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xxairerexx · 3 years

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Meet again + becoming friends

Allen

- you and the boy see each other more often at the cafe and you always start a friendly conversation before one of you have to go

- you learned that his name is Sugasano Allen and he is a rapper of a unit named BAE

- today brought his friend with him

- "Ah! You must be [Y/N]! My name is Yeon Hajun. Allen talks about you a lot, and for being honest I think it's cute whenever he always mentioned you when something reminds him of you-"

- "Hajun!" Allen interrupted him

- you swore you saw him blushing

- "ahaha. I'm just kidding. Well I have to go to the restroom, I'll give you some privacy. But don't go away without me, ok?" Hajun smirked at Allen and left us alone

- we just sat there and the atmosphere was kinda awkward which was never been the case before

- "uhmm...my other friend,Anne,...uh...he also wanted to meet you today but he has work...and his birthday is soon...so..would you like to celebrate with us?"

- you looked at him surprised and smiled

- "of course! I'd love to meet with your friend!"

- then Hajun came back and you chat until they have to go back and you said goodbye

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Hajun

- your sister visited you and your parents

- she doesn't visit so often after she finally opened her own boutique

- she asked you if you want to come with her at a photo shoot for her latest design and you said yes without hesitation

- it was a good opportunity for you to learn more about photography

- when you went there you learn that the boy from the park was the model for this photo shoot and that his name is Yeon Hajun

- He talked to you casually like the whole scene from back then never happened while you tried to keep a distance because you felt uncomfortable around him

- but time passed you sometimes get the opportunity to go to the photo shooting for your sister and every single time Hajun is there to be the model

- you sometimes also see each other at the park and start a short conversation you also see him with his friends sometimes too

- but you also get death glares from Hajun's fan and you decided to exchange numbers so that you can chat without meeting

- and there won't be any bad rumor that would damage his career or that could put you in danger

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Anne

- you told your friends about the girl that you helped but turned out she was a boy

- your friends laughed at your your story and one of your friends told you that her brother visited a cabaret club once and he saw the exact same person.

- " I think his name was Anne if i remember it corectly. Hey, how about we go to that club together?"

- all of your friends agreed and you were kinda forced to go with them

- but before you could enter the building you saw Anne wanted to enter the building too and recognized you.

- your friends smirked at you and told you that they would pay for the call

- you guys talked and laughed and when the time was up they took a paper and wrote their number down and gave it to you and told you to call them some time and winked at you

- after you made the call, you talked more often and they even introduced their friends, Allen and Hajun

- you two enjoyed getting on Allen's nerves because he was a cute tsundere, but Hajun...mmm...no...just no

- but you sometimes laughed when Anne succeed to tease Hajun

- "he may look like he could lock you in his basement and kill you, but he is...well..a nice guy?. He's just a salty person and a sadist in nature, but still has some good parts in him" Anne whispered the part about being a sadist but Hajun heard it

- you really like to be around Anne, it's just fun being around them

Naoakira

- you saw Shiki and three other men again the next day in a Cafe

- one of them was the man who picked Shiki up yesterday

- Shiki saw you and waved at you

- the man from yesterday invite you to their seat

- he told you his name and the others and you chatted

- you learned that he worked as a professor in a private college and you told him that your mother also used to work there

- he recognized the name of your mother and said that they also talked a lot with each other and that she also mentioned you a lot

- you sometimes bump to each other on random days and chatted a little

- one day you noticed the ring that he always wearing and he also noticed that you were looking at it

- he told you that he had a wife before but she sadly died

- you weren't prepared for it and you tried not to talk about it since he looked very sad when he talked about her

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Yohei

- you couldn't stop thinking about the bartender and decided to go to the bar again

- you talk with him again but this time you ordered a drink

- you were enjoying his company too much that you forgot how many drinks you've had and fell asleep

- the next morning you woke up in a sofa and were greeted by Yohei, Ryu and Naoakira

- you ate breakfast with them and thank them for taking care of you

- when you got home you receive a notification that you were added to a group chat

- it was Ryu, he added you to the chat room along with Naoakira, Yohei and Shiki

- you texted regularly in the group but you chat with Yohei even more often

- it's funny whenever he has typos when he's drunk and is angered about it and he told you that he rather talk in person than texting

- so you go to the bar (before he destroy his phone)

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Ryu

- you often see Ryu after school on your way home

- but then you see him at the school gate

- he told you that his friend, Ando Shiki who was a year younger than you, also goes to your school

- since then you three walked together and then separated ways

- you guys talked about many stuffs and even talked about if you want to have sleepover

- as you guys got closer you spend time time together more and you visits them regularly

- Yohei expected you to be a person with common sense and help to stop Ryu doing crazy stuff

- but he was wrong because you're also up to doing crazy stuffs (poor Shiki and Yohei)

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Shiki

- the next day you greet Shiki and talked to him before the first period starts

- this process repeated until you had to do a project together

- the project got you two closer and you became good friends

- you also became protective of him because he got bullied sometimes

- when there is a day where he got bullied you walked him home until you reached his house door

- in short you two have a wholesome friendship

Kanata

- a week later your mother died in a car crash, you didn't want to accept it and ran away crying

- you got lost and two drunk men had cornered you but Kanata butt in and beat them up

- you thanked him and said that you owe him but he just ignored you

- not long after Nayuta found you two and asked what happened but when you tried to explain you heard the twin's stomach growl

- you went to go and eat Ramen and said it's on you

- you held a conversation with Nayuta bc it was hard to speak to Kanata and said that you ran away because you couldn't accept the death of your mother

- you decided to go home and said goodbye but then you heard Kanata mumbling "thanks for the muffins from last time and thanks for today's Ramen...."

- it made you happy and it made you almost forgot about your mother

- you don't know why but you said that if they want they could visit the bakery sometimes

- which they did to your surprise

- they come so the bakery regularly and also helped you and your dad around at the bakery

- you suddenly have a lot of teen customers bc of the twin's cuteness which made the bakery more popular (your dad even though of having them as the bakery mascot)

- Kanata often helps you in the kitchen and every single day he slowly opening up to you

- which made you really happy

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Nayuta

- the next day you saw Nayuta standing infront of your training building

- your training room had this huge glass window and he was there...just standing there

- like a lost dog that you once gave a treat and then following you and waited for you to give him treat again...get it? no?

- anyyyway when you were finished he was gone

- you started to think that you had saved a ghost and now he's haunting you because of gratitude?

- the next day on your way to your training you saw nayuta standing in front of the building again

- he waved at you and you waved back

- he gave you a chocolate bar "I heard chocolate is good for your body before you do sports..."

- you asked him if he wanted to watch you training

- then it was kind of a routine: Nayuta gave you a chocolate bar, he watches you train and you walk him home where his brother is always waiting for him and glaring at you

- annnndd you know what? I think Kanata is starting to trust you...? Well at least that what Nayuta said...

Akyr

Iori

- it was your big brother's birthday and you two hadn't meet for ages

- you got a massage from Naoakira

- he said that he was planning a surprise birthday party for Yohei

- at the party you ran to your brother's arms "happy birthday!"

- Yohei was surprised and happy, he introduced you to his friends and the first one that he introduced was Iori

- "Ah!! You're that guy from that day!"

- Iori also recognized you too

- Yohei was confused. He was like '[Y/N] and Danna knew each other?! What the brick?!!'

- It was fun to talk to Iori and ofc to finally see your brother again

- since that party Iori waits in front of your work place every time and always said "oh! I was just passing by"

- little did you know he wasn't just passing by

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Zen

- the next day you went grocery shopping with your niece (again) bc your sister is busy with work

- you met the guy again

- "look auntie/uncle, it's that superman from yesterday!"

- he heard her and smiled

- you thanked him again for saving her and asked if he needed some help because he looked like he was searching for something or someone

- he declined but you helped anyway

- "yay! We're helping superman" your niece cheered

- "superman?"

- "that's what she calls you. Oh, my name is [YN] and this is Yume"

- "My name is Zen"

- after you found the three boys you waved goodbye but then you heard Yume asking the three boys if they can ran away again tomorrow because she really wanted to play with Zen

- and her plan actually worked

- Yume is happy to be able to play with her hero, you're happy because you don't have to look after her by yourself and you two help him looking for the boys, it's a win-win situation

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Hokusai

- you thought tutoring them would be easy, but no!

- Reo and Satsuki always argue

- Zen would always come and check if you 4 are doing fine and scold Reo and Satsuki for not taking it seriously

- Hokusai was quite all the time but never listens to your explanations because he's busy playing with his cat

- you were tired but then Hokusai's cat meowed and sat on your lap

- you stoke him and exhaled to let the stress out

- you then felt a hand patting your head

- it was Hokusai "[YLN]-san, you look tired....let's take a break"

- he gestured to Bucchi to come to him but he didn't want to which made Hokusai pout

- then you have an idea

- "listen up! I have to be honest but this ain't going nowhere, so Reo-kun, Ito-san, I'll tell Gaho-san to stop constantly checking on us but in return you two have to be quite or else I'll tell Gaho-san to hide your Playstation for a week. And Masaki-san, Bucchi is going to be with me all the time. But if you solve half of the questions right or more you will get to have him on your lap."

- it was a bit difficult at first but they're trying

- sometimes you have to give up when it come to Hokusai because he would put you on his lap when he didn't get any questions right so that he can pet Shiro

- "Shiro is still on your lap and not mine" he said

- you couldn't argue because it was kinda cute

- 2 months passed and they came to you and showed their tests, they got between 50%-70% thanked you for your help

- well it wasn't all correct but at least they don't have less than 50%

- you were kinda sad to have to stop tutoring them

- but then Hokusai said "you can hang with us if you want, [YLN]-san. We're friends afterall"

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Satsuki

- you go to the arcade even more often to meet Satsuki and play games together

- sometimes Reo or your brother or both would come too

- you two became the best gamer buddies

- you sometimes goes to his house and play video games or he comes to your house

-sometimes you tease Him together with Reo

- once Reo told him as a joke that he should date you

- his face went red and he was mad and stopped talking to both of you for a week

- you apologized but he said it wasn't you but Reo and then Reo said sorry but Satsuki just sticked out his tongue and Reo did the same too

- and you were glad he started talking to you again

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Reo

- you learned that the boy goes to your school and that he's also a 2nd year but different class

- he noticed you first and greeted you in the morning

- your friends teased you about it and asked him if he wanted to hand out

- he and his friends started to hang out with you and your friend circle just got bigger

- you all often go to the amusement park and split into teams

- you and Reo always in the same team

- you also go the the karaoke pretty often too and when Reo, Satsuki and Hokusai rap in front of you for the first time you all were shocked

- you're able enjoy spending time with your friends now mostly because you're not feeling lefted out by your friends because Reo is there for you and cheer you up

#paradox live #x reader #allen sugasano #anne faulkner #yeon hajun #naoakira saimon #kanbayashi yohei #ryu natsume #shiki ando #kanata yatonokami #nayuta yatonokami #iori suiseki #zen gaho #satsuki ito #hokusai masaki #reo maruyama

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peakyblindersxx · 3 years

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whiskey buisness - john shelby x reader (part 2 of ?)

read part one here!

a/n: hey loves! i'm finishing up school rn, but i had to get this out and i'm about to start working on a tommy request immediately after i upload this. anyways, i'm so excited to post this series, it's incredible and i can't thank my bestie @stxdyblr-2k enough. she is a fucking genius :)

prompt: you can't get john out of your head. lo and behold, here he is.

warnings: fluff, mentions of smut, angsty af, soft john (ugh my heart)

Despite your best efforts, you'd been unable to stop yourself yearning for John Shelby. Your pokey flat now often lay empty; you were far too busy to mope at home due to your career as a personal assistant to a local solicitor who was allied with the Shelby's, attending rallies and lectures with Ada and the drunken nights you'd spend at various mansions, galleries and club openings with the "razor chasers" you'd become friendly with due to their refusal to leave Ada alone. Yet still, in those odd seconds of calm you seized over a cigarette, the first seconds after a bump of Tokyo, when you carefully applied your makeup, styled your hair or bathed, you'd think of him. The way the pads of his fingertips felt on your skin, how he’d muttered in your ear how pretty you looked.

But this was different to when you were dreaming about John at 15; he was no longer the allusive older brother of Ada who had a string of beautiful girls on rotation. He wasn’t a fantasy anymore. He was true flesh and blood, and for a moment he had wanted you.

It would be delicious if the whole situation hadn't left a bitter taste in your mouth. Of course you came back to Brum to only immediately fuck it up. The first night, and already you were so close to ruining everything? Looking back, now that you were so close with Ada once more, now that you knew who John had grown to be, that night was cringe inducing. Luckily, no one had seemed to catch on. Luckily, you thrived in the Small Heath rumour mill once again. All the gossip about you was mainly about your substance use, the lads you were seen curling up with outside nightclubs, your intelligence, your helpful nature, sometimes your questionable politics but that was all. John's was far darker, stories of blood, death and gasoline. Recently, the tales of his conquests had quietened, but only due to the lurid delight taken by the factory workers in talking about the recent blinding of some poor fucker who'd crossed the wrong person. Obviously, a lot of the detail had to be exaggerated for shock value and to boost the Shelby status, solidifying them as notorious throughout Birmingham city and its rural surroundings. There were murmurs everywhere about the violent John Shelby: ruthless, cocky, vengeful. It seemed impossible that the same man who cracked shit jokes just to see you smile, kissed you with so much desperation, and prioritised getting you off first could cause such harm without an ounce of guilt or shame to slow his swagger.

Whispers of war were far more constant, but then again, people would say anything for a reaction. You didn't bring it up with Ada. You refused to (openly) partake in mindless gossip on principle, yet you were hungry for information about him.

***********

You'd long forgotten whose wedding you were at. Some loyal blinder, a close friend of the Shelby's, the occasion calling for a large white marquee to be built onto one of Tommy's gardens, fully staffed with the best chef and service team money could buy (from a London restaurant at short notice; when Finn told you the extortionate figure Tommy had paid, your jaw had dropped). The cake, dress and decorations were stunning; you weren't sure exactly what the groom had done for the Shelby's but you could only assume the worst for what they'd splashed out on him.

However, thinking like that only spoilt your night: you'd realised at your fifth club takeover, now you repeated it like a mantra constantly. You'd quickly learnt every excess the Shelby's granted to those outside their circle were due to some perceived sacrifice for being associated with them. Well, that's what you chose to believe after John had sent a junior blinder to your office with a bouquet, the Monday morning after he turned you down. So, it was best to smile and take the shit, get paid, and get out as soon as possible. You were to keep your head down until then.

Yet, keeping your head down was difficult tonight. Ada had treated you to a shopping trip to London for the occasion this morning, Arthur forcing the junior blinders to tag along next to you on the train and trailing less than two metres behind you for hours. You missed the days when it was just you and Ada. It was far more simple without the stares whenever the two of you stepped out. Ada had gotten used to it, she'd devised her own methods of being completely alone; complex plans involving leaving a window open, knotting sheets into a rope and twisting her ankles. Not that she minded, she reckoned the suffocation of being a Shelby was much worse than a few bruised ankles.

You were wearing a clingy emerald green dress from some fancy French boutique you couldn't even pronounce, the diamond necklace sitting along your collarbone and the jewels dangling through your ears were on loan from Ada. You felt eyes unpicking you the moment you entered the after-party. Your arm was linked through Ada's as per usual, she looked equally stylish in a peacock blue number that set off her eyes, her delicate features perfected with makeup.

You'd quickly found your gaggle and began drinking and dancing the night away. Whispers about snow arose from your table, people disappearing to the toilets to rail a line on the bathroom counter, then to the dance floor or to the lap of the poor fucker who'd hold back their hair while they vomited in just a few hours. At least the Blinders were polite about it. Isaiah would kill them if they weren’t. You'd let your arm be tugged on various bathroom trips, treated among your group like secret missions although you weren't entirely subtle about it.

What you weren't aware of was across the marquee, you were being watched by the three men in your life who you'd never want to see you in this state: the Shelby's.

"Looks like Finn's taken your spot, John." Arthur yelled in John's ear over the loud music, gesturing to the youngest Shelby sat at the table next to you who was staring up at you in complete adoration as you chatted across him to Michael, seemingly arguing with him. By the looks of it, you were winning.

John pulled a face at Arthur. “Fuck off, old man. That'll never happen. Finn’s too young for her." He immediately regretted the words that had fallen out of his mouth, revealing far too much for his comfort.

"It's not impossible."

"He's just not right for her, yeah?"

"And you are?"

John didn't bother to bless him with a verbal response, instead flipping him off and downing the rest of his whiskey. "It's not like that."

"What's it like then? Because from where I'm sitting, it's pretty fucking clear, John." Arthur slurred, glass of whiskey sloshing onto his sleeve.

"You're too gone to even know you're chatting shit." John sneered, standing up, "I'm off for a smoke and some fresh air. Try not to fuck anything in my absence, both of you."

His brothers cursed him out as he left. John took a second to figure out his route, purposefully having to cross your path, gesturing for you to follow him subtly. He was surprised you came trailing after him, telling Michael that you weren’t done yelling at him and you’d be back. When you were both only metres from the marquee, he knew you were fucked. You were instantly bored, begging him for a cigarette, which he lit for you, shaking his head at your state.

"You're a fucking mess, love." He said, mouth sloping attractively to one side.

"Takes one to know one, John-boy. Where are we off to, then?"

