are bio-tech firms studying kaiju hide to make tougher materials? Agribusinesses clamoring to acquire kaiju crap for fertilizer?

I’m picturing something like the age of whaling, when humans hunted giant animals and carved them up to feed insatiable industries. Whale-oil lighting lanterns for entire cities, whale-bone being used in everything from knick-knacks, tools, umbrellas, and corsets. Ambergris alone was used in perfumes, medicines, cooking. It was even added to wine as an aphrodisiac.

We glimpsed how kaiju affected pop-culture. Now picture a kaiju smashing a city, but the stock market going up for construction companies (rebuilding the cities), vulture real estate (buying the destroyed land cheap), and all the other corporations that profit from the systematic dismantling of a kaiju corpse and making money off of its parts. Sure, a city was roughed up and who knows how many thousands are dead, but it’s a better windfall when a kaiju makes landfall. It’s always less profitable when jaegers kill them too quickly; sea-based extractions are so much more expensive.

Imagine entire industries, entire economies that don’t just make money from the devastation of kaiju attacks, but grow dependent on them. And then the laws, the squabbles over those valuable, resource-rich kaiju corpses. If a kaiju attacks one country but keeps rampaging and is killed in the country next door, who has claim over the body? The party who was damaged more by it or the country where the corpse physically is? Bidding wars over “cleanup” contracts that cut corners and are only interested in collecting those sweet, sweet, kaiju parts as fast as possible, even if their official mandate is supposed to be the safe removal and cleanup of a toxic substance.

Once jaegers started getting efficient at killing kaiju, the people with all the money became less interested in solving the problem of kaiju attacks and switched to merely managing the industries that kaiju-killing feeds.

What? You want to put more resources into R&D to try and close the Breach? Whatever for? The kaiju comes out, jaegers kill it, and the “host country” gets the proceeds from the kaiju’s body. It’s a win-win for everyone. Why waste time, money, and effort solving a problem that isn’t a problem anymore?

Everything is under control.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[anundyingfidelity]

YES, MA’AM — Sam Winchester/Sam Wesson ft. Dean Winchester/Dean Smith (Chapter I)

Summary: Sam is the new tech support guy at Sandover Bridge & Iron Inc., and he thinks you, his supervisor, are related to him in ways more than professional. He not only dreams of ghosts and Dean Smith, the sales and marketing director, but you, the pretty boss who seems very fond of him, maybe a little too much.

Word count: 1.3k.

Pairing: Sam W./Sam Wesson x female reader (main), Dean W./Dean Smith x female reader. Situated in 4x17 - It's a Terrible Life.

Warnings for this series: smut with plot, sexual tension, sub!Sam, dom!reader, switch!Dean, co-workers with benefits with Dean, boss/employee dynamics, canon violence and stuff. Slow updates oops.

Notes: welcome to my very first spn fanfic, hope you enjoy this short series of Sam and Dean!

If you'd like to be added, the taglist is here!

☕ if you like my writing, support me with a ko-fi !

GEN MASTERLIST!

Chapter I | Chapter II

Chapter I: A Boring Life

Taking a quick look at the clock on the corner of the screen of his computer, Sam let out a long sigh. Lunch hour was far from near. He continued drawing the monsters he saw in his dreams on the notebook, those who wouldn't let him continue his abnormally boring and stupid life.

"Hey, Sam," a voice called, making him jump slightly on his seat.

He cleared his throat shutting the notebook and sitting right this time as he took in your figure towering over him in the cubicle with a smile on your lips.

"Hi, uhm... Is something wrong?"

You chuckled slightly. He wanted to slap himself for saying that. For Sam, bosses coming to him meant he might have done something wrong. He didn't want to know what he screwed up. Barely three weeks have passed since he started working there. As much as things were strange and weird around, Sam just wanted a quiet life.

