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watchmegetobsessed · 21 days ago

Text

UNDONE I.

A/N: i've started like 3 wips these past weeks but finally finished one! so here is some boss!harry for you, let me know if you want more of it, bc i feel like i could def add to this story!

WORD COUNT: 8.1k

WARNING: sexual content

SUMMARY: Harry is obsessed with Y/N. The only problem is that he is her boss, so he keeps this obsession to himself. But everything changes after one drunken night.

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Harry has a love-hate relationship with the glass-walled meeting rooms in the office. Aesthetically they are bringing that well-known, usual vibe of every corporate office, nothing new, nothing unusual. Often, he is irritated that people tend to peek inside as they walk past towards the coffee machine or the restroom. He knows it’s second nature, they don’t necessarily try to intrude, but it tends to frustrate him when he is in the middle of a meeting and a random guy is just staring him down from outside. He tried to get the glass covered, but HR declined, they said something about transparency that just pissed Harry off even more, then he just gave up.

But lately, there’s been an advantage of those see-through dividers, because if people from outside can see in, that means Harry can see everything and everyone outside.

Like right now, as he is sitting by the oval table, laptop in front of him while the lawyers are talking about all the legal documents that are needed for their next deal, it’s an important step and Harry is usually great at focusing on what matters, but today his attention is somewhere else.

Outside of the meeting room, right by Y/N’s desk.

She is the latest addition in the department, a talented analyst who joined a little over three months ago. Harry knows she is great, because he was there at her interview. He is usually not one to attend interviews, but the hiring manager got sick and they needed someone from management to be there as well and Harry had a spare hour he wanted to use to get a little ahead on that tender he’d been working on, but that got thrown right out the window.

It was the last thing he wanted to do, listen to some random analyst who probably never even saw a DWH system, they always think they are qualified to deal with anything, but then they see just how much data they need to work with and then freak out. Harry was convinced it would happen that time too, but he was wrong.

Y/N walked in there, seemingly nervous, fidgeting with the hem of her cardigan, looking like a frightened little rabbit, so innocent, so sweet, something surprising happened.

Harry was in awe.

He found himself being drawn towards her, interested in how she’d perform at the interview. He kept a straight face as the recruiter beside him asked her some basic questions and then he took over for the professional part.

He gave her his hardest questions, things even seniors might not know, he quizzed her about topics that are way too specific to work around and… she excelled. She couldn’t answer every question, but she worked up a logic she would use to at least try to tackle the matter and Harry knew she would succeed if she had the right materials.

She blew his mind away. Once she left, he turned to the recruiter and said:

“I want her. Get her to start next week.”

And she did. Next monday, she was holding her onboarding package, eyes bright as she got seated at her desk, ready to start working.

Now she is sitting at the same spot, wearing her blue light glasses, her eyebrows slightly furrowed behind them as she is working on something on her computer. She is wearing a long sundress today with a yellow cardigan to cover her shoulders. Harry has noted her colorful outfits every morning when she strolled into the office, brightening the otherwise dull atmosphere. It’s a whole floor full of developers, analysts and other IT professionals, they are not known for their exquisite fashion taste, but Y/N is different. Her wardrobe is full of colors and pieces others wouldn’t consider as business casual, but somehow she always makes it work.

She is the kind of person that has a nice word for everyone, she often brings coffee to Linda, whose desk is across from hers and they usually have lunch together, Harry has noted. She is always happy to help others, she is great at seeing problems differently and quick to come up with solutions. She is definitely a favorite among her colleagues.

Unlike Harry.

Not that he wants to be liked, he is head of IT, he needs to lead, keep everything under control and make hard decisions. He is not stupid, Harry knows most people in the department fear him, he is not known for being friendly and chatty. He usually has so much work he doesn’t have time left to get a coffee with anyone, not that he would have anyone to invite. He is the gruff boss who is always busy and people try not to cross paths with.

He doesn’t mind it. He likes to be focused on his work and most people don’t realize how hard it is to be the one to decide about budget cuts, downsizing and restructuring, because they don’t see what goes down behind these decisions, they just want to blame someone and that’s usually him. They don’t want to be friends with the big boss who fired their work bestie, even if it was a known fact they never did their job.

It was never an issue for him how his employees saw him. Until her.

Someone stops by Y/N’s desk and he watches her face light up as she gives them her attention. He can’t hear what she is saying, but when she laughs, it rings in his ears. He loves hearing her laugh.

“So what do you think?” one of the lawyers asks him and he snaps back, realizing he has no idea what they were talking about in the last five minutes. He quickly looks down at his notes so far, but there’s no use.

“Uh, I’ll leave it to you. I have to go now, do you think you can have everything set by the end of next week? We need it for the next sprint.”

“Sure,” the guy nods, his name is something with a J, but Harry can’t remember what it is.

He is relieved that he could dodge admitting he has no idea what was talked about, shutting his laptop he murmurs a thank you for the group and he is the first one to walk out of the room, heading towards his office.

Y/N is not at her desk when he walks past and he looks for her, hoping he is not too obvious, but he sees no trace of her. Is she having coffee with that guy who walked up to her desk? Are they planning something outside of work? Does he want to date her?

Harry’s thoughts are racing as he closes the door behind him, shutting out the general buzz of the open office outside. With a sigh, he sits down in his chair, places his laptop onto the desk, but leaves it unopened for a bit as he rubs his face with his hands.

He always has control. He plans and keeps himself to his plan, he gathers data, analyses and then makes a new plan. Easy as it is. This is why he likes his job, IT is usually exact, the problem might be deeply hidden, but it’s always exact, he just needs to find the data.

But he’s been feeling chaotic lately. He is disoriented, can’t focus at meetings and finds himself thinking about her when he is supposed to be working. He just can’t help it.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, then rolls his head, his neck cracks and he lets out a groan before opening his laptop and trying his best to get back to working. The code opens in front of him and he focuses on the lines he’s been trying to rewrite, but right when he is about to start typing, there’s a knock on his door. For a second, he feels irritated that he was interrupted again, but then he looks past the screen and sees her.

Harry nods and Y/N walks through the glass door, holding her laptop to her chest, smiling shyly. Harry likes to think that this smile is for him only, that he is the reason to bring it to her lips, though he doubts he has such an effect on her. But still, it’s a nice thought.

“Hey,” he greets her as she crosses the room and sits across from him.

“Hi. Am I disturbing you?”

“No,” he shakes his head.

“I finished those tables you asked for yesterday, but I wanted to run a few things with you.”

“You… finished?” he asks as Y/N unfolds her laptop, nodding.

“Yeah.” She places the laptop onto his desk and he leans closer, focusing on the screen as Y/N explains what she found unclear, but Harry is still stunned when she is done talking.

“Is it… Is it bad? Not what you thought of?” she asks, seeing his face.

“No, it’s… Y/N, you did this all by yourself?”

“Yes?” Her answer sounds unsure and panic settles in her visibly. “I-I’m sorry if it’s–”

“Y/N, this is brilliant.”

She is taken aback by his compliment, it wasn’t the first time, but it feels like a gift every time for her.

“It is?”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t doubt you could do it, but I didn’t think it would turn out this great and you also finished so fast, I thought it would take you the entire week at least.”

“Well… I did stay in a little longer last night,” she admits with a soft chuckle and it tugs on his chest right away. He looks at her over the desk, their eyes meet and for a second, warmth spreads through his veins as he fights the urge to reach out and touch her.

Clearing his throat he leans back in his chair.

“Send it over, I’ll leave comments on those sections and then you can start the migration.”

“Thank you,” she nods, taking her laptop and heading to the door.

“And well done, Y/N,” he calls after her. She just nods and smiles at him before walking out.

Harry watches her return to her desk, takes some deep breaths and forces himself to return to the code on his own computer.

***

Linda wiggles her eyebrows at Y/N once she is sat at her desk.

“Did you two eye-fuck again?” she asks and Y/N gapes at her, quickly looking around to see if anyone heard her, but luckily, everyone is too busy.

“Linda! That’s–We don’t do that.”

“Oh please,” she scoffs, twirling her pen around between her fingers.

“We just went over the tables. He said I did a good job.” She shrugs, but Linda doesn’t miss how the corners of her mouth curl up, though she tries to hide it.

“You do realize you’re the only one in this whole department he has ever complimented, right?”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. Zach go the best reaction from him last spring, when he spent two weeks refactoring a fucked up code, Harry said it was acceptable. That’s all. The fact that he said you did a good job is just another proof that he is into you.”