"Somewhere fucking quiet, can barely hear myself think. Plus, you need to sober the fuck up, lass." He said, softly, as he walked across the dew soaked grass. You followed, heels in hand, holding your dress up as not to ruin it. He sighed, taking the shoes from your hands and wrapping his blazer around your shoulders, linking your arm through his for stability. He kept the distance respectful, but there wasn’t any denying the thick tension in the summer air between the two of you. Ahead, there was a small stone bench sat at the foot of one of Thomas' manicured gardens, and John offered his hand to help you sit. You made small talk and caught up on each other's lives, and you noted John only seemed to glow when you asked about his kids. He talked at length, the drink seemingly unhinging his jaw. There he was again, the John you knew and had admired for so many years. You could sit here forever, watching his blue eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Yet, it just wasn’t meant to be. You wished you could stop time just for a bit, give you enough moments to memorize the freckles on his skin.

"You know the night I first came home?" The alcohol and snow had loosened your lips. You were teetering on the edge of your boundaries, but you couldn't care enough to hold back.

"The night where absolutely nothing happened?" He joked, raising an eyebrow at you, cautious that you'd randomly brought it up in your state. "Sweetheart, this can wait."

He was warning you. For a second you managed to bite your tongue, but curiosity tipped you over the edge.

"But something nearly happened, right?"

"Y/N. Don't." He warned, his tone icy, suddenly distancing from you, hiding between an emotional boundary which he didn't wish to explore.

"John, it's just us. Can't we even talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about, though. You were off your face then, and now. That's fine. We know where we stand. It can't happen."

"I wanted to. I do want to."

"You don't. Trust me. You need a nice lad who'll marry you and look after you. Just need to keep your nose clean long enough yeah?" He teased, trying to lighten the mood, blue eyes begging you to move on.

Your head turned to face him, your face contorting in a mixture of confusion and irritation. "You don't get to tell me what I want or need. The last thing I want is to marry any lad, nice or not."

"I didn't mean it like that, right? Look, I just meant you deserve better than Shelby scum. You're going places you know? Don't settle for Small Heath." John responded with a pained sigh. He didn’t want to get into it with you; not here, not like this. He'd thought about it, naturally. You were constantly on his mind, yet only problems ever seemed to appear, never solutions. It was best for him to avoid you. Why the fuck did he drag you out here? Horrible idea.

"Your family isn't scum. Where the fuck did you get that from?" Your face was screwed up in genuine rage. "I-"

"Y/N, fuckin’ leave it."

His face had hardened completely now. He'd snapped at you. His voice hadn't raised, it was just the power he spat his order out with. You held up your hands in mock surrender, pointedly taking a cigarette from his front pocket and light it silently, not saying a word.

"Why are you so bothered, anyways?" He asked, breaking the silence like you knew he would. John always had to ask questions.

"Fuck off with that, John. I'm not in the mood."

"What do you mean?" He looked completely lost.

"We nearly had sex. Just sex, nothing else right?"

John remained silent.

"Would it be the worst thing in the world?" You asked, your voice wavering. It was hard enough to get the words out, let alone imagine the response.

"You're far too wasted to chat about this, love."

"John, I’m not-"

"I'm serious. You're fucking mashed like my brothers aren't you? Like all those other fuckers in there." He sounded genuinely angry. In the glow of the sunset he looked so much younger, so hurt and lonely. Why hadn't you noticed before?

He turned to you, eyes widened and shocked at his own outburst. "You're not the only one gone yeah? Ignore me, I'm fucked, sorry."

You reached out your hand and linked your fingers through his in silence, the warm evening wind ruffling your hair and dress, blocked from your skin by John's suit jacket which was wrapped around your shoulders. Not that anyone would notice or care. As long as Ada wasn't with you, you could disappear for hours without any alarm. There you sat in the tranquil last few moments of the day, your hand linked with John's, both beyond tipsy. You weren’t thinking properly but it felt right. You felt safe. You didn't want to have to return to the chaos of the party, to have to catch up on who your friends were currently trying to screw. None of that seemed to matter anymore.

Was it too much to ask for something to be simple? Maybe you didn't have to fuck him. Maybe just these small moments were enough. You laughed at the thought when it crossed your mind; neither you nor John were known for consistency or stability in relationships, you being admittedly rather inexperienced, only having been with a few men, and he had his fair share of escapades. But he was just so different. You wouldn't admit that he'd gotten your attention in any way than purely sexually (which surprised you to admit) and for fun, but you genuinely enjoyed his presence.

He was right though. It wasn't a good idea at all to hook up. There was far too much baggage for both of you to make it worth it.

Just once?

You glanced over at John. He rolled his eyes at you, but the edges of his lips were slightly upturned, his dimples faintly peeking through his defined cheeks.

Just once couldn't hurt.

***

The sky was streaked with shades of gold, amber and blood. John could feel the friction from your knee barely knocking against his, the pressure putting him on edge. In fairness, he had drunk heavily, and that's what happens when you let your guard down around beautiful women. He couldn't believe you had told him you wanted to have sex with him still. He'd chalked the whole situation down to a drunken mistake that would have progressed into a far more significant drunken mistake. Ada would never forgive him if he went for another of her mates. Especially Y/N. No matter if he said that Y/N could be different, that you wasn't just another conquest. But who'd believe him?

Far better to keep his mouth shut.

Far better to play safe.

As you were called back to the party by the gaggle of girls John vaguely recognised from hanging off the arms of other blinders, he realised (despite his state) that you were right. Having sex with you wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. In fact, it might be one of the best.

Just once?

He watched your figure disappear back into the marquee, waiting for you to turn back and look for him. You do. He would have done the same if it was him.

Maybe just once wouldn't hurt.

***

to be continued!

#john shelby fluff #john shelby #john shelby x reader #john shelby imagine #john shelby reader insert #peaky blinders fluff #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders

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princehrry-writings · 3 years

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Angel with a Shotgun

here we go. this popped into my head after i watched a tiktok about angel shots. if you go on a date and don't feel safe for any reason, please please please find a safe way to remove yourself!! asking for an angel shot is a great way to do that!!

WARNING: tw mentions of implied SA, stalking, harassment, police, EMT's, hospitals, alcohol, being drugged, swearing,

please don't read this if any of this stuff makes you uncomfortable. i don't get graphic with anything but still, put yourself first and be safe!! i love you <3

wordcount: 1907

Harry Styles x Reader

masterlist

It started off as a normal night. Y/n had met this guy in class and he’d asked her out for drinks. She didn’t get any bad vibes from him, none of her friends had heard anything bad about him, so she deemed him a suitable guy to go have a fun night with.

She’d met him at a bar just off campus and was having a really great night! The pair were dancing and talking and laughing, genuinely enjoying herself for the first time in a long time on a first date.

In Y/n’s experience, usually guys were creeps and girls never decided she was what they were looking for, so she had a hard time in the dating world. This guy, Jack his name is, seemed ok. Keyword being seemed.

She should have known. When he asked to meet her at a bar all the way across town, she should have put it together that he wasn’t what she was looking for. He didn’t put up too big of a fight when she insisted they meet at the bar closer to campus, that way she would know people there and be in a familiar place if she needed to get away from him quickly.

When he started making comments that were off putting to her, things she doesn’t really want to repeat in fear of actually vomiting all over the table, she starts looking for a way out. He keeps trying to play footsie with her under the table and is getting visibly frustrated at her lack of participation, so she tells him she’s going to get them another round of drinks after finishing the one that was already on the table and quickly exits the booth before he can protest.

Harry had been watching from across the room at the bar, seeing this couple who looked like they were on a first date. He watched as they laughed and talked, getting to know each other. But as the night went on, it seemed the woman was getting more and more uncomfortable.

He had told his coworkers to keep an eye out for the two in case anything was to go down, and when he sees her get up and make her way over to his bar, he has a feeling he knows where this is going.

“What can I get for you, love?” He asks her, leaning over the counter to hear her better. She sniffles a little, and takes a deep breath. Leans in before timidly asking.

“Can I get an angel shot?”

Harry’s senses are quickly kicked into gear and he nods, gesturing to his coworker that he’s gonna get this taken care of before meeting her on the other side of the bar. What neither of them had realized was that 1. Jack was walking up to them and 2. he had slipped something into her drink apparently because suddenly she could barely hold her own body weight. Harry caught her before she hit the ground and Jack rushed over, playing the part of concerned boyfriend but the bartender saw right through it.

“Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to back up.” He tells the man, authority very present in his voice. Jack doesn’t take well to this, eyebrows furrowing and voice lowering in defense.

“S’cuse me mate, but I’m gonna take my girl home. She’s had a few too many, f’you know what I mean.” He chuckles and goes to scoop her up. Harry stops him, putting a hand on the guy's chest, stepping between the girl and this guy.

“You'll do no such thing. This girl has obviously been roofied and it’s you she was running away from. The only thing you’ll be doing tonight is talking to the police, who are making their way in right now to do with you what they will.” Harry says, watching the color drain from this bloke's face. He turned around, ready to make a full run for it but was stopped by not only the police but also a crowd of other guys who heard what was going down and were ready to step in if assistance was needed.

“I didn’t do anything wrong here! She was trying to take advantage of me!” He cries as he’s put in handcuffs and taken away.

“Yeah, it’s obvious the one who’s passed out cold because she was drugged was trying to take advantage of you.” Harry yells after him before turning around and scooping the girl into his arms. Due to the commotion and the presence of not only police but also paramedics, the premises was cleared and the bar was shut down for the night. Harry held the passed out girl close to his body, having had his coworker fetch his jacket from the break room to keep her warm now that the club wasn’t filled with body heat, and waited for the paramedics to come in for her.

When they come in and place her on the gurney, she starts to stir. Little whines and groans escape from her and the EMT’s check her vitals, deeming her stable and letting Harry know she’s going to be ok. He decided to follow to the hospital just so she has a familiar face when she wakes up and has someone to explain her situation that isn’t a scary doctor.

. *

It’s a few hours of unrestful sleep at her bedside and his co-worker showing up with a change of clothes for him when she finally starts to come to.

Groaning and reaching up to hold her head but realizing her arms are too heavy to move, she rasps out, “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” Harry explains, wanting to reach out and hold her hand but not wanting to startle her, “You’re ok but the doctors wanted to keep you overnight for observation.”

“You’re the bartender I asked for the angel shot aren’t you?” She questions after a pregnant pause. He hums a confirmation and she looks over his face a few times, before tears well in her eyes.

“What happened?” A few tears fall from her eyes. She can’t remember much after leaving the table, just the sight of green eyes and curly brown hair nodding at her when she asked for the shot. The rest is pretty much a blur, just random flashes of scenes she can’t quite make out in her head.

“You came over and asked me for the shot and then a few minutes later you passed out. The bloke you were with slipped something in your drink. And unless something happened at the table that I didn’t see, then nothing else happened. Do you remember anything happening at the table?” He explains, hoping her answer is no.

He’d learned her name from the EMT’s who checked your ID once you were loaded into the ambulance but he didn’t know the name of the man she was with. He realizes she doesn’t know his name either.

“No, was just being a sleazy dick. I don’t know how he could have slipped me something, I didn’t get up before I went to you. Must’ve turned my head for a bit too long. God, I should’ve known this was gonna happen!” She groans but he shakes his head.

“You can’t blame yourself for this, darling! He’s a sleazeball, a no good lowlife. S’not your fault.”

“What’s your name?” She voices, peering into his pretty green eyes.

“M’Harry,” he smiles, timidly reaching for her hand, rubbing his thumb soothingly across the soft skin.

“Thank you for staying with me Harry! For helping me…” Y/n says quietly. He shakes his head with a small smile.

“No need to thank me, pet. Would do it over and over again.”

Her smile, while tired and defeated, was enough to show him her gratitude. She feels a weight lift off her chest, hearing that nothing bad happened after she got to him.

She knows it’s probably just nightingale syndrome, but Y/n thinks Harry is terribly adorable. With his messy brown curls and tired green eyes that make it look like he hasn’t slept in ages. She thinks she could see herself going out with him, which is an odd thought considering what happened last night. You’d think that would be enough to turn her off to men for good, but there's just something about him. But now isn’t the time to bring any of that up.

“I’ll call a nurse, tell em’ you’re awake.” He voiced, making his way to the door after gently placing her hand back on the bed.

. * .

“Ms. I’m just calling to let you know the restraining order has gone through. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Y/n felt a weight lift off her chest. After months of being harassed and stalked, she would finally be left alone. Harry leaned in, pressing a kiss to her cheek, stroking the loose hair out of her face.

“S’ finally over, lovie. It’s all over!.” He whispered in her ear, pulling her closer to him, rubbing up and down her thighs. She felt tears spring to her eyes, tears of relief, tears of joy, but also tears of sadness because the last few months had been some of the hardest of her life. She was ready to move on and be done with this nightmare.

When Jack had found out Y/n and Harry got together after that night, it’s like it activated something inside him. Like he thought she was just playing hard to get and he had to literally stalk her to get her attention. He seemed to think she was playing a game. Somewhere in his twisted little mind he had the audacity to think she actually wanted him.

He’d sit right next to her every single class period and would get up and move next to her when she tried to get away with him. He’d show up at her house, sitting across the street just watching her front door, he’d call her phone and text her, he’d wait outside her other classes and follow her around campus. She complained to her university, told them what was going on and they didn’t really do anything. She went to campus security and they brushed it off because “She wasn’t in any danger. He just wants to get to know you.”

So she finally was forced to file a restraining order. Her case was still open, from when he got arrested that night at the bar. They're charging him with second degree assault and criminal harassment because apparently she’s not the only girl he’s done this to. Many other women had spoken up since news of that night had spread around campus. Yet still, the university did nothing.

Harry stood by you every step of the way, picking up the shattered pieces on hard days. He wanted to beat the shit out of this guy and he would if it wouldn’t interfere with the case. He knew you needed him and he didn’t want to chance anything.

There was a pregnant silence between the two lovers. Just letting the silence wash over them, letting themselves breath freely without this weight suffocating them, they basked in it.

It wasn’t completely over, because there was still a trial, but he wouldn’t be coming around without getting arrested again.

That was enough for Y/n to breathe easy.

#harry styles x reader #harry styles #x reader #harry x reader #bartender!harry #bartender!harry styles x reader #bartneder!harry x reader #harry x y/n #harry styles one shot #harry styles au #bartender!harry styles #tw sa #one direction #fan fiction #one shot #angel shot

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maeve-writes · 3 years

Text

Heroes

Pairing: Stripper!Bucky Barnes x Reader x Stripper!Steve Rogers

Rating: 18+, Minors DNI

Warnings: Adult situations, alcohol consumption, allusion to mild cheating(??). More to be added later.

Summary: It’s your friend’s birthday and you’re dragged to the Heroes club. You’re not one for that kind of place, but you quickly change your mind after you get to play the damsel in distress for a pair of Brooklyn babes.

a/n: Unbeta’d, any mistakes are my own and please forgive me. This is the second story I’ve written in a while. Forgive me?

You normally don’t go to these sorts of places but it was your friend’s 30th birthday and it was on her bucket list. Luckily, you weren’t talked into planning any of it, just had to toss in some cash for the fee to get in and the never ending flow of drinks, plus the very special Birthday Girl Dance package.

It took you three years after the second Magic Mike movie came out to watch the first one. The idea of male strippers seemed odd. But, when you really thought about it, so did female strippers.

Nevertheless, the night ultimately wasn’t about you, it was about your friend and her birthday. You were happy to be there with your friends, enjoying the celebration and drinks, seeing hot guys take off their clothes was a weird added bonus.

Heroes was the club to go if you wanted to see buff dudes bare it all. Tara, the birthday girl, had been raving about it for months. She found videos of it online and shared them in your group chat. That, of course, had your other friends looking for more videos and all of them started to have their favorites.

“Girl, some of them even give private shows,” Sonya, the oldest and who was supposed to be the responsible one of your group, mock-whispered excitedly.

You tried not to roll your eyes as your gang was escorted to the front table near the stage. It was a semicircular booth where small round tables came up from the floor, big enough for drinks, but small and spaced out enough to allow for bodies to move around and in between.

Your host was a slender built guy on the younger side, barely old enough to be allowed in. He had a baby face and a boyish smile, but his muscles were well defined as the club forced him to be shirtless save for the small bow tie around his neck with a spider in the middle, and the tiny pair of shorts that cupped his rear which stayed there by what you guessed was his will or magic. Maybe both.

“Here you are, ladies,” he guided, instructing Tara to take her seat near the middle. “The name’s Peter- uh Spider-Man. I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

That set off a fit of giggles from your friends which caused a full body flush from your waiter. His embarrassment tugged at your heartstrings. “New at this, Mr. Spider,” you asked.

His flush darkened and he rubbed absently at the back at his neck after he passed out the menus. “It’s Spider-Man,” he corrected you, “but is it that obvious?” You tilted your head and scrunched up your nose, parting your pointer and thumb a small ways apart. He laughed in return, his shoulders relaxing a little. You gave him a wink and a smile before the rest of your friends attacked the poor kid with their drink and food orders.

You felt sorry for the guy, but he seemed to have loosened up a bit since your small, playful banter and your friends ate up his boyish charm.

While you waited for your turn to order, you looked around the club to find its sleek design, not something you thought a strip club would offer. The walls were painted black, accented by silver framed posters of the dancers. Above each were white neon lights that spelt out their Hero name.

