#as far as a painting being too different from a photo for it to count as an illegitimate copy

[zooophagous]

"Copying a photo to near perfection in a painting is a valid and true display of skill and artistic merit"

And

"Not every photo you find online is yours to be used as a stock photo however you want"

Are two takes that can and do exist together lol.

[easy-there-leftovers]

Magnum Opus (Ch. 1)

When an MIT prodigy on their gap year is contacted by the FBI regarding her potential involvement in a series of murders in Washington D.C., she must now cooperate to uncover how her paintings are mysteriously appearing at the crime scenes.

(Written with Season 1-4 Spencer in mind, but the timeline could be anywhere pre-season 12. No mentions of past cases)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Artist! reader|cw: Canon-typical violence|word count: 2k words

Also on Ao3!!

Series Masterlist

While Aaron Hotchner remained vigilant as he drove the black SUV, the constant flipping of Spencer’s case files seemed to be louder than the car’s air conditioning. 

He had directed Morgan and JJ to touch base at the MPDC, and had Rossi and Prentiss survey the crime scene of Jonathan Edwards; the identity of the previously unknown man in the vacant apartment.

This left him with Reid in the passenger seat to conduct an investigation on their only lead so far. 

From the update Garicia had given them, Y/n L/n was a prodigy a year younger than their very own. Having graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a year ago, she moved to Capitol Park Plaza and Twins Apartments in Washington D.C., and is currently unemployed. Occasionally selling her paintings out of her unit under an anagram of her name.

 But something bothered him.

And it seems like Reid has picked up on it too.

“Do you think Dr. L/n is the unsub?” The unit chief asks.

Spencer hums before answering.

“While we can’t rule it out just yet, the possibility of her being the unsub is totally unlikely. The thing that’s throwing me off is that everything is too convenient. I mean, why would the unsub use something so publicly personal to them as part of their signature? It’s as if she’s overtly incriminating herself.”

Spencer checks back onto the pictures of the victims, then lifts his head up to look at Hotch to continue.

“Based on the way the victims are modeled, an immense amount of care was put into them. All for the purpose of making them look like the subjects in their paintings. Actually, the fixation on changing the bodies’ posture and keeping them clean is typically done out of remorse. But the added elements, like the placement of the paintings, creates an image of an unsub more on the narcissistic side. By creating two 'artworks,' they're prompting the viewer to decide which version of it they prefer. Mocking the original artist in the process.”

“So the paintings were done before the murder?”

“I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

His unit chief sighs and pulls over to the curb. “Well, we’re about to test that belief.” Spencer hurries to take off his seatbelt as Hotch closes the car door with a thud. 

—------

Hotchner nods at Reid as they find themselves in front of the written address Garcia gave them. He lifts his hand to knock firmly on your door, and waits for a response.

A thud from the other side causes both of them to assess each other before Hotch tells Spencer to stay behind him. Gun in hand until something, or someone, comes running at them.

But instead a muffled, “sorry” is heard right after, which causes him to lower his gun.

The door finally opens a crack to reveal a very tired twenty-something woman, some dark pigment or makeup smudged on their lower eye lines as they rubbed at it. She immediately fixed her posture however at the sight of the unexpected visitors. Eyes wide with concern.

“Dr. L/n, I’m Aaron Hotchner with Dr. Spencer Reid of the FBI.” He highlights his statement by showing his badge. “We’d like to ask you some questions.” 

“Oh, um,” The woman blinks rapidly and shakes their head before immediately saying, “Of course,” with a nod and opening the door wide to let them in.

A quirk that does not go unnoticed by Spencer, who observes how different she looks to her more formal ID photos.

—-----

You let the FBI agents into your apartment, but are now suddenly aware of the state of disarray you left it in last night. Not to mention the state you were in. 

You had just woken up and your brain wasn’t quite all there yet. If you had known you’d have guests over, you would have at least put some of your books and papers back onto their shelves rather than on your floor.

“My, uh—” You start, “Apologies! For the room and the um,”

You inhale deeply and gesture to yourself as you try to find the words before settling on an exasperated, “me.”

“No worries, miss. We don’t really call in advance.” You nod at the older man’s explanation vacantly before coming up with a response.

“Would you like anything to drink ?” You move to your fridge to get water to wake you up, and decide that it would be rude not to offer. The two decline, with the younger more busy observing your living room bookcase than the older one that sat on your couch. 

You notice that something must have interested him as he lingers on certain shelves. That section in particular had prints of dissertations you had been meaning to read, or have already read, in clear folders.

You wonder if he found his work there or something before returning with water for yourself. 

“So what can I help you with?”

“Dr. L/n, are you aware of the current string of murders that have been happening as of this year?” 

You blink rapidly again. The question catches you off guard, but you shake your head. 

“I know it’s a bad habit, and that I should, but I don’t really listen to the news.” Feeling your eyebrows quirk, you rub your hands together slowly. Making direct eye contact with Hotch, before looking at the younger man as he takes out a few papers from the folder he was holding.

“Are you familiar with these paintings then?”

 Now that piques your interest.

Dr. Spencer Reid, who sees a flicker of recognition in your eyes when it meets his own, presents various pictures of your artworks in what seems to be dimly lit areas. They’re a little dirty, but otherwise you would recognize them as your own.

 The thought instantly made something in your stomach turn.

“I–” You start, but shake your head subtly again. Unsure of what to say and how to say it next as you stare at the images. “am.” You turn your head to look back up at Spencer who nods thoughtfully.

“Recently, your paintings have been showing up at crime scenes in the D.C. area. Specifically, victims of an organized unsub that seems to be targeting people who accurately resemble the subjects in your work.” If your eyes weren’t wide enough, that bit of information had certainly opened them wider than ever before as you stared up at him.

“That, combined with the concentrated traces of 5-durastalene found in the pigments of the paint used, have led us to suspect your involvement in these murders, Dr. L/n.” You heavily feel the blink of your eyelids and rest your fingers on them to keep them closed before looking back at the two of them.

“I’m sorry,” you smile incredulously. “So you’re telling me that not only has Lunacite been identified on the paintings you’ve found, but that people who look like the personas in my private works actually exist and have since been–” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Murdered?”

“Well that shouldn’t come as a surprise, they were your muses, weren’t they? You were commissioned?” Hotch is the one who asks and you shake your head with wide eyes.

“I didn’t even know these people existed. They were just– faces I came up with mentally with the visual library I’ve amassed over the years. I don’t really make it a habit to paint from reference. Like I said, they were private.”

“And the chemical?” You thought for a moment before your lips thinned into a line.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Agent Hotchner, but I haven’t touched anything regarding that compound in over a year. I’ve only ever worked on it in my lab on university grounds, and I don’t make a habit of bringing work home.” You scratch the hairs near the base of your hairline.

“More importantly, hundreds of students and lecturers have access to my work, my research, and my lab space. Not to mention the people who might have heard my work through academic conferences.”

You move away from your position near the living room coffee table Spencer placed the pictures on, but picked up one before you did and shook your head.

“Besides, these paintings? No one should know about them, let alone have them. I didn't sell these.” That made Spencer’s brows furrow as he looked at the other photos still on the table.

“Do you have proof?” You stay silent, but then motion for them to follow you to the door of your room.

“Well, for one, I’m sure you’d understand that most people don’t make copies of their artwork traditionally, right? Expenditure of time, work materials, effort, human error, and many other variables. It just isn’t practical nor convenient.” You ramble and look back at them to continue.

“I also don’t make the majority of my art known online. Only a good 30% makes its way to my portfolio, and the others are never to be seen by anyone else.”

“They're studies. They’re made with cheap paints, they’re subjectively not appropriate for commercial use and-–I just wouldn’t be comfortable charging anyone for them.” 

They follow you across the room, and make themselves apparent behind you.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“So if my ‘commissioned paintings’ are currently on D.C. crime scenes, and possibly in MPDC evidence,” You open the door to reveal your studio to the two agents. 

Various paint tubes, books, and brushes littered the floor, table, and boxes. A lone easel was situated near your apartment window, with an unfinished painting on it. And various canvasses, not displayed, but instead kept on tall shelves. Only the differently colored edges indicated that they were ever used.

What surprised them both however, were the same paintings in the pictures staring back at them.

 Some on the walls, some on the floor, but what was most important was that they were in this room, they were clean, and there were more of them.

You turn to look back at them with shaky eyes. “So why are they still here?”

—----

Hotch and Reid stood outside of your apartment door as you cleaned yourself up. Hotch made the call to bring you to the precinct for further investigation and for your own safety, but allowed you to freshen up before leaving with them. Not that he told you about the safety part.

You were hard to read, given your erratic reactions. It unnerved him, but he supposes it comes with the territory of being gifted. You also offered to bring in your paintings and a few other materials for forensics to test, to which while he was suspicious of, was not ungrateful for.

He made a quick call to Garcia to check attendants of any academic conferences you’ve spoken at and if anyone had been more interested than the others. When he was finished, he looked to Reid who was crossing his arms and staring at the carpeted hallway before looking back at him.

“She’s uncomfortable.” He stated plainly.

“Reid, most people would be if they just found out their hobby had been getting people killed.” Hotch said as he kept looking at his phone for anything new from the others.

“There’s certainly that, but I meant her title. ‘Doctor.’” He said in quotes, and Hotch raises his eyebrow at that but allows him to continue anyway with a curt nod.

“I mean, every time we’ve addressed her with her title, she blinks faster. Did you know it’s a common attribute that’s directly related to an increase in heart rate, which is why they’re usually correlated with lying? Initially, you would think that she faked her experience to get those credentials, but given her educational background, she must have not been given an opportunity to be referred to as such for a long time. Also, the gap year she took could’ve only exacerbated any insecurities she might have about her intellectual achievements. Plus, the lack of organization in her own home, while not wildly uncommon amongst people her age, could suggest the sincerity of her belief about compartmentalizing her work and her private life.”

“And what does that tell you?”

As Spencer was supposed to answer, a thud much like the one they heard before they entered earlier was heard again, followed by a similarly muffled, ‘sorry.’

He turns to look back at Hotch again with a small, victorious smile.

“That she doesn’t fit the profile.”

——-

taglist: @littlewolfieposts

[aakeysmash]

Roommate or boss?

part 1, part 2, part 4

Pairing: f!reader x Katsuki Bakugou.

Warnings: none.

Word count: 1.5k.

Katsuki knows you will not remember anything from this night tomorrow, since he sees how drunk you are. He’s sober though, and what you said has him thinking from the moment he leaves you on your bed, soundly asleep.

He’s always been a rude guy, he thinks people are too used to kindness to function properly in nowadays society.

To prove his (still standing) point, he opened the cafe when he was 18. He wanted to make something out of his life, and he knew he couldn’t do it without a steady income. Honestly, he opted for a cafe just because one day Midoriya said he couldn’t see him as a cafe owner. Basically, he opened it out of spite. So he bought the store from an old lady that was literally almost gifting it, painted it himself all summer, put the counters/chairs/machines that he bought all over the country (“if they’re good, cheap and they can ship them here, I can always fucking renovate them”) and he hired some of his frien- uhm, classmates, as his work subordinates.

They all just finished high school, so they all needed money. Todoroki and Momo weren’t even together back then. They had their little flirt moments, sure, but working together really strengthened their relationship. It made Katsuki sick to his stomach.

If Katsuki was something, he prided himself on being honest: he never said their paycheck was coming in late, or that they wouldn’t be paid. He did all he could to be the boss he wanted others to be happy about.

For the last 4 years things have gone pretty well. Kirishima was (and still is) a big part of this project, and Katsuki probably wouldn’t have come so far without his aid (even if he would never admit it).

Even if he was indeed the boss, he opts to never go himself at the cafe, since he likes to be behind the scenes more (also, even if he doesn’t know it, this is the reason why he doesn’t recognise you, even if you have been working there for 2 years). And maybe it’s also because seeing some of the people that stuck with him since the beginning makes him feel a tenderness that he doesn’t want to acknowledge.

And yeah, he was definitely still a rude guy. He just didn’t think he wanted to be nice to people, or, well, he knew he didn’t want to be. Things have gotten better since middle school, sure, and he now has friends who accept him just as he is, but he isn’t used to making friends. One day he woke up and he had friends. He always (jokingly?) said he was forced to be their friend.

But you were different.

At the time he met you, he was really desperate to find a place to stay in, since he had to be more and more present each day at the office. His old landlord was an ass and kicked him out since all of a sudden he wanted to rent each room of the establishment to a different person, and he remembers crashing at Kirishima’s place for two weeks while he was searching for a new apartment. You just happened to post that you needed a roommate the same day he was about to call his parents (yes, he was THAT desperate).

You were the 23rd person he visited in those 2 weeks. He was pissed out of his mind: 5 out of 22 people never got up to greet him at the door; 6 already had a roommate and they just wanted to sublet to make more money; 10 were living in such horrible conditions that he thought he got sick every time he saw a pile of old dirt in their home; 1 just wanted to have… some kind of intercourse… since they saw his photo on the booking app.

And when he saw you opening the door of your house with sleep still covering your features, he was about to turn around and really call his old folks. He was tired of this shit.

But you still managed to smile, even if he noticed how your eye ticked slightly when you clarified that he was indeed early after he pettily said that he waited for you for 15 minutes. Also, that remark was probably what made him stay. He didn’t want a weak extra as his roommate, and his more-than-good sixth sense was saying that you were indeed capable of holding your ground.

He does find you incredibly annoying, though. You have this aura of softness he doesn’t like, but that he is drawn into. He is a pretty silent guy when he is in his personal space, while you like to talk about whatever you have done a certain day, or about your new trashy show, or the new recipe that you saw on IG that he “absolutely has to try”. You basically yap all day long, and it gets on his nerves. Badly.

But he also enjoys your company. He’s very loud when he’s with his friends, being as naturally angry as he is about anything, but your softness rubs on him the wrong way, and it makes him stay silent. Well, he knows this is what he tries to tell himself, anyway.

He doesn’t want to admit to himself that the way you want to be his friend puts him in the awkward position of not being able to reciprocate your efforts. It’s not like he doesn’t want to, it’s that he doesn’t know how to, and he hates not being good at something.

And so, he distances himself. Even if he does watch you from afar, and even if he did notice a lot in the 4 (almost 5, “fuck rent is due tomorrow”, he thinks) months you have lived together. For example, you’re super easy to please. When you have a bad day he notices that you brighten up if he cooks both of you dinner (which really isn’t a hassle for him, even if he says so) instead of making you cook for yourself. Or that if you have a pretty tiring day at work/uni and he “accidentally” leaves some coffee in the pot before his morning run the next day, your eyes twinkle a little bit more when he comes back home.

He’s not used to being so close to someone who tries their best to be happy anymore. The last time he was that close to someone happy, he started to be a bully (yes, he did say sorry to Midoriya. Multiple times. Mostly when he sporadically got drunk in high school).

Your outburst gets him thinking because, after all, you’re a really good fucking roommate. He’d hate to have to search for another apartment because you get sick of his ass.

Most importantly, some part of him likes how different you are from him, and he doesn’t want to be rude when he knows you’re just trying to make him like you. But it’s second nature to him. You’re too pure in that sense, and he wants nothing to do with that.

He doesn’t know how to say sorry, just like he doesn’t know how to change things. The fact that you won’t remember anything and even if you will you probably would just shrug it off just makes him believe that it’s not that big of a deal.

After all, if your roommate still pays their rent and acknowledges you as a human being, what could possibly go wrong?

“Fuck, my head is killing me” whines Ochaco while you escort her out of the door.

“We really have to stop getting drunk” you sigh, while rubbing your temples. “You have Midoriya picking you up, right?” you ask your best friend.

“Fortunately yes. Say hi to your roommate, I don’t think we had the chance to meet yet” she responds.

You raise an eyebrow before saying “you don’t think?”.

She shrugs, before adding “you never know, this town isn’t that big. Maybe I’ll find out that, I don’t know, he used to be my boyfriend’s best friend or something like that”.

You laugh, “you read too many novels”.

A car parks right in front of your door, and a guy with green curls walks out of it.

“Hi! I’m Midoriya. You must be the best friend Ochaco always talks about” he says while putting on the biggest smile you’ve ever seen on a human face.

“Hey, that’s most definitely me. Take good care of her, okay?” you reply with a smile of your own. “I have to get back to my thesis, but we have to meet each other again soon. Drive safely!” you add, while he gets her purse on his shoulder and gets the door of the car on her side open.

“Thank you so much babe. Don’t stress yourself and text me!” your best friend says before Midoriya nods at you and starts the car.

You get inside of your house again.

You and Ochaco just woke up, so you still have to eat breakfast.

While you get near the coffee machine you notice a scribbled note on the counter.

“Left coffee 4 u. u'll need it. also, rent is due. -K”.

You smile and roll your eyes, pouring the coffee into a cup while opening your text messages app.

You: you could’ve texted me, you know. Thanks for the coffee.

Bakugou answers almost instantly.

Katsuki (roommate): wtv.

[ataraxiaspainting]

There’s a Certain Slant of Light.

Yan (Soulmate) Chrollo x F Reader.

Synopsis: Something is different. But what could it be?

Warnings: Yandere themes, the reader is unwillingly a Spider and from Meteor City, mentions of religion/religious imagery, implied drugging, manipulation, and unhealthy relationships.

Word Count: 1k.

i’ve been seeing a lot of chrollo being paired with a phantom troupe member reader and i just think that the concept is very interesting! :D

credits for og art piece here!

*~*~*~*

Your sword, while having the ability to stab and slice just about anything, is still by far the most frail weapon at your disposal. It is a slight sadness that fills Chrollo’s mind, then, once he realizes this. The feeling is small, minuscule, just like most of the other emotions Chrollo’s heart cannot beat with, the blood that flows through his veins frozen with the concept of what he wants to be. He feels next to nothing as if he were a walking corpse, a prisoner who has just been released from the deepest depths of hell, not once being able to see twinkling eyes and shining stars. Light is a concept unknown to people like him, and people like you, foreign, as alien as a coup made of peasants storming a palace larger than ten of their villages combined. 

Your two true weapons are your lips calling out his name, and the thin red string that connects your little finger and your fate to his thumb and his future. Despite the thread being wispier than that of paper, it has a will stronger than one forged in diamonds and never had to be a carbon crystal to be so. Chrollo is thankful for it, more so than he is for most things that he would rather leave in the past. It has linked you two together for so long and has been the key for chaining down your animosity towards him whenever he had gone too far. All he had to do was tug, and you would be right back wherever he had placed you. But even diamonds can shatter when a love made in a less-than-fortunate childhood turns more and more into hate.

This entire act is like a balancing beam. He must not be too loud, but also not be too quiet. He must always have cards up his sleeve for any potential mishaps down the line. Inside one hand is the key to your freedom, but inside the other is the key to a false route to such fantasies, the trap of reality. Even Chrollo does not know which is which, for he is a dreamer himself at heart.

“Good morning, sir,” It is a rare sight, you yawning, your posture nowhere near how put together it usually is. “How are you today, sir?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“I must have been quite exhausted last night; my apologies, sir.”

“I told you if you ever wanted to take a break here, you are more than welcome to.”

“I’ve always declined such an offer for a reason, sir.”

“Just as I’ve always told you that you may call me just Chrollo for a reason, [First]. I think I haven't heard you say my name without an honorific since we were both still children if my memory serves correctly.”

“...”

The provocation of the past seems to hurt you more than him it seems, from how you flinch at the word children, and from how he smiles at your discomfort. 

“We are not with the rest of the Troupe right now, it is quite alright if you want to relive prior times, wouldn’t you say?” He asks, and with his eyes appearing to look back at his books, he sees yours darting around the room, looking for an escape route.

They move left, to the tables at the back of the sitting room which hold lamps and framed photos and paintings. Then right, to the fireplace and the large but still solitary couch, covered with leather and embroideries. Then up, to the crackless and spotless white ceiling, and then down, to the wooden rosewood planks of the floor.

