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setaripendragon · 5 years

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Not All Who Wander - Chapter 5

[Chapter 1] - [Chapter 2] - [Chapter 3] - [Chapter 4] - [Chapter 5] -insert triumphant trumpet noises here- Here it is, at last! You guys have been so patient and awesome, and I love you all. Fingers crossed the next chapter won’t take quite as long ^^”

By the time they left the shire, they had filled their pockets well enough with gold, and Bilbo had gone so far as to extend to them an open invitation to tea. “A little warning if you’re coming by for dinner, though! I can’t feed the lot of us on a bare pantry!” Bilbo had added quickly. Fíli and Kíli had begged several tarts off Bilbo the last time they’d visited, and Bilbo had given in with a laugh, and added several cakes to their hoard without prompting.

The boys insisted on a small party once they returned to the mountain, to share the treats with friends and family. It wasn’t anything that could have been called a feast, but with Balin, Dwalin, Óin, Glóin and his family, and to Thorin’s surprise Ori joining them in the family apartments for dinner and more importantly the hobbitish desert, it did almost feel like a party.

“Where did you even get so many tarts?” Balin asked, looking faintly awed.

“They were a gift.” Thorin informed him, even though he was fairly sure that Balin knew he would never have condoned spending hard-earned coin on such lavish treats. Balin gave him a look that said as much, and Thorin inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Yes, from Thorin’s hobbit.” Kíli interjected, beaming from ear to ear.

Thorin narrowed his eyes at his nephew. “He’s hardly mine.” He protested.

Fíli snorted. “Well, maybe not yet.”

“What’s this about Thorin and a hobbit?” Dís demanded from right behind Thorin, making him jump. She shot him a sharp smile, then rounded on her sons with an intent stare. “Well?” She pressed impatiently.

“Well, we don’t know the whole story.” Kíli began with relish. Thorin groaned and covered his face with one hand. “Thorin just up and decided to take us through the Shire this last trip, right, and he wouldn’t tell us more than that there was a hobbit who’d promised us custom.”

“Hobbits are not known for dealing with other races.” Balin mused with a scholarly frown as he stroked his long white beard. “They’re mistrustful of outsiders, so I believe.”

“Oh, aye, they are, for the most part.” Fíli agreed. “Only ones who really wanted to deal with us to start with were the loners and the outcasts. But then up comes this well-to-do hobbit, obviously wealthy by Shire standards, and he talked with us just fine, didn’t glare or flinch or anything.”

“Thorin barely stopped smiling the whole time he was there.” Kíli interjected, in the same tone that he might use to confide that he’d caught someone in flagrante delicto. A sort of horrified glee.

Dís choked on her mouthful of apple tart, and turned to stare at Thorin. “Smiling?” She echoed in disbelief.

“He was positively beaming.” Kíli confirmed.

Dís seemed to be at a loss for words, which Thorin thought was a bit melodramatic of her, but Balin was not so shocked. He gave Thorin a shrewd look. “What could a hobbit possibly have done to earn your favour so quickly?” He wondered, and it was only the fact that his tone was more curious than disbelieving that stopped Thorin taking offence.

“He fed and sheltered me when all I had asked for were directions.” Thorin explained shortly.

“Aye, that’d do it.” Balin nodded sagely. “An open-minded fellow, then?”

“Far more than any of his kin.” Thorin agreed dryly. “He is… fascinated by the world outside the Shire, though fond enough of the comforts of home that he’s never gone beyond its bounds. He is wealthy and comfortable, but kind, and generous with his comforts.”

“Durin’s beard…” Dís breathed, still staring at him slack-jawed. It was only then that Thorin realised that, yes, he was smiling faintly just from speaking of Bilbo and his incomprehensible kindness. He immediately scowled at her, and she snorted, life coming back to her features in her mirth. “Well, I’m glad you’ve made a friend, Thorin.” She told him dryly. “It might even be good for you.”

Thorin thought back over the quest that had never happened, how Bilbo had saved his life more than once, had saved the quest more than once, had won Thorin back his home with very little help from the rest of those sworn to the quest, and had been Thorin’s only tether to sanity when he sunk to the depths of gold madness. Then he thought of spades and maps and good food and better conversation, of a stranger who sat and listened with patience and sympathy as Thorin poured out his heart in the form of stories from a long-lost childhood.

He was smiling again, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care about the knowing, delightedly mocking light in Dís’s eye. “You know, I think he will.” Thorin agreed.

The gathering lasted well into the night, the food followed by ale and song, and idle conversation as they quietly enjoyed the feeling of stomachs filled with good, sweet food. The effects lasted longer than the one evening. The following days saw the ruling family of Thorin’s Halls shifting from their typical stony-faced endurance to a blazing determination. Old problems – such as the flooding in the westernmost halls, and the sickness that resulted – were faced with new passion and fresh ideas.

The effects didn’t last long, but it gave Thorin hope, that perhaps with persistence and the bullheaded determination that was so prevalent in the line of Durin, they could manage to do more than just barely survive here in the Blue Mountains. A fool’s hope, perhaps, but with the dream of reclaiming Erebor tainted by what he knew it would cost, Thorin needed something new to cling to, to keep him going when the bleak moods took him.

On Ori’s suggestion, Thorin took to writing to Bilbo. The first missive was a short one, sent with their fastest raven, and the response Thorin got was at least half made up of exclamations about the bird, its size and training and behaviour. Thorin responded with tales about the massive flock that had once resided on Ravenhill at Erebor, and asked after the family Bilbo had mentioned. Before long, the correspondence was a regular one, each letter the highlight of Thorin’s week.

He visited the Shire again in the late spring, and returned to the mountain once again refreshed and determined to fix what he could for his people. He poured his efforts into building his people back up from ground up, focusing on forging sturdy foundations. Kíli was delighted to help him encourage more dwarves to take up the bow, a weapon more useful for hunting than the sword or axe. Dís toiled endlessly to bring more business to Erebor from the men in the nearby settlements. Fíli began to work more and more at Thorin’s side, handling the petty disputes of the nobles and the complaints of the people, flexing his authority as Crown Prince to take some of the burden off Thorin’s shoulders.

It was an unlooked for blessing, and Thorin tried not to feel too guilty as he took the unexpected free time to work on Bilbo’s gift. The rake was complete, as were the little trowel and equally small gardening fork he’d attempted next, and he decided to take on the easier task of shears and other cutting tools next, because he was familiar with how to forge blades as a true master of weaponsmithing, if he did say so himself.

He found himself once again followed by Dís. He glanced at her as he set to the bellows to coax the forge back up to a proper blaze from the embers, but she appeared lost in thought, and wasn’t likely to want his attention any time soon, so he allowed himself to focus on his work. His first attempt was a simple test run, to ensure that his design and technique would suit each other, and when that came out well enough, he turned his attention to the proper thing, using only the highest quality ores at his disposal and taking excessive care with every step of the process.

Dís had the decency to wait until the shears were complete, and only needed sharpening, before she spoke. “Thorin?” She asked, and when Thorin hummed to confirm she had his attention, even though his eyes were still on his work, she went on; “Are you quite sure about this?”

That got Thorin to look up. “Sure about what?”

“This.” Dís repeated, gesturing at the shears.

Thorin looked back at them with a critical eye. “What? Why? Is there a flaw I missed?” He asked, holding them up to the light for a better look. They seemed fine to him, but Dís did have a finer eye for detail than him, and he would not accept even a minor flaw in Bilbo’s gift.

“No, the shears are fine. You’ve done your craft proud with them.” Dis assured him, and Thorin relaxed. “I meant the hobbit.” Dís added impatiently, like she thought him a fool for not being able to work that much out for himself.

Thorin scowled. Perhaps, given that Thorin had changed the course of events, Bilbo hadn’t actually done all those things that had earned him Thorin’s regard, defending him and his people – and his sister-sons – from spiders and orcs and a dragon, but the soul was the same, the heart was the same, and the potential in Bilbo Baggins was the same. He might not be the hobbit who had faced down a dragon for Thorin’s people, but he was still the hobbit who would, and for that, Thorin would not hear a word against him, not even from those who might not know better. “What about him?” He demanded defensively.

“Don’t give me that tone, Thorin.” Dís chided. “I’m not trying to insult him, I’m sure he’s a very honourable hobbit, but he is a hobbit. You’ve known him less than a year, and I know how it can take you like that, sometimes, but are you really, really sure he’s worth this fight?”

Thorin was entirely ready to protest that Bilbo was worth more than Thorin could possibly give him, when the whole of Dís’s question registered. “What fight?” He echoed in confusion.

Dís scowled at him as though he was being dull on purpose. “Thorin. You can’t really think that the council won’t fight you on this.” Thorin had nothing to say to that, bewilderment stealing his voice. “They fought me over Vili, and for all that they loved to call him ‘un-dwarven’ for his love of the open sky and growing things, at least he was still very much a dwarf!”

Suddenly, Thorin realised what Dís was getting at, and he flushed and looked away. He hadn’t realised he’d been quite so obvious. That he was fond of Bilbo, yes, he’d had no doubt that everyone had noticed that, but he was used to keeping his heart well-guarded, and for Dís to be so convinced of his affection for the hobbit that she was already bringing up the question of the council’s reaction was unsettling. “There’s hardly a reason for the council to be involved yet.” He pointed out roughly. “As you said, it hasn’t even been a year.”

“You were planning to wait, then?” Dís asked, something almost surprised in her voice.

Thorin still couldn’t bring himself to look at her to get a better sense of her opinion. “Dís, I hadn’t even given thought to whether I plan to- to court him or not.” He informed her awkwardly. Dís made a startled sound, and Thorin huffed a bitter laugh as he hung his head. “I am in no doubt of my heart, I am quite certain I will never love another, but I do not even know if hobbits subscribe to the same prejudices as men, never mind whether Bilbo could ever return my affections.” He confessed.

There was silence from Dís for a small age, while Thorin wished the conversation could just be over. It had never come naturally to him, talking of his own emotions, but Dís was the only one left who could coax it out of him. It still left him feeling horribly raw and exposed. “Thorin, I don’t understand.” Dís said finally, softly. Thorin glanced up to see her puzzled frown, and she reached out to cover his hand with hers where it rested on the handle of the shears he’d just made. “I thought- Why are you crafting a courting gift if you haven’t decided to court him yet?”

“A what?” Thorin echoed.

Dís gave him a disbelieving look. “Thorin, you have never dipped into the stores of titanium for a personal project before.”

Thorin glanced at his titanium-coated shears, and realised all at once what it must look like to someone who didn’t know exactly what Thorin owed to Bilbo. To his mind, it had simply been a means of making amends, showing that he was sorry for his behaviour and intended to do better, that he understood that Bilbo deserved better than the way Thorin had treated him in his madness. But of course, that hadn’t happened, so what other conclusion was his family supposed to draw? Especially given that it wasn’t an entirely erroneous assumption.

Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because Dís abruptly burst out laughing. “Oh, Thorin!” She sighed in amusement, and leaned over to rest her forehead against his. “You hadn’t even noticed what you were doing, had you?” Wordlessly, Thorin shook his head, rocking her head along with his. “Well, now you know. Best figure out what you want, mm?”

“Too much that I cannot have.” Thorin murmured before he could stop himself.

“You may be able to have this, at least.” Dís pointed out gently, and when Thorin raised an eyebrow at her, her smile turned hard. “I wasn’t asking about the council because I thought you should stop, brother, I just wanted you to be sure you were ready for the fight. You know I’m very much of the opinion that if you love him, you should fight for him.”

Thorin’s throat was too tight for words, but Dís seemed to understand his silence, anyway, because she sat back looking satisfied, and turned the topic to other, less emotionally fraught things, and Thorin managed to pack most of his feelings away before he had to leave his forge and face the rest of the world again. It lingered in his mind though, through the rest of the summer, and through his next visit to the Shire near the beginning of autumn, just before the harvest began in earnest. He tried not to think on it too hard, though, and his work helped with that.

The visit lasted nearly a full month, as bulk orders for scythes and shears and spades, wheelbarrows and mesh baskets poured in, as well as even more requests for repairs of the same. On one memorable occasion, Thorin got an order for half a dozen machetes, and it was only on relaying his utter bewilderment to Bilbo that he understood they were for hacking through tough vegetable stems, not for use on people. Bilbo had all but howled with laughter at the cultural misunderstanding, and then explained about the different methods for harvesting various types of vegetable, tuber, fruit, and grain.

Thorin had seen no sign that the Shire so much as acknowledged the possibility of same-sex relationships, but he couldn’t help but ask after what sort of harvesting Bilbo did, with the thought of what sort of specialised tools he might add to his- Yes, okay, to his courting gift. Bilbo talked about his tomatoes, his peas and carrots, onions and chives, his strawberry and raspberry vines, and his wide variety of herbs. Thorin’s heart was in his throat the entire time, with Bilbo looking so alive and animated, and he resigned himself to finishing Bilbo’s gift, even if it saw him soundly rejected.

Any hopes of dedicating time that autumn to working on Bilbo’s gift were dashed when he returned to the mountain to find that one of the western halls had collapsed, taking an entire neighbourhood and the entrance to one of the more productive mines with it. Thorin threw himself into organising the relief efforts, finding new homes for the survivors, recovering what could be of those crushed under the rubble, arranging funerals, ensuring those that survived didn’t get lost in the chaos and wind up missing out on their due rations, and a never-ending list of other minutiae to deal with.

With the disaster came an upswing of discontent among the people that was hard for Thorin to bear. Not only did it make keeping everything running smoothly more difficult, but their suffering weighed on him like a mantle of solid lead. He was their King, he was responsible for their lives, and their state of living, and he was failing. Erebor hung in the back of his mind, a distant but ever-present temptation. They had, after all, succeeded in reclaiming the mountain. Perhaps if he could only avoid the gold-sickness, avoid the battle with men and elves. Perhaps if he could broker an alliance sooner, they would have been better prepared for the orcs and goblins. Perhaps if they kept better secrecy on the journey, they wouldn’t face a battle at all, at least, not until they were better entrenched. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

Then sanity would return, in the form of a vision of Fíli in a crumpled heap at Azog’s feet, Kíli a broken body on the ruins. There was no possible way he could reliably avoid that battle, except by not going on the quest at all. Then he asked himself if he was being selfish, allowing his people to continue living this precarious, dangerous lifestyle simply because he would not, could not, sacrifice his nephew’s lives for their safety. After all, several of his people had lost nephews and nieces to the cave in. Those thoughts made him angry, as well as guilty, and it was with a dark cloud hanging over him that he ploughed his way through his days. Even letters from Bilbo could only do so much to cheer him.

Bilbo was dear to him, and he would never wish misfortune on the hobbit, not even if it would get him Erebor and Khazad-dum free of orcs and back in dwarven hands, but it was hard to hear of his petty troubles with the Sackville-Bagginses and his delight at the bountiful haul from his little garden when Thorin’s people were in such dire straights. He did his best not to burden Bilbo with his foul mood and vicious temper – he would not make the same mistakes, he would not vent his ire on the hobbit who had done nothing to deserve it – but he was sure that his letters were shorter and less easy than they had been.

The tension had to snap eventually, and it came only a few short weeks after the cave in, when things were only just beginning to settle back into an equilibrium again.

It started with a commotion just outside the family rooms. When Thorin charged out, still in his nightshirt and with his sword in hand, he saw a familiar face being pinned to the floor by one of the guards. Nori looked powerfully resentful at having been caught rather than concerned, but he did blanche a little when he spotted Thorin, not that he was much of an impressive sight at that moment.

“Urgin?” Thorin questioned, but before he could get an answer, Dwalin charged into the royal chambers, followed by the other guard who had been on duty that day.

“You!” Dwalin snarled, surging forwards to snatch Nori up and lift him clear off his feet. “You’ve been a pain in my backside for years, but I never thought-” He began to rage, but Nori cut him off with an impressive attempt at an insouciant grin.

“Not my fault if the shinies are just too tempting up this end of the halls, Dwalin.” He protested. “What do they need it all for anyway? They could spare a trinket or two, don’t ya fink? C’mon, have a heart.” He wheedled. Thorin was honestly unsure if he was trying to bargain with Dwalin, or just enrage him. Anyone else he would have said it was the former, even with how unsuccessful it would be, but Nori was wily and fearless enough to bait Dwalin in a situation like this. “And I mean, security that lax is like asking for a thief to take a looksie, y’know? How was I supposed to refuse such a pretty invitation like that?” Nori went on, as Dwalin’s face went from red to purple in his rage.

“Dwalin, don’t kill him.” Thorin warned.

“I oughta.” Dwalin raged.

Thorin’s temper, stretched thin by the unrest in his halls of late, snapped. “Had he come for something valuable, I might agree, but he came for gold and jewels only.” He snapped, and it was enough to take Dwalin thoroughly aback. Thorin almost wanted to laugh. “If we had any left, he’d be welcome to them.” He snarled viciously. “Perhaps he could take the silver harp my mother made for me? Or the sapphire bead passed down through the generations from Durin himself that Fíli now wears? Or the silver and pearl comb our grandmother gave to Dís at her birth? We have already sold or melted down all the rest! As we would have sold those if they were not so valuable in other ways! How much of our legacy will we have to forsake to keep our people fed and clothed? Will the Valar not be satisfied until we have spilled the last of our blood to keep a stable roof over their heads?”

“Thorin.” Dwalin said, in a voice full of weariness and sorrow, but nothing more was forthcoming.

Thorin swallowed down the rest of his blistering, spiteful tirade. Is sacrificing my family the only way to save my people? wanted to spill out of his mouth, but he kept it behind his teeth through sheer force of will. “Let him go, Dwalin.” He grated out.

Dwalin was a good friend, because even though Thorin knew it went against all of his sensibilities, he obeyed. Nori dropped to the floor, landing on his feet as nimbly as a cat. His eyes skittered warily between Dwalin and Thorin, but that was the only sign he gave of his nerves. His posture and attitude all screamed casual arrogance as he patted Dwalin on the chest in a conciliatory manner before sauntering out of the royal chambers like he owned them.

Through the red haze of his fury, Thorin narrowed his eyes at the doorway the thief had just disappeared through. “Dwalin?” He asked, after several minutes, once he was sure he had his tongue back under control. Dwalin hummed warily in answer. “What did he just slip into your gambeson?”

“What? He didn’t-” Dwalin began, and then faltered, as one hand jumped up to where Nori had patted his chest. His fingers fumbled for a moment at the clasp of his gambeson, and then came away with a slip of paper between. “How did you-?” He began again, only to cut himself off again as he actually read whatever was written on the paper.

Dwalin’s face paled, and Thorin felt the foundations of his sanity crack under the force of his dread-turned-impotent-fury. He was going to lose his mind when Dwalin read out whatever Nori had written to warn them of, because that was the only thing Thorin could imagine it could be. But Dwalin didn’t say a word, only handed the paper over. Thorin took it with fingers made clumsy by tingling numbness.

‘The Princes are in danger.

One of the Lords is stirring shit up.

Your guards are being bribed.’

A strange calmness settled over Thorin. His mind was clear, empty and still. Although he understood the words perfectly well, knew their meaning and even their implications, true comprehension drifted just out of reach. But it was there, and he could see it, creeping in like a storm. Someone, perhaps even someone on his council, was threatening his nephews. No doubt using the unrest caused by the recent troubles as fuel for their treason.

The storm broke. Fury flooded through him, all the way down to his fingertips, desperation surging up from his gut, helplessness locking his throat and scorching all words from his mind. He rounded on the only thing nearby that he could attack without doing damage, and up-ended their large dining table with a wordless roar, sending metal plates and goblets clanging and skittering across the floor. The exertion burned away just enough of the rage to let him think somewhat rationally again.

Had he made an even worse choice, this time around? Had he sacrificed a home for his people only for his nephews to die anyway? At the hands of their own people, no less? Was there no path for him that could keep them safe? Was he simply fighting a losing battle? The whole world seemed bent on his people’s humiliation and destruction, with his own family at the top of the list. What could one poor, exiled dwarven King do against so much suffering and hatred?

“Uncle?”

Thorin looked up to see the rest of his family – Fíli, Kíli, and Dís – standing uncertainly in the doorway to the den. Dís was thin-lipped, expression gone steely in the face of his rage, and Fíli and Kíli both looked more concerned than unsettled by his temper. The vision of them, broken and lifeless, flashed across Thorin’s mind again, and it lanced pain straight through the core of him.

Without a word – he didn’t think he was capable of intelligible speech just yet – Thorin crossed the room and pulled his nephews into a hug, needing the reassurance that they were alive and well yet. He would keep them that way even if he had to bring down the entire mountain, stone by stone.

They hugged him back, just as tight and near-bruising, even though Thorin had no doubt they were confused. Dís looked like she might understand, though. Her face was pale and her eyes gleamed with a mixture of fear and fury to match Thorin’s own. Slowly, reluctantly, Thorin released the boys, and forced himself to push the rage aside and function as befitted a King. “Dwalin, I trust you to find out who is instigating this.” He stated.

