#and what's in the morocco case these days

[mostlyanything19]

One fun fact about me is that I played the demo of The Beekeeper's Picnic by @beekeeperspicnic and it's brought me nearly to tears several times just out of pure like. sentimentality?? affection for these two men and this very specific little world they inhabit? my foolish heart that's been stuck on Sherlock Holmes for going on ten years now? idk man idk

[winkwonkwankwenk]

Gojo Head-Cannons!! (SFW & NSFW)

SFW

Has modeled a few times just for fun, definitely a Paparazzi-Darling.

Has a major sweet tooth. Will accept any snack if it's high in sugar. He keeps snack cakes and candies in his pockets at all times. He sulks when you make him eat a meal before dessert when the two of you are out, almost like a petulant child. "I'm eating this Spinach because I want to, not because you told me to- and definitely not because it's so fucking good..." He cheers up again the moment you cave and let him run to the chocolate fountain.

Loves traveling. He can't stay in one place long before getting angsty. He'll hop on the nearest train or plane the moment he sees photos of an area, not bothering to pack a bag- he'll just buy whatever he needs while he's there. "Let's go to Morocco tomorrow. Or would you prefer Dubai?"

Black card holder. He's got a couple of them. He leaves most of them laying around the house and has left them in public on occasion. Worst case scenario, he just has to get a new card. Perks of being wealthy.

Shopping sprees! Gojo loves going shopping, so the moment you ask he grabs his keys and runs to the door. Even though shopping was your idea, you end up regretting it. He drags you to every store he sees, making you wait as he changes in the dressing room. He always ends up with hands full of bags, mostly things he brought for you when you weren't looking. He surprises you with gifts as thanks for tagging along.

He has a skincare routine. Toner? Got it. Moisturizer? Got it. You actually use his products because hello- they're clearly working. He also gets his nails and toes done regularly and the two of you often have spa days together. You'll sip and sit, eating fancy wines and cheeses while gossiping. "Did you see what he wore? I would never."

Always scoops you up when it's raining and hides you in his jacket so he can use infinity to block the rain. "Can't have you getting sick." His cheeks are tinted pink when he says this, and all you can do is smile.

Lightweight when it comes to alcohol. A shot gets him tipsy and he makes the worst decisions when he's drunk. You had to stop him from stripping once, and from then on he's never took a sip without you being near.

Loves cuddling. In bed? Yes. At work? Yes. On missions? Hell yeah! Every chance he gets to have you in his arms he eagerly takes.

He's a gym rat. He'll invite you to work out with him and pout if you decline. Sometimes he'll do push-ups with you under him, kissing you every time he goes down. "What? Kisses are my reward for all of this hard work." He'll tease, and then drop down for another. He's seen and heard those audios you have saved, so sometimes he'll taunt you by saying your name each push-up to make that whimpering sound you seem to adore.

Can't cook for shit. He's burned water before. It's funny, the amazing Gojo can't do something as simple as frying an egg or making toast.

Clingy boyfriend! He'll spam call, text, sometimes even show up outside your door with flowers and your favorite sweet. It can be pouring rain outside and he'll still rush over, even as lightning cackles in the sky. That's just how much he loves you.

He's attached to your stuffed animals. You've caught him trying to sneak some out of your place to take to his. You end up caving and letting him take home one squishmellow, he coats your face in kisses after.

Gets jealous easily. He wants all your attention and when he sees you giving it to another guy he'll act nonchalant but really he's holding back the urge to purple-hollow the dude.

Loves dancing. He'll pull you up off the couch or in his arms and loudly blast your song. Your song- the one the two of you listen to all the time. "We'll play this at our wedding for our first dance," he always jokes...sometimes you wonder if he's joking.

He wants children. Whenever the two of you are on a walk and see a family, the children run up to him and beg to play. Something about him radiates paternal energy. The parents of the kids will aways apologize but the two of you laugh it off. "That's going to be us soon, y'know." He'll whisper into your ear before your walk resumes.

It gets...intense when the two of you argue. He's stubborn in his stance, even when it's debating who's turn it is to do the dishes. Part of the problem is he finds you so damn hot when you're mad, the other problem is how he can't take anything seriously. He always plays things off as a joke until he sees how upset you are, and then the guilt will eat away at him. He always apologizes first, accompanied by make-up-gifts. "I shouldn't have said what I did, forgive me?"

He gets overstimulated sometimes because of 6th sense, and you're the first person he calls when it gets bad. Your voice is enough to calm him down, but a kiss on the cheek doesn't hurt.

He said "I love you" first, even with a shaky voice he knew he had to say it then or he never would.

NSFW (Kinky stuff ahead)

Loves making out with you but especially in public. He doesn't care how it makes other people feel, he'll pull you into a sloppily kiss and suck at your lips until they're kiss swollen. Drool, lots of drool, because he's obsessed with the taste of your tongue.

The first time you pulled his hair he made such an embarrassing noise he hasn't let you do it since. On occasion, you manage to sneakily bury your fingers in it and give it a firm tongue. A strangled moan will spill from his lips and then you have about five seconds to run. Good luck.

Pussy eater. Ass eater. He loves your taste. He'll bend you over the kitchen table and eat you out until your legs shake and your juices puddle on the floor. He'll lap your juices up and hold them in his mouth, then let them trickle into your mouth as he kisses you. "Mmm…now you know how good you taste."

He's a switch, perfectly fine with letting you lead on days you want to. His favorite positions are reverse-cowgirl, doggy, and sixty-nine. He loves when you sit on his face, nothing turns him on more than having your pussy on his skin. He likes to tell you how good you taste, even when his tongue is buried inside of you.

Three rounds isn't enough- he needs days. If you can still walk when he's done then back to the bedroom you go.

Pink tip. His cock is roughly eight inches, decently thick. He knows how to use it, and that's what really matters. Cum flavor is sweet, what did you expect from a man who's diet is 90% sugar?

He's a foreplay fan, thus why he loves making out with you. He also finds it so fun to finger you, play with your clit until you squirt. "This is where you're weak right?" He knows all of your favorite spots and especially the ones that push you over the edge until you're a soaking wet mess.

He'll try anything once, several times if he enjoys it of course. That's why he lets you peg him on occasion. He's let you cuff him down to the bed a few times. He's even worn a maid outfit for you.

He likes cumming on your skin, leaving his semen sprayed on you like a glaze. He also likes watching you swallow, it makes him shiver because you do it so eagerly. He'll still cum on your face after.

He's a loud lover. The neighbors better hear, or else he's not putting enough back into it. He knows he's doing good when you're screaming and squealing and there's knocking on the front door. "Good girl, let them hear how good I make you feel."

Bomb make-up sex. Whatever the two of you were fighting about doesn't matter now, not when he's ramming into you and holding your legs behind your head. How are you supposed to be mad when he's fucking you senseless?!

Steals your panties and finds it funny when you find them at his place. You've lectured him about it hundreds of times but his only response is a smug smirk. "Come on, I'm serious! I don't know how they got here." and "You must've left them last time you came over."

Only pulls out because he knows you trust him enough to let him hit raw. "Can I pleeease cum inside?" He always asks when he's close, and always respects whatever decision you make.

Aftercare is mostly cuddles, kisses, and takeout from your favorite places. He'll casually go to the door naked, jumpscaring the delivery person but since he tips them double what the food costs they never say much besides thank you. He'll feed you, then bathe with you when you can walk again. He likes to wash your hair, put on your lotion, help you put on fresh pajamas, and then he'll tuck you back into bed. "Rest up," he always says before you drift off.

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[fadedncity]

wc: 5.2k

pairing: hunter!haechan x hunter!reader

cw: supernatural!au, smut, fem!reader, ex friends/fwb to enemies to fwb again, angst, sex pollen, dubcon(?), weapons, violence, gore, character death (non mcs), masturbation (reader receiving), alcohol consumption, fingering, teasing, pet names, unprotected sex

song rec: hypnotic by zella day | if you let me by sinedad harnett | love me up by etta bond | crave by tove lo

"You want me to what?!"

"Come on, there are worse things," Taeyong tried talking you down.

"I'd rather Lilith drag me to hell herself."

"Okay, now you're just being dramatic. Haechan's not that bad."

"Oh, no, he's just an annoying, pompous asshole."

"I-" before he could get in another word, you cut him off.

"Why can't you just send Sungchan? He's one of the newbies. The experience will be good for him anyway."

"I sent him and Shotaro to Oregon with Yuta to take care of a crossroads demon."

"Jaehyun?"

"Vampire nest in France with Jeno."

"Renjun?"

"Shapeshifter in Morocco."

"Kun?"

"On vacation," Taeyong sighed. "Look, you two are some of the best hunters I know, and I really need you on this case. Both of you."

You knew you couldn't keep standing here bitching over this when the real problem was still at large. People were still getting hurt, and you couldn't let your feelings of anguish toward him get in the way of your job.

You rolled your eyes before sighing, "When do we leave?"

"Been waiting on you."

Looking over your shoulder, you glare at the man standing in the doorway of the room designated to be Taeyong's office. Haechan smirked at you before winking. You scoff, turning back to Taeyong. 

"You're gonna owe me," you tell him. 

"Wouldn't have asked if I wasn't expecting to," he handed you the file, "Safe trip, you two," Taeyong smiled.

"We're leaving in fifteen," you told Haechan, "And we're taking my car."

Haechan held up his hands like he wasn't gonna argue with you about that, which was surprising, but you quickly brushed past it and Haechan out of the room.

"Haechan." Taeyong called him before he left, "Please don't kill each other and make it back in one piece."

"No promises," Haechan said before leaving. 

. . .

The first hour was filled with tense silence between the two of you. Every time Haechan tried to start a conversation, you would shut him down, not wanting to hear anything he had to say.

It wasn't until he picked up the file from Taeyong sitting on your dashboard did you finally let him get some words in since he was actually saying something helpful. 

"Says there have been four victims in the last five weeks."

"All the same motive?" 

"Yeah, all four of them were drained of their blood. Completely."

"Vampires?"

"No teeth marks were found. So, it's no looking likely."

"Any connection between the victims?" 

"No, not that I can tell. Aside from living in the same area code, none of these people had anything in common."

"Great, this makes our job much easier. What about a vengeful spirit? Or demon?"

"Could be. But can't say for sure until we get there."

Haechan closed the file and threw it into the backseat.

He sunk into the passenger's seat, about to change the song playing on the radio before you slapped his hand away.

"My car, my music."

Haechan sucked his teeth, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Fine. I was gonna try to take a nap anyway."

"Whatever gets you to stop talking."

Glaring over at you one last time, Haechan shifts in the passenger's seat, turning his back to you and shutting his eyes.

Hours have passed, and you've been driving on the dark road with no cars ahead or behind you for miles now. The only thing accompanying you in the darkness was the low hum of music coming from the speakers and Haechan's soft snores. 

It didn't even register you had been driving for so long until you started seeing the sun rising from behind the horizon.

Haechan woke up with a stiff neck to find the car at a stop, and you were no longer inside with him. Taking in his surroundings, Haechan realized you had stopped for gas. 

You were so spaced out you almost didn't hear him getting out of the car, the slamming of the door bringing your attention to him. 

You looked over at the Gemini, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. 

"How much longer do we have to go?" Haechan asks.

"Three more hours."

"Okay, you should let me drive," He tells you. 

"No-"

"You've been driving all night. It won't do any good if you fall asleep at the wheel and kill us before we can even get there."

He's right. It irks you, having to admit he's right.

You took the pump out of the tank once it was filled and closed the hatch.

You held out your keys, Haechan ready to take them, but you retracted your hand before he could. 

"Be gentle with her. This is my baby."

"Baby," he scoffs, "You know I can be gentle when I wanna be," he says, taking your keys and getting into the driver's side.

You were blaming your lack of sleep on the way his words had an effect on you.