“I saw a book in your satchel. Crime and Punishment, hmm?”

“Yes. Please do not say how ironic it is, sir.”

“Very well.”

To you, perhaps the room feels deathly still. To him, it feels like the scene right before the climax. Slow, steady, full of tension and dread. Though Chrollo will never let the curtains that cover your very soul close ever again. It would not be hard to get them to open up again, you have known each other for so long after all, but regardless he needs you to stay within the palm of his hand forevermore. Only then will he be able to feel something so warm and soft once more.

Oh, how he wishes that he could open the floor below you and trap you there. But he cannot. At least not yet.

“...Where is my bag?” At your question, Chrollo pulls his thumb towards him, and you move accordingly. “It is not in the room.” You continue, your eyebrows furrowing as you attempt to resist. “Sir?”

Desperation. Then a hand raise and a pause.

“Stolen treasure from the last meeting.” Chrollo begins curtly. “A contact list full of people I have not permitted you to speak to. Keys to a car that is not mine.” He proceeds to say. “Tell me, [First], what is all of this, hmm?”

Something akin to a mix of a horrified chuckle and a choking sound emerges from your throat as if his hands were squeezing and squeezing until you burst. He sets the book he was reading down, and without his hands covering both the front and back of it, you see the title, the synopsis.

“Crime and Punishment, hmm?” He repeats, and for the first time in what must be a few years, he sees you terrified, shaking, and near to tears. “A clever way to code your plan.” Chrollo crosses his legs. “By the way, it is an hour or so past sunset by now.” He hears a small gasp from you. “You missed your flight a long time ago, sweet thing.”

“...I… I…”

“You were planning on leaving us, weren’t you?” When you don’t answer, instead looking straight towards the door, he raises his thumb again. “I know you never wanted to join the Troupe, per se, but still… this hurts.” He pulls and pulls, and being forced to be a puppet for the umpteenth time since the soulmate string has appeared in Chrollo’s vision, you are placed where he wants you to be. 

Close to him.

[mayhem-neverending]

The Big Bad Wolf

Part XXIV

Word Count: 4,630

Warnings: None?

Notes: Ready to feel some things? Of course unedited but.. y'know. Enjoy!

You spent the whole day unpacking, arranging, rearranging, organizing and decorating your new space. In doing so, you missed out on making lunch. Obito was nice (curious) enough to bring you some of the sliced fruit you had shoved in the fridge earlier when it had gotten late enough. He very obviously wanted to see the room, but you kept him shut out so you could give him a grand reveal when you were finished. He was also a little anxious, his thoughts surrounding the almost kiss and now sharing a home with you encompassing his mind. 

In the late afternoon, you finally put your finishing touches up. You plugged in the lamp next to the bed and were pleased by the softly illuminated room. It was a little crowded with two beds and all of your bedroom things, but it was quite cozy. You had your green and gold rag rug in the center, pictures hanging on the walls along with a painting you and Hikaru had made together before you moved. Next to the door was the bookshelf Ox had sealed, some of Hikaru’s larger toys, plus a few decorations that you planned on hanging in the living room and kitchen after it was finished being painted.

You opened the bedroom door and dragged the dark wooden bookshelf down the hallway. It was a sturdy cedar, and it was awfully heavy and quite awkward due to its length. 

“You just sealed these floors. Please tell me you’re not about to scrape them up,” Obito said from the mouth of the hallway, his arms crossed over his chest. 

You stopped in your tracks and looked over your shoulder at him. “You’re welcome to help, you know,”

He shook his head and silently walked around to the opposite side. Together you lifted it and walked it into the living room, placing it next to the fireplace. As soon as it was in place, you jogged into your room to start moving stacks of books back to their rightful place on the shelf. Obito trailed along after you, intrigued to see what you had been up to all day now that the door was wide open. 

He wouldn’t say he was surprised to see it fully decorated, but he was shaken at how homey it was. He looked back down the hallway and then into the room. The difference in atmosphere was stark. He took a small step into the room so that he could fully immerse himself in it. The colors of your things meshed together with the wooden walls beautifully, bringing out their natural warmth. Hikaru’s little bed next to the wall was made with a crocheted blanket, and yours had a quilt that was no doubt a hand-me-down from a relative. 

You walked in for another stack of books, paying him little mind as he scooted further into the room. A photo of you and tiny baby Hikaru was on the bedside table next to your bed. It looked like summertime, and he was sporting a gummy grin that made Obito internally gush. As he turned away from the photo, he caught a whiff of the room as the air moved. What he failed to notice when he stepped in was that the whole room smelled like you. He inhaled deeply, the light, sweet scent filling his lungs. 

Oh. He wasn’t sure he would be able to keep himself far from this room; not when he could be enveloped by your smell and inherent warmth. He observed the other decor in the low lighting. He couldn’t help but think that it fit you all too well. 

“Obito,” you grunted, lifting another stack of books. “Help me out here, would ya?”

“Oh, right. My bad,” He picked up a stack of what could only be described as historical tomes and followed you to the living room. 

The shelf was already starting to fill out, and it seemed that you had your own method of sorting, so he went and retrieved another stack while you sorted. He looked back at the shelf with some measure of excitement. It would be nice to immerse himself in your collection. It would be entertainment and a way to get to know you just that much better wrapped into one. 

When all of the books were stacked next to your crouched form, he went to fetch the decorations in a haphazard pile next to the door and brought them to you. You stopped what you were doing to carefully take them in your arms. “Thanks. Would you mind preheating the oven while I put these up? I’m sure Kakashi will be here with Hikaru soon,”

He nodded and you went to work hanging up one of your paintings. It was a summer landscape you had inherited from your late great grandmother. It was one of the few larger things you were able to take back home from Akujia, and it was very precious to you. You hung it opposite the front windows, near Obito’s bookshelf. The next thing was a sun and moon, then a photo of you and team seven on the mantle - it had poured on you that mission, and everyone besides you and Naruto had only begrudgingly accepted their photo being taken. You smiled lovingly at it. It was amazing how quickly time passed. 

The rest - besides a crocheted blanket that went on the couch - was to be hung up in the kitchen area when you finished painting. Obito took a look around the living room after you had finished and nodded to himself in appreciation. Nothing was too over the top or irritating to look at; every addition was welcoming to the blank walls, adding character and warmth to his space. 

He noticed the photo on the mantle last and ambled over to it. He picked up the frame and inspected the faces. The young faces of Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke stared back at him. Sakura and Sasuke looked very disgruntled, which amused him, while Naruto had a matching goofy grin with you. In the back stood Kakashi with a thumbs up and a forced smile. Obito narrowed his eyes as he couldn’t help but imagine himself in Kakashi’s place, a twinge of envy pinching his gut. He would have given you a real smile… had things been different. He glances at the mismatched skin of his hands, then into the kitchen where you were pulling out a glass pan. If only things had been different. 

He gingerly placed the photo back on the mantle. He could hear you bustling about, the clanking of dishes against the countertop drawing his attention toward you. With the photo in his mind, an unwelcome thought wriggled its way into the forefront of his mind. If you had almost kissed him, had you ever kissed Kakashi? 

Probably not, right? He attempted to convince himself. 

He could just ask you, you were right here. But, that would mean acknowledging this morning and very possibly indicating his deeper feelings for you verbally. He would not be the one acknowledging it first, absolutely not. If he were wrong he would never live it down.

“Y’know, now that we’re roommates, you might have to pick up a little more slack around here,” you remarked as you put seasoned vegetables in the oven.

He dramatically whipped his head toward you. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you were supposed to be my caretaker?”

“I will accept help in the form of you playing with or distracting Hikaru while I work, taking turns cleaning the bathroom, laundry, and you doing dishes when I’ve cooked dinner for all of us,” you stated, leaving little room for argument.

“You’ve been thinking about this all day,” Obito complained.

“You betcha,” you didn’t even bother looking his way. It would only leave room for him to try to weasel his way out of it.

“I guess,” he muttered after a moment, just loud enough for you to hear.

“Wonderful, I’m glad it’s settled,” 

Three knocks on the front door cut into your conversation. It swung open without either of you moving to get it. Kakashi stepped through with Hikaru on his back, little arms likely choking the man with how they circled his neck. 

“There’s my boy!” You called excitedly.

Hikaru started squirming to get off of Kakashi’s back to come see you. Kakashi quickly maneuvered him and passed him off to you. He smiled, but you could tell something was on his mind. 

“I missed you after school yesterday,” you pressed kisses on each of Hikaru’s cheeks. 

“Mommy!” He giggled loudly, which encouraged you to give him a couple more kisses. 

“How’s my sweet boy? Did you have a good time with your Daddy?” 

“Yes!” He shouted, followed by a string of gibberish you couldn’t quite understand. 

“Speaking of,” Kakashi piped in.

You looked over to him, catching the pressing look. He continued. “I think it’s best you file for full custody. Toma was making wild claims about not letting you have Hikaru anymore and that he was going to take custody of him,”

Your face scrunched in anger. “That cocksucking mother-”

You took a deep breath and cleared your throat, though you remained tense. “He can hardly handle taking him every other weekend. There’s no way he could take full custody. Hikaru would be neglected!”

Obito joined your circle and you unconsciously pressed closer to him. You could feel that he was also getting riled up by the way his chakra signature sparked against yours.

“I know,” Kakashi calmly stated. “I picked up the paperwork for you to file on the way back. I’ll of course grant you full custody, if that’s what you want. I just need you to properly file it with me,”

Your face relaxed and you sighed out. “Thanks, ‘Kashi. You’re the best. And thank you for picking him up, I probably would have hit that dumbass in the face again,”

“He has quite the shiner already,” he chuckled. “You’re welcome. Whatever I can do to help,”

Kakashi looked tired, you noticed. He had worked all day after a full week and then ran errands for you without asking for anything in return. You frowned a little, taking in the dark circles gathering under his eyes. 

“Have you eaten?”

He reluctantly shook his head as if not wanting to burden you while also not wanting to lie to you. “Stay for dinner. I’ve just started on it, but it shouldn’t take too long,”

“I wouldn’t want to-”

“You’re not. Stay,”

Obito almost snorted. At least he wasn’t the only one being bossed around for their own betterment. Kakashi looked him in the eye. “Is that okay, Obito?”

“Don’t ask me,” he pressed just a tiny bit closer to you. “She’s the one in charge around here,”

You turned to give him a surprised but satisfied grin. He glanced at your lips; the invisible pull catching him in its orbit before he was able to tear his eyes away. Kakashi saw, because what didn’t he see? And refrained from the comment that sat on the tip of his tongue. 

It was quickly clear that you didn’t have enough chairs. Kakashi reminded Obito of his ability to use wood style jutsu, so the three boys sat together while Obito attempted to fashion two chairs together. Hikaru was absolutely fascinated by it, and Kakashi had to keep him secured on his lap so that he didn’t accidentally get his eye poked out from excitedly trying to touch it. They talked noisily amongst themselves, Hikaru being the star of the conversation. You listened while you worked on dinner, completely content in the quickly dimming sunlight. 

Obito turned the lights on for you when he came in to get a glass of water. When he passed behind you, you could imagine his hand on your back and a quick peck to your lips before he continued about his business. His brush against your arm as he passed set your skin on fire and it quickly spread to the places of the imagined touch. 

The chairs were finished and set at the table just before you finished cooking. You set everyone’s plate and let Obito and Kakashi take them to the table. Hikaru, who was served first, was already digging in and making a mess by the time everyone else took a seat. It was dark now, the house lit by the kitchen light and the roaring fireplace that had been filled with Obito’s failed chair attempts. 

Conversation was minimal as you all eagerly dug in. It occurred to you that you wouldn’t be able to bring Kakashi dinner anymore, which saddened you, but you enjoyed the prospect of inviting him to have dinner with you, Obito and Hikaru. It would be more personal, and Obito would be able to spend more time with his old friend. In fact - your face brightened at the thought - you could invite Naruto and Sakura to dinner here, too. Possibly even Sasuke, if Kakashi allowed him entry into the barrier. 

“What are you smiling about over there?” Kakashi asked, looking mildly amused.

You swallowed your food. “Family dinners,”

“Family dinners?” Obito asked.

“Family dinners,” you concluded, taking another bite. 

You noticed Hikaru was done eating and starting to nod off at the table. You wiped his face and because that didn’t stop his nodding off at all, excused yourself to take him to bed. 

Kakashi and Obito looked at each other after you had left the room. Quietly, Kakashi said, “It looks like you’re happy with this new arrangement,”

Obito’s brow twitched. There was nothing negative about the statement, but he still felt his buttons being pushed. Gruffly, he replied, “Yeah, and?”

Kakashi’s smile was a little sad. “Looks like your luck is changing for the better. I’m happy for you,”

Surprise washed over Obito in a wave. He narrowed his eyes on Kakashi. “What do you mean by that?”

Kakashi’s eyes slid to the direction you had gone and back to Obito, an eyebrow raising slowly. Obito suddenly felt hot all over. He hissed. “There’s nothing there,”

“Sure, that’s exactly why you’re so worked up right now. Because there’s nothing there…”

“Bakashi,” he warned.

“I’m just saying, I see the way you look at her. And she seems… happier when she’s with you,”

Obito’s heart beat rapidly in his chest and something ugly twisted in his stomach. “You act like you don’t look just the same,”

Kakashi shrugged. His heart hurt more than he would ever admit, but he was used to giving every bit of him by now, and his first friend deserved happiness more than him. He had been deprived much longer. Kakashi could concede this for him, even if it hurt him, he could find happiness in the fact that the two of you were happy. The way you looked at Obito when you thought no one was looking was not lost on him. He wouldn’t put up a fight for something that was not meant for him. In another life, another version of himself could have deserved your love. It just wasn’t meant to be this time around.

Kakashi put his empty plate in the sink and cleaned up Hikaru’s mess just as you were walking in. You made a face at him, one that deepened the sharp pain in his chest. “‘Kashi, don’t touch anything else. You’re a guest; cleaning up is my job,”

“Just wanted to do my part before I go,” He said casually. 

“Leaving so soon?” You asked sadly. 

He nodded quickly, unable to make eye contact. He nodded to Obito who was cooling off from their conversation. Obito nodded back, a little unsure about Kakashi’s actions. 

“Well, you’re free to come by anytime, y’know? I’m always happy to feed you and we enjoy your company,” 

“Yeah,” it came out a little strained. “I will. Just let me know when you’re making something good,”

You looked at him oddly and then between the two of them. You wondered what had happened but held your tongue. He started towards the door, grabbing his coat. 

“Okay, well, get home safely, okay?” You trailed behind him.

“I will..” he trailed off as you opened your arms to give him a hug.

There was a lump in his throat as he slowly reciprocated. He pulled you close to him, perhaps a little too tightly. He inhaled deeply, taking in your scent at the base of your neck. You held him back tightly, incredibly confused by his sudden change in behavior. You ran a soothing hand through his soft hair and heard his breath stutter. 

He was slow to pull away, his eyes glassy. “Are you okay?”

“Never been better,”

He left in a hurry, leaving you utterly bewildered. With the door shut, you turned on your heel to face Obito. “What the hell happened? I was gone for ten minutes, max,”

“Nothing, probably just overly tired,” Obito’s eyes darted away from you as you approached.

“Are you sure? That was really unusual. You weren’t being mean, were you?” It came out half teasingly.

Obito shook his head. “Why don’t you go get showered while I clean up?”

“Umm, okay. Yeah, thanks,” 

…

Obito woke up after you, since apparently Hikaru was a very early riser. He had actually slept quite well during the night, so he didn’t much mind the extra hour or so, nor did he mind that the sound that woke him up was the thump thump thump of little footsteps and your much quieter steps running after them. He rolled out of bed and stumbled a bit over to the door, his body not yet in time with his mind. 

“Hikaru, you need to be quiet, Baby. We don’t want to be rude and wake up Obi, do we?” He heard you say to Hikaru from somewhere in the kitchen.

There was a loud clang of silverware against ceramic. Hikaru shouted, “Yes!”

Obito could feel a warmth in his heart that made him want to squirm at your little conversation. He took a few long strides out into the living room to see the commotion in the kitchen. He could smell a delicious breakfast cooking the closer he got. You looked up at him just as he walked out and gave him a sheepish smile from where you were bent over next to the table getting ready to scold a grinning Hikaru. His heart skipped a beat.

You wore an oversized old t-shirt and pajama pants that were too long for you, feet clad in fuzzy socks that just peeked out from beneath the hem of your pants. Your hair was positively unruly and the last dredges of sleep still clung to you, very unlike the little one next to you. Hikaru, in nothing but a diaper, turned his wide grin to Obito and shouted his new nickname, a little hand excitedly waving his spoon. 

Time slowed down for him as he looked on at your two smiling faces illuminated by the bright morning sun. Smiles that were for him, and him alone. He glanced around at the food on the stove with plates stacked next to it, the coffee maker full with two mugs beside it, the mess of scrambled eggs in front of Hikaru’s plate on the table. His eyes started watering.

“Obito?”

He cleared his throat and looked into your eyes. “Yeah?”

“Why are you using your Sharingan?”

He blinked in surprise, deactivating it. He was so overwhelmed by - well, he didn’t know if he was ready to know what that emotion was- that he started recording the scene. He couldn’t help himself, it was just so… domestic. And it was like he was stepping into a dream he liked to keep tightly stoppered up in the back of his mind. 

“No reason… Uh, is breakfast ready?”

…

Something odd happened that first week of you living together. Obito couldn’t understand why when you started cleaning, you wore headphones. At first he thought they were noise canceling because there was no cord and he was highly offended, but you quickly put the earpiece next to his ear and he heard a lovely melody pouring from it. He could make a little more sense of that, but he still didn’t understand why you were taking up this new habit. 

Obito was never particularly interested in music, although he did enjoy whatever was popular on the radio when he and his friends would get together outside of training. After Madara, he hated listening to anything upbeat, and especially hated Zetsu singing his stupid little songs or humming a tune while he worked. He really just didn’t get the point because it never really did anything for him.

It didn’t do anything for him until you started swaying your hips to the music one night after putting Hikaru to bed. It was awful, the way he couldn’t tear his eyes away from your ass for a solid three minutes while whatever song played. He salivated like a dog, leaning heavily against the wall in the mouth of the hallway so he was just out of sight to you in the kitchen. 

As soon as you stopped, his vision was able to refocus, and he swallowed thickly. He racked his brain for whatever he wanted to ask you and drew a blank. He felt a little like a creep, but that was overshadowed by the sudden understanding as to why people went to clubs. If just a little swaying did this number to him, then damn. He could finally see the appeal. 

He had to take a long shower afterwards, and avoided interacting with you besides a quick “goodnight” while rushing to his room. 

In the following days you started to play the music out loud while you made dinner with Hikaru. You would dance around and sing along to it. Your voice was actually quite pleasing, and he was finding he didn’t mind the music so much. It completely changed the atmosphere in the house into something lively and upbeat. 

He would laugh when you cheered Hikaru on during his little dances, stare stupidly when you would start moving to it, and vehemently deny you every time you asked for him to dance with you. It was the only time he’d ever seen you make a pouty face, and it was worth the denial every single time. 

While Hikaru was at school one gloomy afternoon, you put on a slower type of music while you swept the living room. It seemed like nowadays, there were always crumbs everywhere, no matter what either of you did. Perks of living with a toddler, he supposed. 

You sang along to the song, something he noticed you had to warm up to with him. He didn’t understand why, since you had a great voice, but to each their own. You noticed him entering from the hallway and held out your hand to him. 

“Dance with me?”

He was ready to deny you when the words died on his lips. You were looking up at him with those pretty doe eyes, just like you had done in front of the vendor during your mission. Without a single thought in his head, he took your hand. 

“I-I don’t know how,” he stuttered out, still locked into your eyes. 

