#it also said i could cancel it through customer service but the fucking number has a toll fee what the fuck 😭😭

[shvdowsdrowned]

I got a prepaid mastercard from a playstation settlement but it fuckin said it will charge 96 cents if inactive for a year and I have 77 cents left so like???? What now????

[obstinatecondolement]

Just to get some more miscellaneous bitching out of the way:

1) Someone told me today only after I had converted their quote into an order that they wanted the blinds they ordered to be fitted for then, because they had been told on the phone by the manager that we offer this service. And we do! But... the fitter will only fit things that he has measured himself. I had assumed since she had spoken to the manager that she knew that if we used her own measurements that she would have to fit it herself, but apparently I had made an ass of u and me and she was not aware of this and was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of fitting the blinds herself.

So I had to call the company and cancel the order, because it cannot be changed once it is booked in (and I checked with her before I booked it in if everything was right and that she was ready to go forward, but I guess she didn't know what she didn't know and I didn't know what I didn't know, so whatever).

I then booked in a measure call for her and charged her a provisional deposit based on the price from the cancelled order to lock in the sale price, because the blinds will not be reduced after Saturday and the fitter will hardly have time to get to her before then (also, argh, just remembering now that I never filled in the order form to make sure that we emailed him about this! Fuck... okay, better set a reminder for tomorrow morning so that I remember to do it first thing then).

2) I ordered some brackets for Venetian blinds yesterday for a customer, who could only tell me that they were the brackets that go on either end of the blind and that they were [colour] and the blind itself was made of [material] and the slats were [x] mm wide (I had to show her different sizes until she knew, but she was confident that was the size) and that she thought it was [BRAND 1], which made sense, because almost all the blinds we sell are [BRAND 1]. We would not have any information about the blind, because she bought it from us years ago and we can't retain information like that for longer than 12 months due to GDPR. But my colleage said that it was enough information, so I charged an approximate deposit based on what my colleage said they would probably cost, and filled out the form for the company for what she needed.

[BRAND 1] called us this morning and told my manager that they did not understand what brackets were needed. I explained what the customer had told me to the manager, including that she Did Not Remember anything beyond what I told her, and my manager said that she thought I should call back [BRAND 1] and tell them that I needed four (I had written 2 x pairs on the order form, but whatever, apparently this was not clear) white box spring brackets for [x] mm Venetian blinds. So I called them and told them that and they told me that they needed the exact model of the blind before they would send it to us and that I should get back in touch with the customer, but that they'd leave the order on hold for me.

My colleague (different from the colleage who helped me yesterday) said she thought they were being very fucking fussy about this, but I called the customer back and asked her if she could tell me anything more about the blind. She said that it said "[x] mm express" on is and a serial number, which I wrote down, but that she thought that actually maybe it was [BRAND 2] and not [BRAND 1] like she told me before, because the other blinds in the kitchen were [BRAND 2], although she did buy them at a different time. She called me back about two minutes later to say that the blinds in the kitchen had the exact same brackets but that they were just different colours and that those blinds had the brand name printed on the rail.

So... I tried to get in touch with [BRAND 2] after searching high and low for their phone number (we almost never order from them) and eventually got through to someone who did not know what to do to look up what I needed, because it was her first day and her supervisor was away from her desk, but that she'd call me back in a few minutes. She did not call me back, so I called her back two and half hours later and managed to stay on hold long enough to speak to the supervisor, who also didn't know how to find out what I needed and said that she would refer me to the [material] department and they'd call me in the morning. I wrote everything down and left it in the diary, but had basically done all I could with that. I did not call back [BRAND ONE] because we are kind of in a holding pattern with them and I don't want to cancel that order with them before I have a confirmed one with [BRAND 2].

3) I accepted a refurnd of some curtains yesterday and did not very closely examine them (they were loose in a bag from our shop with the original packaging separate, because the customer had been told on the phone that we would put them back in the original packaging and not to worry about it), because I didn't want to insult the customer by implying that I thought a fast one was being pulled. The receipt was from three days previous and they had all the packaging, including the sheets of cardboard which my manager had said we needed to make sure we got back just earlier that morning, so I refunded the curtains and put the bag to one side.

Later, when I went to put them back in the packaging, I realised that they smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. This was almost at the end of my shift, so all I had time to do was fess up to the manager and she said that we would try to air them out and steam them to get the smell out. My colleague who was there—and is very senior in the company and was my manager's manager when she started with [COMPANY] almost 20 years ago—did say, "In fairness, we don't usually go sniffing things to make sure they're okay when we're taking them back" and backed me up when I said that I hadn't wanted to cause offense by being too scrupulous with how closely I examined them, by saying that it was tricky to balance these things and taking that kind of chance was usually the better call, because things being returned are almost always fine and the bigger risk is usually alienating the customer, when my manager was like, "But did you not smell that straight away?"

I still have not had a chance to steam the curtains, but as of 6 p.m. this evening, they still very much reeked of cigarettes.

[honeymoonjin]

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 namjoon x reader || 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 9.7k || 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆 smut

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 desperate to finally break your masturbatory dry spell, you seek out a professional.

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 explicit sexual content, cursing, sex work, masturbation (f), fingering (f), soft dom!namjoon, sub!reader, light degradation, roleplay, oral (f), use of sex toys, crying during sex woo, namjoon is a professional

---

“So; you’re having problems in the bedroom?”

You choke on your own spit and your cheeks flush a violent red. “Um, I- I guess? It’s not, uh…” You trail off uselessly, keeping your eyes firmly focused on the bland, off-white wall behind the man’s head.

He doesn’t seem fazed by your response, choosing to move past it. “Are you having problems being pleasured by a partner, or problems pleasuring yourself?”

If your cheeks could get any hotter, they do then. You let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Sorry, that’s a little… I didn’t realize this would be so…”

“So personal? This is a sex clinic, Ms. L/n, it’s why you’re here. There is nothing to be ashamed about. How about this? I’ll ask you yes-no questions, and then you don’t have to give up information yourself. Saying it is often the hardest part, I’ve found. Alright then; are you having problems bringing yourself to orgasm when masturbating?”

You bite down hard on your lip as you nod, beyond ashamed. It was good that the doctor seemed so blasé and unbothered and professional about it, but you were starting to regret coming.

Doctor Kim flashes you a reassuring smile and clicks his pen against his chest to open it, scribbling a note on his clipboard. “Okay, that’s fine. Is this a recent issue?” You nod stiffly. “Alright. You used to be able to achieve orgasm, but in recent times that’s changed, correct?” Another nod. “Would I be correct in assuming you have had a lot of stress in your life crop up?”

You let out a small huff. “Look, I wrote all this down on the application form. I don’t see why we have to go through it all again if you already have the answers.”

You jump a little in your seat as he slaps the clipboard down on his desk, fixing you a focused stare. “Y/n- may I call you Y/n? Y/n, quite frankly, if you’re not mature enough to hold a conversation about sexual activity like an adult, then I’m afraid you’re not mature enough to be using my services. This isn’t some back-end business; I’m not a prostitute, this is my profession, and I take it rather seriously, you’ll find. Sex is natural. Our bodies are natural. Now, do you want to stay and talk to me so that I can help you, or is this too much? If it is, I suggest you take your leave.”

Inexplicably, his firm tone has a heat rising deep within, something you haven’t felt in a while. When you speak, your voice is hoarse. “I’ll stay.”

And with that, his body and face relaxed, as he leans back in his chair comfortably. “Wonderful. Continuing on, then. What exactly have you tried to get an orgasm? Just your fingers, toys, what?”

“I thought…” You swallow hard. “I thought you said you’d give yes-or-no questions?”

“And I thought you said you wanted this.”

You sigh again. Fuck, why was it so hard to just say it? “Um, I use fingers and… that’s about it.” You swallow again and clear your throat.

“No, it isn’t,” he shoots back immediately with a raised brow, clicking his pen against the surface of the paper. “Honestly, Ms. L/n, I’ve worked at this clinic for six years. Nothing you could possibly say would faze me. I once had a client who confessed he had tried to reach orgasm by putting a blunted letter opener into his urethra.”

Your mouth gapes open. “He what? Wait, you’re not supposed to give details about clients. Isn’t that breaching, like, patient confidentiality?”

The doctor simply shrugs. “I asked his permission to use it as a teaching moment. I found it’s been rather helpful to assure people that there is nothing too ‘wild’ or ‘out-there’. Everyone has different tastes. As a matter of fact, that man found it incredibly effective.”

You blink. “Well, uh, mine isn’t anything like that. I just have a, you know,” you break off to gesture at your crotch in a vaguely penetrative motion.

Doctor Kim pinches his lips together, a dimple appearing on one cheek. “A dildo? Or a vibrator?”

“First one,” you admit. “Is that… That’s all the questions, right? What else could you possibly ask?”

He raises an eyebrow, taking some notes before he puts his full attention on you again. “Plenty. How fast do you penetrate yourself with the dildo? Could you indicate the speed of your hand?” You go dead pale. He holds a neutral expression for a moment longer before he cracks, laughing loudly with his eyes scrunched shut. You go limp against your chair, cheeks red for a different reason. “Sorry, I’m just playing with you. The inquisition is complete, I promise. Now, Sandra at the front desk can make you an appointment, and I’ll be sure to send you out an email with any instructions prior to our session. Thanks for coming in.”

 --

With the session being made for that Friday, it was Thursday afternoon that the anticipated email came through. You were at work, stuck in meetings all morning and desperately trying to catch up on your personal stash of work after lunch, when a ping sounded, lighting up your screen with a notification from kimssexualhealingclinic@donotreply.com. Hurriedly, you fumble to turn the screen dark, glancing around to make sure no one around your desk had somehow read it.

You stewed in nervous energy for the rest of your day, only opening the email once you were in the privacy of your own home with a freshly made hot drink to calm you down.

Expecting the instructions from the donotreply email address to be generic, you were surprised when it instead instructed you to click on a link to their database, with a random string of letters and numbers as an access code.

On the official website (which looked unbelievably slick and professional like any other business’ page), under a section titled MyHealing, you put in the code as requested, eyes widening as you saw just how organized the system was.

There was a tab for Customer Info, one for Session History, one for Calendar, and a final one with no name, just a little envelope symbol with a small, red 1 above it. You click on it and are taken to an inbox with a single message from Doctor Kim Namjoon.

Y/n,

Thank you for booking an appointment. Your session is slotted in for Friday 9th, 5:15pm. Should you need to cancel or reschedule less than 24 hours before, keep in mind the $40 fee will apply. Personalized instructions for this appointment are below. Please note that new instructions will be sent out for every appointment; these are not intended to be used for anything other than this specific session.

You take another sip from your mug as you read that line. ‘Every appointment’. How often did he think you were going to be coming back? You had booked in imagining once you got some sexual release, you’d be fine again. Perhaps it was a blanket statement he told every customer. You let it slip your mind and continue reading.

I advise you first and foremost to get a good night’s sleep on Thursday. Since your appointment is late in the day, I would also suggest a midday nap if possible. I assume you’re at work during the day. Make sure you have enough water, and if your job is at a desk, use your lunch break to go for a walk, preferably outside. When it comes to orgasms, one part is physical, one part is mental, and only a small part is the actual stimulation. So, you can understand how important it is to make sure your body is physically primed and ready for exertion.

Secondly, the mental side of things. I know it’s hard but try not to get too stressed out about the appointment during the day. It’s understandable that you might be nervous but putting too much pressure on yourself will only make reaching orgasm more difficult.

Instead, keep yourself occupied with things you enjoy as much as possible. Consider taking the afternoon off if you have enough leave.

Finally, stimulation. We didn’t cover if you’re still currently attempting masturbation regularly or not, but I would like you on the Thursday night to get yourself as aroused as you can. Watch pornography, read erotica, touch yourself. But don’t try to actually achieve an orgasm. If you simply-

You toss your phone on the couch beside you and huff. Fuck. He really wrote you a whole essay, huh? Did he do this for every customer, for every appointment? He had said he took his job seriously. You just didn’t realize it was to this degree. Hopefully he was as thorough in the practical side of his job as he was in the administration.

Later that night, you decided to treat yourself to a hot bath. Relaxing in the perfumed waters, you lazily bring a hand down to rest between your legs. As Doctor Kim said, he didn’t know whether you were still trying to get yourself off or not, but in reality, it varied greatly. Some evenings you'd spent hours, with aching wrists and tears of frustration, to no avail. Other days you gave up completely and wallowed in your sexual frustration, haplessly grinding against a pillow between your legs for the minimal relief it provided.

But you had re-read over the notice a couple of times, and it was clear that Doctor Kim didn’t want you cumming tonight. Just getting a little riled up in the hopes that your body would be more desperate to cum tomorrow.

Water always gives a weird kind of friction, so it’s somewhat of a hassle trying to rub at your clit, but once you settle into a natural rhythm, you close your eyes and lean back until the water laps over your shoulders. You hitch a leg up over the side of the tub and let out a deep breath.

It always started out nice. You’d get a false sense of hope, that the flicker of pleasure would ignite into anything more than a low smolder, but it never did. Although, this time, knowing full well that cumming isn’t a goal, you find yourself enjoying the relaxing stimulation for its face value. You knead lazily at your breast, rolling a nipple between your fingers as your other hand continues its circling motions. Gradually, your mind naturally begins to float, and a scene begins to materialize in your imagination: in your mind’s eye, your fingers are replaced by much larger and thicker ones, and instead of the grazing of your fingernail it was teeth latching around your nipple, tugging lightly to make your toes curl. Fingering yourself is generally a fruitless endeavor, but you can’t help but clench, longing to be filled by him.

Him… Whether by the context of your relationship, or genuine attraction, it’s Doctor Kim Namjoon that fills your thoughts, the way the water would stain his button-up sleeves rolled up to the elbow, but not quite high enough to avoid the sloshing of water.  You hear the scribble of a ballpoint on that clipboard, like he’s taking note of your reactions, like you’re something to be studied and analyzed.

Below the water level, you grind your hips into your hand, rubbing yourself with the flats of four of your fingers know in an effort to increase the surface area. One of your nipples is flushed from being pinched and tugged at, so you clumsily cross your arm over to the other side, whining into the damp air of your bathroom once you begin repeating your ministrations. You should probably open a window. The vents aren’t great and the last thing you need is a moldy ceiling. 

You grunt low in your throat, shaking your head. You can worry about that later, dammit. With added vigor, you press at your clit, biting down on your lip to try and out all your focus into going faster and harder. Only it doesn’t feel as good as before. 

Where was I? Doctor Kim’s arms. Maybe he’d forgo the button-down shirt completely and decide to strip down, getting into the tub with you, wrapping his arms over your front and pulling you down onto him. You huff, furrowing your eyebrows, holding onto your breath, feeling that pleasure slip away from you. Come on, imagine him fingering you or something, what’s wrong with you, he’s hot! That smile, the thick thighs straining under pants material. Not long before you’d see him again, tomorrow night. It was strange that he worked nights, though you supposed considering his job it made sense that people might prefer-

“Fuck!” Your hands have come to a halt, too distracted to continue, and that slow burning of pleasure in your gut has been extinguished as if from the now-lukewarm water you sit in. You let out a frustrated cry and kick out with the leg that’s still in the water, splashing water up the wall in front. “Fuck off! Are you serious?” You force yourself to take a deep breath and tamp down your rising frustration. The kind doctor had told you not to cum, so it was probably for the best that you didn’t get too into it. Still, it’s irritating you that even the thought of a… a sex professional getting you off isn’t enough to actually get you off. You huff, picking up the bar of soap off its dish, and begin to lather yourself up. “Good luck, Doctor Kim,” you mutter.

--

Surprisingly, you sleep well and have a productive morning. Missing the morning traffic and arriving at a quiet office lifts your mood, and you have just enough work to remain mentally and physically occupied. In fact, you’re sure you would’ve spent your whole day in this calm working mentality, were it not for the phone call that comes just after midday.

Most of the office is out on their lunch break. Only a few of you hang around this time; you know others just prefer to eat earlier or later, but you actively hang around because you appreciate the chance for some peace and quiet. That tranquility is broken by the aggressive buzzing of your phone on your desk. Anticipating a call from a client later on, you figure they’re just phoning in a little early, and you answer it without checking the number.

“Y/n L/n speaking,” you rattle off automatically, “how may I help?”

A low chuckle on the other end gives you pause. It certainly doesn’t sound like the retired seamstress you were expecting to hear. “Did you give me your work phone number, little miss?”

A shot of electricity shoots up your spine and you sit bolt upright in your office chair, instinctively glancing around the five or six people milling about the office floor. “Doctor Kim,” you reply in a low voice.

“Correct. Have you suddenly entered a library or is there another reason you’ve gone all quiet?” His voice is lilting with amusement and you can almost picture him sitting back in his office chair, dimple sticking out as he grins.

Your fingers curl around your phone, and you use your other hand to cup over your mouth, leaning forward over your desk. “I, uh, wasn’t expecting you to call,” you reply honestly, “is there a problem?”

“Of course not. My clinic has a policy of always giving a reminder call the day of or before the appointment.”

You pout. “Oh.” Somehow, the fact that he calls everyone makes you feel something akin to disappointment. “Shouldn’t your receptionist do stuff like that?”

“Would you prefer I put Sandra on the phone?”

“No,” you blurt out reflexively. The doctor rewards your honesty with a breathy chuckle. You press your knees together and clench your thighs. “So, just a reminder then? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. Thanks for the call, though.”