“Would you stop talking about the head of IT being into me?” Y/N hisses. “Come on, let’s get a coffee before you start screaming it.”

They go down a floor where the coffee station has better options and once they both have a mug full of coffee, they settle by a high table in the common area.

“I have a confession to make,” Y/N admits, but avoids looking her in the eyes. “Okay, go for it.”

“I’m meeting Archer today.”

“Y/N! Not your fucking ex! Why?!” Linda gasps. “Do you really hate yourself that much?”

“I don’t hate myself,” she gives her a look, before returning her gaze to her mug. “He texted me the other day.”

“And you texted him back?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“Boo! You should have blocked his number a long time ago!”

Y/N has thought about that. A lot. Her asshole ex has come back a couple of times since they broke up about a year ago, they shared one or two nights, but it always ended with him disappearing and leaving her shattered. His comebacks slowed down the process of getting over him a lot and though she feels like she is finally okay, she couldn’t just ignore his text.

“That’s not like me,” she shrugs, ignoring the thought that she knows Linda is right.

“Hun, what do you think will happen today that hasn’t happened before?”

The question stings, right in her chest, because she knows it’s true. Her logical side knows Archer won’t just magically apologize for the way he treated her, even though it’s the only thing she wants from him at this point. To admit that he was in the wrong.

“We’ll talk. That’s it.”

“Please don’t sleep with him,” Linda sighs desperately. “He doesn’t deserve your time.”

“I won’t,” she says, though she is not entirely certain it’s the truth.

“Uh-huh, okay.” Linda checks the time on her phone. “I gotta go, I have a meeting in ten.”

“I’m coming too, I have a lot to do.”

Grabbing their mugs they head out of the common area, back to the upper floor.

***

Harry didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He is the last person to be interested in anyone’s private life in the office.

But when he heard Y/N’s voice as he was about to walk into the room, he stopped and hid behind the wall, listening to a conversation that was truly not meant for his ears.

Hearing the two women talk about Y/N’s ex has ignited something new in him, especially when it became clear that he has hurt her in the past. Harry is not one to become violent, he channels all his tendencies in the gym while boxing, but from what he heard of the guy, he would have gladly punched him in the face. A few times.

Maybe more than a few.

The short conversation tickled his curiosity about what happened, but when he heard that they were about to leave, he quickly walked away so they didn’t see him.

Now as he is back by his desk he can’t focus on the code in front of him at all, his thoughts are only about this mysterious ex Y/N is apparently meeting today. At one point, he even considers giving her some extra work to keep her in late and preferably miss the meeting, but that would be too petty even for him. Instead, he spends the next hour pretending to work while he just keeps fantasizing about different scenarios of what happened between Y/N and the guy.

Slowly, the office starts to empty out as the end of the day nears. Desks get abandoned, lights are turned off and Harry is still there, since he barely got anything done that day.

He sees when Y/N packs up her stuff and leaves and his jaw almost breaks as he holds himself still and just watches her walk out.

“I’m fucking insane,” he mumbles under his breath, willing himself to do some work now that he can’t get distracted by Y/N every time she leaves her desk.

It’s all new to him. This obsession he’s been feeling since the moment he saw Y/N at the interview. An invisible string has been pulling him towards her and it’s unlike anything he has felt with his exes before.

He wasn’t obsessed. He didn’t think of them all the time. He didn’t lose focus when he was seeing someone. But with Y/N, he is losing his precious control and it’s almost scary.

He finally manages to lock in for some work and time flies by. Next time he looks up from his screen the whole office is empty, only his desk lamp giving light and the green haze of the exit signs. It’s past nine and he can hear the cleaner vacuuming somewhere on the floor, so with a tired smile he shuts his computer off, gathers his things and heads out.

He moved less than a year ago and the place he bought is within walking distance of the office. He knows it might have been a stupid idea to get a place just because it’s close to his working place, he probably won’t work there his whole life, but he doesn’t see himself switching for a long time, so it’s convenient.

With his backpack hanging off one shoulder he steps out into the warm evening, the afternoon rush is over, now the nearby bars and restaurants are full of workers desperately needing to let some steam off before heading home.

There’s a small park he walks through before reaching his street and it has always been dear to him, a nice change in the scenery of concrete and glass in the middle of the city. There’s even a small pond along the path that takes him across the park with benches and a handful of ducks are usually circling in the water peacefully.

Older people from around like to come here and sit or take a short walk and they are the only people Harry likes to watch. He admires their slow pace, no rush, just enjoying what they have, a state he dreams of reaching too.

Tonight, as he passes by the pond his eyes spot a familiar figure sitting on one of the benches. He stops in his tracks, questioning if his sight is right, because the person sitting there with her head hanging low looks just like Y/N. As he slowly approaches he notices the soft shaking of her shoulders.

She’s crying.

***

Y/N has been sitting on that bench for… God knows how long. Could have been minutes, could have been hours. She was planning to cry her eyes out at once, then move on by the time she gets home, but apparently, she needs more time to get herself over than she estimated. This spot seemed like a great one, it’s far enough from the lights so people don’t notice she is crying, but she definitely did not expect to be noticed by her boss.

“Y/N?”

Harry’s voice makes her jump and as her head snaps up, she finds herself staring up at the person she least expected to see. His eyebrows are furrowed, concern is written all over his face as he stands a few feet away from the bench, as if he can’t tell if it’s a good idea for him to get closer.

“Oh, hi!” She quickly forces a smile on her face, but she knows she is fooling no one. She wipes her tear-soaked cheeks with the back of her hand and prays her mascara is not smudged all around her eyes in panda style. “What–What are you doing here?”

“I live nearby, I’m on my way home. What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just… I was just taking a walk and now I’m… not.”

Her brain does not function. She knows what she said didn’t make any sense, but she can’t think of something else to say. She is way too busy thinking about how Harry is standing right there just after her ex made her wait for him for an hour before texting her he is not coming and when she called him to confront, a woman answered his phone.

It didn’t take long for Y/N to draw the conclusions: Archer was only trying to hook up with her tonight, but apparently found someone else and ditched her. A classic move from an asshole like him, but that doesn’t make her feel less like shit. Mostly because she should have known better and not believe he would do anything other than hurting her.

Harry just stands there for a few moments and Y/N is expecting him to walk away and pretend like he didn’t even see her, but he surprises her when he walks over to the bench and sits beside her.

“Do you want to… talk about what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” she answers right away, but when she looks at him, it’s obvious he doesn’t believe her. With a sigh, she turns her gaze back towards the pond. She is hesitating between keeping it all to herself or just dumping it on Harry and then deal with the consequences later, but right when she is about to make up her mind, he speaks up.

“Is this about… your ex-boyfriend?”

She turns to him with wide eyes.

“How do you…”

A guilty look takes over his face before he shrugs.

“I heard you talking about him earlier. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

“I shouldn’t talk so freely with Linda in the office,” she chuckles, shaking her head. They sit in silence, when Harry peeks at her she seems deep in her thoughts and he is desperate to get her to talk, but doesn’t want to push her too much.

As a last resort, he says:

“Do you want to have a drink?”

***

The tequila is burning her throat, she can’t help the frown as she bites into the lemon. When she looks at Harry, she is not even surprised he has the same, unbothered look on his face he had after the previous two shots.

“Uh, how are you taking it so well?” she coughs and then takes a sip from her beer. They were lucky enough to find a table at a bar nearby and she was quick to accept that maybe getting drunk is what she needs right now, even if the alarms are still going off somewhere in the back of her mind, because doing it with Harry might not be her brightest idea.

“I guess I still have some left of my college years,” he shrugs and she starts laughing.

“Don’t tell me you were a party animal in college,” she snorts. The three shots and half a beer has definitely set her tongue free and took away her sense of embarrassment after saying everything that’s on her mind. She will surely regret it in the morning, but right now she couldn’t care less.

Harry likes this version of her. She is always bubbly and talkative, but in his presence he often senses her nervousness. Now there’s no trace of that and he is sinking in every moment of it.

“What do you think I was like in college?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, the words slurring a bit on her tongue. “Like a… hot nerd?”

He quirks an eyebrow at her and she realizes only then that she just called him hot.