You shook the thoughts away and got back into the car, your eyes shutting almost instantly before Haechan could even pull out of the gas station.

. . .

"Oh, you gotta be fucking with me."

Now, this was an upgrade from your usual shitty motels. There was a couch a full bathroom, a minibar, and a queen-sized bed. One queen-sized bed.

And you have no doubt in mind who was probably responsible for this.

"I'm gonna fucking kill Johnny," you mutter.

"Get in line."

You were expecting to have to flip a coin or something.

"You can take the bed. I'll be fine with the couch," Haechan says, settling his things down.

"Suit yourself," you said happily dropping your things and heading towards the bed practically calling your name.

"I'm gonna shower. Then we can head over to the coroner's office?"

"Fine with me. Wake me if I'm not up in an hour." you say resting your head on the pillow.

The bathroom door closed, and you got comfortable on the bed. It wasn't the most comfortable mattress, the bed springs digging into your back, but you've had worse, so you weren't gonna complain. The sound of the water running was the last thing you remember hearing before your eyes fluttered shut, and you drifted off to sleep again. 

. . . 

You walked out of the morgue, thoroughly annoyed. And feeling Haechan's unbothered presence was pissing you off even more. 

Bad enough that Mark thought it would be a funny enough fucking joke to give you fake badges with the same last name, leading the coroner to assume you were married. And instead of correcting her, Haechan thought it would also be funny to play along and act as if you were.

So while you were actually working, examining the bodies, and trying to figure out what was responsible for the deaths of those four people, Haechan was talking up your fake five-year marriage on the spot with the coroner. You know he's good at this part of the job, but there's no reason for him to be this good. 

Haechan loosens his tie walking in tow with you back to your car after you finish your questioning. 

"See, that wasn't so bad," Haechan says, and you roll your eyes at him. "Alright, when are you gonna pop this hate boner you have for me?" he asks. 

You scoff, "Whenever that big ass ego of yours deflates." 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Like you don't fucking know," you mutter. 

"Yeah, I fucking don't. So why don't you stop acting like a pouty little brat and just tell me."

You didn't say anything, and Haechan sighed. 

"I thought you said you weren't mad about that."

"I'm not but that doesn't mean I have to like you after you did it." 

"It was two years ago!" 

"And it was fucked up. But it's funny enough you keep showing up whenever you think I'm in need of saving."

"Need I remind you I am the one who quite literally saved you from being that werewolf's late night snack?"

You grumble at him under your breath, walking away. 

He tries to keep up with your steps, following you to the car.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said, and you finally stopped, "For everything. I didn't mean to shut you out. I was just...scared," he admits 

"Of what? I thought we were both very clear about where we stood."

"And I still cared about you. You know what it's like getting close to something in this line of work," Haechan tells you, "And I wasn't just gonna let you die for the sake of your own ego. You're too good of a hunter for us to lose." 

You didn't even think you still held this much anger towards him until now. You didn't want to anymore, seemingly taking this long to get over it. And it would make this job a lot less painful if you weren't stuck thinking about the past. 

"Don't try to flatter me now, Donghyuck." You say, a phantom smirk playing on your lips. "You're still an annoying, pompous asshole," you say.

Haechan snickers, putting his hands in his pockets and walking up to you. 

"And you're a heartless, whiny little brat," he smirked at your offended expression. He then stepped back and asked, "Wanna grab breakfast?" quickly changing the subject.

"You really wanna eat now?"

"Can't work on an empty stomach," Haechan says, "I'll buy," he offers. 

"Fine. But, after, we're going to the crime scenes." 

"Yes, Mrs," Haechan teases, laughing when you shoot him another death glare. 

. . . 

"You okay?" Haechan asks as he enters the run-down house.

"Yeah," you shake the unsettling feeling and follow in behind him, "We're getting close."

"But we still have time. We just need to find her heart and kill her. Simple."  

Yeah, simple. 

The one thing you hate about witches is how difficult they make it to hunt them. Using glamour spells to appear as whoever they want or hexing five random people as a part of some ritualistic sacrifice trying to raise something much more malicious back from the dead. They're always unpredictable. 

"I'll check upstairs," you tell him. 

Haechan nods, heading towards the living room to check the first floor, "Hey, Haechan."

"Yeah?" he turns around.

"Don't be stupid and get yourself killed," you say.

He nods again with a smirk, "You too." 

Reaching the top of the stairs, you held up your shotgun as you crept down the halls, carefully checking every room you passed. The floorboards croaked under your weight with each step you took. 

It was deathly silent; your ears started to ring. You couldn't even hear Haechan downstairs as you reached the end of the hallway.

You pushed the last door open with the barrel of your gun and started looking around. Different plants and herbs were scattered all over the room, and you made sure to stay a safe distance away, not sure what some of them were.

When you found the room was clear, you lowered your weapon and looked around, finding a book that you could only assume was her grimoire, opened to a page.

Careful flipping through the pages, you find the ritual she was trying to perform, only needing a few more things, including one last victim, before it's complete.

Supplies and ingredients were laid out all over the table, most of the things looking unfamiliar since she was using an older method of magic. 

Among the items, a box unlocked. The box holding the witch's heart.

"Now, who's the heartless one," you mumble.

"That one's still up for debate," the voice sent a chill down your spine.

You turn around, aiming your gun, but it's too late.

In her true form, thin skin stretched across the witch's face, baring rotting teeth. You could barely see anything else as she wore a tattered black cloak, the hood covering most of her face. 

She grabbed the barrel with long bony fingers, making you miss your shot, and shot the wall behind her instead. Before you could reload, she held out her hand, blowing the contents sitting in her palm in your face.

A floral scent invaded your senses, and your nose felt tingly as you inhaled whatever powder she possessed.

You heard the sound of Haechan calling your name, his footsteps rushing to your location as your body hit the floor.

"You both have been very entertaining to watch. You looking at him when he's not paying attention, and him looking at you once you turn away. Ugh! it's just someing about the secret pining that gets me everytime. So beautiful yet…so painful," the witch looks off dramatically into the distance, "But don't worry now, child. I have freed you of your misery." she speaks, smiling widely.

Before Haechan could get a shot, she moved faster than you'd expect, and she's a lot stronger than you's think for a few centuries-old witch. 

"Haechan," you weakly called his name.

He was quickly disarmed and he couldn't seem to be able to move.

"Ah, I get what all the fuss is about. He's even cuter up close. I might save him for myself," the witch wickedly grinned, "You'd make a perfect vessel," she caressed Haechan's face.

Her skeletal fingers wrapped around Haechan's throat, squeezing his airway. 

Using all the strength you could muster, you reached for the box with her heart. She fell to the ground, weakly crawling toward you to try and stop you as the shard of glass in your hand pierced through the rotted tissue. She cursed at you as she wailed out in agony.  

"You'd do it too, for love," was the last thing she said before burning to ashes. 

"Call us even now," you teased Haechan before you toppled in pain.

"You okay?" Haechan rushes to your side.

"No, something's very wrong. It hurts," you whine.

"What? Where?"

"Everywhere. I don't know what the fuck she did to me."

"Okay. We gotta get you outta here," Haechan slung your arm around his neck, helping you to your feet.

You clung onto Haechan, stumbling over your feet, leaving the house with Haechan's arm around you, keeping you upright. 

You squirmed in the passenger's seat, the pain getting even worse.  

"Haechan, I can't. Everthing fucking hurts," you cry. 

Haechan's knuckles turned white from how hard he gripped the wheel, applying more pressure to the gas, rushing back to your hotel. 

You felt like you were burning inside out while simultaneously being stabbed. Yet you were thinking about how hot Haechan looked. Maybe the end is near.

Haechan's face was set in a hard line, his jaw clenched as he did about 30 over the speed limit. You found your eyes drifting over to him, distracting yourself for a moment. Haechan's sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the muscles in his arms rippling under his skin as he held onto the steering wheel. From the dark brown strands falling over his eyes to the jeans hugging his thighs so deliciously you couldn't resist the urge to press your thighs together. 

Your pain subsided for only a second before you shook those thoughts from your head, and your nerves returned to screaming in agony. 

Haechan could care less about how badly he parked the car before running over to your side and helping you out of the car, rushing you into the hotel. Thankfully it was late, and no one was in the lobby other than the receptionist you slipped past without detection. 

The moment you entered your room, you pushed Haechan away and locked yourself in the bathroom. You were taking a cold shower to bring your temperature back down, but you couldn't shake the thoughts of Haechan out of your mind. How good he smelled, how his body felt against yours with you tucked into his side, the genuine concern he showed for you-

You didn't even realize you had your hand between your thighs until you finally felt relief, stroking your clit. You bit your lip, trying to conceal any moans threatening to spill out of your lips. You desperately rubbed your clit, feeling the strongest need for release right now. 

Your eyes were closed, and all you envisioned behind closed eyelids were Haechan. His face, his voice—everything was overwhelming.

You were already so close to cumming, as you thought of Haechan's fingers instead of your own. 

You scraped your nails down the tiled walls, that knot inside you so close to breaking. Until you heard a knock on the door. 

"You okay in there?" Haechan asks from the other side. 

You snap out of it, opening your eyes as guilt and pain washed over you.

You cleared your throat, "Yeah. I'll be out in a second," you yelled to him.

The shower only helped temporarily. You were lying on the bed, half-naked, a thin layer of sweat covering your entire body.  

You tried to wait for Haechan to come back after getting off the phone and hopefully with a solution to this. You were exhausted but still in too much pain to even try sleeping.

Your body jolted, alert once again, hearing the door slamming. 

"Haechan?" 

He didn't hear you calling his name as he flipped through the pages of the witch's grimoire you snagged from the house before leaving. Once Haechan stopped turning through the book, his eyes bounced around the page, reading whatever was written.

"Haechan?" you call him again. 

He tore his eyes away from the page and met your gaze. 

"What is it?" you ask. 

For once, it seemed Haechan was at a loss for words. And his silence was beginning to scare you.

"Haechan, please just tell me," you pleaded.

He sighs, "If it's what Jaemin think's it is, it was phoenix's blossom she hit you with. It's pretty high grade and usually associated with spells of desire." 

You thought this information would've clarified at least a few things, but you were more confused, leaving you with even more questions than answers. 

"Okay, then why the hell does it feel like I'm dying?" 

"The neglect of the heart's desires will ignite the eternal fires from within. Scorching the soul along with it," he read from the pages. 

Fuck me. 

You manage to roll out of bed and over to the minibar, pouring yourself a shot of whiskey.

If you're going to die before you're 30, you're going to at least have one last drink if it really is the end. 

It was like you could feel Haechan's eyes on you as you poured another drink, the alcohol not being enough to eliminate your pain but numb it enough that it became bearable for you. 

You didn't even notice Haechan had moved until he was standing next to you, pouring himself a drink.

He didn't say anything, just sipping on the amber liquid, carefully watching you. He looked at you blankly, and you couldn't tell what he was thinking. You were only starting to focus on how much prettier he looks up close. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" you ask him, annoyed with the wordless staring. 

"What are you thinking?"

You scoff before downing the rest of your drink without as much as a wince, "What am I thinking? How pissed I am some old hag got the jump on me like this. How I'm gonna haunt Taeyong's ass from beyond the grave. How I'm never getting those twenty bucks Chenle still owes me." you half-joked. 

The feeling of Haechan's fingers reaching out for your hand made you finally meet his eyes. 

You sighed, "How angry it makes me to look at your face sometimes. How bad I wish things didn't get so fucked up because you were still my friend," you didn't notice he was slowly pulling you closer, "And how badly I miss the way you used to touch me." 

He cupped your face, staring into your eyes.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Why should I?"

"Cause I'm tired of looking at your stupid face," you didn't try too hard to push him away. 

Your skin burns under his touch when Haechan grabs your waist, "Ah. Was this the same stupid face you were thinking about when you were trying to get off in the shower?" 