The rest of the booths were like your own, made of soft black cushions, black metal bases which were illuminated underneath by white light. The tables that sprang from the ground were polished silver necks with textured tempered glass tops to keep drink slipping and spilling to a minimum.

Of course, all of the booths surrounded the stage, which was mostly closed off by a thick black curtain, save for the large catwalk that split half of the sitting area in two. It was wide enough to fit three large men comfortably across it, shoulder to shoulder, and from some of the videos your group shared, they had done so before.

When Peter- there was no way you were going to refer to him by his Hero name- got to your order last, you could hear other rowdy groups start to file in. A couple of bachelorette parties, a girl’s 21st birthday, and a Happy Divorce Finalization Day were all joining you. Your friends quickly became friends with everyone in the room, so even if the show sucked, at least all of you could get drunk and have fun.

“Excuse me, ladies,” a voice rang out above you. Cheers burst from the crowd and every light in the room popped out and stayed out until the room fell silent. “Now that I have your attention…” A tall, dark man walked out from the split of the curtains. He wore a wireless microphone over his ear, an eyepatch over his eye which rested just above a self assured smile. Dressed in a fitted pair of leather pants and combat boots, he strode to the center crossroads of the stage and catwalk, “My name is Director Fury. I will be introducing you to your Heroes tonight.” He paused for another round of catcalls. “And hopefully we can save you from the Villains, too.” That drew out louder screams from the crowd.

“Now, what do we do to the bad girls like you,” he paused, looking pointedly to the crowd, “we contain,” he pulled a piece of rope from the back of his pants and tossed it into a group nearby, “detain,” he pulled out cuffs and twirled them around a finger before he threw those out as well, “and entertain.” With that, the bass dropped and the curtain flew open, behind Director Fury were the Heroes (and Villains) in all of their sweat slicked glory.

Once the Director stepped aside, the seven dancers on stage began their opening routine. Dressed in black vests and tear-away leather pants, the men paraded around the stage and catwalk to the thump of the music, pulling off pieces of their clothing as they went. The women around you went wild, snatching at whatever was tossed their way, fighting playfully for it. While it seemed incredibly silly, Tara was having the time of her life and you absently sipped at your Tequila Sunrise while you scrolled on your phone.

The dance number finished not two minutes later with a screaming cheer and standing ovation from the rest of the already slightly tipsy crowd. Director Fury came out while the dancers disappeared into the back to get ready, he worked the crowd, mentioning the brides-to-be and promised them a very special wedding gift before the night was over. “But I heard there were a couple of birthdays here,” Fury said, looking between your group and the one behind you. “Now, I’m going to get the young gun back there in a moment, but… a little bird told me that you,” he pointed to your friend, “are a very big fan of our first Hero of the night.”

Tara squealed and stood up, “Fuck yes, I am. God bless Captain America! ...and dat ass!”

It was obvious that Director Fury was trying to keep his composure, but the corners of his lips twitched like he wanted to join in on the laughter from the crowd. “Well, he is certainly blessed,” he replied, “and ladies, you will be, too, when you see him at full salute.” He winked and started to walk off stage, “Captain? Duty calls…”

Some sort of abomination of the Star Spangled Banner started to play, remixed with drum and bass. You looked up to see what kind of horror show would come from something treasonous as what bled from the speakers around you, you were met with over six feet of muscle covered in a fitted blue suit, fingerless leather gloves on his hands, and a round metal shield on his back painted red, white, and blue.

The Captain’s background was what looked like a large war ship with painted ski-masked bad guys spread throughout the levels. His stage allowed him ramps and poles to move up and down, which he used freely. He used a mixture of acrobatics and dance to move across the stage, tossing the shield around, “fighting off the bad guys” and losing his clothes in the process. By the end of the song he was left in just the leather gloves and a very tight pair of shorts, much like the ones Peter wore, except the Captains had the same pattern of his shield printed across the backside.

Tara’s screams knocked you out of your daze and you realized you hadn’t stared down at your phone at all during the Captain’s dance. You watched all five minutes of it and couldn’t tear your eyes away. Heroes wasn’t about getting drunk women horny, they wanted to put on a show, too. You clapped lightly, though it was drowned out by the cheering around you, but unbeknownst to you, it wasn’t unnoticed.

Fury was out once again and he brought up the first bachelorette of the night. He put her in a chair on the catwalk and gave her a candy-garterbelt. Then he asked her waiter, a guy named “Ant Man”, to remove it with only his tongue, which he happily obliged.

Peter cut off your view with another drink, one you didn’t order. “On the house,” he said with a lopsided grin and placed the red, white, and blue layered drink next to your nearly empty Sunrise. Before you could ask him who ordered it, the candy garterbelt was being tugged between the bachelorette and her waiter. It ended in a tongue-y kiss and the ladies went wild.

“Let’s hope her future husband doesn’t mind,” you muttered and turned your attention to your phone once again. Director Fury, thankfully, broke up the awkward scene on stage and began to introduce the next dancers. It was a pair, brothers, apparently, and they worked on the good versus bad troupe. Thor and Loki were opposites in every sense of the word. Thor was a large blond with a commanding presence. He had a bright smile and sun kissed skin that looked great in his red and gold trimmed briefs. But his brother was slender, graceful - almost cat-like, with dark hair and a mischievous grin all wrapped in flawless alabaster skin. They didn’t look like brothers, but they moved around each other like they had been together all of their lives, and knew each other’s moves.

You only caught half of their story, as you were already halfway done with, what you found out was called the American Glory drink, and half wondered if that was what Captain America tasted like. Fury was up again and had the young lady celebrating her 21st birthday take two shots and lick the salt from Thor and Loki’s still sweaty chests.

Peter found his way in front of you again and said that someone needed to talk to you about your card being declined. You frowned and excused yourself from your friends to find out what was going on. There shouldn’t have been a problem, you got paid the day before, there was plenty of money in your account.

You were taken to a hall that connected what seemed like offices, the dressing room, and the route to the backstage. “Sorry,” Peter said sheepishly, “they said this was the only way to get you back here. Gotta go.” He waved and jogged back out to the lobby.

Confused, you were about to shout out after him when you felt a tap on your shoulder. When you turned, you faced that wall of American muscle beaming down at you. “Hey there,” he greeted, a smile almost blinding you from its perfection. “Don’t be too mad at the kid, I asked him to get you back here.”

“What,” was all you could get out. He was thankfully dressed, but his muscles were straining against the white tshirt and the gym shorts did not hide the package he carried. Even with all of that, what mesmerized you most was his eyes, sparkling blue and bright with amusement.

“This next bit requires audience participation and he had someone in mind,” the Captain replied like he explained everything.

“We had someone in mind,” a voice corrected behind the door you two stood near. You tore your eyes away from the blond and eyed the wood barrier suspiciously.

“Don’t worry,” Captain America laughed, capturing your attention once again, “it’s nothing too dangerous or embarrassing. You just have to sit there, pretend to be tied up, and me and Buck will dance around you.” He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head in thought, “Well, actually, you really will be tied up, but we promise we’ll let you go once we’re done.”

“Or not, if you don’t want us to,” came the voice again, which made the Captain laugh.

You blinked up at him and frowned, “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch,” he shook his head. “We might dance on you a little, if you don’t mind, the crowd likes it. But if not, we can work around that.” The thought of Captain America in those tiny shorts grinding on you was a very nice thought.

“‘Sfine,” you shrugged.

He beamed and reached out to squeeze you on the shoulder, his touch lingering and his thumb running along your collarbone. “I’ll let the stage team know.” Reluctantly, he dropped his hand and knocked on the door next to you both, “Five minutes.” When he heard a ‘yeah, got it’, the Captain motioned you to follow him.

The stage crew took over and the Captain disappeared to get ready. You were told about the chair you’d be sitting in, the rope that would be tied around your chest and if you would be okay with it. There was some hesitation on your part, but ultimately you agreed. They brought you on stage, a winter wonderland of sorts and placed you on a log-like chair. The rope wasn’t tight, but it was obvious you were the damsel in distress.

“One of you was taken,” Director Fury said from the other side of the curtain in front of you, “by The Winter Soldat. Will she survive? Will she be saved?” All of the lights turn off once again and an industrial heavy beat thrummed through the speakers, rattling your bones. Red stage lights shone down on you when the curtain pulled open and your friends lost their minds.

To your right you saw a figure stalk out of the dark, red light bouncing off a silver metal arm. A mask covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes were trained on you like you were prey. His black muscle shirt clung tightly to his chest, one sleeve missing to show off his arm, and his black tactical pants stretched against his thick thighs. You could feel the shaking of the stage from the stomps of his booted feet.

Eyes wide, you stared at him until he stopped short of your chair on cue with the music. His nostrils flared lightly before he moved again, the music flowing with him. He slung one leg over the side over your chair, straddling you. The metal arm clamped the wooden back rest of the chair and he narrowed his gaze. Lights flash around you, strobing from red to white and back again until they settle on the house lights.

Soldat began to roll his body with the tempo, blue eyes locked with yours. You could hear the screams behind him as he dancing, but neither of you were paying attention.

His hips circled until he’s seated on your lap, you’re practically nose to nose. He brought his flesh hand to the side of your face and you could feel it trembling against your skin. With him that close you could hear him mutter in some other language that isn’t English, you’re guessing Russian, but you’re not sure. Either way, you felt crushed by his weight and you liked it. You didn't want him to go.

But the music changed and the lights started to flash again, red, white, and now blue mixed in. Captain America joined the two of you on stage and Soldat slipped from your lap. Just as Thor and Loki had before, these two moved around each other like they were made from the same mold.

During the fight, pieces of clothing were tossed aside and at one point you were freed from your bonds. Soldat pulled you up from your chair and up against his chest, your backside pressed so tightly against him you could almost feel his heartbeat. He moved you with him as he continued to fight the Captain.

Until seconds before the song ended and the music swelled, the Captain landed one good blow to Soldat and sandwiched you between them. The Winter Soldier recalibrated and recognized his old friend and you. He pulled the Captain into a big bear hug and then picked you up bridal style, taking you off stage with cheers from the crowd.

Once you’re all off stage, he sat you down with a hearty laugh. “You did a fantastic job, sweetheart,” the Soldier praised, running his metal hand through his chin length brown hair. “Couldn’t have asked for a better dance partner.” Flushed from embarrassment and arousal, you continued to stare at him until you were joined by the Captain. “I told you she’d be great, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, Buck, you know how to pick ‘em,” the blond agreed with a smile.

“Thanks,” you replied breathlessly, finally coming out of your stupor. “That was… fun. I’m just going to go back to my seat now, I guess.”

“Wait,” the one named “Buck” jumped to stop you, “we were wondering if you wanted a private show?” You heard about those from Tara. You knew that they were exclusive and very expensive… and sometimes had happy endings. They seemed to sense your hesitation because they both added in unison as they eyed you up like you were a four course meal, “For free.”

“I never turn down free anything,” you shrugged. The pair turned to look at each other and their smiles turned to wicked grins. You aren’t sure what you got yourself into, but you’re pretty sure you were going to enjoy it.

a/n: Part Two coming soon... with smut!

#bucky barnes x reader x steve rogers #bucky barnes x you x steve rogers #bucky barnes x y/n x steve rogers #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #steve rogers x you x bucky barnes #steve rogers x y/n x bucky barnes #stucky x reader #stucky x you #stucky x y/n #stripper!bucky barnes #stripper!steve rogers #stripper!au #heroes au

269 notes · View notes

ren-therose · 3 years

Text

The Penthouse Plot

Sherlock X F!Reader (3.8k words)

Summary: Sherlock, John and Reader all go to a penthouse party to pick up some clues about their newest case. But Y/N and Sherlock are put in a compromising situation.

Warnings: smut 18+, semi-public sex, fingering, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it kids), creampie, squirting, after care

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We are going to a party”

This was an incredibly abrupt statement from the detective who was still in pajamas at four in the afternoon, slouched down into the arm chair with the news paper covering his face. I couldn’t see his emotions, but I could tell that the idea had already been formulated, and he had not quite been excited out of it. His boredom was chronic, and it would often times only be soothed by myself to get him out of it.

The first time we met, I was sitting on a park bench in Paddington Street Gardens, not but two blocks away from his flat. As if drawn to the cigarette I was smoking, he walked up as casually as he could, coat turned up, and sat on the bench over from my left. I didn’t look, but I was aware that a tall, dark man was watching me as I tried to solve today's crossword in the paper.

He leaned closer, trying to take in the smoke for the nicotine high. With a slight glance his way, it was all I needed to take the cigarette from my mouth in my left hand, and casually rest it on the bench next to me. I blew out the smoke to the right side of my mouth though, purposefully keeping it from him, allowing my lips to guide the smoke in a stream to dissipate into the morning air. Still looking at the crossword, I began filling in 20 across, feeling a sense of intrigue and frustration emanating from the man next to me.

“It’s not diva, its aria,” a deep voice says. I smirk, not looking up to his face quite yet.

“No shit, Sherlock. 18 down is ‘erie’, so why would I put down diva?” I inquire, but before he could answer, I reply myself. “I was proving my hypothesis: is the detective next to me just trying to second-hand smoke, or is he actually paying attention to me? And the answer was both.”

He stands and comes to sit on my right side, not looking at me directly. The cigarette dangling from my lip wasn’t his main concern anymore.

“How quickly did you realize it is only an herbal cigarette Mr. Holmes?” I ask, erasing my trap from 20 across.

“As soon as I first looked at you. You have no stains on your fingers from the smoke, as well as no burns, which tells me you don’t smoke often. If you were a smoker, you would need at least a pack a day, and these tell-tale signs would be there. You don’t need to smoke because there isn’t an addiction. I presume you do it to attract men, though possibly women too, and to fit into the culture of London, as you are not from here. But you specifically looked up this park because you were looking for something or someone. I would presume it is me, considering you recognized me through my name” he says smuggly, finally looking at me. I didn’t know it then, but he later explained that he was shocked to see the prominence of my “subtle beauty”, and the way in which I held posture in every way that symbolized I was relaxed next to him. This of course was followed by the fact that I was so comfortable that I had gained a pound within the first year of knowing him.

“So you are as good as they say,” I reply, looking up into his clear blue eyes. Those eyes dart down to my lips where the cigarette is still being held by the moisture of my mouth. I remove it, holding out the cigarette between my fingers. “I can imagine it is worlds different from a regular cigarettes addictive effects, but the smell of smoke and the herbs inside might calm you,” I offer. He leans down and takes the cigarette in his mouth, inhaling deeply. I let go of the cigarette as he leans back and removes it. He exhales out, happy to have something other than CO2 leave his lungs.

“You could have phoned” he said nonchalantly. I closed the newspaper and turned my body slightly more towards him.

“No I couldn’t. This isn’t about a case or me looking for my parents or some shit. I needed you to listen. I am a doctor and I am looking for the topic of my next publication” I state. His eyes widen a bit, as he gives me a once over. I was quite young to have a doctorate, but the ambition I have was intriguing to him.

“Great, another doctor. And you must study some form of psychology right?” he implies.

I chuckle as I brush the hair behind my ear to look at him as I explain my credentials.

“BA in a social science and a minor in Women's Studies and Gender, just to make it easier on you. Two masters in something to do with policy and a knack for behavior trends across cultures. A PhD in…” I trail off to let him figure it out.

“International Relations. You couldn’t let go of the need to work abroad and help other. You also study the difference in human behaviors and how it can be interpreted and persuaded. It is why you are now living in London, after living in a southern European country, and I’m going to go with Italy” he responds.

I raise my eyebrow at him. “Italy was fun. I spent most of the time on the mainland with a friend and would visit their family in Sardinia”.

“He was gay wan’t he?”

“Not that he himself knew.”

The detective laughed. It was the beginning of a friendship, with many late nights, bad coffee and fighting. I lived in the basement of 221 Baker Street, after coming to a bargain price with Mrs. Hudson if I agreed to get rid of the black mold and redo the space for future renters. When I asked her why she was already thinking of future renters, she just smiled and told me Sherlock's door was open and I could just walk in.

Now, a year and a half later, I was in his flat, in my own night gown and robe, working on pot of tea to make a London foggy, one of Sherlocks favorite drinks I could make. I had told him that if he got to work in his pajamas, or just a sheet at times, then he couldn’t expect anything less of me. But his abrupt statement that we were going to a party had me do a double take.

“A party? Are we feeling like clubbing tonight Sherlock?” I tease.

“It is just a bit of field work. But I need you to come with as my date so that I am not bothered by lonely, sad women.”

“Ah yes. All the lonely, sad women will flock to the handsome, cocky detective for comfort and an inquisitive night,” I mock, bringing the tea to him.

“Isn’t that what you did?” He says without looking up.

Offended, I grab the paper from his hands and smack him on the head with it. He flinched, protecting his tea from me.

“Haven’t you figured it out by now? I’m here for John” I say, tossing the paper into his lap. Sherlocks mouth slightly gapes before he snaps it shut, looking behind me.

“I’m sorry, what did I just walk in on?” John says from the doorway. Sherlock turns red as I walk up to John, pulling my leg up on him, placing my hand on his cheek while giving him a lingering kiss on the other, maintaining eye contact with Sherlock. “Afternoon John,” I say with a flirtatious growl. He didn’t move since my dramatic act, and as I exited the apartment to get ready, I hear John exclaim “I could get used to that kind of welcome”. I laugh as I hear the paper get thrown at the doctor.