“That’s okay,” you said sweetly. “I’ll teach you. Follow my lead,” 

You started moving your feet to the rhythm, swaying slowly. He looked down at your feet while he tripped over his own. He heard you giggle, and an embarrassed blush crept onto his cheeks. 

“Look at me, Obi, not your feet,” 

He did as he was told, and after a few more stumbling steps, he found his rhythm. He couldn’t tear his eyes from your face, not that he wanted to. He had never seen anything more beautiful than your tender eyes and sweet smile. 

You pressed close to him now that he had found his footing. You found solace in his fast beating heart and adoration in those dark brown eyes. You would place a bet on the fact that he didn’t realize he was smiling with you, melting your resolve as much as the warmth of his body. 

This past week had only served to draw you closer and closer to each other; a planet orbiting his sun, basking in her light, burning away the darkness that once lingered through the night. He held your hand as you twirled away and back into him, a breathless giggle leaving your lips. 

He held you tightly as the two of you swayed, your back against his chest, his breath fanning your neck and causing delicious tingles down your spine. You spun back out to the song and came back in to face him. You pressed your chest to his as you continued to sway and felt your breath catch in your throat as his gaze slid down to your lips. 

His eyes flicked back up to meet yours and you batted your long lashes at him. The magnetism between the two of you was undeniable. Your chakras curled together, increasing the electricity between the two of you as your mouths inched closer. You felt his breath on your lips just before they connected. Softly, featherlight. Your quick breaths intermingled and you pressed closer, your lips meeting in a firmer kiss, but still so soft it could have been a mirage. 

And your lips were so silky against his. His heart hammered against his ribcage and his fingers trembled as you pressed even closer. Your lips slowly moved against his and he followed your lead, letting you absolutely intoxicate him. Your fingers wound into his dark hair at the nape of his neck and you pulled him down as you pressed up onto your toes. He swore he was seeing stars, his knees weakening from your gravity. 

His fingers dug into your hip as the other hand trailed up to cup the back of your head, unconsciously deepening the kiss with his heedy desire. You let out a tiny gasp into his mouth and he felt it like electricity straight down from his lips to his groin. He groaned against his will, and it earned him a tug to his hair as you pressed impossibly closer, your tongue sliding against his lower lip before you gently bit into it. 

He stumbled then, his knees finally giving in. You stumbled backwards with him, forced to part to save yourselves from falling. The second he felt like he could right himself, he looked into your lustfully darkened eyes, pupils blown wide and lost all control of himself again. He backed into the couch and fell heavily onto it. He tried to catch his breath as his fingers came up to touch his dark, kiss-swollen lips. You watched him like prey, ready to pounce when you remembered yourself. 

Shock coursed through your system and your hand covered your still tingling lips. You wanted this - him - so badly but you couldn’t do this. You lived together now, you couldn’t just walk away if things didn’t work out. And what about Hikaru? You couldn’t put him in the middle of something like that. Your heart beat erratically and you bit your lip. But what if it did work out? 

You looked back at Obito, flushed, breathing heavily with his moussed hair and legs open just so that you could climb right on his lap and continue what the two of you started. You could already imagine the way his hard cock would feel between your thighs. Fuck. The image left you soaking. Things could work out between the two of you, right?

Part XXV

Taglist: @mostlyunsure, @humongousdreamlandbear, @ichaichahatake, @mandy-yeager, @detectivestucks, @faces-ofvenus

[chubsonthemoon]

GUESS WHOSE BOOK ARRIVED TODAYYYYYY SO NOW I GET TO POST PICS!!!!

This is To Hell and Back Again, by dear dear @perexcri. Cover design by @byierficrecs (thank you SO much for letting me use your design!). Binding by me!

I'm not in ST fandom, but I had the pleasure of skimming this fic while I was typesetting, and can I just say? I'm rooting for these kids SO hard. I'd go to hell and back again for them--[GUNSHOT]

But in all seriousness, Leah's writing is whip-smart, sincere, and funny as hell. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who is a fan of these crazy kids. Her ao3 is a veritable treasure trove of excellent byler stories, which you should absolutely check out right now go do it!!!

As usual, process chatter and more pics, under the cut! <3

WORD COUNT: 144k

FONTS:

Title: Hellprint

Heading/Chapter Headings/Spine Titling: Norwester

C4 Summary: Roboto Condensed

Main Body Text: Garamond

COVER MATERIAL: Epson Premium Presentation Paper Matte, printed on my Epson Ecotank (more on that later baha)

HEADBANDS: Trebizond silk thread in the colors Garnet and Black

EDGE PAINTING: Acrylic paint in Crimson and Black

TITLING: Red iron-on foil for the text and white HTV for my maker's mark. Cut by Charlotte, my Cricut!

BINDING:

This was my first go at a German Bradel binding! I've seen lots of Renegade folks use this method and am so psyched I got around to trying it myself. I modified DAS's approach a bit and tipped on endpapers instead of sewing them in (there were a lot of new things to learn so I decided to shelve sewn endpapers for the next binding XD). I also only had 2.0 mm bookboard instead of 1.0 mm, so instead of layering two of the same boards like DAS did, I instead used one 2.0 mm board and one very thin piece of cardboard to create the groove for the hinge. The original article that DAS bases his video on actually uses boards of two different sizes too--a "thick" board and a "thin" board--but I still want to experiment with DAS's way of doing it, especially since I think it'll be easier to do cutouts on thinner board.

As far as matching the groove with the hinge, I think I did pretty okay for my first try! One board is definitely better fitting than the other though baha. There's always room for improvement, but hey that's where half the fun is anyway (and also you can't tell after the case-in whew), so I'm not stressed about it :D

COLOR SCHEME:

Nearly all of my design decisions for the color scheme were based off of @byierficrecs's gorgeous cover design! They were so generous in letting me use their cover and answering my questions about fonts, for which I can't thank them enough. And with so many wonderful elements to work with, it was so much fun to tease out the elements I loved from their work!

I decided to keep with the theme of red/black, which I also thought was fitting for a ST fic set largely in the Upside Down. Thus, black painted edges with red vines, as a kind of inverted, "upside down" continuation of the cover:

Even the thread I used to sew the signatures is red/black! :3 (please also ignore how the picture of the textblock is not focused on the actual textblock ajsldkfjs it was very late when I took that photo)

COVER PRINTING:

This was my first time printing a cover on my new printer (!!!), and BOY oh boy was it an adventure. Figuring out the dimensions took a second, but not as long as it took me to figure out what settings produced something I was happy with. Behold, all my test prints:

Very long story short, let's just say now I understand why being a prepress color specialist is literally a career you can have in publishing LOL.

Also, for some reason I could only sometimes get the bleed to work? Basically what I ended up doing was painting over the parts where the design didn't quite extend over the turn-ins, using with the same black acrylic paint I used for the edges. You can see this more clearly in the photos I took of the groove, and the endpapers covered the messy bits when I cased in:

THE MAIN INGREDIENT: LOVE

Finally!! The most important part of the process!!! HI LEAH ILY!!!! This fic is special for a lot of personal reasons, but chief among them is LOVE!!!! Your A/N's made me tear up when I first read it, because AH! You read my words of love!!! And went and wrote hundreds of thousands of your own words of love!!! And now I hope I've given that love back once again :3 And on and on we go, ad infinitum, until we are relieved of the curse of literacy and greet whatever comes after all this, thanks be to Todd. But until then, I'm so glad I get to shoot holes out of bagels and scream about radioactive tumblr posts and cry over fake people with you, friend :] Truly, peace and love on FUCKING Planet Earth. We are making it and we will all go together when we--[ANOTHER GUNSHOT]

I'm so excited to see where we're going, and what other stories we have to tell. But for now: EEEEEEEE YOU WROTE A BOOK!!!!!!!

<33333!!!

[thejockout]

Subject Diaries #0 - Jockout the Subject, Part 1

In traditional Jockout fashion, I'm getting to this a little later (and differently) than I'd expected, but I've made it at last.

Initially, I was planning this first post to be a fairly blunt description of the files I've been listening to and the effects I've been experiencing; but I realised it's kinda weird to do that without ever really talking about my desires and what I'm into with hypnosis, lol. I will still give a little breakdown of what I've been up to (and that's what my future posts in this series will mostly be) but for the first one, I think I wanna talk a little more broadly first about my experiences/wants with hypnosis.

You've already met Jockout the hypnotist, so now let's talk about Jockout the subject:

As in my bio, I'm 22 (for a few more weeks) and live in Ireland in a suuper rural area, far from any population centers. I work as a freelance writer (AKA unemployed most of the time), so lots of time on my hands.

I've got extensive history with masculinisation hypnosis of all types and flavours. I first got into it fairly young via "Turn Straight" hypnosis (which is sad, looking back!) but it very rapidly transformed into all this. I was interrogating my sexuality and came to realise that more than being attracted to men, I was attracted to manhood, and I was into TF/mind control stuff. So falling into the masculinisation hypno hole was a pretty logical progression. Like many of us, I started on WarpMyMind but did get sick of that place quickly.

So that's setting the scene for who I am. What's my actual experience level with hypnosis?

Firstly, I am predominately a file subject. I've done some live trances and toyed with the Hypnosis4Guys circuit before but out of 10 people I've tranced with, 1-2 were ethical with me at most. I've dealt with people ignoring limits set pre-session, photos being taken of me without my consent, sessions being recorded, clumsy attempts to use triggers on me when I voice objections... I do have hypnotist friends I trust now who I could trance with, but tbh, I'm just more comfortable trancing on my own time nowadays. I feel strongly that hypnosis files can still have effect, despite what a battery of Twitter hypnodoms will tell you to the contrary. It just takes a different set of skills to live trancing.

As a subject, the files I've got the most experience with in total are Jack Drago's Masculine Conditioning series, Rigsby's Absolute Jock, and too many of @avissapiens' catalog to list, though I've spent the most time with Douche Gymbro, Perfect Muscle Bull, Painted Himbo, and Abyss Drone as a default "I wanna trance but don't know what file" option. I've done too many other random files to count, but these are the ones I stood by for the longest. (@hyphyphurray is the most recent addition to this staple rotation, someone I only started listening to sometime in the last few years... but more on that in my next post.)

The final thing bit of context I want to give, but haven't already, is my view of masculinisation/personality change hypnosis as a whole. What is it? Is it real? Does it work? How much of it is fantasy?

"Is This Kind of Hypnosis Real?"

Well, the answer changes depending on who you ask. My belief is that personality-change hypnosis is not "roleplay" in the sense we usually use that word in kink, so I prefer to think of it as role experimentation. It provides a chance for us to explore the fit of different psyches, mannerisms and thought patterns to our own defaults, which allows us to see how well they might fit.

For this reason, I often think the different masculine roles explored in hypnosis (himbo, jockboy, jock, bull, pup, bro, alpha, beta, slave) are kind of like mental outfits we try on during trance.

Some people feel more strongly than others that "there is only one of these outfits for every person and you must choose", but I take a looser approach than that. In my own trancing, I like to bounce around. I enjoy files that use the Himbo/Pup/Bro/Jock/Bull/Alpha labels all pretty well, with the only types I dislike being the extremely-submissive ones. I have a pretty varied hypno diet for this reason... and to extend the "outfit" metaphor, I kinda feel like a Disney employee who does Tigger for the morning shift and Gaston for the evening parade or something. They're both ostensibly outfits I'm choosing to put on, roles I'm choosing to play. Are either me?

That's a choice we all make for ourselves, I guess - imo, the "self" that we embody is inherently a kind of role, just one we've gotten very practiced at, so I see no reason the the roles we play within hypnosis are less significant. But I won't get into philosophy/psychology here because it's honestly kinda boring and I have no interest in trying to convert anyone into agreeing with me. But tl;dr, this kinda role experimentation does matter, and the roles it allows us to play with are no less real than others we perform socially, professionally, sexually, or etc., outside of hypnosis.

So.

That's enough for now, as an introduction to what I believe in as a tist/subject. In the next post, I'll be talking about what I actually want from hypnosis as well as what I've achieved thus far. And from then on, these posts will be more like status updates on how my own TF journey is going!

Hope you enjoyed!

-------

This post serves as the introduction to my broader Subject Diaries series, a blog series I plan to maintain on a fortnightly/monthly basis updating people on what I've been listening to, files I've been enjoying, and effects I've been experiencing. When I'm not trancing, I'm usually off being a mystical forest bro in the wilderness of Ireland, but I am always available for commissions here on Tumblr/Soundcloud if you reach out via DM. My flat rate is currently $55-80, but you can always check my pinned post for more up-to-date info. You can also support me with a one-time tip either via Paypal or Ko-Fi, but you'll have to DM for the first.

'Til next time!

[somedaylazysomeday]

Matter of Perspective - Part One

Horacio Carrillo x fem!reader (no use of y/n)

Rating: Mature. No smut, but definitely heading that way. Minors, please do not interact.

Word Count: 5,900

Warnings: enemies-to-lovers vibes, some language, mentions of gossip, canon-typical references to drugs and drug use, probably incorrect Spanish, disdain, antagonism, bad language, office gossip, a mini makeout session.

Next | Masterlist

---

You had always been a little… off.

Nothing disconcerting or sinister, but your thoughts and opinions were always slightly different than what would be considered typical. ‘Left of normal’ as your dad had jokingly put it since you were young.

It was part of what made you such a good analyst. You had worked your entire life to understand how most people thought, but your own unique perspective helped you see things as they could be.

A seemingly normal home on the outskirts of a finca? Anyone could see that. But you were the one to pick up on the fact that the lights were never on despite the power lines clearly running to it and the near-constant visitors arriving on bikes. A call to the power company confirmed it: the home was using electricity at all hours of the day, but none of it was visible in aerial or ground-based photos. 

Painted-over windows.

A cocaine packaging and distribution center. The drugs were delivered by carriers on bicycles and packaged product was taken away using the same method. 

And when it came time to plan how to shut the center down? You were the one who proposed stealthily taking it over and seizing all new arrivals, taking delivery riders into custody every time one arrived. Thanks to you, field agents had managed to trace the cocaine back to several labs and shut each one down.

All because your brain was slightly left of normal.

That was why you didn’t berate yourself too harshly when your lustful thoughts fixed themselves not on office heartthrob Javier Peña, but on the harsh and clipped Horacio Carrillo. 

Peña was by far the better choice of crush, you reflected morosely, watching a secretary flirt with the aforementioned DEA agent. Since you worked as an extension of the DEA, Peña was always around and easily accessible for some flirtation. Something about his attitude made you doubt that his womanizing reputation was quite what office gossip tended to say, but you couldn’t deny that the man knew how to flirt.

Even now, Jackie was basking in the warmth of his brown eyes and quietly amused smile. 

“You’re so funny, Javi!”

The giggle she gave was at a pitch that made you wince slightly, but you were happy for her. She got to speak with the object of her attraction on a fairly standard basis. You were limited to quick glances as Carrillo stalked through the office.

It was the most frustrated you had ever been, but that didn’t stop you from recalling the scowl on his handsome face when you worked off some of that frustration before going to bed at night.

Colonel Carrillo was famously married. His wife was well-known around the office… or at least, she had been. When Carrillo came back from Spain, his wife was not with him. A few short explanations had revealed what happened: she had been unable to stand the idea of returning to Colombia only to live under constant threat from friends, neighbors, and random passersby. 

Hell, you could even understand that, but apparently, Carrillo couldn’t. He hadn’t given many details, but the general word around the office was that they were filing for divorce.

It wasn’t your business, it really wasn’t… but your brain wouldn’t stop telling you that there was one fewer obstacle between you and the handsome colonel now. There were two dozen others - chiefly, that he didn’t seem to know you from any other piece of office equipment - but that made no difference to your brain. He wasn’t married anymore, and that meant he was fair game.

You wanted to snort as you thought about how Carrillo would react to knowing that he was being hunted by you… but when you remembered that he and every other member of Colombia’s police force was being hunted by Pablo Escobar, you could no longer see the humor in it.

So you nursed your stupid little crush, tried to content yourself with the few chances you got to ogle Carrillo, and did your job. 

Until one day, when Javier Peña approached the edge of your desk.

You glanced up at him, already frowning. If he was going to ask you to take a message for one of his office flirtation partners, you couldn’t. You were busy enough with your own work. If he was going to ask a favor in exchange for a few smoldering looks and a rare smile, he was out of luck. You really didn’t want to dwell on the reason why. 

So you kept your gaze expectant and professional as you lifted your brows at him. “Something I can do for you, Agent Peña?”

“Can you come with me?” he asked. “I need your help with something in the records room.”

Your mouth twisted into an involuntary smirk. The records room was a pain in the ass to get to, since it was tucked into the very back of the building and down several winding hallways. Naturally, those qualities made it a known hotspot for activities that the DEA would probably frown upon during working hours. 

You weren’t interested in fooling around with Peña - on the clock or not - but the rules of the DEA social scene demanded that you mess with him a little. You would have started already, but you were distracted by the dirty looks you were getting from some of the other women around the office. Clearly, Peña’s offer had been overheard. 

With the hope of drinking spit-free coffee for the rest of your time in Colombia, you decided to cut things off quickly. “Listen, Peña-”

“I really need your help with something,” he interrupted. You were unmoved by the soft pleading in his deep brown eyes, but his fingers tapped deliberately on the map you had been studying when he came up. 

Your eyes darted back to him and he gave a shallow nod. “Fine.”

The evil looks burning into your back made you cringe as you followed Peña to the records room. If this ended up being a heavily disguised request for a make-out session, you were going to be royally pissed…

When you stepped into the records room, your breath audibly caught. Colonel Carrillo was standing by a wall, scanning through an open folder in his hands. He glanced over as you entered the room behind Peña’s broad back. Carrillo already looked unimpressed, and your feigned cough didn’t do you any favors. 

“Finally,” he told Peña, closing the folder and crossing his arms. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, displaying the dancing muscles in his forearms, and you had to summon all of your willpower to look anywhere else.

Peña replied to the colonel, but you couldn’t begin to hear what he said over the rushing in your ears. In an attempt to look halfway capable, you crossed to the small table in the middle of the room. There was a map spread over its surface, but it didn’t display the familiar streets and fincas of Medellín.

Dimly, you registered two people approaching the table as well. With your best effort toward nonchalance, you glanced at Carrillo. “¿Cómo estás, Coronel?”

“You speak Spanish?” Peña asked. 

Carrillo looked, if possible, less impressed than he ever had. “I’ll be better once we catch Escobar.”

The fact that he had answered you in English somehow made the dismissal even more cutting. You winced and looked down at the map once more. “What exactly do you need from me?”

“We’ve had a problem lately,” Peña told you. “Boats on the Magdalena River are seen stopping at known narco docks and taking on cargo, but when they’re investigated downriver, there is no sign of cocaine. We’ve gotten the CIA to do a flyover between Medellín and Barranquilla, but they didn’t see any signs of drugs, groups of people, or suspicious structures along the river.”

“So you need to figure out where the drugs are going,” you concluded.

“Exactly,” the agent confirmed. “And you have a reputation for seeing things that other people miss.” 

Your pleased smile was cut off almost instantly at the soft snort from Carrillo, but when you glanced up, you only saw Peña giving him a warning look. You shifted your weight from one foot to the other. This was far from any fantasy meeting between the two of you. Now that you finally got some time with the colonel himself, you were spending it wishing this was over.

After a minute of silently studying the map, you said, “And your men checked the ships for the typical smuggling tricks?”

“Yes,” Peña said, but he was nearly drowned out by the sound of Carrillo sighing. Peña said something in rapid Spanish, far too quick and low for you to parse with your limited understanding of the language. 

However, Carrillo had the decency - or the cruelty - to reply in English. “What do you expect from me, Peña? You tell me this woman will solve all of our problems, and the first thing she does is ask if my men performed the most basic of checks on Escobar’s boats? This is a waste of my time.”

“Ouch,” you muttered, and Peña tossed you an apologetic look. 