Haechan teased you when embarrassment took over your face.

"You think I don't remember what you sound like even when you so desperately try to keep quiet."

Haechan cups your jaw, bringing your face closer.

"You don't think I miss the pretty noises you'd make for me." 

You could feel the flood of arousal throughout your body, his voice sending a shiver down your spine. 

Haechan's eyes are dark, and when you bring your hand to his cheek, you feel how warm his skin is compared to yours. 

"Haechan, you're-"

"I know," was all Haechan said. 

The residue of the phoenix's blossom on his clothes was evidence enough. 

"This shit feels like poison coursing through my veins. And it is unbearably fucking hot in here. But I can't seem to pull myself away for you," Haechan pulled you flush against him.

"I wanna hear you say it," you stop him with your finger on his lips. 

"I want you so bad, it's killing me," he said light-heartedly.

With that, your lips were on his. 

You wrapped your arms around his neck, weaving your fingers in his hair. You moaned into his mouth when he pressed your body into the bar behind you. 

You swipe your tongue along the seam of his lips, tangling with his before fighting for dominance. Haechan's hands were all over your body. He cupped your breasts over your bra, softly rubbing your sensitive nipples through the material, making you moan against his lips. You push the both of you away from the bar, Haechan blindly leading you to the bed. 

His legs hit the bed, and you push him down onto the springy mattress, climbing on top of him. Haechan's hands guided your hips, grinding into his cock, your shorts, and his jeans being the only thing between you. His hands kneaded your ass firmly as you dragged your hips against his. 

"Hyuck," you breathe his name. Haechan groans, even more blood rushing to his dick from the way his name sounded rolling off your tongue. 

You started pulling on Haechan's shirt until you got it over his head and off his body, now lying on the floor. You trail your lips down his jaw, nipping his skin between his teeth, leaving openmouthed kisses on the side of his neck. Haechan slid his hand over the curve of your ass, sliding up your back, reaching for the clasp on your bra. He couldn't keep his hands off you. Haechan flipped you onto your back before he slipped one of your nipples into his mouth, flicking the perky bud with the tip of his tongue. You arch into Haechan's touch, his saliva covering your areola as he gives the same attention to the opposite one.

Haechan starts kissing down your body. He sinks his teeth into your skin, taking in how responsive you are to him. 

Placing one last kiss on your hip, Haechan hooks his fingers in the waistband of your shorts, tearing them down your legs along with your soaked panties. 

Haechan's intense gaze made you want to close your legs out of embarrassment, but he didn't allow them, keeping them apart with his hands. He runs a finger through your folds, coating his fingers in your slick.

Your hips instantly lift against his hand, and he takes amusement in the way you pouted when he drew his hand away.

"Fuck you," you whine.

"We're getting there, baby. Patience." Haechan doesn't hesitate to bring his fingers to his lips, licking your essence off his hand. 

He hums, savoring the taste of you on his tongue. You could've sworn you watched his eyes grow darker; you could barely tell they were brown anymore. 

"Taste as good as I remember, angel," Haechan licks his lips. 

Bringing his hand back between your thighs, Haechan sinks two fingers into your cunt, easily breaching your walls from how wet you are. Moans bubbled up in your throat, the feeling of his fingers curling against your gummy walls eliminating the excruciating pain you were in.

You grab onto his wrist, rolling your hips into his hand.

"Haechan..please fuck me." 

A sound resembling a growl rumbled in his chest, hearing you beg for him. 

You pathetically whined when Haechan left you empty and untouched as he started to take off the last thing he was wearing. Kicking his jeans off, letting his boxers be the last to join the rest of the clothes on the floor, Haechan strokes his cock in his hand. Your mouth waters as you press your thighs together at the sight of him. 

"You know it's been a minute, baby, and I haven't properly prepped you. Think you can take it?" he teases. 

You wrap your hand around his length, squeezing your fist around him, making him curse lowly.

"Can you?" you raise an eyebrow.

Haechan pushes you back onto your back, giving you no warning before slamming into you. 

"Oh, my fucking god, Hyuck!" you cried, your nails painfully digging into his shoulders.

"You're so wet—shit. Pussy feels so fucking good." Haechan groaned, thrusting into you.

You roughly grabbed his hair, smashing your lips into his, and Haechan's pace started to pick up. He dropped his head to watch his cock slip into your heat easily, every time he eased out of you just to fill you up to the hilt again.

Haechan sat back on his haunches, still fucking into your messy pussy. Haechan was in awe of the sight beneath him. The way you tried to move your hips to match his movements but had a hard time keeping up because of the pleasure fogging up your mind.

With his hands still on your waist, Haechan pulled you up to sit in his lap, sinking down even further on his cock.

You threw your head back, moaning shamelessly. You held onto him, gyrating your hips against his. Haechan grabbed your ass, lifting you up before letting you sink back down, the tip of his cock brushing your sweet spot.

"You're so hot," Haechan's eyes were glossed over as he looked at you. Your walls clenched around him tightly, humming in agreement as you studied his face.

You gripped his chin between your fingers, squishing his cheeks together before you planted a kiss on his lips.

"I want—I need more. Please, Haechan," you pant against his lips. 

The corners of his lips curled up mischievously. Haechan pushed you back onto the bed, leaving you empty. He then manhandled you onto your hands and knees. You kept your hips raised in the air as he easily slipped back in, bottoming out. You moaned into the sheets, gripping them, feeling Haechan's cock stretch you in the most delicious ways.  

"Fuck, angel," he rasped.

Haechan's fingers gripped your body, bruisingly tight as you matched his rhythm and moved your hips, your skin meeting in sharp slaps each time. Haechan grabbed your ass, spreading your cheeks and watching your sopping pussy swallow his cock. You could feel the slick dripping down your thighs, probably making a mess on Haechan as well. 

"You feel so fucking good, Hyuck," your words were muffled by bedding beneath you.

"Poor baby. So desperate to cum," he started stroking your clit, making you squirm. "Good thing you have me to help make you feel better," he pressed a kiss below your jaw.

"Unfortunately, you're the only thing that can," you tease.

Haechan scoffs as if he took real offense to those words. But oh, was it the best decision you've made all night.

He forced your head back into the pillows, deepening your back's arch and fucking you relentlessly.

"Yes, yes, yes. P-Please—Haechan!"

"You feel that? How good I'm making you feel. Have I already fucked you dumb, sweetheart?" he said in a condescending tone, "What was it you said before?" he asked. Haechan knew you didn't have half a mind to think about anything from even two seconds ago, too consumed in the euphoric feeling of him blowing your back out.

"Hyuck..." was all you could say, and he proudly smiled.

"That's right, baby. Say my name. Remind yourself who's fucking you this good."

"Please, Hyuck. I'm gonna cum."

"Me too, angel." He snaked his hand down between your legs, rubbing your puffy clit. 

You cried into the sheets. The sound of your ass slapping against his pelvis mixed with your muffled whines and Haechan's breathy moans. 

"Let me feel that pretty pussy cum around me," he said in your ear. 

Your pussy had a vice grip on his cock, nearing the edge. Your walls pulsed around his length, your legs shaking from the intensity of your orgasm. 

"Haechan, Haechan, Haechan," you chanted his name, riding out the wave of euphoria. 

If it wasn't for Haechan still holding your hips up, your body would have collapsed to the bed. He kept pounding into your heat, your pussy enveloping his cock as he fucked his cum into you. 

You whined, feeling overstimulation begin to overtake you, but Haechan continued to lazily thrust into you. His cum started to leak out of you, dripping down his length and your thighs. 

Haechan's cock finally went soft, leaving you empty, the sticky white substance now coating your folds and inner thighs. 

Haechan rolled you over onto your back, looking into your glassy eyes. The tension filling the room was only accompanied by your heavy breathing.

You brushed his hair out of his eyes before slapping him across the face. Haechan cursed and rubbed his stinging cheek.

"Sorry," you apologized, "Had to make sure."

"Well?"

"Spell's broken," you tell him, sitting up.

"How do you know?"

"Cause I can go back to feeling like I hate you without being in pain again."

Haechan laughs, "You still hate me?" 

"Maybe just a little less," you smile before you kiss him. Haechan wasn't expecting it, but he kissed you back immediately.

"Thank you."

"Are you sure I'm not already dead and in heaven?" 

You laughed, "I'm pretty sure."

. . .

"You sure you're okay?" Jaemin asks over the phone. 

"Yeah."

"And Haechan?" 

You heard Haechan singing in the shower and bit back a smile.  

"He's fine too," you say. "You think the witch knew what she was doing?"

"Of course, she did. She could probably sense the sexual tension between you two the moment you were in town."

"What are you saying? That that was her own twisted way of playing matchmaker?"

"She's a pretty powerful love witch, that's pretty much her specialty."

"If I didn't know any better, I would think you guys sent us here on purpose."

"We did. Just so you guys reconcile whatever was going on between you. But none of us thought this would've happened. You two could've died."

"But we didn't."

"Yeah, you didn't. What're you gonna do about that now anyway?"

"That is something we can figure out on the drive back." 

a/n: now i’m ngl i may have self inserted a little too hard with this one except we actually have a happier ending 🙂

[thatdebaterguy]

Astoundingly flawed logic

So riddle me this, if Israel is committing genocide with the intent to kill all Palestinians

And has one of the best global militaries, with a budget surpassing Palestine's entire gdp

And even has nuclear weapons

Then how is Palestine still here, how is Gaza still here, how are millions of Palestinians in one of the most densely packed areas of the entire world, all still here. It literally does not fit the definition. There isn't intention to kill. It's the opposite, they've warned Gazans before bombing.

Whether in some cases they haven't warned, or if the civilians just lied, it's a war, they have no obligation to warn for bombing, the Brits and Americans sure as hell didn't warn Dresden, a bombing that killed 20,000 in a single strike, which is very close to the Palestinian civilian death toll, and yet Dresden wasn't a genocide too. Wanna know why? We didn't want to kill every single German. One interesting thing though, when Israel was founded and invaded by the Arab nations around it, what were their intentions? To block the existence of Israel.

Most likely by eradicating all Israeli civilians and soldiers in the area, to remove any possible claim Israel had over the area. Speaking of claims, Jewish people who founded Israel had lived in the area long before some of the Arab settlers had. Some of the Islamic Caliphates are regarded as the most successful settler colonial efforts in history, spreading to Spain, Morocco, the Turkic Steppes, and settling the region of Palestine too, and this all happened after the Jewish people who had founded the city of Jerusalem. There were I think around 400,000 Jews living there before Israel was created, maybe a bit less but around there. It's not a colonial state, in fact it was freed after being a British colony, no different to the way other British colonies were freed. South Africa used to include modern Namibia, but those two states separated, yet I don't hear anyone bickering about Namibia's right to exist. I know it goes vastly deeper than that comparison, but it still somewhat works.

Anyway, let's say you're living in modern Afghanistan as a woman, where your rights are being actively crushed by a group who used to be designated as a terror group before ruling the country. Are you going to try live your life peacefully and avoid being executed over the simplest things, or going into the streets, protesting, then getting beheaded. I think 99% of people would rather keep living to fight another day, than die a martyr. That's why they're Martyrs, they're the rare 1%, people like the ones who helped hide Anne Frank, or hid Jewish people in their homes. I strongly oppose Hamas, but you don't see me flying over to Palestine protesting against them, same way you don't go over to Israel to protest the Israeli government, or go live with Palestinians to show solidarity. Knowing something is evil and wanting it to end without knowing how, and acting against that evil, are both being against it, one is just activism, the other is opposition. Not many people wanna be activists when the crime is death. Is that enough proof for you?