"Not at all," you answered in a friendly manner. "Actually I just wanted to give you kudos. I've received good compliments from customers who called for help, you're doing excellent!"

Sam breathed out, feeling a heavy weight on his back dropping. He smiled. "Well, thank you. It feels good doing that."

But a raise or something would feel absolutely better, he thought.

"Sure! You're brilliant, have you ever been told that?"

"Uhm, not here. I mean- I want to say you're the first one. Sorry, the first one to say I'm brilliant, I- uhm I never really got kudos before? I don't think so but it does feel great."

He stumbled so much with his words that it made you laugh a little but he noticed you tried to suppress it. So you gave him a nod.

"Yeah, of course. I also see you're very organized with your stuff and reports," you remarked before taking a quick glance around and leaning a little bit toward him, your face morphing into a shy look. "Probably I shouldn't but could you help me with some reports today? You'd be off the phone, I just really need to send them by the end of the day and I'm extremely busy."

You bit your painted lower lip with big doe eyes, waiting for an answer. Since the first day he saw you around the company, he thought you looked extremely familiar. Like he had seen you before. Hell, it was like he knew you ages ago. But he wouldn't say it out loud, he might look like a creep.

You'd usually come like this to his spot just to talk and get into business, sometimes he'd go to ask you something he wasn't sure about from a call, but he never, ever herd from a complaint or that his work was shit from you. In fact, you were very kind and smart, always letting him know you were there if he needed anything. And you were pretty. So damn beautiful that you got his heart agitated and his body aching when you bent over a desk wearing tight black pencil skirts and those matching high stockings. He began to think probably you liked him but you used to get close to all of your employees on the tech support floor. You were just being nice to everyone.

"Uh, sure. I can do that," Sam curved his lips into a smile.

"Thank you, you're a lifesaver! I'll send you those in your email, ask me anything if it's difficult, okay?"

You responded with happy demeanour and quickly walked away back to your office, leaving him alone before he had the moment to say something. Just two minutes later he received an email from you with a bunch of reports and data to organize.

Sam scanned the files quickly while hearing the sounds of a chair rolling to his side.

"I think she likes you, man," Ian, the messy and chill coworker of his, teased. Sam chuckled.

"Nah, she's just nice to everyone. Besides, she needs help."

Suddenly, a notification popped from the side of his screen on the computer.

It was a message from you. It read:

Put on the headphones and listen to some music if you want ;)

"You were saying?" Ian joked again.

He smiled. Well, at least he'd be off the phone. Shouldn't be that hard, right?

The night fell and Sam found himself alone on his desk at eight o'clock working on your reports. Seeing the long reports and files he thought could make it on time to finish his shift at four and leave on time. It was fucking Friday. Poor him.

At least you ordered delivery for dinner for both of you. The good thing was that he wasn't really alone on the floor, you were in your office but soft music played as you worked on your stuff. Moments later, you found yourself sitting by Sam's side as he worked the final things on the last report.

"It's done," he announced, his body falling to the backrest of his chair.

"Thanks," you whispered shyly as he sent the finished files back to you. "I'm so sorry though, it's so late."

"Well, didn't have anything to do either."

"Really?!"

Your surprise made his eyes fall on you. He shrugged. "Just sleep."

You raised your eyebrows. "I thought maybe a girlfriend was waiting for you or something?"

He shook his head, pressing his lips together. "No, nothing like that."

The question was odd coming from you, so he decided to play a little.

"What about you?"

This time you shook your head. "Just my books and my TV."

Sam hummed. "It's a boring life, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well I get to pay my bills by the end of the month... And I meet nice people here... And I see you- Sorry."

You cut off your words all of a sudden, your eyes blinking rapidly saying you realized what you just said.

"My bad. We should get going."

You gave him a smile to try and brush off your words, but they were strong enough to get in Sam's head unnoticed. He watched you walk away, turning your computer and lights off on your office as Sam did the same on his spot. Once done, you walked out the floor together in silence.