“I-I mean… I don’t–What I meant is–”

“I was a nerd,” he says, saving her from her rambling. “I was in the robotics club, spent a lot of time in the library, trying to hack their system so I didn’t have to return some books I wanted to keep.”

She can’t help, but laugh as Harry is smiling at the memory as well.

“Did you succeed?”

“What do you think?”

“For sure.”

“Correct,” he chuckles, taking a sip of his beer. “But I went to parties. I had this friend group from highschool, some of them were friends with the popular kids so we were always invited.”

“I can’t picture you with a red solo cup, filled with cheap booze.”

“But it happened,” he chuckles. “Luckily, photos have been deleted from social media.”

“Did you wipe the internet?” she asks, leaning closer as if she was asking him about a secret.

“No, but I did message those who had the photos posted when I was getting higher in my career.”

“Clever,” she nods and grabbing her beer, she takes a few swigs. Then her smile fades. “Maybe I should tell you what happened, right?”

“Only if you want to.”

Sighing she leans back, pursing her lips as she squints her eyes, looking back at him. She can’t think straight. Her thoughts are jumping, one moment she is thinking about Archer, the next all her attention is on how plump his lips look when they are wet from the beer, or the way his top two buttons of his shirt have come undone and she is seeing fucking tattoos, along his collarbones.

She wants to kiss them.

“I was stupid enough to think that I matter to him and he wouldn’t… hurt me. But he did. That’s it, lesson learned.”

She would love to look unbothered, like it doesn’t affect her, but she can’t. Her throat is closing up and when Harry calls out her name softly, she looks up at him with tears in her eyes and wobbling lips.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be crying, I know. I’m sorry!”

“Don’t apologize,” Harry shakes his head, but it’s like she didn’t even hear him.

“I know it’s stupid, but I just thought it might be different this time, that he might apologize and I can finally… I don’t know.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s not. You’re allowed to hope, to want to be treated the right way.”

“But I should have learned my lesson before!”

“You could have, but it’s okay. You will now. You’re smart, smarter than you think. You’ll get over it, doesn’t matter how long it takes, you will get there. I know it.”

“How?” she asks in a whisper, unable to break the eye-contact.

“I don’t know how you’ll do it, but–”

“No,” she shakes her head. “How do you know it?”

He slowly runs his tongue over his lips, thinking his words through before speaking them.

“I just do. Do you believe me?”

Without hesitation she nods.

“I do.”

***

“If someone said one day I would be waiting for an Uber with my boss, drunk out of my ass at two am, I would have laughed them in the face.”

Y/N is holding onto a lamp post with one hand, twirling around it like a little kid as Harry stands by the curb, one hand in his pocket, the other one holding his phone, tracking the Uber that’s supposed to pick Y/N up and take her home. He is watching her with a tiny smile, it’s great to see her so carefree after her breakdown earlier.

“Which part is so unbelievable?”

She stops and steps closer to him. She can’t stand still, keeps shifting her weight between her feet and Harry is on alert in case she loses her balance.

“All of it,” she grins up at him, blinking lazily. “Except the drunk out of my ass. That happens sometimes.”

“Really?”

“Ooh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Am I in trouble?”

“Because you get drunk sometimes? You’re an adult, you can do whatever you want.”

“Yeah, but… you’re my boss,” she giggles, then starts swaying as if she could hear some music. “It’s not professional to get drunk.”

“Not when you’re working. But you’re not at work right now.”

“Nope,” she shakes her head, popping the ‘p’ sound. “I’m on the street, with Harry Styles, after drinking with Harry Styles! And now I’m gonna go home in an Uber that Harry Styles ordered for me!”

“Are you enjoying saying my name?” he chuckles, glancing at his phone again, The car is five minutes away. He is already dreading the moment it arrives, because that means the night ends. But he knows she has to get home and sleep it off.

“I do,” she sings. “It has a nice ring to it. It’s a cool name for a cool guy.”

“Oh, so I’m cool?” He knows he shouldn’t take advantage of her drunken state and keep her talking, but he just can’t get himself to stop.

“Yeah. You’re cool and smart and scary sometimes and mysterious, but not tonight,” she giggles as she keeps swaying around, while Harry can’t take his eyes off her, not when she is talking about him. “People at the office are scared of you, but I think you’re great.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re amazing, I always look forward to seeing you. Sometimes I…” She giggles at whatever she is thinking about, completely oblivious at how intently Harry is listening to her. “Sometimes I ask you about things I know just so we can talk.” She shakes her head with a chuckle, but it’s enough for her to lose balance.

She gasps when she starts falling, but he is quick to grab her by her arms, yanking her towards him to keep her from smashing against the concrete. She is not laughing anymore, especially when she realizes that her chest is pressed against his, hands still holding her arms firmly. And his eyes are piercing into her gaze in a way that takes her breath away.

“I love when you come asking questions,” he admits. “That’s usually my favorite part of the day.”

Her eyes widen at his words and when his gaze shifts down to her lips, they part as she gasps for air. Her chest presses even more against his as she fills her lungs and she feels even more dizzy now than before.

“I want to kiss you.”

The words blurt out of her before she could think them through, unaware of the effect they have on Harry. His gaze darkens and it moves down at her lips again. But before he could say or do anything, the Uber pulls up beside them.

Harry lets go of her, then opens the door.

“Get some sleep, Y/N. I’ll see you on Monday.”

She blinks at him a few times as he just stands there, waiting for her to get inside. She is confused. Drunk and tired and the longer she stays there the more awkward she feels, so she finally gets into the car, then Harry shuts the door and the car starts moving.

Y/N turns around and sees him still standing there, hands in his pockets, his head hanging low. Then she slides down in the seat, closes her eyes and then replays those couple of moments when she was pressed up against him over and over again until the car stops at her apartment building.

***

Sunday evening Y/N contemplates calling in sick. Preferably with something that keeps her away from the office… forever.

Once she woke in the afternoon of Saturday, sobered up, with a killer headache, memories from last night came crashing down on her and the embarrassment took over instantly. She spent the rest of the weekend in agony, cursing herself out for being so stupid.

Did she really tell her boss she wanted to kiss him?

Yes, she in fact did. After getting drunk with him, crying about her ex and telling him all kinds of stuff she never planned on admitting to him. Like that she finds him cool and smart and sometimes scary.

But the kissing part is obviously the worst.

No matter how badly she dreads Monday morning, time doesn’t stop or slows down, the week starts and she has to go to work and face the consequences of her actions.

Maybe Harry won’t be there. But he is always there.

Maybe she can hide all day and avoid him… until the rest of her life or until she finds a new job. Very unlikely, but whatever.

Her palms are sweating as she swipes her card at the gates and heads up to her floor. She’s getting paranoid, thinking that everyone in the elevator knows what happened on Friday, even though no one even bats an eye in her direction.

Luckily, as she logs into her computer at her desk, work swamps her and provides enough distraction to stop her from throwing up when she sees Harry for the first time.

It seems like he is having a busy day too, he is in and out of meetings for the most part of the noon, she only sees him passing by or sitting in his office with his AirPods in, a sign that he is in an online meeting. But even when he is free for a short time, Y/N makes sure she avoids facing him. She even considers moving to another floor’s common room with her laptop for the day if it means she can survive without running into him and God forbid, talking to him.

But then comes an email.

It’s a bit after lunch time when it pops up in her inbox and her stomach drops to the floor right away when she sees it’s from Harry. Then another wave of anxiety washes over her when she reads it.

FROM: Harry Styles

Come to my office at your earliest convenience. -H

“Oh shit,” she mumbles under her breath and it catches Linda’s ears across from her, who gives her a questioning look. “Nothing.” She just shakes her head, grabs her laptop and then heads to Harry’s office with shaking knees.

Is this the part where he tells her behavior was unacceptable? Did he maybe report her to HR for what she said?

She knocks on the door with a sweaty hand, Harry looks up from his screen with a blank face and nods at her to go inside.

“Hey. I got your email.” She sounds like a frightened little girl as she closes the door behind her and stills, hugging her laptop to her chest.

“Thanks for coming right away.”

Harry pushes his chair back lazily, stands and rounds the desk before leaning against it leisurely, his eyes glued to Y/N who is still standing by the door, too scared to go further. He doesn’t like the distance.

“Come, sit,” he nods towards one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Obediently, she walks over and takes a seat, blinking up at him with wide eyes while he looks unbothered and almost… bored. He squints his eyes at her, tilting his head to the side a bit before finally speaking up.