“You haven’t?” You can hear the teasing smile in his voice, and it affects you more than you care to admit. “You’ve been thinking about it, then? Have you been trying to guess what I have in store for you? What I’m going to do to you?”

You clear your throat awkwardly, sensing the conversation taking a decidedly sexual turn. “I’ve been trying to focus on my work, actually. Like your message said.”

“Ah, that’s good. Did you take the afternoon off like I suggest, or are you just on your lunch break?”

You barely hear him speak, your heart skipping a beat when a crowd of some of the older employees starts filing back in. Fuck. 12:32pm. People were going to start getting back to work now, you couldn’t be on the phone with a sex therapist. “Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”

He pauses for a moment. “Are you still at work?”

You clear your throat, ducking your head as one of your superiors walks past. “Uh, yes, sir. Will that be all?”

He chuckles, though it’s more a sharp exhale through his nose, slightly crackly through the receiver. “Spending company time talking to the man who will fuck your brains out tonight?” You cringe at how loud he speaks, mind going blank with shock. You can’t find your voice to reply, though you have no idea what you would even say. He listens to you splutter for a few moments, your lack of response an answer in itself. “Naughty girl,” he chastises. “What would your coworkers think if they knew who you were talking to? I bet you wish you weren’t at work right now so you could just slip a hand into your panties, isn’t that right?” You bite down hard on your lip, using the ruse of sliding your office chair further in as cover for rubbing your core against the seat for some relief. “Come on, Y/n,” Doctor Kim’s voice echoes in your ear, “what did we say about yes-no questions?”

“Yes, sir,” you make out through a tense jaw, hoping your voice sounds as bright and customer-friendly as it normally would be with anyone else, even as your thighs clench together. “My office hours are 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday.”

“Oh?” His laugh bubbles through your phone and makes you absentmindedly start scrunching up a scrap bit of paper on your desk. He was enjoying this. “So, you’re there for a while still, hm? I wonder if you can make it until 4:30pm or if you’ll have to sneak into the bathroom and get some relief. It’s a shame I can’t stay on the line; I’d have loved to hear you moan over the phone, unable to keep quiet as you touch yourself. Oh well. I’ll make you moan for me later tonight.”

You slowly slip your hand down, tucking it between your legs and shifting your hips slowly beneath your desk, grinding against the delicate bones of your wrist for some friction. “The, uh, the appointment is confirmed, sir, thank you. Is there anything else I can help you with before I go?”

You hear a pen clicking, and some hurried strokes against paper in the background. The thought that, like your fantasy last night, he was writing down notes on all your reactions and desires, brought a rush of heat between your legs. You can feel the fabric of your panties, wet through to the outside of the fabric and dampening the skin of your arm. Oh god. “That will be all, Ms. Y/n. I look forward to our appointment tonight very much. Don’t forget to drink enough water to prepare for the fluids you’ll be depleting in our session. Have a splendid day.”

All the energy leaves you the moment the line goes dead, and your top half slumps forward onto the desk. You pull your arm out from between your legs, rubbing away the slippery patch on the side of your wrist before anyone can see it. You didn’t think you were going to get much work done for the rest of the day.

--

 “Are you nervous?”

You lift your gaze from your trembling hands to the man sitting across from you. The two of you were the only ones in the cosy waiting room you had been led to. It was something halfway between a bedroom and a spa, with a great long bed covered in cushions and blankets, a bench laden with food and drink, and several diffusers spraying gently perfumed mist into the air.

The stranger was there when you had arrived moments prior. A green silk robe loosely tied around his waist was the only thing he was wearing as he lounged on the bed, lazily scrolling through his phone, black hair curled and damp, sticking haphazardly to his temples and cheekbones. He had watched you in mild curiosity as you walked in and stiffly sat down on a cosy armchair, and didn’t take a moment before initiating conversation.

He looks at you now with an expectant glimmer. You recall the question and flick him a shy smile. “Mm. First time,” you explain with a sheepish shrug. You let your gaze linger on his attire. “Are you...waiting to go in, too?”

His brows lift in surprise, along with a toothy grin. “Oh, no! I just got out of my sesh with the doc. This is just the whole aftercare shtick. I’m Jungkook, by the way,” he adds with a jaunty wave of his hand.

His languid ease has you relaxing a little, and you crack a smile. “I’m Y/n. So, how many times have you come here exactly? I thought surely once he fixed you, you’d be fine?”

The corner of his mouth quirks. He tosses his phone carelessly onto the bedcovers and sits up a little, the robe falling open to reveal his chest, all defined muscle and tanned skin, glimmering with a sheen of sweat. "Hey, that's what I thought. But honestly? This shit's addictive. I work an extra ten hour shift every week now to afford one hour of bliss. I think I may be in love with him. Or at least, I'm definitely in love with his mouth."

Your eyes drop to the thick carpet as you flush with the mental image that provides, but you can't help but glance back up out of curiosity as his words sink in. "Wait, his mouth? I thought he was meant to just..."

"Jerk people off? I mean, sure, he can do that, but the doc tends to mix it up. With how packed his schedule is, he'd probably get fucking carpal tunnel or some shit if he just jacked his patients off all day. He's a pretty creative dude when it comes to this, you know?" He breaks off with a faraway smile. "Actually, I consider myself a bit of an innovator, too. One time I had this letter opener, right, and-"

"Mister Jeon," an unimpressed voice drawls from behind you, "please refrain from accosting my clients with your sexual history. I am sure they don't find it as enlightening as you do."

You whirl around, heart immediately returning to its aggressive thudding, palms dampening in moments. Standing in the doorway, in a three-piece suit, is Doctor Kim Namjoon, one leg crossed over the other as he tucks a hand into his pants pocket. It's a vast difference from the simple shirt and pants combo he had on when you last saw him, and it seems he takes note of your startled reaction.

"It's casual Friday," he jokes with an easygoing grin, and it only strikes you then, as his eyes lock with yours, that you're about to have sex with this man. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but you'd be leaving this building feeling fully fucked out if all went well. Your nerves return with a vengeance, and his face softens. "Come on inside, Y/n."

A scoff tears your attention from the doctor. "Oh, so I'm Mister Jeon, but she's Y/n?"

Doctor Kim's jaw ticks, though it's bemusement rather than anger on his face. "Would you like me to call you Y/n?"

Jungkook pouts, picking at a loose thread on his robe petulantly. "No." He pouts deeply, looking up at the older man reproachfully. "If you keep being mean to me I won't come back anymore."

The doctor nods patiently like he's heard it a thousand times. "I'll see you next Friday, Jungkook. Do well on your bio exam next week and I might just show you how mean I can really be."

Jungkook's face clears and his eyes gleam. Without speaking, he simply gets up and jogs over to the little set of lockers by the exit, gathering his belongings. Doctor Kim doesn't spare him any more attention, and simply gestures for you to follow him.

You make your way down a dimly-lit corridor with wobbly legs, trying not to stare at the way his pants strained around his behind with every stride he took. Although there’s a distant wisp of relaxing piano emanating from the waiting room, the silence is unbearable. 

“So,” you blurt, cringing at how loud your voice sounds in the stillness of the corridor, “what do you have planned?”

“Well, if Jungkook inspired you, I did bring along a letter opener,” the doctor calls out pleasantly, tilting his head, though he doesn’t turn to look at you.

Your step falters uncertainly. “Oh, I don’t…” You watch in dawning realization as he stops in front of a closed door and swivels, face scrunched up with delight as his shoulders shake silently. Although it was a dig at your naivety, you can’t help but crack a smile at him. “Aren’t doctors meant to be nice to their patients?”

He fumbles in his pockets, producing a keycard to scan at the entrance. Once it’s opened, he holds it there and turns to you expectantly. As you catch up to him and slip through the opened door, you can’t help but brush past his chest with your shoulder, breathing in his soothing scent of raspberry and vanilla. You hadn’t expected him to smell so...sweet.

You hear the door click shut behind you, self-locking, and that layer of security reassures you. Your attention, however, is quickly caught by the contents of the room itself. 

It’s this disconcerting mix of a massage room, a doctor’s office, and a sex dungeon, and your head whirls as Doctor Kim preoccupies himself with messing with the heatpump settings on the far wall. 

In the centre of the room is a traditional massage table, lowered to around the height of his hips, covered in a lush-looking slate grey towel. You figured the usual white wouldn’t fare so well with his line of work. Two of the walls make great use of shelves and cabinets, and you can’t help but be bewildered at the strange way they’re organised. A man like him surely had a system to keep everything in track, but dildos were beside bottles of massage oil and ropes, and a collection of gags and leashes hanging from hooks dangled above a little pyramid of neatly rolled towels and a steaming metal bowl of warm water. 

“Please, take a seat anywhere you feel comfortable.” 

You jerk out of your gaping stare and clear your throat awkwardly, moving to take a seat on a little wooden stool that sat in the corner of the room in front of a small dresser covered in props like handcuffs, some blindfolds and, strangely, a black ski mask with eye and mouth holes cut out. The image of the friendly doctor fucking someone in a full burglar outfit makes you snort out a laugh before you have the time to clap your hand over your mouth. 

You press your lips together with a muffled giggle as the man himself flattens a stare. 

“Is my job funny to you?” 

Your smile drops as you recognise the change in his tone. Gone is the somewhat clumsy, joke-cracking doctor. Now he’s in his role. The session has begun. “No,” you deny weakly.

His deft fingers gravitate to the buttons holding his suit jacket together, and you feel the room become hotter as he walks the perimeter of the room slowly, eying up all the offerings he has to play with while he slips off the expensive material. Hanging the jacket on a coat rack beside the black cape and what looks like priests’ robes that already reside there, he turns on a heel to face you. His eyebrows are low, narrowing his eyes, but you can see the dark heat that radiates off him. You tuck your knees together. God, he’s good and he hasn’t even done anything. “My profession isn’t something to be laughed at,” he chastises lowly. “We had this problem the other day, didn’t we? With you not taking this seriously. It’s disappointing, Y/n.” 

Your heart thuds uncertainly in your chest. The natural instinct to get upset from being told off mixes with the warmth building between your legs. “Sorry,” you offer up, voice lifting at the end like it’s a question. 

He’s on the other side of the room to you. You wish he were closer, though now that he’s unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and beginning to roll the sleeves, eyes locked on your hunched-over form with an unreadable look, you don’t know that you could handle it. “No, you aren’t,” he brushes off, “and it’s very important that in this next 90 minutes, you only say things you absolutely mean. Understand?”

You take a steadying breath, feeling it expand your chest. “Yeah. I understand. It’s just… a lot. I’ve never done this, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and-”

The tension disappears from his jaw and his eyes soften. In mere moments, he’s crossed the room in strides to crouch in front of you, catching your lowered gaze. “Woah, settle. First of all, everyone starts somewhere, so don’t feel anxious. Secondly, how many times have you had sex and known exactly what was going to happen in advance?”

His palms are warm and grounding as they gently rest, wrapped around your calves. You breath deeply again, appreciating this break in character. “I… But we’re not having sex though, right? This is, I don’t know,” you shrug futilely, “different.”

He returns your shrug, but with a far more carefree attitude. “It doesn’t have to be.” As he talks, his grip tightens a little on your calves, gently pressing into the tensed muscle. You find yourself relaxing without noticing, going lax in his touch, as non-sexual as it may be. “But, for the most part, people that come here do want it to be different. More exciting, more taboo, more intense. You need to communicate with me now. Do you want me to go easy on you, or do you want me to be thorough?”

Your mouth goes dry. With his hands on you, with the room you’re in, with the way his eyes linger heavy on yours, the word makes your toes curl. “Thorough,” you croak out.

He searches your face once more, then a slow grin spreads across his. “Excellent. Then get up on the massage table.”

He stands up; the lack of his touch on your legs makes you shiver. You follow him over, feeling your palms damp with nervous sweat. “On my front, or…?”

“Just sit on it for now, baby.” His eyes are alight with mirth when you blush at the petname, but he’s quickly snapping back into that dominant role, jaw muscles popping out as he watches you get up, facing him as your legs dangle in the air, not quite reaching the ground. You wait for him to get closer to you, but he ticks an eyebrow in affirmation and turns abruptly, stalking across the room to a tall, thin cupboard. He reaches in without speaking, and when he turns, in his hands he carries a vibrator in his hand, a relatively friendly-looking, gold bullet that looks rather small in his hand. 

You think you recognise the brand, and if you’re right, it’s unbelievably high end. As he makes his way over to you, his gaze drops to your legs, which you’ve begun absentmindedly swinging back and forth. “Cute,” he remarks with a small sneer, and you abruptly stop, embarrassed at the childish action. “Don’t be so shy,” he advises, “I plan on hearing you scream for me tonight at some point or another. These walls are soundproof, you know. Every little sound you make will only be heard by me. Now spread those pretty legs.”

Suddenly, even though arousal steadily rocks through you, your legs lock up and you go stiff. The room is being pumped with warm air and yet your skin breaks out in goosebumps. 

The doctor notices this, of course he does, and fiddles with the bullet, flipping it over and over in his palm as he makes his way back to you, stopping when his upper thighs brush against your knees. “What’s wrong? Second thoughts?”

You shake your head hastily, though you’re no less tense. “Just- just really nervous.”

His eyes warm in sympathy. “Hm, that’s no good. I can’t get you to cum with your legs shut tighter than a vice.” A quirk of a smile. “Well, I could, but we don’t have time for that today. So, let’s help you relax.” His free hand reaches up to brush against your shoulder. Even though he’s fully clothed as well, you still feel strange still wearing the large sweater and leggings you had arrived in. The fabric feels itchy on your skin, and you yearn for his palm to warm your skin instead of your sweater.

He lets out a breathy laugh as his hand rubs slowly up and down your upper arm. “God, look at you,” he marvels, “I’ve never seen someone so stressed still look so beautiful.” You manage to crack a reluctant smile, cheeks heating. He places the golden bullet vibe on the towel beside you, and pats your knee warmly. “Would it help if I kissed you?”

Your mouth drops open a little. You have to swallow away the dryness. With eyes unable to leave his perfect lips, you nod. 

“Good, I can do that,” he soothes, “can you part your legs for me so I can get a little closer?”

The moment you shakily do as he asks, his hips are pressing against your thighs, pushing them wider still. You hastily dart your lips out to wet them, but he’s in no rush. The doctor slips a hand into your hair, brushing it off your face with fondly gleaming eyes. 

It’s an expression you’ve never seen someone look at you with before, and you let yourself sit in the fantasy that it’s anything more than acting. 

“C’mere,” he murmurs softly, before pressing lightly on the back of your head so that you straightened up to meet him halfway. You sigh into him when your lips touch, unbelievably soft yet insistent as they move against you. 

He’s clearly experienced; you quiver inside with every movement, and he barely moves at all, drawing out the languid embrace. Your jaw falls slack, and you let yourself be guided by him, following his patient lead. 

The room itself is quiet, and you can hear the way he lets out the smallest of grunts, delicate sounds of affirmation as you part your lips and feel the very tip of his tongue swipe against your lips, sucking the bottom one into his mouth and tugging it lightly, chuckling when you let out a throaty whimper.

“Do you feel better now? Hm?”

He pulls away but your eyes stay shut, your whole body stretched up towards him. You nod, licking over your slightly swollen lips, humming in agreement. You smile dopily when he caresses your face, leaning into his touch, as his silken voice reaches your ears. “Are you ready to play?”

Your breath leaves you in one shuddering gasp. “Yeah,” you whine pleafully, eyes slowly slipping back open. 

He’s standing over you, closer than you realised. Only a mere few centimetres rest between his crotch and your spread legs. Still, he uses that space to dip his hand down, brushing the back of it between your thighs, knuckles pressing teasingly lightly over your clothed core. “I bet you want these pants off, huh? You wanna take ‘em off for me?”

You nod obediently, kicking off your shoes before you wiggle your leggings and underwear off your hips awkwardly, lifting your legs up onto the bench to tug them off your ankles. Doctor Kim takes them and places them in the corner of the room by the door, and by the time he comes back, you’ve crossed your legs, leaning forward so that your sweater hem covers your naked center. 

His eyes fall down to that dip in the hem, darkening. His fingers come up to lazily tug at his tie, loosening it and undoing his top shirt button so that the white pressed fabric parts, revealing a golden upper chest. “You sure seem to like that, don’t you?”

You frown. “Like what?”

“Acting innocent like that.” He’s in front of you again, hands immediately wrapping around your thighs, and the touch is electric, making you more aware of how naked you are. “There won’t be any of that innocence left when I’m done with you,” he promises lowly, before bending down to capture your lips again.

You let yourself be taken over by him, drunk on the arousal that glows warm within you. The heat your own body is enough that you don’t notice the missing presence of a palm resting on your inner thigh, until your sweater is shifting and something ice cold is slipping between your folds.

You hiss in a breath and jerk in his grasp, causing him to shush you, lips still firmly attached to you, though they leave your mouth and migrate southward, nibbling along your jawline up to your ear. “The vibrator,” he explains gruffly, “I’m going to turn it on. Just relax.”

Your legs shift, ankles uncrossing slightly so that you’re more open to him, though you can’t bear to open your eyes, trying to stop the nerves from getting to you. 

The moment he turns it on your back arches from the immediate shockwave of pleasure that radiates from that tiny yet strong vibe held directly against your clit. You swallow your moan, breathing heavily through your nose as you fight to keep quiet, letting the mechanic buzz fill the silence instead. 