"Thank you again. I don't think no one would ever do this for me here," you admitted with a deep exhale.

"Yeah, no problem," Sam smiled kindly as you got closer to the elevator.

"Really, I owe you. Do you have a car to get home or something? I can give you a ride if you need."

"I do, don't worry," he said as you stopped in front of the elevator, the doors opening.

"Great, so I think this is it," you grinned at him. "Have a good night."

"Thanks. I hope you have a good weekend, boss."

You nodded. "You too, Sam. Take care."

He saw you disappearing inside the elevator with a wave of your hand and a beautiful smile on your face. With a sigh, he made his way to the locker room and took his briefcase and stuff out. It was just a couple of minutes that he saw you leaving when he went back to the elevator. Checking his watch, the lift arrived and before he could get inside, he got a shocking picture in front of him.

Dean Smith, the marketing director, had you pinned against the wall and kissing down your neck. Your blouse unbuttoned, skirt up, lips open and eyes closed in bliss. Dean noticed the doors were open, pulling away his plump lips from your skin.

"Sorry buddy, wrong floor," he beamed and pushed the right button.

When you opened your eyes once again, you met Sam's open mouth and wide eyes as the doors closed. Great, now he might think you're a slut. 

[babyfoxflower]

Halloween with Alastor HCs

Happy Halloween, my dears!! In honor of my favorite holiday, here’s some headcanons about spending Halloween with Alastor!

Warnings: Brief mention of cannibalism

* Now depending how much of a scaredy-cat you are, you will either have the best time with Alastor on Halloween or the worst.

* Alastor is a trickster and loves playing pranks especially on Halloween. He will make an effort to jump scare you whenever he can. The sounds of your screams are music to his ears.

* “Ah, you always have such a lovely voice, my dear. And your screams are no exception,” he would tease while he’d put a hand on his chest in a dramatic fashion, cackling loudly.

* Yes, Halloween is when Al’s sadistic side comes to shine.

* However since you are his girlfriend, he won’t go too far. And of course, if you beg pretty enough, he will stop.

* Besides he can scare you in other ways, like by telling you ghost stories and scary urban legends.

* He’s been around for quite awhile, and has garnered many spooky tales over the years.

* “Do you believe in vampires, Darling?”

* “No, but I didn’t use to believe in demons either. So, I guess I’m open to it.”

* “That’s the spirit! You know, there’s an urban legend from my childhood about a man by the name of Jacques St. Germain, who moved to New Orleans in 1902. Apparently he was ageless and charming. Legend goes that blood stained clothes from different centuries and bottles of human blood were found in his home.”

* “That’s a creepy story. Haha. Of course, urban legends are just that, legends.”

* “Well, they have to come from somewhere now, don’t they?”

* “I have to change into my costume, are you still going to wear yours?”

* “My dear, you’re shaking. Are you scared?”

* “Maybe a little.”

* “Aw, come here.” He would take you into his arms, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, my love. The only person who’s allowed to drink your blood is me.”

* “Alastor!” You would playfully smack his shoulder.

* If you’re into horror movies, then he’ll gladly have a scary movie marathon with you.

* Of course, he does not get scared and treats them more as comedies.

* Especially, slasher flicks. There just something so hilarious about a disemboweled teenager.

* “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What is this picture show called again?”

* “Scream. I have to admit that it was pretty funny when she got stuck in the cat door. Hahaha!”

* “And then her head got squashed! Hahahaha! I haven’t been this entertained since the stock market crash of 1929!”

* He’ll also dress up with you, though for some reason his default costume is Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.

* “Why do you always go as Rudolf?”

* “Why do you always go as a witch?”

* “Touché.”

* However, if you come up with some creepy couple’s costume ideas, he’s more than willing to give it a shot.

* One year, you went as Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd.

* The best part was your pies were made out of real human flesh and the two of you got to enjoy them at the end of the night.