[randombush3]

Blame It on the Dog.

florence pugh x reader

summary: you make flo a little annoyed when watching her cook

words: 1978 (short 💔)

warnings: none! (god can u believe it)

notes: requested by @kassies-take - thank you so much. this was so peaceful and relaxing to write.

also i’m an awful cook so don’t ask me what she was making

Having proper meals has never been your top priority in life. Earning enough to put food on the table, yes. Eating the food on the table? That could wait.

Then your girlfriend came along, begged you to live with her, and decided she’d be your personal chef until the day you die (and she’d run into oncoming traffic before allowing the cause of death to be malnutrition). Breakfast is always fresh and healthy and too good not to eat, and as lunch can be on-the-go and busy, a hearty dinner finishes your day. Like bookends.

Sometimes, Flo gets lonely and talkative – usually when you’re not around to sit at the table and nod along to her monologue – hence her personal cooking show on her Instagram. It goes smoothly because she has no distraction, bar the scavenging dog and her impeccable music taste (which you don’t tend to like because it gets wacky and you have enough strangeness in your life through her), and her followers keenly watch every part to her lengthy story because they love her and the food looks good.

The food is good; so good that she frequently doesn’t have to make dessert.

“Y/n,” Flo grumbles, prodding you with a jittery index. You recline on the sofa, having been lazing around ever since you stepped through the front door.

She’s been on edge recently. Nothing’s come your way, but you can sense that something (or someone) has worsened her general anxiety and caused her to become restless and, frankly, a little irritating.

“Hm?” You open your eyes. “You okay?” She nods, fingers playing with the bow of her apron, rubbing the fabric between them. “Oh, is dinner ready?”

“No, I was just about to start on it,” explains Flo, perching on the arm of the sofa, fingers now walking up and down your forearm.

“You seem antsy.”

“Do I?”

You raise your eyebrows, wondering why she’s in denial. She’s quite upfront most of the time, and you say, “yeah, you do. You look like you’re about to stress-cook a five course meal.” She slides down the arm, landing lightly in your lap. “What’s wrong?”

“Just people.” Ah. Rumours. Normal things. “I’m going to film a Cooking With Flo – I was just telling you in case you wanted to watch.” Two years and you’ve never seen the entirety of your personal cooking show. You might catch the end if you get to the kitchen early.

You press a kiss to her lips. “Sounds fun. I’ll be your first live human audience.” Billie barks from the other side of the sofa, where she has been matching your mood and napping on a handmade cushion Flo picked up when filming in Morocco. “Sorry!” She turns away from the both of you in a huff, and Flo calls after her saying she cherishes her company more than yours. “I’m going to push you off me in a second.”

Dramatically, she groans. “My girls hate me, do they? Good thing millions of people can be my friends instead.”

“Fuck off,” you joke, wrapping your arms around her waist before she can saunter off. You bury your face in her hair, breathing in the smell of a shampoo that was yours originally but stolen and carted off round the globe by her. “I love you. I know you’re stressed.”

“Y/n…” She hates trying to be cross with you because she hates failing. She relaxes into you. “I’m just going to cook it out. Are you coming or are you both going to be couch potatoes?”

You pat Billie’s bum. “We forgive you for making us compete for your love and affection.” Billie grunts in agreement. “But my associate here is demanding cuddles as compensation. Specifically, cuddles for me – oh, that’s so kind of you, Billie – involving a kiss or two or three, and maybe some state of undress. Scandalous, but you have to pay the price.”

“And this is all Billie’s idea?” she teases, turning around and straddling you. If you had been looking at the dog, you would have seen her roll her eyes. “Definitely not yours.”

“No, I would never ask for that. I think Florence Pugh is a bad kisser.”

She frowns, standing up. “I’m never kissing you again. Billie gets all my love from now on.” To top it off, the dog follows her as she exits the room, tail wagging like she knows she is suddenly number one. You trail after them because there’s nothing else for you to really do.

It makes your girlfriend quite smug to see you observing her every move, staring when her hips sway to a song she’s only playing because she knows you hate it. The music barely registers in your mind as you settle your gaze on her, only tuning into her commentary to keep you grounded. Otherwise you’d probably pounce on her.

Deciding to satisfy an alternative hunger (she’s adamant that you can’t sleep with her until you retract your statement from earlier, but you’re a stubborn woman and refuse), you reach across the worktop for the chopping board, pulling it towards you. Flo is in her own world, filming what’s happening on the stove, talking to her phone. You wash the chopped cherry tomatoes down with the margarita she made both of you, sliding the board back to a similar position it was in when she left, pretending you’ve been sitting there doing nothing the whole time her back has been turned.

“I’ve prepped the–” Your guilty expression and the sudden decline in tomatoes cause her to stop recording. “Did you eat them?” You shake your head. Shamelessly.

“Billie ate them.”

She glances doubtfully at the dog, who is eating her own dinner, then back to you. “Billie jumped onto the worktop, and, despite the fact she doesn’t like tomatoes, gobbled half of them up?”

“I guess so.” You waggle your finger at the very innocent dog; no wonder she naps by Flo’s feet more often than yours.

Flo furrows her eyebrows, amusement slowly tugging the corner of her lips into a soft smile. She continues recording. “Sorry about that. I prepped the tomatoes, but someone ate half right from the chopping board. If you ever find yourself with a food thief in your kitchen, the best way to recover is to make yourself an even stronger margarita and reassure your dog that you don’t believe one word of the blame placed on her.” She looks directly at you.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Right, Y/n.” She rolls her eyes at the camera, using your arm on the worktop as a stand for her phone. You whisper to the microphone that she trusts you very little and that it is perfectly realistic for Billie to steal food from you.

The next time you take something is when she bends to put the vegetables in the oven, handily facing away and very focused.

She leaves the feta out, temptingly right in front of you. You have a whole shelf stacked with packs and packs of it in the fridge so you resolve that it won’t hurt.

Eating feta while looking at her bum (her jeans are very flattering – you remind yourself that she’s your girlfriend of three years and that you are very much allowed to stare) would be a perfect evening if she didn’t seem to still have a ‘songs Y/n hates’ playlist on shuffle. Once she’s finished her detailed explanation of why she’s now baking everything in the oven, she ends the video, uploading it to her story and catching you in the act. You freeze

“Caught feta-handed.”

Her face is so serious that you laugh, ultimately choking on the cheese and needing a long gulp of your cocktail to fix it.

“I would never eat your ingredients. I’m telling you that it’s Billie!” The dog is on the other side of the room. You pout at her. She ignores you and updates everyone on what’s baking.

“The cherry on top will be this white wine sauce that my friend showed me a few weeks ago.” It’s a good sauce. “Then all we’ve got to do is take everything out of the oven, toss the salad and add the feta, and we’re done!”

Her glass is empty, and so is yours, so you grab the bottle of tequila from the cupboard and start measuring things out in the cocktail shaker. You mix the drink and give Flo hers in a glass chilled from the freezer, kissing her cheek before returning to your seat. You groan once you get there, asking how long she’s going to be. You are so hungry.

“Y/n, can I use this one?” She holds up a bottle of Delas Freres. A sixty pound bottle. She makes faces at the camera while you decide.

“Do we have another bottle?” She shakes her head. “I mean, Mum gave it to you, so it’s your choice.”

“Guys,” she says, addressing her millions of friends, “this wine is one of my favourites, but if you don’t want to use your prized white in the sauce, you could easily use something else. But I’m gonna bung it in – Y/n’s mum loves me and will get me another bottle.”

You took Flo to meet your parents a month into seeing her. They used to FaceTime you to check in, now they only call your girlfriend. It’s okay because her family would much rather have you stay over.

She has far too much trust in you, because you drink a sixth of the bottle the minute it’s open and her attention is on something else. By now, she really should be expecting it but her mouth still forms an ‘o’. “Y/n!” She’s slightly offended now. “Why am I cooking if you’d rather eat everything raw?”

When Flo gets cross with you – which is rarely something super serious – she folds her arms and furrows her brows and sits in a hip; a perfect replica of her mother. You can see her prepare her war stance, eyes widening. She settles into an upset frown, over exaggerated for sure, and you exhale in relief. Thankfully it won’t be your last breath.

You make a big show of enjoying the food once she’s finished, not being able to bear the glint of actual hurt in her eyes. Part of you is convinced she’s acting, but you’re trying to make it up to her just to be sure. You might have taken your teasing a little too far. You can fix this.

“I’m not going to touch you no matter how many times you moan.” You swallow your water quickly, nearly choking; it’s a close call. “I know the food is delicious. You know the ingredients are delicious.”

“I was hungry.” She waits. “And thirsty.”

“You are definitely thirsty.” A euphemism. She’s proud of herself for that one.

You decide to change the topic slightly, knowing that something’s going to be slammed on the table in either direction that this current chat is going. (One is a world where she forgives you, the other is where she does the opposite.) “Has the response been good so far?” Your fork clatters against your polished-off plate. There’s a slight smirk of satisfaction creeping onto her lips. “Don’t be so pouty.”

“I am not being pouty!” You laugh. “And the response has been excellent, thank you very much. Lots of nice things said about my cooking.”

Her phone sits on the worktop. You grab it on your way back from putting both your plates in the sink, unlocking the device and going onto Instagram.

A few people have commented on your mouse-like tendencies.

You snap a picture of her pouty/confused/entertained expression, adding it to her story captioned: ‘she doesn't like it when cooking with flo becomes eating with Y/n’.

tags: @pewpughpew @ridlz @jeyramarie @flosbelova @kassies-take @delfiore @yelenabelovasbxtch @sophie-xox @slut4milfs69 @sunshadesnrainbowz

[iberiancadre]

I've seen people (righfully) focus on the US and UK when talking about Yemen and, after all, they are the ones bombing a country for opposing genocide. But all of this can only happen with the consent of every European member of NATO.

In Spain's case, for example, in order to get to the Red Sea the imperialist naves have to pass through our waters. The state government can be as progressive as they want, and they can protest to Netanyahu and ask for a ceasefire. The social-democratic government may want to dress itself in progressive language and pass patchwork laws that in practice don't change anything, but they cannot change their actions.

They continue to lease the military bases at Rota and Morón to the US, enabling them to use these bases as a staging ground for whichever imperialist aggression they like, whether it's Palestine, Ukraine or Yemen. They still sold 44 million euros in armament to Israel at most 6 months before October 7th. This is the money with which they fund their welfare state. With wealth extracted from the global south and from the myriad of arms sales to the perpetrators of a genocide

I don't care what Sánchez says to Netanyahu because every day transport planes and fighters fly over my house to go bomb whichever brown child they like. I don't care however many women sit on the cabinet if Gaza lost access to menstrual products months ago. I don't care how committed they claim to be with progressive causes when they continue to ignore Morocco's forceful colonization of the Saharawi. I do not care about their progressive-conservative dichotomy because they rule for the spanish bourgeoisie, not the working class.

This is true for every imperial core country in this godforsaken continent. Don't give them even a second of gratitude, when this genocide only happens because they enable it

[beardedmrbean]

There something about the French Revolution fetishizers that confuses me. Should we tell them that the France colonized the living fuck out of the Middle East and Africa. And also been connected to several assassinations of African countries heads of state?

The French empire was some of the most evilest motherfuckers on the planet with the likes of British empire. But Hitler just happened to kick off ww2 so the French and British use that to hide their atrocities in textbooks.

Not saying all French people are evil, but we really need a course on the evil shit the French empire did. Why do leftists romanticize the French Revolution? The evil they hate just stop wearing crowns and switch to top hots.

UK hasn't managed to keep that kind of thing down so well, France still has a few "colonial" territories left too, one of them I popped up a bit back island with about 200,000 inhabitants that overwhelmingly voted to stay French, doing otherwise was economic suicide.

But as for hiding their sins, not sure if the hiding was done on purpose or if it was just a case of it being overshadowed by people that would rather bitch about the US and UK, odd since many of the issues in the middle east are a direct result of the UK and France going behind the US's back so they could do what folks consistently bag on the US for. AKA they wanted that oil.