“I will.” Dwalin confirmed.

“Instigating what?” Kíli asked, looking between them curiously.

“An attempt on your life, and your brother’s.” Dwalin responded, since the words got stuck in Thorin’s throat and refused to be uttered.

Fíli and Kíli both went wide-eyed, but that reaction was short-lived. Kíli’s expression quickly melted into wounded annoyance, while Fíli turned sombre. “We’ll be extra careful, Uncle, I promise.” Fíli swore.

He meant it, Thorin could see he meant it, but it was unnecessary. “We will be heading out of the mountain.” He corrected.

“What?!” Fíli demanded, looking outraged.

Dwalin grunted. “Until we know more about who and how many, it probably would be safer for you to be out of the mountain. Still a good idea to be on your guard, though. You’re not the only dwarves that travel, and some might even be traitorous enough to hire men to do the deed.” He snapped out a few insults at any dwarf who would sink so low.

Thorin had expected the stung pride from Fíli, but he was taken aback by the stubbornness he saw overtaking Kíli’s face. “Uncle, we’re not going to just run away.”

“If there’s discontent in our halls, we should root it out and face it, not flee from it!” Fíli agreed.

“I will not risk your lives for your pride.” Thorin retorted fiercely.

“It’s not pride!” Kíli protested. “Uncle, we can’t just leave. We can’t. And especially you can’t. Now? With the halls still a mess and the surveyors only half done checking the rest of the western tunnels? We can’t abandon our people just because we might be in a bit of danger!”

“I can manage the halls.” Dís interjected. “You boys leave the mountain to bring in more money often enough that it won’t necessarily look like running away, or abandonment.” She pointed out, looking between her sons with a stern stare.

For the first time in Thorin’s memory, Fíli and Kíli refused to bend under that stare. “It might not look like it, but it would be.” Fíli insisted, quieter now, but no less determined. Thorin gritted his teeth, and Dís pursed her lips, frown deepening.

“We’re not going.” Kíli added, crossing his arms and straightening to his full and rather impressive height. “If you try to make us, we’ll just sneak right back into the mountain, and then we’ll be skulking around with even less protection.”

Thorin was that close to just grabbing them by their ears and dragging them out of the mountain, but before he could do more than snarl half a breath of frustration, Dís spoke. “And what, exactly, do you hope to achieve by staying?”

“Our duty.” Fíli answered staunchly, not hesitating for a second.

Dís watched him for a moment, before something akin to pained pride painted itself across her features, and she nodded once. “Very well.”

“What?!” It was Thorin’s turn to be outraged.

Dís gave him a look so fierce it knocked him right out of his fury. She held his startled gaze for long enough to be sure he was actually listening before she answered him. “I do not like this any better than you, Thorin, but we raised my sons as Princes of Durin’s line, and we have no right to keep them from that duty, no matter how much we might like to stuff them back into the den and refuse to let them leave.”

Thorin found he couldn’t actually argue, however much he would have liked to.

#Lord of the Rings #The Hobbit #Bagginshield #Thorin Oakenshield #Bilbo Baggins #LotR #Not All Who Wander #time travel #Fili and Kili #this one is a little bit darker than the others I think #Thorin's in a very bad mood #understandably #and there are mentions of...#I think you could call it natural disaster?#and the loss of lives therein #I tried not to go into too much detail #this is primarily a romance after all #but yeah

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silvvergears · 5 years

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Late Shift

Happy birthday to @echotovalley, long time friend and enabler of Stupid Shit. This particular kind of Stupid - not even remotely edited Stupid - was based on an idea of hers that I decided to run with, so I hope I did it justice! Thanks so much for all you’ve done for me over the years, and here’s to many more~

Working night audit had long been Maka’s favorite shift, had been ever since Azusa had suggested Maka work a couple overnight shifts during the week. Though she missed her coworkers and their lively personalities, Maka loved having the night to herself; just the quiet lobby playlist and occasional sleepy-eyed guest to keep her company. It was on these long nights that Maka would sit with either her school notes or latest novel and let the sounds of the lobby act sooth the frustrations of the week.

That wasn’t to say nothing ever went wrong during the night shift, but at least it didn’t all go wrong at once. And Azusa trusted Maka with the night shift because she could handle whatever their guests tried to throw at her. Even the musically-inclined ones.

The late shift had gotten significantly more exciting while the orchestra was in her hotel, and Maka had come in expecting a night of noise complaints and escorting musicians away from the bar (Her only consolation was that a certain white-haired violinist was apparently a fan of his beauty sleep and never bothered her late at night). But it seemed that an important performance by the orchestra earlier in the evening had tired the whole group out, and Maka’s night had been blissfully easy.

Maybe that was why she had let her guard down.

Maka had made herself comfortable, jacket draped over the back of her chair as she curled up in her chair with her latest novel, when she noticed the music. It wasn’t the standard soft-pop hits that made up their lobby playlist, which at this point, Maka had heard so many times she barely heard them at all anymore. No, it was the soft playing of a lonely piano, each note drifting lazily through the quiet lobby. That was odd, they usually only had a pianist in the bar on the weekends… and certainly not at 2:47 in the morning.

This had ‘orchestra tomfoolery’ written all over it.

Groaning, Maka tucked a room key into her book to save her spot before standing. She didn’t bother to grab her jacket as she walked out from behind the desk, making sure the door was locked before making her way to the restaurant and bar. With the way the lobby was set up, the bar cut off Maka’s view of the baby grand piano until she was basically on top of it, and she spent the walk preparing her best customer service smile and ‘It’s 2 AM and I am not afraid to kick you out’ voice. It was a little odd walking through the restaurant without Patti’s beaming smile or Blair’s curling grin to meet her, but Maka’s steps didn’t falter until after she turned the corner and saw the head of white hair behind the piano.

Oh, for the love of God-

Maka’s annoyance died a quick, quiet death when she realized it was not, in fact, Wes Evans trying her patience yet again and banging away on an instrument he did not play just to prove he could. Instead, it was the younger, quieter Evans, seemingly unaware of Maka as he played. Maka’s interactions with Soul had so far been limited to requests for toothbrushes - he kept loosing them - or profound and exhausted apologies for Everything About Wes. He had struck her as the more sensible of the two, and it was only that that kept her from storming up to the piano and demanding he leave.

(Or at least, that’s what she told herself. To admit otherwise would mean admitting that something about his peaceful expression had struck a chord with something in her, and that was just not going to happen.)

Instead, Maka kept close to the darker parts of the empty restaurant, watching Soul curiously. He looked like he had just come from the concert hall, jacket laying next to him on the bench and tie hanging limply around his neck. He’d even begun to unbutton his shirt, the dim light catching on shiny scar tissue near the neckline of his shirt in a very distracting way. His posture was lazy and slouched, but his fingers still moved perfectly across the keys, wrists straight.

The song he played was unfamiliar to her, a slow, sleepy lullaby that meandered from key to key. Maka had never been very musically literate, only understanding a song if she had lyrics or choreography to help her, but somehow Soul’s playing managed to reach even her. She felt just as peaceful and relaxed as he looked, her body subconsciously leaning against the wall lazily as she wrapped her arms around herself loosely.

If she listened closely, she thought she could hear Soul humming to himself, the deep timbre of his hushed voice striking against the soft, raw part of her being that his music had exposed.

She forgot all about the front desk, about her novel and waiting homework. Her stress from school and all of her upcoming exams seemed to drain from her as she slumped in her spot, eyes closed. For a moment, nothing existed outside of the dark restaurant and the pianist playing in the only dim light in the room.

Maka opened her eyes just in time to see the exact moment when Soul realized he wasn’t alone, his wine-dark eyes meeting hers in a heartbeat of a moment before he started almost violently and his knees crashed into the piano while his fingers tripped over the keys awkwardly. Maka snorted into her palm, eyes scrunched with amusement as Soul shot her a painfully awkward smile and scrambled for his phone. The screen lit up his face so she had a perfect view as he realized exactly what time it was.

“Shit,” he hissed quietly.

“Mhm,” Maka replied, pressing her lips together to keep from grinning too widely.

“Shit,” he repeated, scrambling for his jacket as he tried to step away from the piano and only managed to trip over the bench, long legs caught awkwardly as he struggled not to fall or kick at the keys. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t think it was that late-” he said, keeping his voice low as if he feared speaking at a normal volume would wake the whole hotel. “I just- I couldn’t sleep so I was walking around and I-”

“Soul,” Maka interrupted, amusement clear in her voice. The sound of his name brought the flustered musician to a dead halt, looking at her with wide eyes. “It’s fine,” she reassured, “you weren’t bothering anyone. I’m the only person in the lobby right now, anyways.”

“I promise I don’t normally do this,” he repeated in the same way he usually said ‘I’m so sorry about my brother’.

“Play piano? I figured doing that regularly was a prerequisite for the whole ‘orchestra’ thing.”

Soul’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. “Oh, god, you’re as bad as he is.”

“I take deep offense to that,” Maka said loftily. She moved closer, Soul watching her warily the whole time. She bent down, scooping up the tie that had slipped from around his neck in his frantic scramble and holding it up to him. “Really though, you’re perfectly alright. If you had been Gopher, I might have had a problem, but since it’s you…” She shrugged.

“Since it’s me?” Soul murmured.

“You haven’t given me any trouble yet, so I figure I can let some late night practice slide just this once,” she said with a smile. “Also, I really liked your lullaby.”

Maka couldn’t be sure in the dim half-light, but she could swear Soul’s already dark skin flushed.

“Thanks,” he said softly, finally taking his tie from her outstretched hand.

“I didn’t recognize it, who’s the composer?” she asked curiously. Now she definitely knew Soul was blushing, his ears dark with embarrassment between messy strands of white hair.

“Uh, you probably wouldn’t recognize the name,” he muttered. “Real niche.”

A single dusty-brown eyebrow lifted. “Try me.”

Soul shifted awkwardly. “Um. Evans.”

Both eyebrows went up. “You-?” Soul nodded, looking anywhere but at Maka. Her shocked expression went soft. “Soul, that was beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said again, looking about ten seconds from an embarrassed meltdown. Maka took pity on the pianist and gestured for him to follow her back out of the restaurant and into the softly-lit lobby.

“I work the night shift once a week,” she told him as they walked. “If you want to practice on the grand at night, just make sure it’s on a night I’m here, and let me know.”

“You’re… gonna let me practice in the lobby? Just like that?” Soul shook his head. “Actually, no, don’t answer that, I don’t want you to reconsider.” Maka couldn’t help her amused snort.

“Hey, you’re not the sibling trying to practice in the cabanas, I think I can be a little lenient based on good behavior.” That got a chuckle from Soul, and Maka’s ears seemed to drink the sound in. Geeze, his voice was deep. Maka tried not to find that really attractive.

“I’ll continue to be on my best, then,” he said, stopping in front of the elevators that led up to the rooms. Maka stopped a few steps away, hands clasped behind her back as she turned to look at him. “I guess apologizing again would be in poor taste?” he said with a shy, crooked grin.

“Play something bad, and then I’ll accept your apology,” she told him, waving. “Have a good night, Soul.”

“You too,” he said softly, “… Maka.”

(Any shivers that went up her spine at the sound of her name spoken in Soul’s deep, sleepy voice were immediately blamed on the late hour and the sleep she so obviously was lacking.)

Extra:

Wes was generally very easy-going; happy to go with the flow and let his life take him where it will. As long as it took him to bed by ten. A man needed his eight hours, after all.

So rooming with his insomniac brother had been… a trial, to put it kindly.

Luckily, his expensive soundproofing headphones and eye mask helped Wes keep his strict sleep schedule without much intervention. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stop the call of nature, which is how Wes found himself awake at nearly three in the morning, faced with an empty bed and a missing brother.

“Come on, man,” Wes groaned, heading to the desk and his charging phone. Insomnia or not, Soul could have at least left a note or something before wandering off. Easy-going he may be, he was a big brother first and foremost, and he worried about Soul being alone in a strange place at such a late hour.

Thankfully, before he could finish his text, the prodigal son returned, looking… rather alarmingly flushed, actually. Late night walks were not that strenuous, especially at Soul’s base speed of ‘meander’.

“Hello?” Wes said, setting his phone back down. Soul looked at him with wide eyes, making a strangled sound before his back hit the door and he slid to the ground, hands over his eyes. Wes was at his side in a heartbeat, resting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You okay, Soul?” he asked, looking him over for any sign of being jumped or attacked.

“Peachy,” Soul groaned into his hands, bony knees up to his chest.

“Wanna explain before I assume the worst?”

Soul sighed. “I may have found the baby grand in the restaurant while I was walking around.”

Wes grinned. Ah, yes, that made sense. He had wondered how long Soul would be able to resist the chance to play such a lovely instrument. “Got caught by the front desk?” he said sympathetically.

Soul nodded.

“Got chewed out, huh?”

Soul shook his head.

Wait, what?

“She liked my composition,” Soul nearly whined, curling up further away from a very confused Wes. Again, huh? Soul was a talented composer, whether he believed so or not, but praise of his music had never flustered him like this. In fact, Soul only got flustered like this around…

Soul must have sensed the wide, shit-eating grin that spread across Wes’s handsome features, because he didn’t even have his mouth open all the way to tease his brother about a certain blonde front desk agent before Soul was shoving his jacket in Wes’s face, hissing for him to shut the fuck up, Wes.

#soul eater #soma #hotel au #maka albarn #soul evans #wes evans

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trulymadlysydney · 6 years

Text

All I Want For Christmas

In which it’s Christmas time, and Harry can’t help falling for the girl who helps him shop for gifts.

A/N: THE CHRISTMAS ONESHOT IS HERE! I’m sorry I didn’t get this out yesterday like I originally planned, but I figured better late than never right?! Enjoy, my loves, and Merry Christmas!!! xx

Please do NOT repost without permission!!!!

The first time he comes in is on a Friday. Which is generally known to be one of the busiest days in retail, so he has no one else to blame for the crowds but himself. Especially being Harry Styles. For goodness sake.

But he isn’t blaming anyone, or anything, really. He knows he’s brought this upon himself by waiting until a few weeks before Christmas to do his shopping. Normally he’d be so on top of things. But he hadn’t had the time, having just completed the first half of his world tour. Being Harry Styles and all.

The crowds aren’t all that bad, all things considered. It isn’t like he’s being mobbed-- and he’s certainly had his fair share of that in his day. No, aside from the few picture requests here and there, he is generally left alone-- and yet all too aware of the fact that there are cameras taking pictures of his every move at any given second.

Still, he tries to ignore that and presses on, entering the store. Christmas music plays obnoxiously loud. He is overwhelmed with a strong scent of cologne, and he coughs.

The corner of this room seems to be significantly more crowded than the rest of the room, so he tries to avoid that. He maneuvers his way through the crowd and wonders why on earth he couldn’t have gone online shopping like literally everybody else. Of course then, it would arguably be less authentic because he hadn’t hand-picked the gift. He was always silly about those things.

Working his way towards the back of the room and into the next, he is now in earshot of the conversations happening in the corner. One shrill voice is heard above all the others. “Miss, I have been standing here for three minutes now, could I please get some assistance?”

He almost doesn’t catch the response, because it sounds further away. Or oddly, lower down than all the other voices. But he does hear it. “Ma’am... please. We’re doing our best and I’m kind of trying to, you know, clean up glass here so that no one brains themselves.”

The irritated customer scoffs. “Well, I have been standing here since long before the incident happened. You have terrible customer service. I’d like to speak to your manager.”

And Harry knows he shouldn’t do this. He knows it isn’t his place, but now he’s intrigued. So he steps towards the chaos.

It’s then that he sees her. A young woman on all fours, using a little brush and a dustpan to sweep up the remains of a shattered cologne bottle. Which explains why his nostrils had been assaulted. She looks absolutely exhausted.

She sighs, looking up at the customer. “Of course. If you’ll just give me a moment to--”

“Are you serious?” The customer throws up her hands. “Young lady, I shop in Paris. I can get all of these things for a LOT cheaper there, but I choose to come here. I have been coming here for a year now, but after your behavior today I will NEVER be coming back. Your corporate office will be hearing about this.”

Harry looks around. The store is packed, wall to wall with customers. It seems severely understaffed, and those who are working seem to be just as stressed as this girl. But there’s something about her, this poor girl who’s trying her best to clean up the glass and handle this woman’s complaints at the same time. He takes pity on her really, and so he reaches out to grab the nearest employee as soon as they walk by.

“Excuse me.”

He watches the recognition register on the employees face, and her cheeks turn a bright red. “Oh my god,” she says quietly, before realizing she’s in a professional setting. She regains her composure- poorly- and visibly gulps. “How can I help you, Mr. Styles?”

Harry hadn’t even given her his name, and it takes him a moment to realize that she already knew it. Everyone did. Of course. Even still, after years of being Harry Styles, it took him a moment to remember these things.

He nods his head towards the woman in the corner. “I think the employee there needs a manager. And possibly some help. Broken bottle and a bit of a difficult customer.”

The girl sighs, and even she looks exhausted. “She comes in here a lot,” she says quietly, seemingly forgetting once more that she’s supposed to be professional. “I’ll get my manager. Thank you for telling me. Let me know if you need anything else!” She is obviously incredibly nervous, which is silly, Harry thinks. But he’s used to it. He watches her disappear further into the store and glances back towards the corner of the room.

The girl cleaning up the glass looks to be on the verge of tears, and the customer is going on and on about how “A smile can go a long way, young lady” and “how dare you treat me, an esteemed and long time customer, so poorly.” Harry almost wants to step in himself, but he knows that would probably do more harm than good. So he just stands there, frozen, and hoping that the manager will show up soon.

It doesn’t take too long for the manager to arrive, thank God, and the girl on the floor looks relieved at the sight. Poor thing. As soon as the customer turns to speak with the manager, Harry gets a good look at the girl.

Despite her weary eyes and messy hair, she’s cute. Insanely cute. And she has sweet eyes and a pretty mouth that, Harry is certain, looks beautiful when it’s smiling.

Harry wants to wrap her up in a huge hug. Tell her she’s doing just fine, she did nothing wrong. He also wants to take her home and put her in comfortable clothes and give her a cup of tea. She looks like she could use about twelve hours of sleep, and his bed seems like the perfect place.

And then he’s shaking his head because he doesn’t even know this girl and he’s thinking about her in his bed while she’s on the floor, cleaning up glass and looking on the verge of crying at any second.

The manager whisks the customer off somewhere else to talk more clearly, but Harry knows that the girl on the floor isn’t in trouble. The other employee said this customer came in a lot, and by the look on her face, none of the employees could stand her. The minute she walks away, the body language of Floor Girl changes immediately.

Her shoulders slump forward, releasing all the tension she’d been holding, and her lips pull into a frown. She swallows a few times, and that confirms it for him-- she’s definitely about to cry.

Harry can’t even stop himself at that point. He’s walking towards her-- although he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say to her when he gets there.

He stops though when she stands up, dustpan and brush in hand. She walks right by him, not even noticing that he-- Harry Styles-- is watching her. That only intrigues him more.

He follows her through the rooms of the store from a safe distance, trying his best not to be suspicious or creepy but keeping his eye on her because, for some odd reason, he just wants to know she’s okay. To his dismay, she disappears into the women’s room before he can say anything.

He’s standing there awkwardly now. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He twists one of the rings on his fingers. What is he expecting? Does he want her to notice him and make a big deal? What’s he going to say when she does? “Great job cleaning up that glass. You should be promoted.”

He looks around the store once more and selfishly thanks his lucky stars he’d never had to do this. Sure, he’d worked a few jobs in his life prior to making it big. He was definitely familiar with a business rush, but this? This is a whole other level, and even just being in the midst of it is making him anxious. Add in the people staring at him and the cameras that he knows are everywhere, it’s a wonder he hasn’t left yet.

But then the door to the women’s restroom opens minutes later, and he remembers why he hasn’t left. Except now, his pull towards her is even stronger. Because she’s been crying.

Her eyes are red and she looks around before wiping them, hoping no one notices. She takes a deep breath and steps back onto the floor, but stops when she notices Harry.

He realizes now how close he is, and how awkward it must look. He must look like he has a question, because she instantly gets that false “customer service” smile on her face. “Hi!” she says through a little giggle, reaching up to wipe at her eyes again. Her nose is red and shiny, and Harry has the weird urge to reach out and poke at it. He refrains, of course, but it is there.

“Wow! This is embarrassing!” She says, letting out another laugh. “I’m sorry. I don’t normally cry on the job. What can I help you with?”

Harry is in awe of her, really. He smiles and shakes his head. “No, nothing. Uh... you just... I saw what happened.”

He knows she wants to cry more, but she just continues to laugh instead. “Oh yeah? Sorry about that. I’d hoped it wouldn’t cause a scene.”

“No! It didn’t. Not at all. I just, erm, wanted to know if you were alright.”

She seems actually shocked at this question, as if no one had asked her how she was in a long time. And then, for the first time, she gives him a genuine smile. “Yeah. I’m alright. Thank you.”

