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baepsaesbae · 3 years

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None of Your Business

Pairing— Jung Hoseok x reader

Genre— SMUT, enemies to lovers au, business/professional life au, slight angst, slight fluff, mutual pining bc im a slut for that

Warnings— inappropriate workplace behavior, explicit unprotected sex, face sitting, slight biting, one (1) butt slap, dirty talk, swearing, switch!Hoseok, Hoseok being a god damn nuisance, (also I’m not a business person so if you are and I state inaccurate/dumb things I apologize in advance)

Word Count— 8.9k

Summary— You have a shot at attaining a huge promotion at your company. The only problem standing in your way is the same one that annoyed you in college. Jung Hoseok. How will you manage to spend an entire weekend at a conference juggling impressing your supervisors while simultaneously battling Hoseok?

A/N— This super cool banner was made by the one and only @kimtaehyunq, thank you so much! Please let me know what you guys think. Feel free to leave a comment or send an ask!

The business world has always been mercilessly cutthroat; that’s one of the first things business students learn when they enter college. The competition to get an internship at a top company was fierce. Recruiting has to start at least a year in advance if you even want to give yourself a chance.

Luckily for you, you were the top student in your program. Well, one of the top students. Over the past four years, your position had been flip flopping with some surprisingly competent bonehead who annoyingly plagued your life.

“Excited to be graduating this semester, ___?” an all too familiar voice interrupted your studying.

“Excited to graduate as top of the class? Yes, of course,” you replied coldly.

“Top of the class? That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?” the handsome boy sat on your table.

“I think it’ll be pretty much set in stone after this last final,” you returned your attention to your notes.

“Well, even if you’re number one, I think experience matters a lot in this field,” the boy refused to leave you alone.

“Then it’s a good thing I did an internship with one of the top companies over the summer,” you glared at him.

“Oh yeah, how could I forget about the internship that you stole from me?” the boy pouted.

“I was obviously more qualified. And how could you say that when you stole my opportunity to go on a study abroad trip with my favorite professor last Spring Break? I’m still furious that he chose you over me solely because you were sleeping with his daughter,” you retorted.

“That was a coincidence! I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that,” he tried to defend himself.

“Whatever. Do me a favor and leave me alone, Hoseok. Hopefully today will be the last time I’ll ever see you.”

“That’s kind of sad to think about. Who else will get under my skin and annoy me every time they open their mouth?” Hoseok bantered, “Also, I told you to call me Hobi.”

“That would imply that we’re on friendly terms. I don’t like lying, Hoseok.”

“Fine. Good luck on that last final. See you around,” Hoseok hopped off the table and patted your head.

“Don’t touch me,” you grumbled as he walked away.

That was five years ago.

The company that you interned with gave you a job offer immediately after graduation. Quickly moving up through the ranks proved to be an easy feat since your tenacious nature made you the ideal employee.

You were currently waiting outside of the CEO’s office. Seconds felt like hours as you mindlessly bounced your leg. It was eerily silent, and all you could hear were the click clacks of the receptionist’s keyboard as she worked. You looked around at the bleak décor that was a sorry excuse for modernism as you racked your brain. Were you in trouble? Did something happen? You were summoned up for a meeting but had no clue what it was going to be about.

Once you were finally called in, you were greeted by both the CEO and VP of the company.

“___, please take a seat,” the CEO politely smiled, “As you know, I am getting old. I am unmarried, so therefore I have no one to oversee the company after I’m gone. The executive council and I have been looking for people to fill my shoes. Or at the very least, take a seat on the executive council if one of them were to take my place.”

“Your numbers have been exceptional this month,” the VP chimed in, “And every month prior. After much deliberation, your name has been cast into the lot.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Being a member of the executive council at your age was almost unheard of.

“There is one other candidate that has also been hand selected at the other branch. You both are to attend a conference in which you will mingle with executives from other companies. There will also be a time in which you will pitch an idea to me on how to make this company better,” the CEO continued when he saw your loss for words.

“First and foremost I would like to thank you for this opportunity. I will do my best to live up to your expectations,” you bowed to show your gratitude.

“Perfect. The conference is in two weeks. I believe that should give you ample time to prepare your presentation,” the VP shook your hand.

After shaking hands with the CEO, you turned to leave. However, something was nagging you.

“May I ask who the other candidate is?” you inquired.

“Jung Hoseok from the northern branch,” the VP answered without missing a beat.

“Ah,” your brain exploded.

“Do you know him?” the CEO asked.

“We went to college together. I know of him,” you said curtly.

“Well you’ll finally get your chance to meet him. I’ve heard he’s very popular with the ladies at his branch. That’s not pertinent to his skills; however, you can’t blame an old man for wanting to know the gossip of his own employees,” the old man chuckled.

“Of course,” you smiled politely as you excused yourself from the office.

Jung Hoseok? That douchebag? Just your luck to run into him again (to fight for the next step in your career no less!). You think back on all the run ins you had with him during your collegiate days. Nothing but irritating memories of the two of you competing for the top spot came to mind.

Whatever. It didn’t matter who the other candidate was. You had to get to work and come up with a brilliant plan that will impress the CEO. You brushed the thought of Hoseok aside. It had been a couple of years, maybe he wouldn’t even remember you. There’s no need to stress out over something so trivial.

The weekend of the conference had finally arrived. You were instructed to travel together with Hoseok. You waited alone at the airport terminal. If you were lucky, Hoseok wouldn’t show up at all. You weren’t.

“___!” Hoseok called out your name in a sing songy voice.

“Hello Hoseok. Glad to see you haven’t changed,” you were already irritated.

“How are you? It’s been so long. You look great!” he went in for a hug but you turned away.

He stood awkwardly with his arms in the air for a second until he bounced back. He took the seat next to you and began chatting. You answered his list of questions apathetically.

“Did I do something to offend you?” Hoseok finally asked.

“I just think it’s funny that even after all these years, I still have to compete with you,” you retorted.

“Still hung up on that? It doesn’t even matter anymore. We got good jobs and now we’re here. Together! Isn’t that cool?”

“No, not at all. Although I guess it will be nostalgic coming out on top once again,” you smirked.

“Your competitive nature always amused me. You’re so cute when you lose,” Hoseok teased.

“I never lost to you,” you gasped.

“That’s not what that one study abroad trip with Professor whatshisname says,” he cooed.

“Professor Namjoon! You knew he was my favorite, you prick. At least I graduated as top of the class with honors,” you argued.

“My GPA was off by thousandths of a point. That doesn’t really bother me. But I’m glad you have something that makes you happy,” Hoseok shrugged.

‘This is gonna be one long fucking weekend’, you thought.

The flight was short and pleasant since Hoseok left you alone. You wanted to see as little of him as possible during this trip. You intended to get that promotion no matter what.

After the plane landed, the two of you made your way to the hotel that was hosting the conference.

“Hi, last name ___ and Jung?” you smiled at the hotel concierge.

“Ah yes, you guys are here for the business conference?” the concierge asked.

“Indeed we are!” Hoseok chimed in from behind you.

“Alrighty, I got you guys all checked in. Enjoy your stay!” the concierge handed you a singular set of keys.

“Oh, I’m sorry, there must be a mistake. We’re in two separate rooms,” you politely tried to hand back the keys.

“The reservation is for a singular suite,” the concierge explained.

“Probably cheaper that way,” Hoseok reasoned while nodding.

Your fake smile faltered for a second. How the hell are you supposed to spend an entire weekend sharing a room with the most despicable person on the planet?

At least the hotel itself was grand. There was no way you’d ever be able to afford to stay in such a swanky place. The lobby was decorated with ornate marble pillars that were laced with gold trimmings. It even had a fancy fountain in the middle to greet incoming guests, which you thought was a bit overkill.

“Excited to sleep with me, princess?” Hoseok teased, obviously picking up on your annoyance.

“Fuck off. Stay the hell away from my bed and my things,” you spat.

“Who’s to say that you won’t be able to stay away from my bed?” he smirked.

“You wish,” you rolled your eyes as the elevator finally stopped on the top floor.

You led the way to your shared suite with Hoseok. The trip was exhausting; you couldn’t wait to take a nap on your large luxurious bed that was probably topped with Egyptian cotton (one can dream).

You immediately dropped your bags on the side of the room and flopped onto the bed, shutting your eyes.

“Interesting,” Hoseok said.

You ignored him.

“Very interesting,” he continued.

“What? What is so interesting?” you sat up and glared at him in frustration.

“Take a quick glance around the room,” he suggested.

Your heart sank, “No fucking way.”

You loved this trope in fanfics, but in real life? Fuck no, not with this asshole. Yes, there was only one luxurious king sized bed in the room.

“Well, looks like you're going to sleep on the floor,” you smiled sweetly at him.

“The bed is huge, we can definitely share,” Hoseok argued.

“I think the fuck not,” you dropped back onto the bed, “I’m sure you’ll whore your way into someone else’s bed each night anyway.”

“I don’t think I need to, not when I’m already sharing a bed with you,” he flirted.

“Bite me, Hoseok,” you sighed, not in the mood for a tit for tat.

“Are you into that? I’d happily oblige,” he responded as he sat on the other side of the bed.

“I’m afraid that’s confidential information that you are not privy to,” you huffed, turning away from him.

“Are you really going to make me sleep on the floor?” he asked quietly.

“Would you listen to me if I said I wanted you to?” you were curious to know.

“Look, I’ll admit that I can be an asshole, but I’m not a creep. If you’re really not comfortable with sharing a bed with me I’ll sleep on the floor. All I’d ask of you is to spare me a pillow.”

There was a short silence as you mulled over your options.

“Fine, we can share the bed. But I demand a pillow divider to be set between us,” you caved.

“Wahoo! Thank you so much for your generosity, ___. Do you want to use the bathroom to get ready for bed first, or shall I?” Hoseok celebrated.

“I’ll get ready first,” you lazily rolled off the bed and trudged to the bathroom.

You were so tired that you missed hearing Hoseok’s soft chuckle as he watched you stumble to the bathroom. He patiently waited for you to finish before it was his turn to get ready for bed. You were sound asleep by the time he was done.

The blankets were haphazardly sprawled out on your side of the bed. One leg was under the covers while the other was completely exposed. Your mouth was agape with a bit of drool seeping out, and your shirt lifted up to expose some of your tummy.

Hoseok smiled at the sight. Never in a million years did he think he’d ever be lucky enough to see you like this. He pulled down your shirt in an attempt to make you look decent, but there was nothing he could do about your drooling. He tucked you into the sheets properly, making sure that the blankets covered you up to your neck.

He settled into his side of the bed. You forgot to put up the pillow divider. Hoseok stared up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. He turned over to face you in an attempt to get comfortable.

‘She looks so sweet. Almost cute,’ Hoseok thought.

He quickly brushed the thought aside. You were his rival, and have been since the first day of college years ago. He sat up and created a pillow barrier. Bickering with you first thing in the morning was the last thing he wanted.

The first day of the conference was filled with attending various meetings while attempting to make as many networking connections as possible. You got up early and left the room before Hoseok was even awake. The less time spent with him, the better.

Of course, completely avoiding him was impossible. You were to sit with your respective company during the meetings and presentations. The VP sat between you and Hoseok, while the CEO switched between sitting on either side. You were thankful for the separation, but nervous nonetheless.

The CEO would occasionally lean over to ask you questions about the presentations, and he intently listened to your responses. The VP would merely look over occasionally to give you a smile or wink; he acted more like moral support. You knew the entire weekend would practically be an interview, but you underestimated how anxiety inducing it would be.

The higher ups finally left you alone when lunchtime came around. You picked up your lunch in the hotel’s decadent ballroom that had been turned into an eating area. You scouted an empty table in the far corner of the room in the hopes of finding some peace and quiet.

Hoseok had other plans. He saw you sit down at the table and happily followed you.

“Hey there buddy!” he greeted you as he sat down.

“Shouldn’t you be networking with new people?” you rolled your eyes at him.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he retorted as he took a bite of his sandwich.

“I’ve been doing that since before you were awake. I think I deserve a break,” you replied.

“I forgot that you’re quite the hard worker. I couldn’t have asked for better competition,” he said.

“Was that a compliment?” you asked with an amused grin.

“Yeah, and it’s the only one you’ll ever get from me. Is your pitch to the CEO ready?” Hoseok inquired.

“It has been. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is,” you proudly answered.

“Oh c’mon! Mine is ready too! You’re a damn fool if you think I’m gonna steal your idea. I’m just curious,” he pouted.

“Fine. I’ll tell you if you tell me yours first,” you offered.

“So distrustful,” Hoseok feigned offense, “Okay, so I think offering higher bonuses for working overtime would be a good start. There could even be competitive bonuses in each department for the person who gets the best numbers that month.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” you said at first, “But don’t you think that would just create more animosity between coworkers?”

“I think competition is a healthy motivation factor. It worked for me in college,” Hoseok defended his idea.

“Everyone is competitive in college. Especially in the business schools,” you argued.

“Yeah, but not everyone is you,” Hoseok stated.

“Excuse me?”

“Honestly, I probably wouldn’t be here today if you weren’t always on my ass,” he admitted, “Being your rival was kinda fun. You got flustered so easily, it was almost cute.”

“I do not get flustered easily! Plus, it was always you who was on my ass,” you huffed.

“I see that you still do,” Hoseok laughed, “But seriously. The universe brought us together again so I guess it’s telling me to thank you.”

“That’s uncharacteristically nice of you to say,” you looked away from him to hide your reddening cheeks, “You pushed me too, so thanks for that...I guess.”

“Mhm, no problem buddy. I’ll see you in the next presentation room,” he got up to leave.

“Wait Hoseok!” you called after him.

“Yeah?” he turned around quickly.

“I didn’t tell you my idea--”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s brilliant,” he winked before walking away.

The rest of the day passed by quickly. You retired to your room, exhausted from all the forced socialization. Your mind was stuck on what Hoseok said earlier. Maybe he wasn’t as big of an asshole as you thought. Perhaps you mistook a friendly rivalry for toxic competition.

You were sprawled out across the bed in your pjs when Hoseok entered the room.

“Are you gonna sleep like that?” he asked.

“You’re gonna have to forcibly remove me from your side if you want it that badly,” you replied with your eyes still closed.

“That’s fine,” Hoseok said as he abruptly rolled you over to your side.

“Hey!” you squeaked out in protest.

“It was either that, or I laid on top of you and suffocated you.”

“Hmph,” you let out a displeased noise.

“Oh my god, you’re so bratty. How old are you?” Hoseok chuckled.

“Old enough to know that you’re a meanie,” your response was muffled by the pillow you buried your face in.

“Sorry I’m a what?” Hoseok teased.

“A meanie!” you quickly got up and slammed a pillow into Hoseok, catching him by surprise.

“I’m the meanie? You just pelted me with a pillow!” he cowered away from you.

“And I’ll do it again!” you threatened.

“I don’t think so,” Hoseok suddenly lurched forward, tackling you back onto your side of the bed.

You’re both laughing at this point. Seeing Hoseok up close and personal made you realize how handsome he truly was. Had he always been this attractive? Hoseok’s cheerful laugh echoed throughout the room as he loomed over you, pinning you down.

“I’ll get off if you promise not to hit me with a pillow ever again,” Hoseok tried to say in a serious tone, but his smile betrayed him.

“Sorry, I can’t make such a ridiculous promise,” you sassed.

“God, you really are so bratty. Kinda cute, kinda naughty,” Hoseok tsked.

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” you stuck your tongue out at him.

Hoseok leaned down to whisper in your ear, “Oh, I’m sure there’s something I could do.”

That sent chills down your spine. This was perhaps the most intimate moment you’ve shared with someone in a long time.

“Keep dreaming then, lover boy,” you said. Truth be told, just that one sentence turned you on, but you couldn’t let him know that.

“As you wish,” Hoseok released you and retreated back to his side of the bed.

“Maybe you aren’t as big of an asshole as I remembered,” you chuckled.

“You thought I was an asshole?” Hoseok laughed.

“I did. Maybe I still do. Not that it matters, we’ll never see each other again after this stupid conference.”

“That’s not true,” Hoseok disagreed, “I’ll be on the executive council, so you may see me from time to time.”