Back to fun with France, the year was 2015 and I promise there's a point.

How dare they do that with a "traditional" dish

Yes manipulation of the "traditional" recipe for "traditional" Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich.

They replaced the "traditional" Vietnamese crispy baguette bread with non Vietnamese ciabatta bread.

Because the baguette is a traditional Vietnamese food steeped in thousands of years of culture and not something that was brought over by the French when the whole area was known as French Indochina and its capital was Saigon.

French left the area in 1954, so not too long ago.

Food is a screwy thing from a cultural standpoint, potatoes will forever be associated with Ireland even though they didn't exist outside of south america until the age of exploration. Don't even try to figure out who invented hummus just eat it, sausages and dumplings exist everywhere the contents are the only thing that changes.

Fortune cookies were brought to America by Japanese immigrants and managed to get associated with Chinese food because of WW2 and prejudice. That's one story at least.

Tangent over, maybe one day I'll go into how yoga is actually Dutch tho.

but ya, for some reason people forget how big the French empire was, it included Mexico at one point even now it's pretty much just French Guyana, it's weird really you'll hear more about the Belgian Congo than French Morocco, granted France didn't treat the people of Morocco nearly as bad as Leopold did the people of the Congo so there is that.

Spain still has a little corner of North Africa that's connected to Morocco I think it is, that's about all they have left of their empire other than one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Wildest thing about France in all of this is how many times the place shifted power, topple the monarchy still got all the colonies, first republic falls to napoleon, still got the colonies, 2nd republic pops in still got the colonies, here comes napoleon again, colonies, 5 republics, 2 empires, and a hereditary monarchy, oop can't forget the vichy nazi collaborators either, Petan should have already been dead imho but that's a different story.

Imagine being a French colonial governor when the revolution started, managing to keep your post and ride the whole thing out then the republic that was formed falls to Napoleon, then the Burbons pop back in for a few months, what a mess.

This was long but I hope entertaining in a way and maybe enlightening too, I could keep rambling like this lot of interesting things and my brain functions like a wikipedia tree when it starts in on things like this so I have to force myself to stop.

[mountinez]

was tagged by the lovely hala @mchiti thank you dear! <3

name: nikka (pronounced nee-ca);

sign: taurus;

time: around 9 pm (in case you want to make my astrological chart, gemini is my asc and sagittarius my moon lol);

fave band / artist: impossible to choose one because different artists mean different things to me at different parts of my life so yeah, i'm cheating here: the killers, milky chance, sufjan stevens, stromae, linkin park and probably twenty one pilots too.

last movie: little bone lodge (took me a while but i finally watched this horror... can't say if i liked it much though);

last show: rewatching 'the umbrella academy' my beloveds of life. this show means everything to me.

when i created this blog: oh idk exactly, it has been quite a while. i guess something something 2013/14? but i've never been active because i was always on twitter.

other blogs: i have one for fics and one for movies and soooon i'll make one for the charles drawings i've been making. already said he is my inspirational muse, right?

followers: had to check but yeah this is the number.

do i interact with all these people? no! do all these people access my blog? also no. it's just a number because i've been here for a while. also i'm sure 50 of those are the porn bots i didn't block yet.

average hours of sleep: it depends but usually 5 hours. my sleep schedule is no good i'm sure.

instruments: i had piano classes when young so i can play it. i also was part of an orchestra during my school days, so i played clarinet and melodica. i think i can still pull both to this day tbh, i never forget.

dream job: well i write for horror games and this is the job i always wanted tbh. i love video games since i'm very young and oh, i might complain but i'm actually very happy. i waiting long years to be selected at this and yeah, dreams come true. but to give an answer, i DREAM to screen write for a movie some day. timothee chalamet, wait for me i'll screenwrite for you kind.

dream trip: i'm quite lucky because i went to mexico and i've traveled through huge part of latin america, so both dream trips for me for family reasons. i still want to go to a lot of places. actually been thinking about some places like morocco and turkey lately, that i've never thought about going to before. but my dream trip for real is burning man. i feel like I NEED to go to this festival. maybe it's not the time yet but one day, one day.

fave song atm: mon23 (1:3) by charles leclerc. well yeah i'm biased ok? what did y'all expect?

tagging: @cherishlaluna @pixeltori @write-the-stars @rossocorsaseb @alfaromeo-and-juliet @charlesluvr @sunshinesebby @mebiselfandi @lizablackthorn @usersewis @ @crimsonicarus @never-looked-so-good @sedicii

tagging some of you for the first time but only if you want, ofc. NO PRESSURE <3

[bu1410]

Since TUMBLR won't allow to post more than 4,500 carachters I'm obliged to put an additional post in order to complete the report of

Ch. I - August 1975 - Italy - Tunisia – Algeria – Morocco – Spain – France – Italy.

BENALMADENA COSTA - SPAIN Luxurious residence, swimming pool right in front of the entrance to the apartment, we were already looking forward to the two weeks of complete relaxation after so much travelling. We were close to the fence, it was very early, and my friend uncle's family were certainly still sleeping.

''Let's try to guess who owns the clothes hanging out to dry, right in front of the apartment windows'' I told Gianluigi. . Then suddenly something unexpected happens: the door of the apartment opens and an elderly lady comes out, dressed with a nightgown: she didn't look like Mrs. Proserpio at all! We look at each other bewildered:

''Maybe the apartment booked was not available, and the management assigned another one?'' It was my friend guess.....

''Well .......it happens sometimes...'' I reply. At this point we went to Residence reception in order to ask where the Proserpio family is staying. The kind receptionist consults a list and than, with a smile says:

''Disculpa, but Senora Proserpio called me' and canceled the apartment reservation'' -WHAAAAT??

Yes, asi es…….disculpa Senor…. Disconcertion - great - mine and Gianluigi's……….also because August 15th in the Costa del Sol - as in many other parts of Europe is the peak of the summer season. ''Do you have a free apartment for the next 15 days''? We ask hopefully. ''Forgive me, but the residence is complete''.

And this was the phrase we heard repeated from the ''1267 hotels'' where we asked for a room for the whole holiday, along the coast from Benalmadena to Torremolinos and surrounding areas. Desperate, but not defeated, we resorted to ''Plan B'': the tent! We had brought, just in case, the tent purchased a year earlier from Bertoni Camping for the holiday in Riccione '68. And now it was good to have it! We found a campsite but? Worn out! And what do we do? We installed our tent just beside the campsite entrance, so we could use the campsite services without paying a pesetas! In short, a reckless life, just a week, to allow the mid-August crowd to leave and vacate some apartments. We found an apartment just a week later in Benalmadena: a decent residence, but at this point we certainly couldn't be picky. Having found a roof for the day (we used to spent the night somewhere else) we only had to find a place to refresh ourselves in the evening, and once again our lucky stars met us: we discovered el ''Restaurante de Raoul! ''. He was an Argentinian by origin, married to an Italian woman, and domiciled in Biella, Italy. For the summer of 1975 he had rented a small restaurant on the road between Benalmadena and Torremolinos, and delighted the customers in a mix of Argentine, Spanish and Italian cuisine. The female cook was Spanish, and Roul had brought his twelve-year-old son from Italy, but not his wife, since she was managing a Bed & Breakfast in Biella. It was our luck: not only did the cook prepare us timbales of macaroni, delicious fish baked in foil, but we had become friends with Roul: so off to the aperitifs and sangria that flowed like rivers! And at the end of dinners Raoul was always asking us:

What do you want to pay??!!

In short, it was a lucky step from the unfortunate surprise of the Mr. Proserpio's non-arrival and we had few ''dias feliz''. By the way, we learned more about the reasons for Mr. Proserpio's giving up, once we returned home. They had arrived - it seems - all the way to Alicante, where they had had mechanical problems with the Opel Rekord they were traveling with. Hence the (absurd) decision to turn around, return to Italy, and cancel the reservation of the apartment in Benalmadena (did we recover the deposit? No, that was lost too…) Until the end of August nothing special to report, just a quiet life, sea-pool-sleepless nights, big moguls in the evening and revelry chez Roul. Then, inevitably, the day of returning to Italy arrived, and a request from Raoul literally left us speechless: - Guys, you know that I trust you, right? - Yes Raoul… - Well I ask you a favor: my son has to start school again soon, and I instead will have to stay here at least until the end of September - So? - If you agree, could you take him with you to Italy? The car is big, and there are only two of you…. - Well…yes……why not? This will only make us take a detour towards Biella, but in a journey of over 2,000 km it's a small thing in the end…… In truth we had decided to accept, given that, as it was the end of the holiday, money was scarce. So we were counting on the help that would certainly come from Raoul, since he would surely provide his son with a sum of money for a trip of at least 3 days……. (or not?). The moment we start our journey back to Italy, it always brings mixed feeling: returning home, seeing relatives and friends..... but also sadness for the end of the holidays, and the awareness that the easy life of the Saniard's was over. And we'll have to wait a whole year to the next holiday…. We left Benalmadena in the morning (not early because Gianluigi let's say he wasn't an ''early bird' guy) and the first stop was Valencia, some 800 km away, where we arrived in the evening. A drab city then, later the European Community funds and investments for the America's Cup sailing will transform it into a more pleasant place. That evening we choose a typical Valencian restaurant, because it is true that the city was not so nice like other Spain's cities, but the Valencian cuisine is excellent, starting with the famous ''Paella a la Valenciana''. The restaurant is called El Pederniz, typical local cuisine. Great feast of seafood appetizers, cold and hot, then paella para todos, and finally ''Arnadi'', a typical Valencian postre, a mixture of pumpkin and sugar, cooked in the oven and subsequently decorated with almonds and pine nuts. All washed down with excellent Blanco Bodega Reto.

We pay, but we were certain that Paolino (Raoul's son) will have enough money in store to guarantee us a night in a hotel nearby, but..... INSTEAD NO!!! After leaving the restaurant and returning to the car, while we were discussing which hotel to choose for the night, Gianluigi asked the fateful question that we should have asked BEFORE departure: - Paolino how much money did your dad give you? - Nothing…….. - ……….Silence……. - How….nothing? - Yes, says Paolino after a hesitation, Dad said that you would take care of everything…….'' - Machecazzzzzz……………..(Italian bad word) And now we were in the sh*****… if we had known we wouldn't have spent all those pesetas in the best restaurant of Valencia. But than it was like that.... cursing Raoul and sending him all the insults in Spanish we know, I started the car and go out of Valencia, took the motorway again, and then stopped at the first service area and slept in the car. Lucky for us, the Citroen DS19 has a paddle shift and front-wheel drive, so it was equipped with seats which, when lowered, form a comfortable bed. And this is how we slept, and how we would sleep next night too. After a trip in which we spoke little, we then took Paolino to Biella - his mother was very happy to see him again after more than two months of absence. The kind Lady also hosted us for lunch (goodness of her…) after which we set off for the last stage, towards our hometown. (sigh)

Benalmadena - Spain

[averagejoesolomon]

WELCOME TO THE KIDS. God, we are not ready for this installment, I'm so serious. Matt and Rachel are going to kill us all. To say nothing of the upcoming spycraft and general ass-kickery. Thank you for reading this with me. If you're new here, you can read Full Circle in full on Ao3. Enjoy!

Chapter Two

Before Matt boards a plane to New York, he pastes an OTS-issued mustache to his upper lip and switches the passports in his backpack.

There are no direct flights from Washington DC to Moscow. The reasons for this span far and wide, but the most significant factor also happens to be the simplest—sheer distance. At nearly five-thousand miles as the crow flies, there ain’t a whole lot of civilian aircraft that can make the flight in one go, to say nothing of the fact that neither country is especially amicable to the idea of direct contact. As part of a global effort to reduce the friction between two nuclear superpowers, Morocco offers up its services as the geographical and political buffer between the two destinations, its liminal and atmospheric nightlife acting as the ideal backdrop for the world’s transfers, layovers, and delays.