Two hours later, and a lot of fighting with a curling wand, I hear a knock at my door. I do a once-over of myself in the mirror. It was a high-end party, requiring a more put together look, and I was determined to look my best. In helping Sherlock and John, I realized that I rarely dressed up-practicality and professionalism is key.

I put my phone into my handbag, and slipped my feet into my black pointed stilettos. One more once-over in the mirror next to the door, and I unlatched the lock. As soon as I opened it, the detective couldn’t help but let his eyes wander. My hair was in loose curls around my face, and the dress, oh the dress, flattered my body in every way. It was a silk green dress, that hugged every curve. It was ruched in the sides, creating a tight draping across my abdomen. The fabric on my bust sat just below the tops of my breasts, and dropped to my off-the-shoulder sleeves. I was wearing a simple emerald necklace with matching earrings, and a ruby ring on my left hand. My legs were well accentuated, and the stilettos did wonders for my posture. Still, I was the same girl in pajamas at this now well suited man's place as I was now.

“You’re giving yourself away Detective,” I flirt, walking by him to climb the stairs to the front of the building. I make extra care to add a little movement as I climb, knowing he would be right behind me and very distracted. It was my favorite game to tease both of the boys, but especially Sherlock. It was always a game, and he loved games. As I exited the building, John was waiting for us outside, also dressed sharply. His eyes widened as I walked towards him.

“In the words of a great detective, ‘Your body betrays you’ John. It’s still me inside this get-up. Now where is the cab?” I ask.

“Umm...uh, there hasn’t been an available one yet...” he forces out.

London was busy on a Saturday night, and it could often be difficult to find a cab. Lucky for us, my dress is pretty reflective, and I was going to use that to my advantage. I stepped off the curb just slightly, jutting out my shoulder blades and putting my weight on one foot to give myself more shape. By the time I had raised my hand, two taxis pulled up. I heard a cough behind me, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson both smirking at me.

“I’m sorry, did you have a better idea?” I shoot at them. I open the door for myself and climb into the cab. The two men clambered in after me.

The party was at a lovely high-rise in the middle of London. It looked to be a penthouse, but one grander than I had ever seen. As the three of us exited the elevator, we looked at each other once more, setting our plan in motion. John was to walk around and mingle, while Sherlock and I were to snoop about the place, looking for context clues. I grabbed a flute of champagne from one of the trays, and Sherlock and I began our promenade. We quickly realized that I was drawing a bit too much attention in my get-up and we would need to look around before people noticed we were gone. Our arms entwined, we strolled past the main crowd into a hallway, casually chatting the weather. The detectives hand was on my waist, holding tightly, as though I might leave his side. It was different than they way he usually grabbed my arm to move me around or out of the way of harm.

We were looking for the bedroom of our hosts place, though, it did not seem there was one here. The penthouse was more of a party pad then a living space, which lends more to our profile of him. We continued to walk, and came across a study. His hand slid off my waist as he entered the room. I stood outside with my drink, while Sherlock took note of every little detail there. As he came out of the room though, I heard footprints coming round the corner. I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the bathroom next to the study. As I pushed him in, our eyes searched each other for the next move that we hadn’t initially planned. Though we were going as a date, it was never really a date. Until now.

Grabbing the lapels of the detectives suit, I slammed my lips on his, pushing us both backwards onto the sink. Knowing that he was more recognizable. I spun him around so that my back was to the sink and his was to the door. I jumped on to the sink, hiking up my dress a little higher, so that I could hook one leg around his waist. Instinctively, his right hand went to my leg to hold it up, and his left hand was in my hair.

His lips. I had seen them a million times before, studying his face as he rambled about a case. While he was just a colleague and possibly a friend, there were a few times when I would fall asleep thinking about those lips. And here he was, kissing me on a bathroom sink at a party, with enough force to make me melt into it. My hand went to his hair, as he began to trail kisses down my neck, hiding his face in me so that his reflection could not be seen. My other hand was gripping his waist, trying not to slip into the sink itself. My shoe was dangling on my toes as our bodies continued to crash. We heard the door click open, and my eyes opened to see the host and his assistant wide-eyed at us.

“Occupied,” I panted, smiling with a small wave. The two quickly shut the door, their footprints receding down the hallway. As soon as it was quiet, Sherlock froze on my collarbone, neither of us moving for a moment. I removed my hand from his hair, trying to pat it back into place. He stood up, and looked down at me. My dress had ridden up further, and my black lace panties were definitely on display. So was the red in both of our faces. I glanced over his shoulder to look at the door, realizing that there was a lock on it. Sherlock didn’t look back. He kept his eyes on me.

He knew there was a lock. He wanted the situation. He wanted to get caught.

“Lock it” I demanded.

He took a few steps back and turned the button, locking the door. His eyes didn’t leave me. I was still propped up against the sink, both hands propped up behind me. My legs had still been open, and as his eyes raked over my body looked, I grew self-conscious and went to close them. But he stepped towards me, grabbing my lower thigh. I hesitantly opened myself back up for him. His hand moved up my thigh, while the other wrapped around my waist, drawing himself closer to me. I placed a hand on his chest, running it up until it was at the nape of his neck, playing with his soft, black curls. I gently tugged him toward me, and our lips attached once more. This time, it was more more sensual. Taking the time to just allow ourselves to feel one another. As he pulled away, I let out a small gasp as I felt his growing bulge against my clothed core.

He seized the opportunity to kiss me again, letting his tongue wander and explore my mouth, pulling me as close as I could be to him. He pushed himself against me, causing a soft moan to escape, as I involuntarily rolled against him. He smirked against my mouth, moving once more against me. I hissed, feeling myself grow wetter.

Sherlock pulled me off the sink, wrapping both of my legs around him before pinning me against the wall. I was sitting just on top of his cock, and the friction was even more frustrating. I grinded down on him, kissing his neck, while leaving small bites in between. I needed more though. I unwrapped my legs, and he lowered me to the ground. When he placed me down, I kissed him with passion while I started to undo his trousers. He walked backwards to the sink, leaning up against it, as I palmed him through his suit. His low groan made me quiver as I licked a long stripe up his neck to his ear, wear I softly bit the lobe. This drove him crazy.

Pants still undone, he whipped us around so that I was against the sink again. He pulled my dress up enough so that he could hook his fingers in the lace of my panties and pull them down. He lifted me up on to the sink to get them off of me. He worked them past my heels, and placed both of his hands on my thighs, rubbing circles into them with his thumb. His forehead was resting on mine and we were both breathing in sync. I opened my legs for him, as he traced his way between my legs. The violinist in him was showing, and he was going to work out the tension and boredom he had been feeling all day. His fingers came in contact with me, running through my folds. He went from my clit down to my opening, just toying with me. I let out a whimper as he placed his middle finger just barely inside of me. He slowly pushed his digit inside of me, causing a guttural groan to escape. I bucked into his hand, desperate for more. He pumped it casually, as if he had done this to me a million times and knew how I would react. He then slipped a second finger into me, causing me to emit another moan.

“Please Sherlock. No games,” was all I could manage.

He began to pump his fingers in a come-hither motion, curling them to hit my g-spot. I gasped with every movement, keeping as quiet as I could. He was working his way to get me as wet as I could be for him. I was starting to feel the tension in my stomach build when he placed his thumb on my clit and made sharp movements with it. I cried out, gripping his shoulders for support. I was going to need him soon if he wanted to me to finish with his cock inside me. But he kept pumping and rubbing, watching as my face conveyed every emotion he had ever made me feel. My arm wrapped around his neck, as I could barely keep myself up anymore.

“Sherlock, you-you’re gonna..m-make me..c-cum…” I stutter out. I am rocking against his hand, chasing what I can’t stop. This only urges him more, as he quickens his pace. Without warning, I cum all over his finger with a cry. But he doesn’t stop. He continues to work my pussy, until I gasp out “I’m...I’m gonna squirt”. He steps out from between my legs, his fingers not stopping. As he steps to the side, he leans in to my ear and finally says something.

“Show me”.

It was all it took for my orgasm to elongate itself, as I squirted on his hand. I couldn’t stop and was shaking, barely able to keep myself up. I almost crumpled backwards before he caught me. Once again, he was between my legs, his hands on my neck and waist. I reached for his painfully hard cock, pulling it from his pants. I started stroking him, causing his eyes to flutter close. I was still coming down from what he had done with just his fingers, but I needed his dick inside me. I looked up at him, and said something that I knew would only boost his ego, and he would probably use against me later.

“Mr. Holmes, I need you inside me, now”.

His eyes shot open, as I looked back at him with lust-blown eyes. My hand was still wrapped around his cock, slowly pumping him. He and his god-complex were completely enamoured with my new take of teasing him. I lined his cock at my entrance, but not before teasing him through my folds. Just that little movement caused goosebumps to erupt on my skin. As I put his tip in my entrance, he searched my eyes once more for the consent he needed. I pushed myself onto him a little, letting him know he could take me. He leaned in, pushing his length all the way into me. I let out a loud gasp, wrapping my arm around his neck once more, my other hand on his back. I was still throbbing from my previous orgasm, and I knew he could feel my warm pulse inside me. He slowly pulled out, and then quickly sheathed himself inside me again. Our pelvises were against each other and his gently movements drove me crazy. I let out a cry of ecstasy, letting my head roll back, exposing my neck. He kissed it gently, and then, lifted me off the counter and back against the wall. All I could do was struggle to remain quiet as he began quick thrusts deep into me, relentlessly hitting my sweet spot. He was open mouthed against my neck, breathing erratically as he continued to hold me up.

“You feel, s-so g-good,” I moaned, urging him to continue. He loved it when I complimented him, he had always been that way. But to be inside me as I told him how much I loved his cock, it was heaven for him. The guttural sounds from his throat proved to me that he felt the same.

“Y/n, I’m not gonna last much longer” he said, as though it would deter me. As he began to remove himself, I grabbed his face to look at me.

“I want you to cum inside, Detective,” I whisper, wrapping my legs tighter around him to prove my point.

His eyes widened searching my face as I was in taking all of him, bouncing on his dick in a penthouse bathroom, loving everything he did. Seeing what he could do to me, looking into my eyes as I stifled my moans, he began to stutter inside of me. I was on the edge too, and when his hot rope of cum shooted inside of me, my own orgasm exploded, milking him of the rest of his cum.

When we had both stilled, frozen with him still inside me, we could hear the party still going and the noise of London below us. He pulled his softening cock from me and as he did, our cum dripped down my thigh. My legs were incredibly weak, as he continued to hold me up. I reached for a hand towel to clean me up, but he beat me to it, wiping up and between my legs, careful not to cause pain from the sensitivity. He picked up my underwear that he had tossed on the ground somewhere, and helped me step back into it. I was still shaky if I bent my legs, but I knew he would hold me up. As we looked at each other, there was something new we both saw. Romance. The sexual chemistry that had been there was a response to the catalyst of romance.

Before we could discuss the aftermath of our actions though, there was a loud banging on the door. Smoothing out my dress just past the door, Sherlock opened it to find John, arms crossed, waiting outside.

“Are you shitting me Sherlock? You look like you just took a hit of something. Did you seriously lose Y/N at this party because you were trying to get hi…”

The door widened to reveal me, just behind Sherlock, makeup slightly down my fae, and both of our hair tousled. I smiled at John, knowing it wasn’t what he had expected. His jaw dropped, “Tha..you were,,,um...has this been long or...?” Dr. Watson stuttered.

“No John, that was the first time and it won’t be the last” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me past him.

“Don’t be too jealous John,” I said with a wink.

John didn’t know what to say except, “Are we done here?”

Sherlock and I walked arm in arm down the hallway, casting back a look at John as if to say “What do you think?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

This was my first oneshot and was it trash? Yeah, maybe. So if you know me, no you don’t :)

Leave suggestions if you’d like, I’m writing smut I can’t find.

#sherlock #sherlock x reader #sherlock smut #sherlock bbc #benedict cumberbatch #cumberbitches

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spookydrreid · 4 years

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MINE

18+ -- MINORS DNI

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

CW: jealousy, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, handcuffs, hair pulling (I think that’s it. Let me know if I missed anything.)

WC: 1,244

REQUEST: YES -- request can be found here

A/N: I got so carried away that I made it into a full fic! I hope this is what you were looking for and thank you so much for the request!

We had one of the most successful cases we’d had in a while. Which meant, it was time for a slight break and a night out with the team.

I lived for the night life, but my husband, resident genius Dr. Spencer Reid, did not. If it wasn’t for my begging, he’d probably be at our house re-reading War and Peace for the millionth time. I was glad I’d managed to get him out to finally spend some much-needed quality time with our BAU family.

“Okay, okay ready? Salt, up, down, up, cheers, throw it back and then suck on the lime!” I handed Spencer a shot of tequila, showing him the correct way to take it. He followed my instructions, shooting it back and shaking as he swallowed the alcohol.

I laughed at the face he made as I sucked on a lime, handing him one as well. “That’s fucking horrible! And you enjoy that?” I bumped him with my hip, rolling my eyes. “I’ll stick to beer thank you,” He said, taking a sip from the long neck in his hands. But if he thought he was going to get away that easy, he was sadly mistaken.

Three tequila shots and two beers later, Spencer was feeling it. Not so smashed he couldn’t walk – id like to thank past me for forcing him to eat a shit ton of carbs – but enough that we were grinding on each other on the dancefloor. Spencer’s hands running over my body. When he was tipsy he was a touchy feely type of guy. I relished in it as we danced.

It wasn’t lost on me, or Spencer, the roaming eyes from the other men in club. They were hunters and I was the prey. And when I’d broken away from the group to gather another round, they all decided to come out and play.

“Two Cosmos, a jack on the rocks, a jack and coke, and a cranberry vodka please!” You yelled to the bartender so you’d be heard over the loud music. I leaned over the bar, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I waited. I felt hands on my waist, causing me to freeze where I stood. They weren’t Spencer’s.

I straightened myself, hoping they were just trying to get by. But when he pulled me back into him, I gasped and tried to move to get out of his grasp. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” you yelped as you stepped away from him. He was a typical alpha fuck head who seems to think he can get any woman he wanted.

“Don’t be like that, baby. You’re just so beautiful I had to come say hello.” He shot me a smile and I had to hold back the vomit threatening to climb up my throat. He moved to grab my arm but before either of us could move, Spencer squeezed into the space id created.

“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he grabbed my face in his hands, pulling me into a heated kiss.

“And who the fuck are you?” This man was clearly not giving up and now, I was just pissed off.

Spencer gripped my left hand, shoving the very large diamond in the strangers face as he said, “her fucking husband. We’re also FBI agents, so unless you want a charge, I suggest you back up.”

The man put his hands up in defeat, backing away and slinking back into the crowd. I thought that would be the end of it. I soon realized you thought wrong once I turned back and saw rage filling Spencer’s eyes.

“We’re leaving. Complain and you’re in for it. Go say goodbye to our friends.” You shot him a smile before nodding. You collected the drinks and brought them over to the table.

“Spencer’s starting to get a migraine so we’re going to head out! Tonight was so fun and much needed. I love you guys!” For effect, spencer rubbed his eyes and leaned his head on your shoulder.

They seemed to buy it. Choruses of ‘feel better’s and ‘take care of him, y/n” and take care of him I was.

…

Spencer had practically ripped off my clothes before I could even lock the door. And now I was bent over the bed with my hands cuffed behind my back. I always knew I was in for an interesting night whenever Spencer got jealous. Which, if we’re honest, was quite often.

His thrust were deep, hard and fast. Each one harder than the last until he was fucking into me with bruising force. One of Spencer’s large hands were wrapped up in my hair, pulling my face out of the mattress so he could hear me. The other using my cuffed hands as leverage.

“Fuck, y/n. Look at you, taking me so fucking well,” He spoke through gritted teeth and I would’ve given anything to see how unhinged he looked. “It’s so funny to me how all those boys think they have a chance with you. But they don’t, because your mine. Huh? Tell me your mine.”

Spencer was fucking me so hard even breathing felt like a chore. I had to will myself to answer, knowing staying quiet wouldn’t do me any good, “y-yours, Spence. All yours.”

His hand came between my legs, his fingers rubbing lazy circles on my clit as he continued to push me over the edge. But it was his words that made me leap into the pool of ecstasy, “Cum for me, beautiful. Be so good and cum.”

A strangled version of his name left my lips as I came around him. And before long, Spencer followed into bliss with me, spilling inside me as he gripped me tighter. He helped us come down from our highs before he softly let me go, placing me on the bed.

I laid there trying to catch my breath as Spencer moved to remove the cuffs from around my wrist. He rubbed the raw skin as he freed me, leaving soft kisses along the red marks. I managed to roll on my back while he went to the bathroom to get a washcloth. He cleaned me up, being mindful at how sensitive I was. I just laid there, basking in my post-orgasm high.

“What’s got you so smiley, baby?” I hadn’t even realized I was smiling.

“I need to make you jealous more often.” I lifted my head to look at my husband who was now staring at me with a less than amused expression.

“I wasn’t jealous,” he grumbled as he pulled on sweatpants and moved to dress me.

I sat up, putting my hands up so he could pull one of his shirts over my head, placing a kiss to my forehead when my head popped through, “you just fucked me senseless. You were jealous. We’ve been together way to long for you to deny that.” I boped his nose before settling in bed.