“I like the confidence. Too bad it’s in vain,” you teased, “I’m going to bed. Our day starts early tomorrow.”

“Our?”

“The. The day starts early tomorrow. Just go to bed Hoseok,” your turned over to conceal the faint smile on your face. Maybe he wasn’t so bad afterall.

The second day of the conference started off as boring as the previous day. The various presenters droned on about different strategies regarding the improvement of a company with a plethora of charts and numbers to back it all up. The CEO wasn’t as talkative today to either you or Hoseok. The VP still made his reassuring gestures to you, flashing smiles and winks here and there.

“Can I see you privately after the last morning presentation?” the VP whispered to you.

“Yes, of course!” you excitedly answer. Currying the VP’s favor may come in handy later.

After the last presentation, the VP discreetly led you to a vacant corner. His tone became serious as he began to speak.

“The CEO discussed his initial thoughts with me last night. I know I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he’s currently leaning towards Hoseok,” he explained.

The news made your heart sink.

“I’d rather see you on the executive council, if I’m being frank. My pride is on the line since I recommended you,” his voice lowered, “However, I think there is a way to sway his opinion.”

“Which is?” you eagerly asked.

“Someone might overhear here, meet me in my room in an hour,” the VP covertly handed you his room key.

He walked away without another word. The fact that the VP was on your side gave you a faint sliver of hope. The next hour of free time was spent frantically networking while your mind was obviously elsewhere. Every now and then you heard Hoseok’s voice, and just the sound of it spurred you on to make even more connections. By the end of it, your face began to hurt from all the fake smiling.

You were standing in front of the VP’s hotel room exactly an hour after your secret rendezvous. The door opened immediately after you knocked.

“You’re extremely punctual; that’s wonderful,” the VP observed as you entered, “Make yourself comfortable.”

You scoured the room to find a place to sit. Your uneasiness must have been obvious, as the VP gestured towards the bed.

“Thank you,” you said as you awkwardly sat at the edge of the bed, “What is your plan?”

“It’s quite simple actually,” the VP sat beside you, “I just need to get to know you better. That way I can give an authentic and flawless review to the CEO.”

“So, you’re going to conduct an in-depth interview?” you asked timidly as you noticed him scooting closer to you.

“You could say that,” he voice lowered as he rested his hand on your thigh, “We have about 45 free minutes remaining. I believe you should make the most of this interview, Miss ___,” he smiled slyly as his hand began to travel upwards.

“How dare you?!” you yelled as you abruptly pushed him off of you, “I’m going to report you to HR!”

“Then say goodbye to your promotion. You really think you were chosen just because your numbers have been decent? You definitely were not the CEO’s first choice. He didn’t even know who you were. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here,” he explained with a shit eating grin.

“Then why the hell would you even bring me up to the CEO? Just so you could try and sleep with me?” you were enraged.

“Don’t blame me for wanting some eye candy to entertain me during this god awful convention,” he smirked.

“Fuck you, you fucking pig,” you spat.

“Ohhh feisty. I like that in a girl. If you leave now, you can kiss that promotion goodbye,” the VP called out to you as you stormed towards the door.

“And you can kiss my ass, and shove that promotion up yours,” you snapped, flipping him off before slamming the door behind you.

Tears welled in your eyes as you made your way to your room. You were absolutely distraught. Had all your hard work been for nothing? Had you been nothing but a pretty sight for men to stare at for the past five years?

You entered your hotel room to find Hoseok laying on the bed. You quickly wiped away your tears; you hadn’t expected him to be there. He appeared to be taking a nap. You watched his chest rise and fall slowly as you snuck into the bathroom. You freshened yourself up to the best of your abilities. Maybe a little power nap would help calm your nerves. Too bad Hoseok was taking up the bed. Fuck.

You left the bathroom to see if maybe you could curl up in one of the corners of the bed. Luckily, Hoseok was on his side of the bed. You set a timer for half an hour and slowly crawled under the covers. Your eyelids felt heavy as you closed them.

“If you wanted to cuddle you could’ve just let me know,” Hoseok’s voice surprised you.

“Well, I don’t. Leave me alone,” you responded.

“What if I want to cuddle?” he asked.

“There is an abundance of perfectly good pillows for you to use,” you sighed, then sniffled a little.

“Are you sick?” Hoseok asked with a worried tone.

“No, I’m fine,” you answered quickly, panicking.

“___, what’s wrong?” Hoseok was sitting up now.

“Nothing, leave me alone,” you turned away.

“If you insist, I won’t push it. Just know that you can talk to me if you need to,” he offered.

You heard him get off the bed. You pulled the sheets over your head to hide your face. You cried silently as Hoseok shuffled around the room, presumably getting ready to leave. Suddenly, he pounced on you.

“Hoseok! What the fu--” you cried out as he yanked the sheets off of you.

“Surprise attack!” he gleefully exclaimed.

His expression quickly changed when he saw your tear streaked face. You looked up at him with puffy eyes. You were too exhausted to hold your cold stare. Instead, you looked away in embarrassment.

“___, what happened?” he asked softly.

“It doesn’t matter. But congrats, you basically got the promotion,” you laughed in defeat.

“You spoke with the CEO?” Hoseok was shocked.

“No, with the VP. That stupid son of a bitch. He--nevermind. I blew my chance, so the job is all yours. I am almost positive that I am unemployed now as well,” the tears returned and you couldn’t stop them.

“Hey, ___, it’s okay,” Hoseok tried to comfort you, “If the CEO didn’t tell you himself, then you can’t be 100% certain.”

“I was literally only invited because the VP tried to get in my pants!” you blurted out.

“What?” Hoseok was dumbfounded.

“He just told me that I’d have the job if I had sex with him. Can you fucking believe that? How long have I not been taken seriously? This has been so demoralizing,” you let it all out.

“Aw, c’mere,” Hoseok pulled you up and gave you a warm embrace, “What did you say to him?”

“I told him to shove it,” you sniffled against his firm chest.

“There’s the you I know. You haven’t changed a bit,” he chuckled, “We can talk to the CEO together tomorrow about this.”

“Why would you help me? The promotion is basically yours because of this,” you sighed.

“I don’t really care for it, if I’m being honest. I’m satisfied with my job now. I don’t want any more responsibilities,” he answered while stroking your hair.

“Then why are you here?” you looked up at him.

“I only agreed to come after they told me that you’d be here,” he admitted.

You didn’t know what to say. Too many things have happened in the past hour alone.

“Don’t get it twisted, I was just curious to see how you’ve been after all these years. Plus a free trip is always enticing. Getting to share a bed with you has just been an added bonus,” he smiled.

Your timer rang, causing you to break away from Hoseok’s arms.

“Guess it’s time to go to more boring meetings. Yay,” Hoseok feigned enthusiasm.

“I’m gonna stay here. There’s no point in me attending anymore,” you stated.

“Nope, you’re going. I’m dragging you with me! You gotta show the VP that he didn’t frazzle you at all. Fuck that guy. Well, not literally,” Hoseok was pulling you out of bed.

Hoseok subtly made sure that you sat between him and the CEO the entire time. You caught him giving the VP dirty looks, which made you feel a little better.

You quickly excused yourself after the last meeting and tried to make a break for your room. Unfortunately, Hoseok prevented you from doing so.

“You got a date for the banquet tonight?” he asked.

“No. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem because I’m not going. Have fun with your date though,” you shook your head.

“Who said I had a date?”

“I’m sure women were basically throwing themselves at you.”

“You’re not wrong, but I turned them all down. I have my eyes set on one gal.”

“Lucky her, I guess,” you rolled your eyes.

“Indeed. Although I still gotta ask her,” he looked around the room as if he was searching for her.

“You better hurry. Isn’t it in a couple hours?”

“Yep. Alright, here goes nothing!” Hoseok rushed off, finally giving you the chance to disappear.

You let out a sigh of relief as the elevator doors start to close. However, someone’s hand shot through at the last second. Hoseok stumbled in as the elevator doors reopened. You groaned. Why can’t you escape him?

“Did she say yes?” you asked with an indifferent tone.

“Not sure yet. Will you go to the banquet with me?” Hoseok asked.

“Fuck off.”

“Alright, well she just said no. Ouch,” Hoseok clicked his tongue.

“Wait, are you being serious?” your eyes widened.

“If the word ‘date’ threw you off, then I’m happy with going as friends,” he proposed.

“I’m flattered, but I’m really not in the mood to party with random strangers.”

“You don’t have to. Just party with me. Why would I let you be sad and mopey all alone in a hotel room when you could be drinking free booze?”

“Is the alcohol is free?”

“Duh, it’s all being charged to the company. Plus dinner is served.”

“Ok fine, I’ll go. I guess I didn’t pack that stupid dress for nothing.”

“Let’s not allow a gorgeous dress to go to waste,” Hoseok agreed.

“You haven’t even seen it,” you suppressed a smile.

“Anything can be gorgeous if you’re the one wearing it,” he winked.

“Oh, shut up,” a small smile cracked on your face.

Hoseok was the first to get ready for the banquet. He wanted your look to be a surprise so he insisted on going first. You were beginning to find his weird yet endearing antics kind of cute.

You weren’t prepared when he came out of the bathroom. You were well aware that Hoseok was a handsome guy, maybe even handsome enough to model. However, you weren’t ready when Hoseok emerged in a grey suit with his hair styled to reveal his forehead. His radiance was comparable to that of the sun, and he only shone brighter when he smiled at you.

“You look good,” you tried to act cool.

“Thank you! I’ll admit I do enjoy dressing up from time to time. But who doesn’t, am I right?” he beamed.

You nodded as you hauled your things into the bathroom. After about an hour, you were ready: fully dressed, makeup done, confidence soaring. You had forgotten how therapeutic dressing up could be.

Your dress was a deep emerald green that was elegant yet seductive. It had a side slit that flirtatiously showed off one of your legs. The neckline gracefully outlined your cleavage while still remaining on the classy side.

“Holy shit. You look amazing!” Hoseok praised you as soon as you stepped out.

“I was only trying to match you,” you said shyly, trying to hide your flushed cheeks.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be the most breathtaking duo there. Shall we depart?” he extended out an arm.

The dinner started out with boring speeches by people you didn’t care to remember the names of. Hoseok elected to sit at the table furthest away from the stage, which was an excellent choice. That allowed the two of you to chat the night away in hushed voices. You both had already gone through five glasses of wine by the time the speeches were finally over.

“The dance floor is now open! Enjoy the rest of the night, and don’t forget that there’s an open bar!” the MC shouted through the mic.

The lights dimmed and a disco ball lowered in the center of the room. People began to crowd the dance floor. You laughed with Hoseok as you both observed various awkward shuffles and sways.

“Wanna dance?” Hoseok yelled over the music.

“I can’t!” you yelled back.

“I’m sure you can! Let’s go!” Hoseok didn’t wait for a reply.

He dragged you to an empty space on the dance floor. The two of you began drawing attention to yourselves as soon as you stepped out. Two beauties were dancing in the open for everyone to see. You shyly swayed to the rhythm of the music and laughed at Hoseok’s silly moves. However, Hoseok began to move in a way that was absolutely bewitching. He looked like a professional dancer with the way he commanded his body to hit every beat. Hoseok had drawn a very large crowd as people began cheering him on.

You were amazed by his stage presence. You’ve always had a thing for dancers, and he looked downright sexy. The song ended and Hoseok gave his audience a dramatic bow, awarding him deafening applause.

“I didn’t know you could dance!” you shouted when he returned to your side.

“I like to dance in my free time! Did you like it?” he shouted back.

“I’ll admit it was sexy,” you laughed.

“You think I’m sexy?”

“Maybe I do,” you winked.

You had more fun than you expected while dancing with Hoseok. He made you feel secure, so you were able to let loose. You didn’t care what you looked like, as long as Hoseok was there with you.

The night progressed and you began to feel bold. A particularly raunchy song came on, as if it were asking you to grind on Hoseok. And that’s exactly what you did. You guided his hands to your hips as you grinded into his crotch

“You sure you wanna be doing that?” Hoseok spoke into your ear with a low voice.

“Absolutely,” you replied.

Hoseok spun you around and gazed at you intimately while he brought you closer into his body. Various body parts were rubbing against each other now. The sexual tension was palpable.

Hoseok’s hands were running up and down your body, and your mouth was dangerously close to his neck. The scent of his cologne was intoxicating. You couldn’t help yourself; you leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on his neck. His low growl was an indication that he liked it, so you kissed him again with more vigor.

“You’re going to have to stop,” he scolded.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Did I overstep your boundaries?” you were embarrassed.

“Absolutely not. But I can’t fuck you out here in public now can I?” he towed you off the dance floor and made a beeline for the elevators.

Thank god no one else was in the elevator, neither of you could keep your paws off of each other. Hoseok’s hands were unabashedly feeling you up and down while his crotch was slowly grinding into yours. Your arms were wrapped around his neck as you planted kisses along his sharp jawline.

Hoseok couldn’t stop whispering naughty things into your ear during the entire elevator trip up to your shared room. His lowered voice sent chills down your spine as he expressed just how eager he was to finally have you. You felt yourself getting wetter by the second.

“I wanted to strip off that dress the moment I saw you wearing it,” he cooed, “God, I can’t wait to see how beautiful you’ll look underneath me.”

“Hoseok, do you ever shut up?” you teased with a coy smile.

“I dunno, you might have to make me,” he played along.

“Maybe sitting on your handsome face will do the trick,” you said as you nipped his ear.

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The elevator doors finally opened, and Hoseok quickly dragged you out. He immediately tore off your dress the moment the hotel room door was closed. You did him the same favor as you frantically unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his toned body.

“Why don’t you be a good boy and wait for me on the bed?” you suggested.

“Yes ma’am,” he complied, his eyes never leaving your body.

“Like what you see?” you asked, turning around slowly to fully show off the lingerie that perfectly complimented your body.

“You are so fucking sexy, ___,” Hoseok smiled in awe.

“I’m so glad you think so. You’re not too bad yourself,” you winked at him.

You finally joined Hoseok on the bed. You kiss his body from his abdomen all the way up his chest before stopping at his mouth. You took a second to relish the feeling of his plush lips against yours before he deepened the kiss with a ferocious intensity.

“Wanna try and shut me up now?” Hoseok lifted his eyebrows suggestively once the kiss broke.

“With pleasure,” you responded as you began to position yourself above him, “Wait, do you want me to take this off?” you gestured to your undergarments.

“No need,” he said before abruptly pulling aside your panties.

You slowly lowered yourself onto his face and stopped when you felt his breath on your pussy. Hoseok impatiently gripped your hips and pulled you directly onto his tongue. The sudden contact made you gasp. Hoseok didn’t waste any time getting down to business.

He flattened his tongue out to cover as much area as possible as he licked across your folds. He expertly flicked and lapped your pussy in the perfect places. Your legs began to tremble, and you had to grip onto the bed’s headboard for support.

You looked down to see the beautiful man’s face buried in your pussy; that sight alone was almost enough to bring you over the edge. Hoseok’s hands slithered their way up to your chest, where he began to twist and pull at your sensitive nipples through your bra.

“You taste--so good,” Hoseok panted out from underneath you.

“Should I get off--fuck!” you were interrupted by Hoseok sucking on your clit.

His mouth was heaven sent. Your body began to heat up and soon you lost the strength to hold yourself up even against the headboard.

You cried out as you came all over Hoseok’s face. His face was glistening with your juices as he smiled up at you. He seductively licked his lips to taste you again.

“Your turn?” you asked.

“As much as I wanna see your pretty lips wrapped around my cock, I think I need to be inside you more,” he replied as he repositioned himself.

He stripped off the rest of his clothing. You watched with admiration as more of his skin became exposed.

“You can take off the fancy underwear now,” he said once he caught you staring.

“You don’t want to see it anymore?” you fakeed a pout.

“___, you’re drop dead gorgeous in it. However, I advise you to take it off yourself because I won’t hold back. I don’t want to ruin your underwear, just you,” he replied.

Hoseok mixed in little nibbles while he kissed along your neck. Your voice dripped with bliss as you quietly moaned.

“I guess you do like being bitten, huh? What about this?” Hoseok licked your neck, causing you to squirm underneath him.