“Is there a specific reason why you’re avoiding me all day?”

Her lips part at his question and her first instinct is to deny.

“I-I’m not–”

“Y/N, you are. Normally, you would have already asked me at least two questions, but instead you walk out of the office every time I step out of mine. You are avoiding me.”

She shuts her mouth, trying to come up with something to say that could save her, but nothing comes to her mind.

“I’m sorry.” Her gaze drops to the floor, his stare is too intense for her. “I’m so ashamed about… everything I said on Friday, I didn’t know how to face you. I said all that… inappropriate stuff you definitely shouldn’t have heard. like… ever. I’m sorry.”

“Y/N,” he softly says, but her gaze remains on her shoes. “Y/N, look at me, please.”

Finally, she dares to move her eyes back to meet his and then he continues… in the most surprising way.

“What I’m about to say, it’s going to be fully unrelated to work. Can you treat it as something outside of this setting?” Y/N nods. “Use your words, I need to hear you say it. Do you understand that this conversation is outside of work?”

“I understand,” she answers weakly, her mouth running dry.

“Good.” He nods and then continues. “Do not feel sorry for anything you said. I’m glad I know all of that. The only downside of it is that now I need every ounce of self-control not to bend you over this desk and fuck you until you forget your own name.”

This time her mouth hangs open. For a moment she is not entirely convinced she hasn’t just imagined it all. That it wasn’t just her sick mind playing tricks on her. But then he speaks again.

“Did you hear what I said? That I want to fuck you into oblivion on this desk?”

“Yes,” she breathes out, trembling.

“Good. Now I want you to go back to your desk and think it through whether you want that too or not. If you decide that you feel the same way, stay late and come back here when everyone is gone. Understood?”

“Yes.”

She feels dizzy, but not the same kind she felt on Friday, this is entirely different. Turning around she walks out of the room, but she’s on auto pilot as she returns to her desk. She leans back in her chair and slowly looks around.

No one in the room knows what just happened. Everyone is just minding their own business while Y/N is on the verge of fainting.

“You alright?” Linda peeks out from behind her screen with a concerned look on her face. “What did he want?”

If only she knew! Y/N thinks. She is dying to share, to take the whole conversation apart and analyze every bit, but she can’t. Instead, she forces a smile to her face.

“Just checked in with me about the migration.”

Linda examines her suspiciously for a second, but then her phone rings and she returns to her work while Y/N opens her laptop as well, but as she stares at the document in front of her she was working on before Harry’s email, she can’t even make out a word.

Instead, she is busy thinking about what happens when the office empties out.

***

Harry was dragged into some urgent issue sometime in the afternoon and it gave him enough work to take his attention away from prying outside, impatiently waiting for everyone to leave while making sure Y/N is still there.

He answers one call after the other while emails keep popping into his inbox and he loses track of Y/N. When he finally drags his gaze away from the screen he looks up and finds the whole floor empty. All of it.

Meaning that Y/N left as well. Groaning he stands from his desk and walks over to the window, staring out into the night that has slowly creeped up on him. He truly thought she would stay. That she felt the same desire and thirst as him and she wants to explore whatever it could be, but maybe he read it all wrong.

How will this affect their work? He should have thought of that before telling her he wants to fuck her on his desk. Who even does that? He is supposed to be her boss, her mentor, this was so incredibly inappropriate, he is thinking about reporting himself to HR and–

There’s a knock on his door.

Turning around he freezes when he sees Y/N standing there with doe-like eyes and with just one look she is already making his pulse jump. He nods, barely noticeably, but she sees it and lets herself inside, closing the door behind her even though it’s truly just the two of them now.

“Hey,” she sheepishly says, stopping exactly where she did earlier when he wrote her that email. This time however, Harry is the one to cross the room and then stop just inches away from her. She wonders if he could hear the wild hammering of her heart in her chest, the dizziness is back and she hides her hands behind her back so he doesn’t notice them shaking.

“Did you think about what I said?”

Harry talks slowly and clearly and she couldn’t tell just moments ago he was freaking out too. But now that she’s there, every racing thought is gone from his mind, all he is thinking about is… her.

“Yes.”

“And what’s your conclusion?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” There’s a tiny bit of sassiness in her tone, just enough to start a fire in him.

She catches the way one corner of his lips curls up as he takes another small step towards her, his hands come up to cup her jaw on either side and he gently tilts her head back, angling it perfectly. Then slowly, he leans closer until his lips are almost touching hers, but then stops. As if he is giving one last chance for her to change her mind, but she is still there, waiting for him to finally break down the wall between them and he gives in.

He lets his hunger take over instantly. There’s no testing the waters, feeling each other up, he kisses her in a demanding, needy way that takes her breath away at first, but she is quick to react the same way.

Her hands move to his shirt, grabbing the fabric at his stomach while his hands are still holding onto her face, but then they slide down her sides, settle on the back of her thighs and she knows exactly what he wants her to do. So without breaking them apart, she jumps up, he catches her with ease as she wraps her legs around his waist and he blindly carries her to the small sofa by the wall.

He sinks into the cushion and she straddles him, giving her a bit of advantage in height this way, so now he is the one to crane his neck while she is leaning down to meet him.

It’s a mess, lip biting, tongues crashing, soft moans and grunts, his palms wander over his thighs and ass and then he sneakily peels her soft pink shirt out of her tight jeans so his hands can slip under the fabric and feel her heated skin.

She is desperate to feel more, to ease the aching throbbing between her legs, so when she starts rolling her hips and grinding against his rapidly growing bulge, he can’t help the moan that slips out of his mouth, right into hers.

His head drops to the back of the sofa and she takes the chance to kiss her way down the column of his neck. After dozens of fantasies doing the same thing during meetings, now she is finally tasting his skin, gently nibbling on a spot that has his hands grab onto her ass, pushing her even more into him.

When their lips meet again her fingers dance down his chest, feeling up his abdomen through his shirt and then settle on his belt, she starts undoing it, but he is quick to stop her, which breaks her out of her trance., scared that she did something wrong.

Reading her from just one look, Harry shakes his head softly.

“I know I said I want to bend you over my desk, but I don’t want the first time I’m inside you to be here. So we are gonna do it differently for now.”

As he speaks, his fingers work the buttons of her shirt, one after the other until the white, lacy bra is revealed underneath.

“Is it fucking Christmas?” he breathes out, hooking a finger into one of the cups and tugging it down so your breast spills out of it. An airy chuckle slips out of her, but it quickly turns into a gasp when he sucks her pebbled nipple into his mouth, even gently biting and tugging on it. Her fingers comb through his hair, his fingertips massaging his scalp as her grinding continues.

“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” he murmurs against her chest, one hand freeing her other breast from the bra as well, so he can pay equal attention to them both. “You’re gonna grind that needy cunt of yours against me until you come, just so you can see what it is like when you’re not even undressed and imagine what will happen once I get to unwrap you.” He smacks her ass gently, a moan slipping out through her parted lips. “And I’m gonna leave marks all over tits and suck your nipples until they are so tender you can barely touch them, so when you go home and see yourself in the mirror, you’ll remember every moment of what’s happening right now.”

His hands grab her hips and make her roll them harder, his erection and the seam of her jeans rubbing into her soaking wet cunt. She eagerly takes the pace he dictated, desperate to chase her release that’s building in the pit of her stomach rapidly.

“Do you like that? Do you like my plan?” he asks, his lips brushing against her nipple, teasing her with his touch just enough to make her whine and ache for more.

“Yes,” he nods eagerly, hands clasping the back of his head to pull him closer to her chest and feel his lips on her heated skin again and he complies happily.

“Then let me feel how badly you want to come.”

If someone told Y/N in the morning, that tonight she would be dry humping her boss like a horny teenager, she would have checked that person into a mental hospital. Yet here she is, grinding against Harry’s massive bulge, shamelessly rubbing her cunt against his erection while his mouth is full of her breast.

He has already left a few marks on her and she knows she’ll have to wear turtlenecks for the next 2 weeks, but she couldn’t care less.

“Fuck, I’m so close,” she cries out when she finds just the right angle where the seam of her jeans and the tip of his restrained cock rub her clit perfectly, sending sparks through her nerves.

“Go on, want to see you come undone.” He bites the side of her left breast and she hisses, but it feels so good, so fucking great she moans loudly, her head falling back at the sensation.