“People can be downright awful, can’t they?” He says with a chuckle, and her mouth, still in a smile, falls open. Perhaps she’s shocked that those words came out of Harry “Treat People With Kindness” Styles’ mouth, but he meant them. “S’not really fair. Especially not this time of year.”

She giggles, nodding her head. “Definitely not. But it’s alright. Working retail, you kind of get used to it.” She shrugs, and suddenly Harry is incredibly self-aware and awkward. Why is he feeling flustered by this girl?

She notices the silence and clears her throat. “Anyway. I’m y/n. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

Harry notices the band-aid on her hand just as she turns to walk away. He knows he wasn’t that close to her before, but he swears she wasn’t wearing that when he first came in. She must’ve cut herself on the broken glass, and it makes him sad.

And then he remembers the whole reason he came in here in the first place. “Wait, y/n!” He steps forward and she turns on her heel. She’s got her “customer service” face on again, but her smile seems much more genuine this time. “Actually, if you could... point me in the direction of your hats?”

She smiles, pointing towards a room further back. “All our men’s styles are right over there!”

“Actually...” He says again. Why is he nervous talking to her? He hasn’t felt nervous talking to a girl in ages. “I’m looking for a woman’s style.”

He swears he sees her face drop for just a split second, and if he’d blinked he would’ve missed it. “Oh. Yeah. Straight back there, past the restrooms.”

He smiles. “Thank you so much.”

She turns to walk away for the second time but a thought occurs to Harry suddenly. “Y/n!”

She giggles, turning to him once more. The smile on her face makes it clear that she’s happy he’s still talking to her. He adores it. He wants to stay here and talk to her for hours.

He holds out his hand. “M’Harry.”

She looks down at his hand in disbelief. Of course she knows who he is. Regardless of whether or not she’s a fan-- which Harry is very curious to know-- she’s bound to have heard of him. She takes his hand, giving it a soft squeeze and a shake. “I know,” she says with a laugh. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He never wants to let go of her hand. He wants to keep holding it and feel her squeeze it like that over and over. But, god, he’s just met this girl and he doesn’t even know the first thing about her. So he drops her hand and nods his head. “S’nice to meet you too.”

The second time he comes in is on a Wednesday. And he’s surprised, really, because even though it isn’t as busy as the last time he was here, there’s still a decent amount of traffic in the store.

Y/n isn’t in the front room, and Harry doesn’t know wether to chuckle or shake his head at himself when he realizes that her absence makes his heart drop.

He didn’t come here to see her, again, of course. He came to get another gift. Though admittedly, he would be lying through his teeth if he said he hadn’t at least wanted to see her.

It had been all he could think about while he was wrapping the hat, and it was almost embarrassing. The way she’s constantly on his mind, despite having only exchanged a few words with her. He had caught her name, though, and honestly it had been ringing in his ears, playing on a constant loop in his head-- over and over. Embarrassingly enough, he’d found himself whispering her name quietly to himself before falling asleep, and smiling at the way it felt in his mouth. That’s when he knew he had to see her again.

But alas, she isn’t here in the front room, and he’s wondering if he actually came to get a present at all, or if she was what he was really looking for.

He’s about to ask someone if she’s working today when he feels someone tap his shoulder. When he turns around, he’s greeted by two young girls, probably no older than fifteen. Both are smiling ear to ear, and one looks just on the verge of passing out.

“Harry, oh my god... can we get a picture with you?” Her voice shakes when she asks, and it makes him chuckle a bit.

“‘Course.” And for a moment, all is forgotten. He asks the girls how they’re doing, how their days are going. He tells them its lovely to see them, they tell him how much they love his music. One of them swears she isn’t going to cry, and he hugs her when she does.

It’s when he turns to pose for the picture with them that he notices it. Over at the register, a quick flash of the smile he seems to remember so vividly alerts him of her presence. He tries his hardest to stay focused on the task at hand, he really does, but damn if his heart doesn’t soar out of his chest when he hears her laugh-- bubbly and light, just like her.

She looks lovely today. Not that she didn’t look lovely the first time he saw her, of course, but still. Her hair is perfectly in place, and she looks significantly less stressed than the last time he saw her. The bandaid is off of her hand now, which he notices when she reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She types effortlessly on the register while giggling at a story her coworker is telling her, and its all so excruciatingly adorable.

Harry holds polite conversation with the fans in front of him but he physically cannot stop his eyes from flicking over to her every now and then. She still hasn’t noticed him, but he wishes she would. Though sooner or later, he’s sure she’ll catch on and notice him staring, so he clears his throat and turns back to the young girls.

When the conversation begins to die down and the girls are saying their “thank you”s, he allows himself one more glance in her direction. And when he does, his body goes hot.

She is looking right back at him with an amused expression on her face. Her lips curl into the daintiest little smile and she quirks her brow at him. He feels his cheeks go hot, but he smirks at her nonetheless. He’s got her attention now, and try as he might to stay calm and collected, his stomach is in absolute knots. What’s he going to say to her? Should he say anything at all?

Once the girls have said their goodbyes they leave the store giggling and scream-whispering about him. And now he’s there, and he feels like his feet are cemented to the ground. Y/n seems to be stuck as well, fidgeting with the various items behind the register. Her coworkers who aren’t currently assisting customers, are whispering, blushing, nudging one another, and its all very awkward because no one knows what it is they’re supposed to do in this situation.

Harry clears his throat and takes a step forward at the same time y/n does, and they both notice this-- causing them to stop in their tracks. Y/n giggles at this before shaking her head and closing the space between them. Cautiously, but with purpose nonetheless.

“Harry!” she says. “Welcome back. Did you have troubles with the hat?”

Harry swallows when he gets a whiff of her perfume, but he smirks and upholds his suave demeanor. “No actually.”

“Did she love it?!” Y/n shows no hint of jealousy when she asks this, but Harry does notice her fidgeting with the ring on her pointer finger.

He shakes his head. “Still sitting under the tree, silly. S’a Christmas present.”

“Oh.” Y/n giggles again. One of her coworkers drops something behind the register, and it lands with a thud that causes nearly the entire store to turn. Y/n shakes her head, and and sighs when she speaks. “They’re nervous. They don’t know how to act around you.”

Harry chuckles. “Around me? Nonsense. M’a normal guy. A regular dude.” Keep it together Harry.

“A normal guy who gets asked for pictures and autographs just for simply entering a store.” Y/n nods her head over her shoulder. “Look at every person in this room right now.”

Harry scans the room and chuckles when he notices that everyone does, in fact, seems to be looking at him. Even if they’re mid conversation, or holding an item in their hands, or texting. They’re all looking in his direction.

He shakes his head and turns back to y/n. “Not lookin’ at me. Must be you they’re lookin’ at.”

Y/n’s cheeks redden at that, and she glances down for a split second. The smile on her face is bloody adorable, and Harry can’t believe he’s twitterpated like a damn schoolboy. She composes herself before he has a chance to say anything else. “So, what can I help you with today?”

“Another gift. M’thinking a scarf or like, a dress. To go-”

“-with the hat.” They say the last sentence at the same time and now Harry’s cheeks go red hot. He laughs nervously, raising a hand to run through his hair before adding, “Yeah. Want to complete the look and all that.”

Y/n clears her throat. “Well, all our women’s apparel is right down there.” She points with an open hand towards a room in the back, and Harry’s brain scrambles with any excuses he can make to get her to help him.

“What would you recommend?”

“Hmm?” She looks at him with genuinely curious eyes, and he backpedals. Don’t come off too strong.

“I just mean like... what do you think would go nicely with the hat?” Did she even see the hat? Harry thinks back and, shit, no, she hadn’t been the one to ring him up once he bought the hat last time. He clears his throat. “It’s black, and uh-”

“It has the buttons on it,” Y/n finishes. “I remember!” And now Harry feels stupid. Y/n giggles. “Well... uh.... here.” She starts walking into the women’s apparel room, motioning for Harry to follow. And he does, like a faithful little puppy just waiting for his treat.

Harry, of course, notices the way her hips swish back and forth when she walks and it makes his lips quirk up in his famous smirk. His fingers find their way up to tug on his bottom lip to possibly hide this, but there’s no denying that dimple on his cheek. She looks subtly sexy and impossibly polished and Harry’s mind wanders to what she would look like outside of work clothes. Maybe bundled up in her winter clothes with a little red nose. Or sitting on his couch in one of his t-shirts and her hair disheveled from her attempts to keep it out of her face. Or maybe wearing nothing at all--

“Here.” Y/n stops walking in front of a black dress hanging on the rack. “I really, really like this dress. You’d think it would be heavy, but its actually not. I think it would look stunning with that hat.”

It would look stunning on you, Harry thinks. His mind focuses on her in that dress, and how beautiful she must look in it.

“S’it comfortable?” He tugs at one of the sleeves, trying to determine the material. As if he knows anything about that.

“I think so, but I’ve only worn it once. I would imagine that it stays comfy though.” She twists the price tag between her fingers, and lets out the quietest little sigh that Harry would’ve absolutely missed had he not been paying attention. “It’s quite pricey though.”

Harry’s lips quirk up in an amused little grin. “I don’t mind all that.”

Her eyes go wide. “Oh! No, I didn’t mean... I didn’t want to assume... that you couldn’t... I figured you could, I just--”

Harry chuckles, reaching out to touch her arm without thinking about it. “S’okay, love. Relax. I knew what you meant.”

Y/n turns even more red than before, and she bites at her lip to hide the adorable little smile threatening its way onto her cheeks. “Sorry.”

Harry has to refrain from reaching out to tilt her chin and make her look at him again. “Don’t apologize.” He nods his head towards the dress. “Why’ve you only worn it once then? A dress like this deserves to be seen on a beautiful girl all the time. If I were as beautiful as you are, I’d be wearing it every day.”

This coaxes a giggle out of y/n, and Harry beams. “You’re a charmer, aren’t you?” She says, through her laughter. “No, I don’t actually own the dress.”

Harry’s eyebrows do furrow at this. “What?”

Y/n rolls her eyes, but her smile deepens. “Like I said... it’s pricey. Even with my discount.”

It’s then that Harry realizes he hasn’t actually looked at the price once during this conversation. He glances at the price tag, and his mouth nearly falls open when he sees that the number is far less than he’d been anticipating. It’s money he could spend without even making a dent in his bank account, and of course he realizes that this is because he’s extremely fortunate with his career. Times like this are when it hits him that he’s not just Harry, out shopping for a Christmas present. He’s Harry Styles, and he is, in fact, incredibly different.

He drops the tag and is about to speak when y/n cuts him off. “Sorry. God, I’m not even supposed to be talking about that.” She laughs, and Harry smiles at the way she nervously fidgets with her ring again. “Anyway! It’s a great dress. Absolutely worth the price. And it would be gorgeous with that hat. We have other options, of course, but I feel like this dress was kinda like... made for the hat, ya know? But I can show you some other options. Like maybe--”

“Nah, this is good.” Y/n stops mid sentence, and then raises her eyebrows.

“Alright. What size are we thinking? A small? Extra small?”

Harry doesn’t know why she automatically assumes that the person he’s shopping for is a small, but he shakes his head. “Mm... no I’d say a medium. Maybe a large. She can always exchange it if it doesn’t work, yeah?”

Y/n swallows when Harry mentions the female he’s buying this for, but he doesn’t think twice about this. “Yeah,” she says. “She uh... she has 30 days.”

Harry nods. “Perfect. Medium it is.”

She smiles. “Right. I’ll get that from the back and then ring you up, yeah? Unless there’s something else you wanted to see.”

You. Tonight. Cuddled up close in my arms. “That should do it.”

Y/n seems like there’s something else she wants to say, but she settles for a simple nod of her head. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

And when she disappears into the back to get the correct size for him, he lets out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. He glances back at the price tag and lets out a soft little laugh.

He is falling for this girl.

The third time he comes in, he’s in a hurry. And he’s actually hoping that Miss Y/n is not here.

He hardly even gives the customers a chance to register who he is. He walks with purpose, his long strides carrying him as fast as they can take him without making him run. When he reaches the register, he’s almost out of breath.

The girl at the register, a thin young thing with a very pretty smile, seems confused. “Hello Mr. Styles. Is there something--”

“Is y/n working?” He doesn’t mean to cut her off, but he’s in a hurry.

The young lady-- ‘Bea’ as her nametag reads-- seems taken aback by this. “Uh...” She glances at the computer. “She comes in in about, like, twenty minutes.”

Harry lets out a breath. “Perfect. Bea, love, I need your help.”

Exactly twenty minutes later and not a moment too soon, Harry is exiting the store with his latest purchase in a bag on his arm just as y/n is entering.

Her face lights up the minute she sees him, but she furrows his eyebrows when she notices the bag. She seems almost hurt that he was there without her. But she brushes it off with a cheerful smile. “Harry... hey!”

Harry is aware of the way people are buzzing around them. He’s aware of the pictures being taken, and the people nearly crying because he’s right there. He’s aware of all the people he’s going to have to stop and take a picture with after this, and, worst of all, he’s aware of all the rumors that are inevitably going to start flying once people see him talking to a girl. This is, in no way, how he wanted this to happen. But he can’t hold off on this any longer.

“When are you off?”

Now y/n doesn’t even try to hide her confusion. She glances around at all the people who seem to be staring at her, and her fingers find their way up to fidget with her ring once again. “Uh.. I’m off at 8:30.”

“And Saturday? When are you off then?”

“All day...” Y/n’s answer seems to end with a question mark. “But I can see if I come in if you’d like.”

“No, no,” Harry says quickly. “Uh--” He’s cut off by the flash of a camera, and a little groan escapes past his lips. “Christ,” he mutters, before nodding his head towards the store. “Can we talk inside?”

Y/n glances straight at the camera that just went off, and then worriedly back up at Harry. “Yeah. I feel like maybe that’s a good idea.”

The tone in her voice makes Harry sad, and he fears he’s screwing this whole thing up. This isn’t how he wanted to ask her. He didn’t want to stress her out or, heaven forbid, scare her, but it seems he’s doing all of the above.

They step inside the store, but y/n doesn’t stop walking, so Harry has no choice but to follow close behind her. “Sorry,” she says, her voice quiet. “I’m running a bit late, so I have to clock in. But what’s wrong?”

“No nothing’s wrong, I just--”

“Did she not like the dress?” Y/n seems to be in her customer service mode again, all of her anxiety from a few moments ago washing away once she’s at the register. She types something that Harry doesn’t quite catch, and he’s assuming she’s clocking in. “Do you need a size smaller?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Despite the company outside, Harry thanks his lucky stars that the store isn’t very crowded at the moment. He leans in a bit closer. “I was wondering if... you wanted to do something. With me. On... when did you say? Saturday?”

Y/n’s fingers stop moving and she gapes at him. It takes her a moment to process what he said, and when she does, she lets out a squeak. “But... but I thought--”

“We can just go see a movie or something. Or, if you wanted, you could just come over to my place. No funny business, of course, just figured we might want to avoid all of that.” He nods his head over his shoulder in regards to the crowd outside the store.

Y/n cocks her head. “But... your girlfriend...”

Harry makes a face of pure confusion at this, shaking his head the minute the words leave her lips. “My what?”

“Your girlfriend,” she says slowly. “The person you’ve been buying all these things for....”

And then it makes sense to Harry. Everything makes sense. He snorts as realization hits him, and he shakes his head. “Must have me confused with somebody else, love. They’re for my sister.”

“Your...” And now y/n is laughing as well. She groans and hides her face in her hands. “Oh my god. I’m an idiot.”

Harry wants to reach out and tug her hands away but instead he reaches up to run a hand through his hair. He wishes he’d cleared this up sooner, but admittedly this is a bit funny. “You’re not an idiot. I probably could have told you.”

“I mean, I shouldn’t have assumed.” She lowers her hands, but keeps one of them placed on the the back of her neck. “God, I’m sorry.”

Harry watches her rub at her neck and thinks just how badly he’d like to kiss the spot below her hand. He shakes his head. “Don’t be.” He leans just a bit closer now, now that he feels he can without making her nervous. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“What? Oh!” Y/n’s face lights up once more at that. “Yes! Of course. God, I’d love that. I’m free all day Saturday so like.. whenever you want.” She giggles, and its the most endearing thing in the world to Harry how nervous she is now. He feels just as relieved as she feels, no doubt, because now there’s no question in his mind that she’s been crushing on him as well. “Uh,” she stammers, fidgeting with a pen and a business card. “You want my number? Or I can like... get yours, or... something.”

Harry smirks, looking down at her hand that is practically shaking. “Yeah. I’ll take yours and I’ll write you tonight.”

She lets out a shaky breath, and Harry can tell she’s trying to suppress the world’s largest grin. If he’s honest, so is he. “Okay,” she says, scribbling out her number on the back of the card. “Sorry I... don’t know why I’m like... shaking.”

He laughs at this. “You’re nervous? Around me? A normal guy? A regular dude?”

She rolls her eyes and finishes writing out her number. When she hands it to him, he can feel how cold her hands are. “Here you go,” she says.

“Thanks.” He tucks it into the shopping back that still hangs from his arm, and when y/n notices that, she nods towards it.

“What’s that then?”

Harry glances down at the bag and smiles. When he looks up at her, he can see she’s trying to peek through the tissue paper. “Another gift for my sister,” he says, pulling it further away from her. “Nosey little thing.”

Her mouth falls open and he knows she’s about to let forth a slew of apologies, so he cuts her off. “Have a good shift, love. And tell your friend Bea thanks for the help.”

---

On Saturday, it snows. Which, of course it does. And on any other day, Harry would absolutely advocate for a snow day. But not today. No, today he’s spent the entire day worrying that y/n isn’t going to be able to come over due to the snow and the icy roads.

Currently he paces around the kitchen, touching and retouching nearly everything. His house smells like brownies, his mum’s special Christmas recipe, and the roast sits cooling on the stove.

Tonight, Harry has pulled out all the stops. Which, now that he thinks about it, may be overkill. This sends his heart into a tizzy once more because he wants to impress her, of course, but christ, did he have to go to such great lengths? What if he scares her off? It’s been a while since he’s done this whole “date” thing, and being Harry Styles he can’t exactly just take her out for a casual night at the movies. He’d had to take matters into his own hands.

Which reminds him... are his hands clean? Did he remember to remove the chipped nail polish? Should he have clipped his nails one more time?

His phone makes a ding noise from it’s spot on the counter and when he sees her name, he grins. This has been the normal reaction since the first text he’d ever received from her, and it hasn’t gotten old yet. She’s just as adorable over text as she is in person, and it’s almost intimidating. She constantly sends just the perfect amount of emojis and, even though Harry himself has never been one to use them, he finds himself growing quite fond of the little yellow smiley’s and pink hearts scattered throughout her messages. Plus her spelling and punctuation makes the writer in him swoon, but he’s more hesitant to admit to that because it makes him feel like a loser, so he keeps that to himself.

He picks up his phone, using his thumb to punch in the passcode before reading her message.

-Hey, I’m here. What’s the code for the gate?

It wasn’t even a cute text, but he smiles to himself when he replies.

-2427. The front door is unlocked, You can just come right in.

-Are you sure? Nobody’s going to like, stop me or ask for my ID?

-What do you think this is, Buckingham Palace? Of course not.

Harry worries that his teasing doesn’t translate well, so he quickly adds:

-Would it make you feel better if I met you in the driveway?

When her text comes moments later, he can’t help but snort.

-Who do you think I am? The Queen of England? I don’t need any escort. 😂 -See you soon 😌

And suddenly, Harry’s nerves come back. He looks around the house. It’s enormous, and it’s clean, but is it clean enough? Had he spent enough time vacuuming the carpet? He straightens one of the pillows on his couch, and then straightens it again. Fuck, it’s not good enough.

Is it good enough?

He doesn’t have any more time to overthink when he hears the front door open. Y/n clears her throat before calling out a soft, “Hello?” And it makes the nerves completely disappear.

He turns the corner of the living room to find her standing in his doorway, shaking little white snowflakes off of her boots. She’s got a black beanie with a fuzzy little ball on the end adorned atop her head, as well as fingerless black gloves, and it’s all so cute that Harry has to resist the urge to go up and kiss her nose (which is red and undoubtedly cold).

“Hey you.” He smiles as he walks towards her, and he hears her say a quick “hello” While he wraps her up in his arms. Her coat is cold to the touch, and he notices a few snowflakes along the wool. When he pulls away, he asks, “Still snowing?”

“It just started up again,” she says with a nod, peeling off her gloves. “So it’s not too bad just yet. But yeah. It’s snowing.”

“Nice,” Harry says, watching as she starts to peel off the jacket next. “I love the snow.”

“Me too.” She shoves the gloves into the pocket of her jacket and then holds the jacket awkwardly in her hands. She doesn’t know where she’s supposed to put it. He takes it immediately and walks to hang it up in his closet. In the meantime, she stands, twisting the ring on her finger in her hands, over and over and over again.