He crawled in behind me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling my back to his chest, “says the girl who pulled a gun on a cop who asked me if I wanted to go to dinner.”

Though he couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes, “she knew you were married. That’s why I bought you a black ring.”

He kissed my cheek, “and that’s why I bought you a ring so heavy your finger sags.”

#Spencer Reid x Reader #Spencer Reid x fem!reader #Spencer Reid smut

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sergeantbuckybarnes · 4 years

Text

serendipity // bucky barnes

PART TWO

Summary: You end up stuck in 1942 without a way to come back, but when you meet the young and charming version of Bucky Barnes, do you really want to go back to the present?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: mentions of cheating, reader is a bitch, sad bucky, angst, fluff, lack of ‘40s knowledge

A/N: As always, please remember English is not my first language. Also, thanks to @coffee-books-music for proofreading this!

divider by @firefly-graphics

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Red. Everything went red. Your vision blurred as a flame curled in the pit of your stomach. You enter the building with a firm step, walking through the hallways, anger building inside you, trying to take over the sadness you didn’t want to feel. Your phone vibrated in the pocket of your jeans, you reach for it only to see the name of your sister on the screen. Memories weighed down on you, but you would not allow yourself to break down anymore. Instead, your heart turned ice cold and slunk into the shadows as your brain took complete control. You screamed in frustration and threw the phone against the nearest wall. How dare she call you? You took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

“Are you okay?” a voice called from behind you. You turned to face a man you had never seen before. He was tall, with long dark hair for his shoulders and piercing steel-blue eyes. His face changed once he saw you, going from worried to shocked.

“Y/N?” he asked cautiously, his voice was so soft, with a hidden hope you didn’t catch on.

“Do I know you?” you asked, not really caring for him, but getting annoyed for how he was looking at you.

“Is it really you?” he asked again, not believing what his eyes were seeing. Maybe so much brainwashing had really messed with him.

“Look dude, it’s really not a good time,” you wanted to leave, but he grabbed your arm, not forcefully, but with enough force for you not to have the chance to leave. You yanked your arm from his grasp and realized that where his left arm was supposed to be, there was, instead, a metal arm. Who the fuck was this guy?

“Don’t touch me,” you rebuked. Waves of fury rolled off you as the blood rose to your cheeks. The term anger barely even touched the tip of the volcano that you so clearly were in that moment.

He took a step back, not wanting to upset you even more, but he could not help himself, he needed to know if it was really you. He wished it was really you.

“Y/N, Bucky? What’s going on here?” the voice of Steve Rogers flooded your ears, and you let out a sigh of relief.

“Ask your friend,” you said before giving a not-so-friendly glare to the guy before picking the pieces of your phone and making your way to your room, leaving the men behind you.

You groaned in frustration against the pillow. You were such a bitch when you met him. There were times when your brain fries up. It was no excuse you know; you owned your behavior. It was like a trigger flicked inside you. Your emotions turned cold, fearful, anxious... You back away, flee or strike out at someone. Those are the moments where you’re not proud of who you are. You fail to be the warrior you were always told you were born to be. Instead, you show the frightened child within, damaged and afraid, the one still hiding from the monsters under the bed. You knew these are things you have to work on. You had spent so much time caring for others, pouring out love without measure, yet never receiving it in return. So like a stupid child, you hold out for love.

Now you understand why Bucky acted so weird around you that day in the compound. He remembered you. He remembered you from that night in the dance hall. But… how could he? It hadn’t happened yet. Well, technically yes, but at the same time, no.

“What are you thinking about?” Wanda pulled out from your thoughts, you turned your head to look at her.

“Nothing,” you lied.

“Y/N, we’ve known each other for a long time, I can tell when you’re lying.”

After a few minutes in silence you finally speak up, “I was thinking about the first day I met Bucky,” the tone of your voice betraying you.

“Y/N, you just find out your fiancé cheated on you with your sister. It’s normal you acted the way you did. You were angry.”

“And what about the other times?” you sat up and faced your best friend. “I had been nothing but mean to him.”

That morning you woke up later than usual so when you entered the kitchen, the breakfast was long gone. You groaned, you really needed a coffee.

“Sorry kiddo,” Tony patted your back before leaving the room. Sam and Steve made their way to the gym. Wanda and Nat were chatting on the counter, and the new guy was standing a few steps away from them looking at you. Again.

“Do you have some problem with me?” you asked annoyed, alarming the girls of your presence. They turned to look at you. “You are always staring at me.”

“S-sorry,” he muttered, tearing his gaze away from you. You rolled your eyes and made your way to your friends. “Here,” he offered you a mug of coffee. “It’s still warm.”

You looked at him confused, “You always drink a cup of coffee in the mornings, so when I noticed you weren’t coming anytime soon, I poured one for you in case you would come out later,” Nat and Wanda shared a smile on their faces, melting at how sweet the former winter soldier was being.

Your reaction was very different, though. “I want nothing from you,” and you left the kitchen, leaving the guy with a heartbreaking look on his face, and a shocking one on both of your friends’.

“You can do nothing to change the past, what has happened has happened. But you can change from now on.”

“You think I still have time?”

“You’ll have to try”

You had hurt Bucky so much; you took out all the anger you felt inside you on him. It was unfair. No matter how badly you treated him, he always sent a smile your way, he had been nothing but nice to you. You were a horrible person.

Everyone had their reasons for being how they were. Some people get past their troubles and grow mature, others get stuck in a sort of basic mode of fear and reactions, loving responses becoming absent or portioned out for personal gain. You were the latter type.

This had been the ninth time you checked to see if Wanda was really asleep. You felt like you were sixteen again and you were sneaking out of your house to meet your boyfriend. But you needed to go to the dance hall, needed to see if he would still be there.

You made the pillows form the shape of your body and covered them with the duvet, and you tiptoed out the room.

You walked through the Brooklyn streets one more time, those streets, so familiar but at the same time, so different to you. You spotted the dance hall you were in last night. The night where you met Bucky, and you danced with him…. you kissed him. Immediately, you felt the heat rising to your cheeks when you remembered the feeling of his soft lips on yours. You. brushed your thumb across your lips and a smile crept its way across your face.

You searched through the club, looking for the soldier. What if he wasn’t here tonight? What if he had already met someone else, and he’s dancing with them? You disliked the pit that formed in your stomach when your head was clouded with the thought of Bucky with someone else, holding them the same way that he had held you, showing them that beautiful smile of his….. his lips on someone else’s.

“Looking for someone, doll?” you turned around at the sound of his voice, even though you hastily left last night with no explanation, he didn’t seem mad about it, his face still plastered the same smile.

“H-hi.”

“You’re going shy on me now, doll?” he asked, “What happened the previous night? Never had a dame running away from me so fast,” he joked.

You chuckled lightly, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, no worries,”

The same song that you danced to last night started playing, your eyes caught a few couples starting moving to the music. When you turned to look at Bucky again, he had his head tilted to one side and a hopeful smile playing on his lips.

You stretched out your arm to him, “Shall we?”

He didn’t think twice and took your hand in his. “So, what made you come back?” he asked. His hands were on your hips and your arms wrapped loosely around his neck, just like last night while you swayed to the music.

“I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to dance to our song one more time.” you were feeling pretty bold, and you liked it, and by the grin forming on Bucky’s face, you were sure he liked it too.

“Our song?”

You hummed. “That’s our song. So you can’t dance it with anyone else,” you replied, “Just me.”

He chuckled, “I have no problem with that, doll.”

As you both kept swaying to the music, you leaned towards his body and let your head rest on his chest. You felt the way his heartbeat quickened and smiled, knowing you were the cause for it. All of your thoughts stopped. It was like your heart took over your head when you were with him. You realized that you never felt this way when you were in Jake’s arms.

You wanted a love that was passionate and determined, fire with earth, yet was also a serenity soul that you could dwell in forever. When the song finally ended, you felt his intense gaze on you, and your insecurity took over, “Is everything okay?” you asked looking at him.

“If I kissed you now, would you run away from me again?”

You laughed, and shook your head, “No, not again.”

“Promise? Because my heart wouldn’t be able to handle it again.”

You looked into his blue eyes, and you cursed yourself for not realizing before how beautiful his eyes were… every piece of him was beautiful. He was a masterpiece. You didn’t answer his question, but instead, you stood on your tiptoes and closed the gap between the two of you before he could say anything else.

“I’m telling you, it’s her.” Bucky was losing his nerves to the disbelief of his best friend.

“Buck, it’s been over 80 years, there’s no way it’s her.”

You were the exact same replica of the woman that stole his heart back in 1942 in that dance hall. It was you. He was sure about that. No matter how crazy it would have sounded.

If he and Steve were still here, why couldn’t you be too?

“Alright, then why didn't she recognize you?” Steve wasn’t trying to be mean, he knew his friend really loved that girl since the second she bumped into him. But he also knew that the chances of it being the same person were slim. Maybe you were her granddaughter. But that wasn’t an option Bucky could consider.

“I don’t know,” the soldier didn’t have an explanation for that. Maybe they had brainwashed you the same way they did with him and you forgot about your past… about him? If that was the case, he would try his best to make you remember. “But I will not lose her again.”

He wouldn’t give up on you. Not again.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes one shot #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #bucky barnes #sebastian stan

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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ltdan2288 asked: As a fellow veteran of the Afghan Campaign, might I ask if you have any thoughts about the imminent end of Allied air support & combat-advisory operations over there? The fall of large swaths of the country to the Taliban is already underway, which can only be seen as an unspeakable tragedy for the people there. From a strategic perspective, there’s no reason to believe that we won’t have to return in some capacity of AQ or ISIS reestablish themselves under Taliban sponsorship. At the same time, it’s not clear to me that our presence did anything beyond kick the can down the road and delay this inevitable outcome. As someone with such a deep knowledge of military history, I’m curious if you have a different perspective.

I have been avoiding answering this post for a while now because Afghanistan dredges up so many conflicting emotions inside me. I wrestle with so many memories of my time there with my regiment to fight in a war that we all didn’t really understand what we were fighting for.

Deep breath.

Almost two decades of conflict in Afghanistan has cost British taxpayers £22.2billion, or $31.3 billion according to UK government figures. As British troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, the 20-year deployment bill could be even higher. As of May 2021, the total cost of Operation Herrick (codename for the deployment of British soldiers to Helmand province) is £22.2billion. There were 457 fatalities on, or subsequently due to, Op Herrick. Of which 403 were due to hostile action. During the operation between January 1, 2006 and November 30, 2014, there were 10,382 British service personnel casualties. Of these 5,705 were injuries and the remainder being illness or disease. The UK’s remaining 750 troops in Afghanistan, involved in training local forces, started exiting the war-devastated country in May. Most of them will return home by the end of July.

They, like every one of us who went to fight in Afghanistan, will ask the same questions, ‘Why did we go there?’ ‘What was the real purpose of the mission?’ ‘Was it worth it?’

Both my older brothers fought there with special distinction and I later fought there too. I have very mixed emotions when I think about my time in Afghanistan. For all its faults and tortured history, I love that country and love its many ethnic people. I even started to learn Pashtu as I already had a spoken command of Urdu because I had been raised partly in both Pakistan and India and it’s where many Afghan refugees living in the UN camps for over a generation had learned Urdu too.

It’s not just that my family has history in Afghanistan going back to the days of the East India Company but I had a sincere respect for its culture and history as one of the central hot spots for great civilisational achievements, but also as a stubborn and unruly country who proudly defied the Great Powers to bend the knee and turned it into a ‘graveyard of empires’. Most of all I think of the friendships I made there and how my perspective on life changed as a consequence of knowing such resilience and fortitude in the face of catastrophe and death.

I’m sure like everyone else I wasn’t too surprised by President Biden’s announcement that he was announcing the imminent withdrawal of all American troops in Afghanistan. He wanted to pivot to something else when asked about it. “I want to talk about happy things, man!” He said. Who could begrudge him given that America has been at war in Afghanistan for a better part of 20 years and has nothing to really show for it. Except of course the loss of its brave service men and women as well as the death of thousands of Afghan civilians. It spent more than $2 trillion to kill Osama bin Laden, the architect behind 9/11 attacks and failed to convincingly snuff out both murderous terror groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

When the Secretary General of Nato announced back in April 2021 all alliance troops were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, it was made to look like a nice, clean, enunciation of a joint decision. The end date was set for 11 September, 2021 - 20 years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington - and it was in line with the oft-repeated alliance maxim: we went in together; we will come out together. Except that, on closer examination, it was all rather messier.

This was partly because the withdrawal from Afghanistan had actually been Trump’s policy, so here was Joe Biden, the anti-Trump, co-opting a policy from his predecessor (a policy Trump had been so keen on that he tried to accelerate the withdrawal after he lost the election). Biden then tried to detach it from Trump by slowing down the withdrawal date a little and expressing it in terms more comprehensible to the Washington establishment and to US allies.

Where Trump had essentially done a deal with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date of 1 May, Biden left the Taliban out of it and invoked the totemic date of 9/11. This does not mean, of course, that the withdrawal will not be completed a good deal sooner - once you announce a withdrawal, you might as well get on with it.

In fact, Biden had to make a decision one way or another, given the rapid approach of Trump’s 1 May withdrawal date. And, whether it came from Washington or Nato, it was pretty low key for an announcement that a 20-year military involvement that had cost 4,000 allied lives was ending. Indeed, many people beyond Washington and Afghanistan might not quite have registered the news, given the considerable noises from Nato’s simultaneous dire warnings about Russia massing troops on the Ukrainian border, the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in the UK, and the Covid pandemic everywhere.

And distractions were needed not just because Biden was implementing a Trump policy. It was also because he was ordering an unconditional withdrawal – which he justified, correctly, by saying that setting preconditions would mean that the troops could be there forever. It was a risk Biden knew all too well, given that Barack Obama had been persuaded by General David Petraeus – against his election pledges and his better judgement – that what Obama really wanted was not a withdrawal, but a ‘surge’ with conditions attached before a withdrawal could take place.

Distractions were also useful for London, where the timing was hardly ideal. Imagine you were in government in London, you had watched the dismal failure of the UK’s Herrick operations in Helmand Province between 2006 and 2014, you knew that your armed forces had suffered 456 deaths in 20 years, with many more severely injured, but you had hung on in there.

Your government had also just released a blueprint for foreign and security policy, setting future priorities even further from home, in the Indo-Pacific, and your Prime Minister was about to make a high-profile visit to India as part of his post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ branding . In those circumstances, an announcement that the US had decided to leave Afghanistan, giving you no choice but to follow, was almost exactly what you did not need. Rather than showing the UK as a powerful, autonomous military actor and a valued ally, it showed the exact opposite.

It also reminded an unhappy British public about a costly conflict it had rather forgotten. And those who did more than bother to remember - like the families who lost loved ones on the battlefield - and who over the years have blamed successive governments for moving the goalposts and lacking an exit strategy (all true too).

All of which might explain why the UK’s Foreign and Defence Secretaries followed the US example by changing the subject to the iniquities of Russia and China, rather than issuing a joyous pronouncement to the effect of: hooray and thank goodness, our boys and girls are coming home.

The UK’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter gave a subdued, unenthusiastic response to Biden’s announcement. I cannot remember such open acknowledgement of UK-US military policy friction in recent decades - or such an abject admission by the UK of its defence dependence on the US. What Carter said was that the unconditional withdrawal was ‘not a decision we had hoped for, but we obviously respect it and it is clearly an acknowledgement of an evolving US strategic posture’. In other words, the UK had opposed Biden’s decision – or would have done, if asked (which is not clear). Also, that it was Washington’s ‘strategic posture’ that had ‘evolved’, not the UK’s. He suggested there was a real danger that progress made could be lost and that there could be a return to civil war, with the Taliban maybe returning to power - again, all true.

Given that the UK officially has only 750 troops in Afghanistan at present, and most of them are there in a training capacity, to dissent from the US position so openly would be considered decidedly rude in the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps to that end, General Carter played the dutiful soldier and had to - through gritted teeth - put a positive gloss on Afghanistan’s future, insisting that the objective in going into Afghanistan, ‘to prevent international terrorism emerging from the country’, had been achieved which was ‘great tribute to the work of British forces and their allies’.

He also said that Afghan forces were ‘much better trained than one might imagine’ and that the Taliban ‘is not the organisation it once was’, so that ‘a scenario could play out that is actually not quite as bad as perhaps some of the naysayers are predicting.’ Blah blah blah. He’s wrong, and I think he knows it but only in the sanctity of his gentlemen’s club might he truly admit it.

I know he’s wrong because the chatter amongst ex-veterans I know is that we’ve made a balls up of Afghanistan yet again - by ‘again’ I mean from the past 200 years of us Brits trying to bring order to chaos in Afghanistan and getting burned for our troubles.

Both my father and my older siblings tell me what their friends and ex-service peers (some very senior indeed) have been nattering over a drink at their gentlemen clubs where ex-veterans haunt the club bar. Many just shake their heads in sighed resignation before burying themselves in the Times crossword or drowning their sorrows with a beer or two at how lock in step we’ve become to the Americans at a time when the British army is re-branding itself as a more independent nimble hi-tech impact army (the creation of a new ranger regiment being but one example).

Still if President Biden wanted to tie a neat bow on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - saying, as he had, that the logic for the war ended once al-Qaida was gutted and Osama bin Laden killed - then it reveals a stunning lack of introspection about the United States’ role in the conflict that will continue in Afghanistan long after the last American and British troops leave.