“Is it good?” the doctor questions, making you tremble as his lips dip lower, brushing over the column of your neck with just the slightest hint of tongue. You nod feverishingly, attempting to push your pelvis forward for more of it, rocking your hips in small circles to increase the surface area. The hand still on your thigh tightens, and you open your eyes blearily at the grip. Doctor Kim’s eyes are hard. “It doesn’t sound like it,” he comments flatly, turning up the vibe to a higher setting, making your mouth drop silently open.

“It is good,” you force out, beginning to pant.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. I know you want to moan for me, baby. Let me hear you lose control.”

You whine through a closed mouth, eyes screwing shut again in focus as he lets you chase your own please. How could he seriously expect you to moan in front of him? He was basically a stranger, and although the way he pinned your thigh spread for him, holding a sex toy to you as you got off on it was hot, you were still in a room alone with him on a Friday evening, paying for him to bring you to orgasm. He was probably just staring at you, waiting for you to hurry up and come already.

“Stop thinking, Y/n,” he chastises, “stay in the room.” You shake your head, wishing you could, but it’s too late. The weirdness of the situation hits you, and you open your eyes, searching for a clock on the wall.

The price of this 90-hour appointment was practically highway robbery, and all he was doing was something you could’ve done yourself at home. And as your eyes coast around the room and the curve of your spine settles, you realize that what’s worst of all is that he won’t even be able to do it. You’ve lost that thread, the one that leads you over the edge, and he won’t have time to get it back before-

You shoot up straight when a stinging slap lands on your thigh. You gape at the man in front of you in shock, hand instinctively going to the pinkened flesh to soothe it. “Ow!”

You realize belatedly he’d turned off the vibe, now holding it between two fingers and a thumb. It’s shining with your slick, but less than you’d have expected by this point, and he sighs in disappointment and tosses it onto the towel beside you.

You suddenly feel, as he cocks an unimpressed eyebrow and tenses his jaw, like you’re a child being scolded for breaking a vase or skipping class. Your legs tighten up together, and you gather a fistful of sweater fabric in your hand, pushing it down to cover yourself. 

“You know why I stopped?”

You nod shamefully, eyes dropping to the carpet below. “You couldn’t do it. There’s something wrong with me, I guess. Sorry for wasting your time.”

He pauses for a long moment. You almost glance up out of curiosity but can’t stand to see the look of disapproval that no doubt resides in his eyes. “No, Y/n,” he explains tiredly, “I can see clearly now that your problem is that you’re too in your own head, and no amount of stimulation can break through an unwilling mind. So, like any good doctor, if something isn’t working for one of my patients then I stop and reassess. What was on your mind?”

You breathe out heavily, not wanting to have to sit and talk about feelings, but he’s not satisfied when you shrug, simply pulling up a stool and waiting for your answer. 

Your mouth tightens and you stare at the ceiling. “I just feel stupid,” you admit finally, “like… you’re just standing there waiting for me to cum and I’m just… not. I don’t know.”

Out of your peripheral, you see him nod slowly, processing your words. “Well, no wonder it wasn’t working. You feel pressured to cum.”

You furrow your eyebrows and look back over to him. “Well, yeah, that’s the whole point of this session.”

He just opens his palms out in a shrug. “Of course, we had booked it in for that, but that’s not my only job as a sex therapist. I have clients that come to learn how to better pleasure a partner, clients that want to explore their kinkier sides without judgement, clients that perhaps are wanting to indulge in something that could potentially be dangerous and want a professional to spot them. I’ve had couples come in and have sex with my supervision because they’re trying something new and are concerned about injury. My point is, not everybody comes here for me to simply bring them to orgasm and go.”

You shake your head quickly. “Oh, I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to say that your job was just-”

“I know, I know,” he soothes, “I just want you to know that sessions with me aren’t a complete failure if the client doesn’t orgasm. Perhaps you need a little more trust and we can work up to it.”

You bite your lip, uncertain. “I can’t really afford a bunch of sessions like that other dude. If you can’t do it today, I’ll just go-”

“How about this?” The doctor rests his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands together. With the nearly see-through white shirt rolled up to the elbows, a slackened tie, and straining pants, he strikes a powerful image. “If you promise me to come back, I’ll give you the next session for free. Since you came here expecting to be brought to orgasm, we can call it fair compensation. Today you won’t orgasm. Sound fair?”

You relax a little as you perch on the massage bed. “Okay… But what would we even do then?”

“Like I said, orgasming isn’t the only thing I offer. You mentioned earlier you felt uncomfortable with me waiting for you to come, is that right?” You nod slowly. “Well, perhaps if you didn’t feel that I was expecting anything from you, you could relax more.”

“I don’t understand,” you admit, trailing off. 

“Stand up, I have something for you.”

You do so immediately, needing to use the massage bed for support as your knees buckle slightly. The doctor slips a hand under his waistband slightly, drawing your gaze lower to his crotch, where a bulge strains against the fabric. 

“I think you would benefit from focussing on yourself a little less,” you hear him say as his hands pop open his pants, dipping into his underwear to pull his straining cock loose, “and focus on me a little more. Do you see how horny you made me, grinding on that vibrator?”

Your eyes widen. You watch his hand, defined by thick veins and delicate bones, stroke himself, a thumb dragging over the slit to spread the beads of precum that were produced. “Is this what you have for me?” you question in confusion.

He laughs. “No, although I do love the way you’re looking at it like a three-course meal. Eyes up,” he commands with a bite of humor in his voice. You hastily obey, and his warm eyes crinkle as he jerks his head to the side. “Let’s go; we’re changing location.”

You frown. “Sorry, what? Changing to where?”

You watch in wonder as he casually strides over to a bookshelf near the far corner of the room, clothes disheveled and leaking cock still in hand. What you had failed to notice when entering the room was a sliding door just past it, the same unassuming wood finish as the shelves. He slides it open, removing the hand from around his dick to wave you through. 

Tugging on the hem of your baggy sweater to attempt to cover yourself - though you weren’t sure there was anything of you left to hide - you let him lead you through the small opening into a far darker room. You squint, eyes adjusting, and slowly the gentle light of several flickering candles is enough to see by. They’re scattered around the room, and you notice soon enough that they’re all electric. 

“Safety hazard,” the doctor explains. “Me, not the candles.” The rest of the room, in a hazy warm glow, is outfitted in a very different vibe from the previous one. Instead of containing all the erotic bells and whistles, this room could be easily mistaken for a honeymoon suite. On the outskirts are a bar fridge, a few armchairs, and a coffee table, but the main event is the gigantuan bed that takes up almost all the floor space, even more lushly covered with blankets and pillows than the one you had seen in the waiting room. 

“Far out,” you breathe, “this is impressive.”

With a rakish grin, he remarks, “what? The purpose-built sex room didn’t do it for you?” Doctor Kim gently slides the door shut behind the two of you, making his way over to a small bluetooth speaker resting on the coffee table. “I had suspected when you responded so well to that kiss that you might be the type to need a comforting environment to keep you in the moment.” He fiddles with the settings, slipping a phone out from his back trouser pocket to select some gentle instrumental song with a muted beat and hypnotic melody. “I’d like to propose a roleplay scenario.”

You bite your lip. “Don’t we… There can’t be much time left of my appointment now, right?”

“Don’t worry about that.” You’re not convinced. He gives you a warm smile, leaning against the arm of the chair. “My next slot is empty. How about we let you book out that one as your compensated session? As far as that pretty little head of yours is concerned, we have all the time in the world. Now: roleplay. Have you done it before?”

You shrug awkwardly. “Not really. I’m not a good actor or anything.”

He shakes his head. You appreciate the way the flickering lights play with shadows over the planes of his face, his neck. “This isn’t the Oscars. And it’s not going to be anything difficult. I was thinking perhaps an anniversary date night. We rented out a fancy hotel room to celebrate. We’ve hand some drinks from the mini fridge,” he waves a hand towards the aforementioned appliance, “and now that the evening is drawing to a close, we’re going to share each other’s company on a more… intimate level.”

You take a deep breath and nod slowly. “Okay, that sounds good. Thank you, Doctor Kim, I appreciate your-”

“Shh, baby,” he soothes, pushing off from the armchair to stroll over to you. He waits until he’s in front of you, hands cupping your face tenderly and looking deeply into your eyes, before he continues. “We’re married; this is our anniversary night, remember? I want you to call me Namjoon.”

“Namjoon,” you repeat dreamily, blinking up at him. In the dim lighting, he looks even softer than before. There’s no tension in his face, and his rumpled clothing looks awfully… domestic. 

His eyes turn up at the edges with his smile. You feel safe yet weirdly vulnerable with your face in his hands and his gaze deeply focused on you. “Do you want me to kiss you again?”

You nod eagerly, just about pushing his hands off you, and his lips quirk up. Without any further words needed, he ducks his head down and slants his mouth across yours, reigniting that flush of want inside you. One of his hands slides around into your hair, playing with it lightly, and the other presses on your jaw, tilting your head back so that he can deepen the kiss. You whimper when you feel his tongue make contact with yours, teasingly swirling inside your mouth, and your hand flies up to curl around his wrist, needing to anchor yourself to him as much as possible.

“You’re so perfect,” he murmurs against your lips, pressing his body against yours. “I missed you so much. Did you miss me?”

You pause, feeling his lips keep moving against you, nibbling at your bottom lip when you don’t answer. “Y-yeah.”

“Yeah? You don’t sound like you miss me.” He laughs breathily, taking his hands away from your face. One links up with yours, squeezing your fingers reassuringly, and the other snakes around your back to hold you even tighter against him. “I wanna show you.”

Your eyes flutter uncertainly, so overwhelmed by the sensual kisses he gave you that you only process what he says belatedly. “Huh? Show me what?”

“How much I missed you,” he replies, the arm around your back sliding lower until it’s slipping under your sweater hem to grasp at the flesh of your ass. You tremble, knees going weak. He leans down to your ear, dragging his spit-slicked lips your face like he can’t bear to part with it. His voice is like honey in your ear, whispering in between teasing nips at your earlobe. “Can I show you how much I missed you?”

“Please, show me,” you plead, not even sure what he means by that, but letting him walk you backwards until the backs of your thighs hit the bed. He lays you down gently, rubbing soothing circles over your naked flesh. You gasp with anticipation when he drops to his knees in front of your legs, pushing your knees apart to slip in between. 

The bed is comfortable and the room is perfectly tiered for a romantic environment. You try and keep yourself grounded, letting yourself drink in the sensation of his hands on you. 

“Can you scoot forward a little for me? Legs over my shoulders.” Namjoon’s instructions are easy to comprehend but harder than expected to execute. Your body feels a little dead, and you shuffle your butt lower, thigh muscles complaining when you lift them up. He helps you, hands on the backs of your knees to hook them up onto himself. “You look so beautiful, spread out for me. Will you let me have a little taste?”

If orgasms weren’t so hard to come by, you’re sure you would’ve come from that statement alone. You make a whined noise of agreement, shuffling your shoulders down the bed so that you can arch your back a little more, needing to feel him. 

With palms sliding up to wrap around and hold down your thighs, the doctor gives you no other warning before he descends on you, slurping noisily against your center. Your mouth drops open and you clench around nothing automatically, simultaneously embarrassed by the loud sound and turned out by his enthusiasm.

He wastes no time in teasing, instead devouring you like a starved man, putting everything into it. Your brain has no time to process the sensations your nerves are being assaulted with; his tongue is inside you and his nose is bumping your clit, then he moves up to wrap his lips around that little bud with a demanding suck, slicking his chin with your wetness. He changes from place to place, never the same speed or intensity. If your lack of orgasms are like a failing heart, Namjoon going down on you is the defibrillator, the shock to your system that you needed.

Your fingers clench tightly onto his hand, moaned-out sighs and shuddering muscles the only sign your body is able to give that he’s doing well. In the back of your lust-addled mind, you feel a single finger slip between your folds, passing over your center to collect wetness before dipping inside. You clench at the intrusion, feeling him groan against you at your tightness. 

He crooks that finger, slowly thrusting it in and out like he has all the time in the world, and you whine, mouth dangling open and drooling, eyes clenched tightly shut. With its proven success, it’s not long before that one finger becomes two, and he has you writhing on the bed. 

You whimper when he gives your clit a final flat drag of his tongue before lifting his head up again, continuing to work his fingers inside you. “When was the last time I got to make you feel this good, huh? It’s been so long, hasn’t it?”

Your body curls in and you keen as a third finger joins the other two, beginning to provide more of a tight fit, preparing your inner muscles for what was to come. You realize he asked you a question and force your tongue to form words. “I, ah, I can’t think,” you blabber out in a slur.

“Good.” And with that, his mouth is on you again, this time with renewed vigor. When he speaks again, he doesn’t even bother removing his lips from you, lapping at your clit between words. “I want to see you fall apart on my tongue, baby,” he confesses, “gush all over my fingers.”

Like a train hitting you, you feel your nerves deep inside shortcircuit at his words, and you let out a little scream when an orgasm abruptly hits, your legs closing to tighten like a vice around his head as he works you through it, speeding up his tongue and grinding against that rough patch inside you with his fingers as your pussy locks up. Your muscles push against the intrusion, though he refuses to let up as violent tremors wrack your body and leave you shuddering hopelessly under his ministrations.

You don’t realize until wetness hits your temple and slips past your hairline that you’re crying, but when you press a shaky hand against your eyes, they’re soaked with tears. The fact that you’re crying, as well as finally achieving the orgasm that was feeling more and more impossible, just makes your lip tremble harder until you’re sobbing against your hand, beyond overwhelmed.

Your legs are taken off his shoulders without ceremony. They flop limply over the edge of the bed. “Hey, hey,” Namjoon’s voice is concerned, though not surprised or frantic, and you suppose he must deal with this often, “you did it. I’m so proud of you. Do you want me to get you some water, or stay here with you?”

“Stay,” you plead brokenly, voice breaking even on the one syllable. He acquiesces, crawling up on the bed to lie beside you, rubbing your shoulder. You feel yourself calm down slowly with his presence, letting out one shaky exhale. “Fuck.”

“You can say that again,” the doctor jibes. “I don’t mean to be crude, but the way you came like that? It was fucking hot. Shit, I’m harder than a rock right now.”

You laugh breathily, sniffing and wiping away your tears. “I can help with that if you want.”

He swears under his breath. “You can’t say stuff like that. Sex with patients is where I draw the line, and as much as I’m hating that rule right now, I need to keep at least an inch of professionalism here.”

You turn to face him, propping your head up on your hand. “I regret to inform you, Doctor Kim, but I won’t be needing your services after this session. There; now I’m not your patient anymore.”

You watch his pupils dilate, eyebrows narrowing. In mere moments, the more dominant personality from earlier has been brought out again. “Well, then. I’m not going to fuck your tired little pussy, because I’ve worn it out for the day. So if you’d like to give me a helping hand, you better get on your knees.”

[diner-drama]

Cuddle Buddies (1/?)

"Cuddle Buddies: professional platonic cuddling therapy services for the busy modern professional" are an entirely legitimate organization serving the touch-starved. Look, it's just been a long time since Steve's been in a relationship, and a guy has needs, you know? Sometimes after a long day of being a strong, hard-nosed solicitor, weathering insults and attacks from the opposing counsel and your own coworkers, you just want to have someone stroke your hair and tell you you're good. Bucky loves his job as a professional cuddler, providing non-romantic physical touch to people that need it, and when his new client turns out to be a pint-sized spitfire with a smile to die for, that's just a bonus.

Also on ao3.

"Rumlow, if I wake up tomorrow to find out that you've thrown my client on an airplane and deported her in the middle of the night I will have your ass in front of the bar association before you can blink," barked Steve into the phone held between his ear and shoulder, trying to get his keys out of his pocket one-handed. "You really think they're going to let this slide after last time?"

He paused for a second as the person on the other end of the line made a few abortive attempts at a response, then cut him off. "I'm turning off my phone now. If you still want to talk in the morning after considering my offer you can call me then, but if you pull any of your bullshit in the meantime, I will fucking ruin you."

Steve hung up the call with a flourish and shouldered his front door open, throwing his phone into a basket on an occasional table before closing the door behind him and leaning against it, rubbing his eyes exhaustedly. Being a hard-ass human rights lawyer was all very well and good during the work day, but by the time he got home Steve was more than ready to shed his tough persona and let himself be soft.

The suit jacket was the first to go, shrugged off his slim shoulders and slipped onto a hanger. Then, his smart, shiny shoes were slipped off and replaced with warm, thick socks. He swapped his starched shirt for an old, lived-in hoodie, and his neatly pressed slacks for sweatpants. His black briefcase found a home in the spare room he used as an office, and he shut the door after it, mentally shutting away his work life. He ran his hand through his smartly-combed hair to muss it up and rolled his shoulders back, taking a few deep breaths and letting the stress of his day roll off him.

He wandered around the living room, picking up a blanket from the steamer trunk by the window, drawing the curtains, and switching on the electric fireplace which filled the space with warmth and low, flickering light. He picked up his personal phone from the coffee table and sent a quick text to Sam to let him know he made it home safely, sent a thumbs up to Darcy in response to a terrible meme she'd sent him, and briefly considered video calling Peggy before remembering that she was in a conference in Singapore.

He flopped down onto the couch and wrapped himself up tight in the blanket, enjoying its weight on his shoulders. Opening his laptop, he coughed in embarrassment when the tab that he'd opened in a fit of loneliness last night popped up. "Cuddle Buddies: professional platonic cuddling therapy services for the busy modern professional" seemed to be an entirely legitimate organization serving the touch-starved, and they had excellent reviews.