“This is gonna work,” he insisted. “She needs the facts first, doesn’t she?”

“Fine,” Carrillo snapped. When you dared to look up, he was watching you with so much disdain in his expression that you fondly remembered when he had no idea who you were. “Yes, my men are qualified officers and did manage to look in the usual places where drugs tend to be hidden. And before you ask: yes, they also asked the captains very nicely to tell us whether or not they were hired to smuggle cocaine for Pablo Escobar.”

When he had finished, Carrillo looked to Peña, speaking directly to him in Spanish as if you were not worth his time. You caught a phrase: “Pérdida de tiempo,” and your shoulders shot toward your ears. You weren’t fluent - not even close - but you knew enough to recognize the phrase ‘waste of time’ when you heard it.

You ducked your head to avoid that harsh criticism, staring at the map instead. Your finger traced the Magdalena River as it snaked through Colombia, passing through Barranquilla before emptying into the Caribbean Sea. Something about that made your brain itch and you willingly followed the feeling, eager to distance yourself from the dressing-down you had just received. 

Darkness and treasure and…

“Banditos,” you finished with a smile.

Peña caught the whispered word, cutting through the muttered Spanish complaints from Carrillo to ask, “What was that?”

“Bandits,” you repeated. “In the late 1800s, American bandits and outlaws were said to hide in cave systems. The Magdalena River passes through a few mountainous regions between Medellín and Barranquilla. I would bet there are caves in those areas. The boats could unload shipments of drugs there before they’re boarded. I’m guessing your men search the boats in Barranquilla, Colonel Carrillo?”

This time, you made no effort to give his title the Spanish inflection you had striven for previously. He seemed surprised at your question, but nodded slowly. “Yes, Barranquilla.”

You traced the river again with your fingertips, leaving one at Medellín while the other covered the distance to the Caribbean. “Plenty of time to offload the drugs, then. And the shelter of the caves would keep the drugs and workers from being seen by any flyovers.”

When neither of the men spoke, you shrugged and pushed away from the table. “That’s my best guess, at least. Unless you need something else, I’m going back to my desk now.”

No one stopped you, so you left the records room and started the trek back to your desk. Footsteps from behind you made your heart lurch, but it eased back into a normal rhythm when Peña spoke. “Good job. I never would have thought about caves.”

“Thanks,” you replied, glancing over to see him looking very proud of himself. “Like I said, it’s just a guess.”

“No, it’s better than that,” he countered. “It’s a possible lead. I’ll go speak to Messina about getting some boats to search the river between here and Barranquilla.”

“That’s - what? Four hundred miles?” you asked, thinking over the map you had been studying. 

“Something like that,” Peña agreed, sounding unconcerned. “But they won’t be searching that entire distance. They’ll just be looking for areas that have the right geography for caves. Decently large ones, too, with how much product we think they’re moving through the area.”

“I don’t envy you the process of searching the caves they find,” you said, wondering how much further it could possibly be back to your desk. 

Peña hummed. “I’m sorry about-”

“You have something stuck to the bottom of your shoe,” you interrupted, happy for a reason to avoid listening to him explain away Carrillo’s rudeness. 

Peña glanced down when you had delivered your warning, swearing at the scrap of paper he found clinging to his sole. He ducked down to free the stubborn thing as you watched, debating on whether you should leave him there. If you knew for a certainty that he was going to keep offering apologies for the very-unapologetic colonel, you would have.

As it turned out, you should have left him anyway. One of your favorite secretaries - a woman named Stacy - came over to you. “Peña, huh? What would the good colonel think?”

“Carrillo?” Peña asked, standing up from behind the desk where he had been kneeling. “What about him?”

Your wide eyes met Stacy’s. It had been an honest accident, but you still could have cheerfully killed her. Despite her own shock, Stacy tried to stammer an excuse. “Oh, no, not him… It’s just an inside- Uh, I have to go.”

When Peña looked at you, his eyebrows were raised. You shook your head and gave a weak laugh. “Oh, Stacy. Such a kidder! Anyway, I really do need to get back to work. Let me know how it all works out- Or don’t. Secrets and all of that. Not that I can’t keep a secret, but- Anyway, see you later.”

You walked away, shaking your head at yourself. How could you be catty when you were just as bad as Stacy? Actually, your rambling may have been a little worse than hers. But how could you blame yourself? You had close contact with the man you had been admiring for as long as you had been in Colombia, been insulted by him, and subsequently discovered that your crush on him was totally unfounded. That would be a lot for anyone to take in.

When you flopped back into the chair behind your desk, you hoped your coworkers thought your groan was one of weariness rather than one of self-directed frustration. 

---

You didn’t hear anything else about caves or Carrillo or cocaine - well, not the last one. As part of the search for Pablo Escobar, you definitely heard about cocaine. But not cocaine that was being transported via riverboat. 

Honestly, you weren’t too upset about that. Your job was busier than ever. It seemed like the stack of aerial photographs on your desk was growing taller by the day, and photographic intelligence was only good for a limited window of time before it was considered useless. To top it all off, the different departments kept trying to sneak their photos into the middle of your stack so they would be analyzed first. It was destroying your carefully organized efforts and it was making you cranky.

In retrospect, that was probably the major reason you were so curt with Peña when he cornered you in the breakroom nearly a month after your previous conversation. 

“Hey-” he started, but you sent him such an evil glare that he froze - still too close, but not as close as he had apparently planned on getting. 

“No,” you refused instantly. “Whatever it is you’re planning on asking for, no. And tell Murphy if he keeps putting his pictures in the middle of my pile instead of at the bottom, I am going to lose my shit.”

Peña nodded, but it was hesitant enough that you doubted that he really understood. “I need you to-”

“No,” you repeated. “Take a step away from me.”

Peña held his hands in front of himself, palms out in the universal sign of no harm, but didn’t move back. “I need to tell you something in private, though. Unless you want to go to the records room again?”

You sighed, glancing around the room. It was empty, but that didn’t mean much. But a short conversation here would start fewer rumors than another trip to the records room would. “Fine. Just make it quick.”

“Messina approved the Magdalena River exploration and the teams have found some promising cave systems,” he confided, standing close enough that you could clearly hear his soft murmur. “We’re going to go check them out next week.”

“Oh.” You glanced at the spoon you were using to stir your coffee. The closure on your theory was nice, but you didn’t really feel like you needed to be involved in this. “Good luck, I guess?”

“Can you take a few days off?” Peña asked, gaze direct. “It would be better if you were there with us.”

“Us?” you repeated suspiciously. 

“The Search Bloc,” Peña explained. “Steve will be here covering the tip line - and not rearranging the photographs on your desk - but pretty much everyone else is going.”

‘Everyone else’ in this case included Carrillo. Your stomach tightened, but you couldn’t tell whether it was with dread or anticipation.

“I’m not a field agent,” you reminded. 

“I got permission from Messina,” he told you. “We both think you might see something the rest of us would miss. Conditional on you accepting, of course. But she’s willing to pull some strings to bring you along.”

You hesitated again, trying to think this over as quickly as you could. Going out into the field was inherently dangerous, especially as a DEA agent and especially when trying to track down mass amounts of cocaine so you could disrupt Pablo Escobar’s smuggling routes. Staying here would be the wiser choice by far.

And yet… You had never gotten the chance to be there when one of your theories was tested. The few times you had been wrong in the past, you had fixated on it, wondering if you would have caught a seemingly innocent detail if you had been there to see things with your own ‘left of normal’ perspective. Could you really pass up a chance like this because you were scared of a narco? Or, you corrected internally, because you were scared of being disdained by a handsome colonel?

Well, that’s already happened, you reminded yourself. 

“I’ll do it,” you told Peña, and he smiled.

“Good. You’ll be with us for about three days, starting Monday morning.” When you groaned dramatically, his smile froze. “What is it?”

“It took me a week to stop getting the cold shoulder from everyone after meeting you in the records room,” you complained. “No one’s ever gonna talk to me again after three days with you.”

Peña shook his head at you, but you tossed your spoon into the sink with a clatter and left the breakroom. It was Friday afternoon. You had a lot of work to do if you were going to make a dent in the picture stack by the time you left on Monday. 

---

Late Monday afternoon, you had boarded a boat and were traveling down the Magdalena River. It had been a long drive from Medellín to Puerto Triunfo, but Messina had apparently decided that you would attract less suspicion if you started sailing somewhere upstream from where the smugglers were known to take on their cargo. 

You had spent several hours following the length of the river, but you had finally reached the first set of suspicious caverns. As it turned out, there were only a few that were large enough to hold the amount of product the DEA expected to see. 

From some of the conversations you had overheard on the journey up to this point, Peña was not in charge, but he wasn’t not in charge, so he was in the middle of splitting everyone into groups. There were only so many people who could fit on the inconspicuous boat, so the groups were fairly small. In fact, the third group was just…

“Carrillo, our specialist, and me,” Peña concluded. The others - especially the Colombian Search Bloc members, with whom you’d had limited contact - gave you a curious look. They were clearly wondering about the vagueness of the term ‘specialist’. You were, too. 

“Peña,” you started, leaning on the edge of the boat. “I don’t think-”

“You’re not chickening out, are you?” Peña asked, squinting up at you. He was already several rungs down the ladder attached to the boat’s hull. “I need you in there, remember?”

“This…” You absently scratched your neck, staring out at the craggy shoreline. “This is a long way from looking at aerial photographs.”

“Yep,” Peña agreed. “And that’s why you came along. Come on.”

You sighed, clambering gracelessly down the ladder behind him. A man you vaguely recognized steadied as you perched on a rickety seat in the skiff that was taking you to the shoreline. You thanked him, returning the smile he gave you. 

Colonel Carrillo, not smiling at all, growled, “Trujillo.” 

Your new friend turned his attention to the colonel, and the two soon fell into an intense conversation in Spanish spoken too rapidly for you to understand. In contrast to Trujillo, Carrillo hadn’t smiled once during the entire journey. He seemed less than enthused about all of it. Uncharitably, you wondered why he couldn’t have stayed behind with Murphy. 

For the rest of your journey, you focused your attention on the surrounding area. Colombia was an impossibly beautiful country, but this was a step above what you were used to seeing. There were rocky peaks towering up on both sides of the river, cutting sharp silhouettes against the blue of the afternoon sky. The river reflected the sunlight, turning the water’s surface into an ever-shifting web of fire.

After Peña had dropped Trujillo and his men off at their cavern, he navigated the skiff toward a sandy beach a few hundred yards downstream. The final team had taken their own skiff to the opposite side of the river. The boat would drift down to meet you when Peña signaled. You were glad - the skiffs were little more than canoes with a sputtering motor attached. There was no way they could get you back upstream.

Peña led the way into the cave, his gun out and aimed with a flashlight pointed in the same direction. You had a gun of your own, but Peña had been clear that he and Carrillo would take care of anything - or anyone - you came across. You didn’t argue that. Despite being a fully qualified DEA agent, your specialty was intelligence interpretation. Your last experience on a gun range had been longer ago than was wise for an American DEA agent living in Colombia with a drug war going on. 

Fortunately, Peña cleared the cave without any difficulty and holstered his gun. Carrillo took a few moments longer to be satisfied that the cave was unoccupied, but he eventually put his gun away as well. 

Your own weapon had been back in the holster as soon as you had seen Peña replace his, but from the dark look Carrillo gave you, he hadn’t seen that. In fact, he likely believed you had never had yours out in the first place. You shook your head. If only the bulletproof vest you were wearing could protect you from Carrillo’s caustic attitude, you would be set.

“So, expert,” Peña started, glancing at you. “What should we be looking out for?”

Ah, an opportunity to do your job. You relished it, but before you could reply, a voice called Peña’s name through the yawning mouth of the cave. He straightened, immediately growing serious. He was already replying as he walked back out into the sunshine of the riverbank.

In the cool shadows inside the cave, Carrillo sighed irritably and called after him, “Lleva a tu novia contigo!”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” you told him automatically. He glanced at you in surprise and the mere sight of an expression that wasn’t antagonistic made your heart hesitate. With some effort, you forced yourself to look critically at the situation in light of your experiences with Carrillo. “I know you don’t like it when I speak in Spanish, but I understood that much of it. Peña and I aren’t dating.”

Carrillo frowned at you and you glanced around the cave to avoid his displeasure. “We’re looking for signs of disturbance here, especially along the ground. See the way the silt is built up in these little ripples from when the river overflowed its banks? We probably aren’t going to find anything in here, but we can still look around. It would be smart to get an idea of what these caves look like when they’re undisturbed, that way we can compare the others.”

You closed your mouth, forcibly cutting off your explanation before you could ramble any more. Thankfully, Carrillo didn’t say anything as he turned away from you and started studying the ground, along with the walls and roof of the cave.  

Over the weekend, you had been bemoaning your ill-fated encounter with the colonel. It wasn’t that you minded him being rude to you, you had decided. It hadn’t been fun, but he was allowed to be dismissive of someone he thought was wasting his time. The part that bothered you the most was that it was such a terrible waste of a crush. Now that you knew he didn’t care for you, any interaction between you would be uncomfortable - at least, on your side of things.

And so, when Carrillo’s soft voice broke the silence, you started slightly. “You don’t have to lie, you know. I don’t care who’s dating who, as long as things are mutual.”

At that point, nothing could have convinced you to look directly at Carrillo. Instead, you stared around the cave, admiring the way the light reflected from the river’s surface danced along the rough stone walls. When you couldn’t stand the silence any longer, you gave half a chuckle.

“I’m not dating Peña,” you repeated. “I’m honestly not sure I like him half the time.”

That wasn’t necessarily true. Peña had grown on you since you started interacting with him, but since he had abandoned you with the colonel, you weren’t feeling particularly charitable toward him.

Carrillo seemed unconvinced. “You don’t have to like him to sleep with him.”

How was this happening to you? With a barely contained sigh, you added, “I’m not sleeping with him, either.”

Even with the river and at least one other team nearby, the cave was remarkably quiet, which was how you heard Carrillo mutter, “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Seriously, how did DEA secretaries even function when they were so fixated on what Peña was doing and with whom?

Your head whipped around, facing Colonel Carrillo so abruptly that he looked startled. When you spoke, you strove for a conspiratorial tone, but there was a certain amount of glee you couldn’t contain. “Don’t tell me the great Coronel Carrillo gets his information from office gossip.”

For the first time, the man looked flustered. “I did not-”

“No, no,” you chided. “The secretaries are all upset because I went to the records room with Peña… and you, by the way. You know nothing happened between us, but they don’t. They’re the only ones who are convinced that Peña and I are sleeping together.”

“That is why?” he asked.

You smiled at the incredulous tone in his voice. “Yes. Apparently, that’s all it takes to get on their bad side. Certain people, anyway. But why did they tell you about it?”

Carrillo shrugged stiffly. “If you speak Spanish often enough, people forget you speak English as well. They say things around you that they may not have otherwise.”

“Smart,” you admitted. 

“They are not fond of you,” he said with a frown. “Surely there must be more of a reason than a short meeting with another agent?”

“It was a meeting with Peña,” you emphasized. “He’s prime flirtation material.”

“Then you are interested in sleeping with him?” 

Aaaand you were back to wishing you were anywhere else. “No, I… I’ve never been interested in Peña that way.” The silence hung heavy, one of Carrillo’s dark brows raised in silent encouragement. “Until recently, my attention has been focused in… another direction. Very recently.”

Carrillo frowned even harder at the muttered final sentence and you could kick yourself. What was that? A coy, leading half-explanation? You knew what was going to come next, and the colonel didn’t disappoint: “Where, then?”

When Peña called for you both, you could have kissed him - except that doing so would probably end in a horrible death for you back in the office. You called back, “On our way!”

Before you could exit the cave, Carrillo said your name. It was the first time you could remember him doing that, and you turned out of sheer shock. “You didn’t answer me.”

You offered him your brightest smile. “It doesn’t really matter. Come on, we have more caves to check out.”

Despite your best efforts to act casual on the way back to the boat, all of your instincts were telling you that something was off. The groups split up once more after the skiffs had been reattached to the boat, everyone on guard against narco activity on the banks. You were sitting alone in the front of the boat, watching the way the bow broke through the river’s current and trying to ignore the suspicious looks Carrillo was giving you. 

Apparently, you weren’t the only one to notice. Peña approached the colonel and had a short conversation with him. They were too far away for you to listen in, but Carrillo walked away after that, so you could only hope Peña had found a way to soothe whatever you had done to irritate the colonel this time.

The next stop you made, several miles further down the Magdalena River, was a little different. “Four caves, four groups,” Peña called. 

You stepped a little closer to Peña, hoping you could partner with him since you were less combat-ready than the DEA preferred for field agents. He nodded at you. “You’ll be with-”

“-me,” Carrillo interrupted, ordering you onto the skiff with a jerk of his chin. You glanced back, raising your eyebrows at Peña, but he merely shrugged. When you got on the skiff, it was with much internal cursing of Peña, Carrillo, and yourself.

These caves were spread out a little further than the last set had been. Your group’s skiff was going to the left side of the river while Peña and the other group were off to the right. The right caves were just beside one another, and you would bet the caves were part of a larger system. Perhaps they even connected further in.

The left caves were spread far enough apart that they were likely completely separate. Carrillo dropped the other group off at the nearer of the two, then navigated to the one that was further downstream. You obligingly jumped out of the skiff as soon as the water was shallow enough that you weren’t worried about completely soaking yourself, then waited for Carrillo to enter the cave first.

He did, gun drawn while you covered him. “Clear.”

You put your gun back in its holster, focusing on giving yourself a stern reminder to go to the practice range when you got back to Medellín. However, your attempts to set an internal to-do list were thwarted when Carrillo turned to face you. “Now…”

You squinted past his shoulder, trying to focus on anything other than the imposing colonel. “I really don’t want to argue right-”

The interruption of his lips on yours was unexpected, and the shock made you stiffen in his arms. Carrillo pulled away before you could ease into the kiss, giving himself just enough space to search your face with intent eyes. “Did I misunderstand?”

“No,” you gasped hurriedly, wrapping your arms around his neck so you could pull him back in. His lips were plush, much softer than the constant sternness of his expression would suggest. He was playful as well, darting his tongue to touch your lips at unexpected times, but never taking advantage of the fact that you had parted them for him. 

His hands were stroking your arms, working upward until he could cradle one breast in his hand. His thumb ran unerringly over your nipple and - despite the touch being filtered through the cup of your bra - you broke away to give a delighted gasp. 

Carrillo’s dark eyes were dancing and you smiled at him, feeling warm down to every finger and toe. Something in the part of your brain that wasn't focused on the handsome colonel itched, and you glanced past Carrillo’s head. 

He pressed in for another kiss, but you turned and caught the kiss on your jaw. Carrillo paused. “Is everything okay?”

“Look,” you murmured, pointing to the ceiling of the cave behind him. 

He turned, and you could only assume he gave the area a sweeping inspection before looking back at you. “I don’t see anything.”

“There’s a broken-off stalactite,” you insisted. You were slow to unwind yourself from him, your reluctance obvious in your movements, but you walked deeper into the cave and aimed your flashlight above your head. “See it?”

Carrillo gave an unimpressed hum. “Yes, but-”

“There’s another,” you observed, walking to follow the trail. And there was a trail. It was mostly the longer stalactites that showed signs of being damaged. When you glanced down, searching for the broken pieces, you found that the ground was noticeably bare of the silt that had patterned every other cave you had searched. “And the ground is clean.”

Now thoroughly unhappy, Carrillo brushed past you and peered around the edge of a corner, gun drawn and aimed at the ground. He stopped short and swore. 

“What is it?” you demanded, unable to wait for his report. Carrillo simply waved you over to where he stood. When you peeked around the natural bend, the beam of your flashlight fell on a haphazard stack of shipping crates. Various items were scattered around it, along with traces of a familiar white powder. “I’m gonna get Peña.”