Less than three months after President Joe Biden declared that the last American troops would be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, the withdrawal is nearly complete. The departure from Bagram air base, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul, in effect marked the end of America’s 20-year war. But that does not mean the end of the war in Afghanistan. If anything, it is only going to get worse.

It is true that the president had no good choice on Afghanistan, and that he inherited a bad deal from his predecessor. There are never good choices when it comes to Afghanistan: only bloody trade offs.

But in announcing an unconditional withdrawal, he made the situation worse by throwing out the minimal conditions U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had negotiated under the Trump administration. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has delivered to the Afghan government and Taliban a draft Afghanistan Peace Agreement - the central idea of which is replacing the elected Afghan government with a so-called transitional one that would include the Taliban and then negotiate among its members the future permanent system of government. Crucial blank spaces in the draft include the exact share of power for each of the warring sides and which side would control security institutions.

The refrain now from the Biden administration is that the United States is not abandoning Afghanistan, that it will aim to do right by Afghan women and girls, and that it will try to nudge the Taliban and Kabul toward a peace deal using a diplomatic tool kit.

But the narrative ignores much of the reality on the ground. It also ignores history.

In theory, the Taliban and the American-backed government had been negotiating a peace accord, whereby the insurgents lay down their arms and participate instead in a redesigned political system. In the best-case scenario, strong American support for the government, both financial and military (in the form of continuing air strikes on the Taliban), coupled with immense pressure on the insurgents’ friends, such as Pakistan, might succeed in producing some form of power-sharing agreement.

But even if that were to happen - and the chances are low - it would be a depressing spectacle. The Taliban would insist on moving backwards in the direction of the brutal theocracy they imposed during their previous stint in power, when they confined women to their homes, stopped girls from going to school and meted out harsh punishments for sins such as wearing the wrong clothes or listening to the wrong music.

More likely than any deal, however, is that the Taliban try to use their victories on the battlefield to topple the government by force. They have already overrun much of the countryside, with government units mostly restricted to cities and towns. Demoralised government troops are abandoning their posts. In the first week of July 2021, over 1,000 of them fled from the north-eastern province of Badakhshan to neighbouring Tajikistan. The Taliban have not yet managed to capture and hold any cities, and may lack the manpower to do so in lots of places at once. They may prefer to throttle the government slowly rather than attack it head on. But the momentum is clearly on their side.

America and its NATO allies have spent billions of dollars training and equipping Afghan security forces in the hope that they would one day be able to stand alone. Instead, they started buckling even before America left. Many districts are being taken not by force, but are simply handed over. Soldiers and policemen have surrendered in droves, leaving piles of American-purchased arms and ammunition and fleets of vehicles. Even as the last American troops were leaving Bagram over the weekend of July 3rd, more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers were busy fleeing across the border into neighbouring Tajikistan as they sought to escape a Taliban assault.

As the outlook for the army and for civilians looks increasingly desperate, so do the measures proposed by the government. Ashraf Ghani, the president, is trying to mobilise militias to shore up the flimsy army. He has turned for help to figures such as Atta Mohammad Noor, who rose to power as an anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander and is now a potentate and businessman in Balkh province. “No matter what, we will defend our cities and the dignity of our people,” said Mr Noor in his gilded reception hall in Mazar-i-Sharif, the key to holding the north (sounds like Game of Thrones). The thinking is that such a mobilisation would be a temporary measure to give the army breathing space and allow it to regroup and the new forces would co-ordinate with government troops to push back hard on the Taliban.

However this is Afghanistan. The prospect of unleashing warlords’ private armies fills many Afghans with dread, reminding them of the anarchy of the 1990s. Such militias, raised along ethnic lines, tended to turn on each other and the general population.

With America gone and Afghan forces melting away, the Taliban fancy their prospects. They show little sign of engaging in serious negotiations with Mr Ghani’s administration. Yet they control no major towns or cities. Sewing up the countryside puts pressure on the urban centres, but the Taliban may be in no hurry to force the issue. They generally lack heavy weapons. They may also lack the numbers to take a city against sustained resistance. On July 7th they failed to capture Qala-e-Naw, a small town. Besides, controlling a city would bring fresh headaches. They are not good at providing government services.

Perhaps the Taliban have learned their history lesson and might refrain from attacking Kabul this time around. Their best course may be to tighten the screws and wait for the government to buckle. American predictions of its fate are getting gloomier. Intelligence agencies think Mr Ghani’s government could collapse within six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. So clearly the momentum is on the side of the Taliban and they just need to chip away at Ghani’s forces one district after another until the inevitable and hateful surrender of the central Afghan government to their demands.

At the very least, the civil war is likely to intensify, as the Taliban press their advantage and the government fights for its life. Other countries - China, India, Iran, Russia and Pakistan - will seek to fill the vacuum left by America. Some will funnel money and weapons to friendly warlords. The result will be yet more bloodshed and destruction, in a country that has suffered constant warfare for more than 40 years. Those who worry about possible reprisals against the locals who worked as translators for the Americans are missing the big picture: America, Britain and other allies are abandoning an entire country of almost 40m people to a grisly fate.

Nothing exemplifies - at least in Afghan eyes - of all that has gone wrong with American involvement in Afghanistan than in the manner of their leaving.

The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base's new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans' departure more than two hours after they left in the middle of the night without raising any alarms.

They left behind 3.5 million items, including tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and military MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat ration packs to the uninitiated). Thousands of civilian vehicles were left, many without keys to start them, and hundreds of armoured vehicles. The Americans also left small weapons and ammunition, but the departing US troops took heavy weapons with them. Ammunition for weapons not left for the Afghan military was blown up.

Now that is some feat considering the logistics of this mass exodus without drawing any attention. You have obviously been to Bagram and so you will know just how big and sprawling it is. Bagram Airfield is the size of a small city, roadways weaving through barracks and past hangar-like buildings. There are two runways and more than 100 parking spots for fighter jets known as revetments. One of the two runways is 12,000 feet long and was built in 2006. There's a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital and giant hangar-size tents filled with furniture. And all those shops to remind Americans of home from familiar fast food restaurants and hairdressers and massage parlours to buying clothing and jewellery and buying a Harley Davidson motorbike (or so I’ve been told).

I’m guessing that the Afghans were certainly outside of the wire and probably had not been inside Bagram Airfield for months. So from the outset they would not have had any reason to think anything was going on until the generators probably ran out of fuel and it started to go a little too quiet. The inner gate was probably discretely left unlocked and when the US stopped answering the radio/phone and then they probably investigated.

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour's drive from the Afghan capital, Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan troops. Afghan military leaders insist the Afghan National Security and Defense Force could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield. The airfield includes a prison with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban members.

I’m pretty sure some bright spark in the US Pentagon public affairs dept convinced his military superiors that it was important to avoid the optics of Americans leaving in the same way they did in Vietnam in case it depresses the American public and the US military. Instead it demoralised its allies, the Afghan national army who are now the only line of defence against the Taliban. In one night, they lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area. The manner in which the Americans left Bagram air base amounts to a resounding vote of no confidence in Afghanistan’s future. It just looks bad.

The U.S. choice came with costs attached to each decision. With staying, the cost was potential U.S. troop casualties and a fear that things would not change on the ground. With leaving comes the cost of a deeper conflict in Afghanistan and a backsliding of progress made there over the past two decades. In many ways, the costs of staying seem shorter-term and borne by the United States, while the costs of leaving will be predominantly borne by Afghans over a longer time horizon. Yet, even if those costs seem remote now, history tells us that they will be blamed on the United States.

Biden perhaps reflective of history of Americans getting into quagmires abroad didn’t want to be seen exerting time and energy for a losing cause. His decision also reflects his administration’s foreign policy for the American middle-class paradigm, which focuses on domestic considerations over international ones (and is this so different from Trump’s “America First”? No, it is not). The irony, though, is that the American middle class largely doesn’t care about Afghanistan - their ambivalence gave way to support for this decision once it was announced, but it wouldn’t be hard to visualise the public approving of a scenario that kept a couple thousand troops there for a while longer.

What’s perhaps most disturbing is the narrative the president has presented along with the rationale for withdrawal: that America went to Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaida after 9/11, that mission creep led America to stay on too long and, therefore, it is time to get out. This takes an incomplete view of U.S. agency in the war in Afghanistan. The narrative implies that the civil conflict in Afghanistan today did not originate with America - that this more than 40-year war began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, preceded America’s interference in Afghanistan, and will follow our departure.

The fact of the matter is that, by beginning the campaign in Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrowing the Taliban, who were then engaged in their draconian rule, and installing a new government, we western allies began a new phase of the Afghan conflict — one that pitted the Kabul government and the United States/Britain/NATO against the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan people did not have a say in the matter. That we allied powers are leaving Afghan women, children, and youth better off in many ways after 20 years is due to us, and we should be proud of that. But that we are leaving them mired in a bloody conflict is also due to us, because we could not hold off the Taliban insurgency, and we must all reckon publicly with that.

I have to ask myself why did we fail?

I’m only speaking about us Brits now as I’m sure you have your own thoughts as an ex-Marine officer of what you thought of the American military effort. Yes, I’m copping out of really bashing the yanks because first, I have too much respect for those fantastic American service men and women I did have the privilege to fight alongside with; and second, we Brits have nothing to crow about as we fucked up in lots of ways too, and to make things worse, we should have known better given our imperial history with Afghanistan.

The seeds of our failure in Afghanistan lies in not learning from history. We didn’t have a mission that was properly defined nor did we have a strategy that was clear, coherent, and easily communicated to both its fighting men and women as well as to the British public.

Were we there to get our hands bloody and to root out and destroy extreme Islamist terrorists or were we there to indulge in state building out of some idealistic notions of liberal humanitarianism? This question was at heart of our failure within our government and also within the British army as well as our relations with America and our NATO allies and finally the Afghans themselves.

Although never colonised in the same manner as other central and south Asian countries, the modern Afghan state is very much a creation borne out of great power rivalry. A land occupied by a number of different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, it is a country whose borders were defined by, and whose sense of national identity was forged in response to western great power competition. Its geopolitical position - landlocked, mountainous, and surrounded by past great powers and present regional rivals - lends Afghanistan a dual role of geographic obscurity and great strategic significance, and has as such frequently been treated as little more than a buffer state between empires and a proxy of local powers. Its shared historical border with Russia and British India made it an object of imperial intrigue and, by consequence, has been subject to five European military interventions in the last 175 years.

The first three interventions of these occurred during the era of ‘the Great Game’ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which Britain and Russia (latterly the Soviet Union) competed for influence and control over Afghan politics in order to protect their respective imperial holdings in India and central Asia.

The fourth and fifth interventions, ranging from the late 1970s to the present day, similarly involved attempts by Soviets and then by an American-led international coalition to remove political leaders acting against their interests and to protect their favoured candidates.

The unifying feature of all these conflicts was the idea of Afghanistan as the site of potential threats to the interests and security of more powerful states.

Britain’s legacy in Afghanistan in particular set the tone for the country’s historical pattern of conflict and political contestation, fuelling both the intermittent emergence of Afghan national consciousness and a fractious political lineage that saw thirteen amirs in just eighty years. Interventions by the Empire during the Great Game set the conditions for the assassination of ostensibly national leaders by their compatriots (Shah Shuja Durrani in the First war) or their exile by the British (Shere Ali Khan and Ayub Khan in the Second).

Despite the British achieving their aim of protecting India in the second and third conflicts by maintaining Afghanistan as either a pro-British buffer state or as a neutral party, the Afghan narrative tends to emphasise successes such as the massacre of British forces retreating from Kabul to Jalalabad in 1842, the defeat of British and Indian forces at Maiwand in 1880, and the gaining of sovereignty in foreign affairs in 1919.

Soviet intervention in the late 1970s and 1980s further buttressed this identity of resistance, and the failure and ultimate overthrow of the Communist-backed Najibullah government, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union shortly after their drawdown from Afghanistan, led to a sense amongst the victorious mujahidin of the country as the ‘graveyard of empires’.

Afghanistan’s modern history should thus be seen as inextricably linked to the ebbs and flows of great power politics. Each intervention exacerbated extant internal power struggles between rival elite individuals and groups vying for nominal control over the country. Foreign intervention in Afghanistan was met on each occasion with fierce resistance from tribal militias coalesced around religion; as has been remarked upon by one historian of the country, the threat of external domination has been one of the few means of uniting its disparate population around the concept of an Afghan ‘nation’, and in most cases this shared sense of identity cohered around religion, not nationalism.

Indeed, the presence of intervening powers and the development of the Afghan state may be seen as mutually supporting: whilst most Afghan leaders throughout the last two centuries have asserted their sovereignty over the country, the reality has in most circumstances been one of competing tribal chiefs and/or ‘warlords’ rather than a single dominant leader.

Where leaders have managed to cohere the disparate tribal and ethnic groupings of the country under one banner - most notably under the regime of Dost Mohamed Khan (1826-1839, 1845-1863) – this was due in large part to their diplomatic abilities of compromise and co-optation with Afghanistan’s regional power- brokers. In other cases, such as that of the reign of Abdurrahman (1880- 1901), power was maintained by an unflinching ‘internal imperialism’ and the use of punitive force against rebellious factions.

The challenges of maintaining and projecting centralised power in Afghanistan allow us to see the relationship of its leaders with world or regional powers in the last two centuries as one of mutual exploitation. Throughout the Great Game and the Cold War, whilst the British/Americans and Russians/Soviets would use threats and bribes (and occasionally force) to compel Afghan rulers to comply with their geopolitical needs, Afghan rulers themselves often deftly manipulated those powers to maintain and extend their own power.

The pattern followed by Afghan leaders from the nineteenth century to the present day is remarkably similar in the respect that most have relied upon a rentierist economic model, seeking external aid in order to sustain the cost of security and administration. The plan of modern rulers was to warm Afghanistan with the heat generated by the great power conflicts without getting drawn into them directly. Abdurrahman, for example, used British subsidies to fund his military campaigns against rebellious factions; the Musahiban rulers of the mid-twentieth century used American capital to develop its nascent economic infrastructure and Soviet finance to bolster its armed forces; and, following the overthrow of the last royal leader of Afghanistan, Mohamed Daoud, in 1978, the quasi-communist leadership of Babrak Karmal, Hafizullah Amin, Nur Muhammad Taraki, and Mohammad Najibullah during the late 1970s and 1980s relied in the main on Soviet money and military assistance in its ultimately failed attempt to implement socialist policies and put down the American, Saudi and Pakistani-backed mujahidin.

These trends continued into the post-Cold War period in respect to both the Taliban movement (essentially directed and funded by Pakistan), the Northern Alliance (funded largely by former Soviet central Asian states) and the regime of Hamid Karzai (maintained in economic and military terms by the American-led, NATO-operated International Security Assistance Force and the wider international community). In the former cases, occurring in the main in the period of civil war between 1992 and 2001, rentierism was limited to the maintenance of proxy parties and the continuation of conflict.

By contrast, the ISAF mission bore similarities with the Soviet-backed socialist regimes of the 1980s, insofar as it focused huge amounts of capital and military resources on stabilisation and state-building efforts. Both intervening parties made the error of ignoring Afghanistan’s political history and focused their efforts on bolstering the authority of a centralised state, both promoted policies that were deemed ‘universal’ in their application and were, unsurprisingly given such hubris, vulnerable to accusations by Afghan opposition to being alien and imperialistic ideologies, and both expended enormous amounts of blood and treasure in order to sustain the regimes they supported.

The UK’s struggle to locate a coherent strategy for Afghanistan should, therefore, be seen firstly in the light of the historical problematic of Afghan state-building. This is important in narrative terms because difficulties of defining strategy imply similar challenges in explaining strategy. As with its efforts to ‘think’ strategically, Britain’s ability to explain the strategy(ies) for the war in Afghanistan have been frequently criticised by various commentators. The most strategically debilitating aspect of the Afghan campaign has always been the incoherence of the mission’s purpose; indeed the question ‘‘why are we in Afghanistan?’’ has never really been settled in public consciousness. The international community massively underestimated the difficulties of state-building and greatly overstretched themselves in the commitments made to Afghanistan, and that they did so because ‘strategies’ for Afghanistan rested on assumptions of the universal applicability of liberal state-building.

The international community from the start (meaning from the Bonn Conference of late 2001) fundamentally misunderstood the nature of an Afghan society deeply ravaged by decades of conflict, and failed to foresee the malign effects state-building ventures would have on the country. Specifically, the Bonn Conference, which set out the parameters of the post-invasion Afghan state, implemented a centralised state system onto a state whose experience of such was limited, and where the success of such a system in extending its authority beyond the major cities was predicated on coercion and the use of force.

Historically this has rarely been a credible option for Afghan rulers or their international backers, and was even less so under the self-imposed restrictions of liberal war-fighting and state-building. Rather, re-creating a centralised state required Afghan and international actors to enter into the same methods of co-optation and compromise as those of the past; in necessitating these kind of measures – as opposed to implementing a looser, federal system of governance – the centralisation of the Afghan state paved the way for a reconstitution of a ruling order based on tribal elements and ‘strongmen’. This produced something of a paradox for state-builders, as the creation of a strong, central state capable of implementing liberal policies across Afghanistan came at the cost of entering into alliances with ‘warlords’ known for their illiberal and coercive political approaches and illicit economic activities.