Look, it's just been a long time since Steve's been in a relationship, and a guy has needs, you know? Sometimes after a long day of being a strong, hard-nosed solicitor, weathering insults and attacks from the opposing counsel and your own coworkers, you just want to have someone stroke your hair and tell you you're good. Steve did his best to keep his work and home lives separate, but lately it was getting difficult to switch off from his worries when he was lying in bed at night, going over details from his cases while he tossed and turned on his pillows.

He scrolled through the information on the website one more time, thinking about how it might feel to invite a stranger into his home to cuddle him. Would it be uncomfortable? Would they think he was pathetic?

Putting aside the laptop for a minute, he ambled back into the kitchen to re-heat some shepherd's pie and put on the kettle for a cup of tea, climbing on a step stool to reach the mugs. His fingers and toes still a little chilly from the crisp autumn evening outside, he decided to fill up a hot water bottle, tucking it carefully into its fluffy case and holding it under his arm as he brought his dinner and drink back to the table. After a couple of bites of the pie, he pulled out a neat little wicker basket from under the table and took out his evening medications. Tapping the pills into his hand, he swallowed them with a gulp of tea and took a couple of huffs of his steroid inhaler for good measure, before getting back to his meal.

Steve may have lost the genetic lottery when it came to his height and his abysmal health, but the gods had seen fit to bless him with more than his share of sheer, bloody-minded scrappiness, which he felt more than made up for it.

Once he'd cleared the plate away and made himself a second cuppa, he opened up a book on his e-reader and held the comforting, warm weight of the hot water bottle to his chest, wondering idly, not for the first time, whether he should get a cat. He was a couple of chapters into a mediocre romance novel when he started tapping his fingers, thinking.

After a brief moment of indecision, he grabbed the laptop with renewed certainty and began to type a request into the website.

Bucky was just waving goodbye to Nat as he walked away from their session when his phone chimed, alerting him that there was a new customer inquiry that the agency wanted him to look at.

Maria: 28 yo man in Red Hook interested in trying cuddle therapy to help with work stress. Would prefer male therapist. Due to asthma, no cologne or scented products, and non-smokers only.

He smiled, and shot off a quick affirmative response. Maria often sent him their new clients - there was something about him that reassured people if they felt a little unsure about the services. Bucky was perfectly happy with his chosen profession - non-romantic physical touch was, in his opinion, essential for a happy life, and he got to provide it to people that needed it. Bucky liked to observe people and through his job he'd met a wide array of curious characters, so the work was never boring.

Also, the pay was amazing and Alpine would only eat the expensive cat food, so there was that.

He continued on his journey, enjoying the changing leaves on the trees around him and the chill in the air. Just as he was about to step onto the subway, his phone buzzed again, and after he found a seat he saw that Maria had sent him the phone number for his new client. He sent off his standard greeting straight away, eager to get his schedule firmed up.

Bucky: Hi Steve, this is Bucky from the Cuddle Buddies agency. When works for you for our first meeting? Looking forward to working with you!

Steve: Thanks for getting back to me. Saturday evening would be best for my schedule. Can I pay the $80 fee via bank transfer? -Steven Grant Rogers, Shield Solicitors

The response came immediately, and was far more businesslike than his usual interactions with clients. Still, Bucky could be businesslike. He even owned a tie.

Bucky: You sure can - the agency should send you out a contract tonight with the bank details. I can do Saturday at 7 if that suits.

Steve: Saturday at 7 sounds fine. What are the terms of the contract?

Of course, Mr. Lawyer Man wanted to know about the contract.

Bucky: It lays out what to expect in our interactions - we provide purely non-sexual services - as well as how to deal with cancellations, how we protect your privacy, and the billing structure.

Steve: Thank you. I look forward to meeting you on Saturday.

Bucky shook his head, wondering how this stuffy, formal guy was going to act during their cuddle session.

Steve didn't have the opportunity to start feeling anxious about his cuddle appointment because the negotiations with the lawyers at the ICE detention center took up every moment of his time. He was wrapping up his conversation with a client via email in his home office when his alarm chimed to let him know that he had half an hour until Bucky arrived.

After stretching his arms over his head, wincing at the tightness of his shoulders after slouching all day, he stripped out of the pajamas he was still wearing and indulged in a long, hot shower, scrubbing away his stress and emerging pink-cheeked and fluffy-haired. In his bedroom, he changed into a soft blue flannel shirt and a pair of pants that looked like slacks but felt like sweatpants, and another pair of his warm, fuzzy socks.

Pacing around his living room, his nerves ramping up, he selected a different blanket to leave ready on the couch and checked twice on his selection of teas. He had just put the kettle on to boil when the buzzer sounded.

On opening the door, he was immediately reassured to see that Bucky had a friendly, engaging grin, and was wearing a soft, knitted sweater. He held out a hand to shake and then immediately felt like an idiot, but Bucky just grasped Steve's cold hand with his warm one and squeezed it.

"Hi, you must be Steve," said Bucky with a pleasant Brooklyn drawl. Without being asked, he pulled a Cuddle Buddies ID card out of his pocket and handed it over to Steve, who checked the details on it and handed it back.

"Nice to meet you," said Steve stiffly. "Please, come on in. I'm just making a cup of mint tea, do you want one?"

"That'd be perfect, Steve. Mind if I take my shoes off?"

"Go ahead," replied Steve with a thin smile, attending to the whistling kettle.

"Thanks," said Bucky when he accepted his cup of tea. Steve couldn't help but notice that Bucky was wearing mis-matched but co-ordinating socks, one with red stars on a white background, and the other with white stars on a red background. He ushered Bucky to take a seat on the couch and sat in the armchair opposite. Bucky's posture was loose and open, but Steve was sitting bolt upright and jiggling his leg nervously. Fortunately, Bucky chose to take the lead in the conversation.

"So, I usually start first sessions with clients by talking about what your goals are for therapy," he began with a reassuring smile. "For example, some clients are looking to feel more comfortable with physical touch, some want to get over a breakup, or reduce stress, and some are just looking for companionship."

"I guess the companionship and stress things," said Steve after thinking for a moment. "My job takes a lot out of me, so I don't really have the time to pursue a relationship, but I do miss that human touch."

Bucky smiled gently, as though what Steve had said wasn't anything out of the ordinary. "What do you do?"

"I'm a lawyer, I mostly represent people who are in danger of deportation," said Steve automatically.

"That sounds rewarding," replied Bucky encouragingly.

"It is," agreed Steve, "but it's incredibly draining. I have to be so hard and tough all the time. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just be..." He tailed off, unsure how to finish his sentence.

"Soft?" supplied Bucky.

Steve smiled, feeling more comfortable despite his misgivings. "Yeah."

"Thank you for being so open with me, Steve," said Bucky, reaching over to squeeze Steve's knee. "If you don't have a particular preference for how we start, how about you join me on the couch and I put my arms around you. Does that sound good?"

Suddenly shy, Steve nodded and moved to sit next to Bucky, who immediately wrapped his big arms around Steve's shoulders and pulled Steve into his broad chest. As requested, Bucky wasn't wearing any fragrance, but he still smelled good, like fresh laundry and crisp autumn air, with an undercurrent of clean skin.

As he relaxed into Bucky's embrace, Steve tried to remember the last time he'd been held so gently. He was a regular recipient of Sam's big bear hugs and Darcy's chest-crushing squeezes, but he hadn't had a long-term romantic partner since law school, and his career didn't leave him a lot of free time to look for one.

"How does that feel?" asked Bucky in a low, soothing voice, gently rubbing at Steve's shoulder.

"Really good," breathed Steve.

"I'm glad," said Bucky gently. "How about I lie down on my back here and you snuggle up to my chest?"

Steve nodded his assent and Bucky released him slowly, and then rolled over to lie along the couch, opening up his arms so that Steve could slot himself in to rest his head on Bucky's warm chest. The knit of his sweater was soft against Steve's face, and one of Bucky's big hands came up to cup the back of Steve's head, rubbing small circles at the base of his skull with his fingertips.

"Thanks for not wearing cologne," said Steve, sounding muffled.

"Pal, I think you sneezing in my face would be worse for me than for you," laughed Bucky, the sound rumbling through his chest.

"It's not my sexiest move," agreed Steve, burrowing deeper into the soft warmth of Bucky's body.

Steve hadn't expected that conversation would carry on easily while they were cuddling - he predicted awkward silences and a feeling of general embarrassment - but they continued chatting while Bucky carded his fingers through Steve's hair, and he felt himself dropping deeper and deeper into a calm state of relaxation.

"So why'd you become a lawyer?" asked Bucky in a low voice, barely breaking into the spell he was casting over Steve.

"Ma came over here from Ireland to work as a nurse," replied Steve drowsily, "and when my pa died, she ran into some trouble with some of her immigration paperwork. There was a lawyer who worked pro bono to stop her from getting deported... the guy really changed our lives."

"So now you help other people the same way."

"I try to. How'd you get into professional cuddling?"

"After I got out of the army, I used to go for counseling sessions at the VA. Took a couple of years, but eventually I started on a course to be a counselor myself. A lot of those guys are so touch-starved, you know? My friend got the idea to start up a cuddling service and I jumped at the chance. It's been my full-time job for three years now."

Digesting this information, Steve was silent for a moment. He wouldn't have pegged Bucky as a soldier given how open and relaxed he was, but Sam didn't seem like an air force pilot, so you never knew. He cast around for a follow-up question. "Are there a lot of cuddling agencies in the world?" he settled on eventually.

"Oh yeah, it's a real growth industry. There's even a book called the Cuddle Sutra."

Steve scoffed. "You're kidding me, people write books about this stuff?"

Bucky cuffed him gently on the back of the head. "Shut up, punk. That's my profession you're besmirching."

"Are you allowed to tell your clients to shut up?" smirked Steve, never happier than when he was being a little shit.

"Only if they're being a punk," grumbled Bucky, wrapping an arm around the back of Steve's shoulders to pull him closer.

Over the course of the next forty five minutes, Steve learned more about Bucky's family, his asshole cat, his collection of semi-dead succulent plants, and his opinions on the present administration of the country. Bucky managed to wheedle Steve into talking about the bullying he faced at work, the stress of not having as many resources as he needed to help everyone he worked with - and he very nearly managed to get him to disclose his mother's recipe for shepherd's pie, and was only stopped by the threat that the ghost of Sarah Rogers would haunt him until he died.

Between the cozy warmth of Bucky's body, the soothing cadence of his voice, and the way his minty breath ghosted over Steve's forehead when he chuckled, Steve was pretty much in heaven, wrapped up in comfort. When Bucky's phone started to vibrate in his pocket, they both let out a little noise of annoyance.

"'Fraid that's my alarm. How'd you enjoy your first session?" asked Bucky, still stroking lines down Steve's back.

Steve hummed contentedly. "Worth every penny," he replied, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head.

"I'm really glad," said Bucky sincerely, squeezing his shoulder before standing up and heading towards his shoes. "Same time next week?"

"That'd be perfect. Thanks, Bucky. For everything."

"No problem," he replied with a genuine grin, fishing his phone out of his pocket. "Now I'd better call Maria before she gets the cops after me to make sure I haven't been murdered in a back alley somewhere."

"I'm glad they care so much about your safety."

"I love my job," laughed Bucky as he let himself out the front door, waving goodbye to Steve as he put the phone to his ear.

Steve spent some time smiling and waving like a goof until Bucky rounded the corner, at which point he finally shook himself awake and shut and locked his door. It was only eight PM but after a few nights of fractured sleep he was ready to follow his relaxed, sleepy feeling straight to bed.

After he pottered around the room, straightening up and putting things away, he brushed his teeth and jumped onto his big, comfortable bed, where he rolled himself up in his comforter like a burrito. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

[this-is-a-love-story-fleabag]

The Wedding Planner (1/4)

An AU in which Fleabag is a wedding planner, and Klare and Claire have found the perfect Catholic church to get hitched in... 2510 words. Also on ao3.

"Do you want some of the communion wine?" he blurted out, wanting her to stick around for a little longer. "I can't throw it away because it's holy," he explained, "and I probably shouldn't finish the bottle by myself. It's a good vintage."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Is this the part where I say 'Sorry, Daddy, I've been a bad girl'?"

He coughed and nearly dropped the bottle. "'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned' is more traditional," he managed, fishing out two glasses and pouring them both a liberal serving.

The priest was beginning to think that officiating a wedding for the first time was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

"I realise that there are certain things that are unavoidable in a Catholic wedding ceremony," the bride was saying in clipped tones, "but if you could just tone it down a bit on the... incense."

"Right," said the priest with an uneasy half smile.

"And maybe try to keep the prayers snappy and efficient. These are very busy people, you understand."

"OK." He shifted in his seat. "If you don't mind me asking, is there some reason you've chosen my church in particular?"

"It's the only Catholic church within five minutes' walk of the company's offices," answered Claire without hesitation, sweeping her immaculate dark hair behind one ear and frowning at her Blackberry.

"And it's beautiful!" beamed her effusive fiancé, who was inexplicably also named Klare. He seemed to have a positive opinion on everything he encountered, so the priest didn't judge the compliment as holding much weight.

"Oh," said Claire, clearly not having considered the attractiveness of the venue in her calculations. She smiled warmly at Klare, her brusque exterior melting away for a moment. "Yes, of course, it's..." she looked around the chapel as though she hadn't paid it any attention before. "It is beautiful," she said more softly, taking a private moment with Klare as she met his eye.

It was this, more than anything else, that convinced the priest to go ahead with the planning. To be able to celebrate love and to mark the key occasions in people's lives were the shining bright points in his quiet, peaceful career, and the love between these two was easy to see.

"I'm sure we can create a lovely ceremony together," he said with his most winning smile. "Are your family Catholic?"

She scoffed in a way that he was fairly sure she didn't mean to be offensive. "God, no."

"My family are old Catholic, very old," said Klare delightedly. "Many, too!"

"Yes, there are so very many of them," said Claire tightly, giving the priest a significant look that her blithe fiancé entirely failed to notice.

"The whole Korhonen family!" rhapsodised Klare. "So much blond hair that it will look like the sun!"

Suddenly, a matching his-and-hers cacophony of phone alerts began to chime. Claire and Klare both consulted their PDAs.

"It was so wonderful to meet you," said Klare earnestly, shaking the priest's hand in both of his as he rose to his feet. "I am so sorry that we have to leave!"

"Yes, right," said Claire briskly, pulling a small business card from her pocket. "I'm too busy and important to deal with this at the moment so you'll mostly be dealing with my sister," she said, handing it to him.

The card was emblazoned with the name "Hillary's Events", some contact information and, incongruously, an illustration of a guinea pig.

"She has my explicit instructions, so she should be able to handle it," continued Claire, pulling more cards from her purse, "but if anything goes wrong here's my work number, and here's my mobile, and this one's for my secretary."

"Oh, your sister's a wedding planner?"

"Yes, she is wonderful!" said Klare.

"She's good enough," said Claire with a tight smile. It was impossible to tell whether that was the highest praise that she was capable of giving or if her reticence betrayed genuine misgivings. "If she tells you anything about the hen do, it's not true."

"Well, congratulations on your engagement," said the priest politely, following them to the front door. "You must be excited to begin your marriage."

"It's a vestigial patriarchal tradition based on the handing down of women as property from father to husband," said Claire vaguely, looking at her phone again, "but it's what you do."

She flashed him another smile and they left. The priest managed to summon up a dazed smile in response to Klare's effusive waving, and then repaired back inside to find a stiff drink.

The CEO, customer service representative, creative director, office manager, head of human resources, tsar of morale, and sole employee of Hillary's Events was hiding under the desk in her office.

"M'lady!" hollered the lawyer through the keyhole. She burrowed further underneath the table, pushing a pair of shoes, a surprising amount of paperwork, and half a Mars bar out of her way.

A lunchtime quickie had seemed like an excellent idea at 3am when she'd sent him the original text, but the cold harsh light of day and one rapid but effective wank had dispelled the urge, and the prospect of trading half an hour of his loathsome company for some admittedly excellent sex no longer appealed.

A better adult, she reflected as she gave the Mars bar a sniff and began to eat it, would probably have simply cancelled their meeting and apologised, but if a successful businesswoman who ate a salad earlier couldn't do something grossly immature, who could?

Her desk phone began to ring and she groped blindly above her head to grab the receiver.

"Hillary's Events," she hissed into the phone. The lawyer continued his relentless pounding at the door.

"Uh, hi," said a voice on the other end, sounding confused. "I'm, uh, I'm calling about Claire's wedding? I'm the priest?"

Fantastic timing. "Great, thanks for calling," she whispered. "I'd like to send you over some bits about the ceremony to go over when you've got a moment."

There was a long pause. "I'm sorry, but why the fuck are you whispering and what the fuck is that noise?"

"Get back out here, you little minx!" shouted the lawyer at possibly the worst moment.

"If you're in the middle of something, I can call back some other time," said the priest, radiating discomfort over the phone.

"That's just a... colleague," she breezed, settling more comfortably in her hideout. "He usually tires himself out in a couple of minutes."

"Do you need me to call someone? The police, or..."

"No, Father, it's fine." She scrabbled around on her desk again and retrieved a pen. "What's your email address?" She uncapped the pen with her mouth and made assenting noises as she scribbled it down. Thankfully, the lawyer got bored at this point and left.