Warm fingers tugged at your elbow and you glanced at Carrillo, your eyebrows raised in a silent question. Firmly, he told you, “We’ll continue this later.”

You nodded and rushed off toward the mouth of the cave. As you went, you heard from behind you, “Fucking Escobar.”

---

Author's Note - As you could probably guess from my Google Translate Spanish, I don't actually speak the language. Not fluently, anyway. I also know very little about the Magdalena River and whether it actually does have caves along the banks, though experience with rivers leads me to believe it's possible. If anything is glaringly wrong, please feel free to let me know!

In the meantime, thank you for reading! I'll be back with a second (explicit) part tomorrow!

I don't offer a taglist for explicit fics, but you can read my other works on my masterlist!

[potteresque-ire]

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0. Introduction; content notes and warning 1. The Boring Overview: 3rd Time is the Charm? 2. The Political Legacy of 2/27: A Hypothesis >> 3. Case Report of a Traffic Robbery, Committed October, 2020 4. Two Stories about a State-approved, Top Traffic Star 5. Afterthought: The Big Environment

(Below the Cut — 3. Case Report of a Traffic Robbery, Committed October, 2020)

Professor 沈 逸 Shen Yi deserves an introduction.

He is a professor of internal relations and Director of the Centre of Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University, one of the most prestigious universities in China. Known as an expert on “the United States problem”, Prof S also holds the honour of being denied entry into the U.S. by the Trump administration in 2018, for suspicion of espionage. He is an influencer of the nationalistic persuasion, not only for netizens but also, supposedly, for President Xi. Rumour has it that Prof S is a 內参, i.e. he collections information and writes analyses for the President to read. 

Prof S’s personality is also worth an introduction, and there is no better example than what happened in May, 2021, when India had a surge of COVID deaths. 長安網, the Weibo account of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (which oversees all legal enforcement authorities in China including the police force), posted the following on its blog:

The text of this 2021/05/01 Weibo post by 長安網 said “China lighting a fire vs India lighting a fire”. The left photo showed the launching of the Chinese rocket LM-8; the right photo showed a mass cremation of COVID deaths in India. The tag was # INDIA’S NEW COVID CASE COUNT EXCEEDS 400,000.  (Source)  

It caused an outcry among a significant fraction of netizens, who thought the post went too far. No matter how much border conflict there was between China and India, they opined, deaths from causes like COVID shouldn’t be used for jokes, for propaganda. The post was deleted after it caught attention internationally, and it sparked a “debate” between Prof S, and the  editor of the State Tabloid Global Times then, 胡 錫進 Hu Xijin. The reason why the word debate was in quotation marks was because Prof S and Hu didn’t actually disagree on a critical point — India deserved the deaths, the suffering. The difference in opinion between them was whether the government should spell out that sentiment, and made it known to the world.

Hu believed the answer was no. Official blogs representing the state should exercise restraint, he believed, 高舉人道主義大旗，表達對印度的同情，將中國社會牢牢置於道義的高地上 “raise the flag of humanitarianism up high, show sympathy to India and put the Chinese society on the moral high ground (in the eyes of the international community).” To put it simply, Hu believed the government should pretend to care for show. 

And here’s the even more ... enlightening opinion from Prof S:

“These photos are pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, humanitarianism, ‘community with a shared destiny’ (Pie note: a phrase from President Xi that means humankind shares the same future) are all needed. At the same time, (showing) temper against the kind of coquettish cheap goods like India is also needed. As to all the saint mother whores, if you want to get sentimental, please go to India to burn some wood.” 

A tiny lesson on Chinese slangs: cheap goods 賤貨 is a derogatory term customarily used to degrade women, meaning roughly the same as “bitch”. Saint mother whore 聖母婊 is an equally derogatory term used to insult people who have expressed a more humanitarian world view, mocking them as being so overflowing with love that they don’t indiscriminate to whom they show affection, much like prostitutes. Prof S used the former slang to describe India, and the latter, the sympathising, outraged netizens.

I hope this paints a picture of how Prof S exudes charm (or just … exudes). For all his shiny titles and oration skills, however, Prof S is as well known among Chinese netizens for being something else.

Prof S is a famous Gg Anti.

To understand why that is, we turn back the clock another seven months, to October, 2020. There was an incident involving Gg’s birthday celebration that year, one that, if c-turtles have to refer to it, they call it 川美事件 The Incident of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. i-Turtles who have been around longer probably remember that incident as well. Essentially, KaiXiaoZao — you know, the rice box meal Gg endorses? — planned to have to a drone exhibition near the school to celebrate Gg’s birthday. However, it had to cancel the event at the last minute due to COVID and crowd control concerns. Gg fans were already in attendance, and they stayed for a short while, enjoyed a bit of fun. 

But the gathering, the celebration was soon re-painted by antis as Gg fans disturbing the peace of the school and also, them defiling the space. In truth, Gg fans were in a public shopping area outside the premise of the school proper, and the graffiti of Gg’s name shown as evidence of the defiling was not only an hour’s distance away, but on a graffiti wall that welcomed anyone to write and draw on it. 

Antis and fans fought, and given this was a few short months after 2 27, the inaccurate retelling of the event spread. 

Luckily, a local Chongqing TV station stood up for their Chongqing son, investigated and cleared the name of Gg fans, and by extension, Gg. Weibo censored 28 accounts for spreading misinformation, silenced them for fifteen days. People’s Daily and several other state media reblogged the TV investigation, as well as the doled-out punishment online. In three weeks, the police would confirm that no illegal activities had occurred that evening.

That was the start and end of The Incident of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. But there was actually a side story, a subplot …

Enter Prof S. The day after the TV station and Weibo cleared the name of Gg’s fans, he commented on the post by Weibo that had announced the censoring, opined that Gg’s fandom needed to be 有效治理 effectively governed, or managed — joining the sentiment of Gg antis that Weibo had only stood by Gg’s side because Gg gave it money. (Which is, by the way, a garden-variety accusation in c-ent fandoms; almost every fan war in c-ent involved accusing stars of bribing or paying something, be it a platform, “Capital”, YXHs, water army etc)

(c-fans confrontations are often verbally violent, but rarely verbally innovative). 

Then, he happened upon the following tweet on Twitter with a photo of Gg’s birthday gathering, and posted it on his Weibo with a comment:

“Interesting. Activities of fans of a certain star has been interpreted by foreign media as an illegal, Tibetan Independence activity. 😜 What’s going on?” 

Please read the English text of the tweet as well. SCAFI stands for Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, the location of the birthday gathering.

Giving a tweet like this one any political weight defies common sense. If any form of assembly for the alleged cause had broken out within mainland China, every international news media would have been on it, not only a Twitter account that, by the way, had “gamer” in its profile that could be verified with mere minutes of scrolling. The tweet itself was buzz words galore, as if inserting more politically-sensitive words would boost its credibility, when the effect was exactly the opposite.

For one, the evidence it presented to support the claim that the gathering was for Tibetan Independence was … SCAFI being “not far from Tibet”. Even if we discount the obvious leap of logic, the distance between Chongqing and Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is slightly longer than … from Berlin, Germany to Istanbul, Turkey.

Just saying. (Source: Google)

Umbrella revolution was even further, geographically and culturally: it was the name of the protest in Hong Kong in 2014. 

This tweet might have been able to trick someone whose understandings of English and politics were both very limited — but an international relations professor like Prof S? Unless he was a fluke all the way, the chance of him truly believing in this tweet was infinitesimal.

Still, he posted it, and added more misinformation by calling the account “foreign media”. 

The response Prof S evoked was predictable. Gg’s fans came to him, some tried to explain and others, in a manner customary of their fandom culture, scolded and insulted Prof S as if he had been just another fandom anti. Meanwhile, Prof S provoked Gg’s fans further, reminded his readers that “cyberspace governance” was his speciality (one of his official positions in Fudan University), and “performing risk assessment” for the kind of activities that could “possibly lead to Color Revolution” — with “the kind of activities” referring to Gg’s birthday gathering — was the focus of his academic research (Source):

In China, this is an awful thing to say about anyone without proof.

“Color Revolution”, which referred to the series of pro-democracy, street-level uprisings in the former Soviet bloc in the early 2000s, is a term heavily used in the Chinese political rhetoric. The rhetoric, which is shared by countries like Russia and Vietnam, is that Western countries — in particular, the United States — orchestrate these popular movements in attempts to overthrow the local governments. Hence, the propaganda surrounding the Hong Kong protests, for example, has involved the CIA secretly handing out money to millions of Hong Kongers to march; and the protests themselves have been referred to as Color Revolutions by the state media. President Xi himself is a frequent user of the term, and is thought to be obsessed with it.

An accusation of starting a Colour Revolution is, therefore, very serious. It’s the equivalent to saying whoever is starting the revolution is colluding with foreign powers, and attempting subversion. Overthrowing the Chinese government.

The defence from Gg fans necessarily escalated. Some, being young, angry and worried and unfamiliar with the numerous political red lines in their country, said things that were, frankly, … much better left unsaid. Melon eaters gathered. “Prof S vs Gg fans” was on the verge of 出圈 Exiting the Circle — became a topic of popular interest, instead of fandom-limited interest. The question by Prof S, 你是什麼 粉? “What fan are you?” — the question he eventually asked everyone who challenged him, whether they were fans, or passerbys concerned with such a serious allegation having being thrown at young fans, made it onto the hot search. Some Gg fans realised by then that this Prof S was no ordinary anti, that he was a well-known political influencer and asked fellow fans to immediately stop their defence, but it was too late. 

Gg anti’s from 2 27 flocked to Prof S’s social media spaces to be his followers, excited that they had gained someone so important on their side. While this was all happening, Chongqing police formally cleared Gg fans from any wrongdoings during the birthday gathering on October 21st. Five days later, on October 26th, Prof S made a faux-pas in the eyes of the fraction of antis who had joined 2 27 as protest to the fic reporting. He pointed to the same fic associated with 2 27, tagged CCTV, Chongqing cyberpolice and claimed that that was the characterisation (referring to M/M CPs) that made Gg famous.

To put it differently: Prof S reported. 

This is of note, because it raised a question — had Prof S been even truly familiar with 2 27 before, and along that, the supposed ”dangers” of Gg’s fandom that he was claiming required “effective governance”? Joining the reporting of the fic in October 2020 —  wasn’t that a little ... late?

In all cases, this reporting post was, of course, incendiary to both the fans and antis. They came to his blog again, another big argument was about to begin, and …

Prof S deleted everything related to Gg in his blog. In fact, he went so far as to make his blog private for a week. He was tired of it, he explained, and the deletion was his own decision (ie, he wasn’t censored by Weibo). The graphic he used tor the explanation post included the phrase 說正事專用 — a popular phrase meaning “for serious business”, implying that talking about Gg and his fandom wasn’t serious enough to worth his time and effort anymore:

And this marked the end of the side story of the Incident of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, the 2020 birthday gathering.

Gg fans, per their custom of not talking about politics, never mention it again. The antis, meanwhile, continue to follow Prof S as their spiritual leader, joining the ranks of nationalistic “Little Pinks” that were originally his audience. After the mass cancellation of celebrities via the Clear & Bright Campaign in summer 2021, they went to him, dismayed that the only “casualty” associated with Gg was the temporary silencing of one of Gg’s Big Fans. In the ensuing conversations between Prof S and the antis, Prof S pointed out that as far as he could tell, GG didn’t have any background — ie., Gg didn’t have any connections in the upper echelons of the government, and/or the business moguls. And the issue at hand — the continued survival of Gg and his fandom — was the consequence of “(Gg’s) monopoly on the platforms”, “tens of millions of PR money”, “a MCN (multichannel network) ecosystem that has remained unregulated” (MCNs in China, more often associated with net influencers and their e-commerce live-streaming, are also involved in short video production — including short videos that spread rumours and false content), “a fandom with basic, self-organisational ability”, “active Big Fan(s) (whose existence and activities are) based on profits”,”a purely symbolised star image” (ie, Gg being viewed as a symbol, an image, instead of a real person), and “a completely new, inexperienced management”:

The thing is, there is truth in what Prof S said, in that the listed elements: PR, MCN, the heavy profits associated with fandom and everything associated with stardom, really, have been widely considered as important building blocks of the c-ent we know today, and the causes of much of its woes. C-fans are aware of that. Most of us overseas fans, too, have heard of YXHs and water armies, for example, which is part of PR, and the havoc they can raise. While PR has, indeed, been used for (excessive) hyping and initiating fan wars, however, it has also become increasily necessary because of the existence of antis — ie, of people precisely like Prof S and his audience. Stars are also far from the only people who hire and pay for PR. Investors and production companies who have hired the stars for to-be-aired projects have equal, if not greater concerns about the stars’ reputation, and in the power balance between them and the stars who have yet to get famous or have just got famous (like Gg in early 2020), they have a clear upper hand — hence, they are more likely to be controlling the PR message than the stars themselves. 

In all cases, the involvement of these elements is by no means restricted to a star or two, or the top traffic stars. 

So, why make Gg’s fandom the target? Here was Prof S’s response:

(Underlined in red) “Gg fans are the most archetypical of the complete loss-of-control of fan economy. It is also the most difficult to put to order, and so, the effects of bringing it to order will have the most significance as a benchmark.” 

Prof S wanted to make an example of Gg and his fandom, and he wasn’t shy to say it. 

Not that this statement really mattered, but here are some questions I have about it, from a simple logical standpoint: If Gg’s top traffic status was purely the outcome of a fan economy run amok, surely there has got to be an assembly line of top traffic stars by now, hasn’t it? And a galaxy full of them taking over Gg’s place? After all, according to this theory, all it takes for the next Gg is happen is to invest a lot of money. Gg has no background — Prof S said so himself. Gg’s rise to stardom also happened after 2018, after Fan Bing Bing’s tax evasion case and the draining of c-ent capital resulting from the government’s aggressive, retrospect tax collection; Gg’s income has therefore been far less compared to stars of equivalent popularity from several years ago. 2 27 also happened a mere six months after Gg’s rise, i.e. Gg had yet to accumulate significant wealth then. This means, especially in 2020, Gg was far from being the most affluent by c-ent’s standards. There are certainly people, and companies, with much more to spend on star making, and top traffic maintenance. Why haven’t they built the next top traffic star?

More importantly, if the elements listed above, the PR and MCN etc, are truly the ingredients of top traffic-dom and the evils associated with it, then why not put these elements to order first? Why did Prof S, an expert on cyberspace governance, choose to target their consequence, a fandom, instead?

A piece of news from March, 2022, published by 新華網 Xinhuanet, may offer a glimpse to the reason why. Xinhuanet is the online arm of 新華通訊社 Xinhua News Agency, the official state news agency and China’s highest-ranking state media organ, and is traditionally responsible for much of the country’s propaganda. In the news, Xinhuanet announced its collaboration with a media company, Hai Xi Chuan Mei 海西傳媒, which would focus on the website’s 內容資源強化、品牌價值提升、渠道流量拓展, content fortification, brand value enhancement, and channel traffic expansion.

What is brand value enhancement but PR? As it turned out, too, even a website with Xinhua in its name needed, and wanted, traffic. Who had it sought expertise from for this important collaboration then? Who was the very lucky one chosen by Xinhua to polish its image?

Here’s the description of Hai Xi Chuan Mei (Source):

海西傳媒 … 是一家集經紀、演出、製作、合作、投資運營於一體的綜合性文化傳媒公司。公司成立至今，形成了以藝人經紀為主體，綜藝製作為新骨幹的產業鏈，同時與業內影視製作、發行集團聯手打造經紀聯盟平台。

Hai Xi Chuan Mei is a comprehensive cultural media company integrating management, performance, production, investment and operation. Since its founding, it has formed an industry value chain that has star management as its focus and variety show production, its backbone. At the same time, it has formed a management alliance with film and TV production and distribution (business) groups.

Yes, Xinhua had sought expertise from c-ent, and from a star management company, no less. This Baidu (Chinese Wiki) page about Hai Xi includes a list of the stars managed by Hai Xi; look carefully at the photos at the bottom of the page, and one may find a familiar face or two. 

Xinhua, at the very least, didn’t appear to even mind sharing the same image polisher with traffic stars.

Prof S’s statement rings a little differently with this piece of info, doesn’t it? The government may not actually mind a loss-of-control of fan economy, if the benefactor, the idol built by the fan economy is itself. Companies like Hai Xi are pretty much the embodiment of the elements Prof S have listed; rather than "effectively governing” them, however, the government is working with them, learning the ropes of image and traffic boosting from them. As such, there is little indication that the government actually intends for these elements to be “put to order” — instead, with 去流量化 “removal of traffic” from c-ent since last year, the intention is far more likely to be for these elements to work for the government instead. 

For reasons that would be clear in a bit, Prof S was likely aware of this — not about the Xinhua - Hai Xi collaboration that had yet to be publicised, but the thirst of those who spoke for the government for image, and for traffic. Hence, his shifting the target to the consequence of these elements, the c-ent fandom, which the government had already been clear in its intention to “put to order”, to weaken.

Between possibly offending the government, and definitely offending someone without background, Prof S knew the smart thing to do.

As to pinpointing Gg’s fandom as the archetype that should be put to order — 10 days after this conversation, Gg would be performing as the Asian Games Ambassador. 

Gg singing at the Asian Games Countdown Concert, 2020/09/10. At the shot of the audience in attendance (bottom photo), netizens commented that they were already nervous at the sight of it. The high-back chairs, the white covers, the placards, the suited, stiff postures were all visual clues that the seated officials were Very Important People. (Source)

Contrary to Prof S’s statement, there has been little indication that the government has anything personal against Gg, or that it plans to persecute him specifically in any way. The antis did get an idea right: if the government wanted to cancel Gg, it could have done so easily in the summer of 2021. After all, the list of crimes for 趙 薇 Zhao Wei, whose name was removed from her filmography at the time, traced all the way back to an incident that had happened 20 years ago, in 2001, when Zhao had worn a skirt printed with the Japanese military flag.

Time is never an issue when the Chinese government has its mind set on handing out a punishment.

So, why did Prof S said what he did? I’m not him (thankfully), and so, I shall not speak for him. All I can say is this — what he said was music to the anti’s ears. It kept them in Prof S’s fandom for another day.

Yeah, fandom.

端 傳媒 Initium media, a Chinese-language news site based in Singapore, is a relatively rare find in the Sinosphere in that its political leaning has been difficult to pin down, having been alternatively accused as pro- and anti-CCP. Equally rare is the attention it has given to 2 27: it reported on the incident not only while it was happening, but also, a year later. In its 2 27 anniversary review — the only one I know of from overseas (uncensored) websites, and written following journalistic standards — the reporter traced the incident’s evolution from its earliest, politically-charged focus on censorship and freedom of creative expression, to, finally, a fight between pro- vs anti-Gg fans that had little significance outside fandom, and the attitudes that had led to this change. 

This is a news site with an understanding of Chinese fandom culture.

The same media, two months after 2 27’s anniversary and shortly after the Rocket-and-Cremation post, published a scathing analysis on Prof S, and the roster of nationalistic political influencers similar to him (there are a lot). What was scathing wasn’t any particular word choice, but rather, the angle it chose to portray Prof S and his rise to fame — as a traffic star. This is a long article, and I’m only translating a few relevant parts:

而觀察者網內部，沈逸是流量大咖之一。在觀察者網的bilibili頻道，他關於美國政治史的付費課程（價值108元）「白宮裏的主角們」，在本文寫作時，已獲得愈1100萬累計播放量，完全付費部分的單集播放量超過35萬；而他個人帳號的微博粉絲則達到119萬。 沈逸的明星效應，固然是因為他具有其他觀察者網主播所不具有的學者身份 ... 