“I think I like that too,” you whispered, biting your lip.

You wriggled out of your undergarments, leaving yourself completely naked in front of Hoseok. You pull at the hem of Hoseok’s underwear, eager to see what he was packing.

You were not disappointed. Although he was well endowed, what he lacked in length was made up for in girth.

“Do you want me to use a condom?” he asked.

“I’m on the pill, and I’m pretty sure I’m clean. I haven’t been intimate in an embarrassingly long amount of time,” you admitted, blushing.

“I find that hard to believe,” Hoseok said while kissing around your face, “Since you’re so damn beautiful,” his lips found yours and led you into a passionate kiss.

His hips began to grind into yours, his dick rubbing against your bare pussy. You wrapped your legs around him, bringing him closer.

“Please don’t tease me,” you pleaded.

“What are the magic words?” Hoseok teased.

“Fuck me, Hobi,” you begged.

“Oh my fucking god,” he growled.

He slammed his hips into yours, not giving you enough time to adjust to him. The stretch was intense at first, but it soon turned into nothing but pleasure. Your euphoria grew as he rhythmically bucked his hips into you.

Hoseok spread your legs out as wide as you could go, giving him quite the erotic view that only aroused him more. You tried to stifle your moans, but were failing miserably.

“Don’t hold back baby, let me hear you. Show me how good I make you feel,” he leaned over to whisper into your ear.

You complied instantly, your moans resounding around the room. Hoseok’s position allowed him to hit you deeply with every stroke. Without a word, he pulled out of you and flipped you over onto your knees. He roughly forced your chest down, leaving your ass in the air for him.

“Your ass is so fucking fat,” he said as his hand connected with your bare skin, causing you to shriek.

He kissed it afterward while his fingers teased your clit. He realigned himself with your entrance. This new position was even better than the last. You could no longer hold in your moans even if you wanted to. Hoseok repeatedly hit your g-spot, and you could feel another orgasm welling up within you.

“Hobi, I’m gonna cum,” you cry out.

“Say that again,” he demanded.

“I-i’m gonna cum!”

“No, not that. That’s hot but call me Hobi again,” he chuckled.

“Hobi!” you said with an exasperated tone.

“Yes princess? Fuck, I’m close,” Hoseok’s movements were becoming more haphazard by the second.

“Hobi, right there oh my god keep going please,” you begged, “Hobi...ah shit!” you came undone.

It wasn’t long after until Hoseok followed suit, pulling out to cum all over your ass. He rolled off the bed to get something to clean you up with.

“How are you feeling?” Hoseok asked.

“Better. You?” you answered.

“Doing pretty well. I fucked the girl of my dreams,” he said gleefully.

“Shut up,” you playfully pushed him.

“I’m serious. I’ve adored you since college. I lived for your playful banter,” he began to explain.

“It wasn’t playful,” you interjected.

“Yeah, I know. But that’s what made it fun! All the other girls just wanted to be with me for my looks or whatever. None of them knew the real me.”

“And I did?”

“More so than most. You always pushed me to do my best. I really just wanted to be good enough for you. Kind of silly huh? I even dated that girl in an attempt to make you jealous. Which backfired since her dad was Professor whatshisface who took me on that trip,” Hoseok opened up.

“Hobi I...I’m so sorry. I was such a bitch to you back then. And now too I guess. My competitive side gets the better of me. I was always annoyed by how you were seemingly good at everything. It even irritated me that you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life,” you began to apologize, “Oh, and his name is Namjoon. Professor Namjoon.”

“Thanks for reminding me. I hate to admit it but he made me a little jealous. I wanted you to praise me the way you praised him. Anyway, things can change now that everything's out in the open,” Hoseok smiled, “You’re even calling me Hobi! I’ve been dreaming about this moment.”

“Was it everything you ever hoped for?” you joked.

“You said it when you asked me to fuck you, then you said it multiple times while I was balls deep inside of you. So yeah, I would say it was everything I could’ve hoped for, if not more,” he pulled you into his chest.

The two of you continued talking for what felt like hours while cuddling. You hadn’t been this relaxed in ages. You were nearly asleep on his chest when he stroked a strand of hair from your face.

“Tomorrow will be interesting, huh?” he said softly.

“I guess I still have to pitch my idea to the CEO,” you sighed softly, “What a waste of time.”

“It’s not a waste of time if you’re gonna get the promotion,” Hoseok reprimanded.

“I already told you, I’m not. The VP will make sure that you get it. This is good for you. Don’t worry about me,” you kissed his cheek, “We should get some sleep now.”

“Alright. Goodnight, ___,” he kissed your forehead.

“Goodnight Hobi.”

“Fuck, I really love when you say that.”

It was time. Time to pitch your idea to the CEO for no damn reason. You were beyond nervous, and Hoseok could tell. He tried to ease your nerves by giving you a firm shoulder massage as you both waited to be called into a small conference room.

The VP emerged, ignoring your mean scowl, and called Hoseok in to present first. Of course he would go first, no need to waste time hearing your proposal.

It was an anxiety riddled wait. You recounted the previous day’s events, which was a mistake because that only infuriated you. The whole situation was an affront on your character, and you will not stand for it. You debated giving the VP another piece of your mind at the end of everything.

“___, you’re up,” the VP called you after Hobi finished.

“You’re gonna kill it,” Hobi encouraged you, coupled with a pat on the back.

“This is pointless and you know that,” you sighed.

Hobi shook his head in disagreement. It was heartwarming to see how supportive he was being. Maybe it was due to the fact that the job was practically his already. It doesn’t matter now.

“Good morning gentlemen,” you greet them.

“The floor is yours, Miss ___,” the CEO responded cordially.

“I’ll keep it short and simple. I propose that the best way to improve the company is to shorten work day hours and increase PTO days,” you said confidently.

“Is that it? Can you expound on that?” the VP cynically asked.

“Yes, I’m so glad you asked,” you smiled coldly, “Studies show that employees are exponentially more productive when they are happier. Not only will the company become more efficient, but the overall company atmosphere will become more positive. Interpersonal relationships between employees and bosses will improve in an appropriate professional manner,” you glared at the VP.

“That’s a very interesting take,” the CEO said thoughtfully, “Do you have any suggestions regarding the actual work that the company does?”

“No sir. The company has been thriving, so I believe that the way things are running now are proficient. However, as a company, we should always be willing to listen to our employees’ concerns,” you stated.

“You’ve brought up interesting points to the table. As an employee, do you have any concerns you’d like to express?” the CEO asked.

“There is one pressing matter that comes to mind,” you stole a glance at the VP to see him shift uncomfortably in his seat, “I firmly expect that employee/supervisor relationships should be strictly professional.”

“Are you just giving us your opinion on office romances?” the VP sneered.

“I believe that trying to use intimacy as leverage is highly immoral, if not a fireable offense,” you held your ground.

“Of course,” the CEO agreed.

“Then said employee would simply need to file a complaint with HR,” the VP dismissed you.

“What better way to get my complaint heard than speaking directly to the CEO?” you smiled sweetly, “Sir, yesterday the man sitting beside you crudely suggested that I sleep with him in order to gain the promotion. He also alluded that all of my accomplishments are for naught, and that I am purely ‘eye candy’.”

“Is this true?” the CEO asked his VP in dismay.

“Of course not. She’s grasping at straws. Look how desperate she is to get the job,” the VP quickly defended himself.

“I am not lying. I am fully prepared to be fired on the spot. I cannot continue to work at a company that allows this kind of sloppy behavior to go unpunished. Thank you for your time,” you bowed and quickly took your leave.

You released a huge sigh as soon as you were outside of the room. Hobi rushed over to your side. Suddenly, you began to laugh hysterically. Hobi looked at you nervously, obviously concerned about your mental state.

“Isn’t it so funny? All my hard work had just been flushed down the toilet by a stupid man drunk on power. I love that!” you wheezed.

“___, ___ calm down. What happened?” Hobi inquired.

You told him what just went down. A smile crept across his face as you got to the part where you put the VP on the spot.

“I wouldn’t count yourself out just yet dude,” Hoseok shrugged, “All we can do is wait.”

“Yeah, I’ll be the first one to congratulate you on your new job. Then I’ll begin my search for a new one,” you gave him a thumbs up.

The VP stumbled out of the room and angrily stomped towards the both of you.

“You fucking bitch! Who do you think you are? Do you even know what you’ve done? I know people. I’m gonna make sure your life is hell!” he yelled at you.

“That’s enough! You have been dismissed. I do not want to see your face around here again. Clean out your office on Monday,” the CEO ordered, “Would the both of you please follow me back into the room?”

You both timidly followed him, curious as to what he had to say.

“I apologize on behalf of the company for this incident. This isn’t the first time a complaint has been filed against him. Unfortunately, he always told me that they were just futile grasps for leverage and I foolishly believed him. However, his loss is your gain,” he smiled, “How would you like to be my new Vice President?”

You were agog. Hoseok’s eyes widened as he stood beside you.

“Surely there are more qualified people,” you stammered in disbelief.

“There definitely are. But none of them are what this company needs. It takes a special person to have their rival pitch all the reasons why you are a better candidate than they are,” the CEO happily nodded.

“I- he what?” you cast a surprised look at Hobi.

“Oh yes. He spent all his time highlighting your best qualities as an employee. It was quite a shock,” the CEO smiled.

“I will humbly accept your offer. Thank you so much sir, I will work even harder!” you bowed gratefully.

“That brings me to Mr. Jung. The position on the executive council is yours, if you want it,” the CEO offered.

“If the offer is unopposed, then I have no choice but to accept. I will do my best!” Hobi joined in your bowing.

“Wonderful! It’ll be refreshing to see some lively young faces at those atrocious meetings,” the CEO laughed, “Oh, and one more thing. The two of you will have to relocate to the main branch, I hope that’s okay. I look forward to working with both of you.”

You both nodded gleefully. After the CEO dismissed the pair of you, the trip back up to your hotel room was nothing but joyous. It was like you were in a dream that you never wanted to wake up from. You even pinched each other to make sure it was all real.

“I can’t believe you were advocating for me,” you hugged him.

“You deserve it. Your impressive diligence should not go unrewarded,” he squeezed you tighter, “Plus, this ended up being pretty sweet! Congratulations to both of us!”

“We need to go out to celebrate!” you wiggled.

“Yes! Let me take you out,” Hobi tackled you onto the bed.

“Where shall we go?” you playfully ask.

“Maybe we should go explore our new city together?” he suggested.

“Our?”

“Yes, our. And when I say I’m gonna take you out, I mean as a date. Because I want to date you. And have been wanting to for years,” Hoseok charismatically emphasized.

“I’m looking forward to starting this new chapter of my life with you then, Mr. Jung Hoseok,” you press your forehead against his.

“Imma be all up in your bidness girl,” he joked.

“Your business is my business now loser,” you teased back.

Looks like all that hard work had paid off, and there’s no better reward than finally being with Jung Hoseok.

#bts smut #bangtanarmynet #btswritingcafe #btscreatorscorner #ksmutclub #jung hoseok smut #bts angst #jung hoseok angst #bts fanfic #jhope smut #jhope angst #kpop fanfic #jhope fanfic #jung hoseok fanfic

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thelastdrop · 3 years

Text

Festival 3: Past

Blackpink Jisoo x Male Reader

5207 words

Categories: smut

Read on AFF

“… and that is why we would like to continue to aggressively pursue the use of your company’s electronics while we work to build more advanced models. Thank you.”

The words came into your right ear as your translator spoke into a small microphone they were given.

As the older Korean businessman finishes his presentation with a bow, you look over at Mr. Hegstad, the Vice President of your company, and see he’s begun to gather his belongings. You quickly followed his lead and gathered up all the papers that had been handed out during the meeting and tried to organize them quickly so you didn’t get left behind.

“Piglet don’t forget to take your earpiece out and give it back to our translator,” Mr. Hegstad said, “Having to replace those is a pain in the ass.”

“Yes, sir.” you replied.

‘Piglet’ a nickname that had been graciously given to you by Mr. Hegstad. Even though he was only five years older than you he was already VP of your company. Climbing the corporate ladder at such an astounding rate made him the envy of a lot of different corporations, who were seeking young executives they could start grooming to take over as the next CEO of their respective companies.

You took out your earpiece and placed it in the white bin labeled with some Korean characters and the word ‘EARPIECE’ below it in big black bold letters. As you looked up, you saw that Mr. Hegstad was already out the door of the conference room. Quickly shoving the documents inside your bag, you slung it across your body and squeezed your way through the crowd exiting the room.

Mr. Hegstad still had his head facing forward as you finally emerged on the other side of the door, giving you hope that he hadn't noticed your absence by his side yet. Sprinting after him, you brought yourself to a leisurely walk as you got closer.

“Glad you finally caught up Piglet,” he chuckles, “Thought I’d have to leave you behind.”

“Sorry for worrying you, Mr. Hegstad,” you sighed in defeat.

“Aw c'mon now you know I wouldn’t have actually left you alone in a country you don’t know, right? And for the love of god when it’s just you and me call me John,” he said, as he threw his arm over your shoulder. “I’m barely older than you and having you of all people call me Mr. Hegstad makes me feel way older than I am.”

“I’ll try my best,” you answered.

“That’s the spirit!” he exclaimed as he gave your chest a firm slap, “Now pleeeeeeease tell me we’re done for the day.”

You pulled out your phone and checked the detailed schedule Mr. Hegstad’s secretary gave to you before coming to South Korea.

—

When your boss called you into his office in the middle of the workday a few weeks ago you were worried you’d messed something up pretty bad. As he began to tell you of the opportunity you were being offered you weren’t sure if he was serious. You were chosen by the higher ups to accompany the VP of your company on a month long business trip to South Korea to act as his do-it-all man. It had only been six months since you started working here and you didn’t know what to say.

“But, why me? I don’t even speak Korean?” you asked dumbfounded.

“This is a position that’s given out every year.” your boss began, “Every year our company sends one of the executives to South Korea in order to talk about the following years business deals with the multiple companies we work with there.”

While you processed what he was saying to you, you couldn’t tell if this was a dream or not. As you tried to wrap your head around it, living in South Korea for a whole month seemed wild to you. You don’t know the first thing about South Korea: the food, the language, the culture. Just then you're brought back into the moment as your boss continues.

“Now this isn’t an easy job,” he waned in a serious tone, “but it can prove to be a great starting point for your future at the company. Those who do a good job and earn the respect of the executive they travel with swiftly rise the ranks here. Mr. Hegstad was given that opportunity 4 years ago and look at where he is now. It also didn’t hurt that he went with the current CEO of the company.”

“I’ll take it!” you blurted out.

“Oh ho ho, an eager one I see,” he laughed, “well I hope you don’t end up regretting it. People who don’t do a good job end up with a much harder battle when looking for promotions.” He gestured out to an older man in his late 30s early 40s with the same job title as you.

“I-I won’t,” you stuttered out.

Over the next several weeks you would meet with Mr. Hegstad’s secretary and learn as much as you could about him. What he liked to drink after a long day's work, what his favorite snack was, what he liked to do to relax, even which side of the car he prefered to sit on. Anything and everything you could try and memorize you did, you also took sometime to look up some basic things about South Korea so you wouldn’t make a complete fool of yourself when you got there.

The day before you leave you met one last time with his secretary who gave you the itinerary for your trip. Every day laid out with the meetings, lunches, and dinners Mr. Hegstad was going to have while you were there. As you turned away from her desk to leave for the day, she wished you good luck with a smile.

—

“So are we done?” Mr. Hegstad asked again as you approached the elevator doors.

You locked your phone and put it back into your pocket, turning to him you said the three words he wanted to hear more than any other three words right now, “Yes, we’re done.”

He collapsed to his knees and wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Oh thank you, thank you sweet merciful god,” he said as he fake wept into your stomach.

“Si-Sir please get up, people are staring,” you said as you pull on the collar of his jacket to no avail. The elevator doors opened, luckily, with no one inside.

“Mr. Hegstad, please the elevator is here.” Once again you were only met with more fake weeping. You reached out and stuck your hand in the elevator to hold the doors open.