This is all so awkward but in the loveliest way; like he wants to drink in their silence because its *theirs* but he also wants to say something- anything- to keep things going.

Fuck, he’s not even making sense in his own head.

He clears his throat. “Were the roads bad then?”

“Not too much. Not yet anyway. Hopefully they’ll stay that way.”

“Well if not, I’ve got room for you to stay.”

Did he say that? God, why did he say that?! That sounds like he’s trying to make advances on her. And sure, he’d love if she stayed but he doesn’t mean it in a perverted way, and christ, it most definitely came out that way. He won’t blame her if she walks out right now. And--

“Thank you.” He hardly dares to look at her, but out of his peripheral vision he can see her cheeks are red and fuck, its cute. She giggles a little before swiftly changing the subject. “Something smells delicious!”

“Yeah?” He smiles, thankful that she’s changed the subject. He motions for her to follow him into the kitchen. “I made a roast. And there’s brownies in the oven.”

She gasps. “Harry, oh my god. You should’ve told me! I would’ve brought something.”

“Didn’t have to bring anything, love. I invited you, and this is a date, innit? Aren’t I supposed to be the one to do the impressing?”

Y/n is quiet for a moment, taking in the size of his house with eyes the size of golf balls. It’s gorgeous and massive and unlike anything she’s ever seen. “Well you’ve certainly done a good job,” she says softly. And now Harry really feels like this is all overkill. He’s about to say something when she speaks again, “I still feel bad. But thank you. This is amazing.”

“Of course.” He smiles softly, walking over to the fridge to offer a drink. “Just happy you could make it.”

For the next 30 minutes, they just talk. And it gets less and less awkward with every passing minute. In fact, its completely normal by the time they’re sitting on his couch, with full plates resting on their laps, and y/n with her socked feet-- crossed at the ankle-- resting on his coffee table.

She continuously compliments his food, and he continuously turns an embarrassing shade of red. Because he did try. He tried his hardest, really, and she loves it.

She talks to him about work and it all feels so casual and domestic and natural. He genuinely cares about her and her struggles with retail, and school, and her family life, and they both seem to forget the reality of the situation-- that he’s Harry Styles and she’s in his mansion, drinking his egg nog with her feet up on his coffee table that is probably worth thousands of dollars.

And after dinner, she helps him with the dishes. She rinses them and loads the washer while Harry cuts the brownies and talks about his life-- his actual, real life story before he became this massive sensation. She listens and asks questions, and he forgets nearly everything else except for her and this moment. Her smile, her laugh, her voice.

It’s an hour and a half later when Harry finally makes a move.

They’re on his couch, watching Christmas films. Although truthfully, they’re hardly watching because they keep getting wrapped up in conversation. Sharing memories from their childhood. Laughing at hilarious jokes the other tells. Feeling buzzed off of Christmas cheer and all that.

It’s when she giggles at Chevy Chase’s line in the film they’re watching. ”When Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!” She leans in ever so slightly, her body nudging close to his while her belly laugh overpowers her. Its the cutest fucking thing Harry thinks he’s ever seen, even if his whole body seems to ignite when she leans into him.

When she doesn’t make any type of effort to scoot away, he starts to think that maybe she’s done it on purpose.

Her body feels warm against his own, and he’s getting a much stronger whiff of her perfume-- or maybe her shampoo. He’s nervous. God, he’s so nervous... but surely she wouldn’t be leaning into him like this if she didn’t mean to right?

She giggles again and this time, her hand brushes against his knee. And that’s when he knows. He chuckles along with her (because admittedly, Chevy Chase is one funny bastard) and allows his arm to slink around her shoulders. Then down her back. And then around her side.

And now they’re cuddling.

Her bottom lip finds its way between her teeth for just a brief moment, and her eyes wander. She’s happy he did this.. At least, she seems happy. He gives her a little squeeze as if to test the waters, and, although her eyes never once leave the screen, she reaches over to interlace her fingers with his.

She’s happy.

She scoots impossibly closer and closer by the minute and Harry wants to kiss her. He really, really wants to kiss her. To feel her lips between his own. Maybe her tongue. Inhale that scent, taste that giggle, kiss that smile. And he thinks maybe he’s going to... that is, until the TV gets all fuzzy.

He halts his movements (which up until now have only been stroking his thumb softly against her skin and glancing in her direction every now and then) to glance at the TV.

“Uh oh,” y/n giggles. “It says poor satellite connection.”

“No way,” Harry says, reluctantly unwrapping himself from her to stand up. “It wasn’t snowing that hard, was it?”

As he makes his way to the TV, y/n glances at her phone. “Well, that was three and a half hours ago when I first got here. We haven’t even checked outside.”

Harry is poking and prodding at the cable box, as if he has any idea what he’s doing. “Hasn’t been that long.. has it?”

“Yeah man,” she says. “It’s 10:30.”

“Jesus.” Harry mutters curse words under his breath while he touches the wires. Mostly, he’s upset because of how late it is. That means she’s going to want to leave soon.

Moments later, a gasp, and her voice saying “Harry, look!” draws his attention. When he turns to her she’s at the window, peeking through the blinds. He walks over to her and it feels good to be that close to her again. He takes a risk and puts his hand on her hip, which she happily relaxes into, before taking a look through the blinds.

It’s snowing. Hard. The ground is covered in a thick layer of white, and the air seems fogged up with the little snowflakes. This isn’t a snowfall all tender and mild. This is a snowstorm.

“It’s so pretty,” she breathes.

Alright, so Harry is being dramatic. It isn’t a storm per se, but it’s still more snow than he’s seen in a while. And he instantly has to shoot down the tinge of excitement that burns in his chest that maybe, just maybe, she’ll end up snowed in at his place for the night.

“So pretty, innit?” Harry asks softly, tearing his eyes away from the white snow to look at her. Her, in her soft little sweater. Her face a beautiful shade of reddish pink-- half from the soft lights in his house and half from her natural shyness. Why she’s shy, Harry hasn’t the foggiest idea, but he intends to break her of that if she lets him.

“It’s actually really romantic” she says softly, her cheeks quirking up into the softest smile.

“Yeah.” Harry isn’t looking at the snow now. He’s looking at her, and she knows it. “Comin’ down pretty hard though.”

She ignores his last statement and turns to him, biting her lip as if hesitant to say what she’s about to say. “Have you ever kissed in the snow?”

“Hmm?” He’s taken aback by her question.

“I just mean like... you know how people make kissing in the rain into such a huge deal?”

Harry thinks back to the one and only time he’d ever kissed in the rain. It had hardly been romantic at all, really. Mostly it had been wet, and it had made his clothes feel gross against his skin. Not to mention his at-the-time girlfriend’s hair had become wet and stringy and gotten stuck on his mouth and his cheeks. As much of a sucker for romcoms as Harry is, he’d never recommend a rain-kiss to anyone.

But still, he nods. “Yeah.”

“Well like... what about a snow kiss?”

And Harry can’t help but smile at this. “You ever had a snow kiss?”

“No!” she says. “And that’s what I’m saying. I think it would be romantic, you know?”

Harry, getting a sudden burst of confidence, wiggles his eyebrows. “Are you lookin’ for an excuse to kiss me?

He revels in the way her cheeks turn red and her voice gets quieter, but she stands her ground and surprises him with a snort. “I mean, duh. I figured all those hints I was dropping were obvious.”

It’s his turn to turn ruby red. He’s shocked really. Her voice was quiet when she spoke, and she’d looked everywhere but at his eyes (or his lips), but she was smirking and subtly scratching her nails on his back when she’d said it. Fuck. How did he find himself such a little firecracker, who could both dish it out and take it?

“Didn’t have to drop hints, you know,” he says, pouting a bit. “Could’ve just done it.”

“I wanted it to be perfect.”

“Wouldn’t have been perfect just sitting together cuddling?”

She giggles, shaking her head. “No. Had to make it as absolutely cheesy as possible.”

Harry is smirking now, pulling her in closer and giving her hips the slightest little squeeze. “Oh did you?”

She smirks right back, leaning close enough that he can feel her warmth but just out of his lip’s reach. “Mhmm. Tis the season and all that.”

Harry snorts, giving her side a little squeeze. “Right. Get bundled up then. We’re going outside.”

He laughs at the way her jaw drops when he lets go of her and starts walking towards the hall closet. “What?”

“You heard me. C’mon then.”

“I mean, we don’t actually have to have our first kiss in the snow--”

“Actually we do.” Harry opens up the closet and starts removing her coat from the hanger. “Know why?”

She doesn’t answer him, she only steps closer to him. So he continues.

“Because you wouldn’t have brought it up if you didn’t think it.”

She starts stammering, but she’s beaming from ear to ear. “I mean, I was kind of kidding about making it as cheesy as possible, but--”

“None of that,” he says, pushing her coat towards her. “You want cheesy? I can show you cheesy.”

She hesitates before taking the coat with a shake of her head. “You’re nuts.”

“Thank you. Want to borrow a scarf?”

Its a few minutes later when Harry and y/n trudge outside, their shoes crunching through the snow a bit loudly. Harry’s lucky he lives in the gated community he lives in, but just in case, he takes y/n’s hand and leads her around the back of the house.

“Never snows like this in LA,” Harry says quietly. “You’re right, it is romantic.”

Y/n giggles nervously, letting him lead her. She’s definitely wondering what she’s gotten herself into, and if Harry’s honest, so is he. When they get to a private spot, Harry lets go of her hand.

She thinks he’s going to kiss her, and her stomach fills with a wave of nervousness. “Harry, I--”

“Hold on,” he says, turning away from her. “Have to make this proper cheesy, don’t I?”

Y/n watches in confusion while he takes a few steps away from her, then stops and turns on his heels. She snorts when he wiggles his eyebrows at her and steps with a wonky half step, half dance move maneuver towards her. “Hey girl.”

“Harry oh my god.”

He wiggles a bit closer to her. “Heard you’d never been kissed in the snow.”

Y/n is having a proper giggle fit now, and its making Harry want to laugh too. Still, he keeps up his act. “As it just snow happens, I’ve never been kissed in the snow either.”

“HARRY.” She snorts and steps away from him at his awful pun.

“I knew I wanted to kiss you... at frost glance.” He reaches out for her. “I feel like fate... sled us to this moment.”

“Oh my god. Alright enough with the puns.” But she’s giggling, and Harry is thriving.

He continues wiggling his hips the closer he gets to her. “There’s snow easy way to say this... but--”

He’s cut off when y/n throws a snowball-- or what wishes it was a snowball-- at him. It lands with a thud against his chest and breaks, a few of the icy pieces hitting his chin. His jaw drops and she laughs.

“Sorry,” she says. “I can’t take any more snow puns.”

Harry takes a moment, and it makes y/n a little nervous when he smirks. “That was very Rudolph you...”

And before y/n even has time to react, Harry’s scooping up snow and tossing it at her. She shrieks, trying to dodge the ball that comes her way. “No!”

“Yes,” Harry says back, already scooping up his next snowball. “You started this. Could’ve just taken my puns, but you had to throw a fit, and now look at where we are.”

Y/n shrieks again, dodging his grasp and trying to scoop up a bit of snow in her own gloved hands. She reaches for him, trying to shove it down the back of his jacket-- which in turn makes him groan through his laughter. “Fuck, s’cold!” He whines.

“That’s what you GET!” She says loudly, followed by a squeal and a slew of ‘NO NO NO’s when Harry grabs her jacket and does the same thing to her.

They continue like this for the next few minutes, and Harry doesn’t even have time to think, once more, about how incredibly easy it is to be around her. He’s not even thinking about how he hasn’t laughed this loud or this long in quite a while, and he isn’t thinking about how he’s told this girl so much in just one night. He’s not even worried. He wants her to know everything. He wants to spend every single night like this. For a long, long time.

She giggles, tripping a bit on her own boots and plopping with a thud into the snow. He follows suit, falling beside her with a grunt and a loud laugh. (But not without shoving a bit more snow onto her and under her coat onto her bare tummy-- to which she shrieks.)

He laughs, reaching over and taking her hips in his hands and guiding her gently on top of him. She obliges instantly, swinging a leg over and straddling him. She sits on his hips while he remains laying on the snow, and she smirks down at him.

This could easily turn sexual, of course, and Harry is acutely aware of that fact. But right now, she looks so bloody beautiful with snow in her hair and snowflakes in her eyelashes and her nose red and shiny, that he doesn’t care. This is all so like a cheesy Christmas film and it makes Harry’s stomach churn a bit, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Cheesy enough for you?” He asks, raising his eyebrows and giving both of her arms a bit of a squeeze.

She rolls her eyes, but breaks into the biggest smile he’s ever seen. “The perfect amount.”

He smiles, wiggling a bit so he can sit up on his elbows. “Excellent. Kiss me.”

Her bottom lip tucks up in between her teeth once more, and he immediately softens the request with a “please.”

When she giggles, he knows he’s got her. And when he leans in, he doesn’t even have time to register anything that’s going on. Her mouth is on his, and its the most incredible thing he’s felt in a while.

The kiss is exactly how he’d expected it to be. Soft, but with a bit of a kick to it-- just like her. Her tongue, hot and warm, peeking ever so slightly between her lips and then retreating back into her own mouth as if asking him to do the work. Although both of their eyes are closed, he knows she’s smiling because he can feel it. The thought of her smiling through this makes his heart flutter, and in turn, makes him smile as well. God, he wanted this more than he’d let himself realize.

His hands find their way from her arms, to her hips, then up under her coat to scrach lightly (and innocently, mind you) up her back. She shivers when his cold fingertips come in contact with her skin, and he chuckles out a quick “sorry” before bringing his fingers back out of her coat. She only giggles, reaching up to scratch affectionately at his scalp, and-- god, Harry is putty for this girl.

She breaks the kiss moments later, with a soft breath and a whisper of “Sorry.” They both open their eyes and, even though they’re only looking at one another by the light of the moon, they know their cheeks are both crimson. Y/n looks down. “I’m just.. so cold.”

Harry laughs at this, sitting completely up but keeping his hands on her hips to ensure she stays seated on him. “Yeah? Had your fill of kissing in the snow?”

She nods. “Mm. But... not of kissing in general. Not of kissing you.”

Harry beams at that, brushing his nose against hers and kissing her again. “Me neither, love. Not at all.”

They scramble apart then, untangling themselves from one another and trudging hand in hand back into his house. When they stand in his entry way peeling their wet clothes off of each other, they continue to share soft, blissful kisses and giggles. (Not, of course, without Harry telling her that this is definitely snow laughing matter. Which earns him a slap to the arm.)

They maneuver their way back into his living room, shivering and laughing and kissing, and the minute Harry plops onto the couch he pulls her onto him so she’s once more straddling him.

They stay like that for quite some time. Harry’s hands comb their way through her damp hair and his lips find their warmth between her own. She scratches at the hair at the nape of his neck which causes and embarrassing little groan to escape from his lips and a grin to appear on her own.

It’s when her lips make their way to his neck that Harry knows he’s in trouble.

“Oh god,” he says softly, tilting his head to allow her easier access when her lips brush his sweet spot. “Y/n if you’re not careful you’re--”

“I’m what?” she breathes, her wet lips ghosting against the bottom of his ear. “Going to turn you on?”

“You already have,” he practically growls, taking her hips in his hands once more. They move effortlessly so that she’s laying on her back now, and he’s hovering above her. It’s his turn to love on her neck. “Since the first time I saw you.”

“Oh god,” she says with a smile. “We don’t talk about that first time.”

Harry’s head pops up when she says this, and he shoots her a confused look. “Why not?”

“You came on what was possibly the worst day you could’ve come,” she says through a laugh. “I was a wreck that day.”

“Didn’t seem that way to me.” Harry leans down to kiss her neck, just on her pulse, and her back arches ever so slightly. He makes a note to do more of that. “You were beautiful.” He kisses just below her ear. “Are beautiful.”

“Mmm.” Y/n sighs, her hand reaching up to tug at his hair while she closes her eyes and leans into his lips. “It wasn’t a good day at all until you came in.”

“Guess it all worked out then, didn’t it?” Harry kisses the sweet spot once more, and hears her breath hitch in her throat. “S’that feel good?”

“Yeah,” she breathes. Her hand scratches its way from the nape of his neck down his back, and he nearly hisses. Oh god, he can feel himself getting harder.

One hand travels slowly, cautiously, down her stomach and traces along the waistband of her pants. He can feel her take in a breath, and she rolls her hips as if hoping to get some friction. Does she want this as badly as he does?

“Love,” he says slowly, pulling away to look down at her. “You can tell me to stop, alright? If you’re not feeling this... if it’s too much--”

She cuts him off by grabbing the back of his head and pulling his face down to hers so she can fasten their lips together once more. Her tongue makes it’s way into his mouth, bold and a bit rough, and he loves it. He practically drinks it in, involuntarily moaning into her mouth and pulling her hips closer to his.

When she pulls away, she’s smiling up at him. “It’s not too much.”

Harry takes those words as his starting gun, although he does move cautiously. He sits up a bit and reaches down to work on the buttons of her jeans. “This okay?” He asks, eyeing her closely for any sign of discomfort.

All he sees, however, is a smile that he cannot resist kissing once again, and eyes that are practically begging him to touch her.

When he pulls out of the kiss she nods. “Yes. It’s okay.”

“Fuck.” Harry doesn’t even know why he says that word. Maybe its because of how badly he wants to touch her. Because he can’t believe he’s got someone so lovely, so soft, so sweet, laying out below him, asking him to touch her and make her feel good.

He tugs on her jeans and she helps him, raising her hips so that he can maneuver them off of her. He’s met with the sexiest pair of black lace underwear he thinks he’s ever seen, and he swears he could start drooling.

“Christ,” he says, running his hand through his hair.

“Came prepared,” she says, matter of factly, and he doesn’t know if he wants to kiss her or make her cum right then and there.

“You were expecting this then?”

She blushes. “I was hoping.”

He smirks at that, leaning down to kiss her. “So was I.”

He takes his pointer and middle finger and tests the waters, rubbing against the already damp fabric of the lace between her legs, and she arches her back. He leans forward to kiss at the pulse in her neck while continuing the movement with his fingers, and he feels himself twitch when he finally coaxes a moan out of her.

“Fuck,” she says. “What about you?”

“Don’t have to worry about me if you don’t want to,” he says with a shake of his head. And he genuinely means it. He wants her to feel good and sexy and incredible, but he also wants her comfortable. Of course this isn’t the reason he invited her over tonight, and he wants-- needs -- her to know that.

Still, she reaches for him. She tucks her hand into the waistband of his jeans and gasps when she feels his length through his boxers. He hisses at the contact and cannot help but let the word “baby” slip from his mouth.

“You’re so big,” she says quietly, and it sounds like the statement is almost ending in a question.

He kisses her in response to that, picking up the pace with his fingers between her legs. He moves his hand to tuck into her own waistband and she moans into his mouth.

And then there they are-- rubbing at one another on the couch like horny teenagers just discovering what all of this is. Harry thanks God, his lucky stars, and everything else that has led him up to this moment with her. Never in his wildest dreams would he have guessed he’d have the chance to do this-- but he is so, so happy he does.

He shimmies out of his pants and his boxers and they flip once more, so that he’s the one on his back and she’s straddling him once again. She keeps her body pressed to his, with the only thing separating them being their hands while they rub and stroke and caress at one another. The television is still cut off due to the snow, so the only thing that can be heard are his groans her soft little whines every now and then.

He circles her clit with his fingers and pays special attention to what makes her cry out. Although admittedly, it is a bit hard to focus when she’s tugging at him the way that she is.

She lets out a noise that would put a porn star to shame, and Harry smirks. “That good, huh?”

“Fuck I want you,” she says. “Please.. I’m... I know this isn’t... I know it’s only our first date but--”

He cuts her off with a kiss. “None of that. If you want it, I want it.” He squirms a bit so that he’s laying flat on his back before moving the fingers of his free hand. “Baby, sit on my face.”

Her jaw drops and she stops moving her hips against his fingers so suddenly that he almost worries he said something wrong. Almost.

“What?!” she says. “I was just gonna say I wanted you, but--”

“I want you, too,” he says, matter of factly. “I want you more than anything in this world right now. And I want that pussy on my face. Please.”

Her cheeks are red and she swallows so harshly its audible. “Harry I--”

"What?” He stops rubbing at her clit then, and uses the fingers on his free hand to trace up her arm. He’s nervous now. The last thing he wants is to pressure her. “Is that too much?”

“God, NO!” she says quickly. “Fucking hell, no, not at all. I’ve never wanted anything more. I just... are you sure?”

“Course I’m sure,” he says, giving her a reassuring little smile and a nod of his head. “Please, darling.”

It’s the way he says darling-- so sweet, like honey dripping off of his lips, that gets her. She obliges, then, but first mutters a quick, “hold on.”

She swings a leg off of him and he whines at the loss of contact. That is, until he watches her wiggle out of her panties while standing on the couch beside him. He smirks at her when she glances at him, and she looks down at the black lace in her hands wondering what she’s supposed to do with it before deciding to just discard of them on the carpet.