“Harry, I–Ah!”

His hands grab her ass and he pulls her in, making her fall forward, her chest pressing up against his as she buries her face into his neck, fastening her movements as her orgasm is nearing.

“Come on, Y/N. Let me see you come undone.”

“Wanna feel you inside,” she whines, but keeps moving.

“I know and you will. Just not now.”

She whines again in a disapproving manner, but doesn’t stop and Harry’s hips start moving as well. He encourages her a few more times, his lips brushing against her ear, sending shivers down her spine and right when she thinks she can’t take it anymore, the bubble pops.

She gasps and moans, her movements get dragged out and Harry forces her to look him in the eyes as she rides out her joy. She loses track of time, can’t tell if it lasts for seconds or hours. But when it’s over she collapses into his arms.

“You did so good. So fucking good,” he murmurs into her ear, kissing the side of her face wherever he can reach. When she finally catches her breath she sits up straight and looking down she sees that he’s still hard underneath her.

Instantly, she reaches down, ready to take him out and take care of him, but he stops her again.

“Not now.”

“But you… didn’t–”

“I know,” he smiles softly. “But if we go further now, I won’t be able to stop and I told you, I want the first time I’m inside you in a different setting.”

She understands and it’s flattering knowing he wouldn’t be able to control himself if they continued, but it feels unbalanced now that only she came.

“Are you sure?” she asks, hands flattening on his stomach.

Smiling, he nods. “Very sure.”

She thinks to herself for a bit and reaching up Harry brushes a lock of hair behind her ear as a smile stretches slowly across her face.

“What is it?”

“So… this means there will be a next time?”

The playful glint in her eyes amuses him. She is sitting on his lap, her chest still exposed, lips swollen from his kisses while his erection is still straining against his pants and she asks if there will be a next time.

“Oh yeah. I will watch you come undone over and over again in every possible way. If you let me.”

She bites into her bottom lip, sheepishly blinking down at him, but her answer surprises him for a moment.

“I’m not letting you.” His face falls and his heart drops into his stomach, but she is quick to continue: “I’m begging you.”

“Oh baby, for that, now I’m adding spanking to when I’m bending you over my desk and fuck you.”

Her smile only grows wider.

“Please, Boss!”

PART II.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb #harry styles smut

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sikayeto · 4 months ago

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I Own U

☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱

[ simon "ghost" riley x reader ]

[tw: suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, accidental narcotic overdose, dub-con]

[summary: you owe ghost, technically.]

☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱

You’re not depressed. You wouldn’t call what you have, depression. Sometimes afflicted with a melancholy so strong that you become catatonic. That’s called catatonia. Not depression. You’re not suicidal either. No matter what the base shrinks try to imply. Suicidal means that there’s intent to commit suicide. That there’s a plan to harm yourself. And yeah, jaywalking into busy traffic seems really nice once in a while, but that’s hardly a plan. Just because you crave a sweet treat doesn’t mean you go get one.

But every now and again, you do get a treat. Maybe it was a really hard day, and the bakery is on the way home. Or somebody brought treats to share at the office. Perhaps a coupon finds itself in your email.

A burlap sack over your head, kidnapped by enemy combatants, isn’t what you would constitute as a treat.

Hands are tied behind your back with rope. Scratchy fibers rub against the skin of your wrists. You don’t know where you are, or where they’re taking you. Dragging you by the armpits, your senses are dulled. Pulsation reverberating in your eardrums. Blood rushes through your limbs, leaving a tingling sensation. The amygdala has taken command, and not a single legible thought runs through your brain. All energy and control is being redirected to try and survive.

A blunt force and ache bloom in synchronization on your knees, as you’re pushed down on them. Bright, white light invades your vision, and you squint in an attempt to adjust. The last person you thought you would see in front of you, is Ghost.

Unlike yourself, he’s sat on a chair, his own wrists tied behind his back. There’s shoddily wrapped gauze around his right forearm and abdomen. A dark shadow slowly creeps to engulf each count of thread in contact. The lieutenant’s eyes are haggard and unfocused. As they focus on you, they widen and his pupils become pinpoint. Realization strikes him as the bag was removed from your head. You don’t know him outside his position, but somehow, he knows you.

A cold metal is pressed to your temple, and a chill shoots through your nervous system. You didn’t need to look to know there’s a gun against your head.

“Talk, or they die”, the voice’s origins didn’t matter. Whoever was pointing the gun at you didn’t matter. If you played this right. Everything was going to be okay.

The lieutenant’s gaze on you is unwavering. His stare is uncomfortable. You're a nobody in the chain of command. Why the hell is he looking at you like that?

There are 2 hostiles in the cellar you and Ghost are being held captive in. Both are armed. No doubt they’re high-strung considering the guest they’re currently hosting. Despite his current state, it doesn’t diminish the feeling of danger that wafts off him. Just because the tiger is caged, doesn’t make him any less dangerous.

Regardless of the beast barely restrained, your last minute plan can still come to fruition. It’s unlikely that they have another base analyst kept hostage at this location. Grabbing you was risky enough. So you're their only leverage. These men were desperate, and desperate men make mistakes. Whatever information they want from Ghost, they have to get it before he loses consciousness, or bleeds out. Neither of them look to be in good enough shape themselves to have seen a medic. The amateur bandages on your superior officer look rough at best. This wasn’t a prolonged stay then. Ghost must know that too.

Okay, this looks like the last bus stop. Really, you’re the only one who pushed the stop button and needs to get off.

You fling your whole body and weight to the person holding the gun to your head. Small you may be, physics is on your side, as he wasn’t prepared to retaliate against your sudden exertion. A shot is taken, and misses. Ringing overcomes your ears. The lack of expectation as he was body slammed, means that your target couldn’t soften his fall. The back of his skull audibly cracks as it impacts with the concrete floor. Blood pools from the fount of the vessels that crowd his occipital.

Simultaneously, as you took action, Ghost moves his enormous frame with wretched oppression towards the other hostile. Chair and all. Wood flies all over the surrounding area. Ghost breaks free of his restraints, and for a man who’s been shot twice, he moves as if it never happened at all. There’s a wet squelch that repeats in the same rhythm as your heartbeat. Flesh and bone, pounding upon flesh and bone. Fury, wrath, and rage concentrated into one man’s fist and colliding into another man’s face. Asteroids and celestial bodies crashing into each other.

A moment passes, and the only thing you can hear besides the ringing, is Ghost’s panting. You make an observation of your current situation. 2 hostiles down. 1 friendly injured. You’re still alive.

Mission failed.

From your prone position on the ground, you attempt to sit yourself up. A sharp, stabbing pain pulses through your left ribs. You press a hand against the area and pull away to reveal blood. Your blood.

He didn’t miss after all.

The adrenaline is wearing off. You can tell because suddenly your whole body is engulfed in agony.

The ringing is the only thing you can hear now. You think you hear someone yelling your name, but it’s muffled. Darkness creeps into your vision, an oncoming fog. Eyelids flutter shut.

You get off at the last bus stop.

___

The months following your subsequent kidnapping and near fatal death were, strange, to say the least. After waking at the base med bay, The doctor debriefed you on what happened after you had passed out from blood loss. The Lieutenant had radio’d for immediate med-evac. They said it was a miracle that you survived, having lost far too much blood. You should’ve been dead by the time the medics got to you. But Ghost had kept enough pressure on your gunshot wound to further prevent your precious life from slipping out of your body.

Yeah fucking right, a miracle. It would’ve been a miracle, if you had actually managed to die that day. Now, you were suffering with a hole in your thoracic and a chance of getting addicted to opioids.

When you were deemed stable and out of the woods, they put you back on desk duty. No rest for the wicked, especially not in the military. Fellow analysts give you pitying looks and their well-wishes, but none of them actually want to help. That’s the nature of the job, you can’t blame them. But in a community where, even if you get shot, no one helps. It’s a wonder more of the analysts aren’t suicidal.

3rd week post op, you wake up with excruciating throbbing in your wound. Taking more than the recommended daily dose of opioid analgesics, before you make your way to your station. The pain is dulled, but the side effects of the oral morphine you just took are hitting hard. Bones like fragile glass. Muscles that can barely twitch. Vision that starts to blur as your eyes glass over, staring at the ineligible words on your computer screen. It’s getting more difficult to take deep breaths, your chest is too heavy. Lay your head down on your desk. No one will blame you if you take a nap.