The trip usually takes eighteen hours if flown straight through, but the gin joints can eat into a full day if given the chance. For his part, Matt’s latest trip takes thirty-seven hours.

But he can’t blame the bars this time around because he doesn’t stop in Morocco, and hasn’t since he picked up a Soviet tail in the CMN terminal last spring. For every US intelligence agent flying through Casablanca, there are five Russian officers waiting on the ground with direct orders to identify and apprehend incoming westerners. The behavior has become too predictable. The Soviets have become too prominent. As Joe puts it: an agent in Morocco is an agent in the grave.

So Matt begins with a trip to New York, then London, then Istanbul, where he switches passports again to fly to Dubai, so he can finally make his way up to Moscow. He survives off of complimentary peanuts and ginger ale, stopping only at the occasional newsstand for the latest local headlines and a fresh packet of M&Ms—one of the few candies sold consistently across international borders. Vigilant airport hours are balanced with the relative safety of the sky, and his only sleep happens alongside the low, rattling drone of jet engines in his ear.

By the time he lands in the Soviet Union, he’s already added a goatee and traded his honey blond hair for a bleached wig that more closely resembles his newly assumed Slavic heritage. After deboarding, he identifies the nearest bathroom to the gate and enters the last stall on the left. As instructed by his CO, he runs his fingers along the wall until he finds a ridge in the tile. He carefully peels back a damn near invisible panel, revealing the compartment Langley promised him. There’s a change of clothes. A pair of contacts. A note written on evapopaper: E ibvltn aely ldrm oor we uti I. The key to this particular skip code was already given to him in New York, which helps him decipher the message that a driver will meet him in Lot 2. Thank God he doesn’t need to hail a taxi.

He drops the note into the toilet bowl and watches it melt from the edges inward. After changing into the provided outfit, he silently shreds his old travel clothes to be discarded in various trash cans on his way to the parking lot. Finally, he pops both contacts in, replaces the panel, and flushes the toilet in case anyone is listening. When he approaches the sink to wash his hands, unfamiliar blue eyes blink back at him from where his own brown eyes ought to be.

Between the sporadic sleep and the changing time zones, he has no idea what the local time is, but the dark sky narrows his possibilities to either very late or very early. The weight of travel saturates every muscle, every joint, every step, but he can’t afford to turn off his senses and slip lazily into the night—not in Moscow. Never in Moscow. After five consecutive flights in less than two days, the hard part has only just begun.

The Soviet Union has always been dangerous to western agents, but the capital has only gotten more hostile in Matt’s time as an operative. Last summer alone, ten US informants were executed in the city, including two of Matt’s most reliable contacts. In the following winter, a handful of Russian specialists left Langley for a field mission and didn’t come home. The last time Matt was here, he met with a Circle informant named Omar who offered to talk in exchange for medication not available in Russia, but easily acquired at a US pharmacy with a forged prescription. Omar is dead now, too, and Matt suspects an assassin finished him off before the illness did. These days, Moscow is a loaded spring trap ready to snap at the slightest tick in the wrong direction, deadly enough that even a skilled Pavement Artist stands to don a disguise or two.

Despite the ocean between them, Joe’s voice rings through Matt’s head. It’s always strongest in Moscow, imploring him to pay attention. Notice things. This is the sort of place where it’s best to lean into strengths, so Matt jumps in with the rest of the red-eyed passengers as the mob progresses through customs, down to baggage claim, and toward ground transportation. From his pace to his posture, he strives to put on a seamless Soviet appearance.

When he reaches the lot, he identifies a license plate number he was instructed to memorize, then enters the backseat of the boxy beige Lada. The driver doesn’t look back when he says, “Nice weather we’re having, yes?” in the sort of thick, Russian dialect that only natives can pull off.

Matt replies in his own practiced Russian. “I hear rain is imminent,” he says. “But I seem to have forgotten my umbrella at home.”

Satisfied with the exchange, the driver shifts gears and squeezes out of his parking spot, working his way toward the main city. By now, Matt knows the streets of Moscow as well as he knows the streets of Hay Springs, so he pays close attention to the route, just in case the driver has been compromised in the past forty-eight hours. The two of them do not speak, wary of bugs. They do not exchange glances, wary of pinprick cameras sewn into buttons. Instead, they embrace their existence as total strangers, not eager to leave any impression of an alliance.

This suits Matt just fine. That is, until seventeen minutes later, when the driver takes a right-hand turn away from the city center, then another.

In this business, in this part of the world, two right turns are a surefire signal to any veteran agent that something significant is about to happen, though it’s impossible to predict whether he’s looking at a positive or negative outcome until the moment actually passes. That’s probably why Joe’s voice is in Matt’s head again, anticipating the worst and providing Matt with escape plans. 

The sidewalks look reasonably empty, easy enough to run.

The rear doors appear to be unlocked from the inside. 

If the doors are jammed shut from the outside, Matt’s shoe has an iron wedge embedded in the rubber heel, which will help him kick through the window.

The driver isn’t armed, but if he makes a move for the glove box, Matt’s best option is to choke him from behind.

The little Lada pulls up to an alleyway tucked between high-rise apartments and a seemingly abandoned liquor store. There are no streetlights. No witnesses. The driver shifts the car into park and says, “You exit now.”

Risk assessment is a key component of any covert decision and, in that moment, Matt senses some serious risk waiting for him at the other end of that alleyway. At the same time, he also senses an even greater risk if he overstays his welcome with this native Russian driver who, by the way, has about a hundred extra pounds on him. Matt doesn’t need to be told twice. Hands up, he slowly exits the vehicle and prepares himself for the next piece of this rapidly evolving Moscow puzzle.

The instant Matt kicks the door shut and slings his bag back onto his shoulder, the Lada’s engine grinds into full gear with a squeal of the tires. He has officially run out of CIA instructions, but the good news is that he doesn’t have any time to doubt himself before his next priority makes itself apparent. The bad news is that his next priority should probably be to get away from the knife that was just pressed against his side.

The pointed end of the blade pokes along the muscle just above his hip. It hasn’t cut through his shirt yet, but one wrong move could change that and much more. “This is a nice surprise,” Matt says, sticking with Russian in a rushed attempt to keep his cover intact. “Where are we going?”

The answering Russian is good—excellent, even—but it has the subtle lilt of someone who learned it as a secondary language. “Is that all it takes to best you? One knife to the ribs and you roll over completely?” It’s a woman’s voice, and one of the few commonalities between the CIA and the KGB is the rarity of female agents among their ranks. Plus, the hold on the knife is petite and graceful, belonging to someone who was taught to fence before she was taught to fight. Matt decides he’s not up against a Soviet agent, but this ain’t a friend either. Not yet.

Joe’s voice is telling him to fight, but Matt’s curious enough to say, “In my experience, the person with the knife usually gets to make all the rules.” He continues with Russian, hoping that the woman will respond in kind and give him a chance to identify the accent layered below. “And, by the way, if you’re aiming for my ribs, you’re about two inches too low.”

She doesn’t disappoint. British accent, maybe. Or Australian. It really is impressively subtle. “Bold thing to say to someone with a knife to your side,” she says. “Remarks like that could get you killed.”

Matt huffs. “Maybe one day, but not today.”

She twists the knife a little deeper, pricking a hole in his shirt. “And what makes you so certain?”

“Because if you were going to kill me, ma’am,” he says, “I’d already be dead.”

This is a bit of a risky gamble. Few things make one human want to kill another more than spite, and Matt’s gone ahead and welcomed it with open arms. His mama always did say he had a real way about him, when it came to tempting fate. Thankfully, this particular bet seems to pay off as the knife finally falls away from his torso. The woman grabs him by the back of his collar instead, pulling him deeper into the alleyway. “You’ve taken all the fun out of it,” she says with a sigh. “Come with me. And don’t ever call me ma’am—that much will get you killed.”

This is a joke. He thinks. And jokes are awfully promising in a place like Moscow. 

At the end of the alleyway, another car sits idling. No headlights. No plate lights. Matt can’t know for sure, but he reckons the brake lights are probably cut, too. In the presence of a car designed for a perfect covert getaway, Matt recognizes this moment for what it is—not an attack, but an escape. A high-tech game of keepaway.

In this particular instance, Matt is not an agent. Rather, he’s an asset in need of transportation, and he’s just met his new driver. When this stranger opens the rear door and shoves him inside, Matt knows that she’s putting on a show for potential onlookers. When she says, “Stay down,” he understands that his silhouette can’t be seen driving through the city. It is not enough to blend in—not when he could have a tail leftover from travel, not when the customs office could have bugged his backpack, not when a patrolman might recognize him from another visit into the city and assign a car to follow close behind. Agents have been known to disappear between an airport and a safe house, which means Matt is only safe if he becomes completely invisible. It’s the sort of thing that can only be accomplished with careful timing, meticulous planning, and an appreciation for redundancy, after redundancy, after redundancy.

In other words, this plan has Rachel Cameron written all over it.

He’s managed to avoid the thought for the past thirty-seven hours—and, frankly, for the entire two years before that—but the idea of being in the same city as Rachel after such a long time away has him wishing for a knife to his side instead. Knife wounds, at least, are an isolated pain with one clear source. They can be cleaned and stitched up. Bandaged and healed. This business with Rachel pings around all of his insides, taking turns with his stomach, his heart, his throat, his lungs. Rancid regret rots his brain and radiates down to every last muscle. Laying alone in the back of a stranger’s car, staring up at the velvet interior, Matt gets caught in a loop of all the things he wishes he’d said sooner.

He didn’t expect it to all stop.

He never should have made her cry.

He didn’t think it would last this long.

He lies, sometimes. He’s sorry he has to lie.

He’s doing good, good, good as often as he can.

Matt has always meant to say these things to her, but the longer they went without, the harder it got to call. Now it feels like too much time has passed to say any of it—like apologizing will only serve as a bitter reminder of just how deeply they tore into one another. Like acknowledging it will only reopen scars that have only just started to heal over.

The longer they drive, the more Rachel’s proximity presses down on his chest, squeezing him into the seat. He knows he ought to count the seconds. Track the turns. Try to get some sense of where they’re headed. But Rachel Cameron fills every last available space in his thoughts and, God almighty, she would lecture him straight to high heaven if she knew how distracted he was.

Once he’s fully worked himself up into a tightly wound ball of unspoken mistakes, the tires hit a gravel drive. The car takes an awfully long route over bumpy back roads and heavily forested hills, which is especially impressive given the lack of headlights, before it finally slows to a stop. His driver turns to the backseat, moonlight catching on the curve of her cheek, an icy white steak against smooth dark skin. “Congratulations on surviving your trip,” she says, and Matt thinks it might be an American southern drawl hiding beneath her Russian, with the way her vowels drawl. “You may leave. Your bag, however, must stay until morning.”

Matt sits upright, his silhouette visible to the night once more. “Sure thing,” he answers. “It’s like I said—the lady with the knife gets to make the rules.”

This earns him a subtle tick of the stranger’s lips. Matt latches onto the near smile and vows to turn into a broad, toothy grin sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, he’ll settle for the semi-charmed side-eye she casts his way, just before she opens the driver door. “Bloody Hell,” she says as she exits, finally switching to English. “She was right about you.”

British. Damn. Matt should have trusted his gut.

Wait. 

He bolts out of the backseat and jogs to catch up. “Right about me?” he echoes, falling back into his own American English. “Who was right about me—right about what?”

The Brit’s stride is incredibly long, and would probably be better suited to a runway than barely-used backwoods paths overgrown with weeds. Matt has to quicken his own pace just to keep up with her. “Never you mind,” she says. “This way.”

“Doesn’t seem right,” he tries, “that you get inside info on me when I don’t even know your name—”

“This way,” she says again. “Surely I don’t have to remind you, of all people, that Moscow’s trees have ears.”