She moves up towards his head and swings a leg around once more, but this time she’s facing the other way. He wants to ask why, but he’s silenced when she gently lowers herself down towards his lips.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I’ve never... sat on a face before.”

Harry gives her clit a quick, rewarding little flick with his tongue and she gasps. “Doing a fucking good job of it,” he says against her skin. One hand reaches up to grab at her hips in hopes of steadying her, while his other hand reaches down to stroke at himself.

She’s a whimpering mess almost immediately, rolling her hips against his tongue and gasping every time it finds its way inside of her. Harry reckons he could stay just like this for the rest of the evening, licking and sucking at her and making her cum as many times and as many ways as possible, without wanting anything in return.

And then he feels her give him a slow, hard, tug.

He whimpers against her when she feels her hands against his cock, and she smirks. “What?” She asks innocently. “I wasn’t gonna let you have all the fun.”

He presses a kiss to her clit and moves ever so slightly just so he can speak coherently to her. “Do that again, but faster... fuck, please. Please faster.”

She obeys, tugging and stroking him like a pro for the next few minutes. Every time her thumb brushes against his slit he groans, and he has to stop himself from begging her to do it again and again and again. Instead, he buries himself in his work, so to speak, flicking his tongue against her and wrapping his lips around her clit. Her noises are louder than his and it makes this whole situation that much fucking hotter to him.

Harry doesn’t know how much time has passed but he knows that he’s starting to get that familiar burn in his belly, and he gulps at the feeling.

“Good girl,” he says against her skin, and he twitches when he notices a shiver run down her spine. “That’s such a good fucking girl. Oh my god.” He halts his movements at the next swipe of her thumb. “Love, I’m... I’m close.”

“Gonna cum?” She asks, although she’s nearly as breathless as he is. She squeezes tighter, using her free hand to squeeze at his balls. He howls beneath her, holding on to her hips to steady her so that he doesn’t throw her off. Although he can’t see her face, he knows she’s smirking. “You like that, don’t you?”

She does it again and again and soon he’s coming, thick and hot. She is obstructing his view but he can feel it all over his stomach, and his hips, and on what he’s assuming is her hand. It’s almost embarrassing, but its altogether sexy. And he knows he has to absolutely ravish her.

And so he does. He takes both hands against her hips now and squeezes, holding her tightly in place and moving at a relentless pace with his tongue. She shrieks and gasps, trying to buck her hips or at least move at all, but he’s squeezing so tightly that she’s absolutely stuck there to revel in the way his lips suck and swirl against her clit.

“Harry,” she whimpers, her voice shaking. “Fuck fuck.. holy FUCK!”

“Go on then,” he says against her skin. “Gonna make a mess on my tongue? Hm? Gonna let me taste you?”

“Har-RY.” She grabs for anything she can. His hair, the back of his couch, his overly sensitive cock, until suddenly she can’t even do that. Suddenly she’s moaning, whimpering, crying, while her eyes squeeze shut, and she’s feeling the best she’s felt in ages.

She continuously chants a chorus of both his name and curse words, her voice crescendoing until even Harry is worried that his neighbors-- however far away their house is-- may hear.

And when she finally comes down, she’s exhausted. She lets out a noise that sounds half like a breath, and half like a groan, and suddenly Harry needs to exert more strength to hold her body upright. She pants and shivers and lets excess little cries escape her mouth like aftershocks, and he begins to wonder if she’ll ever have the strength to get off of him.

They seem to have that thought at the same time, because suddenly she lets out a weak giggle and wiggles her way off of him, muttering a soft “Sorry.”

Harry feels absolutely and completely fucked out, and he’s a little cold now because she’s not on top of him. (And not to mention, he’s embarrassed at the sight of his naked torso covered in his own cum.) But he’s enamored and cannot stop watching her as she wiggles her way back into her panties. “Don’t apologize,” he says softly. “That was fucking great.” He reaches out for her hand and gives it a squeeze.

For one sweet, lovely moment, they don’t say or do anything. They stand there, holding one another’s hands and taking in the fact that, oh god, they just did that. And then she’s looking worriedly at the window, and then back at him, before dropping his hand to twist at the ring on her finger.

He sits up a bit, becoming more and more uncomfortable with the fact that he hasn’t cleaned himself up yet. “What?”

“Its just...” She sighs. “It’s late.”

“Is it?” he teases, cocking his head.

“Yeah. And I think.. I mean... I guess--”

“If you think m’letting you drive on those roads at an hour like this after all that, you’re crazy, young lady.”

Her face seems to light up ever so slightly at this, as if she’d been waiting for him to ask that. “But I don’t want to impose, and I--”

“You’re not imposing. I swear. My bed is big enough for two.” The minute he says that, all of his nerves from earlier seem to come flooding right back, so he quickly adds, “So is my guest room. I have a few guest beds that are quite comfortable.”

“NO!” She says, almost too quickly. She quickly bites her bottom lip into her mouth and twists her ring. That damn cute little ring. “I mean I’d.. I... want to sleep in your room. With you.”

Harry doesn’t even know why but he feels his whole heart soften at this. “Thank God,” he says quietly, making her giggle.

He stands up, walking briskly to the bathroom to clean off. “I’ve an idea,” he says over his shoulder. “You head into the upstairs bathroom. It’s the first door on the right at the top of the stairs, you can’t miss it. We’ll both clean up, and you can meet me in my room. Its right across from the bathroom.

“Are you sure?”

Harry doesn’t answer her, even though he heard her, because yes he’s sure. He’s never been more sure of anything in his life. He wants this girl in his room. He wants this girl to make herself at home. He wants this girl to stay.

A little under ten minutes later, Harry walks into his bedroom to find her sitting in his bed. She’s wearing the shirt that she came over in and her panties, except now she’s taken all of her makeup off and her hair is tied back. The sight makes his heart flutter nearly out of his chest, but he hardly even has time to register that feeling before she’s nodding towards the bag in his hand. “What’s that?”

He’d nearly forgotten. This bag had been under his tree the whole time, and he’d meant to give it to her earlier before they’d gotten a bit carried away. He beams at her. “Your Christmas present.”

Her eyes go wide. “Oh my god, what?! Harry... I didn’t... I mean I wasn’t--”

“I know,” he says, crawling up onto the bed beside her. “And I didn’t expect you to do anything for me. This is for you, because... well, I know you love it.”

She sits staring at him for a moment, which makes him snort and push the bag a little closer to her. “For goodness sake open it!” he says. “The suspense is killing me.”

She rolls her eyes, hesitantly taking the bag in her hands and bringing it closer to her. “I’ll get you back for this, I swear,” she says, shaking her head. She tears into the paper of the bag and is about to say something else, when she stops dead in her tracks.

After a few seconds of silence she looks up at him. “You did not.”

“Did I not?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “I might have...”

She reaches into the bag and pulls out the dress. The one from work that she’d had her eye on since before she’d even technically started there. The one that would be far too expensive for her, even with her discount. The most perfect dress she’d ever seen.

Her eyes well up with tears almost immediately. “Harry, I--”

“Do you like it!?” he asks, beaming. “The girl at the shop said she loved it. Said it was her favorite. Said it was stunning. So I thought it would look stunning on you.”

Y/n runs her fingers along the fabric, feeling as though she could break it if she touched it too hard. “I don’t know what to say,” she breathes, wiping a tear from her eye. “You didn’t have to...”

“I know I didn’t,” he says with a nod. “I wanted to. A lot.” Silence follows for a few moments and Harry watches her intently. “Do you like it?”

Instead of verbally answering him, y/n throws her arms around him, squeezing him so tightly they both fall back onto the bed. Harry laughs when y/n covers his whole face in kisses, and showers him in “thank you”s and “oh my god”s. His heart feels so complete. More complete than its felt in a while, and hearing how happy she is is warming his heart more than he’d ever even anticipated.

He is really falling for this girl.

Shortly after, she’s asleep in his arms. Her head is on his chest and she’s letting forth the softest, daintiest little snores Harry think’s he’s ever heard. Its so cute he feels he could burst, and he almost doesn’t want to sleep just so that he can lay here and feel this happy for the rest of his life.

Still, he feels himself drifting. So with one last glance outside to check on the snow, and with one last kiss to this beautiful girl’s head, he allows himself to drift off to sleep, thanking his lucky stars that he’d decided to buy a hat for his mum for Christmas.

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thecrownrp · 3 years

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THE KINGDOM OF CLOVERS PRESENTS . . .

one of the SECOND CLASS KNIGHTS, OH RIEON: a 23 YEAR OLD born on JANUARY 26TH, 1998. some may know them as THE CLASH but with a face like that, it’s hard not to admit they look a little like MOON BIN. curious to know more? apparently, these are words they live by: “go where you breathe free.” intriguing, aren’t they? only time will tell if they’re suited for knighthood or not.

LOOK A LITTLE CLOSER . . .

tw: mention of death

becoming a knight wasn’t always rieon’s end goal—or even a goal—but life always finds a way to make things just a bit more difficult and throw a wrench in any plans you make.

it starts with him, his mother, and his father in a small village near one of the towns that’s close by to the kingdom of spades. they’re far enough from the heart of it that where they live isn’t the most up-to-date in terms of modern technology but close enough that they still have electricity at least. it doesn’t take too long to travel to and from either, which is beneficial for the little market the oh’s run because it makes transporting their wares to the town where they sell every weekend easier and more efficient.

rieon grows up with love and care, his two parents raising him to be someone they can be proud of: kind, selfless, generous, hard working, bright; rieon is the perfect son to them because even if he makes mistakes or has his flaws, he always means well and tries his best to right his wrongs. with his parents running their little shop where they sell various produce and sometimes, little trinkets his mother might make, it was only natural that rieon would start helping them with the business once he was old enough to. he’d mostly charm the customers with his cuteness as a child—and later on, his handsomeness as he grew taller and broader—but he eventually moved on to helping his father procure and transport the goods from their farm to the shop, and later on to the town market as well.

but once his parents started showing their age, he began to assist with even more jobs and tasks until it became too much for just one person to handle. it was then that his parents came to a tough decision: to close their shop down as neither could continue to properly care for it. rieon, despite all his protests and pleas to keep it running, understood their reasoning in the end and had no choice but to agree — albeit, reluctantly. what his parents didn’t tell him is that the other reason they decided to retire was because they wanted rieon to live for himself.

up until then, rieon had only focused on helping his parents out and expected that he would eventually take over the family shop from them. he never stopped to dream of another job or think of what else he might want to do; he simply followed what he thought would be a given because it was all he knew and contrary to belief, he liked helping with the store. it was hard work, of course, but he had no complaints about it — however that’s exactly what his parents were concerned about. they feared he had just accepted this future because he had no other prospects or desires of his own and the last thing they’d want was for their precious child to be forced into a life he may not want, whether he realized it or not. of course, they were getting old too so it was only a matter of time before they had to step down but if rieon was able to find a new dream then they didn’t want anything holding him back because they knew that even if he did find one, he’d always prioritize his family first instead of going after what he wanted.

and so, rieon was free. not by choice but that was just how the cards were dealt. he felt a littler bitterness and a little betrayal by the decision his parents made even after taking his own opinions into consideration but the fact of the matter was he now had a lot of free time and no idea on how to use it — until he came across a flyer while in town one day that read ‘knight selection’. as if hit by lightning, rieon felt like he had received a sign saying “this is what you should be doing.” was it really though? was this what he was destined for? not taking over his family’s store, but to become a knight who pledged allegiance to his kingdom?

it made him think. and think. and think. he thought for so long that that in the time it took him to make a decision, his father had grown ill and eventually passed. it was neither a shocking or big affair; old age had gotten to him so he and his mother had time to make peace with that and properly grieve. however, with their family being just them now, it made no sense to continue living in a home that just seemed too large for two and so they soon moved to another town near the kingdom of clovers that was smaller but more affordable.

in a new place, in a new situation, rieon had finally decided — the time was now and so he signed up for the knight selections at the soonest possible chance. his mother grew accustomed to being on her own and with her focusing on those trinkets and little gifts she never stopped making, she took to doing small commissions and selling in friend’s shops to make do. it was never enough, of course, but they got by; rieon thought his mother deserved better though, however knowing he’d never have the ability or means to make it past the royal selection, he turned to the next best thing: knighthood. if he did well, he could rise through the ranks and hopefully make enough money and earn enough prestige to support himself and his mother so they could live comfortably.

unfortunately, we all know how this story goes: life always finds a way to intervene.

rieon enters knight training at the prime age of 18 and in his two years, shows remarkable accomplishments and improvements. he apparently had an innate talent for combat and defense but unsurprisingly, he was a natural at public relations and dealing with citizens as well. in that respect, he probably could have made it as a royal and maybe even became a prince but with his lack of formal education as well as general etiquette and other proper lessons, he would’ve fell short and found it impossible to compete on even footing with the other more obviously prepared and well-bred royals. but as a knight, where even those who start at the bottom with nothing to their name could stand a chance? well, certainly his odds would be better there.

so it was expected, really, that once rieon finished the training period, he was immediately assigned to the second class of knights. unlike many of his peers though, he was happy with this decision as he didn’t quite fancy the idea of being restrained to the palace for most of his days unless he was allowed to accompany a royal outside the protected walls. ascending to a higher rank would be nice for the sake of his mother but he found out that being a second class knight was nothing to scoff at either, even if he might be looked down on or seen as ‘less’ for having the kingdom towns being his walking grounds versus the palace hallways. the pay was still good and being labelled a knight in general seemed to boost his profile though so he didn’t mind the negativity. his mother was delighted with his new title and that rieon had found something for himself—and something he was good at too—which meant more to him than anything else someone could say to try and bring him down.

this is why rieon believed that he’d continue to do this kind of work for as long as possible. just like helping with his family’s shop, patrolling the streets and handling citizen affairs was a life he had grown used to and familiar with. this was his comfort: waking up every day and getting to talk to townspeople and visitors alike, see the new things happening around the kingdom, and everything in between. with the three kingdoms relatively at peace with each other, there were no whispers of a war or any battles to come as well and although there were some incidents that needed a little more force than normal, it was nothing too out of hand or concerning.

but they say things come in threes and this time, it was in the form of a promotion: oh rieon was being considered for a rank increase to first class.

he appreciated the thought, really he did! it meant his work thus far has been above average or that they believed he was worthy and capable of more, that they trusted him with the protection of higher profile people. it was an honor to be promoted and he knew he should accept it graciously; who knows if they’d offer him this chance again if he turned it down? but he likes being a second class knight. he enjoys the freedom he gets to walk around towns and villages and not be confined to the palaces or escorting royals to and from — not that he pities or thinks poorly of the knights who do but for him, personally, he likes being able to interact with the ‘common people’. it reminds him of home, of the life he used to live where he’d excitedly follow his parents to the town market every weekend, hand-in-hand with theirs and eyes sparkling brightly; but he feared what would happen if that was taken from him again. couldn’t he just be allowed to live peacefully for once? why must he always be uprooted and forced into something new?

#cwnfollow #cwn kingdom: clovers #cwn rank: knight #premade: the clash

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orbemnews · 3 years

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MyPillow C.E.O.’s Trump Conspiracy Theories Put Company on the Spot For the past four years, most American corporations have tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship while also distancing themselves from the inflammatory rhetoric of former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters, walking a tightrope to keep customers and employees happy. It has been a different story for MyPillow. Mike Lindell, the company’s founder and chief executive, has remained one of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters. His sustained peddling of debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud got him barred from Twitter on Monday night. With retailers like Kohl’s and other major companies cutting ties with the privately held manufacturer, Mr. Lindell has managed to make his pillows partisan. “It goes to my money, you know where my money’s going,” Mr. Lindell said in an interview this month with a pro-Trump online channel called Right Side Broadcasting Network, offering a discount code for viewers to use on MyPillow’s website. Mr. Lindell’s baseless claims of election fraud have prompted a backlash against MyPillow in recent weeks, with several retailers deciding to stop carrying its products, an example of just how strongly his personality dominates the public perception of his company. Mr. Lindell, a former crack cocaine and gambling addict, founded the company after the idea for MyPillow came to him in a dream in 2004, according to his memoir. He is now a devout Christian and credits God with aiding his recovery. MyPillow is based in Chaska, Minn., and Mr. Lindell said in an interview this week that it employed nearly 2,500 people. Its products — it carries more than 100 — have been widely distributed in national chains, and Mr. Lindell’s face is prominently featured in infomercials and boxes carrying its patented pillows. Two former MyPillow employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said they were asked to display multiple cardboard cutouts of the executive in stores and to play his infomercials. Politics became a bigger part of Mr. Lindell and MyPillow’s identity in the past decade, following the success of its infomercials, which first aired in 2011 and were later a hit on Fox News, according to the memoir and interviews with former employees. The company has said in court filings that it spends an average of $5 million a month on advertising. While Mr. Lindell said he had advertised in The New York Times and on CNN, much of his spending has been with Fox News — 59 percent of the company’s total television spending last year, according to data from MediaRadar — which raised his profile with the former president, an avid viewer of the network. “Politics does not hurt your business,” he said in the interview this week. “I have not alienated anybody except for the bots and the trolls and the hit jobs of the media.” Mr. Lindell said MyPillow’s 2019 revenue exceeded $300 million. MyPillow sells through its website and is carried by retail behemoths like Walmart, Amazon and Costco. The company is tightknit, and its leadership leans conservative, with Mr. Lindell employing many members of his own family and even a sister of former Vice President Mike Pence, according to Aaron Morgan, a procurement planner at MyPillow between September 2019 and last March. “Most companies say don’t talk about politics,” Mr. Morgan said, noting that Mr. Lindell was pleasant. “But a lot of people there talked about politics. People there leaned obviously toward Mike’s beliefs because they were all family. It was not uncommon to see MAGA hats on desks.” Mr. Morgan shared photos of playing cards that Mr. Lindell offered to employees last year, which used a king card to display Mr. Trump as a proxy for Julius Caesar, Hillary Clinton in an orange prison jumpsuit on a queen card, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer as jokers. Mr. Lindell, whose likeness was also in the deck, said that the cards were given to him as a gift and kept in his office and that employees were able to take them if they wished. Business & Economy Updated Jan. 26, 2021, 4:58 p.m. ET Mr. Lindell’s politics entered his company in other ways. On Jan. 6, the day of the riot at the Capitol, MyPillow’s website was accepting a “FightForTrump” discount code that a conservative radio host had promoted on his show. Mr. Lindell, who retweeted the discount code that day, claimed without evidence that Twitter employees gained access to his account and retweeted the post in his name. “We have reviewed the rule violations and consequential enforcement activity and have found no evidence supporting Mr. Lindell’s allegations,” a Twitter representative said. The violence in Washington set in motion a social media campaign against MyPillow and Mr. Lindell, spearheaded by the group Sleeping Giants, which was created in 2016 to stop companies from advertising on Breitbart News. The pressure prompted retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s, H-E-B, Today’s Shopping Choice in Canada and Wayfair to drop MyPillow products, according to Mr. Lindell, who said without providing evidence that the protest was led by “bots and trolls.” Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s cited the brand’s poor performance for their exits, while Today’s Shopping Choice did not comment beyond confirming the removal. Wayfair declined to comment, and H-E-B did not respond to requests for comment. Zulily said it stopped carrying MyPillow in July. Affirm, the financing start-up, separately confirmed that it severed ties with MyPillow last week. Matt Rivitz, a co-founder of Sleeping Giants, said the claim about bots was “ridiculous.” Throughout the Trump presidency, he said, consumers grew more aware of their collective power, beginning with ads on Breitbart and boycotts of Ivanka Trump products at Nordstrom. This has been the culmination of those efforts. “There were a number of videos that came out with Lindell doing these rants about how the election was stolen and clearly that led to violence,” Mr. Rivitz said. “It was just a natural inclination to ask companies if they supported that because ultimately these companies have greatly benefited from democracy and they likely don’t want to see the country fall into chaos because of these lies.” Mr. Lindell said only one of the companies that had dropped his products cited false information about voting machines, but added, “It’s pretty coincidental when over nine companies do that the same day.” Still, he said he was not concerned about the impact on his business. He added that he did not view his comments to Right Side Broadcasting as “politically skewed” and blamed “cancel culture” for the retailers’ actions, though he anticipated they would return to selling his products. This month, Mr. Lindell was photographed at the White House carrying notes that mentioned the Insurrection Act, by which a president can deploy active military troops into the streets. Until around 2011, MyPillow was run out of a former bus garage in Minnesota, with roughly 40 employees, according to Tonja Waring, who worked there from 2009 to 2012 and appeared in its infomercials. Ms. Waring said Mr. Lindell was fiercely loyal and regularly pushed back against conventional wisdom on issues like maintaining manufacturing in the United States. “He doesn’t care what people think or what they say — he cares about doing the right thing,” she said. She added that Mr. Lindell had grown more comfortable in the spotlight than when she first met him, when he was “barely able to go on TV.” While the infomercials fueled MyPillow’s rise, they have also drawn complaints. In one settlement in 2016, MyPillow paid $995,000 in penalties after a group of district attorneys in California took issue with the company’s claims that its products could soothe insomnia, fibromyalgia and other medical conditions. Last year, Mr. Lindell also faced criticism after pitching an unproven Covid-19 “cure” to Mr. Trump. When customers asked about health claims made in MyPillow commercials, the two former store employees said, they would try to evade the subject without confirming or denying promises made in the ads. One former employee said Mr. Lindell also pushed stores to sell other products that workers were wary to endorse, such as a powder that claimed to stop wounds from bleeding within seconds. In his memoir, Mr. Lindell wrote of “a shady bankruptcy” he declared in 2003 to avoid a lawsuit involving a bar he owned, working with a lender he had met through his bookie’s stepson, who encouraged Mr. Lindell to concoct fake creditors. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’d colored outside the lines of the law,” he wrote of the episode. Even now, as retailers cut ties and he has been kicked off Twitter, Mr. Lindell is defiant, convinced that “real people” do not care about the claims he has been perpetuating. “The people on the left, the Democrats, they’re buying the same amount of product they always buy from me,” he said, “and the people supporting me standing up to cancel culture are buying more.” Source link Orbem News #CEOs #company #conspiracy #MyPillow #put #spot #theories #Trump

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natasha-cole · 6 years

Text

Hey Bartender Chapter 19: Right Where I Need To Be

Pairing: Bartender!Reader x Rock God!Rob

Chapter Summary: Time has passed since the night when Reader confessed her feelings to Rob, only to be shot down. She has let go of a lot of things; her old job, her old life, and Lola. There’s still one thing she can’t let go of though.