Your short slumber is interrupted by the shaking of the foundation beneath you. An earthquake? Raising your head slightly to figure out what’s going on, you see it’s not a natural disaster, but a man made one. Ghost, is stomping his way over to you.

Any other day, he would’ve looked absolutely terrifying. But today, you were hopped up on morphine, providing you the sweet sweet bliss of pain relief. Also, effective for pain in the ass Lieutenants who foil suicide plans.

He stands over you, full of imposition and menace. Giant of a man, used to getting what he wants by showing off the privilege and brute force of his stature. Mustering all your strength, you open an eyelid to look up at him. Your singular glass eye, meets his set of an endless abyss. He gives you a once over, and there’s a look of recognition. It’s pity. He’s pitying you.

Blood rushes from your head, as your whole being is lifted into Ghost’s arm’s, bridal style. You squint at him in confusion, unable to complete any words of incredulity, much less sentences. He leaves the space the same way he entered. Imposing presence and thundering boot steps. Now, with cargo.

He brings you to, what you assume, are his quarters. Places you on his bed, and tucks the covers over you. Tobacco and gunpowder flood your nose. It fills your lungs, and infiltrates all your senses. Your mind drifts, and imagines standing in a battlefield, smoking a cigarette. Engulfed and sinking into the mattress. Surrendering to the warmth and comfort.

Ghost kicks off his boots, and strips down to a shirt and pants. He joins you under his covers, and mirrors your fetal position, facing you.

Your memories of what happened, during these moments, are fuzzy. The extra dose of morphine you took, peaked at this time. Nothing felt real. Not you, lying in Ghost’s bed. Not Ghost, lying next to you. And certainly, not the one-sided conversation Ghost has with you.

“You were bloody reckless,” he murmurs, “Think I didn’t recognize the look in your eyes?”

He places a hand on your throat, and his other pressed to your wound. His eyes burrow into your half asleep consciousness. This is just a dream to you. And in this dream, Ghost squeezes your throat and wound with prejudice.

“You don’t want your life, that’s fine.”

Maybe this isn’t Ghost after all. Maybe this is a figment of your imagination, and the reaper chose to take this form. The last person you see, delivering your soul to the afterlife. If there even is one. You would discover it soon enough. There’s no reason for Ghost to rationally be acting this way. So maybe this is the fever dream that people have before they die. Maybe you are overdosing on the morphine you took.

He lightens the force against your body.

“I’ll have it then. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t want it, then it’s mine.”

He releases the places where his threat was once imminent, and wraps his arms around you. Pulling you to be smothered by his own large chest, your head under his chin. As the dark fibers of his shirt enter your vision, so leaves your will to be awake.

tbc

#simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost x reader #ghost x you #cod x reader #simon riley #cod ghost #cod ghost x reader

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leviathan-supersystem · 1 year ago

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BEIJING — China’s struggling real estate developers won’t be getting a major bailout, Chinese authorities have indicated, warning that those who “harm the interests of the masses” will be punished.

“For real estate companies that are seriously insolvent and have lost the ability to operate, those that must go bankrupt should go bankrupt, or be restructured, in accordance with the law and market principles,” Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a press conference Saturday.

“Those who commit acts that harm the interests of the masses will be resolutely investigated and punished in accordance with the law,” he said. “They will be made to pay the due price.”

That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks published in an official transcript of the press conference, held alongside China’s annual parliamentary meetings.

Ni’s comments come as major real estate developers from Evergrande to Country Garden have defaulted on their debt, while plunging new home sales have put future business into question.

In 2020, Beijing cracked down on developers’ high reliance on debt for growth in an attempt to clamp down on property market speculation. But many developers soon ran out of money to finish building apartments, which are typically sold to homebuyers in China ahead of completion. Some buyers stopped paying their mortgages in a boycott.

Authorities have since announced measures to provide some developers with financing. But the national stance on reducing the role of real estate in the economy hasn’t changed.

This year’s annual government gathering has emphasized the country’s focus on investing in and building up high-end manufacturing capabilities. In contrast, the leadership has not mentioned the massive real estate sector as much.

Real estate barely came up during a press conference focused on the economy last week, while Ni was speaking during a meeting that focused on “people’s livelihoods.”

Ni said authorities would promote housing sales and the development of affordable housing, while emphasizing the need to consider the longer term.

Near-term changes in the property sector have a significant impact on China’s overall economy.

Real estate was once about 25% of China’s GDP, when including related sectors such as construction. UBS analysts estimated late last year that property now accounts for about 22% of the economy.

Last week, Premier Li Qiang said in his government work report that in the year ahead, China would “move faster to foster a new development model for real estate.”

“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.

next time you complain about how things are in America, consider that if you lived in some kind of scary communist country like China, you wouldn't even get to fund a bailout for the real estate company owners who ruined the economy like you can (whether you like it or not) in the good old US of A! 🇺🇲

#china #housing #real estate

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bmlwork · 1 year ago

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#CiO vacancies near me #Cio Services in Greater London #Business System Analyst #Digital Recruitment Agency London

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shantitechnology · 2 years ago

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evermoredeluxe · 7 months ago

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Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Grand Total: A Record $2 Billion

By Ben Sisario

For the last 21 months, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been the biggest thing in music — a phenomenon that has engulfed pop culture, dominated news coverage and boosted local economies around the world.

Now we know exactly how big.

Through its 149th and final show, which took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday, Swift’s tour sold a total of $2,077,618,725 in tickets. That’s two billion and change — double the gross ticket sales of any other concert tour in history and an extraordinary new benchmark for a white-hot international concert business.

Those figures were confirmed to The New York Times for the first time by Taylor Swift Touring, the singer’s production company. While the financial details of the Eras Tour have been a subject of constant industry speculation since tickets were first offered more than two years ago — through a presale so in-demand it crashed Ticketmaster’s system — Swift has never authorized disclosure of the tour’s numbers until now.

The official results are not far from the estimates that trade journalists and industry analysts have been crunching for months. But they solidify the enormous scale of Swift’s accomplishment. Just a few months ago, Billboard magazine reported that Coldplay had set an industry record with $1 billion in ticket sales for its 156-date Music of the Spheres World Tour — a figure that is just half of Swift’s total for a similar stretch of shows in stadiums and arenas.

Every date on the Eras Tour was sold out, and spare tickets were scalped at eye-popping prices — or traded within the protective Swiftie fan community, often at face value.

According to Swift’s touring company, a total of 10,168,008 people attended the concerts, which means that, on average, each seat went for about $204. That is well above the industry average of $131 for the top 100 tours around the world in 2023, according to Pollstar, a trade publication.

The biggest single night’s attendance was in Melbourne, Australia, on Feb. 16, 2024, with 96,006. And Swift’s eight nights at Wembley Stadium in London, which she played more than any other venue, drew 753,112 people — about as many as live in Seattle.

As gigantic as they are, the figures revealed by Swift’s company are only part of the overall business that has surrounded the tour. They exclude her extraordinary merchandise sales, for example, a product line so in demand that Swift opened stadium sales booths a day early in some markets to sell T-shirts, hoodies and Christmas ornaments to fans, ticketed or not.

And they do not count the secondary market of online ticket resellers. According to StubHub, the Eras Tour was the biggest-selling tour in the platform’s two-decade history, and last year it outsold Beyoncé’s shows by a factor of five. Another ticketing company, Victory Live, said the average price for resold tickets to the Eras Tour’s three Vancouver dates was $2,952. (Swift earned nothing from resold tickets.)

Beyond its numbers, the Eras Tour has been a mega-event that elevated the already-super-famous Swift to a new level, making her an epochal symbol of cultural saturation on the level of the Beatles in the 1960s or Michael Jackson in his ’80s prime. Swift’s every onstage utterance, outfit swap or offstage sighting was thoroughly documented, on social media and in the mainstream press, with news outlets big and small rushing to capture Swifties’ clicks. Online, fans tracked every tweak to the three-hour-plus set lists.

As the story of Swift’s tour took shape, it seemed to contain its own eras within it. First, in November 2022, came the ticket fiasco, when Ticketmaster was overwhelmed by what it said were 3.5 billion online requests for tickets, many from scalpers’ bots. The furor over those problems led to a Senate Judiciary hearing in January 2023, at which lawmakers from both parties openly called Ticketmaster’s corporate parent, Live Nation, a monopoly. (This year, the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation, calling for a breakup of the company.)