“JOHN!” you say loudly causing him to look up at you with puppy dog eyes. You motion toward the elevator, seeing that it had arrived he slowly rose to his feet giving you a pat on the shoulder as he entered the elevator. You rolled your eyes and then bowed to the crowd in an apologetic manner as you followed John onto the elevator.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,” John let out a sigh as he stretched his arms upwards, “So what are we doing tonight? This is the first night I've been free since we both got here so why don’t we go and do something fun?”

“I don’t know if I have it in me, s- I mean John.”

A grin spreads across his face as he heard you say his name, “Come on Piglet you spend most of your nights working so hard. Just take one night off and come drinking with me. I promise I won’t drag you to any clubs.”

You let out a long sigh knowing no matter how much you tried you weren’t getting out of this one. Looking at your watch and seeing that it was nearly 7 you knew you had to put your foot down.

“Fine, but only ONE beer then I have to get back to our hotel and get your documents in order for your day tomorrow.”

The doors to the elevator opened and you both began walking toward the entrance of the building where your car was waiting.

“Hey if that’s all I can get outta you Piglet then I’ll take it,” John said with a satisfied look on his face.

After returning to the hotel and getting changed you heard a knock on your door.

“Ohhhhh Piglet your best buddy is here to take you out for some fuuuuuun,” you heard John yelling behind the door to your room.

You opened the door and saw John in a very casual outfit. He was wearing a white shirt with a jean jacket over the top and a necklace with some kind of pendant on it hanging into his chest. That accompanied with the dark jeans he had on, gave you the sense that you were not dressed well enough to be seen with him.

“Heeeeyyyaaaah, what are you wearing?” he hasped with a horrified look on his face. “Nope nope nope you’re not going out like that. How are you going to end up with a girl tonight looking like that?”

“Ending up with a girl tonight?” you said confused as he brushed by you entering your room, “I thought I told you one beer and then I need to come back here and get ready for your day tomorrow.”

He started going through your closet and looking at the clothes you brought on the trip. “Yeah yeah, I know what you said,” he peeked his head out and looked at you, “but you need to learn how to live a little. You’re always so serious and I’m gonna make sure you get to unwind tonight.”

John dove back into your closet making various noises as he looked through your wardrobe. Some in disgust, some in indifference, and very few times in surprise at your choices, which you weren’t able to tell is a good or bad thing. Finally he came out with a handful of clothes and a pair of brown loafers.

He looked at you and then back at the clothes impatiently, “Well hurry up and change! Come on Piglet we’re losing time here!” He shouted at you.

You quickly picked up the clothes and headed into the bathroom. After you changed into your new outfit, you looked at yourself in the mirror. John had picked out a white short sleeve button up that had tiny dark blue dots on it and some dark gray pants. As you walked back out of the bathroom and into the room John gave you a curious look, like he was trying to understand a piece of artwork.

“Ah, I’ve got it,” he said as he rushed over to you. He then rolled your sleeves up until they were just below your shoulders and your pant legs up to show your ankles. He took a step back and looked upon his creation once more. He put all of his fingers to his mouth and gave a chef's kiss.

“Perfect, you’re definitely getting laid tonight,” he said with a wink as he walked beside you and put his arm on your shoulder, spinning you around so you were both linked up as you left your room.

Once you’re out of the hotel you both began walking, John vigilantly looked for a place where you two could have a good night. You passed a lot of places that seemed more than fitting for what you were looking to get out of the night.

“This is the place,” John blurted out, taking a hard left while he grabbed your sleeve and pulled you in with him. As you stepped into the bar, it looked like you stepped into another dimension.

Stepping off from the busy streets of Seoul, you were now in a quiet bar with light music playing. The all wooden interior gave you a very warm and comfortable feeling. The simplistic designs made into the woodwork on the ceiling and walls counteracted the curved support beams that sprang up from the floor and into the ceiling. There were two levels both with similar seating arrangements from what you could tell, a mixture of granite hightops and tables with the same red felt chairs at every location. The last thing that stood out was the long granite bar that stretched along the entire wall on the lower level.

John looked for some kind of staff and started talking to them in Korean.

“They said we can sit wherever we want and someone will come around to get our drink orders,” John relayed to you, “Let’s grab that open table right there.”

As you both sat down at the table you took a look around at the individuals in the bar. It seemed like a younger crowd, all of them around the same ages of you and John. John caught you looking and slapped you on the arm.

“See anyone you like Piglet?”

“Why do you call me that?”

“What? Piglet?” he teased before letting out a chuckle as you nodded back at him. “Well the first time I walked by where you work I saw you had a little Piglet plushie on your desk, and since I’m horrible at remembering new employees names I just called you Piglet and it stuck with me.”

“But can’t you just call me by my first name at this point,” you complained in an annoyed manner, “I mean, you’re making me call you by your first name.”

“No can do Piglet. You are locked in my brain as Piglet now and so shall you forever be called,” Josh said in a medieval-esque voice.

You let out a long sigh as a waitress approached your table. John took over and ordered both of your drinks. You both had small talk about what it had been like here so far, you asked John how about his experiences on this trip when he was where you were, and you both just passed the time having a good chat.

As you tipped your glass back for one final swig of the dark beer that was left in it you are stopped before the liquid can touch your lips. One of the most stunning women you had ever laid your eyes on had just walked into the bar. She had long black hair that fell down past her chest. She was wearing a slightly oversized all white button up with only her 3rd and 4th button being used revealing what looked to be a black crop top that stopped before her skirt began giving you a glimpse of her midriff. A black, dark gray and light gray plaid almost see through skirt was fashioned around her waist.

John seeing you stuck in place followed your line of sight and saw who you were staring at.

“Bingo,” he said as he rose from his seat making his way to where the woman was walking.

“Wait, John, no there’s no way I can talk to her,” you pleaded as you reached for his arm as he walked away, “I don’t even know Korean.”

“Stop worrying so much.” he teased, “It’s going to be a lot more embarrassing if I have to point you out to her than if you make the first move.” John said as he turned and continued walking toward the woman as she took a seat at the bar.

You debated whether you should just leave quickly and head back to the hotel or try and beat John to the woman. After only a couple seconds of deliberation, you quickly sprang out of your chair and rushed past John as you filled the seat next to the Korean woman.

“H-Hi,” you stuttered out. “Hello,” she responds with a Korean accent. Not knowing what to say you just sat there and stared at the beautiful woman in front of you. After a few moments that seemed like an eternity you felt something heavy crash around your shoulder. You looked over to see John standing above you, he gave you a wink before he talked with her in korean

You just sat there and smiled awkwardly while they talked. The only thing that you were able to pick out of the conversation is one word, Piglet. As soon as the word is mentioned you see her look at you and then back to John, she then pointed at you and said something you would think meant “Him?”. She then covered her mouth and began laughing while John did the same. Once the laughter died down and you sat there red in the face, John took his arm off your shoulder and leaned down into your ear.

“I’m leaving. Her name is Jisoo. Good luck Piglet.” he whispered and then rose back up and said goodbye to the two of you. As you watched him exit the bar you heard her sweet voice once more.

“So… Piglet.” she said.

“Well, um, you see he-” but your stammering is cut off by one word.

“Cute” she said with a smile as she looked you in the eyes.

All of the fear and embarrassment you had felt were washed away with one simple word that came out of this angel sitting before you. You felt as if all of the stress from the trip so far had melted away, leaving you in a complete state of relaxation.

“Yeah…,” you said, “cute.”

She nodded in affirmation.

“So… Jisoo, right?”

“Yes,” she answered back with a little bounce.

“Do you speak English a lot?” you asked.

“No… but I… learn for my job,” she said, proud of herself for finishing her sentence. “So we can… speak to make easier.”

“Okay.” you said as an uncontrollable grin wipes across your face causing Jisoo’s face to mimic your own.

For the next hour or longer you both sat together, talking as best you could about anything. You both began to get more comfortable around one another and finally Jisoo put her hand on top of yours and looked deep into your eyes.

“You… me… go to room together?”

“Yes.”

—

As soon as you stepped through the threshold of your hotel room, you were both on top of each other. Jisoo had pushed you back against the door causing it to close with a loud clack. She pushed her soft lips on yours surprising you at first, but you quickly recovered matching her movements. As you moved your hands through her open shirt to her exposed lower back, you pulled her deeper into you as you kissed. The feeling of her lips moving against yours was nothing short of spectacular, but you craved more. You pushed your tongue against her lips, looking for permission to access the warm, wet area behind them. When her lips parted an equally enthusiastic tongue darted out and began massaging your own. Trying to taste as much of her as you could you forced your tongue into her mouth. After several minutes of this back and forth, you pulled away gasping for air. A single string of saliva kept you two connected.

Your hands swiftly came around and worked at the two buttons holding her loose shirt in place as you began to walk her out of the short entrance hallway and into your room. She then began frantically doing the same to you shirt trying to be careful while walking backwards. As you finished her second button you pushed her shirt down over her shoulders trapping her arms against her body. She strained against your hold wanting to continue her objective and remove your shirt, only making it about half way down before you took control. You stood there at the precipice of your room using all your strength to hold her arms at her sides while trying not to rip the thin shirt.

Staring into her eyes you could see only one thing in them, lust. Pure lust. A wanting for you, a needing for you to do whatever you wanted to her. She was totally and completely yours for however long you would have her. You dove back into her capturing her lips once more, releasing the hold you had on her arms in the process. She moved quickly, taking her wrinkled shirt off and throwing it across the room as it left her body. Once again your slow march toward the bed began as your tongues battled for dominance. Your attention turned to your own shirt undoing the remaining button’s Jisoo failed to reach. Jisoo suddenly broke the kiss as she fell backwards onto your bed, her limbs sprawled out across its surface. The picture of this gorgeous Korean woman laid out across your white sheets looked like something the gods had intended to make a reality the moment she was born.

You slowly began to crawl over the top of her body, moving your face closer and closer to her own until your lips were inches apart. Jisoo lunged forward taking your lips once again and throwing her arms around your back, lightly digging her nails into it. This embrace was short lived as you began to trail kisses down her neck to her shoulder. With one hand you grabbed the small black crop top that was the only thing between you and her breasts. Jisoo moved to help you arching her back off the bed giving you the access you required. Leaning back, you grabbed the shirt and pulled it over her head as she stretched her arms upwards along the bed.

With her back still arched you moved down and took her erect nipple into your mouth, eliciting a moan out of the woman beneath you. Swirling your tongue around it in circles you massaged it, as you moved your other hand up her body capturing the ample tit in your palm. You began working it, squeezing it trying to earn more moans and gasps out of Jisoo. Pinching her left nipple between your fingers and biting down on her earned a deep moan from her. Liking what you heard you switched positions and repeated the process.

Feeling satisfied with the work you had done you once again began training kisses down her tight stomach. Inching closer to the waist line of her skirt you reached and seized it with your hands and began pulling it down giving you even more skin to worship. The trail of kissing continued down her stomach stopping at her navel giving it a kiss, earning a small giggle out of Jisoo. Your fingers gripped her panties signaling you to bring yourself up. As you brought yourself up onto one knee on the edge of the bed Jisoo closed her legs together allowing you to remove her two remaining articles of clothing.

As they slid off you got a good view of just how thick and meaty her thighs actually were. Staring at them as they parted giving you a clear view of her clean shaven slit caused your dick to strain against its pants. You put your hands under those thick thighs and lifted her up off the bed and pushed her further back so you could lie down as you approached her wet lips. Without warning you dove deep into her wet cavern, your tongue exploring as far as it could go. Her hands instantaneously started running through your hair trying to grasp as much of it as she could letting out a pleasured moan.

“Feels… so good…” Jisoo moaned.

Your assault continues as Jisoo tries to pull you deeper into her, waking to feel herself more full. As you hear her breathing start becoming labored you latch onto her clit and suck on it harshly. Jisoo’s thighs clamp around your head as she curls up into a ball and rolls on her side.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she chanted before she rolled back to her previous position and went rigid.

Jisoo’s sweet honey leaked out of her and coated your chin. You hungrily began to lap up as much of the liquid as you could. As you lifted your face from between her legs you watched as Jisoo’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with her breathing. She extended her arms outwards towards you.

“Come here,” she gasped between breaths.

She embraced you with another sloppy kiss as she tried to lick up her juice that covered your face. As you move up, your erect cock, still trapped in your pants, rubbed up against Jisoo’s crotch. A hum escaped her lips and she pushed her hips against yours. You broke the kiss and matched her moan with a much lower one of your own as you started humping into her, soaking the outside of your pants.

You looked down her body and watched as her abs flexed and relaxed with each movement of her hips, sending even more blood to your throbbing member. Jisoo grabbed your chin and made you lock eyes.

“Want inside.”

“Me too,” you responded to her breathlessly.

Immediately you rose to your feet and pulled your pants and briefs off and tossed them to the side. At the sight of you dick standing proud before her Jisoo bit down on her index finger. You lined your cock up above her slit and slowly pushed it inside making the two of you groan and moan in unison. You were able to slide it with relative ease but her tightness around your cock made the pleasure rise to an entirely different level.

Her walls clamped around your shaft, gripping it tightly as you settled into the sensations that were flowing through you. Grabbing handfuls of her thighs you pushed deeper feeling that same incredible tightness as it engulfed your whole dick.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” you growled.

“Y-you are so big. Do not stop.” Jisoo moaned.

You drew your hips back and pushed them forward and a slow and steady pace, wanting Jisoo to get used to your size. She began moaning at your motions moving her body to match your movements.

“Harder,” she let out breathlessly as you looked at her.

You upped your pace and chased after the satisfaction that you both craved. Jisoo’s moans grew much louder as your dick continuously hit her g-spot. It wasn’t long before her legs started shaking from the intense pleasure she was feeling.

Liking the reaction you were getting you increased your pace again, pistoning your dick in and out of her wet pussy. Her warm walls contracted against you as you mercilessly pounded this woman into the bed. You leaned down placing your arms on the side of her head and captured her lips. She continued moaning into your mouth, but you felt safer knowing you that no one would come in and interrupt what you two were doing.

Jisoo moved her arms under yours and dug her nails into your back. Wincing at the pain, but loving the feeling you did not stop thrusting in and out of her cunt. Her legs snaked around you, keeping you in place and not allowing you to leave.

“Please… do not stop,” Jisoo whispered out to you between her moans.

Feeling her reaching another climax you reached your hand down and found her clit. Almost as soon as you put pressure on it Jisoo’s eyes rolled back into her head. More and more liquids seeped out of her as you slowed your strokes as she began coming down. Both of you breathing heavily for a couple of seconds trying to regain yourselves.

As Jisoo looked at you a very satisfied smile came across her face, causing you to do the same.

“We… switch?” she asked between her breaths still smiling at you.

As if on cue you flipped your positions, Jisoo now sitting on top of your groin, your dick still completely inside her. Without a moment of hesitation Jisoo placed her hands on your chest and began riding you almost animalistically. She knew what she wanted and how to get it and chased after it as hard as she possibly could.

“Holy shit Jisoo,” you groaned as your dick was experiencing what felt like an undiscovered pleasure.

All you could manage was to move your hands to her hips as she rode you violently. After a few minutes of this she finally began slowing down. Upon seeing this opening you planted your feet firmly into the mattress and fucked up into her.

“Oooh my GOD!” Jisoo yelled as she bounced on top of your relentless thrusts.

Watching her ample boobs bounce in front of you was something too enticing to ignore. You reached your hands up and grabbed them both roughly not slowing your thrusts down for a second. Another loud moan escaped Jisoo as she felt pleasure coming from multiple places on her body. The loud slaps of your groin meeting her thighs and plump ass filled the room.

You could sense that your end was quickly approaching and returned your hands to Jisoo’s hips. Sensing what was coming as your cock grew even bigger inside her, she leaned down to you and captured your lips. Wordlessly you knew what she wanted. You lasted only a few more thrust before you unloaded deep inside her. Thick ropes coated her walls as you threw her arms around her pulling her in for a deeper kiss.

This was not like the rest of the kisses you had experienced throughout the night. This was a deep and sensual kiss that had no tongue, or movement, just two pairs of lips firmly on one another. As you felt yourself soften and fall out Jisoo, she finally pulled away from you.

“That was amazing,” she said in almost perfect English.