"AOL?" she teased gently, reading the address back to him. "I thought the Catholics were stuck in the 1690s, not the 1990s."

"Oh, fuck you," he laughed.

"I hope you're going to swear this much during the ceremony. It would certainly liven things up."

"I'll try to keep a lid on it. I get the impression your sister wants it to be... efficient."

"Yes, she was very specific. Brides don't usually give me binders that are colour-coded and have bullet points and subheadings."

The main instructions that Claire had left her with, other than the binder, were "don't fuck this up," and "the priest is quite hot, don't make it weird." She had to admit, he did have a nice voice.

"How long have you been in the wedding planning business?"

"A few years. I started it with my best friend, but she's... it's just me now." She paused for a minute and let the wave of grief hit her and then recede. "I need to come and check out the space sometime," she said, businesslike. "When's good for you?"

"I've some time this afternoon after Mass?"

"Great, I'll meet you there at four."

It was a few moments after she hung up the phone that it occurred to her that she could emerge from under her desk and sit in a real chair. Hillary and Stephanie had the run of her desk at the moment while she refreshed the sawdust in their cage, and they were enthusiastically nibbling on Mr. and Mrs. Dollner's silver wedding anniversary invitations.

"Let's put you back," she murmured to them, brushing some tiny rodent poops off a stack of place cards. "Mama's got to get to work."

The priest was just saying his farewells to the last few stragglers when Claire's sister walked through the door. She was easily recognisable, both due to family resemblance and the fact that, strangely, she looked exactly how she sounded on the phone.

"You must be the wedding planner," he said, greeting her with a handshake.

"You must be the priest."

"I guess this is a bit of a give-away," he said, gesturing to his robes.

"You're either a member of the clergy or you've got a very specific fetish," she breezed, walking past him to survey the church. He gaped at her for a moment and then shook his head and let out a laugh. She looked back at him over her shoulder, a pleased twinkle in her eye.

She strode along the aisle, gesturing around with an assessing air. "It's a pretty straightforward set-up. Flowers at the ends of the pews, videographer here, photographers here and here, string quartet up here. One bridesmaid, one groomsman."

"You've got this down to a science, wow."

"I've learned through trial and error that you can half-ass up to 80% of a wedding before anyone notices."

"That's... good to know."

"Do you have any of these," - she gestured up and down at his robes - "in some other colours? The scheme has a lot of purple in it."

"I have just the thing," he said, ushering her through into his office. He pulled his favourite purple robes out of the wardrobe and held them up for inspection. Drawing a card of swatches from her handbag, she squinted at them and then gave an assenting nod.

"Right, I think that's all I-"

"Do you want some of the communion wine?" he blurted out, wanting her to stick around for a little longer. "I can't throw it away because it's holy," he explained, "and I probably shouldn't finish the bottle by myself. It's a good vintage."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Is this the part where I say 'Sorry, Daddy, I've been a bad girl'?"

He coughed and nearly dropped the bottle. "'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned' is more traditional," he managed, fishing out two glasses and pouring them both a liberal serving.

"I defy you to tell me the difference."

Sitting down on an ancient chair and gesturing for her to do the same, he chuckled. "Well, fuck, you've got me there. You only have to say that if you want to confess your sins to me, anyway. Which you're welcome to do, if it helps."

"Can't," she said wryly, taking a sip and relaxing onto a chair. "I've sworn a blood oath to never reveal what happened on Claire's hen do."

"Lots of sinning?"

"Tons." She swirled the wine in her glass and held it up to the light. "The blood of our lord and saviour is pretty tasty."

"I take it you're not religious."

"Afraid not. I won't burst into flames, will I?"

"I don't think He would mind," said the priest, making a vague gesture at the ceiling. "You're doing God's work, after all."

"Wedding planning?"

"He's quite into marriage, on the whole."

She snorted. "Makes one of us."

He leaned back in his chair and stifled a laugh, enjoying the enigma of this contradictory woman. "You made a fucking strange choice in profession, then."

"I find that the fact that I don't believe at all in the institution of marriage really helps calm people down."

"You know, the Bible says that-"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Yes, the Bible is very clear that marriage is a sacred and beautiful union between a man and one or many women."

"So cynical!" he crowed, throwing his head back in laughter. "I was going to say that it says that a cord of three strands is not easily broken."

"Are you inviting me to a threesome, Father?" she smirked, her lips stained a tempting red from the wine. "Because I'm not saying no."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm saying that the way you help to join people together makes them stronger."

"On average, marriage knocks 1.4 years from a woman's lifespan, and adds 1.7 years to a man's."

"So that's a net gain of," he waved a hand vaguely, "0.3 years!"

"That's one way to look at it."

"Don't you see anything wonderful in what you do? You're helping people to celebrate their love!"

"In the most meaningful and legally binding way. Tell me, why do people choose to make the most significant expression of their love predicated on a legal construct that the government can take away from them at the drop of a hat?"

"The protections that marriage can afford are-"

"If I fell in love with a woman and wanted to marry her, there are only 28 countries in which that marriage would be legally recognised. If I'd fallen in love with someone of a different race, that marriage would have been illegal in some countries until the late 20th Century."

"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"

She put a foot up on the wooden chest in front of her, really getting into her stride. "That's not even taking into account the children who are forcibly married off to men twice their age, the women killed for not being virgins on their wedding night, and the fact that spousal rape was technically legal in this country until 1991." She took a gulp of her drink. "This isn't some abstract philosophical problem from the past, this is something that's happening to real people right now."

"So why-"

"I guess... I grew up thinking that marriage was some bizarre thing from the olden days that we didn't have to do any more, but then when I was an adult all my friends started getting married, and it meant something to them."

She looked down at her hands, clasped around the glass. "I think the thing that it means to them is beautiful."

"So you do believe in love."

"Absolutely, it's just that it sometimes feels like I'm shoving a princess into a white dress so I can send her off to live in a dragon-guarded castle."

"That sounds fucking amazing."

"Sorry, that was a bad example."

"Don't you find it beautiful that for thousands of years, people have chosen to celebrate their commitment to each other in front of their community?"

"If you think it's so beautiful, why have you chosen a profession which forbids you from getting married yourself?"

"I am married... to God," he mumbled, aware of just how that sentence sounded.

She screwed up her face. "Ugh."

He buried his face in his hands. "I know!"

"Just... ugh."

"Fuck, I can't believe I said that out loud. I really wanted you to think I was cool."

"Sorry, Father, I think that train has sailed."

"No, no, no, no, the wedding's not for another few weeks, I have time to convince you."

"I'll drink to that," she murmured, and then she did.

[fuck-customers]

I actually love everything about this

I'm a front end supervisor at a grocery store. We're really bad about cross training in that almost no one knows how to do anything other than cashier, so when the service desk associate has to go on break I have to cover the desk while also attending to my supervisor duties (turning keys, handling any customer issues at the registers, assigning incoming cashiers to registers, making sure everyone is getting their breaks, getting baby formula out of the lock case, etc.). It's only for 15 minutes but the multitasking gets HECTIC and I feel like I'm being pulled in 5 different directions.

I'd just sent the service desk associate on break when this older woman approached the desk with a loaf of bread, hamburger meat, and some paper towels. She puts the stuff down on the desk and asks for some cigarettes. So I infer that she's going to make me ring her out. Great. idk about other stores but at mine the service desk can get super busy so we really don't appreciate people bringing their purchases up expecting to be rung out. Even if they only have a couple things it holds the line up for other people who can only get what they need done at the desk, whereas if you're just buying stuff you can go to a register or self checkout.

So I go to start ringing her out and she tells me that the bread and meat is going to be separate from the paper towels and cigarettes. Great. I ring up the bread and meat and she tries to hand me a debit card so I have to direct her to the pin pad that's right in front of her. She's moving at the rate of a particularly slow snail and inserts it. A man gets in line behind her and I ask him what he needs help with on the off chance it's something simple like him wanting to ask where something is but unfortunately for him he wants to do Western Union so I have to finish with the woman first.

She's having issues at the pin pad because she asked for cash back but is trying to run it as credit. I explain to her that if she wants cash back she needs to put in a pin. She grumbles and starts digging through her purse and eventually pulls out a little notebook. She leisurely pages through it, apparently looking for her pin, no regard whatsoever for the man waiting in line behind her. A cashier calls out for a key so I excuse myself, telling them I'll be right back.

When I get back she's STILL flipping through the notebook. She eventually finds a number and types it in but my screen tells me it's the wrong pin. Great. I tell her it was the wrong pin and to try again. She flips through her notebook some more. Eventually she gives up and says she just won't get cash back, so I have to cancel the payment and have her reinsert. I have to stop her from trying to request cash back again.

It's at this time that the phone rings, which I have to answer. It's a service desk rule that the phones need to be answered even if you're already with a customer. So I pick it up and am thrust into the most excruciating conversation of my life. The woman on the other end launches into this story about how she was in the store earlier that morning and how the service desk associate was just SO RUDE to her!!! I ask her if she'd like to speak to a manager about it and she tells me no, that she already talked to the store manager. But she wants me to pass on a MESSAGE to the service desk associate.

I interrupt her because a) I don't know who the opening service desk associate was and b) I'm not passing on some petty message. I tell her that I'm not sure who she'd encountered that morning (I could easily find out, but she doesn't need to know that) and that if she already talked to the store manager about it that the associate would already have been "counseled", so there was no point. She's not taking no for an answer and just keeps talking. "I just want you to tell her that I talked to the store manager and HE said that I get to use the phone WHENEVER I WANT and that I don't have to WAIT IN LINE or ASK normally I only have to use it once to call my mother but sometimes like today I have to use it more than once because there was something wrong with the car's tire and I don't like that she was RUDE to me and I'm ALLOWED to use the phone I just want you to TELL HER THAT!" And that is actually a highly condensed version of what she said.

I'm dying because this woman is just spewing this never ending crap, the most boring story I've ever heard, and it sounds like a verbal run-on sentence because she never pauses (how does she breathe?) and I have absolutely no intention of passing on her stupid message to anyone. I'm also dying because the slowpoke woman in front of me is clearly super displeased that she's having to wait on this and it's fucking hilarious. I'm on the verge of laughing. She's getting a taste of her own medicine and it's oh so sweet.

I can't get the phone woman to stop and at some point the service desk associate comes back from her break. She starts helping the Western Union guy (thank GOD because that poor man did nothing wrong). She can't help the woman because the transaction is on my terminal and we have rules™ about that (actually I probably could have gotten her to finish the woman's transaction first but fuck her tbh). And unfortunately for the woman, the phone doesn't stretch far enough for me to me to try to deal with her transaction at the same time. I glance over at the screen and see that the card went through but that it looks like she'd accidentally changed the amount to something that didn't cover the entire total (of course she did), so some money was still due.

I'm finding the situation hilarious but I also am 100% genuinely trying to get the lady on the phone to stop. I ask her AGAIN if she wants to talk to a manager and she declines. I straight up tell her that I'm really busy, I have a line forming (someone else had gotten behind the woman and my coworker was still busy doing the Western Union transaction), that I'm not going to pass on her message because it would be unprofessional considering she'd already talked to the store manager about this. The piece de resistance? She's like, "Oh, well do you want me to call back later when it's not busy?"

This woman is the personification of obtuseness. The patron saint. Monuments should be erected in her honor. I realize I'm going to have to stop pretending to be polite and I tell her in no uncertain terms that I am absolutely not passing on any message to the opening service desk associate, that she can talk to a manager if she wants (she doesn't), but that I need to GO and have a nice day! And I hang up. Like, sorry not sorry but you're being ridiculous. From what I could gather this woman likes to just barge up to the service desk and help herself to our phones without asking first which is RUDE AS FUCK so I don't fault my coworker at all for giving her some flak.

I apologize to the woman in front of me who's been waiting, even though I believe she got exactly what she deserved. Came and held up someone else with her bullshit, got the same thing in return. I lay it on thick though, telling her I am SO sorry and that I just couldn't get that woman off the phone! I get her to pay for the rest of her first transaction and ring out her second and she's on her way, just as inconvenienced as she felt comfortable inconveniencing others. If you want one-on-one hand holding attention from a cashier while paying for your groceries you need to go to a register, booboo. It would have been faster for you. The service desk is for handling specific types of transactions and issues. It's not here so you can avoid waiting in line at a register.

🍒 Cherry on top: She ended up calling the store a couple hours later to complain about me. Told the service desk associate that I shouldn't have answered the phone and that I was rude for making her wait. Literally the best way this story could have ended.

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke modern AU: Family

Chapter 8 of the modern bartender AU Damned Spot is up on AO3! Previous chapter can be found there, or here on Tumblr. 

In which Hawke has a less-than-pleasant run-in with Leandra and Carver, and Fenris has angst. Also CLIFFHANGERS. 

**********************

Rynne unlocked the door to her mother’s house and stepped inside. “Mom?”

“Back here, love!” Leandra’s voice floated into the foyer, and Rynne followed it back into the living room.

Leandra was sitting on the couch with her tablet on her lap. She looked up with a smile as Rynne approached. “You came!” she said warmly. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Rynne swallowed down an instinctive surge of annoyance. Why her mother always had to make it sound like she never showed up when she said she would, Rynne didn’t know.

She purposely forced herself not to look at the mess of dishes and papers on the coffee table. “Hi, Mom,” she said. She kissed her mother on the cheek, then glanced at her tablet. “What are you doing there?”

Leandra sighed and jabbed at her tablet. “I’m trying to send an email to your uncle. But I can’t get the silly thing to load.”

“That’s because your wifi doesn’t work half the time,” Rynne said patiently. “I’ll give them a call today.” She started gathering the dishes on the coffee table.

Leandra slid her feet from the couch onto the ground. “Oh, love, let me do that.”

“No, it’s all right, I’ve got it,” Rynne said. Her mother would say she was going to clean, and then she wouldn’t, and the next time Rynne came over, she’d give her an earful of snide remarks about how difficult it was to keep such a big house clean all on her own…

Rynne pressed her lips together hard. It’s fine, she told herself, just as she always did. Mom isn’t well, she’s still grieving, it’s fine. No matter that Carver didn’t get half the guilt trip that Rynne did about not coming home more often. Rynne supposed this was her due for being the eldest, as well as the one who had taken Malcolm away from her mother.

She carried the stack of dishes to the kitchen, and Leandra followed her. “When will you call the wifi people?” Leandra asked.

Rynne piled the dishes into the sink, then opened the dishwasher… which was still full of clean dishes. She sighed very quietly and started unpacking them. “As soon as I’m done with this,” she said.

Leandra folded her arms. “Rynne, love, just let me do that. Then you can do the wifi.” She sat at the kitchen table and started toying with an envelope from the stack of mail that sat there. “You don’t need to fuss and cluck around me like a mother hen.”

Yes, I do, Rynne thought, with an unwelcome surge of resentment. Leandra had always enjoyed being fussed over. When Malcolm was alive and well, it was his shtick to fuss around his wife; ‘my Princess Amell’, he used to call her. And it was a cute routine, or at least Rynne had thought so when she was a child.

But as she got older, she started to notice how much her mother relied on Malcolm to do every little task, and how flustered she got when things didn’t go right. When Malcolm got sick, Rynne realized the full extent of her mother’s dependency: she didn’t work, didn’t pay the bills, and didn’t arrange the utilities or car insurance or any insurance of any type. As Malcolm’s condition worsened, her mother stopped helping with household chores or cooking.

So Rynne had taken over managing the family. And to her own blame, she’d never told Carver about the weight of the burdens she’d borne. She’d done the exact same thing to Carver that Malcolm had done to her mom: shielded him from the full ugly extent of reality by managing everything behind the scenes without telling him how bad it was.

Rynne turned and smiled at her mom. “I’m not fussing. I’m just keeping my hands busy. I’ll be finished in just a few minutes.” She picked up her pace and started unpacking the dishwasher more quickly.

Leandra, meanwhile, had settled herself comfortably at the kitchen table and was flipping idly through a grocery store flyer. “Carver mentioned you had a party last weekend,” she said.

Rynne felt a little wriggle of guilt at this statement. She supposed she could have invited Carver to the party, but he always got annoyed at her every time she saw him. It wasn’t Rynne’s fault she’d inherited all the humour genes in the family.

“Yes,” Rynne confirmed. “Do you want to see some photos? Isabela’s wearing a very interesting dress.”

Leandra perked up. “Ooh, yes. That would be lovely!”

Rynne smiled more genuinely at her mother’s enthusiasm. Leandra had always been endearingly interested in the hijinks of Rynne’s famous friend. She dug her cell phone from her pocket and flicked through to the album with the party photos.

She handed her cell to her mother and returned to the dishes. “We had a great time. Isabela just got back from a film shoot and Merrill was out of town for a while, so it was the-”

Leandra interrupted her. “Who is this boy you’re with?” she said. “This elf?”

Rynne took a slow, measured breath through her nose. One of the photos she’d taken was a selfie of herself and Fenris - an extremely cute selfie, if she said so herself. Rynne was grinning like a fool, and Fenris was frowning, and right after she’d taken the photo, Fenris had taken one look at it and started laughing.

Rynne loved that selfie. She loved how much it seemed to amuse him. And now, a week after he’d essentially dumped her, looking at that selfie made her heart ache, but she couldn’t bring herself to delete it from her phone.

She exhaled calmly. “That’s Fenris,” she said. “He works with me and Pipes. He’s a bouncer at the pub.”

Leandra tutted. “You seem very cozy.”

Rynne frowned. What kind of odd remark was that? “It’s not like that,” Rynne said. “We’re… we work together, that’s all.”