Then came the tour and the folkways that developed around it, like fans trading hand-assembled friendship bracelets. After the tour’s stop in Kansas City, Mo., a public flirtation between Swift and Travis Kelce, the star tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs, developed into a full-on romance, with the pop star and the football hunk sharing a field-level smooch after the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers at Super Bowl LVIII in February. The photographers definitely did not miss it.

In October 2023, she released “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” a nearly three-hour concert film, released through a direct distribution deal with AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest theater operator. It sold about $93 million in tickets during its opening weekend, and ended up with $261 million in worldwide grosses, according to Box Office Mojo. The next step was a streaming deal with Disney+. A 256-page hardcover tour book, released last month through Target stores, sold 814,000 print copies in its first two days on sale.

As the tour moved to Europe in 2024, it narrowly avoided what could have been a major catastrophe when a terrorist bomb plot was uncovered before three planned shows in Vienna. Those events were canceled and never rescheduled.

Although Swift has largely avoided the news media during the tour, over time she has pulled back the curtain a bit to reveal some of how it came together. To prepare herself for the physical demands of the show, she trained for six months, with a cardio regimen that included singing the entire set list while running on a treadmill, she told Time magazine.

“I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” the magazine quoted her as saying. “I finally, for the very first time, physically prepared correctly.”

The music video for “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” from her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department” — her third release over the course of the tour, including two rerecorded versions of older albums — has behind-the-scenes clips confirming some of the stagecraft mechanics that fans have carefully cataloged on social media, like how she “dives” each night through a “hole” in the stage (onto a soft cushion held by crew members) and how she is ferried backstage in a dummy janitor’s cart.

The tour concludes just as Swift celebrates yet another win: “Tortured Poets” has returned to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a 16th week, with help from vinyl and CD sales of the 35-track “Anthology” edition of the album, which Swift released on Black Friday, also through Target. “Tortured Poets” is by far the biggest-selling album of the year so far.

Swift is up for six awards at the Grammys in February, including album of the year for “Tortured Poets” and both record and song of the year for one of its singles, “Fortnight.”

At a recent tour stop in Toronto, as the tour neared its end, Swift teared up as she delivered valedictory remarks to fans.

“My band, my crew, all my fellow performers,” she said, “we have put so much of our lives into this, and you put so much of your lives into being with us tonight and to giving us that moment that we will never forget.”

#eras tour #taylor swift

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justacynicalromantic · 3 months ago

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Holy shit. The speed of Trump turning the U.S. into Russia 2.0 is faster than I can say Panama🤯 This is classic Putin Playbook.

Former prosecutor Jessica Aber, 43, who was found dead on Saturday, led investigations into intelligence leaks, war crimes against people linked to Russia, and suspects in the supply of secret technologies to Moscow.

Jessica Aber’s death feels like one of those stories that’s meant to fade quietly into the background — a tragic headline that people are supposed to forget. But when a career prosecutor who spent her life chasing Russian cybercriminals, CIA leaks, and war criminals turns up dead just weeks after resigning, forgetting isn’t an option.

Aber, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at her home in Alexandria on March 22. She was 43 years old. Police haven’t said how she died, but the timing — and her unfinished business — makes it impossible to ignore.

THE PROSECUTOR WHO WOULDN’T BACK DOWN

Jessica Aber wasn’t just a lawyer — she was the person you sent in when things got messy.

In January, just before her resignation, Aber helped put Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, behind bars for leaking top-secret information about Israeli military plans against Iran. The information ended up splashed across social media in October 2024.

Aber didn’t mince words when Rahman pleaded guilty. She warned that his leak had “placed lives at risk” and “compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.” That’s prosecutor-speak for this guy seriously screwed things up. Whatever Rahman leaked, it wasn’t just embarrassing — it was dangerous.

BIG CASES, BIGGER ENEMIES

Aber’s cases didn’t stop there. In November 2024, her office prosecuted a Virginia-based company accused of funneling sensitive U.S. technology to a Russian telecom firm with Kremlin ties. It wasn’t exactly an accident — the company allegedly disguised shipments and played fast and loose with American tech that Russia wasn’t supposed to have.

Then there was the war crimes indictment. Aber’s office charged four Russian-linked individuals with torturing and unlawfully detaining a U.S. national in Ukraine. She wasn’t just making legal noise — she was putting serious pressure on powerful figures with deep connections.

Aber’s career was a parade of people you wouldn’t want showing up at your funeral — oligarchs, cybercriminals, and corrupt players with resources to make problems disappear.

A SUSPICIOUS EXIT

Aber resigned in January 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to power. Nobody’s said she was forced out, but resigning from one of the country’s most powerful U.S. Attorney’s offices weeks after jailing a rogue CIA analyst feels a little too clean.

It’s not hard to imagine why someone like Aber might suddenly find herself in a tight spot. Trump’s return came with a wave of loyalty tests and DOJ shakeups — and Aber’s aggressive pursuit of Russian networks and CIA leaks doesn’t exactly scream “team player” in this new political climate.

If she was pressured to resign, what cases got quietly buried when she left?

A SYSTEM THAT’S GONE SOFT ON POWER

The Supreme Court’s ruling in July 2024 handed Trump near-total immunity for “core presidential powers,” including military command. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that this decision could allow a president to order an assassination — and face no legal consequences.

By the time Aber resigned, that ruling had already cast a long shadow over the Department of Justice. Prosecutors like Aber — the kind who took on powerful players with foreign connections — were now working in an environment where accountability had been gutted.

If Aber’s investigations had exposed something that threatened powerful interests, the court’s ruling would have made it easier for those interests to apply pressure — or worse — without consequence.

Her resignation may have been voluntary. It may not have been. But by the time Aber walked away from her post, the guardrails protecting prosecutors like her were already crumbling.

WHAT DID ABER KNOW?

Jessica Aber knew things that mattered — things that powerful people wanted buried. She chased down Russian cybercriminals, locked up a CIA leaker who compromised military intelligence, and tangled with foreign operatives who wouldn’t hesitate to make problems disappear.

Now she’s gone, and the timing stinks.

#'no person - no problem' - Russian proverb #america #u.s.#usa #trump #jessica aber #prosecutor #investigation #russia is a terrorist state #ukraine #україна #укртумбочка #укртумба #укртамблер #usamerican politics

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gold-onthe-inside · 5 months ago

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corrective maintenance

a reactive maintenance strategy employed to restore a system, machine, or software to its optimal working condition after a failure or malfunction has occurred.

who? spencer reid (s7) x analyst!reader what? the much demanded sequel to greylist; your complicated and suppressed feelings for spencer result in an argument, the blowback of which leads to a fight with penelope. content warnings: a little more background to reader given (neglected childhood, not many friends) word count: 2.1k a/n: finally put this thing together, reader and i will both have eye strain by the time we're 60

It’s just past a quarter to 11 when you trudge back to the apartment, the painkiller Spencer had given you just barely dulling the ache in your head. You close the door with your back, slipping out of your heels, the keys clattering in the clay bowl, pink with white cat-eyes. “How was your night?” came Penelope’s voice, floating over with a cup of coffee, wearing a red silk robe.

“Don’t get me fucking started,” you muttered, finding the energy to peel your coat off and Penelope hid a giddy grin as she sipped her coffee.

“You stayed at his place, huh?” she asked and you glared at her.

“Yeah, because you didn’t have the decency to go to your boyfriend’s place. We have rules about this stuff, Penelope,” you said, exhausted. You didn’t want to get into another fight, not when it felt like a construction crew was working in your frontal lobe.

“Did you at least have fun?” Penelope asked, her voice hopeful, and you scoffed, remembering the last half of your argument with Spencer.

"Just cause I don't have the same weird co-dependency that you lot seem to have with each other doesn't make me lonely," you said, your head still hurting from the hangover, rummaging through your purse for a painkiller but all you found was a couple Altoids, and you hear the pop of a tablet beside you, Spencer standing there, holding out a Tylenol for you.

“Then explain why I was the only one you had to drink with last night,” he said, not unkindly, but he’s probing into areas you’re uncomfortable with. You barely talk about it with Penelope, and you live with the woman.

“Only because Penelope was busy,” you retorted, almost not taking the pill out of sheer spite, but your head hurt too much for you go through with it. You popped the tablet, fully aware that Spencer’s still watching you as you chase it with water.