“You were amazing.”

Jisoo smiled at you and gave you a quick peck on the lips before rolling out of bed and walking toward your bathroom.

“We clean now?” she asked you.

You quickly jumped out of bed and picked her up, making her smile and laugh, as you carried her into the bathroom.

—

You woke up the next morning to knocking on your door. You sat up quickly and looked at the watch on your nightstand. 7:41 it read. You jumped out of bed quickly and threw on some pants rushing to the door. As you undid the locks and opened it John stood before you dressed and ready for the day.

“Forget to set an alarm there Piglet,” he said looking you up and down.

“Well, uh,” was all you could let out before John looked deeper into your room and saw another figure laying on your bed still sleeping.

He chuckled to himself as he looked back at you, “Take the day off Piglet. We start again bright and early tomorrow,” he said with what you could only assume was a happy look on his face.

A/N Hope you guys liked this! After I saw Jisoo post this picture on insta I felt like I had to write something for her. This chapter is one that I feel most proud of for sure and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Like always leave a comment below with any feedback.

#blackpink smut #jisoo smut #male reader #reader insert #jisoo #blackpink #kpop smut #kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction

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redfoxwritesstuff · 4 years

Text

Of Dust and Ashes (Chapter 24)

Welcome! Happy Friday! Kit does in fact Live! Who knew, right? I got the cold of death this week and I swear to GOD I’ve been asleep more than awake. But those who have been keeping up with the family bullshit that has knocked this to biweekly updates and killed my will to write- Cora’s getting a 504 plan so she’s promised the same accommodations she’s getting now from the teacher in the following years. WooHoo! Still some kinks to work out but I *hope* to be writing enough to get this back to weekly updates by the end of March.

Clint x ofc, Series rating: M, Series warnings: Pretty much every Trigger warning that can exist is in this series at some point.

Masterlist

Feed me coffee

Chapter warnings: None

Chapter 24: Going Up

The cold nipped at her cheeks and nose. The heavy coat she wore had belonged to Laura and was two sizes too big, at least. Clint had told her Laura had gotten it while she was pregnant with one of the kids. It smelled like the house and nothing more, a fact for which Deanna was beyond thankful for.

A bitter cold snap had rolled through the area and while Clint had no trouble at all keeping the farmhouse, greenhouse shed and chicken coop warm enough, it did put a damper on their plans. She had made it clear to Clint on the fourth day that she wasn’t prepared to be a mother again. They needed to at least attempt to retrieve Elsa’s mother.

Because of her unwillingness to wait out the cold spell, Clint made damn sure she wouldn’t suffer from exposure. Strapped to her back, under the heavy coat was Elsa. Her body heat combined with the protection of the coat assured them that the small body would be warm enough.

Clint had driven them a good ways, circling the city in the distance. He assured her that the paths they were taking would keep them out of sight of any scouts. In truth, he hadn't expected them to have any scouts but it was better to be safe than sorry. Finally, when he had picked a way in, he parked the truck off the road and wedged it under a large pine. The sagging branches helped hide it but there wasn’t much that could be done about the tracks themselves. Trust trotted along, keeping pace at their heels, unconcerned with the cold.

It was early in the morning, the sun had only began to rise as they started walking. They hiked through the snow for what felt like a lifetime. Clint lead the way and she fallowed in a half asleep daze. There was no sign of another person as far as she could see.

The city loomed in the distance, growing larger with each passing hour. They walked by moonlight alone. Clint didn’t want to use a flashlight and while she understood, Dee didn’t exactly have her feet under her. She wasn’t used to traversing more than her home in the dark. Snow and ice crunched under their feet as Clint guided them along animal trails.

When he reached out and squeezed her glove covered hand with his own, it reassured her. He didn’t expect her to know everything or to be battle ready. He was kind and patient with her even as he urged her forward at a grueling pace.

They walked toward a large building, the largest on the outskirts of the city. She knew what was in store for her, but Dee wasn’t even remotely excited about it.

The glass windows were broken in on the ground floor and many on the second had been shattered as well. They carefully made their way inside. Clint carried the dog over the sea of broken glass, whispering to himself about having to find or make booties for the pooch to protect his feet in the future. Such care was enduring to Dee. He took such good care of them. She couldn't imagine a life in this new world without him.

“How far up are we going?” Deanna asked. Clint pulled open the door to the stairwell, finally clicking on his flashlight.

“All the way. I want on the roof.”

She watched as he worked. It was fascinating, the things he looked for to assure their safety. He checked things she didn’t even think of. like dust on the ground or types of trash. As he worked, he whispered a play by play of what he was looking for. He taught her with the hopes that if she ever had to do this alone, she could.

The flashlight illuminated the landing where undisturbed dust had settled. He shone it under the stairs, checking that no one was hiding out before shining the light up the stairs. Only when he was sure that everything he could see had been untouched for a while, did he start them up the stairs.

“Never treat a stairwell as the only way up or down.” He whispered as they started on the stairwell leading up to the third floor. “Most of the time there is at least one more stairwell at the other side of the building. If it’s in a corner- you can almost count on there being three more- one in each corner.”

She’d never thought about that. There were so many things she had never even thought of. The thought plagued her. Even if she hadn’t hurt her ankle that day, how long would she have really survived? Would she have embraced a group like this, learned to look the other way to protect herself? Would she have been taken captive by one? Would she have tried to fight back only to end up dead on the side of the road?

How many people were killed by groups like this? She knew what was left of the Avengers team, fractured as they were, were working to restore something resembling order to the east coast. Clint had told her how their hold had spread farther and farther west but until proper order was restored, this was life for who knows how many people.

It was hard not to think about the state of things when all she had to do was climb stair after stair. Her legs burned. She wasn’t in any shape for this, though she expected to be in much more pain than she was in. Her body had become stronger over the last four months and she largely hadn’t noticed it.

“Has there been any word for New York?” She whiskered, growing tired of listening only to the sound of their boot falls and her racing thoughts. As they reached the fifth floor, they began to feel safer in their solitude. No one was around.

No one stirred, not even a mouse.

“They’ve located the VP a while ago. He’s something resembling stable now.”

“Stable?”

Clint shrugged. “The decimation- it was hard on everyone. He lost a lot of his friends, parts of his family. For a while it wasn’t looking like he could lead the country.”

“I guess he’s President now?”

“Yep. Rhodes is pretty much in charge of the air force for now. Not sure if he’ll stay in that position as they fill the ranks. Probably, anyway. They’ve put a call on the AM radio stations for any and all military personnel to make their way east. It’s hard to say how many will show up. I guess it’s been a small trickle.”

“That’s good though, right?”

“Yeah.” Silence spanned for a few moments, broken only by the sound of their boots. “I’m not going though. I told them, I can’t. I won’t.”

“It’s good though, that things are getting figured out. Maybe soon people like King Jacob won’t be a problem anymore.”

“People like King Jacob and his band of thugs will always be a problem. Always have and always will be.”

It felt like a lifetime before they reached the roof. They stopped, feeding the baby a few floors from the top. She was young enough that being settled close to Dee’s skin was enough to keep her quite. Little Elsa was staying warm and spent much of her time sleeping. When she was awake, Dee hiked her higher on her back and used the hood to shield the small head, allowing hr to look around some. The baby likely mostly had a view of hair, though. It was the thought that counted, right?

As Clint looked over the edge of the roof, Dee sat near the door and played with little Elsa. It was better to see to the child now, while she could than have the baby want attention or need a feeding while they were in a dangerous spot. There wasn’t much she could do to control the timing of a soiled diaper beyond pray that it didn’t make her cry when they needed her silent.

“Let’s go.”

Dee must have dozed off with the baby in her arms. Clint’s voice startled her awake. Golden morning sun shone out over them. It wasn’t by much but they didn’t leave in the ‘early morning’ like Clint had said. Just because the clock read ‘AM’ didn't make it ‘morning’ but she hadn’t argued about it. Still, half past two was ‘early morning’ in Clint’s book. It had to be something close to six or so, now.

Just as everything that goes up must come down, they had to walk down the stairs- one flight at a time. They went faster down, having gravity on their side. Still, she never wanted to look at another stair again in her life. Ever. Clint was going to have to carry her up the stairs of the farmhouse if he wanted her to go back inside it.

Assuming they both survived.

She followed him, staying close on his heels as they moved through city streets. Clint didn’t tell her much about the path they took beyond that it was safe. Or rather, pretty safe but that was as safe as anything got when they were off his property. That had to be good enough.

For a few hours, they trucked through snow as they worked their way deeper into the city using alley ways and working to remain hidden. The sun hung low in the sky still, providing long shadows for them to move through. Still, it was impossible to ignore the way her anxiety climbed right along with the sun.

She could almost taste the relief when they slipped inside the building Clint had picked out. It was sweeter than any candy she had had. Still, Clint moved them into the building slowly. He thoroughly checked the ground floor, ensuring it was empty before leading them up the first flight of stairs.

This building was taller than the prior, which was why Clint had picked it. Each flight of stairs was harder than the last to climb and after four flights, it became clear that she needed a break.

Clint ordered her to wait in the stairwell, of the fifth flight as he checked the floor. She agreed willingly, causing him to worry. They worked little Elsa out of her jacket and made her a bottle of formula. It wouldn’t be warm like it should have been but the water was at body temperature at least, having been stored in an internal side pocket of her coat.

Once they were settled, Clint started on checking the floor for any sign of use. Some windows were cracked but most were intact, keeping the bitter wind out. Fine dust covered the ground, far more dust than would be expected for how long the building had sat empty.

He knew what that dust was. People who had been here and been lost. People he had failed. It was a toxic thought and he worked to push it away. Now wasn’t the time to think of the people that the heroes of the world had failed that summer.

Right now, what mattered most was that he didn’t fail to protect Dee. What mattered was that he did everything within reason to protect Elsa and reunite her with her mother. What mattered was that those who were taking advantage of others were punished.

He couldn’t find any sign of human life on the floor. Sure, rat activity seemed to be present but he expected that. Rats would be a problem in any city right now. Once he was satisfied that the floor was empty, he set to work barricading the other stairwell doors.

They would rest. They needed to rest and eat but he would only allow them to do so once he was certain that there was no way to get on or off this floor without him knowing. Only when he was satisfied did he go back to Dee.

Wordlessly, he ushered her out of the stairwell and into the floor. It was filled with cubicles and desks. The black screens of computers taunted her with the memory of what had been. Dust floated up around their feet as they walked. Clint lead the way to a small office, probably having belonged to the floor manager. The door was closed but the walls were lined with glass windows, giving it a view of the whole floor.

Inside, there was very little dust. The dust in that office was light and lacked that oddly oily nature that the dust created out of people by the decimation had. When it happened, the room had been empty and the door closed. It was clean.

Dee sat on the floor and set baby Elsa down next to her. As she laid next to the baby, her back popped in places. It felt so good to be off her feet, to have the weight and strain off her legs. Trust laid down next to Elsa, keeping his side touching the small baby, providing her warmth.

Clint left the door to the office open as he sat on the floor next to them. The backpack he carried was large and heavy. It felt amazing to have the weight off his back. Soon, soon they would be in place and he wouldn’t have to keep carrying it for much longer.

He planned to let them rest for the next hour or two. It wasn’t nearly as much rest as he knew Dee needed but it was as also far more than he wanted to give them. Opening the backpack, he set to work unpacking it. He set a foam bowl out and filled it with water for Trust. The dog had largely been eating mouth fulls of snow as they walked but was eager to get a proper drink anyway.

On a paper plate, he dumped a can of wet dog food. That excited Trust. With the dog taken care of, he grabbed up the baby and gave her a change. She’d drank most of the bottle that Dee had given her and was now more than content to eat her toes for a while.

“Is that safe?” Dee asked as he set out a small propane burner designed for camping and lit it.

“Yes and no.” He answered, setting a small metal pot on and popping open one of their cans of stew and dumping it inside. “You normally use them outside, the fumes build up and are toxic. But the floor is open, the door is open and we won’t be allowing it to burn long enough to put us in danger. The exposure is worth having a hot meal.”

He was right, the meal did much more to help her recover her strength than she had expected. There was still the throbbing ache in her legs and back but she felt significantly less like death. The idea of walking up the rest of the stairs however was still something she had no interest in doing.

After eating his share, Clint pulled himself to his feet and Dee audibly groaned. “Don’t worry Babe, you don’t have to get up yet.”

“Oh thank god.” Dramatics were on full force as she made a show of sighing and relaxing against the wall. Before, she’d never liked dramatics. She felt that they were pointless and a waste of time but somehow, with him, they felt natural and she often didn’t even realize she was doing it until later. “What are you doing?”

“Checking to see what we can see from here.”

“What if someone sees you?”

“We’re too high for most people to see us unless they are looking from another building.”

“And they could be.”

“But unlikely. This lot seems not inclined to climb stairs. No one’s been in this one or the last building. Seems safe enough to assume they likely are not high in the others.”

“Safe enough?” She mocked.

Clint rolled his eyes and made his way toward the windows. While he felt reasonably sure enough of his calculation that he wouldn’t be seen, he wasn’t going to dance naked in front of a window either. “There’s going to be a glare on the glass from the sun anyway. It’ll be hard for anyone to really look for long enough to notice movement.”

“If you say so.”

He did say so. Again and again he told himself that as he peeked down through the glass. Ever calm and sure of himself on the exterior, Dee would never guess that there was a steady river of anxiety running through him.

He knew she was right. It was dangerous to approach the window. It put him in the open. He could be spotted. He could be shot. But there was always a risk. He had to weigh that risk against the benefit of information. Right now, he needed information to keep them alive.

He hadn’t told Dee, but he had caught sight of movement in some buildings as they had made their way to this building. There was only so much he could do to keep them in the shadows but there was a chance that King Jacob’s gang knew that there were outsiders in the town.

If they were lucky, no one thought anything if a couple walking through the shadows. Should he have told Dee? His mind was at war over it. It wouldn’t do any good to stress her out, to raise her anxiety levels even higher, right? But there was a part of him that knew she couldn’t be prepared to defend herself if she didn’t know there was an additional threat.

He shook his head and pushed the thoughts away. It was important to focus right now. The binoculars were wedged in his pocket and he had to work a bit to get them out. Even as he worked them free, he kept his eyes trained on the buildings across. There was no movement in them that he could see.

With the binoculars, he was able to take a closer look. There were clear paths through the snow that gave way what roads were most trafficked. Other roads were untouched by human footprints and mainly filled with animal tracks. People moved down below.

They were dirty people. Some were clearly injured. Most were not dressed for the unusual cold. Small groups gathered around trashcan fires, warming fingers. There was a consistent lack of women and younger children.

Everyone he could see looked tired, thin and ragged. They were not weathering the winter well. Turning his eyes toward the city center park, it was clear where King Jacob set himself up. There was a stage built and things hanging from rafters.

Bodies. There were bodies swinging in the wind. One had to be no older than 14.