“Oh. Good,” Leandra said.

Rynne paused in her cleaning, then stood up and reached for her phone. “Mother, what is that supposed to mean?”

Leandra shot her an annoyed look as she handed back the phone. “An elven bouncer, Rynne? I would hope you know better than that.”

Rynne recoiled and raised her eyebrows. “And if he was a human bouncer, that would be all right?”

Leandra tutted more loudly and folded her arms. “Don’t make me sound like a racist, darling. You know how fond I am of Piper and that little Merrill.”

“Uh-huh. Just not if I was dating them, right?” Rynne drawled.

Leandra narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “So you are dating this elf, then?”

Rynne tsked in disgust, then abandoned the sink full of dishes and strode back into the living room. “Where’s the phone? I’m going to call the bloody wifi people.”

“Don’t curse,” Leandra said primly. “It’s in the living room.”

“Where in the living room?” Rynne called impatiently. “It’s never on the charging thingy where it’s supposed to be.”

A moment later, Leandra appeared in the doorway with a wounded expression. “Why are you speaking to me like this?” she said plaintively. “You’re being very short with me.”

“I’m not-” Rynne stopped and bit her tongue, then started again in a less defensive tone. “I don’t mean to be,” she said. “It’s just been a long week.” Long week felt like the understatement of the century. Every night at work had been a special kind of torture. She’d shown up each night half-expecting to find out that Fenris had skipped town, and seeing his looming stride as he walked through the door was both a relief and a painful bolt to the chest. She’d spoken to him as normally as possible despite his taciturn mien, even going so far as to flirt with him for the sake of normalcy, and he’d been perfectly polite in return - polite and so distant that it fucking hurt.

Rynne shoved the thoughts aside and forced her face into a pleasant expression. “I’m sorry, Mom. Do you know where the phone is in this room?”

“Of course,” Leandra said. She came into the room and started digging around in the couch cushions.

Rynne watched with a slowly withering patience as her mom slowly shifted blankets and papers and books around the room. Then she heard the creak of the front door opening.

“Mom?” Carver’s voice drifted into the house, and Rynne raised her eyebrows in surprise. It was the middle of the day. Didn’t he have to work?

She wandered into the foyer. “Hey, Carv. What are you doing here?”

He raised his eyebrows, apparently equally surprised to see her. “Rynne!” He hung his coat and stepped into the foyer, then awkwardly submitted to her hug. “Mom said she wasn’t sure you would be coming today.”

“That’s odd,” Rynne said lightly. “Because I told her last night that I would.”

Leandra breezed into the foyer with the house phone in her hand. She gave the phone to Rynne while kissing Carver on the cheek. “Hello, love. Can you take care of the dishes? Rynne was too busy to finish them.”

Carver raised an accusatory eyebrow, and Rynne momentarily sank into a very fond fantasy of bashing herself repeatedly in the face with the phone. She gave Carver a sweet smile. “I’m going to call the internet company,” she told him. Then she returned to the living room without waiting for a response.

She could hear her mother talking to Carver, something about ‘cheeky attitude’ and ‘another mess with another boy’. She scowled as she pulled up the internet provider’s contact info on her cell, then punched the number into the house phone with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

As always when contacting any internet provider, the conversation was a test in patience. The customer service rep kept asking to speak to the original cardholder on the account, and when Rynne had explained for the third time that Malcolm was dead, but that she had the credit card on file right in front of her, the rep insisted that there was nothing she could do.

“Fine,” Rynne snapped. “Then it looks like there’s nothing I can do but cancel my service with your company and go to one of your competitors instead. Have a lovely fucking day.” She ended the call abruptly, then looked up to find Leandra and Carver watching her.

She grimaced at them. “So, the bad news…”

Leandra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Rynne.”

Rynne shrugged helplessly. “Look, I tried! There’s only so much I can do about a terrible case of the stupids.” She pulled out her cell and flicked open her browser. “Carv, what service provider do you use? Isabela’s is great but it’s pretty expensive.”

“I use the same one that Dad used here,” Carver said.

Rynne looked up at her brother. “Seriously? Well, shit.”

“Language,” Leandra snapped.

Maker give me fucking patience, Rynne thought. She exhaled slowly and faced her family with a pleasant look on her face. “They wouldn’t let me make any changes to the account or even lodge a complaint without speaking to Dad,” she said. “I told them he’d passed away, and it was like they didn’t hear me. You’d think I was trying to trick them or something.”

Leandra pursed her lips. “Unfortunate that your father is no longer with us, then.”

Rynne froze. Don’t rise, she told herself. Don’t rise to it, just let it lie. Leandra made comments like this every time Rynne saw her. It was nothing new, just part of the dynamic that Rynne had gotten used to in the two years or so since Malcolm had died, it was no big deal-

Her mouth opened of its own accord. “Is there something you want to say, Mother? No need to dance around your words. Just say what you want to say.”

Carver’s eyes widened. “Rynne,” he said warningly.

Rynne waved at him. “No, it’s okay,” she said brightly. “Let her speak. She clearly has thoughts. She should let them out. She’ll just give herself ulcers otherwise.” At the back of Rynne’s mind, there was a small logical voice screaming at her to shut the fuck up and not invite this conversation, but for some reckless reason, she couldn’t cope with her mom’s bullshit tonight. Was she being self-destructive? Was this actually a healthy thing to do, like lancing a festering wound? Rynne honestly couldn’t decide, but regardless of the reasons, she was rushing straight into this shitstorm with the speed of an Orlesian bullet train.

Leandra’s lips were pursed into a thin white line. She shook her head. “You are being so rude. I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

“Maybe I’m just sick of the snide remarks and the veiled comments,” Rynne said pleasantly. “Feel free to be direct. I’d welcome it. I’ll take a punch to the stomach over a knife to the back any day.”

“Maker’s breath, you’re being so dramatic,” Carver complained. But to Rynne’s surprise, Leandra spoke up.

“Fine,” she snapped. She glared at Rynne. “Fine. Here is what I think. If your father was still with us, he’d be able to clear this mess up easily.” She turned to Carver plaintively. “He was so charming, your father,” she lamented. “He could talk anyone into anything. Unlike some ungrateful children,” she added pointedly.

Rynne held up one hand. “Hang on a minute. You think Dad would still be with us now if he hadn’t taken the lyrium?” she said incredulously.

“He lasted longer than the doctors thought he would!” Leandra snapped. “You don’t know how much longer-”

“Mom,” Rynne said loudly. “The palliative care doctors gave him less than six months. Even if he’d died by suffering in pain the way you wanted him to go, he’d still be dead by now.”

“Rynne, shut up,” Carver snapped.

“No!” Rynne retorted. “She’s being so unreasonable! It was either six months of horrible pain, or - or-”

“Or what?” Leandra shouted. “Answer me that, Rynne. Or what? Six months more time with us, or you killing him? Because we both know what you chose!”

“Mom!” Carver hissed.

Rynne rubbed her face roughly. It was on the tip of her tongue to say her mom was right - to just confess the secret she’d been holding back from them for years. But she forced herself to bite it back. Telling them the truth now would be a terrible idea, given the mood her mother was in. Furthermore, she didn’t want to make Cullen’s hard work go to waste.

She took a deep breath. “Dying by lyrium was Dad’s choice,” she said firmly. “He deserved to die in comfort.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he had you there to help him, then,” Leandra snapped. She delicately wiped a tear from her cheek. “I hope you enjoyed your last moments with him. I hope you said enough goodbyes to him for all of us.” Then she sobbed and pressed her fist to her mouth.

Rynne bit the inside of her cheek. At the very end, right before Rynne had emptied that final syringe into his IV, Malcolm had made only one request: Take care of your mother.

It looked like Rynne was letting him down, too.

Leandra sobbed again and pressed her face to Carver’s chest, and Carver gently patted her back. “I think you should go,” he said to Rynne.

Rynne rubbed a hand through her hair, then cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah. Of course,” she said. She rubbed her nose, then glanced at her mother.

Leandra’s face was buried in Carver’s shoulder. Rynne swallowed hard, then took a step away from them. “I’ll set you up with a new wifi provider later,” she said. “I’ll, um… I’ll put it on my card.”

Leandra ignored her. Rynne took one last look at Carver - long enough to take in the disapproving look on his face - and then she left the house.

********************

Fenris turned the page of the book Varric had lent him. It took a good ten seconds before he realized that he hadn’t absorbed anything on the previous page.

He sighed and slumped down in his chair. He was finding it so damned difficult to concentrate these days.

It was Hawke’s fault. Ever since that conversation they’d had at her condo, that blasted conversation where he’d stupidly told her every sordid detail of his past, he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said.

She was wrong, of course. Suggesting he go to the police was completely laughable, and not only because Fenris was a self-admitted criminal himself, albeit one who had never been formally charged. Hawke was naive and overly optimistic. There was no justice to be found for the wrongs that someone like Danarius had wrought. The only justice that a man like Danarius deserved was the kind that was found at the end of a smoking gun, and only Fenris could be certain that this justice would be served.

But the thing that galled him the most was Hawke’s suggestion that this wasn’t what he wanted. Of course he wanted to kill Danarius. Killing Danarius was the only objective that had kept Fenris moving ever since he’d left the Imperium. Seeing Danarius dead was the only thing that he’d wanted for years.

But that isn’t true anymore, a little voice whispered in his mind.

A memory of Hawke’s smiling face floated across his mind: that soft, heated smile she’d had as they lay face-to-face on her bed. He remembered it so clearly, just as clearly as he remembered the golden expanse of her skin as she knelt naked on her bed and showed off the twining black tattoo on her back. He remembered it just as clearly as the peaceful look on her sleeping face when he’d snuck out of her room before the sun had fully risen.

He rubbed his forehead as though to wipe the memories away. There was no changing his mind now. Danarius needed to die, and Fenris needed to leave Kirkwall after the deed was done. He couldn’t risk bringing the dangers of his past any closer to Hawke than he already had.

He set Varric’s book aside and idly spun his phone on his small dining table. There was no point opening the phone; the only people who had his number were Hawke, Varric, and Anso, and he wasn’t expecting messages from any of them. Anso would only text him if something urgent arose from the dregs of Tevinter society, and Varric would only call him for work-related things. And Hawke…

Well. Hawke would not be texting him anymore. Fenris had made sure of that.

He pushed his chair back from the table and idly wandered over to the half-packed duffle bag that sat at the foot of his bed. He’d started packing this bag the day he’d broken things off with Hawke, in the event that she did the logical thing and called the police.

But a week had gone by. So Fenris had continued going to work, and Hawke had continued speaking to him as though he hadn’t treated her terribly, and life was moving on in such a terrible, uncomfortable impasse that Fenris was half-tempted to leave Kirkwall just to escape the awkwardness and the torturous memories of the blissful night he’d spent with Hawke.

He stared unseeingly at the duffle bag for a long moment. Then his phone buzzed on the table.

Fenris looked up in alarm, then grabbed the phone and flipped it open.

The message was from Hawke.

3:17pm - hey can we talk

His heart instantly began racing. Why would she want to talk to him? What could she possibly want to talk about after the last-

His phone buzzed as another brief flurry of messages came through.

3:18pm - not about us dont worry 3:18pm - i was just at my mom’s and i

The messages stopped. Fenris stared worriedly at the screen as he waited for her to go on, but it was another excruciating two minutes before she texted again.

3:20pm - actually nvm i’ll see you later

Fenris frowned. Something was clearly wrong, or else she wouldn’t have messaged him.

His thumbs hovered over the keypad. He didn’t know what to do. No, that was wrong; he knew what he should do. He should just ignore the messages. Responding would only give her hope. It would make her think he was someone she could rely on, that she could put her trust in, when the complete opposite was true.

He slowly flipped the phone shut and put it down. He started paced restlessly around the room, but all he could think about was Hawke’s smile when she’d told him that her mother had called the police on her.  

He imagined her bright, brittle, beautiful smile. He thought of how she’d confessed to him, how she’d told him he wasn’t a monster while making it clear, in the same breath, that she thought she was one.

Fenris gritted his teeth, then made his way back to the table. He picked up his phone and flipped it open.

3:23pm - What’s happened?

Her reply came less than a minute later.

3:24pm - honestly nothing different than the usual 3:24pm - accusations and stuff, you know, the usual haha 3:24pm - my brother was there so that was fun 3:25pm - sorry i don’t mean to put this on you i know things are not ideal with us right now

He nervously licked his dry lips. Then he tapped out another message.

3:25pm - Don’t apologize. I can talk if you wish.

3:25pm - are you sure? srsly i don’t want to interrupt your day 3:26pm - you could be enjoying a nice porn marathon for all i know lol 3:26pm - actually if thats the case then i definitely want to… talk 3:26pm - ;)

Despite himself, he actually scoffed. Then he typed out a response.

3:26pm - You can come over. Meet me at Athenril’s. 3:26pm - Where are you?

3:26pm - i’m about 10 mins away 3:27pm - seriously are you sure? i really dont want to be a bother

3:27pm - I will see you in ten minutes.

Almost thirty minutes later, he was leading a babbling Hawke up the stairs to his third-floor studio apartment. “... told Emile time and time again not to add that flavour shot shit to my tea, but I think he likes to experiment with me. I swear, if his beverage mixes are anything like his sexual tastes, I feel sorry for the first girl he sleeps with.”

Fenris raised one eyebrow as he unlocked his apartment door. “First girl?”

“Oh, he’s absolutely a virgin,” Hawke scoffed. “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing or whatever, but you can practically smell it on him. Can’t you?”

He stood back as Hawke stepped through the door, then curiously looked around while kicking off her flats. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it,” he said.

Hawke smirked as she entered his studio. “Well, I have,” she drawled. “I spend most of my idle time thinking about everyone’s sex lives. Thinking about Merrill’s is the most fun. I feel like it involves literal cherry-picking and making the bedsprings creak by jumping on the bed.”

Fenris huffed in amusement, then watched nervously as she slowly prowled around his tiny apartment. He’d hastily shoved the duffle bag in the closet, and otherwise there was nothing of particular interest for her to look at, but he still felt oddly nervous having her in his personal space.

Suddenly he realized that he hadn’t had anyone in his personal space since he’d left the Tevinter Imperium. No, since before that, even; the one-night stands he’d had in Tevinter were far and in-between and never in his own house, not since his family had died.

His disquiet doubled when her curious gaze fell on something he’d forgotten to hide: something that had been tied to his bedside lamp since the day Hawke had wrapped it around his wounded knuckles.

She shot him a quizzical look and pointed at the lamp. “Is that my scarf?” she asked.

Fenris flushed, cursing himself for his sentimentality. He should have returned it to her weeks ago, but the scarf had sat on his bedside table for days, and then he’d eventually tied it to the lamp - ostensibly to keep the table tidy. But that didn’t explain why Fenris had spent every night staring at that blasted scarf before falling asleep.

“Yes,” said brusquely. He strode over to the lamp and untied the scarf. “I’m sorry I didn’t return it. I…” He trailed off and wracked his brain for an excuse, but there was no excuse to be had.

He thrust the red fabric toward her. “Here. It is clean, it’s - I washed it. My apologies.”

She silently took the scarf and studied it for a moment, then put her tea on the table. Then, before Fenris could move away, she took his hand.

He instinctively tried to pull away, but Hawke was too quick; within moments, her nimble fingers had tied the scarf around his wrist. She tucked the ends against the inside of his wrist, then released his hand. “Keep it,” she said. “Give yourself a splash of colour to break up all that black.” She smirked and eyed him from head to toe.

He eyed the bright red scarf on his wrist, then self-consciously shook out the sleeve of his jacket to cover it up. His cheeks still felt embarrassingly hot. He gestured for her to sit at the table. “Tell me what happened with your mother,” he said.

Hawke sighed and picked up her tea. To Fenris’s mild bemusement, she sat on the floor instead of at the table and settled her back against his bed.

She stretched out her legs and sipped her tea. “Honestly, she’s just…” She trailed off and tugged an earring, then smiled brightly at him. “I shouldn’t complain,” she said firmly. “I think she’s depressed. She won’t go to the doctor or go to those support group things, but I talked about it with Anders, and… She’s not coping well. It’s not her fault.” She slurped noisily from her tea. “It’s not her fault,” she said softly, as though to herself.

Fenris frowned and slowly sat in one of the dining table chairs. “What happened today?”

Hawke wrapped both hands around her tea and stared at the lid. “I blew up at her,” she said. She shrugged and smiled a bit, but her eyes remained on her cup. “I got sick of the little pointed comments and I just… blew up. Told her to be straight with me, so she did.” She shrugged again and gulped her tea. “She still blames me for my dad. I mean, she should, given that I did exactly what she thinks, so it’s fine. I just…”

Fenris watched the movement of her throat as she swallowed. Then she lifted her amber eyes to his face. “Fenris, does this… does this feeling ever go away?”

He knew what Hawke meant. She was talking about the way your life inexorably changed the moment you knew you were responsible for someone else’s death. The way it was always there, always written at the back of your mind like a banner: You killed someone. She was talking about the way it seemed to sink into your skin and simply sit there no matter how many years went by, like a stain that could never quite be washed away.

But Hawke’s situation wasn’t the same. She wasn’t like him. He hadn’t helped to ease anyone’s suffering. The people Fenris had killed and hurt had been strangers to him.

Hawke was looking at him expectantly, and there was so much sadness in her customarily cheerful face, and Fenris dearly wished he could give her a better answer.