“And if you didn’t have Penelope?” he asked softly and you look at him angrily. God, why was it so easy for him to get under your skin? “Face it, you’d have been drinking alone, because Penelope’s the only friend you have.”

“And what were you doing, Mr Friendly?” you snapped back. “Since we’re all about facing facts, you had nothing better to do on a Friday night than answer Penelope’s call?”

His face blanched, and if you’d been in a better state of mind, you’d have played it off with a joke, lightened the tension. You wouldn’t have pushed him so far. “Because I’m willing to bet the only reason Penelope called you is because you reliably wouldn’t have plans,” you continued, a sharp edge to your voice. “Derek, who’s always got a date, and Emily who’s always doing something new, and Hotch who’s got a kid at home, and JJ who has her family. So don’t tell me about how lonely I am, Dr Reid, before you take a long, hard look in the mirror.” You let out a breath, running out of steam, looking at Spencer’s hurt expression, his angular face all drooping. You almost apologise. Almost.

“At least I’m not a coward about it,” he said quietly. “At least I keep trying. You’d rather make people not like you than realise they wouldn’t like you after getting to know you. Because what happens when Penelope wakes up one day and leaves you?” When. Not if. The sting is too much, the lump in your throat choking you.

“I have to go home,” you said instead, and he doesn’t stop you this time, in your black dress with the cut-out waist, wrapped up in a coat.

“What?” Penelope demanded, almost a shriek as you finished telling her the story. “That’s… Oh my God, you two are cruel, why would you say that to him? Why did he say that to you?”

You rub your face, tired and sad, your eyes half-closing of their own volition. “I was just… My head hurt and he was trying to be nice, but it just… it was too much, Pen, and then he started reading into it, because fucking profilers and—”

“So you shut him down,” Penelope groaned, sinking her head into her hand, saying your name with such disappointment. “So much for hoping you two would finally get along.”

“I don’t understand your insistence on making us get along,” you said, pouring yourself a cup of coffee and Penelope scoffed.

“Because you’re both perfect for each other,” she cried, as if it was obvious. “Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t see it—”

“When have you ever been right in saying I can’t do something?” you ask, but she steamrolled over you.

“You’re both insanely smart, you have the same sense of humour, you both devour books, you banter, it’s a made-for-Christmas rom-com,” Penelope insisted, watching you look at her skeptically. “You’ve never even given him a shot,” she said softly. “He… He’s not like every other guy, you know that.”

“He hasn’t even asked for a shot—”

“He dropped everything on a Friday night—”

“Because you demanded it of him—”

“Because he likes you!” Penelope cried hotly, standing up from her seat at the kitchen table. “This whole argument, where you were so mean to him, was all because he was trying to take care of you.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of—” you cried out only for Penelope to interrupt with, “Bullshit!” You stared at her outburst, uncharacteristic of the cheery woman.

“Everyone wants to be taken care of,” she told you. “You wanna act like you’re so above it all because deep down, Spencer’s right. You’re scared. And I wish you weren’t because you’re so wonderful and smart and kind and one day you’re gonna push everyone who cares away because it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to have to keep peeling layers away.” Penelope paused, catching her breath, looking at you, waiting for it to sink in. And it doesn’t.

“Then stop trying,” you said, as if it was that simple. The coffee was too bitter for you, and you leave your half-full mug to go shower, leaving Penelope stunned in the kitchen.

You stay in your cubicle all day, resigning yourself to your code, your pride keeping you from Penelope’s lair. You’d even left early, rather than your usual lazy commute to work in her car. Spencer’s not like Morgan, he doesn’t stick out from the rest of your co-workers, all computer nerds working on other projects, so you don’t see him approach you.

“For the last time, Jerry, I’m not reviewing your code for—” You looked up, pausing at Spencer’s hopeful face sticking up over your walls. “Oh. You.”

“Not the worst reaction I’ve had,” Spencer admitted and you let out a dry huff.

“I’ll break out into a rash for you next time,” you replied and he pursed his lips.

“How’s Penelope doing?” he asked, rather than playing along with your inane game.

“What do you mean?”

“Morgan said she took a sick day, which she hasn’t done since 2009, and I tried calling her but she wouldn’t pick up,” Spencer said and you frowned. “Is she okay?”

“I— She was fine last night,” you said lamely, your stomach bottoming out, and Spencer could read your expression of guilt far too easily for your comfort. “Don’t do that. Don’t profile me,” you snapped at him, standing up and grabbing your coat.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to,” you retorted, starting to head out and dialling Penelope’s number while Spencer chased you.

“Can I at least know what happened?” he asked, hazel eyes on you with as much concern as they had last night. You tutted, hitting her voicemail and enter the elevator to head out, Spencer following you inside.

“You happened,” you muttered, pocketing your cell.

“What?”

“You happened,” you repeat, heated and angry, mostly at yourself. “You just had to pick a fight with me—”

“Hey, I was being nice to you—”

“And so I was pissed off when I got home—”

“And you unloaded it on her,” he filled in before putting on the receiving end of your glare. “You keep doing that, you’re gonna desensitise me to that look,” he pointed out and you sighed.

“Fine, yeah, I did, happy?” you asked bitterly and Spencer looked at you slumped back against the elevator, and he pushed the stop button, essentially trapping you both inside.

“No, and neither are you, and you never will be if you keep acting like this,” Spencer told her.

“I’m getting a little sick of being lectured to, Professor,” you snap at him and he frowns at you.

“And I’m sick of walking on eggshells around you,” he replied. “I don’t know what I did, but for some reason, you’re acting like a killer T-cell. So intent on protecting yourself that you’re destroying every relationship you have.”

“Oh please, the last thing I want is pity from you,” you scoff, stepping away from him.

“There it is, see?” he insisted. “It’s like a reflexive response, to push everyone away if they get too close. If you’re always alone, then no one can hurt you, right?”

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" you demanded.

“No, not when you’re just waiting for me to give up so you can be right,” he replied. “It’s classic avoidant attachment—”

“God, just stop!” you yelled at him. “Stop, stop trying to worm your way into my head!”

“That’s the thing, I’m not!” he insisted loudly, stepping closer to you and you back up against the wall. “You act like all I want from you is some intellectual spar, some— But I’m trying here! I’m standing in front of you right now, with nowhere to go, asking you to talk to me, actually talk to me.”

"About what?" you asked.

"Anything!" Spencer replied, his voice echoing. "You always have some smart-ass remark to throw at me, to just shut me up. So tell me what's going on, tell me why that's easier than just talking."

You look at him, speechless. His hand comes to his face, pushing his hair off his face as he looks away. “God, I sound like a crazy person,” he said, as though the realisation took him back. His hand fell to his side, and he turned to leave. “Just… Just go see Penelope before I make it worse, okay? I’m sorry,” he said, looking at you. “You’re just so confusing, and you have this way of pushing my buttons, and— God, I’m gonna shut up now.” He stepped forward to turn the elevator back on, pressing the buttons that kept him facing away from you.

You stayed by the wall, looking at him. "I'm not used to it," you said softly. "I don't... have people like you guys do."

Spencer paused, before turning back to you. "Penelope said you never talk about your childhood."

"There's not much to talk about," you said, scuffing the floor with your sneakers as the elevator went to the lobby. "My parents both worked long hours. Weren't really around. Didn't have a lot of friends growing up. And I got into tech, but when you're the only woman in the class..."

"It's not very welcoming is it?" he filled in the blanks, and when the door chimed, you found yourself not wanting to go. He stepped out, holding the lift open for you. "So how did you end up an FBI agent?"

"Get to do a lot more interesting work here than at Apple," you replied.

He lets out a sigh of recognition. “I felt the same way when I joined.” He smiles at you softly, gesturing for you to keep talking.

"I just... I dunno, I'm not wired for this stuff," you continued, stepping out of the elevator. "Friends, relationships... Coding's a lot easier."

“I can get that,” he nodded. “It’s easier, less complicated.” He let out a sigh, taking a step closer to you and you looked up. “I’m not gonna let you push me around anymore,” he added and you blinked at him.

“I figured.”

When he moved away, the relief you felt confused you. “Go talk to Penelope,” he told you. “I’m sorry I’m not great at this stuff, and that we fight a lot, and I’m always in the way but— but I want to get better.” He turned quickly, leaving you standing in the lobby, unsure of what just happened.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x analyst!reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x you #my fics

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