King Jacob needed to die.

~~~~~<3

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#clint x ofc #clint x oc #clint barton fanfiction #clint barton x oc #clint barton x ofc

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

Pence: Border facility conditions are unacceptable

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/12/politics/mike-pence-border-immigration/index.html

I seriously cannot believe how we are allowing this in the country that stands for “freedom and liberty.”

"In McAllen, Pence did not engage directly with any of the men, but he did speak with some of the children and mothers in Donna, asking them if they were well cared for. They all nodded yes. Children told him their journey to the United States by foot took two and three months."

Evangelicals like @VP only care for children before they are born. Once they are born, they are separated from their mother and locked in cages. SAD #EmptyThePews 👇👇😭😭😭🤬🤬🤬

"Yazmin Juarez, a mother whose toddler died weeks after they were released from ICE custody in 2018, recalled the death of her child in emotional testimony before a House panel Wednesday."

"I watched my baby girl die, slowly, and painfully, just a few months before her second birthday," she said through an interpreter, later beginning to cry recounting her 19-month-old daughter being admitted to the ICU.

"Can we get #EmptyThePews trending today in honor of @VP’s disgusting response to our human rights violations at the border and the rape and sex trafficking scandals surrounding white evangelicals’ “chosen by God”" @POTUS? CREDIT: Chrissy Stroop @C_Stroop

#SaturdayMotivation

Pence: Border facility conditions are unacceptable

By Betsy Klein and Pamela Brown |

Updated 1 hour ago Jul 13, 2019 | CNN | Posted July 13, 2019 |

McAllen, Texas (CNN) - Vice President Mike Pence saw the overcrowded conditions facing migrant adults and children in Customs and Border Protection custody firsthand Friday, becoming the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to visit two federal detention centers in Texas ahead of controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting undocumented immigrants this weekend.

"To be honest with you, I was not surprised by what we saw," Pence told reporters Friday, citing the humanitarian crisis and congestion. "This crisis is real, the time for action is now."

Joined by a group of reporters, Senate Republicans and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Pence visited two facilities in the Rio Grande Valley: the Donna Processing Facility, temporarily housing families, and the McAllen Border Patrol Station, housing single adults who have been found crossing into the United States illegally.

In Donna, Pence saw oversized, air-conditioned facilities, with children and their parents lying on cots, watching animated movies and eating snacks.

In McAllen, it was a much different scene: Pence toured a swelteringly hot room called a sally port with hundreds of men, a strong smell of sweat and overcrowding so extreme there was no room for cots, the migrants left to sleep on concrete beneath mylar blankets.

"The Vice President's office specifically instructed CBP to not clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see how serious the crisis at our border is (overcrowding, lack of resources, beds)," an administration official said in an email, noting that there were Secret Service concerns over Pence entering the sally port, but the Vice President's office pushed for press access.

'TIME FOR CONGRESS TO ACT'

Asked by CNN whether the conditions for the detained single adult immigrants were acceptable, Pence said no.

"No, it's not. That's the reason why we demanded that Congress provide $4.6 billion in additional support to Customs and Border Protection," the vice president said in an interview following both tours and a roundtable with Border Patrol officials. "The McAllen station, where our cells are overflowing ... ought to be a very clear message to every American that the time for action is now and the time for Congress to act to end the flow of families that are coming north from Central America to our border is now."

Pence's visit comes ahead of Sunday's scheduled ICE raids targeting migrant families with court-ordered removals that had previously been called off by President Donald Trump. The upcoming ICE operation is expected to target approximately 2,000 people and take place over several days in major cities across the nation.

Advocacy groups have been hosting "Know Your Rights" trainings and circulating fliers and social medial posts with guidelines about what they say immigrants should do if ICE agents show up at their door.

Pence would not answer four repeated questions from CNN on whether the Sunday ICE raids will separate families.

"The upcoming efforts are going to focus exclusively on individuals who have been fully adjudicated and ordered by a judge to be deported," he said.

Pence said ICE will prioritize immigrants with deportation orders who have also committed crimes in the US, though he was vague on whether those who had not committed crimes could be targeted as well.

"These will be individuals who are facing a deportation order, and the priority that Homeland Security and ICE will be placing will be on those individuals that have also committed crimes in this country, and represent a threat to our communities," he said.

In McAllen, Pence did not engage directly with any of the men, but he did speak with some of the children and mothers in Donna, asking them if they were well cared for. They all nodded yes. Children told him their journey to the United States by foot took two and three months. In Donna, there were rooms filled with health supplies, snacks and changes of clothes for the migrants, many of whom had arrived at the facility with shoes and pants crusted in mud from the journey.

Donna was one of the facilities built to accommodate the recent large increase of family crossings. Standing in a supply room in front of a wall stacked with Kool-Aid Jammers, Pence asked officials whether the children in custody are receiving adequate meals and snacks. They answered affirmatively. The level of care at Donna hasn't necessarily been the case for children at other facilities.

Yazmin Juarez, a mother whose toddler died weeks after they were released from ICE custody in 2018, recalled the death of her child in emotional testimony before a House panel Wednesday.

And in testimony from Elora Mukherjee, attorney and Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, at a House Oversight Committee hearing on the border on Friday, Mukherjee said that in her interviews with hundreds of immigrant children and families that many children in custody are embarrassed to use the toilets because "they are open" and have no privacy.

"In Clint, we talked to girls who were so embarrassed that boys could see them while they were using the toilet," she said. "We talked to a boy who tried not to eat because he was so embarrassed to use the toilet."

'THIS ISN'T HUMAN '

The men in the sally port in McAllen told CNN they had been in Customs and Border Protection custody for more than 40 days. They said they hadn't had access to showers or toothbrushes. They yelled before reporters that they were hungry.

"This isn't human. I'm not a terrorist," one man said.

Patrol agent in charge Michael Banks disputed some of those characterizations. He said a trailer with showers had arrived Thursday, though it was possible some of the men had not bathed yet. He said there were 88,000 disposable toothbrushes on site and that the migrants got three hot meals a day from local restaurants. He said the space, which, despite the heat, does have air-conditioning, was cleaned three times a day. He said none of the migrants had been there longer than 32 days.

The trip came weeks after unannounced inspections of Border Patrol facilities by an internal Department of Homeland Security watchdog found extreme overcrowding and children younger than 7 being held in custody for longer than two weeks -- far more than the allotted 72 hours -- among other "urgent" issues discovered. The watchdog found additional violations of detention policy, such as a lack of hot meals, inadequate access to showers and limited access to a change of clothes.

Additionally, images of squalid conditions and thinly stretched resources found in news reports and congressional Democrats' descriptions of their own visits have captured the nation's attention.

Pence said there should be the "same standard of care" for both families and single adults, defending the disparate conditions.

"What you saw today was a very clean facility where people were being detained indoors, and then you saw a temporary facility that was constructed because this facility is overcrowded. And we can't keep people in a cell beyond what the rules and regulations allow for, but everyone in that temporary facility is getting health care, they're getting hygiene and the Customs and Border Protection is doing their level best in an overcrowded environment and a difficult environment to address this issue, but Congress has got to act," he said.

The images of the vice president walking through the Donna facility Friday stand in stark contrast to photographs of overcrowded conditions facing families with children by DHS inspector general just weeks before. Overcrowded conditions have eased considerably following the movement of most migrant children to Health and Human Services facilities thanks to new funding from Congress. There was a 28% drop in numbers of migrants apprehended at the border in June, in part due to the season, but also, Pence said, because of support from Mexico.

Pence said he had read the report, but added, "I can't account for that," when pressed by CNN about images of conditions similar to those of the McAllen facilities for families with children featured in the DHS inspector general's report.

"The facility you saw today represents the level and the standards of care that we are working to bring to all those caught up in this crisis. Remember, it was just a few short weeks ago that Congress finally acknowledged the crisis and gave us an additional $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid. Now we're going to continue to improve, we're going to continue to provide care at the standard the American people expect," he said, calling on Congress to overhaul asylum laws and close what he characterized as legal loopholes.

Officials say the overcrowding among children has largely been alleviated because of the supplemental funding that Congress just passed. As a result, most have been moved out within the 72-hour time limit to HHS facilities.

Though Pence's office also extended invitations to Senate Democrats for the Friday visit, none were in attendance, underscoring the highly politicized situation as the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border unfolds. A group of congressional Democrats will tour the area on Saturday.

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii had told CNN on Thursday that she did not want to be part of a politicized trip.

"I don't want to participate in what is basically the Trump show, the Trump-Pence show. What do you think they are going to see? You have a President saying, 'Everything's just fine. These facilities, these detention centers are just being run great.' Yeah, that's what they're going to see. But we know from all of the reports that things are not great," she said.

Hirono continued, "Believe me, when any of us visit, they will make sure that they see what they want us to see. And that's not real."

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bbcbreakingnews · 3 years

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Mexican who gatecrashed Harris press conference ‘misrepresented herself to Univision and VP’s staff’

A woman filmed fawning over Kamala Harris at a press conference after being mistaken for a reporter used ‘misrepresentation’ to gain access to the VP, a White House spokesman said.

Maria Fernanda Reyes was mocked on social media when she fawningly told Harris: ‘I voted for you,’ before asking a question.

She was introduced by Harris’ press secretary Symone Sanders as ‘Maria Fernanda from Univision’, was one of only five people called on for questions at the Mexico City event on Tuesday.

On Wednesday a White House official told The Daily Caller: ‘This person misrepresented herself to both Univision and to the Vice President’s staff.

‘She misrepresented herself to the Vice President’s staff as part of Univision’s crew, which was properly credentialed for the event.

‘This person underwent the same level of security screening and was never a security threat to the VP.’

Reyes, the White House said, told Harris’ team that she was part of Univision’s crew.

Reyes is in fact a San Francisco Bay-area entrepreneur and charity founder.

She told Fox News that she was in Mexico City on Tuesday working with farmers when she was asked by fellow entrepreneurs to attend Harris’ event.

It is unclear how those accredited to the press conference were able to invite other people to attend, amid concerns the US Secret Service blundered by letting Reyes in.

The imposter, introduced by Harris’ press secretary Symone Sanders as ‘Maria Fernanda from Univision’, was one of only five people called on for questions at the Mexico City event

Kamala Harris was in Mexico City on Tuesday, where she was questioned by a woman who was incorrectly introduced as a Univision reporter

Reyes said everyone in attendance was asked if they would be interested in asking a Harris a question, rather than just journalists. She said that she did not correct the moderator, Sanders, because she was so surprised to be called on.

Reyes expressed surprise at the reaction to her question, which made headlines in English and Spanish-language media.

‘Everyone’s trying to twist it for their own agenda,’ she told Fox News.

‘I don’t care. I asked a question… If people don’t like it, fine.’

A press secretary for Harris told DailyMail.com the incident at the press conference, which allowed a random person to be in close proximity to the nation’s second highest-ranking official, was under review.

Univision has a correspondent named Maria Fernanda, but her surname is Lopez. She is based out of Miami and did not attend the Mexico City event, where Univision was actually represented by reporter Jesica Zermeño. Both Marias look strikingly similar, although it is unclear whether this resemblance led to Tuesdays’ mix-up.

‘Thank you, Madam Vice President,’ Reyes responded as she stood up.

‘For me, it’s an honor because I actually got to vote for the first time as a naturalized citizen. I voted for you.’

‘My question is, what would you say to these women, those mothers and also women of color on both sides of the border, farmers, many of them who I see every day as a message of hope but also as – What will you do for them in the next coming years?’

Doppelgangers: Maria Fernanda Reyes, an entrepreneur from California (left), was called on to ask a question during VP Kamala Harris’ Mexico City event on Tuesday, after she was mistaken for lookalike Univision reporter Maria Fernanda Lopez (right)

Harris nodded and said: ‘That’s a great question.’

Reyes’ obsequious question, prefaced by her admission that she had cast a vote for Harris, immediately raised the hackles of right-wing critics, who pointed to it as purported proof of the media’s biased coverage of the Biden Administration.

‘Before asking Kamala Harris a question, the reporter from Univision just stated how honored she was to be able to ask a question to @VP & told her that she voted for her,’ tweeted Amy Tarkanian, former Nevada GOD chairwoman.

‘Ah, how nice it is to have an impartial and unbiased media.’

Reyes later said that she was not especially interested in politics, but wants to see conditions improve in Mexico and Central America.

She is the founder of the AdoptaHero campaign, which aims to supply frontline workers in Mexico with medical equipment and PPE.

She was interviewed by Univision Noticias in July 2020 regarding the campaign.

Reyes (left and right) is the founder of the AdoptaHero campaign, which aims to supply frontline workers in Mexico with medical equipment. She lives in the Bay Area

Univision’s Maria Fernanda Lopez (left and right) has worked for the Spanish-language network for 17 years. She is a native of Cali, Colombia

The mission of Reyes’ charity is to provide PPE to frontline workers and hospitals in Mexico

After Reyes’ question, Univision clarified that she was not one of its reporters.

‘In Mexico an individual which has no association with @Univision claimed to be a reporter for @UniNoticias in order to ask the @VP a question and to compliment,’ said Daniel Coronell, Univision’s president of news in a post on Twitter.

‘Let it be clear to everyone that Ms. Maria Fernanda Reyes is not part of this media organization.’

Jesica Zermeño, the real correspondent for Univision in Mexico City, was in the room at the time that Reyes was called on to ask a question

Univision’s Maria Fernanda Lopez, also addressed the ‘misunderstanding’.

‘I have never traveled to Mexico, I was in Miami during the incident where Maria Fernanda REYES claimed to be a reporter of @UniNoticias asked @KamalaHarris saying an unethical comment’.

According to her LinkedIn page, Lopez is an Emmy-winning journalist who has worked for Univision Noticias 23, the Spanish-language network’s Miami station, for more than 17 years.

Jose Zamora, Senior Vice President for Univision News, told DailyMail.com that Univision’s correspondent in Mexico City, Jesica Zermeño, was in the room at the time.

Photographs of her at the same press conference have been shared online.

‘The person has no relationship with Univision,’ Zamora told DailyMail.com.

‘No idea who she is. And correct, our Mexico correspondent Jesica Zermeño was there.’

Harris’s press secretary Sanders told DailyMail.com on Tuesday night that they were looking into the incident, amid questions over how Reyes was able to get so close to the world’s most powerful woman.

In response to Cornell’s clarification, Sanders tweeted: ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are looking into this.’

On Reyes’ LinkedIn page, she says: ‘I am a fourth generation farmer and care about agriculture, food waste and supporting rural farmers, especially women rural farmers across the world.

‘I’m on a journey to empower farmers to reduce food loss and food waste through technologies and education.’

Security at press conferences involving the president and vice president is usually high, with multiple layers of accreditation required.

Serious questions will be asked as to how Reyes managed to attend.

Some said the incident drew parallels with a December 2008 press conference in Baghdad, when an Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush.

Al-Zaidi shouted at the outgoing president: ‘This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.’

He served nine months in prison, and now works for a Lebanese television station.

Harris was in Mexico City on Tuesday to meet with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s president.

She hit back at questions about when she would visit the southern border on Tuesday, saying it was ‘short-sighted’ to focus on the symptoms and not the root causes of the migrant crisis as she wrapped up her visit to Guatemala and Mexico.

She was dogged throughout her trip with questions about when she would go to the border with Mexico to see for herself the scale of the problem. And she let her frustrations show.

At a news conference in Mexico City she shrugged off the idea.

‘I think it’s short-sighted, for any of us who are in the business of problem solving to suggest we’re only going to respond to the reaction as opposed to addressing the cause,’ she said.

Conservatives have sought to saddle Harris with problems at the border ever since President Joe Biden asked her to take the lead in diplomatic efforts to stem the flow of migrants.

They have dubbed her the ‘border czar,’ criticized her for not holding a press conference on the issue and demanding that she visit the Mexico-U.S. frontier.

For weeks she has sought to portray her job as one that was focused on addressing the root causes of migration – from violence to corruption and poverty.

She stuck to the themes during her two-day trip as she spelled out her approach.

‘I also believe that if you want to fix a problem. You have to go to where the problem exists,’ she said in Mexico City, some 500 miles from the border.