And inside Guancha Net (Pie note: one of the most prominent nationalistic news sites in China right now), Prof S is one of the traffic stars. In Guancha Net’s Bilibili channel, his paid course on American politics (priced at RMB 108), “The Main Characters in the White House”, has already achieved a view count of 11 million at the time of this article’s writing, with 0.35 million being the episodes that are paid only, and his Weibo follower count has reached 1.19 million. Prof S’s celebrity effect has been contributed by his identity as a scholar, which isn’t shared by other vloggers on Guancha Net …

... 至於美國國內的政治結構、權力機構、選舉等方面，沈逸很�����及，分析也淺嘗輒止，無非是「旋轉門」等入門理論，加上「政客短期利益vs國家長期戰略」之類的陳詞濫調，最後還都要回到「遏制中國」、「顏色革命」的落腳點上。可以說，沈逸在美國政治領域的專業素養，並不顯著強於他在觀察者網的非學者同行。

… As to the domestic political structure of the United States, its corridors of power and elections etc, Prof S rarely mentions them, and his analyses of them are also very shadow, nothing more than the basic theories such as the “revolving door”, plus cliché concepts such as “short-term gains for the politicians vs long-term strategy for the country” that, inevitably, conclude with “containment of China” and “Color Revolution”. One can say, Prof S’s professional knowledge in American politics is not evidently better than his non-scholarly colleagues on Guancha Net.

在2020年，沈逸「下場」與肖戰粉進行對罵，就獲得了巨大的關注度。無論他是否有意為之，參與流行文化中的脣槍舌劍，對於社交媒體時代的「網紅」而言，都是必不可少的。而同時，「學者」稱號卻是一個光彩照人的「人設」，讓他能夠區別於其他流量型主播，並給自己的欄目披上「理性客觀」的外皮，從而產生持久的吸引力。與娛樂明星不同，明星學者所需要的出位不是緋聞或者組CP賣腐，而是通過不斷極端化的民族主義、煽動性的排外主張、對國際局勢危言聳聽，把新老觀眾吸引到自己的節目中來。

可以說，沈逸既是「流量型學者」的代表，也是「學者型明星」中的佼佼者。其首要身份是流量明星，而學者只是明星的人設。

In 2020, Prof S “entered the game” and held a scolding match with Gg fans, and attracted an immense amount of attention for that. Whether he did so deliberately or not, to participate in the verbal sparring associated with popular culture is a necessity for an online influencer in the social media age. At the same time, “scholar” is a shining “characterisation” that distinguishes him from other traffic star vloggers, and it covers his programmes with a “logical and objective” skin that renders them attractive. Unlike entertainment stars, star scholars achieve the required provocation not via romantic rumours or M/M CPs, but via increasingly extreme nationalism, inflammatory xenophobic theories, and alarmist perspectives on international politics, to attract audiences old and new to his programmes.

One can say, Prof S is representative of the “Traffic Scholar”, and an outstanding “scholarly-style star”. His first identity is a traffic star, and scholar is only his star characterization.

(May I say … Ouch? 😂😂😂)

The take-home messages from this article are:

- Prof S is a traffic star, and precisely the kind of traffic star the government wants to remove from c-ent: all traffic, but with questionable actual skills.

- Prof S not only called Gg’s birthday gathering a Color Revolution, he called many other things a Color Revolution. 

- Prof S seeks attention to attract new fans and traffic for himself and Guancha Net, where he rose to his (political) traffic stardom; he has done so by 1) engaging in popular culture, in particular, provoking Gg fans and antis in 2020, and 2) making incendiary political statements.

My reason for including in this meta this story, this “conflict” between Prof S and Gg’s fandom, is because I see it as another case of traffic robbery. By evoking Gg’s name and catching the attention of his fans and antis, Prof S profited, and the nationalistic news site that hosted him, that was so beloved by the “Little Pink”s who tended to support President Xi’s ideology, also profited. The antis, to show their support for Prof S, had purchased Prof S’s online courses, much like fans in c-ent buy their favourite stars’ endorsements. I mentioned before, that Prof S was likely aware of the thirst of those who speak for the government for image, and for traffic — he was likely aware because he was one of them.

And Prof S the political traffic star returned the love of his supportive fans by keeping the fantasies of his supportive fans alive — among these fantasies, the fantasy of Gg’s downfall. Hence, the statement about Gg’s fandom being the archetype; hence, the promise of putting it to order.

This is so ridiculous, isn’t it? But this is the thing we cannot forget — as much as Prof S is  … Prof S — he * is * influential, he is still a professor (which comes with a halo of respect in Chinese societies), and he still may have President Xi’s ear. This case of traffic robbery, also, once again shows how little control the star and his fans have in these situations. If the articles from Procuratorate Daily controlled the timing of 2 27, then, Prof S controlled the timing of this story — he started it when he decided to post about the birthday gathering, he ended it when he deleted everything because he got tired of it. One may argue that Gg’s fans, at least, set the scene for 2 27; the same thing can’t even be said about what happened here. The fans didn’t do anything, until they found themselves and their idol being smeared by potentially serious political allegations, and reacted.

I hope this story lends a little more weight to the hypothesis that, in the post 2 27 government-fans relations, stars and their fans are becoming the passive, reactive parties. While people like Prof S aren’t strictly the government, they are also not not-government — nationalistic political influencers, whether they are prominent media sites like Global Times or Guancha Net, or individuals like Prof S, or gangs like the anonymous Little Pinks everywhere online, they wouldn’t have achieved the prominence they have in the Xi era without implicit government approval. And there’s no way to tell when these people may wish to “borrow” a little traffic for their own use, especially in politically sensitive times such as now. 

And when such borrowing happens, it is difficult for any star and their team to stop their fans from reacting — Chinese fandoms are incredibly reactive, that’s the culture and no one can change it overnight, or singlehandedly. If politics is involved, the hands of the star and their team are even more tied — they can’t say aloud, please don’t touch this subject matter, or please stay away from this person — because to do so means they know what is sensitive, or where a political red line is, and often, that creates another issue on its own (I talked about the Paradox of Li Jiaqi here).

One may notice too, I’d like to add, how cavalier, how ... careless Prof S was through the entire story. His choices of emojis, for example; his exiting the scene because he got bored, because this wasn’t serious business for him — when he could be destroying the serious business, the career, of someone else. For him, those he had robbed the traffic from was collateral damage, he didn’t care.

Note that he used the fan cheer emoji when talking about India. Why the demeaning slangs? Because they were attention-catching, traffic boosting. He wasn’t above using even COVID deaths for his own gains. 

People without empathy are especially tricky, if not dangerous, to deal with. If some of you are wondering: why are people like him in such prominent positions of influence? The only answer I can think of is ... dictators love sycophants.

And this is why, with traffic robbers like Prof S around, like Prof S who had political influence and his own fandom and his shiny “scholar” image, and with Gg’s birthday having already had a history of being “controversial” before, I can understand why October 5th, 2022 was a quiet day in our fandom. This case of traffic robbery lasted approximately 3 weeks, and the 7th Plenary Session was starting on the 9th this year. It would be cutting a little too close.

There will be more birthdays to come.

[harleyesposito]

Final Project

I've been in a weird head space the past couple of weeks, and taking the two courses that I took this semester have really got my wheels in my head spinning (Speech and communication & Art appreciation). Aside from the courses I am not sure if this weird head space I refer to is because of the current relationships in my life, my age, where I am in my spiritual journey or possibly a combination of all of them. I've had a song that has been on replay in my head, especially since I've heard it played live by the band themselves. The song its self doesn't have a tremendous amount of lyrics, the lyrics it has being written in riddle or metaphors. This band was one of my mothers favorite and I believe thats why I too enjoy them so much, she played their albums often. Counting Crows song Colorblind was released in 1999, and if you haven't listened to it I highly recommend you do. The song is so beautiful when listened to, I'm not quite sure if it is the music, the lyrics, or the glimpse into the artists world that creates that beauty. Even more interesting, when I decided to actually research the meaning of the song, it happens to be an account of Adam Duritz's struggles with his dissociative mental health disorder.

For my final art project I wanted to create a painting that I had never attempted to create before, a painting only using black and white; colorblind in a sense. Due to financial constraints and lack of supplies that I currently have for painting, I opted to get creative. I've done several paintings at a local art studio that does guided classes, but they also do open studio nights. I called in advance and they said that I could do a self driven painting and simply use their studio space and supplies for a studio fee. Prior to heading to the studio I did quite a bit of exploring online about how different artists use only black and white in their paintings, and how they still are able to get a palate of colors. I had an idea that I would include a POP of color somewhere, but I wasn't quite sure where yet. I hoped that I would figure it out during the process.

I should have gotten a photo of how much black and white paint I ACTUALLY used, it was quite a bit due to the multiple layers that went into the final product.

Now I know why you said you wanted us to be sure we were careful about documenting the creative process. Once I started painting, I had a difficult time remembering to stop and take photos of the progress. I wish I would have gotten a photo of the background painting only, but this isn't too far into the process.

The next part was one of the moments where I hoped I didn't ruin my painting by adding something new.

I wish I would have taken a photo, but I actually used masking tape in order to get an edge to start creating the dock.

My favorite part about creating this painting was making the clouds. They are really fun to paint and play with. The clouds took several layers of paint and some blow drying.

It was interesting to see how versatile black and white paint are. The different shades of gray that you can create are endless. There was also a very light iridescent silver that I began to add into the clouds.

Now this is right before I ruined the painting.

I didn't ruin the painting, but I am not 100% happy with the light coming down from the moon. Now knowing what I know, I would maybe have painted the rays of light when I initially did the background. I will have to play with this in the future. I do however like how the foliage on the shore line came out in the painting. It is interesting to see how this painting looks through a photograph and on a computer screen. In person it looks or maybe is perceived quite different to me. It makes me wonder how many other paintings and art works look or are perceived differently in person.

[ask-paradox-and-friends]

Welp. You said so. So I'll make up a horror story. Just give me a second to think long term but I'll get this short plot out of the way.

UNKNOWN PLACE AT UNKNOWN LONGITUDE UNKNOWN LONGITUDE UNKNOWN TIME

'I had been here for an hour. And nothing...or at least I think it's been an hour? I can't tell'

Thought the poor soul who had been wandering the land he was in. It all started when he found a bag. A bag that was nothing too special. It was a simple purple bookbag any little boy or girl would use to walk into a school like any other person like you or me would see and not think about. They knew there was a name tag on it showing it had more then one previous owner but now. Now they were here. This place. There wasn't much different from the outside of the bag. The sky was clear and cloudless. The sun shined the grass was green. But...things made less sense the more they thought about it. There was bird sounds yes. But no matter what they did they never found the birds that made sounds. The grass was soft but never grew or died. The sky nevered moved the moon and sun were always in the sky but also never moved. The darkness always stayed and the brightness stayed till some odd..time? Chance? Event that made the "day" and the "night" swap places. The thing that baffled the traveler more was that there was the people....if you can call them that.

The traveler kept walking and saw the nearest town. They had been to 2 towns so far. The first one was a town full of people with stitches that had buttons for eyes and zippers for mouths. These people were talkative but talked like young children. Or at least a child trying to sound adult. These people were always creepy no matter they did. They could be petting cats that barely moving playing with plush toys or even counting buttons and zippers along with needles. And it always rubbed them the wrong way. This town was hopefully better...no scratch that. They're wrong too.

These people were worse. These beings don't look human. Or well if they were human they didn't look right. The "humans" had limbs or smiles too wide or moved incorrectly. One just moved their wrists and fingers like they were made of a inflatable pool noodle. Another was far too tall and boney so they were hunched over. The last one had her? Face upside down. Eventually the traveler soon finds a large map of the areas they gently pulled put a toy camera they found on a....broken toy? It was a wind-up solider with missing legs a shattered arm and a caved in face showing that the insides were gooey ink and paint in simplified attempts to recreate human antimony with drawings and more. Didn't help their bones were shattered in ways that made it look like they got mauled but whatever the equivalent of a bear was here. Their bones also looked like plastic or metals. When the traveler took a photo of the map they heard a voice. It belonged to a ragged dirty worn out and badly smudged doll. It looked like it was made of faded procaline. They remember seeing a movie based around a toy like that. Claimed they were a very VERY old brand.

"Oh hello young traveler. I take it you are headed to find our mama?"

'....'

"Not mama? Maybe mommy? Auntie? Uncle? Grandpa? Grandma?"

'...'

"Oh I'm sorry. I'm Mister Sen Say"

'...'

"You came from that bad scary place? Oh really scary makes us think there's boogeymen in there."

'....'

"Maybe people go in and never come back and we have to say bye-bye every time."

'...'

The talk was long and confusing they eventually got them to tell the point. They wanted directions to a way home. The elder doll said that the big city might have the way but the big city was far far away. They then asked that they'd ask Big Brother Freddy. But...something told them Big Brother Freddy wasn't going to like them.

As the traveler left and took a small dirt path down a certain way to go to a new town a new place to explore whatever they're in.

MEANWHILE WITH AN UNKOWN FIGURE

A beast loomed a broken toy to which it dragged the toy away that was soon put into a large box labeled 'Repair' and dragged the box away.

The beast soon loomed closer to the edge of the nearby terrain the knuckles dragged tearing up the ground showing that the very foundation of the very dirt was nothing more then course sand that seemed to work like some kinetic sand as the long pale bone thin with thinner skin wrapped around a rather thick tree made of cardboard the beast stored at the intruder and makeing tiny cracking sounds as their body moved and twisted while warped and hissing out.

"Soooonnnnnn....soooonnnn..."

[renatedagmarmilada]

UNO Project, THE TIMES 1991—and BBC

run by St Barths Human Research //

hence all to be returned to victim as it was....as science projects always returned to their former

Lynne – they track everything at the lab, all can be returned- insist it is returned.

  Intellectual Property--

lab calls this REDUCTION part of an EXTREME EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM- Health Ministry Minister Arnold signed for- your lives are forfeit you are so vulnerable that it is easy to strip you and mess with you-

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WE ARE DECENT, USEFUL, HARD Working CITIZENS - with a lot of talent-

daughter Rachel De Souza head mistress of Victory Colleges

son Project Engineer for Becktels USA

two younger sons destroyed by lab called SIBLING TESTS- tortured remote mercilessly- third son crippled from years of torture of unimaginable cruelty- it would take Nuremberg trials to get anywhere near what has been done to both boys, fourth son has no feeling in Genitalia (Mohammad and yussuf) and scarred for ever/ cheated endlessly and left penniless- because the lab used them as young children and destroyed their normal life proceedures as can be seen by the difference between the two children brought up by my  ex and me and these two, played with by the lab constantly from early teens and before-

11.7.13 TODAY WE BEGIN THE LIES ABOUT THE ACCOUNTS- UP TO NOW WE HAVE COUNTED IT HONESTLY – WE OWE YOU ABOUT £6,500+ £11,000 taken from the HYPO by all the Pak Operatives

SSE—I put £100 on to your gas bill, I was going to create small bills afterwards but you had the meter but in.

Everything is being oovered with lies since the last week--

lab st barths human research  has copy of everything on lab computer and I want copies of everything I have done sine they began persecuting and terrorising me- I have not even started about the remote torture, which has been unbelievable

UNO signed something to give ST Barths Human Research permission, but were not told what the lab was actually doing- UNO told them they had to let the victims know what they were doing. After the act, they put something over a tv progr. (they have a studio at the BBC and a director Sydney, who works for them-) or music etc-- when it is far too late, often a long time later- and bank cheating, never...........they just say, we have 'used' banks.

St Barths Human Research  "we will average her. We intend to steal absolutely everything she has.they  came to the UK in 1947- penniless refugees we intend her to get out like that, we cannot afford a scandal- our Pakistani operatives to drive you out and kill you if you don't go, as our abuses and crimes were too many- including using your children when very young-

used also as King's whipping boy - separated by lab as Royal/sexing used as for Royals-

Lynne lab person - the lab tracks everything they have had stolen and can return it-

****HOUSE BREAK IN’s Since 23 May to 1st June—at least five, Pakistani Operative opened doors remote, more copy cat break ins to before- “WE SENT THREE WEST INDIANS DONE FOR VIOLENT CRIMES IN AND SOME MORE MIDDLE EASTERN GIRLS TO ROB HER—“ half a dozen oil pastel sketches on black paper and some books with texts taken and goods.. lab pakistani St Barths Human Research operative it is what Dr Meyer Edgeware Rd wanted- Dr Meyer some will be returned, but doctored and downgraded!

--leave once cod liver oil tablet left on stairs, once wardrobe door swinging, three time elastic tied to  Ugo out—uses Carribean, more local girls and Slovak..

I was ordered to by Anna Grey of The Ministry of Health. I want everything returning- my papers and my goods stolen – they call it thieving therapy.

Anna Grey Health Ministry, junior Secretary (to keep her safe from law) I will give her a little pay out to pay for their lives if she asks for a therapy to be taken into account, nothing else.

-I WISH FOR EVERYTHING TO BE RETURNED- PHOTOS, PAINTINGS, TEXTS academic and creative AND THAT MONEY TAKEN BY LAB STAFF

 Tracker is on and all thefts are followed--

I am not asking for compensation- I just want ALL that is mine back and will go then.

microsound/ all operatives have stolen something of value,  the lab directed them and rolled savings and pension out of her bank account-

program signed for by someone at U.N. "we did not tell him what we were really going to do"

Royals gave permission, shown bogus film by second porn starlet, with Renate head supplanted

/studio at the BBC director Sidney/ all goes throughEmley Moor mast/ Guys Hospital aware/ paid for by USA Human Research 63 million, and 7 million by Brussels, who have called abort many time, not intended like this/

began interference in our lives 1983- began program 1991 THE TIMES insert/ anything goes as long as you cross the t's and dot the i's/beaming our lives to New York sister lab, beam looped to all world to strong receivers/ set off alarms at St Monica/ USA give us all you have- outlawed programs, unusable programs etc

put all family on monitor and copied my work from beginning and lab members used as their own, Cosmopolitan etc. all of us have suffered/

Lab-we will turn it round and make them guilty - used a banned psychiatrist Karl for info on how to destroy- dr Meyer Edgeware Rd London,- John and Lauren Redbridge neighbour of Milliband and daughter Fay, used all my work.

Operative Simon french- gave all my work painted and written and raised artificially wife Jean Beaumond, now using her husbands name  as I have put her name everywhere-

to cover gross misconduct- bossess moved to Health Ministry so untouchable by law (former lovers, Minister Arnold, several Senior Civil  Servants- bossess Anna  Grey gave my uni work to friends and Ministry Personell- my family history to Junior Health Minister- who wrote 27 pages into his book =former jews from east, ???? my family were rich artisans and we come from the lush Urals 500 years ago, not sandy Isreal, poor workers??? Pamela Pensions, given my UEL german texts for daughter who was studying German, I am naturally tri lingual!  -- translations are lodged at the Goethe Institute in London   )  

silver medal for poetry, / father’s pocketwatches   The Iraaqi thief for the lab stole our large bottle of Channel 5 from your eldest son.

Pakistani operatives had each of the local thieves take five items out of home--

 16.07.2013 another thief sent in, took personal address book by phone and other stuffs—will check.

Taken Criminal Slang Dictionary

European Mythology dictionary

Other books...

(used it the other day) Paki operative using local Slovaks (we are repeating all previous crimes- took address book in 2010---) TO QUALIFY ALL THEFTS Dr Meyer Edgeware Rd London has told us to say you are Starting again and have to be stripped of all things—

This means they are still opening my door by laser from the lab St Barths Human Research as only I live here and I NEVER leave a door open

DR MEYER ASKED US TO STRIP HER OF EVERYTHING—THE FENCE FROM FIRTH PARK SELLS HER STUFF AT PUBS AS DOES THE ENGLISH THIEF UP THE HILL...

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 3.June 2013- GIVE HER TO US< WE WILL DESTROY HER FOR YOU- Mohammad-

"we had no defence for what we have done so we had to phase her out.."                            