Matt has spent a significant portion of his career listening to conversations picked up by precisely placed bugs exactly like the ones she speaks of now. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her the surrounding trees probably aren’t bugged—at least not in the way she expects. The Soviets wouldn’t go to the trouble of tagging each individual tree, only to have an opposing agent uncover them within an hour of arrival. The birds, foxes, and deer, however, are worth a second glance. 

Either way, she’s right. The forest is no place for introductions. Instead, he follows as she hikes toward a tiny cabin tucked between one hillside and another. It appears perfectly plain on the outside, built from cedar logs and a tin roof. Shrubs and pines surround the perimeter, and Matt knows from experience that these are probably prickly and unpleasant, making it difficult for any unwelcome guests to get too close. The curtains are drawn. The chimney is without smoke. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say no one was home. 

They cover their tracks as they go, wordless right up until they reach the door. Mind split in the dozens of different directions demanded by good countersurveillance, Matt forgets to be nervous until the last minute, when the Brit knocks in a unique, four-rap pattern, then opens the door. The cabin’s light flashes into the nighttime forest, so they waste no time stepping inside. 

A new voice greets them. Then again, this voice ain’t really new. Not to him. He’d know this particular voice anywhere, even if he spent years, decades, centuries away. “Grace?”

Rachel Cameron waits for them just inside, seated at a small dining table at the center of a small kitchen. Rachel Cameron has lists, and blueprints, and notes scattered all across the tabletop, the chairs, the linoleum, splayed across kitchen countertops, and taped to cabinets, and stuck to the refrigerator with little black magnets. Rachel Cameron scans one stack of papers with the pencil in her right hand, then another with a highlighter in her left. Rachel Cameron looks up. Rachel Cameron meets his gaze. Rachel Cameron sighs.

Genius. He’s always known the word applied to her, though it strikes him anew. Rachel’s brilliance is better experienced in small doses, when he can slowly acclimate himself to the raw appreciation of it. The last two years have robbed him of his resilience and it’s like he’s seeing her for the very first time all over again.

Except it only takes a single moment for all of their history to come rushing back, filling the room from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, until there’s no more space for words, or gestures, or glances. Rachel looks away first, eyes falling back to a set of blueprints, and Matt follows her lead.

Thankfully, their companion cuts through the silence without a trace of discomfort. “Found your boy,” she says, kicking off her shoes. “He’s cheeky, this one.”

Matt starts to protest with “Oh, I ain’t—” at the same time Rachel says, “He’s not my—”

They both stop, and wait, and wait some more. Neither of them meet the other’s eyes. When enough excruciating seconds have passed, Rachel starts again, and Matt lets her. “Thank you for picking him up,” she says. “I know you were eager to stay in tonight, but—”

“But we aren’t taking any chances with this op,” the Brit finishes. “Understood. Really, Rachel. Though I will say, I was a bit surprised at how easily this one came along with a complete stranger.”

It is as if all of Rachel’s years of etiquette training hit her at once. She brings her fingers to her forehead, suddenly remembering. “Ah, yes, sorry. You haven’t been introduced yet.”

“Not unless you count my putting a knife into his side,” she says.

Matt clears his throat, finally finding his words. “In this business, that’s sometimes the only introduction we get.”

The Brit smiles again. It’s still not the full grin he’s looking for, but it’s closer. “Quite right.”

Rachel studies the pair of them, analyzing something Matt can’t see. She squints back and forth between them, her face twisting into something sour, as though she’s not sure she likes what she’s looking at. “Right,” she says, slowly. Then, clears her throat. “Right, well, anyway. Grace, this is Matthew Morgan. Matthew, this is Grace Harris—”

“Baxter,” Grace cuts in.

“Right,” says Rachel, squeezing her eyes shut, remembering again. Matt’s not sure he’s ever seen Rachel forget anything, and he takes note of the fact that she’s gone and forgotten twice in a sixty-second span. A data point he’ll save for later. “Grace Baxter.”

Grace Baxter holds out her hand to shake, meeting Matt with a far firmer grip than he’s expecting. He feels a couple of knuckles pop in his own hand, and resists the urge to call out. “It’s so great to finally meet you,” she says. 

That’s an awfully interesting choice of words. “Finally?” says Matt.

Grace does not elaborate. “My husband is around as well, but he’s being a good little agent and sleeping off his jet lag while it’s still dark.”

Matt, who hasn’t had more than two hours of consecutive sleep since DC, can’t quite hide the longing in his reply. “Smart man.”

“Outrageously so. It’s infuriating, really,” Grace agrees. “You’ll see him at breakfast tomorrow, but in the meantime we should all probably join him. The last thing we need is four exhausted agents trying to run an op in Moscow.”

Matt has about a million more questions for Grace Baxter, but none of them form quite right in his head. A fog fills his brain, clouding all of his better thoughts, and he reckons Grace is probably right. He’s useless to Rachel like this, and she’ll be the first to call him on it. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he says. “Do you think we ought to run it by the boss, first?”

Grace risks a glance toward Rachel, who has already returned to one of her blueprints. With Rachel’s attention occupied, Matt steals this chance to take her in. Her clothes are worn with travel and her shoulders slump with a need for sleep. Some of her curls have escaped the denim scrunchie holding back the bulk of her hair, falling into her face, and Matt remembers all at once that Rachel never did know how to stop, once she got started.

“Good luck,” Grace scoffs. “I’ve been trying to get her to sleep for hours. Maybe you can talk some sense into her. She’s been planning since the moment she walked in.”

Matt ain’t got any sense that Rachel doesn’t already have ten times over, and he doesn’t dare pretend otherwise. Thankfully, Rachel recognizes this and provides an answer of her own. “I’ve been planning for the past three months,” she corrects, just as she circles something on the page. “I just wanted to get some last-minute changes down before bed.”

Grace turns back to Matt. “You see? Hopeless,” she says. “You two may do what you please, but I intend to get some sleep. Pulling off a fake kidnapping at the edge of Moscow is exhausting work, you know.”

With this, she sends a playful jab into Matt’s side. Only problem is, Grace’s idea of a playful jab is most people’s idea of a full-on elbow to the ribs, and Matt has to catch his breath afterward. It takes all of his might not to let out an unmanly yelp in front of these two women. “Right,” he gasps. “See you in the morning.”

“Thanks again, Grace,” Rachel calls, not looking up from her writing.

With a wave of her fingers, Grace disappears behind one of the two available doors and shuts it with a twist of the lock. Matt realizes too late that her absence leaves just him and Rachel. Alone. Together.

This silence just won’t do.

“Flights good?” he asks.

“Yes,” she answers, scribbling away.

“Abby okay?”

Scribble, scribble. “Yes.”

“You okay?”

Scribble, scribble. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason.” This is worse than the silence, actually. Out of questions and energy stores depleted, Matt decides that his only remaining move is one that has been employed by desperate agents for centuries—a retreat. “Listen, I think I might join the others and try to get some sleep. Unless you need me?”

Scribble, scribble. “Not yet.”

“Great,” he says. “Just point me to my bed and I’ll be on my way.”

Rachel’s pencil freezes mid-sentence. This is Matt’s first clue that something is horribly wrong, followed by the fact that her eyes finally meet his and this time, she doesn’t look away. “No.”

“Um.” Retreat, retreat, retreat. “Okay? I guess I can find it—”

But Rachel is already up, dashing through the sliver of a living room that hosts a single chair, a coffee table, and a throw blanket. When she reaches the second available door in the cabin, blood drains from her already pale face, turning it to an alarming, ashen white. Her voice is hollow and distant when she squeaks out a soft, “No, no, no.”

When it comes to Rachel, Matt is woefully out of practice, but it doesn’t take an expert to see the panic, and Rachel’s panic ain’t built the same way everyone else’s is. The sight of Rachel out of sorts is enough to get Matt’s heart really, truly racing. “Rachel, what are you—?”

She flicks on the light, and when Matt steps up behind her, he’s met with an instant understanding of the situation. “There’s only one other bed,” she says, spinning to face him as she explains. “Abby and I usually share. I booked the safe house when it was going to be the two of us, but between the hospital, and the flights, and coordinating our assets…” Sometimes Matt wonders how loud the inside of her head must be. He suspects she doesn’t realize when her words dissolve between inner and outer monologue. It takes some deciphering to understand her complete thoughts from start to finish. “I forgot. I’m so sorry, I forgot to account for the beds when I switched agents, I’ll take the couch.”

By couch, he supposes she means the ancient loveseat tucked away at the end of the bed. The leather cushions are scratched and cracked, and the silver shine of a spring peeks out from beneath the quilt laid across its back. A grease stain rests along the arm where agents have laid their heads for years and years before. Throughout his travels, Matt has seen more than his fair share of uncomfortable furniture and this one has serious potential to rank among the worst, but this is Rachel’s third strike at forgetfulness when she’s usually a home run hitter. She needs to sleep, and sleep well, and it simply won’t do, for her to sleep on that old thing. “I��ll take the couch.”

“No it’s my mistake, I should—”

“Rachel,” he says, and his hands fall to her shoulders out of habit. Out of familiarity. “I’m sorry, but there just ain’t no way I’m letting you take the couch.” She’s looking up at him with big, brown eyes. They’re glassy, and tired, and he spares Rachel her dignity by ignoring the twinge of tears sneaking into either corner. “She may be all the way in Nebraska now, but there’s no quicker way to get Joy Morgan to Moscow than if I let you sleep on that couch.”

She shakes her head. “Matthew—”

“I’m telling you,” he tries again. “My mama can sense that sorta thing, and believe me when I say she’ll shake down the entire agency to find this cabin and knock me six ways from Sunday, right upside my head.”

“You’re worried that your mother will intimidate CIA agents into disclosing the location of one of their most heavily protected safe houses?”

“You’ve never seen my mama when there’s a matter of chivalry at stake.”

“Matthew, I—” she interrupts herself, this time, freezing when she meets his gaze. “Your eyes,” she says, studying the intimate features of his face. “Your eyes are blue.”

This is outright nonsense, and even more proof that she needs to sleep. That is, until he remembers the light blue contacts. He blinks, as though he might be able to get rid of the color, because everything artificial seems so ridiculous now that he’s in the presence of someone who knows him to his core. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sorry.”

With that, she studies him more deeply, and he notices the faint lines that have started to form where her eyebrows always furrow, the freckles she’s accumulated along her cheekbones with years of missions spent in the sun, the ease with which her lips fall into a tight, even line. Her eyes bounce between each of his, debating her next words before she finally says, “Why are you apologizing?”

Matt’s breath catches, and he knows this is it. The opening he’s been waiting for. But it’s late, and they’re tired, and they both smell like planes, and airports, and taxis. So despite the desperate words trying to crawl from his heart to his mouth, he settles on something softer. “I think we both know I’ve got plenty to apologize for,” he says, finally letting his hands fall. “But I think we both know this ain’t the time to do it.”

Genius. She’s always been smarter than him in more ways than he can count, and this moment is no exception. She’s smart enough to know that they both need clearer heads. That they both need a moment of quiet. That morning will come and they’ll both be better for it, and that tonight is no place for their usual fights. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about the bed,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know you didn’t—”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“I’m so tired.”

She has this way of taking small words and making them feel big. Of making them span years, when they shouldn’t last more than a second or two. Rachel isn’t tired, so much as she’s exhausted, and burned out, and lonely, and weighed down—and she manages to convey all of this by simply shaking her head, and folding her face into her hands, and standing in front of him with all of the humility in the world.

He has this way of feeling her when she most needs it, in a way that no one else seems to be able to. Of hearing those great big words tied up in all of her small ones, and trying his best to say the right thing in response. “Let’s get some sleep, then,” he says, as though it’s the simplest thing in the world. “We’ll get some sleep, and when you wake up, you can tell me exactly what all of those crazy kitchen plans mean.”