‘If you want to address the needs of a people, you must meet those people. You must spend time with those people.’

And she said, as a politician from California, she was well aware of the issues at the border.

Vice President wrapped up her two-day trip to Guatemala and Mexico with a news conference at a Mexico City hotel. Questions about when she would visit the southern border dogged her during the trip but she responded by saying it was ‘short-sighted’ to focus on the ‘reaction’ and not the ’cause’ of a problem

Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, Harris said: ‘I also believe that if you want to fix a problem. You have to go to where the problem exists. She was due to return to Washington D.C. on Tuesday evening

Harris’ first international trip included stops in Guatemala and Mexico, 1,308 and 582 miles away respectively from the Rio Grande, where families risk their lives every day trying to cross into the U.S.

Earlier she snapped at reporters for allowing the border crisis to overshadow her first international trip.

‘Why not go to the border, as well, so you do see the full complexity?’ a reporter asked Harris as she took some questions following a bilateral meeting with Lopez Obrador.

‘Listen, I’ve been to the border before and I’ll go again,’ she said with an awkward laugh.

‘But when I’m in Guatemala, dealing with root causes, I think we should have a conversation about what’s going on in Guatemala,’ she said – even though she is in Mexico.

Harris held bilateral talks with Lopez Obrador during her trip to Mexico on Tuesday. The duo discussed stopping mass immigration from Central America by way of migrating through Mexico.

The vice president said the ‘bottom line’ was that the administration had to apply ‘equal weight’ to what’s going on at the border and ‘root causes’ in Northern Triangle nations.

Republicans argue, however, that there is not equal attention since she nor President Joe Biden have gone to the southern border to see the humanitarian crisis first hand.

Harris, however, visited Guatemala and Mexico to see for herself what sort of ‘root causes’ the U.S. can help address there.

Ahead of her bilateral meeting with Lopez Obrador, Harris said the U.S. and Mexico are ’embarking on a new era’.

When asked if Lopez Obrador would commit to increasing border security in Mexico, he said: ‘We are very pleased to have her here and we will touch on that subject but always addressing the fundamental root causes.’

Vice President Kamala Harris lashed out when reporters again brought up the southern border during her trip to Mexico on Tuesday. ‘Listen, I’ve been to the border before and I’ll go again. But when I’m in Guatemala, dealing with root causes, I think we should have a conversation about what’s going on in Guatemala,’ she said with a laugh– even though she is in Mexico

Kamala Harris and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had a bilateral meeting in Mexico City on Tuesday as the vice president still refuses to visit the southern border but says the U.S. is ’embarking on a new era’ of relations

Although both Harris and Lopez Obrador are vaccinated, the vice president masked up for the meeting

source https://bbcbreakingnews.com/mexican-who-gatecrashed-harris-press-conference-misrepresented-herself-to-univision-and-vps-staff/

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bloomsburgu · 3 years

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How this alumna went from respected business leader and Army veteran to state treasurer

By Tom McGuire Marketing and Communications

To say Stacy Garrity ’86 is not your typical politician is an understatement. She went from political unknown to winning a state row office, a journey that has taken the Bradford County native around the world. Her election victory shocked even the most optimistic of supporters and has suddenly thrust her into the thick of the political world.

So how did the Athens resident and retired Army Reserve colonel make it to Harrisburg as Pennsylvania’s new state treasurer?

The oldest of four daughters of Howard Garrity and Beverly Arbie, “we were raised to be about God, country, and family,” says Garrity. “We went to church every Wednesday and Sunday. In the summer, we attended vacation Bible school, and every morning at school, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. And on top of everything, no matter what, I had to watch out for my sisters.”

“My parents were very encouraging,” says Garrity. “They always made it a big thing to say that whatever you put your mind to do, you can do it. I grew up just believing it in a naive sort of way.”

Following graduation from Sayre High School, Garrity knew she was going to college. It was something her parents drilled into her and her sisters. However, the first-generation student admits she didn’t put much thought into what school she would attend. “My reason for [first] choosing Lock Haven was simple; my friends were going there.”

“I wasn’t well-traveled and lived a pretty sheltered life, soI figured I could carpool and come back home on the weekends,” Garrity says. “After a year of adjusting to college life, I realized I should look for a school with more of a focus on business, which is what I was interested in. When I looked around, I saw that Bloomsburg had a very good program and so I transferred.”

As a student, Garrity was intrigued by business and economics and how markets function. It was a field dominated by males in the 1980s, which did not worry her in the least. At BU, Garrity studied finance and accounting and was influenced by then chair of the accounting and business law department, the late Bernard Dill.

“Professor Dill was very engaging with his students,” Garrity recalls. “He was funny, he was motivating, and he made me take a strong interest in the major.”

Garrity, a runner in high school, also found time to be a varsity cheerleader, but more importantly, she joined the Army ROTC on the encouragement of her parents, both 20-year Navy Reserve veterans.

“Basic training was an eye-opening experience. I wasn’t mentally prepared for people being in my face and yelling. We weren’t allowed to call home for a few weeks, and when we did, of course, my mom immediately said forget it and to come home. My dad said never quit. So, I stayed so I wouldn’t disappoint my father.”

“My dad supported us and told us ‘whatever your mind believes you can achieve, you can achieve’ and that ‘winners never quit, and quitters never win.’ It stuck with me.”

After graduating from BU, Garrity joined Global Tungsten and Powders Corporation , or GTP, in Towanda and advanced through several positions, becoming vice president of two of GTP’s three business units. She was VP for government affairs and industry liaison before stepping down to assume her elected position.

At the same time, Garrity was a member of the Army Reserve, but certainly had no plans for what would become a 30-year military career.

“My original idea was to do my six years and then get out. Of course, after 9/11, I went to Kuwait. That was my first deployment. Upon returning home, I just could not bring myself to get out. I felt I needed to stay and serve our country.”

GTP management shared Garrity’s commitment to the Reserve. “At some companies, when you return from a deployment, management will try to reorganize you out. But every time I got back from a deployment, GTP would promote me. They are a great company that has been around for more than 100 years. We have many third-generation employees. And, of course, they were always very proud of me and my work.”

“The entire GTP Group organization has deep respect for Stacy,” says Hermann Walser, president and CEO. “She is always looking beyond her direct responsibilities. The well-being of all stakeholders, customers, employees, community, and country, is her priority. Her ability to motivate and convince people, to communicate, and to network are unique. We will desperately miss her in this function, as well as a member of our GTP family.”

During her last overseas deployment in 2008-09, Garrity earned the nickname “Angel of the Desert” while serving as the acting battalion commander of the military police at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.“Our mission was to provide care and custody with dignity and respect to the 7,000 detainees.”

“To make sure all the rules and regulations were being followed, I would walk the camp after midnight because I always said nothing good happens after midnight. I would walk with the senior staff and just check on soldiers. Then we would have meetings and make sure everything was going OK.”

“We also had a deal that as long as the detainees weren’t doing anything to hurt our soldiers, then we would allow family visitation or even some soccer matches. The detainees would also get videos once a week. But, among our staff, we had zero tolerance for abuse. We were the first internment facility to have zero abuse allegations. I’m very proud of that fact.”

Garrity’s outstanding work in Iraq did not go unnoticed. She was twice awarded the Bronze Star and received the Legion of Merit before retiring from the Army Reserve with the rank of colonel. Back in Bradford County, she and her husband Dan Gizzi, married since 2005, kept busy with water skiing, snowmobiling and running. But the desire to serve others was always an itch.

“As I was thinking about what to do, volunteer work and politics were two of my choices. I’ve always liked politics, so I called our state representative Tina Pickett, who I knew from my job in government affairs since my real passion is the industrial base and making sure that we keep jobs in the United States.”

Pickett recommended jumping into the race for Tom Marino’s U.S. Congressional seat after his resignation. “The next day she had me lined up with a political consultant, and they pushed me right into the deep end.” Despite 31 candidates in the race, Stacy finished a respectable sixth. That showing led the state GOP leadership to reach out to her in late 2019 to gauge her interest in running for statewide office.

“I started praying about it, and I thought, OK, Lord, if you want me to do this, then open the doors. And, he did, and then I still was pretty hesitant. When the GOP leadership said they couldn’t find anyone to run for treasurer, I decided, if not me, then who’s going to do it.”

Shortly after making the decision to run and receiving the state Republican Party’s endorsement to challenge incumbent Democrat Joe Torsella, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“Trying to campaign and raise money during a pandemic was hard. I had to go total grassroots with the odds stacked against me. A Republican had not defeated an incumbent Democrat since 1994. Many people told me ‘Stacy, you’re running a great campaign, but there’s no way you can beat this guy.’”

As Election Day grew closer and the polls showed a tight race, Torsella mounted an advertising blitz with a campaign chest of more than $2 million. But on election night, as results showed her in the lead, she was cautiously optimistic. A week later her opponent called to concede. She had pulled off a win no one had expected. “Joe was extremely gracious and very helpful in the transition. I’m sure it was tough for him because he was told there’s no way you’re going to lose to somebody from Bradford County who had never run before.”

At her swearing-in ceremony in January, Garrity did something most unusual. She offered Torsella an opportunity to deliver some remarks. “Joe rose above politics and helped ensure a smooth transition. As we say in the military, thanks for your service.”

In her inaugural address, Garrity touched upon several key points that have been a part of her life. “Service to others, be it in elected office or wearing the uniform of our country, is the highest calling.”

“Getting the job done in good faith and with honest effort is the watchword by which I promise to serve. I say we look ahead to a place of optimism and cooperation.”

Garrity says her goal for the office is to make transparency a top priority and put taxpayers first. “Putting those checks and balances in place is what I want to focus on so that we can make sure that we’re being a good steward of our taxpayers’ money. Taking transparency to the next level is something that I want to do, and then probably further enhancing the savings programs.”

Throughout her journey from rural Pennsylvania to the battlefields of Iraq and then through the rigors of a political campaign, Garrity has never forgotten her roots. Her advice to young girls and women is to remain true to your values.

“I’ve really tried to live my life with integrity, selfless service, honor, loyalty, and duty. If somebody like me from Bradford County, who grew up on the left side of middle-class, can put myself through college, join the military, then work in manufacturing and become the first female vice president in my company, deploy three times overseas, and retire a colonel, then anyone can do it.”

As for the next part of the Stacy Garrity journey, only one person knows for sure.

“People have already called me about running for other offices, and I’ve told them I campaigned on staying in the job for four years and want to be the best treasurer I can for the people of Pennsylvania. And then we’ll see what God has in store for me.”

Spoken like a true non-politician.

#BloomOnward #HuskyNation #WomensHistoryMonth #StateTreasurer #IraqWar #ArmyReserves #Army #MilitaryFriendly #BUClass1986 #FirstGeneration #FirstGen #business #finance #accounting

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junker-town · 4 years

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Every Marvel Cinematic Universe villain, ranked from forgettable to iconic

Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for ReedPOP

From Malekith to Loki, we covered them all.

All week, we’re having a little fun and diving into the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The MCU exists thanks to endless battles between our heroes and the villains that torment them. Some of the villains — hello, Vulture — are fantastic. They’re well-rounded, they have depth, and there seems to be a method to their madness.

Then there are the other villains. Their backgrounds aren’t particularly explained, you’re not entirely sure what they’re doing — looking intently at you, Malekith — and motivations seem weak at best.

As part of our Marvel Week, we took the 26 primary villains from the 23 MCU films and ranked them from 1-to-26. Warning: THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW, so act accordingly. Let’s get to it.

26. Ivan Vanko (Iron Man 2)

Be honest. The only thing you really remember about Ivan Vanko is when he said “I want my bird.”

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25. Aldrich Killian/Maya Hansen (Iron Man 3)

This movie had far too many plots, and therefore far too many villains. There’s one point in the movie where it’s revealed that the Vice President is in on Killian’s plans, and then it’s not mentioned again. Surprise! Maya Hansen is actually bad. Surprise! The Mandarin is an actor! Surprise! The VP is in on it! I need this movie and its collection of villains to do a little less.

24. Zemo (Captain America: Civil War)

Zemo’s motivations are clear — he is driven by his rage and sadness over losing his family in Sokovia — but he’s little more than an accelerant to get the real conflict of the movie going between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.

23. Emil Blonsky/Abominable (The Incredible Hulk)

The only really nice thing that you can say about The Incredible Hulk is that the fight scene between Abominable and Hulk is pretty cool. Tim Roth is high key the best part of this movie.

22. Kaecilius (Doctor Strange)

Dormammu didn’t have enough screen time for him to be ranked here, but we do get Mads Mikkelsen’s Kaecilius. The fight scenes are awesome, but I spent a lot of time wondering if he was going to start weeping blood.

21. Malekith (Thor: The Dark World)

Malekith? More like Male-kiss-my-ass, amirite? Sorry, trying to delete.

20. Johann Schmidt/Red Skull (Captain America: The First Avenger)

Red Skull is the most cartoon-like villain of the movies, but there’s still something about the first time he rips that Hugo Weaving face off. Also, being a Nazi gets you an automatic top-20 spot. This dude was evil.

19. Ava/Ghost (Ant-Man and the Wasp)

You could make the argument that “The Feds” are actually the villain in Ant-Man and The Wasp, but for our purposes we’re just going to go with Ghost. Ghost is visually a stunning villain as she phases in-and-out while simultaneously kicking serious ass. She’s not higher up on this list because she’s actually ... not a bad person and is instead trying to find a way to end her crippling pain.

18. Yon Rogg (Captain Marvel)

Wow, they really cast the MCU well. Jude Law is the perfect smarmy guy that you think is on your side til you realize that actually he’s a psycho and is trying to kill an entire group of people. Captain Marvel is more about the origin story for Carol Danvers and less about the villains, so not much to write home about with Yon Rogg.

17. Justin Hammer (Iron Man 2)

What a jerk. This guy just stinks. It doesn’t make him much more of a compelling villain, but he’s the perfect insecure guy that isn’t as smart or creative as his competitors. He brings on Ivan Vanko, gets him his bird, and basically lets a murderous mad man easily take over his whole fleet of replica Iron Man robots. His ambition coupled with the “I will literally do whatever to get that government contract” vibes moves him up this list a little.

16. Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

I might be alone in this, but I found Ultron far too boring to be a super compelling villain. He goes from zero to murderous in a matter of seemingly seconds, and he is really only saved by James Spader delivering a stellar performance with voice work. The movie actually gets better upon rewatch (especially after watching Infinity War and Endgame), but Ultron just doesn’t do it for me villain-wise. His motives felt rushed and under-explained, and there are far too many monologues.

15. Lieutenant General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (The Incredible Hulk)

Don’t be fooled. Lieutenant General “Thunderbolt” Ross is 100% the villain in The Incredible Hulk. On the annoying-but-not-that-bad end of the spectrum, he’s an overbearing dad trying to interfere with his adult daughter’s dating life. On the other end, he directs soldiers to open fire TWICE in areas infested with civilians. First, they have an open-field battle ON THE CAMPUS OF A COLLEGE. In the third act, when trying to track down Abomination (a creature he helped create, mind you), Ross has a helicopter — with his daughter on board — shoot at what appears to be an apartment building in Harlem. This man would not only NOT be the Secretary of State later (he makes a reappearance in Captain America: Civil War among other films), he would be in prison for war crimes.

And this dude tries to arrest the Captain America side for not signing the Sokovia Accords. This guy sucks.

14. Mandarin (Iron Man 3)

They really could have done so much more with The Mandarin, especially considering they got Sir Ben Kingsley to play the role. Kingsley is really the only thing that saves this performance, going from a cruel, murderous terrorist to gassy, beer swilling fool in a moment.

13. Supreme Intelligence (Captain Marvel)

ANNETTE BENING IN A BOMBER JACKET!!! Bening plays both Dr. Wendy Lawson and the artificial intelligence being that rules the Kree, but it’s her turn as the latter that gives us some pretty intense evil. Let Annette Bening play more sinister characters, imo.

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12. Ronan (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Maybe it’s because I remember Lee Pace as Ned from the quaint 2007 TV drama Pushing Daisies, but I loved this performance of Ronan. He’s shadowy enough that you still get that air of mystery about him, but he’s also just straight-up a mad man.

11. Darren Cross/Yellow Jacket (Ant-Man)

This guy literally goes into the bathroom at work, melts Frank into a small glob of former human, then WIPES HIM UP WITH A TISSUE AND FLUSHES IT DOWN THE TOILET. The biggest of yikes.

10. Obadiah Stane (Iron Man)