3.June 2013 More of my texts disappeared from my Folder, China Write—

9th June, found another of her poetry books, translations of Ukrainian poems/Slovak

Leather handbag— Pakistani sent in 2west indian druggies – we took 6 items It took half an hour. All our sons shirts too-

Paki lab op – Leoni Sheffield HallamUni stole and used my Grimsby School of Art work  besides 300 Euros etc and Marrisa Longley College- Sheffield stole 3 paintings, whole book of paintings Two Months in St Petersburg—etc 45 and 46 Lloyd Street Sheffield was a set up by Op Sayed..

Adam Kahn Hiinde house lane took my box of stories he had stolen from cousin in Danrell to cousin at 59 Idesworth rd Sheffield- who then passed  to west indians 59 HornDean road-sheffield – thw carib women there have been copying it all – though it is clearly marked, Sheffield Uni Writers Group, / Sheffield Art College Psalter lane Sheffield – etc as their own work sending it off, as the lab watches.. Pakistani’s want every single thing to be stolen.. so I retunn to Germany naked they say—because we were EXVELLENT citizens

 Firevale Group of West indians are still passing the notes and essays and poems they wrote round theiir community though they know who and what I am--

 Three blogs off Facebook, anna now rules the uK

9th July 2013 another break in, left things about, tried out stuff Lilly of tthe valley etc put one or two things back downgraded – insturctions to paki lab operatives, confuse.. Sketch Pad

Adam Kahn Hinde House Lane Sheffield moves my stolen box of family history texts, texts from Psalter Laner art college daily diary, University of Sheffield writers Group etc to cousin at 59/61 Idesworth Road Sheffield

 Massive numbers of drafts and emails from off my computer which lab St Barths has wiped and not sent on

hacking into all poetry sites constantly, wiping off and changing into rubbish poems-- and MY folders- taking off paintings,poetry, essays etc

spring 2003 lab began shredding a mass of your letters at the lab St Barths Hum Res- we used trick form to always get your post first..just one director.

Intellectual property

WE WILL REPLACE IT WITH INFERIOR COPIES WE WILL MAKE

3.June 2013—Paki Op- I sent in a thief last week, he took TWO MORE SKETCH BOOKS FILLED WITH YOUR LIFE DRAWINGS- I want you to  have all copies and others the real thing..

Lab Lloyds Bank—we autograph your sketches and paintings with our own names-

**************I do not need their copies, paintings, sketches or writings, or essays I wish for my originals, or the copies from ANNA GREY MINISTRY OF HEALTH- copies from her monitor..I do not need their stupidity..***

(already one of my stories a copy of theirs)

From Luggage June 2012-John Appleyard Barnsley

used two Iraqi thieves:

I WANT IT ALL RETURNING

30 water colours stolen by lab

15 books full of texts by lab

endless diaries  AT  LEAST 20 stolen 9.4.13

photographs of family from war and before/ President Masaryk and Russian Major liberating Europe

large new box Windsor Newton paints- and small box..

use local thieves everywhere to steal originals:"let them destroy them and we will keep copies"

ie 60 Torsten Rd Sheffield, Amy- Idesworth rd Sheffield and numerous carribeans in area have box of my work, Art degree College Diary, Creative writing degree, Literature and german degree etc

 24 Popple street Sheffield thief, son has signed my sketches as his own passed onto friend

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NO M.A. CERT PERMITTED- LAB bossess ANNA GREY I DO NOT WANT ANYMORE EDUCATION-- SHE IS A SECOND. TOLD GERMAN STUDIES PROF DOING EXPERIMENTS BUT NOT WHAT-  I wish the return of  my MA certificate NOW

Teaching books stolen by lab in suitcases stolen by lab/ in parcel from Italy stolen by lab- also reading books from posted packages

I wish the teaching books returning now

Two Spelling teaching books, one taken by west indian induced to break in/ science teaching book- (I think lab)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------families of-  AND lab operatives and even spin doctor Meyer all used my work constantly from beginning - there is nothing you can do about it-

whilst destroying all I tried to achieve

Ana Meyer- sells copies of my sketches to design centres, recently another to Calvin Klein.£300, also to Paco Rabin, M&S, Top Shops etc she has hundreds of my work over 25 years. Niece also Topshops/nephew has all recent work/ etc

Fay daughter of Redbridge John the sadist killer and wife lauren, who wrote my stories as jewish stories to People's Friend

Fay has copied paintings by the dozen and sold them as her own and stories

Jean Beaumond, copied paintings and stories wife of operative Simon.Now using her own name and work, after having used all mine

writer Brierley given my diaries to put into his books as padding--

THE LAB St Barths - Health Ministry ESTABLISHES CERTAIN FAVOURITES AND USEFUL STARS AS LONG AS THEY ARE PREPARED TO USE YOUR /MY WORK- THEY ARE PUT IN THE WAY OF CONTACTS TO RAISE THEM, WHICH THE LAB THEN ENSURES--- THE BIGGEST SCAM EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND-I quote-

Alyson, destroyed paintings even as she cannot draw, by inking them, I WANT THE COPIES On the lab MONITOR sells my work by signing the originals - list is endless, Mrs Pocklington Cricklewood, etc I am told afterwards, by 'their methods' over tv program, microsound, over music etc - which the asian operatives use for sexual and other abuses, also during nights, Meyer, she will think she dreamt it and weaken. Harrassed through Colleges and Universities- 'we wanted to use you not a lecturer. we gave the marks.'

Bernice manageress of St Barths presently, has three of my books printed several of my poetry RETURN

Alan Manager of St Barths presently has three of my books - has printed several of my poems etc RETURN

Dr they call Harry, recently retired from Middlesex Hospital, London, has several books of mine, "I have taken all I want from them"

also sons of ALan and Harry used my thesis of Jews in Germany - for A level to get into prestigious colleges, School of Economics and London Uni.  told lecturers it was jewish work (my info came from Hungarian writer not published..)

I WANT ALL COPIES OF MY UNI WORK BACK-- ALL THE DEGREES-- Myer even had art college paintings stolen

Op. Mohammad I took some of victims book home and gave the rest to Fay to use as her own. the staff are all given all her work from off the computer, to use as their own..

24.4.13 all her poetry books except one stolen from luggage coming from Spain

23.4.13 Dr Myer Edgeware Rd took five books full of life drawing sketches,about  200 sketches in all

lab distributes the papers to people I want them back

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several papers to MohsinKahn

several to Sister in Law Christine

a lot to  Bernard, jewish Refrom Doctor formerly sheffield hospital

lab itself, 20 of your paintings from luggage by OPERATIVE MEGAN who also took money from LLOYDS BANK ACCOUNT twice 110-and 80

all the Pakistani BIBI ETC operatives take 150 from bank account

Operative Amina, takes £280 off HSBC moneys into machine puts into Pakistani woman's acount

Firth Park Bank Clerk takes off £400 only records - did not check till got home

Market, give stall £20 does not giver approp change operative

fleeing to Germany I put money in Hypo bank-- each of eleven pakistani operatives took £1000 from HYPO- bank account - they call it rolling it out..

Berlin Human Research paid to take part incase I flee over there- come to lab

Werner ties my computer to their at the lab

all operatives given all my log ins and bank account numbers

Megan I took about 20  family photographs- including from baby places, irreplaceable, refugee never to be seen again

luggage from Spain slit open box- took three books filled with poetry etc to Bernice, manageress of the lab

Leoni 46 Lloyd street, essays / designs etc from Grimsby school of Art Foundation/moneys from purse £300/ 2 phones etc spring 2012 lab tuned thieves

Marissa 45 Lloyd street WHOLE BOOK of sketches/ designs, goods

9.4.13- 20 diaries from box----

Alyson /Meg wrote my s stories from illegal processing as her own, WORSE she defaced 20 of my sketches—I am primarily an artist who teaches.

LAB OPERERATIVE SCRIBBLE ON MY SKETCHES AND BURN THE ORIGINAL COPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BBC- 5.7.13 I made a book of sketches using your work, including a lot of from your life drawings-

THE LAUREN GROUP – Jewess..

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UPON RETIREMENT I INTENDED TO WRITE PAPERS ON THESE TEXTS AND PRINT PAINTINGS--as books

re two books already PAPER BATTLESHIPS and THE LEFT FOOTERS--

many poems printed in INBOX books and others

exhibitions at Sheffield Library and Art Tower Sheffield Uni amongst others- Islington Library, Leeds Library etc

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three weeks ago-Slovak 24 Popple st Sheffield/sketch books from bedside/diaries and texts-son tracing sketches (3 lots of them now)

3 months ago/ Iraqi teenager Robey St Sheffield/four text books full of work poetry Uni degrees

oct 2012 Earl 95 Lloyd street - MASS of Uni texts and goods and 96 Lloyd st -west indians 2/3 entries

7 Lloyd st now at Manor estate-2 west indian/ chinese goods, sons£1000+ money from pockets and texts-- chinese jacket purple worth £500

wensley estate sheffield/ older west indian 3/4 entries sold my goods  to local african wmn 4 pure silk robes £300 at least, and many other items brought from teaching in China-

Photographs of war time, russian friends given me- in Russia  

GCE certs/ Sheffield Uni Russian cert/Sheffield Poly Cert Art and art history foundation also all several Scotland Yard clearance forms since 2002 yearly.. \Baptismal forms  etc etc

4 silk robes China £300/sketch books etc etc by Wensley Estate sheffield Thief west indian

Earl Marshall Rd thief used by Lab- Firvale sheffield 4 russian carved boxes/ two sets beautiful cards etc# taken because we said "the Hungarian human research chief paid to come to England, did not like Russians" (?) in boxes ready to post as presents to my grandsons beautiful sets of russian cards, I bought on trip russia with Twinning Donetsk Sheffield with Sheffield University.

Sheffield Fence, Firth park, short blonde stubby nose all manner of stuff from China including catholic prayer plates/ etc things I bought in Qingdao Church and also memory baptism by my goddaughter Jun jun at Qingdao Church Christmas Eve 2003

Firvale west indian family, boys and Idesworth Rd Sheffield/ entered and robbed many texts used by the whole family and cousins even now, even read one in class as his own

Amy 4 Idesworth road used / several Rasta types, / 60 Horndean Rd Firthpark ALL using my work

Adam Kahn, HInde House lane Sheffield, entered stole box of books full of texts, 8 years from Sheffield Univerisity writers groups/Psalter Lane College art diaries/ sent them to cousin in Darnhall, then to Idesworth rd west indians - several Carribean women/Idesworth RD, Tideswell Rd  Firth park and Firvale Sheffield, copied and copying still them, now the young men are copying them/ incl now 56 Horndean Rd.

Operative Mustafa sent Slovak in again last Wednesday-- stole more art materials,etc and son's stuff..

cards from 1914 before- cards from friends, all manner of such different cards etc

sent MY ACTUAL sketches to Calvin Klein and Paco Rabin, signed with their names, cutting off comments I made at the time and dates - then all of them took some of my work and signed with their own names-

the entire work, including degree level work, to Stefany, placed in school and used

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HEALTH

November 2003- Wayne, lorry driver who threw 80 of my books for European Libraries into disused warehouse in east London-" may we hit her body Steven/ yes, bodies can be healed" 3pm hyped heart, so pounding. Since then used daily, including dredger on brain at nights, all night everynight some form of torture remote is used/little known technology..

SLUGGISH SYSTEMS HYPED REMOTE FOR WATERHEADS, MENTALLY HANDICAPPED AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

I would needs write a book hence they steal my diary as I recorded a lot of it in them-

MONEYS

each operative has to train to roll money out of my account

3 weeks ago, £100

Megan some months ago, twice £120 and £80 IN total some £6000+ no matter where I move it/ tried moving to germany Hypo bank- each Pakistani operative told to roll out£1000 for himself- one took £2000- used bank of England to do this? they have also falsified cheques etc they call it and EVERY CRIME THEY DO AS AN ISSUE - not a crime, anything, even deaths

EVERY TRICK IMAGINABLE IS TRIED so I get massive power bills when I rarely use my gas fire, phone bills I have not used etc

every other type of trick tried, with de-energy anything can be made to happen- most sophisticated machine ever, given to cleaners and carers by the most corrupt group ever to exist

I had sold  house to escape several times

Student at leipzig Uni, sister Uni of UEL for one year, Deutsch bank gave Polishstudent same card, she took grant out, left me penniless, Barclays constantly used - owe us a ton and lloyds

The lab has been taking my money none stop- trying to make us into beggars they say..because the former boss Steven had taken massive loans and got into debt-

all operatives have to try out all crimes and take for themselves, after service in the lab from cleaners and carers they are all moved to prime positions and middle management

ALL nightly BULLYING HAS TO BE HEARD TO BE BELIEVED-

evidently the Prince and Queen were shown a bogus film and file and told it was me, for permission. Not the government, then they too were told lies.

The worst killer is John of Redbridge- he says he hated me from the start, I have no idea who he is, or why as I am a very quiet person, traditional etc  They decided to break up our marriage at the beginning, which they do often, as with Royal couple-- but I know he is very, very rich -

Their Pakistanis call it teasing, call me a whore/tart etc constantly- do not ask me why? and then destroy as though I had done something to them--

HACKING INTO ACCOUNTS OF EVERY TYPE- Changing what is in them--

folders on my computer

/wiping off emails- de select

destroy contact with friends and family

Lost desirable job in Dalian China/ intentional

all operatives permitted to hack into my folders and take and change what they wish

Hacked into my sites, changed and took out poetry etc

hacked into bank accounts etc

all operatives permitted to copy and take home my work for their own use' Pakis have done so for their children-

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POST

christmas presents to Russia taken home by operatives

eaten chocolates etc thrown out books

book to China close friend professor, operative took home (japanese treatment of english in SIngapore)

all post taken to lab

return from teaching in Italy, box full- charge 50 Euros instead of 20-teaching books, etc operative took home

box to daughter from China, operative sent to family in India

box to Russian friend?

letters and small parcels always taken

Suitcase on flight to Beijing- one year teaching taken off tarmac Manchester to lab all taken to lab and operatives helped themselves, one sold on EBAY my stuff, super expensive artists paints, sketch books, teaching books, 20 silk shirts, etc etc hundreds ofUK CD's

              THE OPERATIVES TAKE MY GOODS HOME FOR THEIR FAMILIES AND SELL THEM ON EBAY..

Debra secretary- took photos of mum, frau Schulz, in Barton will never see again, wedding photos of both my elder children (I have NO photos of my elder children)etc

Wayne, threw 80 of my books to European Libraries into disused warehouse London

besides taking everything I send by post/ if I put one into library they have someone take it and not return it

the list is endless since 1984...............

PHYSICAL ABUSE AND ATTEMPTED MURDER

----------------------------------------------------

REPEATED SEXING (as Pr Diana)

AS All night 21.May 2013 (I am 68 years old on 23 May!!!) They used sexing on my mother when she was in her seventies) the bestial animals keep the womb irritant all night, as it is a dreadful feeling and every time you drop off to sleep the pigs put the lewd filth onto the dream continuing torture-

IRRITATIAON OF THE WOMB extremely uncomfortable and also makes me pee- they put on lewd, filthy dreams at the same time- unbelievably disgusting and keep it up all night repeatedly. pointless torture as most of this is..the pakis sit there all night messing the machine -elder white women teachers being tortured in their dirty little fantasies

the evil operatives often use this during lessons, for many years now- women dare not talk of such things, as they think it is their fault as a child with rape. with men they give them an urge to lunge and grab.. hence the Prince was given this treatment too and hence rape, technological rape

They tell their beasts I am to be raped and they have to put on thanks somewhere and that is all I require.

Radium B put on my co-ordinates-- also other type of killer substance--

DEBASEMENT even in Churches and working in Hospitals during holy services and whilst on the Ward nursing..

Wrote a file of their own failings and say it is ME!!!!!!!!!!

because I don't smoke or drink and live a healthy life style, Meyer had put on alsorts of remote torture EVERY NIGHT OF MY LIFE SINCE

it will weaken her and she will think she dreamt it- agonising and excruciating-

used for water heads in mental homes who have sluggish systems -- hyping heart, pressing it (closed half of ducts with this) pressing all organs, especially recently eye retinas and corneas.. for months, so I should never paint again-- or teach. Dredger on brain night after night, destroys brain cells- pressing down with laser on skull

pressing down on arteries, that is Dr Myers speciality on arms, so later they harden. op Megan, presses left artery of heart (whilst in Spain- they paid half million to Spain to continue there.. june 2012- oct 2013..intended to run away there as had many Students living with me and taught for Chesterfield School back then, did not think Spanish were so weak towards corruption)

Endless Lewdity over tv and music--pakistani operatives disgusting, I am 68 years old, never done anything like that- they are filthy. and know it is a put on. watch me in bath and undressing- I would not allow a male nurse never mind strange men watching me and insulting me like that---yet I teach their children! years ago I wrote to BBC and ITV but received no answer-

I know 'ology lady used my PE lesson during BE'd from Nether thorpe School, I heard it, identical// the lab sponsored tv writers to write up my stuff - so that no one could get at them--

Martin, failed exams, given all my work, advertising now millionaire

then Philip-- I see my work on vans etc..

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEALTH DESTROYED<,

you have about 7 years of life left, as we have left your organs too weak to live much longer than that- besides the Radium B etc...  from pressure of laser, your heart and lungs are very weak, can’t walk up slightest incline without panting. Laser presses the squashy material in your lungs, diminishes lung space- Half your ducts in your heart have been closed. Wewanted to use you for sexual experiments remote, not have you studying and paintings-

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 22.5.13-5 to 12/ over TV-- We put £100 on to your gas meter--- St Barths Human Research (over phone: your choice the jews said- YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE SIGNED SOMETHING-- I signed a nurses form in April 1991 at West Ham Community Health London- shouted at by Nurse Hughes to do so."this will help you" no copy given, could not read it as straight from Shift at Newham Hospital.. went next day for copy..Nurse Hughes yells : It has gone higher, sapeena me, sapeena me...(at that time I had no idea what sapeena meant- three London solicitors have tried to find this form, without success... I think they refer to this. Thirea London, found a form I signed on the day I was sitting at a desk at the UEL in a German lesson, saying St Barths could open all my files..in the event, I did not bother much, as there is nothing in my files, I have never done anything or had anything which is of concern.)

since beginning, SEE HOW YOU CAN CHEAT THEM--- I have tried to be patient- and just use as little as I can of anything--

lots more such instances over the years

woolwich £50 Arthur took that out

richard german Human Research took out £2000

Werner German Human Research tied my computer to lab computer

Berlin Human Research FELIX took out fifty percent of my hair whilst I was teaching at Ocean Uni Qingdao ..

electricity bill twice £70 I went to Germany - Lynne

gas bill (I was in Hungary)- we gave an english family your tiny bill you got their bill with central heating £80

THE LAB ACCOUNTS LEADER PUT ON

lab owes you about £7000

without the HYPO bank thefts...which were £11,000

Dr Myer had purse stolen at Christmas, so boys and I penniless over Christmas Months benefits-

- had purse stolen, Upton Park underground, £400

Intellectual

Art college failed by Dr Myer Edgeware Rd London WE DOWN MARKED YOU CONSTANTLY SO WE HAD ALL YOUR NEIGHBOURS ROB YOUR UNIVERSITY WORK--

overuse of lecturers, one shot himself, one died of pressing lungs, one given breakdown as many, many others

BE'd - Head you are not mixing with adults! Myer, give lowest mark possible-

UEL-- endless intervention filth, lewdities- give lowest mark possible (Wayne- give her the border line= 20% taken off because she already speaks German)

Creative writing degree Sheffield Uni- mark as low as possible –

 I WANT ALL MY QUOTES , money and all my work RETURNING- -------------ALL-----------

[tenkasato]

helloooo Ten, i'm new to your blog but i already love your writing! can i request Kise hurt/comfort? angst with fluffy ending please!