Word Count: 4502

Warnings: angst and maybe some fluff.

Notes: I think this might be the end folks. Thanks for reading and putting up with all the angst and curve-balls.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

You didn't hear from Rob again. Not the following week, or the week after. The band hadn’t been playing at the bar and you learned from Bri that they were off touring again. They would be back though, and you began to wonder if you could even face Rob again. You had hurt him deeply, and he hated you enough to where he didn’t even believe anything that came out of your mouth. You had lied for so long, strung him along, and when it came time for you to finally confess all of your built up feelings; he didn’t believe you.

Kim had called you in for a meeting a couple of weeks after the entire disaster. You didn't know what it could be about, but you knew it wasn't good. The only time you met with her like this was when you were in trouble or on the verge of being fired.

“Lola, I've had some complaints come up about you.”

“From who?”

“I'm not going to specifically say, but one of the talent that plays here has come to me about some concerns.”

“Oh,” you said softly, knowing who she meant.

“I assume you know who.”

You nodded. You really didn't consider that he might complain about you to your boss. It was a shitty situation and he was obviously lashing out in the one way he knew how.

“He feels that you're unprofessional and that you interfere with the band's performances. I didn't ask for details, I don't care, we just need to fix this.”

“Are you firing me?”

“No. I just need to come to some sort of decision on what to do with you. Maybe we can see about changing your shifts.”

“So, I’ll be working the crap shifts?”

“I don’t know what else to do. Their residency is contracted.”

“I understand. I really do. This just- this all sucks.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Kim explained. “I’ve heard rumors going around. It just sounds like you got yourself into another really bad situation.”

“I did.”

“The last time you had a bad situation, you put yourself in danger and you put me in a bind.”

“I know.”

“What else can I do Lola?”

You thought hard about your options. You understood that it would be best to be placed on a different shift, so to avoid Rob. You didn’t want for him to have to see you regularly after everything you had done to him, and you didn’t want to put Kim in a bind again. She had been good to you. She had given you countless chances to work here, and all you ever did was let her down. All you ever seemed to do was let everyone down.

“I'm going to find another job,” you blurted out. You couldn’t deny that the thought had been in the back of your mind for a long time. Especially when it became too difficult to be around Rob.

“I'm not firing you.”

“I know. I just- I need to do something else.”

“You're good at what you do. I love having you here.”

“I'm not happy doing this anymore. I cause you nothing but trouble, and apparently, I'm bad for business.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m done letting people down. This- this isn’t for me anymore. I think it’s time for me to move on.”

“You’re going to go bartend somewhere else?”

“God no,” you chuckled, trying to hold back tears. “I’m over this. This job is the reason behind a lot of my problems.”

“You know,” Kim began, looking at you sympathetically, “you don’t have to give up what you’re good at just because a guy comes in here and messes up your life.”

“That’s just it, he didn’t mess up my life… I messed up his.”

“What can I do to keep you here?”

You smiled fondly at her, knowing that you were making the right decision. “Nothing.”

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Briana whined as you busied yourself with clean up. It had been a few days since your talk with Kim and you both decided that you would finish out your week and move on. Tonight, you finally decided to tell Bri that it was your last night at the bar.

“I know,” you smiled, “you’re the only thing I’ll miss about this place.”

You heard Matt clear his throat from across the bar. You glanced over to him, chuckling. “I’ll miss you too.”

“This is so unfair,” Bri pouted, “want me to kick his ass? Because I will. I’ll do it for you.”

“If anyone deserves an ass-kicking, it’s me,” you laughed. “Besides, it’s better this way. It really is.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I got a job at a really fancy place close to here. I’ll be waitressing, which is weird. But, it will be good, I’ll be making more there than I was here. Kim gave me a great recommendation and they seem to like me.”

“Can’t get away from the customer service industry, huh?”

“You know, it’s all about the tip money.”

“Except now you can’t flash a little skin and hit on guys for that tip money.”

“It’s probably a good thing,” you chuckled, “this job has given me nothing but trouble. Trouble finds me and I just let it go on for too long.”

“I really thought he was different,” she replied, “I’m so sorry I encouraged that.”

“Don’t be sorry. He was different. He’s a good guy. I just realized it too late.”

“He was so horrible to you.”

“I think I brought that on myself. I was worse to him.”

You had already given Briana the details of that entire thing. You crashed at her place one night, the two of you sharing a bottle of wine or two, and you finally letting it all out. You had cried until you felt you had no more tears to cry. A part of you thought that by finally saying those words to him, he would be happy. You thought he would kiss you and hold you and the two of you could go on, trying to find a way to make it work together. You really didn’t expect things to go the way that they had.

“Love…” she trailed off, “ain’t it a bitch?”

“That it is,” you replied.

The two of you finished closing up for the night, Matt hanging out to wait for you. Just as you left the bar, locking the door behind you, you handed your key over to Matt.

“Well, I’ll see the two of you later,” you said with a smile. It was stupid, but your heart hurt over this new ending. You knew you’d see your friends still, but nothing was ever going to be the same. You had given this place, these people, and this life a lot of years.

“You’ll come see us, right?” Matt asked. “I mean, on non-performance nights, you can come hang out, have some drinks.”

“Maybe.”

You hugged them goodbye and you each headed off in your directions. You knew you’d never come back to this place. Not as long as you knew this was still Rob’s place. Not only did the band play here all the time, but the guys had made the bar their own regular spot. There had been many nights of drinking and laughter that you had all shared here, but in the end, it wasn’t yours anymore.

When you were here, you were Lola. You were the mysterious firecracker who took no shit from anyone. Who you were in this place was never who you wanted to be. You had only become her out of necessity; a means of survival and to have some sort of control over your out-of-control life. Your moniker wasn’t created for fun; Lola didn’t exist just to tease men and leave them wondering.

You had reached the point where your walls finally crumbled. Everything that you had built up in order to keep yourself safe eventually had to fall down. You just didn’t expect that to happen because of a man that you insisted was only there for fun. Maybe he didn’t know you, not really; and maybe you barely knew him. But, you and Rob had created something that you hadn’t expected. When it came to you staying adamant in the idea that you were incapable of love, you never expected anyone to come along and change you like that.

When you were at this bar, you were Lola. Your boss called you that, your friend Matt called you that, your best friend called you that. You expected customers to call you that because that was all you had ever given anyone who tried to get to know you. Rob had been different. Even when you kept up appearances, he never called you Lola. Not unless he was trying to get to you anyway. He was one of the very few people who knew your real name, and you liked to think he was the only person who knew the real you. You had been good at staying in character, but even you had to admit, there were moments when Rob managed to see a different side of you.

Your old life was over now; and therefore, perhaps Lola was gone as well.

“You’ve got a five top,” your hostess, Amy, said as she approached you.

You had been at the restaurant for a couple of weeks by now, and you were fitting in nicely. You liked the people you worked with, and while you had been nervous about it, you quickly learned that you were really good at the job. Perhaps all those years of taking complicated drink orders had helped out.

“Thanks,” you replied. You stepped out from the back, following Amy and she pointed over to the table that she had just seated. It took you a split second to get a view of the customers, and you stopped dead in your tracks when you did see them.

“I- I can’t take that table,” you muttered. You felt your heart begin to race, hands sweaty from nervousness now.

“You have to, you’re the only waitress on shift right now.”

You shook your head slowly, still studying the men who were seated and talking among themselves. Out of all the restaurants in L.A., of all the places they could hang out, it had to be here.”

“You don’t understand,” you whispered, pulling Amy aside quickly, hoping that they hadn’t spotted you. “I CAN’T take this table.”

“Well, I can’t waitress,” she hissed, “which is why I’m just a hostess.”

“Oh god…” you mumbled, suddenly feeling ill.

“What’s wrong? You know them?” Amy glanced back, checking the men out. “They’re cute.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, is one of them an ex-boyfriend or something?”

“Or something,” you replied.

“Look, Y/N,” Amy began calmly. She placed a hand on your shoulder, trying to help you relax. “Whatever it is, don’t let him get to you. You could just act like you don’t even recognize him.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Well, someone has to,” she laughed, “and it ain’t gonna be me.”

With that, she walked away, leaving you to fend for yourself. You considered running. Walking right out the back door just to avoid seeing him again. Then again, this was a pretty great job, and you weren’t about to let down your new boss. You thought about Amy’s suggestion, pretending that you didn’t know him. You knew that wouldn’t work. Even when you were fooling around with him, he never failed to elicit the feeling of butterflies in your stomach. The man always made you nervous and excited. You knew that even after all this time, he still would. You missed him terribly and you constantly berated yourself over how you had messed everything up with him. To top it all off, he looked so good right now as he sat at that table, talking and laughing with the rest of the band and Jason.

A smaller part of you wanted to approach him. You hadn’t seen or heard from him in so long and you almost desperately wanted to look into those blue eyes again, to see that amazing smile again.

You swallowed your pride and mustered the last bit of courage that you had. You had to do this, no one else would. Also, you really wanted to hear him speak to you again, even if he was the one to act as if he didn’t know you.

You approached the table, your notepad and pen in hand. You stood there for a second, nerves going haywire as you waited for them to acknowledge you.

“Hey guys,” you mumbled, “can I start you off with something to drink.”

Almost as if it were planned, the five of them glanced up to you in unison. It was really nice to see their faces again and you couldn’t help but smile at them. After a brief moment and a few looks of shock, Jason was the first to break the tension by ordering a drink. Mike, Stephen, and Billy followed; each of them staring at you as if they were trying to decide if it were actually you. You jotted down their drink orders and finally focused on Rob.

He was still as good-looking as ever. You felt your breath catch as he made eye contact, those beautiful blues staring right at you.

“Hey,” he began, “bartender?”

You let out a nervous laugh. “Well, not bartender anymore.” You motioned to yourself, pointing out the new uniform that was required in a place like this.

“I mean…” he paused for a second, examining you before his eyes stopped right at your chest. You felt yourself blush, wondering if he was really checking out your boobs right now. Granted, the outfit sort of enhanced everything, but you didn’t really expect it from him. He reached a hand up to you, tapping his finger on your name badge with a soft smile. “Y/N.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s me,” you smiled.

“I swear you look so familiar,” he replied.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“You sure you’re name isn’t Lola?” You certainly expected this. The way he was now grinning at you, not in a playful way, but in an unamused way.

“Oh, Lola…” you trailed off, breaking eye contact, “you know, she was kind of a mess. She did a lot of really stupid shit. I kinda had leave her behind.”

Rob nodded, smiling a little more now. He said nothing else other than placing his drink order with you.

You remained nervous through the entire thing. You brought drinks to them, took food orders, and brought them their food; all while slowly building up a panic inside. You were sure you would lose it completely, mostly because of the way they went right into ignoring you during their meal. Fortunately, you had a sudden small rush at this point and your focus was pulled from them to a few other tables of customers.

You lost yourself in your thoughts, mostly running on auto-pilot while you worked. You thought about all the things you could say to him, in hopes that they might be the right things and he could forgive you. You thought also thought about what you had put him through, and wondered if you could even really change just like that. While you were lost, you glanced over to their table only to see that they had left while you in the kitchen retrieving an order for one of your tables. You felt a knot in your chest when you realized that they were gone, that Rob was gone. You didn’t even get the chance to apologize or try to explain yourself to him.

You finished out your shift, feeling an immense sadness that you hadn’t felt in a long time. It had taken weeks for you to be sort of okay after the night of their record release party. That night, you had opened yourself up completely, confessing your feelings to Rob, only to have him completely deny you and break your heart. Seeing him again randomly like this had reopened those wounds. The worst part of it was that you still couldn’t fix anything.

You said goodnight to Amy and the other waitress who had come in for her shift. Grabbing your purse and coat, you walked out the main doors, ready to head home and get some sleep. You stepped out onto the sidewalk, staring down as you turned in the direction of the parking lot. You had made it a few steps before you heard a voice call out to you.

“Hey, bartender!”

You spun around quickly, recognizing that name, and mostly recognizing that voice. There on the bench right outside the restaurant sat Rob. You didn’t even notice him when you walked out, but he noticed you.

“Rob?”

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled, “not bartender. You’re Y/N now.”

He stood up from the bench and walked toward you, stopping just a few feet in front of you.

“Yeah. There’s no bartender, no Lola… it’s just me.”

He smiled at you, probably taking note over how uncomfortable you had grown again.

“Y/N,” he said your name again, “I like it. It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you,” you mumbled.

“What are you doing here anyway?” He asked, motioning toward the building.

“Oh, well, my old job… that got a bit awkward, especially when this guy I was sleeping with went and complained about me to my boss.”

Rob gave you a pained look, “yeah, about that… I’m sorry. I was a little pissed off, and I didn’t want to see you again. I didn’t think she’d fire you though.”

“She didn’t. I left.”

“I thought you loved your job.”

“I did,” you replied, “but, it wasn’t the right place for me anymore.”

“Because of me?”

“No,” you said softly. It hadn’t been because of him at all. In the end, it had always been about you and how messed up you were. “I just- wasn’t myself when I was working there. I got tired of being someone else.”

“Lola?”

“Yeah,” you laughed, “Lola was a piece of work. She was a great girl for a long time, kept me safe. But, I sort of got lost, you know?”

“I get it.”

There was an awkward silence. You, trying to avoid looking at him too much; him, staring right into you in a way that put you on edge.

“If you didn’t want to see me again, why are you here?”

“Well, we just kind of stumbled into the place. I didn’t know you worked here.”

“I meant, why are you sitting outside of my work hours after you left?”

“I promise I’m not stalking you.”

“I really hope not. The way we ended, I didn’t even expect you to stay when you noticed I was working.”

“I know. That was a huge mess, wasn’t it?”

“I’m pretty good at creating messes.”

“We both are,” he said with a grin.

“What do you want?” You asked. You were still extremely curious to know why he was sitting out here, willing to approach you after everything.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“You have nothing to apologize for Rob. I should apologize for the way I treated you. I was horrible, and that wasn’t me. Not the real me anyway. I just, tried so hard to not let myself fall for you, because I was so tired of being hurt. I didn’t know what to do with all of that.”

“I know. I’m sorry for how I reacted. But, for so long you insisted that you didn’t want me. And when you said that… when you said what you said, I didn’t believe you.”

“I understand why you didn’t.”

He paused again, staring into your eyes. You could see the hurt still there. All the pain you had put him through hadn’t gone away.

“I waited here because I saw you in there, and I just… I felt those same feelings that I always felt with you all over again. How? How can I still feel this way for you after everything?”

“I guess, the same way I still feel these feelings for you.”

“The guys tried to talk me out of it, hanging out here to wait for you,” he laughed, “but I think it’s my only chance to know for sure.”

“To know what?”

“You know, I thought about calling you. So many times. And I stopped myself because I was so done being strung along. It hurt too much.”

“I know.”

“But, seeing you again like this, I don’t know, maybe it happened because now I can finally just ask you if you meant what you said.”

You felt yourself begin to cry; that night replaying in your mind again. The way you had finally let yourself feel something for him, the way he had shot you down. The last thing you wanted was to say those words again, just to have them denied. You figured he was still angry at you, and you couldn’t blame him. But, you also didn’t want to hurt any more than you already were. You looked back to him, tears falling down your face. You didn’t want to let yourself be vulnerable again, but you realized just then that you were willing to be vulnerable for him; even if he was only doing this to be cruel. You were certain that he wanted you to say the words again so that he could tell you that you had fucked up any chance you had with him.

You nodded at him, trying to form the words. “I meant it. I love you. I always did I think. I just- didn’t know how to love you.”

You sucked in a breath, bracing yourself for the harsh blow. You knew he was going to destroy you again, but you had it coming. Anything that he wanted to say to you; whether he wanted to remind you of what a terrible person you were, whether he wanted to scream at you or cause a scene right here in front of your work; you were ready for it. Because you knew you deserved it.

You saw his lips turn up at the corner of his mouth, giving you just a slight smirk as he watched you cry.

“Who’s the one saying this?” He asked.

“It’s just me.”

“My bartender?” He said fondly. He took a step closer to you, reaching a hand up to your face to wipe away some of your tears.

You shook your head at him, “I’m not a bartender anymore.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“It’s just me now.”

“Y/N…” he said your name slowly, letting it slip past his lips quietly. “I like the sound of that.”

You felt his fingertips brush along your jawline, the sensation sending shivers through your body. You were still waiting for it. You had done your fair share of leading him on and letting him believe that things would become more, only to let him down constantly. Why wouldn’t he be doing the same to you right now?

“What are you doing?” You asked finally.

“I’m just trying to decide if it would be insane for me to tell you that I love you again.”

“It might be. We’re both pretty crazy,” you joked.

Rob chuckled, “The two of us, together? It always was a mess. It could still be a bad thing.”

“I think you mean; you and Lola together. The two of you were bad news.”

“I really didn’t like her very much,” he said, “but you… I still love you. I never stopped thinking of you. I don’t think I can give you up, and I don’t know that I want to.”

You felt yourself cry harder now; his hand still holding your face. He led you closer to him, letting his lips brush against yours softly as if to test whether or not it was okay. That was when you wrapped your arms around him, grasping onto him in a desperate attempt to have him closer to you. You pulled him to you and he let his lips press against yours.

You kissed for a long time, as if it had been your first kiss ever; and you figured, in a way, it was your first real kiss. You were letting yourself be you, and even if you had maybe let your real self slip out in the past, it was never quite like this.

You didn’t want to let go, not even when you knew the two of you would have to come back for air at some point. You held onto him, almost as if you were afraid to let go again. You had been so stupid and had given up the one person you really did care about, just because you were afraid to be in love. But, here he was again. He was with you and he had said that he still loved you, even after everything.

When he was finally able to end the kiss, smiling as you held on to him for dear life; he looked down at you.

“Would we be insane for trying this again?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t really be us if we weren’t a little crazy.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“What do we do now?” He asked. He seemed to be just as confused and lost as you in this moment. You had both admitted that you still loved each other, and you had also admitted that you had made a huge mess of things between you. You knew you still wanted to be with him, to try to love him, but you still didn’t know how to do that. Maybe it was something that you would have to figure out together.

“I guess, we can just try to see where this can go. For real this time.”

“My place or yours?” He asked with a smirk.

You thought about it, now wondering if it was a good idea. You had only just got him back and the whole sleeping together thing had been what put you in this entire mess to begin with. Could you go there again without freaking out? Could you fall back into this with him and learn to let yourself go?

“I think you’re going to have to date me for a little while before I let you sleep with me,” you responded.

Rob gave you an amused smile. “I was not expecting that.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” he said softly as he pulled you in, holding you close to him. You felt him kiss the top of your head and you closed your eyes as you let yourself get lost in him again. “For you, I’m willing to wait.”

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wolf-haten · 6 years

Text

Hi guys! I was a staff member of Wolf-Haven from 2011 to 2016, although I was not very active for the last two years because that’s around the time Karlos lost interest in WH. It was very frustrating to work for someone who did not care to be an administrator of his own site, and you can only preach to someone so much before you realize that it is a lost case and your time is better spent elsewhere.

I want to preface my statement by saying that I am not here to slander the site, spread rumors, or bash it for no reason. I am here to share facts – events that really happened – and my recollection and opinions of those events. I will probably be banned from WH if Karlos sees this, but I obviously stopped playing the game years ago and I no longer interact with the community.