Despite herself, she laughs. It's a pitiful, mangled thing, but it still counts. “They’re not as crazy as they look.”

And Matt can’t hold back a smile. “Well thank God for that, because they look…” he tries to find a word, but this is much like everything else Rachel does, in that it defies explanation. “I mean, seriously, Rachel, you’ve gone full Doc Brown in there.”

She shoves him, gently, and Matt makes a show of clasping at his chest in faux hurt. “They’ll make more sense in the morning,” she tells him.

“Everything will make more sense in the morning,” he assures her.

And she believes him. “Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” he says.

That’s enough for them, for tonight, for now. It’s all they need. And maybe tomorrow will be bitter and hard at the center of Moscow, working an op that Rachel has given her whole heart to, but right now is easy and safe. Right now, they’re old friends who need each other more than they knew. 

Rachel finds his eyes again, and sighs something that sounds like relief and regret mixed together. “At least let me ease some of my guilt by hunting down a truly outrageous number of blankets on your behalf.”

Matt looks back to the loveseat and knows in his gut that there will not be enough room for more than one blanket. There is barely enough room for Matt, as is. Even so, he smiles at her. “Rachel Cameron,” he says. “I’ll always take any blanket you hand me.”

[geopsych]

In case anyone is curious, I have a friend who runs tours in Spain, Morocco, and Portugal and he asked me if I would like to put together a megalithic tour of Portugal. I still would love to do that but as I researched it I kept finding cool things like a bone chapel, a dolmen made into a chapel, odd fascinating villages, a fabulous Templar convent and castle, Roman ruins, and a palace that was built for a king who then was assassinated so it was turned into a hotel that is surrounded by a forest that was tended by monks for over 1000 years.

So I went to my friend and said, let’s do this tour! We aimed it at people who are into fantasy, like D&D players and people who like fantasy books, shows and movies. We didn’t get too many takers ( @toooldforthissh--stuff saved the day by talking people into going. Thank you again!) but it was day after day of just gob-smacking stuff. I had found the places online and my friend visited them first. Every one was amazing. What a country! And there are still more places I wish I could visit. We skipped the cities. There was too much else to see.

[aziraphales-library]

I'm looking for fics in which Aziraphale and Crowley get closer (can be E, but doesn't have to be) and one or both of them retreat afterwards "because it's not meant to be", preferably with a lot of heartbreak and crying and a possible happy ending. Thank you for the blog and for your work, you are amazing!

We have recommended some fics like this before here, and I’ve got a few more now...

White Walls and Dead Air by BabyHoldMyFlower (G)

It’s after the fourth day that he decides he hates God. He’s too tired to hold it back. Too miserable. Too busy dying. He knows he’ll go back on it later. He knows that he’ll repent later, and he’ll mean it, he thinks, once he gains some perspective, but there is nothing that could stop this bone-deep agony from churning and rising into something ugly. He’s not supposed to feel this way. He’s an angel, he really shouldn’t be thinking these things. Blind obedience is what they were created for. It’s in this moment that he can admit to a flaw in the Almighty’s design. If she wanted soldiers, she shouldn’t have given them the capacity to love.

Law of inevitable eventuality by Yuu_chi (E)

“I think,” says Aziraphale with the confidence of a man three glasses deep into a particularly excellent bottle of wine, “that we should have sex.”

Do You Remember That Night In 1892? by Vecieminde (T)

Crowley had slept. More than he had planned, less than he had hoped for. The air is cool and a quick temptation in a casino doesn’t sound too bad. Yet, the last person he expected to find there was The Principality of The Eastern Gate.

Great.

Now they need to talk. After all, they had parted rather abruptly. Things had been said but not enough. Not nearly enough.

A Case of You (Ineffably Yours: Stolen Nights VI) by SecondHandNews (M)

What happens in Morocco stays in Morocco. Except when it doesn’t.

Phantasmagoria by drawlight (E)

Aziraphale is terrified of Heaven looking over his shoulder. He is terrified of burning Crowley with his holy-water-touch. So he doesn't reach out. He never says a word. Aziraphale loves Crowley in the wordless and touchless way of a ghost.

But there have always been languages for ghosts to speak.

Time Flies (When You're Having Fun) by Mussimm (E)

Versailles, 1769 - Aziraphale has a blessing to perform at a masquerade ball and it's important that he gets this one right. So important, in fact, that he can't seem to leave until he does.

But with a fancy dress, an attentive demon and an endless supply of champagne, it's a little challenging to stay on mission.

- Mod D

[gothhabiba]

We’ve written extensively on the economics of a lot of products in Morocco and as always the result is the same: artisans are paid next to little while middlemen take extensive mark ups. But in a land where exploited artisans is the norm, the scale of exploitation with sabra was unmatched.

The sabra product made in those windswept towns are places where middlemen in Marrakech set up their workshops and where most products you find on Instagram or in the Marrakech medina are made. The areas are out of the eye of tourists as well as the clients of middlemen and much too inconvenient for buyers to visit for themselves. The artisans are simply too far away to know what is actually happening in the market and are largely unaware. It’s a perfect environment for a made up story to thrive.

In one of the most well known towns where sabra product is made there isn’t one single official cooperative. All the women work as individuals, who middlemen pit against each other to extract the cheapest price and turn around times. When we talked to the women, they laughed at the thought that they could sell their sabra pillows, which take them 5 days to make, for more than 50 MAD ($5 USD). That is 10 MAD a day ($1 USD per day) in a country where the minimum agricultural wage is 70 MAD per day. Oftentimes, the women are expected to pay for the material which comes out of the 50 MAD price they are paid. A middleman likely tells their buyers the artisans are happy with what they pay, and the women may very well be because they do not know any better.

[...] Collectivco (and we can list many other similar companies) just recently launched their new line of Sabra pillows for just $50 USD each. You can assume that they’re at least working with a margin of at least 50%, so they paid at most $25 USD for a pillow in the Marrakech medina, which falls in place with the break down above. To any ethical seller, you’d know that something isn’t quite right with a handmade product of such detail price at just $25. At that price either artisans are getting exploited or the material isn’t what the customer thinks it is. In the case of sabra rayon products it is both. While people in Morocco may just not know any better, that excuse does not extend to many foreign companies who benefit most from the deception and often drive such trends.  And let’s be real: if a company like Collectivco is selling you sabra is anything else they say legitimate?

-"The truth about Moroccan sabra: everything you ever wanted to know about the mythical cactus silk agave fiber"

[transgenderer]

The Yemenite Children Affair (Hebrew: פרשת ילדי תימן, romanized: Parshat Yaldei Teiman) refers to the disappearance of mainly Yemenite Jewish babies and toddlers of immigrants to the newly founded state of Israel from 1948 to 1954. The number of affected ranges from 1,000[1] to 5,000.[2]

The majority of immigrants arriving in Israel during this period were from Yemen, with considerable numbers coming from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and the Balkans.[3] According to low estimates, one in eight children of Yemenite families disappeared.[4] Hundreds of documented statements made over the years by the parents of these infants allege that their children were removed from them.

Conditions in the maabarot (tent cities) were harsh. There was poor hygiene and widespread disease. The authorities decided it would be best to move the babies to separate (concrete-built) houses. Older children were often moved to a temporary care of foster families.[14] Furthermore, children who caught an infectious disease had to be quarantined: moved to special wards in other hospitals. Hospital staff would often discourage contact between parents and children in fear of further spread of disease.[15] Many babies did eventually die. And in those cases they were often buried in haste without waiting for the parents; due to poor communication it would often take days or more for the parents to be notified and come, and the hospitals did not have the resources to keep the bodies for that long.[16]

This resulted in many cases where information about children was lost.

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of these children has led to the claim that while many children were recorded as having died, in fact they were either kidnapped or were adopted by rich Ashkenazi Jews in Israel or abroad. The affair has been widely covered in the Israeli media through the decades, and so far four official investigating committees have been established to investigate the claims. The committees have investigated many hundreds of cases, and determined that the vast majority of children actually died and only in a minority of cases they did not find enough evidence to determine what really happened.[6]

The peak of the public outcry on the matter occurred in 1994 when Yemenite Rabbi Uzi Meshulam established an "armed sect" of radical Yemenite Jews in his garden, who barricaded themselves in his home and violently resisted Israeli law enforcement while demanding that the Israeli government establish a State Commission of Inquiry to examine the matter.[17] Meshulam's efforts led to the creation of the Kedmi Commission the following year. The third commission of its kind, it set out to reinvestigate the disappearances.

Against the background of a lawsuit by the families of Yemeni immigrants, in February 2021 the government approved a decision to "express sorrow" over the Jewish Yemeni children affair and the compensation of the families, and that the state "recognizes the suffering of the families". Families whose child's fate is unknown to them will receive up to NIS 200,000. Families who have not received real-time information about the death of their children - including the death itself, its circumstances or the place of burial - will receive NIS 150,000 each. Only families whose case has been tried in the committees of inquiry are entitled to compensation.[33][34]

man israeli history is crazy huh

[laurelsalexis]

season 6. i think this season is a real turning point in their dynamic and it’s long because a lot happens in those last 4 episodes that must be discussed.

ziva mentioning tony and rivkin just :|

my girl just STARING at tony after they finally see each other. “you could have called.” worried about his drinking. bonus of having those pictures of her hung up. 

tony figuring out about a secret bf real quick.

ziva is going to israel. tony being all :( about it. and he spoke hebrew to her. i like to think he starts learning hebrew while he’s agent afloat.

getting locked in closets and  tension :) love that for them.

“i’m tired of pretending” “me too.” hmm sounds like another read between the lines scene these two do like once every few episodes these days.

moment in the elevator with tara and the whole thing about tony not moving on since jeanne. she says to pick the right woman and the elevator opens on ziva.

anytime they talk about kort i get war flashbacks. you get vengeance in like 7 years, tony. keep holding out.

ziva complaining about tony when she and gibbs are out in the field. for literally no reason at all. he wasn’t even mentioned.

the last 4 eps of this season are basically the tiva show. they barely work the case lol

ziva calling tony jealous after she gets off the phone with rivken. we’re about to hit full tiva angst.

ziva not wanting to lie to tony. oh bestie.

tony going to talk to ducky about ziva. ducky assuming it’s a personal conversation. ‘it’s not what you think.’ literally is. tony finding out ziva almost died in morocco. tony watching the news footage. pausing on rivkin. deciding to investigate.

abby ‘does it have anything to do with ziva?’ to tony

tony testing ziva in the elevator and ziva lying. they both know she’s lying.

the thing about all their fighting in the squad room over riven and the ncis:la stuff is that tony is jealous. but tony is also right to be concerned about him. but ziva just puts it in the he’s jealous corner. neither of them are able to be objective, really

tony calling ziva they have a lead only to take her seat with michael. michael saying he’s, “like a big brother.” things are getting good.

ziva and tony are fighting in the bullpen again.

honorable mention to saying he’d never break rule #12 while staring at ziva leaving and gibbs smile. gibbs knows more than he lets on.

and oop, rivkin is no more. and ziva is mad.

his conversation with vance “you wanted to protect her.” “if she needed it.”

“you jeopardized your entire career for what?” “for you”

her dad calling say tony is just jealous. “even if that was true that doesn’t mean he was wrong.” which is meta. tony is jealous. tony wasn’t wrong.

personally, i love this little arc. it’s a bit wild. ziva evades. accuses tony of being jealous. never gives the full picture. tony is jealous and that does drive a good portion of what happens. he’s just not wrong, at the same time. it brings a lot of tension between them both. ziva saying she was betrayed by tony makes sense where we are currently in the rewatch. did he go about it the right way? no. did he do it out of a fierce loyalty and desire to protect her? yes. is ziva ready to confront that? no.

from a character arc perspective it’s interesting to see ziva so irrational.