Obadiah Stane wanted to run Stark Industries so badly he helped orchestrate a kidnapping of Tony. Some good came from that — namely the creation of Iron Man and all the tech that went with it — but Stane also did some super dastardly stuff. The betrayal of a guy that looked up to you after his father’s death is one thing, but all the war profiteering is just too much.

Oh, and him yelling at and firing William Riva (AKA Ralphie from A Christmas Story) for not being able replicate Stark’s arc reactor leads to Riva joining forces with Quentin Beck in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It’s like a coaching tree of villains.

9. HYDRA/Alexander Pierce/Dr. Zola/Rumlow (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

Those backslashes are doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and honestly this collection (HYDRA) could have been a little bit higher as they have a lot of tentacles (pun intended) in a lot of places. Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce is one of the best castings, and the “elevator scene” is perfection that somehow gets even better in Endgame.

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8. Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

IT WASN’T BUCKY’S FAULT. Cap’s best friend in the whole wide world, Bucky Barnes, was somehow rescued after plummeting from a moving train, frozen, un-frozen, and brainwashed to become a brutal assassin. While Bucky is a hero, Winter Soldier is a war machine (no, not THAT War Machine) that even murdered Tony Stark’s parents. Big yikes.

7. Ego (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)

The mystery around Peter Quill’s father spanned both Guardians of the Galaxy movies before we got Kurt Russell dramatically riding around on the top of a spaceship as Ego in Vol. 2. It doesn’t take long to realize something is super fishy, and that that something is Ego spreading his seed — literally — on multiple planets in the hopes of creating a part-god child to help him take over the universe. Quill turns out to be that offspring, but he is able to break Ego’s spell when Ego TELLS PETER HE GAVE HIS MOM CANCER. That’s messed up, man.

T5. Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Spider-Man: Far From Home)

T5. Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Spider-Man: Homecoming)

I don’t know what it is, but the solo Spider-Man stories have gotten two of the best single-movie villains so far. Michael Keaton’s Toomes is perfection as the arms dealing, jet-pack wearing Vulture, but the added depth of him being the father of Peter Parker’s crush is fantastic. They manage to establish him as a guy with a somewhat relatable story (he’s just trying to make things work!), and the car scene between Keaton and Tom Holland is one of the best moments of the whole movie (and top-10 in the MCU).

Beck is low-key horrible. Anyone who tricks poor, sweet, grieving Peter Parker is on my shit list automatically, but Jake Gyllenhaal plays it so well. All Peter wants to do is tell MJ he has a crush on her, and he gets duped into fighting battles and handing over Tony Stark’s glasses. If that wasn’t enough, Beck literally shoves him in front of an oncoming train and leads to Spider-Man’s identity being leaked.

He does give us J.K. Simmons’s J. Jonah Jameson back, though. That’s a point in his favor.

4. Killmonger (Black Panther)

It was really difficult to rank these top eight or so villains. All of them have intense back stories or more character development than we got in the early movies of the series. Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of Eric Killmonger in Black Panther was fantastic, and delivered some of the most meme-able moments of a villain (IS THIS YOUR KING?!).

While the rage and hurt felt by Killmonger over his father’s death is understandable, his actions as the movie’s antagonist are brutal.

This scene is so powerful:

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3. Hela (Thor: Ragnarok)

The long-lost sister of Thor has some serious family issues. She’s absolutely ruthless, crushes Mjolnir (and therefore Thor’s spirits for a bit), and has an admittedly very cool wolf pet. Cate Blanchett knocks it out of the park with her portrayal. Hela is horrible and evil and also kind of badass, which shoots her up these rankings.

2. Loki (Thor/The Avengers)

Ah, the anti-hero. Loki is a pretty terrible dude most of the time, but he has his moments of actually doing the right thing. He’s petty, jealous, and the most untrustworthy person in the MCU. In Thor, he tries to kill his brother several times. In The Avengers, there’s the whole opening a portal in the sky to let the Chitauri in to kill a bunch of people and destroy half of New York thing. Oh, and don’t forget about when he faked his death, pretended to be Odin, and was content to hang out on Sakkar with the Grandmaster without helping Thor escape the gladiator-esque games.

1. Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame)

We get glimpses of Thanos’s lilac tinge in a handful of the MCU movies, but he’s clearly the pièce de résistance of the culmination of Phase Three with Infinity War and Endgame. Josh Brolin plays the genocidal maniac perfectly, even leaving some viewers after Infinity War saying, “you know, Thanos might have a point about how we’re destroying the planet.” He’s willing to kill billions of people on countless planets to get a little peace and quiet, and is the reason we lose a lot of characters we really care about.

Thanos gets the benefit of a multi-movie arc to explain the full extent of his cruelty, ambition, and willingness to do anything (including kill his own daughter) to achieve his goals.

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New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/subprime-is-now-nonprime-high-risk-mortgage-lending-is-back/

Subprime is now ‘nonprime’: High-risk mortgage lending is back

It was about a decade ago that Dan Perl chucked it all in to go surfing in Mexico. As a veteran underwriter of subprime mortgages, he’d seen enough by April 2007 to know that there was serious trouble ahead. So he pulled down the shutters, took an extended break in Baja, California, and then lay low for a few years, trading loans for a New York firm, Carl Marks & Co.

But now he is back in the game, leading a small band of lenders making subprime loans once more. Or “nonprime”, as they prefer to call it these days. The sector is on course to produce about $10bn this year — a tiny slice of America’s $1.6tn overall home-loan market but one that’s growing rapidly.

Plenty of people told Perl, 68, that he couldn’t bring this stuff back so soon after the global financial crisis, and after regulators all over the US radically tightened rules on mortgages. People said he was risking his net worth, that he’d “be sued into oblivion”.

“How many times we hear that, Kyle?” he asks, turning to his protégé, 39-year-old Kyle Gunderlock, who was a VP of sales at Perl’s old firm and is now president of the new one, known as Citadel Servicing Corp, based in Irvine, California.

“‘You guys are going to get f***ing arrested,’ is the one I always remember,” says Gunderlock.

The way Perl and his peers see it, there’s nothing shady or menacing about the business of subprime. On the contrary, they say, specialist lenders in this area are performing a vital service for the world’s largest economy. For every comfortably off professional who could walk into a branch of Chase or Wells Fargo and get a home loan without any fuss, they argue, there are many more who would struggle. People who are self-employed or on variable incomes, for example, may not check all the boxes a big bank needs. Ditto new immigrants with thin credit histories, or people with a few scratches and dents in their files.

“Making credit available to borrowers who are subprime is national policy and it is an important part of economic growth,” says Julian Hebron, head of sales at RPM Mortgage in Alamo, California. “It’s untrue to call it a scourge.”

But what’s worrying some economists is a feeling that we’re on a slippery slope; that the same forces which fed the crisis last time round — rampant demand for yield among investors, skewed incentives on Wall Street and a government determined to relax regulatory restraints — could feed another.

Under President Donald Trump, for example, agencies are under orders to review just about every financial rule that emerged under Barack Obama. In June, the Treasury department put out a report saying that tight underwriting standards were partly to blame for “anaemic” growth in housing, which accounts for almost one-fifth of GDP.

The market for securitising subprime loans is picking up, too, spreading the risk of default in much the same way as before. Fitch, the credit rating agency, expects $3bn of issuance of nonprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) this year, up from about $1bn over the previous 18 months. (Back in January, it was predicting $2bn for the year.)

Meanwhile, some old characters are re-emerging, including a few who gained a certain notoriety a decade ago. Kyle Walker, the former head of Fremont, a big mortgage firm that was rapped by federal regulators for “unsafe” practices in March 2007, is back running a nonprime shop called HomeXpress in Newport Beach, California. Dan Sparks, a former Goldman Sachs trader mentioned more than 500 times in a Senate report on the mortgage meltdown, is now buying low-grade loans from a hedge fund up in Stamford, Connecticut. (Walker did not respond to requests for comment and Sparks declined to comment.)

All of this is happening without a proper reckoning from the last time around, says Richard Bowen, a former chief underwriter at Citigroup, which ranked as America’s top subprime lender in 2007. Bowen says he tried to raise the alarm internally about rampant fraud in mortgage applications, before being stripped of underwriting responsibilities. He left the group in 2008. He draws a contrast with the savings and loan crisis in the US in the 1980s, after which about 800 senior bankers went to jail. The running total from the crisis that began in 2007? Zero. Even though it was “many, many, many” times worse, says Bowen, “no one has been held accountable. And I can assure you it’s not because of a lack of evidence.”

On the morning I meet Perl, on a blazingly hot day in June, he’d been up the hills behind his house in San Juan Capistrano with his white Labrador Ella. Now he’s showered and holding court in his office, dressed in jeans, loafers and a checked shirt.

He was born in Brooklyn to a conservative Jewish family but grew up in Sherman Oaks, a relatively spacious suburb of Los Angeles, and Santa Monica. After a degree from UCLA and an English teaching job at Santa Monica High, he formed a loan brokerage in the mid-1970s with his college pal Bill Ashmore, who now runs Impac, another mortgage firm based a few miles up the San Diego Freeway from Citadel.

After the crash of 1987, Perl-Ashmore parted ways; Perl into subprime (or “Bs and Cs”, as lower-grade loans were called then) and Ashmore into “Alt-A”, slightly classier yet not quite prime. In the 1990s Perl’s business grew strongly, partly on the back of a loan he invented called the NINA — aimed at customers with “no income, no assets”. He was known as the Big Kahuna.

But by 2005, says Perl, it was clear that things were slipping out of control. His outfit, then known as First Street, was a top 20 underwriter nationwide, in a sector which produced about $1tn of subprime mortgages — about one-third of the total US mortgage market — that year. Also clustered in Orange County were some of the best-known subprime shops in the country, such as New Century, Ameriquest and Fremont.

But margins were shrinking and loans were being written that should never have been written. At one point New Century had a 2 per cent error rate, meaning that one in every 50 of its borrowers never made a single payment. The company’s collapse in early April 2007, owing $8.4bn to banks including Morgan Stanley, Barclays and UBS, was one of the defining moments of the crisis.

Mike Fierman, managing partner and co-CEO of Angel Oak of Atlanta, Georgia, was also in the thick of it back then, running a firm called SouthStar Funding. He says he had no choice: if he wanted to compete, he had to drop standards. Like Perl, he bailed in April 2007, after Goldman and Lehman Brothers said they’d had their fill of subprime. But until that point they and other investment banks had hoovered up everything he’d offered them. They’d then wrap it up into MBS, on which credit rating agencies — competing between themselves to win the most business — would typically slap an attractive rating.

“Everyone was complicit,” says Fierman. “You felt trapped; investors were demanding more loans than could be produced in a responsible way. The only way to produce that kind of volume was to be irresponsible.”

Brokers were going after “gardeners and serving maids and house cleaners and gas-station attendants and strippers on poles,” says Perl. “That’s not lending. That ain’t the way you do it.”

He got out about 18 months before the collapse of Lehman brought the world economy to the brink of ruin. “Honest to God, Ben, do you ever just get a bad vibe?” he asks me. “Do you ever walk down a dark hall and say, ‘This is not a place I should be?'”

This time it’s different, say the lenders. Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the nonprime loans being written now bear little relation to the sludge that stunk up the system a decade ago.

Perl and Gunderlock say they spent weeks going through the 800 pages of Dodd-Frank that was relevant to mortgages, as they looked to crank up the machine again. There were all kinds of proscriptions on funding and closing and servicing a loan, says Perl, but in the end it came down to this: “People have to be relatively reasonable about how they treat borrowers. You can’t lie, you can’t cheat, you can’t steal.”

Gone, as a result, are some dubious features that caused trouble last time round, such as zero deposits or low teaser rates that adjusted sharply higher in two or three years. Gone, too, are the negative amortisation loans that allowed borrowers to pay less than the interest due, so that the loan balance actually grew.

There’s no more “stated income” either: whatever the borrower declares, the lender has to check by looking at pay stubs and tax returns, rather than assuming it’s the truth.

Granted, standards in nonprime are generally looser than those that apply to mortgages eligible to be bought by government agencies such as Fannie Mae. Such loans are known as “qualified mortgages”, or QM, and they account for the vast majority of America’s home-loan market.

But today every mortgage has to conform to an overarching standard known as ATR, or “ability to repay”. Unless a lender can be convinced in eight separate ways that the borrower has the means to pay the thing back, it can be sued down the track if the loan goes bad.

The new regulatory framework is “actually pretty rational”, says Matt Nichols, founder and CEO of Deephaven Mortgage, who set up the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm in 2013 after more than a decade running Goldman’s residential mortgage business. So far he’s bought about $1bn of nonprime loans from a network of 100 or so brokers, and has resold about half of that into the MBS market.

In a $250m MBS deal in June, more than 40 per cent of borrowers who got mortgages bought by Deephaven had had a prior “credit event” such as a bankruptcy, foreclosure or short sale, according to Kroll, a credit rating agency. The deal was roughly six times oversubscribed, nonetheless.

“Ability to repay, as a rule, is common sense,” says Nichols. “You’ve got to rely on something other than their word for it, right?”

Perl and others note that investors in these new classes of nonprime MBS have extra degrees of comfort. Under Dodd-Frank reforms that took effect in 2015, sponsors of a deal need to retain an interest of at least 5 per cent of the aggregate credit risk of the assets they’re turning into securities. It’s known as “skin in the game”: if originators are on the hook for losses, the theory goes, they’ll take a lot more care over what they’re producing.

Before the crisis, there was no minimum ownership, resulting in mortgage firms simply flipping all kinds of dross at Goldman or Merrill or Bear Stearns. “This is not an originate-to-sell model; it’s an originate-to-own model,” says Fierman of Angel Oak. His firm, which buys nonprime loans from other brokers as well as originating its own, has been the most active of MBS issuers, completing four deals since 2015 worth a total of $630m. He says that Angel Oak has gone well beyond the basic 5 per cent threshold, owning as much as 10 per cent of its MBS deals at various points. “Trust has to be built with investors,” he says. “They’re watching us closely.”

Some of the big names on Wall Street have already tiptoed back in. Pimco, the world’s biggest bond house, has 25 per cent of the equity in Perl’s Citadel, according to a person familiar with the ownership structure. Blackstone, the private equity giant, has a cluster of nonprime investments, including a stake in Bayview Asset Management, a firm which buys mortgages from Coral Gables, in Florida.

Will the big US banks get back into subprime? Inevitably, says Guy Cecala, CEO and publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, the industry bible. He notes that overall mortgage originations in the US have slipped about one-fifth this year, mostly because a rise in interest rates has caused refinancing business to drop.

“At the end of the day, every lender out there, unless they want to see their business decline, has to look at alternative products,” he says.

In the meantime, other banks are taking supporting roles. Credit Suisse and Nomura, for example, are supplying lines of credit to originators and underwriting securitisations of subprime mortgages. Fitch, DBRS and Kroll, the credit rating agencies, have given their stamps of approval to a succession of securitisation deals.

Even Standard & Poor’s, which paid $1.4bn in 2015 to the US Department of Justice to resolve a probe into ratings inflation, is back on the scene, rating five deals this year. (Moody’s, which settled with the government in January this year, has yet to re-appear.)

Some investors, for their part, are reluctant to dive in. Tracy Chen, a fund manager at Brandywine Global in Philadelphia, says she’s tempted, but wants the MBS market to increase to about $20bn in total before she would feel comfortable trading in and out of positions. “The market is still not very transparent, and there’s not much trading volume. I need to wait for it to scale up before I enter.” The caution is understandable: she was at UBS in the run-up to the crisis, when the Swiss bank took tens of billions of dollars of losses on its subprime portfolio.

But even the more cautious investors may change their minds, in time. As long as interest rates stay near historic lows, “anyone will scramble for what yield they can find”, says Bowen, the ex-Citigroup whistleblower, who now lectures on ethics.

He cites the sale of junk bonds in August by Tesla, the trendy carmaker that is still consuming much more cash than it is earning. The $1.8bn deal, which lacks restrictions to stop Tesla issuing more debt whenever it wants to, is “insane”, he says.

For now, loan books are in good shape. At Impac, just a handful of non-QM loans written over the past three years are more than 60 days delinquent, says Ashmore, the CEO. Only one loan is in foreclosure, among about 2,200 in total.

He expects the total nonprime market to increase to $100bn before long. “I believe if I can deliver superior risk-adjusted returns, there’ll be more than enough capital.”

At Citadel, which normally aims a notch or two below the typical Impac customer, in terms of credit score and debt-to-income ratios, there are seven foreclosures among 3,500 or so loans. That has prompted Perl to push out the boat a bit. In August he launched a new loan called “The One”, allowing a self-employed borrower to qualify based on one month’s bank statement rather than the usual 12.

The move has “got everyone a little nervous”, he admits, despite a long list of safety features. But he reckons he has another four to five years of “clear sailing” before the market starts to turn once more.

One regret? Not trademarking “nonprime”, which he thinks he coined five years ago.

As for “subprime”, he never liked it.

“It sounds kind of Neanderthal, doesn’t it? It sounds almost like you’re a monkey and humans are better. But nonprime has a nice ring to it.”