Seeing Karlos’s activity elsewhere bothers me to no end. I asked him to work on things several times; he always claimed that he was going through a lot or that he was very depressed. I completely understand, and he really did experience life-changing events that affected him and forced him to step away from WH for a month here and there. That being said, these events did not last for years, which is how long it’s been since he’s given a flying fuck about the site. He has had enough time to bounce back and readjust. He has gone to furry conventions, dated multiple people, moved, etc. I think what many people failed to realize (even myself) was that Karlos was not absent; he knew exactly what was going on. Staff can see the last time a user logs on, and his timestamps were always recent. He visits the site, and he has an extensive knowledge of web coding and design. He showed me the dozens of textbooks that he read on coding and web security. Perhaps it was a lack of motivation? I’m not really sure; he definitely had the capacity to fix many of the issues that occurred.

I think that when WH was hacked in 2013, he lost a lot of confidence in himself. I don’t think the site truly ever recovered from the hack. We lost many of the most well-known members simply because of the way Karlos chose to handle the events after the hack. He banned users who disagreed with his decision to not restore XP (the site had to be reverted to a previous backup, which was at least a week or so old). He claimed that they were trashing the site and being mean to him but in reality, they were just expressing their opinion. By the way, it’s beyond me why WH wasn’t backed up more frequently.

Out of the many users that he banned, I feel that the most notable ban was Stormgaze. Stormgaze was a notorious member who knew a lot about web design and… well, he wasn’t a moron, so he could see past a lot of Karlos’s BS. And he was vocal about it. Stormgaze ran a blog where he voiced his opinions about current WH happenings, which inspired me to create my own (this is important later). Stormgaze didn’t always see eye to eye with Karlos and was willing to point out his mistakes. I don’t feel that Karlos takes criticism well because Stormgaze eventually got a permanent ban. Stormgaze was a very matter-of-fact person who held an elitist view on the site and his own choices, but he knew his shit. Looking back now, I feel that a lot of his rudeness was just him being an honest person. He saw past the façade that blinded many of us.

As for Karlos’s creepiness? I mean, I can see where you’re coming from, though I don’t think I particularly experienced any of it. I joined the staff team when I was 14 but I lied and said that I was 16 because that was the minimum age requirement after the site’s renovation. (Karlos, if you’re reading this, I’m a really shitty person and I apologize for lying to you. Regardless, I did my job and I did it damn well.) He Skyped me once out of the blue which I found a bit odd, and he had his webcam on and was showing me stuff around his room. I definitely glorified him a lot back then, so I was just excited that the site owner was talking to me personally. I don’t think he meant anything of it but it came across as really weird, especially given that I was only 16 when that happened, and he was at least 21 or 23.

Before I forget about Karlos’s extensive dating profile, remember how he used the donation money to visit his girlfriend in the United States in 2011 or 2012? The donation money that was supposed to partially be donated to a local animal shelter, and the rest was supposed to go towards hosting the site? Yeah. I can tell you now that WH has had an immense profit and it STILL somehow makes a profit because people upload multiple characters to the site. Customs cost around $10-12 and there are over 3,000 of them on-site. Many members also purchased Points to spend on leveling up their wolf and to buy artwork from other members. Do the math, and Karlos makes a royal shitton.

But does anyone remember how he put the website up for sale a few years ago and immediately removed the listing when users found out? He later denied any allegations, but I think selling the website would have been his best bet.

I’ve saved the best content for last, which is the knowledge that I have because I was a staff member. I have never kept my opinions a secret, and I’ve always been honest. Here’s where my blog becomes important: I had a WH blog where I discussed what was going on with the site after updates, gave opinions on community events, and so on. After 1.3, Karlos asked me to remove an article that critiqued his inactivity because it made him look bad. I obliged, but I felt that it was majorly fucked up. I knew that if I didn’t remove the article, he would remove me from staff. I was a new moderator with 1.3 and it was something that I worked hard for, so I was not willing to give it up.

I’m not really sure where to start. I hold a personal grudge against Karlos because I was on staff for the longest time, yet three other moderators received promotions to admin before me. Sheri was one of my good friends and she did the job well, and I’m not sure how Fang still manages to have so much passion for the site, but I respect her immensely for that (although I don’t know why she’s still wasting her time; WH is not a relevant website at this point). I always amounted their promotions to personal bonds that they had, and I was never that upset because I can entirely understand why someone would want to promote a friend. What I will never forgive Karlos for is making Jekyll a mod and an admin and choosing her to run the site. Jekyll was a rude member before she became a mod, and she was even ruder with a blue name. I turned in complaints about her behavior numerous times, and other members came to me because she was so awful to them. He always claimed that he would talk to her about her behavior but he never did. I later found out that Jekyll and Karlos were so close because Jekyll was working on Cervidae with him. Instead of creating art for WH, they made art for Cervidae. We had a staff forum where multiple artists, including Jekyll, claimed different animals to work on. Miraculously, they were never finished. Jek and Karl (more like Jekyll and Hyde) were pouring all of their energy into this deer RPG thing that never actually opened up to the public. Amazing concept, but it was executed poorly. And instead of ending WH or passing it on to someone who was capable of handling it, he put Jekyll in charge. She is the most unprofessional person that I know. Have you read the news posts? Her grammar is absurd, she unnecessarily capitalizes random words, and she just… oh my, it irks me to no end. The FRONT OF THE WEBSITE is unprofessional. Who wants to join a website where the news is updated after months and it isn’t even typed correctly? Having someone represent your website who can’t even hold a normal full-time job is really embarrassing. But maybe that’s why they got along so well! /shrug

Jek was awful with how she treated the members. We never had any protocols to follow when giving users PM warnings or mutes or bans; there was no structure so we were all doing different things. Jek would mute someone for having stolen artwork on their profile, whereas I would PM the user, explain why the artwork was considered stolen, and add it to their user notes. I brought this issue up multiple times and was told by Fang that I was actually the one in the wrong. ??? That’s so corrupt that it’s ridiculous. None of these people knew how to be a moderator. It is beyond me why someone should be muted because they broke a rule they probably didn’t even understand. The point of being a moderator is to help users to understand the rules, not to be Hitler and swing your banhammer around willy-nilly. That’s probably why I never got along with anyone on the staff team, though.

Oh, and the staff panel was broken for years. When a post was reported and you clicked on the post link, you’d get “HTTPS” in the URL bar twice, so the link would be invalid. I’m sorry, but as a staff member, I should not have to manually type in a reported post just to handle it. The fact that he couldn’t even add a simple fix to the mod CP was really offputting and made me realize that I was working for someone who didn’t care about me. We didn’t get any compensation for our work until someone suggested it in 2013. Our compensation was 5 free customs because we were staff. Cool.

It was a very hard decision for me to leave the team, but I realized that WH was not the site it once used to be and it was never going to be fixed. I was not comfortable working for Jekyll because I don’t think she has a thousand competent brain cells and she’s just not an enjoyable person to be around. It was exhausting to work for a website and try to make progressive movements, only to be shot down and ignored. I begged Karlos to get new animal artwork. I begged him to update the mod panel. To fix the referral system… nothing was ever done. I had to accept with a heavy heart that he was never going to change, and the website would never amount to much. The community is dead. All of my friends left or were banned after the hack. I hated the people I worked with; there was nothing to keep me there.

#wolf-haven #wolf haven #neonwolfgames #cervideer #karlos #jekyll #fang #submission

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jam2289 · 4 years

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The Opposite of Slavery

"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" is one of the best autobiographies ever written. In that book Douglass doesn't have a list of the things that support slavery, but there are some things that definitely stick out as important. What if you just did the opposite? What if instead of doing the things that were important to keep slaves in slavery, you went the other direction?

To a large extent, that is what Douglass did. He freed himself by doing the opposite of what a slave was supposed to do. (A number of other people were instrumental as well, of course. And Douglass himself acknowledges that Providence played a large part.)

An important note before we dive into what led to his freedom. He didn't go from being a slave to owning slaves. He might have been able to, he was a very resourceful man. And, others did it. There were black slave owners, traders, and breeders. It's an odd piece of history that's largely ignored because people don't know what to do with it. There were even rich black slave owners that donated money to support the Confederacy during the American Civil War. William Ellison is the most famous example.

But enough of how history is significantly different and much more complex than most people think it is. My point is that the opposite of being a slave is not being a slaveholder. The opposite of being a slave is being free. The opposite of slavery is freedom.

Here are eight of the most important things that I noticed while reading Frederick Douglass's book. I'll include some pertinent quotes as well. (He changed his name a couple of times throughout his life, but I'm going to use Frederick Douglass the whole time in this article.)

One

The slaves didn't have birthdays. The birthdays weren't recorded, and the slave owners didn't want the slaves to know their birthdays. It seems kind of odd to me. It seems unimportant. But I've been rethinking that, because if slaveholders considered it important, then it probably is.

I think it might be something like this. To have a birthday is to confirm that you are an individual. To have a birthday is to confirm that you had a unique beginning. Beginnings have special power. The greatest political philosopher of the 20th century focused on this idea. Hannah Arendt called it natality.

I've largely ignored my birthday. I haven't considered it significant. But, I think that was wrong. I think it's more important than most people realize.

"By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant."

Two

Mothers were separated from their children. Families were separated from each other in general. The bonds of the family are too strong. When people bond together they become strong. They won't allow a loved one to just freely be beaten on and abused by someone. They will do something. But, if you don't have strong bonds, then why should you step in and get punished too? Family groups are the foundation of human society, and if you can destroy the family unit, then the society falls apart too.

"My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant - before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age."

Three

Douglass was sent from the plantation to serve part of the owner's family living in town when he was fairly young. The wife hadn't grown up owning slaves and taught Douglass the sounds of the letters. (Yes, phonics works.) She was then informed by her husband that it was illegal to teach slaves to read. But, that start was just what Douglass needed. He would trade bread to poor white boys in the streets to help him with reading. Later, he would challenge them to spelling contests.

This is an important point to emphasize. It was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's hard to keep educated people down. And I'm not talking about school, I'm talking about real education, about learning and knowing and thinking. It's much easier to keep illiterate people down. So much so that it was a law to keep the slaves illiterate.

Douglass had a gifted intellect and picked up reading fairly quickly. By quickly I mean he worked on it for years. Luckily, when he was about 12 he came across a book titled "The Columbian Orator". This book was focused on teaching public speaking by drawing from the greatest speeches in history. It included speeches against slavery from ancient Greece. It had a huge impact on his life and he became one of the most famous public speakers in the world.

Also, writing is what allowed Douglass to later write fake papers so he could escape to the North.

"Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master - to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.""

Four

Douglass talks about how slaves walked around with their shoulders slouched down in a servile position. He really noticed that when he went to work in town and the same woman that taught him the alphabet reacted oddly to him being hunched down. So, he stood up straight. Slaves are expected to cower.

"The crouching servility, usually so acceptable a quality in a slave, did not answer when manifested toward her."

Five

Slaves weren't allowed to talk back to their masters or the overseers, at all. If you talked back to them you would be beaten. This inability to speak is huge. That's why freedom of speech is the first amendment in the American Bill of Rights. Because, if you can't speak, then you don't have freedom.

"To all these complaints, no matter how unjust, the slave must answer never a word."

"There must be no answering back to him; no explanation was allowed a slave, showing himself to have been wrongfully accused."

"To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty. To escape punishment was to escape accusation; and few slaves had the fortune to do either, under the overseership of Mr. Gore."

Six

Slaves weren't allowed to fight back, obviously. Douglass includes a couple of stories that illustrate the significance of this perfectly. He talks about a slave that was going to get whipped, but to avoid it he ran into the middle of a river and stood there. The slave overseer told him to come out. He wouldn't, so the overseer shot the slave in the head where he was standing. These were the stakes.

At one point Frederick Douglass decided that he would never take another whipping without putting up a fight. This should have gotten him killed. And he knew that. But he decided to fight anyway. The next time Douglass was going to get whipped he got into a fistfight with the overseer in the barn. They fought one-on-one for two hours. Apparently Douglass was a pretty good fighter, because he didn't get whipped. And, for some reason, they didn't kill him either. Douglass got into a number of other fights throughout his life, but he fought every time and was never whipped again.

Slaves don't fight back, free people do. That's why the right to have weapons is the second amendment in the American Bill of Rights. If you don't have the means to fight back, then you have no choice but to do what you're told, like a slave.

This touches on the origins of slavery as well. The foundation of slavery is war. Slaves are the war captives. I'll go into that more in another article.

"Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he pleased; but at this moment - from whence came the spirit I don't know - I resolved to fight; and, suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose."

"He asked me if I meant to persist in my resistance. I told him I did, come what might; that he had used me like a brute for six months, and that I was determined to be used so no longer."

"This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself. He only can understand the deep satisfaction which I experienced, who has himself repelled by force the bloody arm of slavery. I felt as I never felt before. It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me.

From this time I was never again what might be called fairly whipped, though I remained a slave four years afterwards. I had several fights, but was never whipped."

Seven

Slaves were not allowed to keep what they earned. They were just given enough to stay alive and continue to work, no matter how much they produced. Douglass broke through this chain as well while he was slowly working his way out of slavery. He was able to develop a skill. His master had him apprenticed as a ship caulker. After Douglass knew what he was doing he convinced his owner that he could manage himself and would pay the owner a set number. It was common to rent out slaves, and Douglass essentially rented himself. Plus, it was less of a hassle for the owner. This way, if Douglass could earn more than that he would be making money. Which he did. Free people are able to keep what they earn.

"I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, - not because he had any hand in earning it, - not because I owed it to him, - nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same."

Eight

Slaves aren't able to decide what they will do. They are told what they will do. They have no choice. As Douglass started to manage himself, with the deal he had made with his owner, he was able to take back some control. He was able to do what he wanted when he wanted, for the most part, as long as he made his payment.

"He too, at first, seemed disposed to refuse; but, after some reflection, he granted me the privilege, and proposed the following terms: I was to be allowed my time, make all contracts with those for whom I worked, and find my own employment; and, in return for this liberty, I was to pay him three dollars at the end of each week; find myself in calking tools, and in board and clothing."

Summing Up

These are just a few of the lessons that I've been able to glean from Frederick Douglass. Let's summarize these eight points.

Slaves:

don't have birthdays,

are separated from their families,

can't read and write,

slouch their shoulders,

can't openly speak,

can't fight,

can't keep what they earn,

and can't decide what they will do.

If we take the opposite of these I think we end up with a pretty good description of what a free person is. Maybe even a good definition of what freedom is, and what is needed to protect freedom.

Free people:

have individual birthdays,

have a family bond,

read and write,

stand up straight,

are free to speak,

fight back against abuse,

keep what they earn,

and decide what they will do.

There are a ton of other great insights in Douglass's autobiography ranging from the corruption of holidays, to the corruption of religion, to the corruption of political parties. I highly recommend reading it.

Slavery destroys the humanity in people, both slave and slaveholder alike. It's important to know what slavery is so that we can move in the opposite direction. It's important to know the value of freedom, how to attain it, and how to protect it. And if you want freedom, then be the opposite of a slave.

________________________________________________

To read more from Jeff go to JeffThinks.com or JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

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thechasefiles · 5 years

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 1/28/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Monday 28th January 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

MIA ON A HIGH – Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley says she feels validated by Government’s decision to support the Barbados Cricket Association’s (BCA) bid to host international cricket matches between West Indies and England at Kensington Oval. Given projections that Barbados stood to gain $80 million in foreign exchange, and following West Indies’ massive victory in the first Test that featured outstanding performances from four local boys, Mottley also pledged Government’s commitment to any sporting activity that would redound to the benefit of the country. In an interview with THE NATION after West Indies crushed England by 381 runs on Saturday on the back of sterling contributions from captain Jason Holder and fellow Barbadians Shane Dowrich, Kemar Roach and Roston Chase, Mottley expressed delight at the turn of events. “I am on top of the world. This is even more special for me. One of the first decisions I made after being sworn in as Prime Minister was to agree to host this match and the One-Day Internationals. To have this kind of validation with this kind of victory, it doesn’t get better than this – a Bajan double century, a Bajan century, a ‘barriffle’ of Bajan wickets in the first and second innings, and then to have a Bajan sub as wicketkeeper when the chips were down,” she said. (DN)

PM MOTTLEY TO ATTEND CARICOM-UN TALKS ON VENEZUELA – Prime Minister Mia Mottley will join two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) colleagues in New York on Monday for talks with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to discuss the crisis in Venezuela. According to a statement from the CARICOM Secretariat, issued on Sunday evening, the regional delegation will be led by CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harris of St Kitts and Nevis, and will also include Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. Grenada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter David, and CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque will also attend the talks at UN Headquarters. The meeting is a follow up to the decision of CARICOM Heads of Government at their Special Emergency Meeting on Thursday which discussed the ongoing conflict in Venezuela. The CARICOM Leaders agreed to request a meeting with the UN Secretary-General which he accepted. (BT)

CRIME QUERY – Months before the spike in crime at the start of the year, Barbadians had expressed concern, fearing for their lives and the safety of communities in the wake of an increase in gun and gang-related activities. They made their feelings known in a study on the public perceptions of crime and violence conducted by Dr Dwayne Devonish, a senior lecturer in management studies at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus late last year. In his survey, which polled about 1 000 people, more than 70 per cent described the crime situation as “bad” or “very bad” and all agreed crime had worsened compared to 2017. They laid the root cause of this increase squarely on unemployment, especially among high-risk youth, drugs and the state of the economy. Respondents believed that some of the crime was being perpetrated by “outsiders” of a given community, who were seeking revenge, or by rival gangs who were looking for “justice” or “possessions”. The police also came under fire in the survey. Some respondents stated their reluctance to report crimes they witnessed to police because of their lack of trust in the Force and perceived tardiness in responding to a report. They also feared being labelled or targeted as informants. (DN)

WOMEN’S TEARS – Amidst complaints that clerks at the maintenance courts were driving some women to tears, the Registrar of the Supreme Court has said staff will continue undergoing customer service training. Registrar Barbara Cooke-Alleyne made the comment as a guest on Starcom Network’s Brass Tacks Sunday. Cooke-Alleyne, along with Chief Magistrate Christopher Birch, were fielding questions from mainly female callers about the service and treatment they received when they journeyed to court offices to collect child maintenance. The Registrar apologised to several women who related their experiences on air. Two of the women spoke of being reduced to tears and of feeling humiliated after their interaction with the clerks who, they said, made them feel as if they were begging for money. (DN)

CONSTABLES NOT FEELING SO SPECIAL – An old police mobile unit parked along St Lawrence Gap, Christ Church, for many years is the “home” for Special Constables (S. C.) attached to the Southern Division’s Tourism Patrol Unit. It has no running water; no bathroom facilities and no air conditioning. Instead, Special Constables have to use an old fan borrowed from a business in the area over a year ago. The only furniture the mobile unit contains is an old desk, a bench whose leather bottom is torn and tattered and an old chair. When the Special Constables want to use the bathroom, they either have to telephone the nearby Worthing Police Station and wait for a vehicle to arrive to take them there or go to a hotel or other business place in the area. “This is another example of how we are not special to the Royal Barbados Police Force,” said a disgruntled Special Constable who has long complained about their conditions of service. The Special Constables who are deployed to patrol the tourist belt pointed out that given the high level of gun crimes they are now required to work shifts around the clock to ensure that the visitors are safe; but noted their working conditions are both unsanitary and unacceptable. (DN)

BADNESS MOVIE CLIP SPARKS PROBE – The Royal Barbados Police Force has launched an investigation to find out how a local film crew was able to drive into Central Police Station and film a scene for a movie. The NATION was reliably informed that police hierarchy was caught off-guard when Episode 10 of the popular movie series Badness aired in December showing a scene filmed on the compound of the station. In that scene, two men acting as police officers casually drive into the station located at Coleridge Street, The City, and proceed to drive around the entire compound as they discuss killing some men on the block. In the film, no real police officers are seen at the station and no sentry appeared to be at the gate. When contacted, Deputy Commissioner Erwin Boyce said there was a protocol to be followed. “You can’t do that. You can’t just come in and do what you want to do. There is a certain protocol involved. You [have] to report to the station officer or an officer at the gate. “Obviously, it is something that we would investigate. I would assume that there is some effort to find out what happened.” (DN)

17 DOGS TAKEN FROM HOME – Seventeen dogs, including 13 puppies, were removed from a house in Vauxhall, Christ Church, last week after concerns were raised about their welfare. The severely malnourished adult dogs, and flea- and worm-riddled puppies, which were kept chained to cement blocks, are now being treated at the RSPCA’s Cheltenham Lodge vet clinic on Spring Garden, St Michael. Chief Inspector Wayne Norville responded to the house after calls for assistance were made to the RSPCA. He told THE NATION the dogs appeared to be caught in the middle of a family dispute. (DN)