But he couldn’t lie to her. “No,” he said quietly. “It may lessen in time. But… the memory lingers. It becomes a scar, tenacious as any other. You will live with it, but… no. It doesn’t go away.”

“Oh,” she said. She twisted her lips and idly ran her finger along the lid of her cup. “Well, that sucks.”

He smiled faintly at her flippant words. “Yes, it does,” he said.

She offered him a faint smirk, then sighed and flicked the side of her cup. “What was your family like?” she asked. Then her eyes widened. “If you want to talk about it, I mean. You don’t have to - I hope that wasn’t a terrible thing to ask…”

“It’s all right,” he assured her. In truth, no one had asked him about his family for years -  not that he had allowed anyone close enough to even know that they were dead. But Hawke had somehow managed to burrow beneath his armour and sneak inside his tattooed skin, and having her ask about his family didn’t feel as invasive as he’d once thought it to be.

He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. It had been so long since he’d spoken of his family that he wasn’t quite sure where to start.

“Well, my father died when I was very young,” he said slowly. “He was in the Tevinter military during the Seheron War. My mother…” He hesitated. This was where things became painful.  

“Her name was Malina,” he finally said. “She was a schoolteacher. She was always smiling or laughing about some foolish thing or another. Not unlike some women I know,” he added, with a small nod at Hawke.

She grinned, and he gave her a small smile before going on. “She became ill when I was seventeen. A rheumatic disease. It was gradual at first, but the symptoms progressed quite quickly. She stopped being able to work when I was eighteen. Varania was thirteen at the time. When I finished secondary school, I started working.”

He’d been unable to find a job that could pay the bills and allow him to look after Varania and his mother. For months he’d jumped from job to job, juggling more than one and never having good enough attendance at any of them to hold them down. The undercurrent of anxiety he’d felt during that terrible time had made him feel nauseous on a daily basis.

That was when Danarius’s crew had come in. Fenris’s family lived in a run-down neighbourhood, and his mother had always warned him who to stay away from, but when he’d met Hadriana and her so-called friends, that’s all they had seemed to him: friends, people who sympathized with him and offered him some cash in exchange for helping them out with a little lyrium dealing here and there.

And Fenris had been desperate and naive enough to agree.

He pushed the self-recriminating thoughts away. It was useless to dwell on the far-distant past. Besides, Hadriana had gotten her comeuppance in the end. She was the one he’d overheard talking about how Danarius had set him up. And she was the first person he’d killed of his own free will.

He forced his gaze back to Hawke’s open, curious face. Pleasant memories, he thought. That was what Hawke needed to hear. He wracked his brain to try and come up with something nice.

Finally he struck upon a moment he could share. He huffed in amusement as he remembered it. “Varania was never fond of school,” he told Hawke. “She spent all her time on Facebook, Instagram… By the time she was seventeen, she had too many followers for her own good. She was always begging me to do her homework for her.”

“And let me guess,” Hawke said. “You said ‘no, Varania, absolutely not’.”

Hawke lowered her voice in a mocking imitation of Fenris’s voice, and he smirked at her. “Would it shock you to know that I did, in fact, do her homework sometimes?”

Hawke’s eyes widened, and she barked out a laugh. “Um, yes? I actually don’t believe you.”

Fenris smirked. “It happened more often than I care to admit. Particularly when she had papers to write. She hated writing essays. Odd, given the long ranting posts she would write on Facebook.” Fenris, on the other hand, had always been fond of writing. He’d once wanted to go to college for writing, in fact. Perhaps to become a music journalist, or something of the like.

But that was a lifetime ago. Fenris wasn’t that naive boy anymore.

Hawke crossed her legs and beamed at him. “Go on. Tell me more.”

He stretched his own legs out and folded his arms. “I once wrote her a paper about the influence of 80s new wave and argued that modern music would not exist without it.”

Hawke’s eyes grew huge and round. “Holy fuck. Okay then.”

“Yes, quite,” Fenris drawled. “Unfortunately for Varania, my mother saw it on her laptop and refused to let her hand it in. My mother said it had my ‘particular brand of eloquent bullshit’ written all over it. Varania failed the assignment, and I was forbidden from helping her anymore.”

Hawke laughed merrily. “And that lasted, what, two days until the next assignment came home?”

Fenris smiled. “And that is how I know you are an older sibling, yourself.”

She laughed again, and Fenris admired her loose posture as she lounged barefoot on his floor. He’d shared this particular benign memory in an attempt to cheer her up, and clearly it had succeeded. But to his pleasant surprise, he was feeling more relaxed and cheerful himself: more relaxed than he had felt in a week, at the very least. The last time he’d felt this much at ease…

He swallowed. It was when he’d been lying naked in Hawke’s bed in the sweat-laced afterglow.

His gaze settled on her face, and with a jolt, he realized she was looking at him as well. Her expression was soft and warm, and heavy as well, like the look on her face when they were sitting together on the couch at that blasted party of hers.

Fenris stared gormlessly at her. She was so beautiful, and the look on her face was the definition of inviting, and Fenris was seized by a mad, impossible urge to crawl toward her and bury himself in the warmth of that look on her face and everything it seemed to imply.

And then, in that weighted, petrifying, dangerous silence, Hawke’s phone dinged.

Hawke dropped her gaze, and Fenris took a deep breath as she pulled her phone from her pocket. She glanced at the screen and frowned.

She tucked the phone back in her pocket, but a moment later, it dinged again. She rolled her eyes as she pulled it out, but Fenris noticed the nervous way she nibbled her lower lip as she studied the screen.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She shrugged and sipped her tea without looking at him. “My brother,” she said. “He wants to talk.” She tapped her fingers idly on the lid of her cup.

Fenris tilted his head. “You mentioned that he was at your mother’s as well?”

She nodded. “Mother told him I wasn’t coming. Even though I told her last night that I was coming over. She’s so-” She broke off and shook her head, then tucked her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “It’s nothing. It’s fine. I - it’s not urgent. He probably just wants to pick up where she left off. I’m not really in the mood right for a tongue lashing right now.”

She frowned at her knees, and Fenris bit the inside of his cheek, uncertain what to say. He couldn’t really comfort her, as he didn’t know her brother. Not that he was particularly good at providing comfort, anyway.

He finally picked up his cup of coffee from Athenril’s, which had long gone cold by now. There was a brief and awkward silence as he took a sip, and then Hawke’s phone dinged yet again.

She sighed as she picked it up. “I’m sorry, Fenris, this is so rude…”

He shook his head to refute her apology and sipped his coffee again. Her eyebrows lifted as she read the text; then, to Fenris’s surprise, she held the phone out to him.

He gingerly took it from her fingers and read the texts from her brother.

4:48pm - Are you at home rn? 4:48pm - I just wanted to talk for a few mins 4:51pm - I’m sick of fighting about Dad

He handed her back the phone. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes were wide as she ran her thumb across the screen.

Fenris picked at the bottom rim of his cup for a moment. Then, without quite thinking about it, he spoke again. “I can accompany you. If you want… backup.”

Her wide copper eyes darted to his face. “Why?” she asked.

Because I would do anything for you. The thought surged from the depths of his belly to the back of his tongue, so quickly and vehemently that it took him by surprise, and for a moment, he was terrified that he would say it out loud.

He couldn’t say it, though. He couldn’t, not with his rotten past still festering in the rearview mirror of his life, and not with the blank precipice of the future that stretched beyond the certainty of Danarius’s death. Hawke might want him, and - venhedis, Fenris, admit the fucking truth to yourself, he thought - he might want her more than he’d wanted anything in years. But wanting someone wasn’t enough.

Hawke deserved better, and Fenris wasn’t enough.

He breathed carefully through the vice of pain around his ribs and brushed a piece of lint from his jacket. “It is nearly time for work,” he said. “We would be heading in the same direction.”

He could feel her steady gaze on his face, but he couldn’t look at her, not right now. Not with this ugly lump of longing sitting in his chest where his heart was meant to be.

She finally stretched out her legs and rose to her feet. “That’s okay,” she said softly. “No backup necessary. It’s just my baby brother.” She placed her empty tea cup on the table and made her way toward the door.

Fenris rose from his chair and politely accompanied her to the door. “Hawke, I am… sorry for your troubles. The accusations from your mother…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know what to say, but I am here.”

He finally chanced a look at her face, and he almost wished he hadn’t. Her expression was like a twisted mixture of hope and yearning and confusion all at once.

Then she smiled, and the knot of emotions on her face disappeared. “Thanks, but don’t worry about me,” she said. “It’s honestly not that bad. Usually we have a pretty good time together. We like to gossip about the same shows on HBO.” She shoved her feet into her flats. “Besides, you know what they say: blood is thicker than water. Or lyrium, in this case.” She gave him a casual little wave, then strolled away.

Fenris bit his lip. He understood the sentiment. But as he watched her walk away, pulling on his longing for her with every step that she placed between them both, he couldn’t help but wonder if some things were more binding than blood.

As Hawke disappeared around the corner and down the stairs, Fenris heard the distinctive buzz of his phone on the table.

He frowned, this time with more than a little concern. Hawke had just left, so the message couldn’t be from her. Well, it could be - she’d been known to send him barrages of silly texts moments after they parted ways - but it seemed very unlikely.

He strode over to the table and flipped open his phone, and the breath froze in his lungs as he read the text.

It was from Anso.

5:03pm - Someone has been asking about you. Female elf, 20s. Named Varania.

Fenris’s head was ringing with disbelief and suspicion and a blinding, dizzying hope. Impossible, he thought fuzzily.

He stared at the phone for a long, paralyzing moment, then hit the ‘call’ button and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Anso,” he barked. “Tell me what you know.”

[bytheangell]

Support System - Chapter 2

When Alec's favorite show gets cancelled and he takes to messaging customer service repeatedly to show his support, he doesn't expect to connect so easily with the support representative he keeps getting paired off with.

Read Chapter one on Tumblr here, and both on AO3 here! 

     IT’S A DATE?! What on Earth is he thinking. He’s never been more thankful than that moment to be sequestered behind a computer screen because if anyone could see the shade of red his dark complexion takes on he’s sure he’d never hear the end of it. His phone is out and on the desk in front of him even as he answers the next support chat request, pulling up Catarina’s number while he goes through the same motions he did with every normal chat that comes through. Few are about the actual service and system right now and almost all of them are about The Hunt, so he doesn’t need to be as technically focused as usual, which is nice. Of course, it also allows him to fall into this level of friendly familiarity he clearly doesn’t know when to stop.

‘Cat, I fucked up .’ Send. All he can think is that there is no way that chat doesn’t get reported for being inappropriate, and the moment it does that is the end of his job, most likely. His bosses aren’t too keen on letting things like that slide - you can be a certain level of friendly, just to make that customer connection, but he took it too far.

‘What did you do this time?’ Comes the reply, and Magnus can hear the exasperation in her tone even through the text.

‘I just ended a chat with Alec with ‘It’s a date’ ‘ Magnus sighs. He doesn’t know where that came from…

...except he does. The past couple of days he found himself actually looking forward to his chats with everyone from this show’s fanbase, but specifically this Alec he keeps getting paired with. It was just a few chats, he doesn’t even know anything about the guy (hell, it could be a girl for all he knows), but he really is looking forward to the next time they speak. He told Cat about him after the third one, just in passing, but enough that she knows exactly who he is referring to. He’s getting flirty… he’s getting a crush . A crush on a guy who just wants to log some interest complaints about his show and that’s it. There is absolutely nothing there and he is being ridiculous.

‘Of course you did. What did he say back?’

‘Nothing. He ended the chat.’

‘Ouch’

He makes it through the rest of the shift with wandering focus until he meets up with Cat and Ragnor outside as the sun begins to rise.

“There you are,” Ragnor says, the smirk on his lips telling Magnus that Cat already told him about his predicament. “Cat was just filling me - you do know that tech support isn’t your own personal dating service, correct?”

“Shut up,” Magnus groans.

“Want to grab a drink and some food so we can help you pick tomorrow’s pick-up lines?” Ragnor is unrelenting, opening his mouth to say something more until Catarina elbows him in the side to shut him up.

“I’m going home,” Magnus says, sounding tired and defeated.

“Yes, that’s probably for the best. You’ll need your beauty sleep before your big date tomorrow.”

“Ragnor!”

“--Alright, sorry! I’m done.” Though the pleased expression on his face as Magnus rolls his eyes and leaves shows that he doesn’t feel any actual remorse, the bastard.

Magnus makes some food and watches another three episodes of The Hunt before falling asleep on the sofa. Sleep is good. Sleep means he isn’t obsessing over his next shift, which is all he does from the moment he stirs awake until he’s sat behind his computer, logging in and anxiously awaiting his first chat of the night.

An hour passes and he falls into an easy rhythm. Until he sees the name and the breath catches in his chest. Stay calm , he reminds himself. And for the love of God stay professional this time .

You are Connected with Customer: Alec L. Magnus: Hello, what may I help you with today? Alec: Finally. I went through three chats before I got yours. Magnus: You actually came looking for me? Alec: Well, yeah. I said I was going to, didn’t I? I’m a man of my word. Magnus: An admirable quality.  And I’m a man of mine - I watched three more episodes. Alec: And? Magnus: And I honestly want an entire spinoff series of the alternate universe. I can’t believe it’s only one episode. Alec: I guess you’ll just have to start writing your own request during your off time. Magnus: Something tells me my bosses wouldn’t appreciate that. I’m sure it’s a clause in my contract somewhere. Alec: Fair enough. Still no word on the show getting picked back up? Magnus: No, but we’re getting just as many contacts as we were the first few days, even now. Sooner or later someone will have to issue a statement. I wouldn’t give up yet. Alec: I wouldn’t dream of it. Alec: I should stop holding up your chat, you have work to do. Thanks again. Magnus: Any time, Alec. This chat has ended.

Magnus is grinning like an idiot. Alec hadn’t reported him for his little slip-up… not only that, but he actively came back to try and find him , in a sea of customer service representative chats. That has to mean something, right?

It is two hours later when he sees the name again.

You are Connected with Customer: Alec L. Magnus: We meet again. Alec: Fate sure does like throwing us together. Magnus: Is it fate? Because I distinctly remember you saying it took three tries the last time. Alec: I never said I wasn’t helping fate along. Magnus: How many tries this time? Alec: ...4. Ragnor says “hi” and also that he “wishes nothing more than for there to be some way to directly transfer me to you”, because he got me 3 of those times and I’m pretty sure he’s about to file a formal complaint. Magnus: He isn’t, don’t worry. Magnus: Just for the sake of the records, I assume you would like us to renew The Hunt? Alec: Yes, sir. Magnus: Please don’t call me ‘sir’, it makes me feel old. Alec: How old are you? Alec: Sorry, that was dumb, forget I asked. Alec: It’s late I should go. This chat has ended.

Magnus curses, a frown settling onto his face as the chat closes and his heart sinks. He started to reply that it’s fine but Alec was gone before he could get the message sent. He didn’t mind the question - in fact, he wishes there was some way to contact Alec outside these chats without committing a serious breach of customer privacy to get his e-mail or phone number. There were so many things he wants to ask, to comment on and get Alec’s reaction to, but he obviously can’t in the position he’s in.  

He waits the rest of the shift but Alec doesn’t come back into the chats again, and Magnus is left holding onto the number 4. 4 tries just to get to him, and he refuses to believe there isn't something more to that. 