Another unintended but unavoidable consequence of centralised state-building identified by scholars is the re-constitution of the rentier state in Afghanistan. Post-Bonn, Afghanistan returned to its historical norm of maintaining the state via the extraction of external security and development rents, without which it would almost certainly implode due to the ruinous state of its economy and taxation system. Studies have shown that his new rentierism differed from previous patronage systems at the state level insofar as it was fuelled by an unprecedented influx of capital and resources into the country. This had the effect of introducing regulated systems of ‘neo-patrimonalism’, where departments were to be distributed as rewards to the various factions that took part in the Bonn conference, and there had to be enough rewards to go around.

In other words, the structure of the post-invasion Afghan state was, to a great extent, defined not by the demands of good governance, the needs of the country or the demands of post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction – the purposes for which the centralised model was chosen to promote – but rather by the first-order need to avoid the derailment of the centralised state by co-opting regional power brokers.

Because of the imperative of shoring up a nascent state by securing support from potential competitors, the gulf between the ends of liberal state-building and the illiberal means required to facilitate its functioning can therefore be seen to a certain extent as inevitable.

A major issue, however, was that the patrimonial linkages created by the state for its regional proxies was not comprehensive, as it did not extend to the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland and, as such, fuelled resentment and alienation as much as they placated and co- opted extra-state power brokers. Key players in the Northern Alliance - the primarily Tajik opposition to the Taliban - received prestigious posts within the state, whilst the predominantly Pashtun Taliban were themselves excluded from such arrangements. Because those rewarded by the state tended to be given ministerial or governorial roles in cities, the conflict dynamic tended to reflect an urban – rural divide similar to that of the Soviet occupation. Along this reading, the neo-Taliban insurgency was in many ways a product of the political miscalculations and deficiencies of post-invasion state- building activities.

Given this starting point, such a view concludes that the strategic problems encountered by the international community in Afghanistan were, to a large degree, problems created by (or at the very least exacerbated by) the state-builders themselves. They misread Afghan politics in a way that reflected their own philosophical assumptions about the state and society.

Strategy in Afghanistan suffered because the coalition effort, comprised of multiple national actors and the United Nations, rarely took on the form of a unified effort. Part of the reason for this was a divergence of opinion between actors as to the ultimate purpose – counter-terrorism or state-building – of the intervention.

In the first years of the Afghan campaign, the United States’ Bush Administration remained staunchly opposed to what it called ‘nation building’ and opted instead to pursue a policy of capture- or-kill missions against suspected terrorists. For the United Nations and most of the United States’ European NATO allies, however, state-building was considered a necessary element of any counter-terrorist strategy. This difference of opinion was manifest from the start by the creation of two parallel missions – the US-led, counter-terrorism-focused Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the stabilisation missions of the European Union, United Nations (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)) and NATO (International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)) – engaged in seemingly incompatible aims of military prosecution and peace building.

Opinion on the impact of this dual approach varies. Some scholars have noted, along lines similar to those critiquing the state-building efforts of the international community that the approach taken by the UN, EU and ISAF was too ambitious, naïve and unrealistic, and therefore bound to fall short of their liberal political and economic goals. Both Europe and these international agencies ignored the necessity of paring down the international community’s state-building efforts to core, security-centric capacity building within the Afghan National Security Forces. But of course one can make the counter argument, as many have of course, that on the contrary it was the insufficiencies of state-building approaches vis-à-vis OEF’s counter-terrorist approach that led to subsequent failures in UN and ISAF efforts; specifically, that a disproportionate focus on counter-terrorism missions meant that opportunities of peace- building were irreparably compromised.

Within NATO there was a division not just of opinions but also one of mission relating to different political perspectives about the purpose of the Afghan mission and its ultimate referent object – whether it was primarily about the interests of the coalition member states or concerned in the main with Afghanistan itself – and, from that, the methods to be employed in pursuit of one or another objective. This was not merely a debate bounded by strategic necessity, however; rather, such debates stemmed as much from institutional disagreements over who would or could do what in Afghanistan, which in turn arose from the differences in political constitutions and cultural attitudes towards counterinsurgency and counter- terrorism.

These ‘national caveats’ or ‘red cards’ of participation created significant problems for NATO in Afghanistan, both political, in terms of the relations between states and the abiding sense amongst some that others were ‘free-riding’ on the collective security system and, and strategic and operational, in the sense that command-and-control capabilities and cohesion between forces were limited by the engagement restrictions placed on certain armed forces. Indeed, the disproportionate burden placed on combat-oriented states like the United States, the United Kingdom, and several new member states in Eastern Europe led to political statements denouncing Europe’s perceived transgressors of collective security participation; former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates argued, for example, that NATO had effectively become a ‘two-tier alliance’ ‘between members who specialise in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions - between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership... but don’t want to share the risks and the costs’.

A lack of strategic unity was the natural consequence of a structural compromise that produced two distinct strategic authorities that were, in many ways, competing with one another. Along similar lines to the political arrangements between the Afghan state and its regional proxies, the NATO alliance structure can be seen (and evidently is seen by officials such as Gates) as patrimonial: states participated on the basis of fulfilling their own interests and along operational lines that were complementary to those interests, for the purposes of securing an alliance structure that accommodated all participants ahead of the imperative of creating a coherent strategy for stabilising Afghanistan. As with the neo-patrimonialism of the Karzai regime NATO’s efforts would be dictated by the limitations imposed upon it by circumstance.

Thus, in the cases of Afghanistan’s and the international community’s internal political dynamics, strategy was confined by the structure of the Afghan state and society, the structure of the international community and NATO, and the interplay between those structures. The implication here is that the agency required for the possibility of a workable strategy may have been illusory from the start.

Leaving Afghanistan was never going to be pretty, but the latest turn is uglier than expected.

No one quite expected the speed of collapse within the Afghan National Army to hold of attacks of the Taliban. I don’t think it’s do with the lack of training or their professional skills is lacking (though there may be some truth in it). A big driver in the collapse is the money for wages, food and medical care for troops is syphoned to Dubai, so the Afghans who want to fight, and there are quite a few who hate the Taliban, get less replenishment than the 6th army in the last weeks of Stalingrad. They have arms, ammo and boots for this season only and that is it. Both money and morale are in short supply for these soldiers.

If I was a trained soldier in the Afghan National Army I would desert. I would say to them abandon the fixed defences these ‘ferenghis’ (foreigners) have gifted you and move to the hills and seek refuge with your tribal clan, who will be glad of the arms and experience you bring. Or get over the border if you are lucky to be in the North, if in the West you hire yourself to the Narcos in the badlands on the Iran border. Most other places it is either a last stand or defection, your Government and their relatives have already got their planes fuelled up in Kabul ready to move to their villa complexes in the UAE.

I’m being a trifle cynical but for good reason. Everyone who has been to Afghanistan sees the veil lifted on the corruption of aid and how the elites protect themselves ahead of defending the masses who bear the brunt of the bloodshed.

The corruption has been endemic from the get go, but the international community ignored it all for 'progress'. Any Afghan politico you hear on the media complaining about the West abandoning Afghanistan has at least $30 million parked in Dubai that should have gone to the soldiers, teachers, doctors, builders etc.

As spectacular as the collapse of the Afghan National Army has been it’s been even more scarier seeing how swift the Taliban has been in taking over vital provincial areas through propaganda, civilian intimidation, and rapid attacks. One by one, the Taliban has been taking over areas in a number of provinces in northern Afghanistan in recent weeks. The Taliban says it has taken control of 90 districts across the country since the middle of May. Some were seized without a single shot fired.

The UN's special envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyon put the figure lower, at 50 out of the nation's 370 districts, but feared the worst was yet to come. Most districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once all foreign forces are fully withdrawn. On a map, it's easy to see the point Lyon is making. A stark example is Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north and a significant power centre in its own right. It was the rock upon which the Northern Alliance fought against the Taliban.

It is significant the Taliban are kicking off this offensive in the north, not their heartland in the south and east. The north was the toughest part of the country for them to crack last time. Their expectation is if they have victory there, success will flow much easier in their traditional homelands further south.

The strategy of taming the north extends to emasculating and profiting from trade routes to neighbours. On Monday night they captured the important border town of Shir Khan Bandar, Afghanistan's main crossing into Tajikistan. Earlier in the day, top Tajik government officials had met to discuss concerns about the growing instability next door. There is no indication that the Taliban intend to take their fight north of the border, but in the past Tajikistan has been a vital conduit for supplies flowing to the militants' northern enemies.

The last time the Taliban controlled the city was 20 years ago, when they left hundreds of captives in steel trucking containers to suffocate and die in the scorching desert heat. Now, the militants are back at the city gates once again, as part of a lightning offensive against Afghan government forces that has set alarm bells ringing from Kabul to Washington. So it should worry us all where will all this lead to.

America's drawdown seems to be the game changer. The Taliban have been beaten back several times in recent years, notably from Kunduz in 2015. The Taliban captured it briefly before US airstrikes were called in. Civilian casualties were high but the militants were driven out. The militant group has never been able to withstand the heavy US and NATO air assaults backing Afghan ground forces, but now the US and NATO are leaving, so is much of the threat of sophisticated and sustained air power. And the Taliban are well aware of this.

It seems to me behind the choice of withdrawal by the Biden government lies a bigger assumption that drives that choice. That is the Taliban militants' perceived desire for international recognition. This has been the mantra underpinning the American exit. The logic of the American argument has been simple: The Taliban wouldn't renege on their agreements with the US because they crave international acceptance. The events of this past week and more appear to blow a hole in that assumption.

Another assumption that’s currently being blown out of the water is the US establishing some presence outside of Afghanistan so that if it needs to intervene again to combat terrorism or flush out militants then it can do so from the safety of a neighbouring country. But so far no country has come forward to reciprocate. And why would they? Like the Afghans, no one likes foreign troops with boots on the ground in their country. Only the central Asian republics and possibly Pakistan would come close to allowing that but there would be a political cost those governments would pay with their people. Moreover by welcoming the Americans in, they also allow the militants to target that country too.

Another assumption is the nature of the Taliban support and links to terrorist groups. The U.S. may not face any serious post-withdrawal Afghan support of extremist threats to the United States, even if the Taliban does take over. It is all too true that the Taliban continues to talk to the remnants of Al Qaeda, as do elements of the Pakistani military. It is unclear, however, that these remnants of Al Qaeda focus on attacks on the U.S., and the Taliban does seem to oppose ISIS. It is also unclear that the Taliban will host other extremist movements that focus on attacking the U.S. or states outside the region.

It is unclear that any key element of the Taliban has an interest in such attacks on the United States. Even Al Qaeda now focuses largely on objectives inside Islamic countries, and it is unclear that some other major extremist force will emerge in Afghanistan that do not focus on regional threats and on taking over vulnerable, largely Islamic states.

At the same time, one needs to be careful about the assumption that the U.S. can defeat any such threats by launching precision air and missile strikes against extremist targets. It is unclear that the forces in Afghanistan involved in any small covert attacks on the U.S. will be easy to target and cripple if they do emerge. The Taliban is unlikely to tolerate major training camps and facilities for extremist forces, and any such strikes will present major problems for the U.S. if the extremist threat consists of scattered small facilities and small expert cadres that shelter among the Afghan population.

It is also far from clear that more intense U.S. air attacks on Taliban forces from outside Afghanistan will have any decisive effects. The loss of limited numbers of Taliban fighters as well as some key Taliban leaders and facilities will not offset the pace of their victories in the countryside or enable the central government to survive. A continuing U.S. ability to target and kill some key Taliban leaders and fighters also does not mean that the risk of such strikes will deter future Taliban willingness to let small, extremist strike groups conduct well-focused, well-planned strikes on U.S. or allied territory, especially if such groups in Afghanistan sponsor attacks on the U.S. or it strategic partner by strike units or cadres based in other countries.

At the same time, it does seem more likely that the Taliban, and/or any independent extremist groups, will focus largely on Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and the other “-Stans.”

Going forward I think we need to re-evaluate many of our assumptions about the war in Afghanistan.

The objectives of the Authorised Use of Military Force approved by the US Congress in 2001 have long been accomplished. Once Osama bin Laden was killed in Operation Neptune Spear in 2011, the last element of the AUMF was met. The American and British mission in Afghanistan was complete. But America and Britain did not leave because we wanted to do a spot of state building to curb the spread of militant islamist terror. That was a mistake as it turned out.

Post-Neptune Spear, The American, the British, and their allies’ conventional mission should have been ended, adopting instead a laser focus on intelligence collection and offensive special operations to prevent al-Qaeda (or any terrorist organisation) from re-establishing safe havens and training areas.

What was needed for an acceptable ‘victory’ and a ‘saving face’ withdrawal was to embrace the use of Afghan Militia Forces the same way the Allies did for our initial entry way back in 2001.

In 2001, Western powers won the initial military engagement in 42 days using special operations forces with local and regional allies - we need to return to this format - and through a combination of special operations and specific information operations efforts, regaining the high ground and influence over ‘centres of gravity’. The issue is not the number of troops, but the mission of the forces there. Once the mission is defined, the number of forces needed would be clear.

It has never been about the number of troops - it’s been about the lack of an achievable mission assigned to our forces in Afghanistan.

The US engaged in ‘nation-building’ for the wrong reasons - and has seen bad results. We installed Hamid Karzai, served as his praetorian guard to protect the new central government and abandon our AMF allies and attempted to build a large, bulky, expensive and ineffective Afghan National Army - a force that is now evaporating before our eyes. It was folly.

Americans will never make the Afghan people more like them - nor will they be able to instil what my American colleagues used to fondly refer to as ‘a Jeffersonian democracy’ in Afghanistan. That day may come but only when the Afghan people wish it to be so. Lest it be forgotten Americans sought independence in 1776; the Afghan people seek self-reliance and independence from foreign influence. This is their defining historical DNA: escape from any outside control.

The Afghan people are not ungoverned, they are self-governed - with no tradition of central democracy and no desire for our version of democracy or ‘prosperity’. By pushing ‘prosperity’ we had become targets for both the Afghan government and the Taliban. This has ended, but we must draw a distinction between the end of nation-building and the continuation of our own interests in Afghanistan and the region.

It is time to adopt a practical policy based on what will work and is in our allied interests, rather than by funding the aspirations of progressive politicians who have no real understanding of Afghanistan.

First, we must establish a clear post-‘state-building’ strategy - with achievable objectives. We must return to the policy and operational format we know will work - cooperation with Afghan tribal leaders and militia. This type of force was used to achieve the initial victory in 2001. Empowered warlords and regional leaders were the force multiplier that worked as the Afghan Militia Forces - and can again, in partnership with our Special Operations Forces work now. Intelligence collection and limited military operations should be our focus.

There is no way around it. One has to play the Great Game. Think tribal rather than central. Afghan nationhood is a liberal Western wet dream.

The central government is weak and corrupt just like all the other rulers of the past. The Afghan National Army is not as strong as it is on paper. It can hardly prop itself up rather than any government. Most of the Afghan National Army troops have stronger tribal loyalties than to the concept of a nation. Since the tribal chiefs play both sides to hedge their bets, it's no wonder 'their' people do what they're told. The Taliban know this because that has always been the Afghan way, so the tribes go with them. Provided the Taliban honour their promises to the tribal chiefs, the Taliban can do what they want.

On one hand, the tribes won't now be too bothered by central government and have a large pool of Western-trained troops to prop them up. On the other hand, they now have to do business formally with the Taliban again. Largely in order to get their hands on Western-supplied aid that will surely follow after the Americans leave.

Second, we must accept the reality of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan - and work with the Pakistanis to counter al-Qaeda and the other militants now attacking Pakistani targets within Pakistan. Pakistan has made great advances in securing the tribal areas on the other side of the border and they have always been the de facto control of much of the Taliban force capacity, such as the Haqqani network. Working with Pakistan is the best option within the current circumstance.

‘Endless wars’ are not an American value. The use of the US military must only be used in response to genuine threats, when American interests are at stake or lives in danger. Withdrawal of conventional military forces and discontinuing nation building is in the US interest: leaving Afghanistan is not.

Third, make Afghanistan China’s problem. Afghanistan could easily become a hotbed for growing Islamic extremism, which would to some extent affect stability in Xinjiang.

It is not without reason that Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of empires”. The ancient Greeks, the Mongols, the Mughals, the British, the Soviet Union and most recently the US have all launched vainglorious invasions that saw their ambitions and the blood of their soldiers drain into the sand. But after each imperial retreat, a new tournament of shadows begins. With the US pulling out of Afghanistan, China is casting an anxious gaze towards its western frontier and pursuing talks with an ascendant Taliban. The burning questions are not only whether the Taliban can fill the power vacuum created by the US withdrawal but also whether China - despite its longstanding policy of “non-interference” - may become the next superpower to try to write a chapter in Afghanistan’s history.

Beijing has held talks with the Taliban and although details of the discussions have been kept secret, government officials, diplomats and analysts from Afghanistan, India, China and the US said that crucial aspects of a broad strategy were taking shape. An Indian government official said China’s approach was to try to rebuild Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure in co-operation with the Taliban by channelling funds through Pakistan, one of Beijing’s firmest allies in the region. China is Pakistan’s wallet.