TREVOR BAYLISS WANTS ENGLAND TO SHOW MORE GUTS – Trevor Bayliss has questioned the “guts and determination” of his England side after their chastening defeat in the first Test in Barbados. Bayliss, the England coach, described himself as “speechless” after the team’s second batting collapse of the game and suggested some frank words would be exchanged within the squad after a performance that lacked “mental discipline”. While he defended England’s preparations and selection, arguing that several players had simply not performed and that the batting errors gave the spinners little chance to bowl on a worn surface, he did acknowledge that Sam Curran had endured the “first bad game” of his career and that Keaton Jennings’ struggles had him worried. “I think it gets down to a bit of guts and determination to get through those tough periods,” Bayliss said. “It’s not the first time that we’ve succumbed in a short space of time. The boys are in the dressing room hurting and I’d be worried if they weren’t. “Do they lack mental discipline? Personally I think so. You don’t have to have perfect technique to be able to score runs or take wickets: it’s how you go about using it. On this occasion we’ve certainly been lacking in that department. I’m not sure I can repeat what has been said [in the dressing room].” Bayliss did acknowledge West Indies’ fine bowling – especially in the first innings when Kemar Roach claimed a five-wicket haul – but felt England should have coped better throughout, especially when Roston Chase was on his way to an eight-wicket haul in the second innings. “They did bowl well, but every time a team does that we shouldn’t be expecting to get knocked over for 77,” he said. “In the second innings, the guys looked like they were trying, we made good starts but at this level you have to be able to bat longer than that. “Chase bowled a good line and a good length. He didn’t give us any easy runs to get off strike. He built that pressure up, broke down our techniques on a couple of occasions and there were some poor shots on some occasions. That adds up to eight wickets. “It’s not the first time this has happened. Every time we lose a wicket it’s the beginning of a collapse. And to be honest, I don’t know how to explain it. There’s nothing that stands out in your preparation or the lead up to the game that is any different to when we win. We have to work out what’s the difference between when we put on a partnership after losing a wicket and losing eight or nine quick ones.” The decision to omit Stuart Broad and play two spinners has been widely criticised in recent days, but Bayliss believes it was not so much the decisions that were wrong as the performances. He did suggest, however, that Broad had been missed and that his inclusion would be considered ahead of the second Test. “We made a decision in the belief that the five guys we picked would go out and bowl as well as they can do,” he said. “Unfortunately, on this occasion, they didn’t. “When we saw the wicket we were going to go with two spinners. Unfortunately, we didn’t bat well enough in the first innings to get through to the fourth or fifth day, where the two spinners could take advantage. And I think they would be disappointed [with their performance]. Chase bowled very few short balls, but we let them off with easy singles so you can’t put pressure on the batsmen. “It was down to Curran and Broad [for the final seamer]. Our gut feel was Curran as he has done well for us over the last six or seven games. It didn’t work out like that, the young bloke has had his first bad Test in his career. It won’t be his last but he’s a good young player who will learn from it. “One of his advantages of playing someone like Stuart is that he doesn’t go for too many runs, hopefully picks up some wickets, but gives us control. That stood out in this match, with only [James] Anderson and [Ben] Stokes being able to provide that line-and-length bowling and a bit of pressure on the opposition. We’ll have to revisit that in the next match.” While Bayliss celebrated the performance of Rory Burns, who made a career-best 84 in the second innings, he accepted Jennings’ struggles against seam bowling were a worry and also suggested that, in a perfect world, he would prefer to see at least one four-day, first-class games ahead of a Test series. “Burns has shown enough,” he said. “He looks like he’s been here for 20 or 30 Tests, not four. He’s still learning and will still get better. “Keaton is struggling a little bit. I’d be lying if I said we’re not worried about it and I’d be lying if I said he hadn’t been thinking about it. He’s one of the hardest workers we’ve got and he’s going to leave no stone unturned in making it better. “We prepared the same way as we did in Sri Lanka. Two two-day games. But we knew what we were going to get in Sri Lanka. Here we were a bit unsure. We were expecting it to be not as dry and go in with four seamers and one spinner. “Personally I would like to play some first-class games before the series, but you’ve only got four days scheduled, and if you want to give everyone a go, it is difficult. It’s the way of the world these days.” England fly to Antigua on Monday with the second Test starting there on Thursday. (BT)

GRAVE CALLS FOR MORE RESPECT TO BE SHOWN TO WINDIES – Chief executive officer of Cricket West Indies Johnny Grave wants more respect to be given to West Indies players. His comments have come in the wake of the regional team’s commanding win over England on Saturday, which saw them take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. The Windies, the eighth ranked Test nation destroyed the number three rated English outfit by 381 runs inside four days at Kensington Oval on Saturday. Before the start of the opening Test match, former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott described the West Indies as “very ordinary, average cricketers”, while another former player in Andrew Flintoff said the “world’s gone mad” after West Indies captain Jason Holder made 202 not out in the second innings. However, Grave described those comments as being “borderline disrespectful” and “completely unwarranted”. “Criticism of our players and suggestions that they’re not world class is unfair. They are so dedicated. We’ve got 11 cricketers here and many more in the region who want to play Test cricket,” the CEO said. “I saw Andrew Flintoff say he can’t believe Jason Holder got a double hundred, yet I think Jason Holder is a fantastic cricketer and has been performing so fantastically over the last 18 months – a brilliant captain.” The 41-year-old Flintoff averaged 31.77 with the bat and 32.78 with the ball in his 79-Test career, while Holder is currently averaging 33.86 with the bat and 28.29 with the ball in 36 matches. (DN)

CHASE WANTED SOME GLORY – Roston Chase didn’t have to look too far for inspiration to produce a career-best eight-wicket haul that helped West Indies complete a crushing victory by 381 runs over England in the first Test yesterday at Kensington Oval. The stimulus was the outstanding performances of his teammates on the previous two days. “Yesterday, after watching those guys perform like that, I was happy for them but I was a bit jealous that it wasn’t me. So I guess that I really took my opportunity to get the spotlight on me as well in the second innings,” Chase cheekily told the media as he flashed a smile. “It was a great feeling to get career-best figures and I will just look to keep on pushing from here,” he said. “The pitch didn’t really assist me that much. I was really focusing on putting the ball where I want to put it in my area, despite what the batsmen were doing and that really paid off for me, with a little bit of variation in my speed.” (DN)

NSC OPENING LATE ON MONDAY – The National Sports Council (NSC) and all of its facilities, including the National and Netball stadia, will open at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, January 28. An official at the NSC explained that the late opening is to facilitate a staff meeting. Persons are therefore asked to conduct their business accordingly. The National Sports Council apologizes for any inconvenience this late opening may cause. (BGIS)

STATUE FOR SIR WES - Sir Garry Sobers is about to get some company outside Kensington Oval. Windies fast bowling great Sir Wes Hall seems set to be honoured yet again, as plans are in place to erect a statue bearing his likeness near to Sir Garry’s iconic monument outside the Oval by November. Former chairman of World Cup Barbados, Chris de Caires, confirmed the news yesterday as part of his initiative with Cricket Legends of Barbados to pay tribute to all of the country’s great cricketers. “If you travel the world you would see that statues are used to promote images of nation-building, and someone like Sir Wes definitely fits that profile as not just a great cricketer, but a former West Indies manager, West Indies board president, Cabinet minister and priest,” said de Caires. (DN)

BALANCING MOTHERHOOD AND BUSINESS 101 – If you told Zoë Allamby six years ago that today she would be a mum to a bouncing, adventurous and beautiful baby girl while managing a booming make-up line, she wouldn’t have believed you. But today she’s doing it and she’s doing it well. Zoë is mother to Nala, a bubbly nine-month-old baby girl. She has also now started her make-up line CaribBeauty. Known to many as a model and as YouTuber, Zoe, who now lives in Delaware, said her life as it is now came as a quite a shock, especially becoming a mum. “Nala was one big surprise to us all. My husband Alan and I had plans for a child maybe around 30 or so or when we were more settled because we just moved up to Delaware for one of his jobs. Life happened; it was very unexpected but we just rolled with it and embraced it as it went on,” the 26-year-old said. The make-up line started just before Nala came into the picture but began booming when it was time to raise her new daughter. “CaribBeauty started out as a single highlighter ZoGlow, and when I was developing that Nala wasn’t in the picture. After the highlighter launched and did well, the lipsticks came, then I had Nala so I had to take a break. But I’m now back full force and distributing in the United States as well as Barbados,” she said. Zoë said since getting back into the game, her line has been doing well. (DN)

CHEERS FOR NEW BISHOP - A fanfare and loud cheers heralded the ordination and consecration yesterday of the new Anglican Bishop of Barbados. But the man of the moment, Reverend Michael Maxwell, shook his head in what appeared to be disbelief as hundreds of Anglicans rejoiced and welcomed their new leader after a lengthy and acrimonious election process that threatened to divide the church. It was just after 5:30 p.m. that visiting regional bishops removed the raiments of Maxwell’s former position and garbed him in the robes of the office as the 14th Bishop of Barbados. In a ceremony in the Gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex, attended by Governor-General Dame Sandra Mason, Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson, members of the Cabinet, former Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and current senators, including the Barbados Workers’ Union general secretary Senator Toni Moore, the visiting bishops anointed his head; gave him the staff with which to lead the flock; slid the ring on his finger and placed the mitre on his head. (DN)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 337 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles# dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

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endenogatai · 5 years

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Alexa, where are the legal limits on what Amazon can do with my health data?

The contract between the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and ecommerce giant Amazon — for a health information licensing partnership involving its Alexa voice AI — has been released following a Freedom of Information request.

The government announced the partnership this summer. But the date on the contract, which was published on the gov.uk contracts finder site months after the FOI was filed, shows the open-ended arrangement to funnel nipped-and-tucked health advice from the NHS’ website to Alexa users in audio form was inked back in December 2018.

The contract is between the UK government and Amazon US (Amazon Digital Services, Delaware) — rather than Amazon UK.

Nor is it a standard NHS Choices content syndication contract. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed the legal agreement uses an Amazon contract template. She told us the department had worked jointly with Amazon to adapt the template to fit the intended use — i.e. access to publicly funded healthcare information from the NHS’ website.

The NHS does make the same information freely available on its website, of course. As well as via API — to some 1,500 organizations. But Amazon is not just any organization; It’s a powerful US platform giant with a massive ecommerce business.

The contract reflects that power imbalance; not being a standard NHS content syndication agreement — but rather DHSC tweaking Amazon’s standard terms.

“It was drawn up between both Amazon UK and the Department for Health and Social Care,” a department spokeswoman told us. “Given that Amazon is in the business of holding standard agreements with content providers they provided the template that was used as the starting point for the discussions but it was drawn up in negotiation with the Department for Health and Social Care, and obviously it was altered to apply to UK law rather than US law.”

In July, when the government officially announced the Alexa-NHS partnership, its PR provided a few sample queries of how Amazon’s voice AI might respond to what it dubbed “NHS-verified” information — such as: “Alexa, how do I treat a migraine?”; “Alexa, what are the symptoms of flu?”; “Alexa, what are the symptoms of chickenpox?”.

But of course as anyone who’s ever googled a health symptom could tell you, the types of stuff people are actually likely to ask Alexa — once they realize they can treat it as an NHS-verified info-dispensing robot, and go down the symptom-querying rabbit hole — is likely to range very far beyond the common cold.

At the official launch of what the government couched as a ‘collaboration’ with Amazon, it explained its decision to allow NHS content to be freely piped through Alexa by suggesting that voice technology has “the potential to reduce the pressure on the NHS and GPs by providing information for common illnesses”.

Its PR cited an unattributed claim that “by 2020, half of all searches are expected to be made through voice-assisted technology”.

This prediction is frequently attributed to ComScore, a media measurement firm that was last month charged with fraud by the SEC. However it actually appears to originate with computer scientist Andrew Ng, from when he was chief scientist at Chinese tech giant Baidu.

Econsultancy noted last year that Mary Meeker included Ng’s claim on a slide in her 2016 Internet Trends report — which is likely how the prediction got so widely amplified.

But on Meeker’s slide you can see that the prediction is in fact “images or speech”, not voice alone…

So it turns out the UK government incorrectly cited a tech giant prediction to push a claim that “voice search has been increasing rapidly” — in turn its justification for funnelling NHS users towards Amazon.

“We want to empower every patient to take better control of their healthcare and technology like this is a great example of how people can access reliable, world-leading NHS advice from the comfort of their home, reducing the pressure on our hardworking GPs and pharmacists,” said health secretary Matt Hancock in a July statement.

Since landing at the health department, the app-loving former digital minister has been pushing a tech-first agenda for transforming the NHS — promising to plug in “healthtech” apps and services, and touting “preventative, predictive and personalised care”. He’s also announced an AI lab housed within a new unit that’s intended to oversee the digitization of the NHS.

Compared with all that, plugging the NHS’ website into Alexa probably seems like an easy ‘on-message’ win. But immediately the collaboration was announced concerns were raised that the government is recklessly mixing the streams of critical (and sensitive) national healthcare infrastructure with the rapacious data-appetite of a foreign tech giant with both an advertising and ecommerce business, plus major ambitions of its own in the healthcare space.

On the latter front, just yesterday news broke of Amazon’s second health-related acquisition: Health Navigator, a startup with an API platform for integrating with health services, such as telemedicine and medical call centers, which offers natural language processing tools for documenting health complaints and care recommendations.

Last year Amazon also picked up online pharmacy PillPack — for just under $1BN. While last month it launched a pilot of a healthcare service offering to its own employees in and around Seattle, called Amazon Care. That looks intended to be a road-test for addressing the broader U.S. market down the line. So the company’s commercial designs on healthcare are becoming increasingly clear.

Returning to the UK, in response to early critical feedback on the Alexa-NHS arrangement, the IT delivery arm of the service, NHS Digital, published a blog post going into more detail about the arrangement — following what it couched as “interesting discussion about the challenges for the NHS of working with large commercial organisations like Amazon”.

A core critical “discussion” point is the question of what Amazon will do with people’s medical voice query data, given the partnership is clearly encouraging people to get used to asking Alexa for health advice.

“We have stuck to the fundamental principle of not agreeing a way of working with Amazon that we would not be willing to consider with any single partner – large or small. We have been careful about data, commercialisation, privacy and liability, and we have spent months working with knowledgeable colleagues to get it right,” NHS Digital claimed in July.

In another section of the blog post, responding to questions about what Amazon will do with the data and “what about privacy”, it further asserted there would be no health profiling of customers — writing:

We have worked with the Amazon team to ensure that we can be totally confident that Amazon is not sharing any of this information with third parties. Amazon has been very clear that it is not selling products or making product recommendations based on this health information, nor is it building a health profile on customers. All information is treated with high confidentiality. Amazon restrict access through multi-factor authentication, services are all encrypted, and regular audits run on their control environment to protect it.

Yet it turns out the contract DHSC signed with Amazon is just a content licensing agreement. There are no terms contained in it concerning what can or can’t be done with the medical voice query data Alexa is collecting with the help of “NHS-verified” information.

Per the contract terms, Amazon is required to attribute content to the NHS when Alexa responds to a query with information from the service’s website. (Though the company says Alexa also makes use of medical content from the Mayo Clinic and Wikipedia.) So, from the user’s point of view, they will at times feel like they’re talking to an NHS-branded service.

But without any legally binding confidentiality clauses around what can be done with their medical voice queries it’s not clear how NHS Digital can confidently assert that Amazon isn’t creating health profiles.

The situation seems to sum to, er, trust Amazon. (NHS Digital wouldn’t comment; saying it’s only responsible for delivery not policy setting, and referring us to the DHSC.)

Asked what it does with medical voice query data generated as a result of the NHS collaboration an Amazon spokesperson told us: “We do not build customer health profiles based on interactions with nhs.uk content or use such requests for marketing purposes.”

But the spokesperson could not point to any legally binding contract clauses in the licensing agreement that restrict what Amazon can do with people’s medical queries.

We’ve also asked the company to confirm whether medical voice queries that return NHS content are being processed in the US.

“This collaboration only provides content already available on the NHS.UK website, and absolutely no personal data is being shared by NHS to Amazon or vice versa,” Amazon also told us, eliding the key point that it’s not NHS data being shared with Amazon but NHS users, reassured by the presence of a trusted public brand, being encouraged to feed Alexa sensitive personal data by asking about their ailments and health concerns.

Bizarrely, the Department of Health and Social Care went further. Its spokeswoman claimed in an email that “there will be no data shared, collected or processed by Amazon and this is just an alternative way of providing readily available information from NHS.UK.”

When we spoke to DHSC on the phone prior to this, to raise the issue of medical voice query data generated via the partnership and fed to Amazon — also asking where in the contract are clauses to protect people’s data — the spokeswoman said she would have to get back to us.

All of which suggests the government has a very vague idea (to put it generously) of how cloud-powered voice AIs function.

Presumably no one at DHSC bothered to read the information on Amazon’s own Alexa privacy page — although the department spokeswomen was at least aware this page existed (because she knew Amazon had pointed us to what she called its “privacy notice”, which she said “sets out how customers are in control of their data and utterances”).

If you do read the page you’ll find Amazon offers some broad-brush explanation there which tells you that after an Alexa device has been woken by its wake word, the AI will “begin recording and sending your request to Amazon’s secure cloud”.

Ergo data is collected and processed. And indeed stored on Amazon’s servers. So, yes, data is ‘shared’.

The more detailed Alexa Internet Privacy Notice, meanwhile, sets out broad-brush parameters to enable Amazon’s reuse of Alexa user data — stating that “the information we learn from users helps us personalize and continually improve your Alexa experience and provide information about Internet trends, website popularity and traffic, and related content”. [emphasis ours]

The DHSC sees the matter very differently, though.

With no contractual binds covering health-related queries UK users of Alexa are being encouraged to whisper into Amazon’s robotic ears — data that’s naturally linked to Alexa and Amazon account IDs (and which the Alexa Internet Privacy Notice also specifies can be accessed by “a limited number of employees”) — the government is accepting the tech giant’s standard data processing terms for a commercial, consumer product which is deeply integrated into its increasingly sprawling business empire.

Terms such as indefinite retention of audio recordings — unless users pro-actively request that they are deleted. And even then Amazon admitted this summer it doesn’t always delete the text transcripts of recordings. So even if you keep deleting all your audio snippets, traces of medical queries may well remain on Amazon’s servers.

Earlier this year it also emerged the company employs contractors around the world to listen in to Alexa recordings as part of internal efforts to improve the performance of the AI.

A number of tech giants recently admitted to the presence of such ‘speech grading’ programs, as they’re sometimes called — though none had been up front and transparent about the fact their shiny AIs needed an army of external human eavesdroppers to pull off a show of faux intelligence.

It’s been journalists highlighting the privacy risks for users of AI assistants; and media exposure leading to public pressure on tech giants to force changes to concealed internal processes that have, by default, treated people’s information as an owned commodity that exists to serve and reserve their own corporate interests.

Data protection? Only if you interpret the term as meaning your personal data is theirs to capture and that they’ll aggressively defend the IP they generate from it.

So, in other words, actual humans — both employed by Amazon directly and not — may be listening to the medical stuff you’re telling Alexa. Unless the user finds and activates a recently added ‘no human review’ option buried in Alexa settings.

Many of these arrangements remain under regulatory scrutiny in Europe. Amazon’s lead data protection regulator in Europe confirmed in August it’s in discussions with it over concerns related to its manual reviews of Alexa recordings. So UK citizens — whose taxes fund the NHS — might be forgiven for expecting more care from their own government around such a ‘collaboration’.

Rather than a wholesale swallowing of tech giant T&Cs in exchange for free access to the NHS brand and “NHS-verified” information which helps Amazon burnish Alexa’s utility and credibility, allowing it to gather valuable insights for its commercial healthcare ambitions.

To date there has been no recognition from DHSC the government has a duty of care towards NHS users as regards potential risks its content partnership might generate as Alexa harvests their voice queries via a commercial conduit that only affords users very partial controls over what happens to their personal data.

Nor is DHSC considering the value being generously gifted by the state to Amazon — in exchange for a vague supposition that a few citizens might go to the doctor a bit less if a robot tells them what flu symptoms look like.

“The NHS logo is supposed to mean something,” says Sam Smith, coordinator at patient data privacy advocacy group, MedConfidential — one of the organizations that makes use of the NHS’ free APIs for health content (but which he points out did not write its own contract for the government to sign).

“When DHSC signed Amazon’s template contract to put the NHS logo on anything Amazon chooses to do, it left patients to fend for themselves against the business model of Amazon in America.”

In a related development this week, Europe’s data protection supervisor has warned of serious data protection concerns related to standard contracts EU institutions have inked with another tech giant, Microsoft, to use its software and services.

The watchdog recently created a strategic forum that’s intended to bring together the region’s public administrations to work on drawing up standard contracts with fairer terms for the public sector — to shrink the risk of institutions feeling outgunned and pressured into accepting T&Cs written by the same few powerful tech providers.

Such an effort is sorely needed — though it comes too late to hand-hold the UK government into striking more patient-sensitive terms with Amazon US.

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