Hi! I apologize this took a while (again). Thank you very much for reading my writings. It really makes me feel appreciated. I hope you like this! ^^

The Same Sky Above Us

Scenario: When being in a relationship with Kise feels like you're always hanging by the thread, what compels you to stay?

Pairing: Kise Ryouta x reader

“I can explain.”

You knew dating the Kise Ryota wasn’t going to be easy. The well-known golden boy is a rising star. Not one person in the country hasn’t heard about his unmatchable talent and surreal beauty—all of which, he claims, belongs to you and only you.

When he asked you to be his, you laid out your reasons for declining. It wasn’t practical. He carried far too much baggage you didn’t have the energy or the courage to deal with. All the alarms in your body screamed. Red flags were raised in front of you. However, when he grasped your hand that night and captured your eyes with his mesmerizing gaze, you figured that the rose-tinted glasses veiling your vision kept you from seeing the warnings. 

You loved Kise Ryouta. You were willing to throw yourself out into the wolves that plagued the show business if it were to make him happy. 

So, here you are. 

“Babe? Are you there?”

Ryouta’s voice sounds crippled through the phone. It’s as if his mouth is full of coarse sand. You hear the tremble, ever so slightly. You picture him, phone on his ear like you, eyes downcast and marred with melancholy that doesn’t seem to fit his face.

You wrap your blanket around you. The wind blowing from the opened window bites your skin in the most unpleasant of ways.

Silently, you contemplate closing the window but avert your eyes back to your laptop instead. 

The image of a blonde diva with her lips mashed against Ryouta’s is flashed from the screen. Her nails, long and painted baby blue, dug into the skin of his chin. Long, flowing curls fell from her shoulders, partly covering her closed eyes. 

Ryouta on the other hand—

“She just jumped me,” he goes on, tone increasingly frantic but also tired. “We were shooting for the editorial print cover, and—and—we were standing close to each other. She was my partner for that pose.”

Your boyfriend’s eyes were closed too, face not particularly showing any expressions that would give away anything. His hands were on her waist. Both figures are slightly blurry from that stolen shot.

“I tried to push her away immediately, but they were somehow able to take the photo.”

The headline writes “KISE RYOUTA, DATING MULTI-AWARDED INTERNATIONAL STAR HIMIKO SILVA ” in large, bold font, but you had to read it a couple of times just to absorb the words and the implications they hold. 

“It means nothing. I swear!”

You knew dating the Kise Ryota wasn’t going to be easy.

You couldn’t count how many hate messages you received from anonymous sources online. Each day, you carefully cover your face in the crowd as you go to work in the fear of being spotted. Kise Ryouta is loved and admired by many, but the same couldn’t be said for the “lucky, undeserving girl” he was dating. 

'What did he even see in her?' 'There are so many better choices for Kise-kun.' 'She’s a bitch.' 'Where did she come from? She’s a nobody.' Yes, you’ve probably heard it all.

“I told you about that gig, didn’t I? The one where famous models from New York are participating in? Remember? You—you said it was okay with you that I joined, right? It just so happened…just so happened that she—”

His dreams and opportunities carried him to different places. To Paris. To Seoul. To Madrid. And now, to the US. You both weren't oblivious of the difficulties surrounding long distance relationships. But he said he’d make it work. He said he’d do his best and whispered sweet promises of forever in your ear every night. 

You believed him.

Even when he continues to shoot provocative photos with women who looked like they were sculpted to perfection. Even when rumors of him hooking up with famous actresses became the news you listen to as you drink coffee in the morning.

Ryouta says your name, utters it pleadingly. You snap your laptop shut and hop out of your bed to close the window.

“Please believe me. You're the only one I love. I can't ever betray you like that. When they touch me, all I could think of is how much I wanted you to be here instead. Please. Please. Talk to me. I’m sorry—talk to me—”

“Ryouta,” you cut him off as you looked outside the window. 

The line grows silent. 

"Where are you right now?" 

You hear a slight shuffle from the background. Then, he replies, "I'm in a coffee shop."

"Ahh, that explains the jazz music," you remark. "Can you look at the sky from where you are?" 

There's another pause. You imagine him frowning at your seemingly out-of-place question. "Yeah. I can."

"Great. What's the weather like there?"

"It's sunny," Ryouta says, words laced with confusion. "The clouds are fluffy. The sky is orange but also pink. It's a little hot today, but just the right amount of warmth you prefer."

You can't help the smile that curves your lips. "How lucky. It's raining here. Cold. The type of weather that makes me want to cuddle with you."

"... what?” A pause. The sound of glass and cutlery clinking fills your ear. “But aren't you mad?"

"I wish I could see you right now. We're miles away from each other that even if I dress up now and head to the airport, I won't be able to see you until a few days. But we're still somehow connected through this call, through the memories we have of each other, and even through the same sky we're under—it comforts me." 

The half moon is barely able to cast its glow through the rolling clouds. You sigh and lean by the window.

"I trust you," you tell him and mean every word. "You've never done anything to break that trust. The people around us, the situations, our circumstances aren't always on our side. But you are."

"But—" he begins again. He sounds so helpless it pricks your heart. "But sometimes I wonder if you're better off without me. I've caused you so much pain and trouble just by following my dreams." 

"Don't downplay yourself," you say with a shake of your head. "You don't remember how much sleep you lost by trying to keep me awake to finish my work? Or how you covered my student loan when I was almost penniless? Or when you told me I was beautiful even when I cut my bangs wrong?

"Ryouta, I knew dating you wouldn't be easy and I was prepared for whatever came with you. I believe you. So please, believe in my feelings for you, too."

Once again, you're left in silence. You transfer your phone to your other ear and walk back to your bed. 

When you lie down, you hear him sigh. You close your eyes and imagine him beside you, lying on his side with that boyish grin you love so much. 

You reach out, as if he was there. 

"I wish you were here," he finally says, echoing your thoughts and creating a bridge between you two. "I miss you."

"I want to hold your hand," you say.

"I want to hug you," Ryouta chuckles.

"I want to touch your face."

"I want to hear your voice," he whines.

You laugh at that. "You're already hearing it… I want to kiss your lips."

You hear him groan from the other line. "I want to smell you."

"Creepy," you laugh, "But okay. I want to fuck you."

Ryouta gasps, scandalized and no doubt flustered. "Language! You—you're—not that I don't want to… but—!!"

"Come home to me soon, alright?" you say amidst his haphazard stuttering.

You close your eyes again, picturing Ryouta, blushing beetroot red, a cup of hot chocolate in his hand, wearing the wool sweater you bought him on his 27th birthday, smiling through the longing. 

"I will," he promises. "Always."

[simplymurdock]

So You Need A Time Machine?

summary: after (y/n)’s laptop crashes a familiar doctor comes to her rescue.

pairing: eleventh doctor x reader

warnings: fluff/comfort, some cursing, it’s mostly fluff (that’s all i could think of but if i missed anything let me know and i’ll add it <3)

word count: 1148 words

authors note: When @heytherejulietx tells you your writing is amazing you write more immediately. This truly brought me so much joy to write and i loved the thought of the doctor with a companions that is an art history major. so don't be surprised if i write more things like this cause i already want to do something with river and this character type. (also my requests are open so please make sure you read the rules before making a request!)

(y/n)’s back slid down the cold bare eggshell colored wall of your college hallway. The fourth to last light flickered broke the dim fluorescent lighting. It always did that, it has since the first time she walked down the hall. Even the professor who had been there longest has said it did this, saying The Dean was sending someone. But someone never did.

Fully sitting on the floor letting out the frustration and anxiety, that she had been holding in for what felt like forever, sigh trembled out of her mouth.

This is hell.

She had diced on two things right now, either she died in her sleep and this was hell or this was limbo. Running her shaky hands through her hair trying to calm herself down, but failing. Everything seemed like it was going to hell and this was her final pity party that didn’t want to end.

“What happened?” He asked and she knew without even looking at him, she knew he already studied her expression. Granted most passerbys would think (y/n) was sad, but the doctor knew her better. He knew the anxious pissed look far too well

“My stupid fucking laptop crashed right in the middle of me putting the final touches on my final! It corrupted and easiered the entire project and now–” Her head moved from looking up at the ceiling tiling to the Time-Lord with glossy eyes. “--I have less then seven hours to redo two months worth of work!....I’m fucked,”

Her head lightly hit the back of the wall as the hot angier tears were fighting for their way through. But she wasn’t going to let them win.

Her plan, which was still being developed, was to spend between an hour or thirty minutes to cry over and feel sorry for herself before spending the remaining six hours cramming as much as she could into Google Slides. It wouldn’t get her the A she wanted, the A she worked her ass off for. But it would at least be passing. And that’s all she wanted at the end of the day is to pass.

“So what are you going to do?”

Her head snapped towards him. It was his tone, the same tone the two would use as a way to lead the other down the route towards a plan.

It was his look too. Of course it was the normal old eyes she grew to love so much, but it was different. It had care and kindness in them. Of course the Doctor was caring, especially this one, but it was the look he would give her that reassured her that everything was going to be okay. The type where once he gives it to you, you quickly realize how much you’ve missed it. Man she missed the look.

“You know what I really need right now?” She said as the corner of her mouth slowly curled as he hummed in response. “A time machine. And not to go back to save my file, that would be messing with the timeline. No, I want to go see the actual paintings, high quality photos and endless time to analyze them.”

The Doctor smiled in ‘aw’ at (y/n) loving when she would go on rambles. Rather it be seeing a famous artwork, or analyzing whatever art was around, her and River talking for hours about the beauty of architecture, he loved it. It made him happy to see someone ramble to the ends of the universe about something so passionately like he did. Not to mention the excitement and joy she expressed all made him fall for her more.

“So you want to go through the past and then someplace where time doesn’t matter so you can write your final?” He played along.

“Final project, it’s not some essay I can cram out in an hour.” She corrected playfully before continuing, “And it’s not like that, I want to get all my information I need and then leave. I don’t want to be anywhere near here, cause then I’ll be freaking out more about it. Besides you can only handle Earth for so long when you know a Time-Lord.”

He laughed, nodding his head, finally looking away from her. She had been going back and forth between him and the ceiling. “So, if I’m hearing you right, you want a time machine but also a spaceship.”

“Time And Relative Dimension in Space.” She laughed out as her smile grew even more. “I think it’s called a Tardis?”

“Is it a big blue box that says ‘POLICE’ on it? Cause I think I saw one coming in. But I think it needs a key.” He said in a poor defeated tone, not being able to cover his happiness.

She looked down at her chest, reaching her hand up pulling a thin chain from under her shirt. Holding it between the two, revealing a metal key and a small charm. A small telephone booth charm.

The Doctor gave her a key after their fourth adventure. He had asked (y/n) to go with him, travel with him, and she wanted to. But she couldn’t, knowing she couldn’t just up and leave college. Her parents wouldn’t understand, neither would the friends she had. And she knew all too well that she couldn’t make up a believable lie. So, she made him a deal. Everytime she needed a break from ‘normal life’ she would call him. And if he were ever lonely he could call her. He never did call her though, he would usually just show up in true doctor fashion.

“You mean this one?”

The two broke out into laughing fits. Afterwards, The Doctor sprung to his feet swiftly pulling (y/n) up with him, dropping the key and holding his hand. “Now I say we swing by your room, grab whatever you need, and then to the past we go!”

“Geronimo!” (y/n) shouted smiling widely as his expression matched hers before the two started running down the hallway.

[littlest-dark-age]

Damiano david headcannons

Tagging @daddydamiano @noshame-bb @mywritingonlyfans

Translations 1, my soul 2, angel 3, my love 4, my life 5, little star 6, puppy 7, bunny 8, sweetness. Please let me know if any translation is incorrect.

Damiano would always be pressing kisses into your soft skin, wherever he could reach at the moment. The two of you are cooking and you have a huge sleep shirt on that reveals your shoulders? Kiss. You're fiddling with his hands out in public due to nerves? He's kissing every finger while looking you in the eye with a grin. You'd think he's convinced its a carnal sin to not kiss you every five minutes

He would beg you to do his makeup, constantly. He loves the intimacy of it, you usually sit on his lap for it and the way you gently cup his strong jaw turns him into an absolute puddle. You lose count of how many times you have to make him look back at you because he just wants to close his eyes and sink into the warmth you radiate. But you can't be mad at him, not when he looks up at you with those puppy dog eyes, shining with love.

Damia would absolutely give you one of his rings, and if it doesn't fit your fingers, no worries. He'll just give you one of his chains to put it on. He loves to kiss it when you wear it, whether it be on the chain or your hand. It always makes his heart skip a beat, a claim to the world that he was the lucky one to capture your affections

Please play with his hair, please. He will turn into a puppy the minute your nails graze his scalp. It doesn't matter the length, he loves it. His eyes slowly shut as you scratch at the shaved sides but he'll deny that he's about to fall asleep. 

Spa nights. Just, spa nights. He will let you put the cute animal headbands on him to keep his hair out of his mask, even letting you put it on him. Dami would love to watch movies like Legally Blonde and Clueless while you paint his nails and the glittery mask on his face dries. Never wearing a shirt, saying he wants skin to skin with you as he raises your shirt up to your chest so the two of you are pressed together. He'd sit on the floor, letting you work the hair mask through his hair as the first movie goes off and he starts to hunt for another, one of his hands stroking your bare leg.

Sleepy make out sessions are his favorite, after he's had his tea and the two of you are dead tired but can't stop. Even going as far to tell you that the two of you really should go to bed, as he's sweetly kissing you. There's no rush to it, no need to hide away your love as it's just the two of you. Locked away from the rest of the world, where damiano david is just yours. Where his nose keeps bumping yours just so he can hear you laugh and have you rub your own against his, like a bunny. His hands snaking up the back of your shirt to stroke down the length of your spine with the tips of his fingers. Barely enough for you to be able to feel it. 

If you were okay with it, he would absolutely want to tattoo you. He would never pressure you to if you really didn't but he would try to convince you if you were on the fence about it. If you let him pick, good luck. It would either be something like 'i am yours', which he would get a matching one. Probably around his heart. Or it would be something for måneskin. To have something he worked so hard on, permanently on someone he loves so so much would have him ecstatic. 

The pet names. They're never ending and ever changing. He says he can't help it and that he just says what comes to mind when he sees you. Whether that's anima mia 1, angelo 2, amore mio 3, vita mia 4, stellina 5, cucciolo 6, leprotta 7, or dolcezza 8. You never know which one to expect but they all bring a smile to your face, nevertheless. 

Damiano would always ask your opinion on his stage outfits, not really for reassurance but more so to involve you in every possible thing he can. He loves your input and always takes it into consideration. And you help him remember some things, like something might make him too hot or might restrict his movements on stage. The practical things he doesn't always think about, more focused on the look and aesthetic of it. 

Pictures, pictures and more pictures. He loves taking pictures of you doing the smallest of tasks, especially for when he has to be away from you. If you hid your face, he would still adore the photo but pout a bit because he couldn't see you. Even if photos could never compare to the real thing, in his words. He just wants you to be able to love yourself the way he loves you. He doesn't care about some imperfections, they're what make up you and everybody has them. So, it's probably easier to just let him have his pictures. 

His lockscreen is a picture of you and him with the cats piled up between the two of you. You didn't even know he took it until you went to check something on his phone for him. Dami says you look so peaceful in it, pressing a kiss to the cat's head with your eyes closed, and that it always helps him calm down when he looks at it. That it reminds him of home when he's not there to hold you on the nights on the road. Although, his wallpaper is an entirely different story. A bit more...spicy, if you will. It's a picture of you laying in bed wearing black lacy lingerie with a camera in your hand, and Damiano's legs are able to be seen straddling your waist.

He might not always be able to call or facetime during a tour but believe it when he makes those calls worth it. He loves to be able to call you for hours at a time and if time zones allow it, go to sleep with you on call. If not, that's okay. He has your time zone saved in his clock so he can always be sure to send you a goodnight or good morning text, even if it's a bit late or early. Damia needs to have that little slice of normalcy to keep him from going crazy during the tour. He lives and breathes music, don't get me wrong. But you are his soul and his mind, without you, there would be no music. 

If you're out with the band, he will pull you as close as you'll allow. Even onto his lap if it's a more private place or just you and the others. But this also means you'll be poked and tickled the entire night, even if you slap his hands away. He can't keep his hands off of your ribs, no matter how sore his hands get from your smacks. He compares it to when a kitten nibbles on them.

Damiano needs to be convinced to take a break and slow down, often. He gets so swept up in it that he doesn't realize he hasn't had a proper meal in a couple of days or that he's been skimping on sleep to write lyrics and play around with harmonies. Getting him out of the studio is hard, but much needed. He will appreciate it, as well as apologize for neglecting you for the past days. A nice date or just something to get him outside is just what he needed. No matter how casual it is, being able to relax and spend some time with you is one of his favorite things to do.

Some of his favorite dates are the ones where the two of you are able to just do something and have a good time without the pressure of having to dress up and get ready. He still uses the heart shaped mug you made him on one of your dates, still listens to the record you got him when the two of you got all of your favorite albums and swapped. He still has the tickets from the first movie the two of you were able to go and see together, stuck in between the worn pages of some old book of italian poems he's had forever

His love language is a mix of acts of service and gift giving. He loves to give you little trinkets and stuff he finds while on tour, each item reminding him of you in some way or another. Even if it's just a rock he thought you might like, a pair of earrings you've mentioned before or even just something he thought you might could use. And he will give you one of his oversized blazers if the two of you are out and it's cool, even make sure you have enough to eat and offer you bites of his own food if you want. Hell, if you wanted what he ordered versus what you ordered, he would swap it even if your dish isn't his favorite thing.

Dami loves cooking with you, there's something so domestic about it that he can't help but imagine your future together. He always claims that the meals the two of you prepare together are the best thing he's ever eaten, no matter how simple it is. Just don't break the pasta in front of him, you'll send him into cardiac arrest.

He loves it when you trace and kiss his tattoos, they're something he's proud of and knowing how much you like them just makes him happy. Of course, he knows you don't have to adore every tattoo he has as long as he's happy with it, but it still makes him feel nice when you show his ink a bit of love. It always tickles him a bit when you drag your nail on the ones in his chest, sending shivers down his spine when you do. 

He is a cover hog, yet denies it with every bone in his body. He claims you push them onto him most of the time, despite the fact that you struggle to cover up completely whilst he's on the other side of the bed bundled up like a baby with almost the entire cover. Thankfully, he's warm enough that you can just curl up behind him or into his side and get all the heart that you need from him. He still denies that he hogs the covers when the entire comforter is in a pile on his side, almost like he's trying to build himself a nest

Showering together is one of his favorite things, he loves how intimate it can be. Holding you and helping you wash up without any need to be awkward and feeling comfortable in your own skin in front of each other means so much to him. Being able to be open with one another and not hide anything, even if it's insecurities about your body. He understands that the world isnt always the nicest place and that he can't undo how people's words might hurt you but he'll try his best to get you to love your body

Damiano would love to teach you italian if you didn't already and wanted to learn. He's so excited to be able to share something like this with you that he doesn't realize how hard it is to teach someone an entire language. He overestimates himself and how good of a teacher he is, but that doesn't mean he won't try his best. It just takes a little bit of time, for the both of you. He understands the struggles of learning a new language and wouldn't try to push you to learn it so soon. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day. 

[snackhobi]

pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif​ for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

--

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan. 

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve. 

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable. 

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is. 

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church. 

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside. 

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?” 

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement. 

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble. 

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom. 

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised. 

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

--

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt. 

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts. 

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. 

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless. 

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck. 

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in. 

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres. 

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body. 

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage. 

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe. 

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead. 

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming. 

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class. 

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end. 

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?” 

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading. 

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it. 

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing. 

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.” 

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good. 

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it. 

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm. 

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be. 

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling  in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh. 

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent. 

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed. 

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside. 

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil. 

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed. 

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you. 

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you. 

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs. 

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…” 

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

--

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

--

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​