It has been reported that Beijing has been insisting that the Taliban limit its ties with groups that it said were made up of Uyghur terrorists in return for such support. The groups, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, are an essential part of China’s security calculus in the region. The ETIM groups were estimated by the UN Security Council last year to number up to 3,500 fighters, some of whom were based in a part of Afghanistan that borders China. Both the UN and the US designated the ETIM as terrorists in 2002 but Washington dropped its classification last year. China has accused the ETIM of carrying out multiple acts of terrorism in Xinjiang, its north-western frontier region, where Beijing has kept an estimated 1m Uyghur and other minority peoples in internment camps.

In a clear indication of Beijing’s determination to counter the ETIM, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, exhorted counterparts from the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan this year to co-operate to smash the group. “We should resolutely crack down on the ‘three evil forces’ [of extremism, terrorism and separatism] including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” Wang said in May according to Chinese news media which I follow.

The importance of this task derived in part from the need to protect large-scale activities and projects to create a safe Silk Road. Silk Road is one of the terms that Chinese officials use to refer to the Belt and Road Initiative, the signature foreign policy strategy of President Xi Jinping to build infrastructure and win influence overseas.

An important part of China’s motivation in seeking stability in Afghanistan is protecting existing BRI projects in Pakistan and the central Asian states while potentially opening Afghanistan to future investments. China would have to more actively support efforts to ensure political stability in Afghanistan. So make them work for it. Western powers need to leverage China’s problems in Xinjiang to be more active in Afghanistan.

International media outlets and intelligence agencies worldwide have been circulating reports pointing toward the creation of a Chinese military base in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province for a while now. Although China has not embarked on militarisation programs on foreign soil historically, and has profusely denied the rumours about building an Afghan “mountain brigade,” China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti provides an example of China’s newly adopted strategy of leveraging economic influence to further its strategic objectives. There’s even some chatter amongst Chinese officials that Beijing may entertain the idea of being part of a future UN international force should one be needed in Afghanistan (a bad idea but hey, let China find out first hand for itself).

The Afghan government was able to maintain a measure of stability largely because of the superiority of US air support. The drones, gunships, helicopters and heavy air artillery were unmatched by the Taliban. But when the US leaves, that advantage will evaporate. China’s imperative to create overland trade routes to Europe and the Middle East may draw it inevitably into Afghanistan’s domestic strife.

Of course China’s forward policy in the Wakhan Corridor needs to be assessed with a critical eye. Although on one level it seems to be motivated primarily by the threat of radicalisation, China’s interest in the region is also contingent on the strategic role that Afghanistan is capable of playing in the larger scheme of things. Despite China’s vehement denial, there seems to be sufficient evidence available indicating a definite military build up in the region, which provides China with an opportunity to showcase its ability to transform into a balancing force in the regional dynamics. I think that is a trade off that both America and Europe can afford to concede under the current circumstances.

In conclusion In the face of failure, there is an impulse to move on and not ask “what led to this?” But to avoid a reckoning with our follies is to risk their repetition, or worse.

it is probably too late to salvage either the civil or military situation in Afghanistan. It almost certainly is too late to salvage it with limited in-country U.S. forces, outside U.S. airpower and intelligence assets, and with no real peace agreement or functional peace process. Limited military measures are not the answer, and neither is simply reinforcing the past processes of failure. Tragic as it may be, withdrawal may not solve anything and may well make conditions worse for millions of Afghans, but reinforcing failure is not a meaningful strategy.

I do feel strongly that both the American and British governments must establish a clear path of redemption so that those who served and the families who sacrificed loved ones know that their loss was not wasted. At the same time our civilian governments must limit missions to intelligence collection and counter-terrorism missions that will prevent the metastasis of al-Qaeda or Isis in the region should the Afghan government fall. How we balance these two is going to be very interesting to follow in the next chapter in Afghanistan’s tortured history.

I apologise for the length of this post. This has been a hard post to write because of the subject matter and the many conflicted emotions and memories I have of my time in Afghanistan. I wish I had all the answers but I suppose the beginning of wisdom would be to know how to ask the right questions. Because we didn’t ask the right questions when we went in, we ended up making a real mess of it.

There is an understandable desire to bring all our allied troops home safe and that not another life is lost there. Yet I doubt this policy of withdrawing all troops will bring peace to anyone, not to us and most of all, the Afghanis themselves. As always in war it is the native population that will bear the real cost of war, in this case women, girls, and others brutalised under Taliban rule. What lies for them if the Taliban regain power to govern the country in their image is something I care not to imagine but retain a deep foreboding of their continued suffering. Ordinary Afghanis just want a respite from war and have a chance to live in peace, but without having us foreigners or the Taliban around. It is hard to imagine that happening at all. Our desire to save our soldiers’ lives set against ordinary Afghanis being left at the mercy of the Taliban is one of those humbling and brutalising trade offs that any war can only offer.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as “careless people” who “smashed up things and creatures” and then “retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” to “let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

That description applies to America as a whole but also to we Brits and other Europeans, especially when we tire of a misguided war. Americans and we Brits are a careless people. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our materialism. No scratch that, returning soldiers retreated into themselves struggling with PTSD whilst the rest of our citizenry carried on with their own material struggles and their insipid culture wars. The point is we always leave others to clean up the mess in a very bloody fashion that never troubles our conscience.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan. Again.

Thanks for your question

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write-like-you-mean-it · 3 years

Text

Streets (Shalnark x Reader)

This is a commission piece from @pastelbear12. It is a part 2 to Pretty Little Psycho. If you would like to commission me, here's a link to my commission page. I hope this kills you Sophie.

Pairing: Teasing!Shalnark x female reader

Warning: Teasing Shalnark, bondage, public sex, choking, daddy calling, very dom Shalnark, this is pure smut.

Word Count: 2610

You let your head duck under the red rope as you held tightly to the blonde in front of you. His face lit up with a wild, untamed excitement. You felt a tight squeeze on your wrist which matched the same tight lipped grin. Shivers ran down your body at the choice you made.

��Hey Shal,” called one of the men still stuck in line. The taunt left his face as Shanark faced his peer. The taller and muscular blonde who’s name was Phink motioned towards the entrance of the club. “You know the boss’s mission.”

Shanark waved away the notion. “You have enough people. Tell the boss I’ll be back later.” His gaze flickers to your own. “I have a more important mission to attend to.”

The music bumped through the speakers as Shalnark dragged you across the floor towards the bar. Not much was different between the two places beyond the line to enter was much shorter and there was a lack of a friend by your side. If you’d not been caught up in his hazel eyes, the terror may have set in by now.

Heavy bass swam between dancing bodies, flirty conversations, and frat boys chugging beers. You could almost hear it over the steady beat of your own heart. Your breath was shaky from the walk over and getting caught looking too long at the blonde man.

“What do you want? He asks while leaning his back against the bar. His arms planted across the empty space of the bar. “Or would you rather I pick for you?”

“I would-” You didn't have a chance to respond as Shal caught you off guard. Although you were going to respond, you didn’t know what you were going to say. Would you allow him to choose for you or would you rather choose something for yourself.

“Or are you worried I’ll spike your drink?” His eyes flicked up and down your body as if he was taking in a beautiful view. “Don’t worry. I’d like you to remember who will leave bruises all over your body tomorrow.”

An involuntary whimper forced from deep within your core. His words made your choice for you. “You can choose.” You almost couldn’t recognize your own voice. It was hoarse as if your throat was starving for water and squeasy as if you needed to gasp for air.

Shalnark reaches over to bush his thumb over your burning cheek before lightly gripping your chin to look up at him. “Seems like you may need water more than anything else. Wouldn’t want you to be too dehydrated for me.” You squirm away from his touch only to have him hold your jaw tighter. “I didn’t say you can look away, did I?”

“No,” you whisper. Shal’s thumb moved to your lips. They part when his finger presses lightly on the bottom lip to wetten them with your own saliva.

He chuckles: “Good girl.”

The blonde stranger’s words catch the breath in your chest which causes you to inadvertently cough and squirm away. “I’m sorry,” you mumble as you try to find a safe hiding place for your eyes that’s not the burrowing gaze of the man in front of you.

“No need to be sorry, princess,” he says while motioning to the bartender. He orders two waters. Shalnark ignored the rolling eyes of the worker,

“You didn’t order anything for yourself?” you question.

“No. I want to be coherent too. Any drinks and you may squirm away from me too much.” Your weight shifted between your feet. Before the bartender could return, Shalnark leaned in right next to your ear and mumbled “not that you aren’t already squirming for me.”

Your lips part to respond as the bartender sets down two bottles of water. Shalnark picks up both and hands you the other one.

“Anything else for you two?”

“Not now. But keep an open tab. I’ll be back for more.” The bartender takes this as his cue to find other patrons who will pay more. Your partner uncapped the lid and drank the full bottle down with almost no stops.

“Trying to impress me?” you tease while upcapping your own bottle. You take a few sips to try and cool your heat-filled cheeks.

“No,” he says while looking disinterestedly at the plastic in his hand. “I’ll need an excuse to use the restroom later. It’ll look suspicious if I take you to the bathroom the moment we walk in.”

Your nose scrunches while putting the bottle back onto the counter. “Why would you..?”

“Don’t tell me you’re that oblivious, princess,” Shalnark says. His tongue reaches out to wet his lips. The blonde’s pupils were blown as he leaned over the bar and into your space; making sure there are no gaps between you. Fear sends a chill down your spine. “I’ll want to take that pretty dress off and do unspeakable things to you.” Your grip tightens on the plastic as some of the water splashes onto your dress. “Ah now you have to come with me. We have to dry off.”

Shanark’s hand rested once again in your trembling hand as the bottle was left on the bar. Part of you hoped you’d never see that bottle again.

The swinging door finally closing was the last barrier between the two of you. Shalnark roughly gripped the clothing that guarded your hips and pulled you into a rough kiss. His force knocked the wind out of your chest. His body cages you against the door; although, that’s not what you would call it. Your arms were wrapped tightly around his neck

For his stature, you weren’t expecting his hands to be forceful enough to pull you against his own. You could have sworn you heard a tear of fabric as Shalnark looked for the skin of your back or hips. You wouldn’t be one to look at it until much later. Instead, you focused on the warmth pressing on his lips and warm breath against your own.

“Shal,” you groan while hiking your legs higher. He took the cue and pushed his full weight into your to lift your body so that you can wrap your legs around his waist. Your dress shifts up to around your waist.

You whimper while feeling his cock pressing into your thigh. Thick enough to feel it was semi hard. Your hips inadvertently grinded against the man. Shalnark pulled away from your lips with only a string of saliva and a whine to replace the once filthy noises.

“Did I tell you to grind against my dick?” he asks. His grip tightens against the small of your back.

“No?” you question. Your mind is a little hazy and lustful.

“No…” Shalnark’s voice trails off with a commanding expectation.

“No, master?”

“Better. But I’m looking for a word that starts with d.”

You could feel yourself absentmindedly closing your legs to gain any friction on your already wet pussy. “No daddy. You didn’t say I can grind against you.”

“Good girl,” he whispers against the shell of your ear. He peppers soft kisses against your lobe before ripping the little piece of fabric against your cunt. You squirm to try and close as the cold air hits your unclothed pussy. “Now. Hands up.”

You cock your head but comply. Shalnark shifts to hold you up by pressing your weight into the door. Your hands dangle above only for him to use your ripped underwear to tie your hands together. He ties them tightly while crossed. “Better,” he grunts before letting you down from his waist.

Shalnark strips the thin shirt and places it on the door knob. Your body trembles from the cool of the room mixed with fear of what could happen. He places a chaste kiss on your lips which leaves your head spinning and wanting more.“Knees, kitten,” the blonde commands and you follow.

When your knees hit the floor, you felt the force of the inability to use your hands. No matter how hard you tug, you cannot get released. You realized how under control you were of this strange man. The realization made your thighs slicker with your own wetness.

“Good little slut. I’ll treat you so nice if you suck my cock well.” Shalnark reaches a hand into your hair and tug it enough to look up at him. He chuckles at your open lips and doe-eyed look. The spider uses his other hand to pull out his throbbing cock. His tip was angry, red and leaking.

You wet your lips before kitten licking his tip. Shalnark hissed at the sudden touch. Curses escaped his lips and the grip on your hair tightened. You take this as a cue to keep doing a few test licks.

The salty taste edged you on to do broad stokes at the underside of his head. Without warning, the man shoves his cock into your mouth. “I’m done with your teasing kitten,” he grunts. “Treat me right.”

Your cheeks hollow as he pulls out of your warm mouth. Your tongue keeps flat against your jaw as Shal sets the pace. At first he’s kind by not shoving his full length in your mouth; however, this kindness doesn’t last.

One push is a little too far and causes you to gag around his length. This pushes the spider to go a little deeper. Your gag reflex would be your betrayal. Shalnark grips the back of your head to guide you at the pace he wants while your hands dig into his thighs. You could feel the trembling of his cock before he pulled away from your lips. Saliva runs down your chin and neck. Soon enough you kept your mouth open and let him use you.

“Fuck you got me too close princess,” Shalnark grunts while helping you to your feet. “Let me treat you to the same.”

At first, you were excited. Then you realized he didn’t cum. You got him close but not enough. Your eyes widen as he kisses your burning lips. “No daddy. I want to cum.”

“Good use of your word kitten,” he mumbles while dragging you to the sink. “I’ll let you cum if you do good. I promise.” His eyes twinkle with some miscivious thoughts.

He uses the sink as a way to prop up your body. You pray that it will continue holding your weight as Shalnark lifts your right leg over his sanding shoulder. This position creates a throbbing pull on your muscles.

A single finger dips into your dripping cunt. He’s teasing the outside as you quake against his touch. You pull at your restraints in hopes of helping him give you something to clench your walls around. “P-please,” you whine.

“Please what, princess?” Shalnark questions.

“Please touch me, daddy,” you cry. Your hips buckle against his touch. Shal hums but compiles. He moves a finger inside your warm cunt which causes you to gasp. Your back arches before hitting the glass of the mirror behind you with your exposed back.

Shalnark curls his finger and touches the spot that sends stars around your eyes. His finger picks up speed while moving in and out of your pussy. Whimpers and whines fall from your lips with little regard for who could hear.

Another finger is added to the one. His pace picks up. “Princess, you’re not ready for me yet. You have to take three of my fingers before being able to handle my cock.”

You whine again. Two felt like enough. You were spread and drowning in your own pleasure; yet, he refused to touch the bundle of nerves. You clenched down on his fingers. “You do that princess and I’ll make it four,” Shalnark whispers. Your pussy made slapping noises with each thrust of his hand.

For all you new, you could be covering his hand with your juices. You wanted to complain but Shal spread you more with a third finger. You clench at the small pain even though he slowed down.

“Doing so well, kitten.” Tears pricked your eyes. Soon Shal could move his fingers without you tightening around them. He took this opportunity to pull out his fingers and lick off any of the remaining juice.

He tears the underwear that holds your wrists. You had no objections as the binding was starting to hurt your arms and wrists. An acceptable pain that would leave bruises for days to come.

Before you could gain composure, Shalnark flips you over to look at yourself in the mirror. Mascara ran down your face from the tears of pleasure and slight pain. Your pupils were blown and lips plump from the barrage of his thick cock. The once beautiful dress was pushed away so that your tits were hanging out. You looked like a sweaty whore; however, your partner only looked hotter. Sweat dripped down his face and wetted his hair. He was filled with determination.

Your once bound wrists were tied by one of his hands behind your back. He uses the other one to line up his cock at your entrance. He traces your lips with the tip of his cock before pushing in. “Fuck,” you grunt while pushing your face more into the mirror. Shalnark uses the momentum of pulling your wrists to bounce you further on his dick.

“Oh princess, you feel better than I imagined,” your partner grunted as he slid out only to push back in. The hand not bound to your wrist slaps your ass at the same time his cock slammed into you.

He did this a few more times until the stinging pain was replaced by Shalnark fucking into you faster. Your whimpers turn into soft screams. Lewd slapping of skin and a few of the spider’s grunts echoed in the small bathroom.

Shal reached up to twist your head to look at yourself in the mirror. “Look at you princess.” He sticks a finger into your open mouth. Drool pools on the end of the sink. “Look at how much of a whore my pretty princess is. Drooling for my cock.”

His hand slid from your mouth to your neck. Lifting you up so that your back is flush against his chest. The hand that was on your wrists was repositioned to your clit. He rubbed rough circles in hopes that the growing tension in your stomach would break.

“Fuck ‘m close,” Shalnark grunts. His hand at your neck tightens around your airway while making it hard to breathe. It was all too much. Your clit, Shalnark’s hand, his thick cock fucking into you.

For the moment after you came, you swore you saw stars. Shalnark pumped a few more times into your cunt until he squirts his cum inside. He bites down on your neck to keep him from moaning. It wasn’t until he was coming down that he finally allowed you to take in the precious oxygen you desperately needed.

Shalnark’s teeth were replaced with soft kisses to your sweat covered skin. He pulled out of you once he and you had come down from your collective highs. Your shaking legs were covered in a mixture of your own cum and his. You shiver from the loss of him filling you up.

“Can you walk, darling?” the blonde questions.

“Yes?”

“Good because we’re going to a hotel. I’m not letting you go.”

“What about our bar tab?” Your question felt hoarse and tired. You had no more fight in you.

“Fuck the bar tab,” Shalnark says while handing you his shirt. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk tomorrow.”

Masterlist

#shalnark #phantom troupe #shalnark x reader #shalnark x you #hxh #hunter x hunter #shalnark smut #a writes #hxh smut #hunter x hunter smut

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