[justsomeantifas]

Here’s your dose of “What the Fuck Is Going On” news (2/18/2017 - 2/19/2017 edition)

Trump and the GOP put out a survey called the "Mainstream Media Accountability Survey," which contains a number of problems. It contains extremely leading and biased questions, it contains information that is outright false, some questions are badly written or filled with errors, and it was sent out to a selection of people on Trump's email list ensuring biased responses. It's also been revealed that nothing seems to actually be submitted or processed when one hits the submit button, it's just a link to Trump's donations page asking people to give him money "to help us fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions.” (source) (source)

After Michael Flynn was fired as national security advisor and retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward declined the offer, Trump is having some difficulties filling in the spot. Retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus has reportedly pulled his name from consideration but there is still a short list of people being considered: Keith Kellogg, John Bolton, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. (source)

Seema Verma is Trump's pick to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and she quietly went through her confirmation hearings this past week. There's been some concern over Verma's history as well as her beliefs regarding what health insurance programs should cover, for example she doesn't believe that they should be required to have maternity and newborn coverage. And if her past track record shows how she’ll handle this position, then lower-income people are likely going to be paying more for their healthcare. (source) (source)

Trump seems to be changing his opinion of whistleblowers/leakers and wants to have them caught and prosecuted. During Trump's campaign he seemed to be a fan of leaks, as long as it wasn't targeting him and now his administration. Trump now wants investigations into what he sees as an effort to undermine his presidency, especially after the Michael Flynn fiasco. (source)

Scott Pruitt has been officially confirmed (52 to 46) and sworn in to the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Pruitt is considered one of the most controversial picks in EPA history, and nearly 800 former EPA staffers, scientists, engineers and attorneys wrote letters against his appointment. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt sued the EPA more than a dozen times. He is a climate change denier whose own LinkedIn page refers to himself as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda. ”There's also fears that with Pruitt in place, Trump can now quickly and easily overturn the Clean Power Plan and "Waters of the US" rule. (source)

After Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cancelled their meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, they went ahead and had another meeting. However, ICE set the invite list and completely excluded the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in what was supposed to be a discussion about the recent raids taking place. (source)

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held hearings to discuss legislation that would weaken the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act currently has more than 1,600 plants and animals under its protection however Senate republicans argue that the bill violates states’ rights and property rights, as well as limits economic growth in drilling, mining, and agriculture. (source) (source)

Trump signed legislation that ends the Office of Surface Mining's Stream Protection Rule, a regulation to protect waterways from coal mining waste. At the signing, Trump called the regulation "another terrible job killing rule" and said ending it would save "many thousands American jobs, especially in the mines, which, I have been promising you — the mines are a big deal. This is a major threat to your jobs and we’re going to get rid of this threat. We’re going to fight for you." (source)

Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner met with top executives at Time Warner to express his concern over their “unfair coverage slanted against the president.” Reports state that Kushner was specifically complaining about two Trump critics, Van Jones and republican strategist Ana Navarro. (source)

After Trump gave a press conference where he ranted and raved for over an hour, he took to Twitter to address those who were criticizing him. He quoted Rush Limbaugh's review of the event where he said it was "One of the most effective press conferences I've ever seen." Trump said that many agree with that opinion and the outlets saying there are those who believe otherwise is nothing but "fake news." He then went on to say that these outlets, and news media in general is "the enemy of the American People!" (source) (source)

The Associated Press reported on a leak that the Trump administration was planning on using up to 100,000 National Guard troops to "round up" undocumented immigrants. The leak was an 11 page draft memo, and Trump quickly said that the reporting was "100 percent false," and cited his popular fake news argument. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said the claim was false. Less than an hour later they admitted that the story was based on a real document but they didn't really consider taking that action. (source) (memo)

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide three cases in the upcoming months that could help or hinder Trump's effort to ramp up border security and accelerate deportations. One case involves whether immigrants in custody for deportation proceedings have the right to a hearing to request their release when their cases are not promptly adjudicated. The other two case are whether the U.S. government officials can be sued over mistreatment of non-citizens. (source)

The FBI will most likely not press charges against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn gave an interview in January where he told the agency that he did not discuss sanctions with Russia. Lying to the FBI is a felony, however the FBI is not going to pursue charges unless more information emerges. (source)

With Tom Price giving up his seat to become Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary, there are now several candidates running to replace his seat in Congress. One woman, Karen Handel, is echoing Trump by stating in her fundraising email “If elected to Congress, she will work to build a wall on the border and end Muslim immigration." (source)

This weekend marks the third straight weekend that Trump will be going to Florida at his Mar-a-Lago Club. This, topped with his family’s trips and security is costing the taxpayers an enormous amount of money. The cost is far beyond past presidents security and travel costs and will likely balloon to hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of his four-year term. Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since the inauguration have cost the federal treasury an estimated $10 million alone and New York is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower. According to police officials’ estimates, an amount that could reach $183 million a year. Another issue here is that some of the money is going directly into the pocket of the Trump Organization. Not only are his trips to his signature properties doubling as marketing opportunities for his brand, but The Defense Department and Secret Service are seeking to rent space in Trump Tower, where leasing a floor can cost $1.5 million a year. (source)

This year's Conservative Political Action Conference will feature Breitbart News editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, as their keynote speaker. The event will be hosting Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, Scott Walker, and Carly Fiorina. (source)

The White House budget office has created a list of programs for Trump to consider eliminating in order to cut down on domestic spending. Some of the programs on the list include Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, AmeriCorps and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. (source)

U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security John Kelly said that Trump's new travel ban will happen, but it will likely not target green card residency holders this time. Kelly also stated that people in planes already inbound will be allowed to enter the country. (source)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's educational website for children has been reworked by the Trump administration. The website is designed to teach children about energy and the environment in a fun and engaging way. Now the site has been changed, the description of the environmental impacts of energy sources has been reworked, and two pie charts concerning the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions have been removed altogether. (source as well as the detailed changes made to the site)

[topicprinter]

So I run an online business in my spare time, more a hobby than anything really. But it's a good bit of pocket money to get me by.This one is from a few years back, jogged my memory from a post on Facebook asking business owners who their worst customer has been. Here's mine.One of my suppliers has a bespoke driving light capacity, they'll swap in more powerful LED chips, reflectors, lenses, etc. The bespoke items are handmade and huge care is taken that they perform as required.Essentially you can say "I want my lights to shine 3 miles down the road and cover an arc of 70°" and they'll get it done.As such, the only people that buy these lights are relatively wealthy, as a single pair of spotlights can cost up to $3,400So this customer comes online, orders a standard lightbar ($1,400) and then a few hours later makes an order for a bespoke set of driving lights. Cool beans.As procedure, the system automatically fires off an email reiterating what is said on the product page that the bespoke lighting range are handmade and can take up to 90 business days, and it tells you when your estimated shipping date is (normally around 120-130 days from ordering, as weekends and public holidays aren't business days)So he replies to this email saying "That's fine, I want the best, happy to wait"So I thought nothing of it, until 91 calendar days after his order:Customer: Hello, regarding my lights from order [number], I have received the lightbar, but my spotlights have not arrived.Me: G'day [Customer], as you ordered your lightbar on [different order number] and we had the item in stock, we dispatched it as soon as we could. Regarding your lights from order [number], please refer to the email below indicating that the lights you have ordered are hand made and the estimated shipping time is still [number of] days away. Thankyou.Customer: [NUMBER OF] DAYS! WHAT THE FUCK? I WAS NEVER TOLD ABOUT THIS! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!Me: G'day [customer], please see attached to this message a copy of the email you were sent when you placed the order, and your acknowledgement of the timeframe. Further, as per our terms and conditions, we do not accept change of mind returns or refunds on custom products. Have a nice day.(Quick note, this is perfectly legal to refuse change of mind on goods in Australia)Customer: THIS IS BULLSHIT! I DON'T REMEMBER REPLYING TO THAT! I WANT MY MONEY BACK NOW! I NEVER AGREED TO THOSE TERMS!Me: G'day [Customer], as per our terms and conditions at [link] you can see that we do not accept refunds on change of mind orders, please see attached a copy of the checkout log from your purchase where you have checked the box agreeing to these terms. As this is a change of mind request, we will not be honouring it.Customer: Raises a PayPal complaint of items not delivered, items not as described/items faulty on both orders I HAVE NOW ISSUED A CHARGEBACK THROUGH PAYPAL! I'LL BE GETTING MY MONEY BACK!(all communication from herein was done on PayPal so they could see the communication)Me: G'day [Customer], with regards to your chargeback regarding [spotlight order], please see attached all correspondence showing that the estimated delivery date has not yet elapsed. Also, please refer to [link] from PayPal buyer protection excluding custom, bespoke, or handmade items are ineligible for refunds until such time as the date for delivery has passed.With regards to your [lightbar order], can you please clarify what is not as described about the item and/or what is faulty with the item? We are more than happy to replace the item if it is faulty or not performing as described.Customer: I PURCHASED THE LIGHTBAR TO GO WITH THE SPOTLIGHTS I ORDERED! ITS FUCKING USELESS WITHOUT THE SPOTLIGHTS! I WANTED A LIGHTING SYSTEM, NOT HALF A LIGHTING SYSTEM! I ORDERED THEM BOTH AT THE SANE TIME, THEY SHOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME!Me: G'day [Customer], with regards to your lightbar order placed at [Date and Time], we had this item in stock and dispatched it immediately. With regards to your spotlight order, placed at [date and time, which was 53 minutes later], we regard this as a seperate order and it will be provided to you in the timeframes quoted and agreed upon in previous correspondence.This continued to happen for nearly 2 weeks, 2-3 angry emails a day, wash, rinse, repeatIn the end I got an email from a PayPal customer service agent to advise me that he had escalated the claim to be reviewed by a person. They wanted to touch base and find out what was happening.So we went through all the notes, and even the customer service representative was amazed at the language he had used. Within 5 minutes she had closed the lightbar claim in my favour due to the items being delivered, and me asking something like 12 times what the fault with the item was. They agreed that it was an independent order and that if the customer had wanted them delivered together, they should have been ordered together on the same transaction.With regards to the spotlight order, after about 45 minutes of reading the correspondence, checking our website, policies, me taking PayPal offline on the store and into sandbox mode so the rep could do a dummy order, they found no fault with the system and agreed that this order definitely was not covered under their protections, but that even if it was, the amount of notice on the website clearly indicated a long lead time on the product.As such, this was closed as well.Another week goes by, boom! Tracking number from the factory, mark order as shipped, off it goes. Customer is informed and starts getting tracking notifications at each scan.Customer: WHY THE FUCK IS MY TRACKING SHOWING THAT MY PACKAGE WAS JUST SCANNED IN HONG KONG?Me: G'day [Customer], as detailed in our website, for bespoke orders, we have them shipped directly from the manufacturing facility in Hong Kong direct to the customer. This is to ensure that you receive your products in a timely fashion with no double handling.Customer: BUT YOURE SAYING YOUR BUSINESS AND WAREHOUSE IS IN AUSTRALIA NOT HONG KONG! THATS FALSE ADVERTISING! I'M REPORTING YOU TO THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS BOARD! I'LL ALDO BE TALKING TO MY LAWER!Me: G'day Customer, please see below the details of my lawyer for your lawyer to contact. Thankyou.Customer: I DINT WANT TO TALK TO YOUR LAWYER! YOU'RE IN DEEP SHOT NOW MATE! YOU'VE FUCKED ME AROUND FOR MONTHS!Me: G'day [Customer], as you have now indicated intent to take this matter along a path of legal recourse, I have been advised to discontinue conversations via email with yourself and all correspondence will now be handled through [law firm]. Please see details below for [law firm].Over the next 3 days I continued to get angry threatening emails, which I just forwarded to my solicitorLights did get delivered, 3 days short of the estimated timeframe, so our estimate was pretty bang on. Have not heard from him since.However, as another note to this, as the Manufacturer and supplier were kept well informed of all this (bespoke high end companies like to know when there's potential brand damage), they also included a letter in the package saying that if the customer was to not deal with any of their dealers, he was to speak with head office only, and that he was banned from purchasing from any of their dealers in the future.Nearly 2 years on now and neither me nor the Director of the company have heard from him, so that's good I suppose.He did post a lot on Facebook about his "harrowing" experience, however both myself and the director of the lighting company, both being heavily into the 4WD scene covered a fairly substantial percentage of groups that he posted on. So anytime he dropped a post on how terrible we were, we did have a very clear and concise reply we'd just copy and paste on his posts.Funnily enough, sales of the product spiked every time he put up a post trying to slander us. In fact, we sold more bespoke lights than we did normal lights for a period there, people were blown away by how adaptable they were and how much light they could get. We got some real funky requests in for custom lights, people that wanted to, as I said, see beyond 2 miles, mostly outback farmers and stuff.Plus, guess what? Not a single complaint on manufacting and shipping times from any other customers. Seems that this bloke just couldn't read.However, my wife has another theory on this guy, after spending nearly $5,000 on lights, his wife may have cracked the shits at him and demanded he cancel the order and get his money back. Now that may have been the case, and this may have financially impacted this bloke negatively. I'll be honest though, if he'd come into it saying "I can't afford these" or "I've just lost my job" or something along those lines, I would have refunded him and just kept the lights for myself instead. But nope, just angry angry tirades.TL;DR: Customer doesn't know how to count, proceeds to abuse me and submit a fraudulent chargeback to PayPal to get his money back. In the end his posts on social media end up driving us more traffic.

[winfieldjcseemanja06insuran-blog]

affordable insurance twin city

affordable insurance twin city

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affordable insurance twin city

[camouflagekiss]

forty-five

Do you ever have days where you just don’t do anything? Most definitely.

Have you ever been extremely tired but refused to go to sleep? Yes.

What is your favorite episode of True Life, if you have one at all? I don't think that I ever had a favorite.

Have you ever experienced something paranormal? Kind of?

What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been stuck in traffic? I have no idea.

Best field trip experience? I loved them all, really.

Have you ever been to New York City? A few times.

If so, is it all its cracked up to be? No, I am not a city girl.

What is the most amount of money you’ve spent on a meal before? Not too much.

Have you ever had a group project and one of your partners bailed on you? Not really.

What’s your worst traveling experience? Okay, so...I went to Puerto Rico with my brother on a trip for their company and on the way home we have a connecting flight from Philidelphia to NH...Well we got to Philly but our other flight was cancelled. So there a group of us (at least 40+) And we're trying how to figure out how to get us all back home. So they company paid to have a coach bus drive us through the night back to NH. So it was a 5+ hour plane right, then an 8 hour bus ride to the airport here in NH then another 1.5 hour drive home. It was terrible!

Sims 1, 2, or 3? Why? I've never played any of them.

Have you ever dealt with noisy neighbors or roommates? How did that go? Neither.

Who was (or is) the teacher that gave you the hardest time in school? I never really gave teachers a hard time.

Best muffin you’ve ever had? I have no idea.

Have you ever taken a woodshop class? Yes, in junior high.

If so, was it required? In 7th ant 8th grade we had to take VEX classes. It was broken up into three sections each year and we didn't really get to pick, they assigned them to us, but I actually liked that class. I still have the sign I made.

How much time do you spend on Facebook, if you have one? Entirely too much.

What area of math are you best at? Worst? .

How do you feel when you meet someone with the same music taste as you? It's nice, but not that important.

What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen outside of your house? I don't think that I've ever seen anything strange in my yard.

Do you believe in luck? Why or why not? I mean...I don't really know. I guess, because I certainly believe in bad luck.

How often do you “half-ass” things (put little effort in)? It depends.

Do you ever feel self-conscious when you eat around other people? It depends on the person.

Has a teacher ever made you hate yourself/your work? Most likely in college.

How reliable is your internet connection? Usually good.

Have you ever missed a meeting/event that was required/necessary? Probably.

What’s something that makes you incredibly nervous? People watching me.

What’s the latest you’ve ever stayed up to finish homework/a project? All night.

If you don’t have glasses, how would you feel if you had to get them? I do have glasses.

If you do have glasses, how would you feel if you didn’t need them anymore? I use them when I need them and I don't mind them.

How many vegetarians do you know? I have no idea.

Have you ever considered going to art school? Meh.

Is there anyone in your life who consistently angers you? .

What is the worst thunderstorm you’ve experienced? The one when I was really little that was followed by a tornado.

How quickly can you write an essay? I guess it depends if I have to do a lot of research. It usually takes awhile.

Have you ever had problems falling asleep in class? No.

Have you ever been on the barrier or front row at a concert? No.

If you have a job, who is your least favorite coworker/manager? It's just my dad, uncle and I.

Favorite episode of Spongebob? I don't have one.

Do you have any silly/odd emotional connections to anything/anyone? I'm sure I do.

What bug frightens you most? They're just gross.

Are your parents supportive of you? Very.

How often do you take the train to go places? Never.

Do you play with your phone in awkward situations? Sometimes.

Have you ever participated in a mock trial, or a real trial? In high school I believe.

Do you hate your weight? Yes.

Have you ever struggled with a mental illness? Yes.

Do you prefer listening to music or watching movies while you blog? Either or.

Serious question, peanut butter or Nutella? It depends what I'm eating.

Have you ever stepped on a snail? Nope.

Do you prefer baked potatoes or mashed potatoes? Mashed.

Do you prefer ankle socks over regular socks? Yes.

Last movie you’ve seen in theaters? Only the Brave, last night actually. So good.

Would you ever go backpacking across any country? Nah. I would rather drive.

Would you prefer to travel around the world by yourself or with a friend? With a friend.

Do you like breadsticks? Yes.

Do you usually wear shorts around your house all year long? That depends on if I'm cold or not.

What state were you born in? New Hampshire.

Have you ever had a nose bleed? Never.

How far away do you live from your birthplace? 10-15 minutes.

Do you have a weak stomach? Mehh, not really.

Do you know anybody who has been diagnosed with cancer? Yes.

Would you ever meet someone in person that you met online? I don't know.

Have you ever had to take care of an intoxicated person? Yes.

What is so appealing about ‘Twilight’? I'm not sure.

Have you ever considered becoming a lawyer? No.

Do you *really* like donuts? I like them all right.

Do you think Disney World could ever get old? I've never been.

If you could, would you hookup with the last person you texted? No.

What are your favorite things to spend money on? Clothes.

Will you talk to the person you like on the phone tonight? Honestly, I'm fairly certain we'll never talk again.

What do you usually order on a pizza? Just cheese or pinapple

Do you and your boyfriend/girlfriend fight a lot? .

Which would you rather have a new puppy or kitten? Puppy, for sure.

How old will you be on your next birthday? 27.

What color are your underwear? Blue.

Do you know anyone who has a hearing deficit? Yes.

What is the average number of customers that stop by where you work? Nobody stops by unless they're paying a bill which is rare.

Do you know exactly what a physician is? Would you ever want to be one? I do. No.

What are your methods to remind yourself of something important? Making a list.

What are your opinions on fake sugar? Do you use it? Why or why not? I use real sugar. I don't care.

Would you ever want to study sociology? Why or why not? No. It isn't interesting to me.

If you had to have a porch for your house, what colour would it be? Brown?

What makes a person physically beautiful to you? I don't really know how to answer that beacuse I don't know what I'm necessarily attracted to.

Would you miss winter if it never came back? Why or why not? I mean I guess I would miss it some. Winter is by far my least favorite season because it's always so dark and I hate being cold.

Do you notice a pattern with people who were born as the middle child? I've never really paid that much attention to the traits of a middle child.

Did you ever play around a hydrant when you were younger? Probably, I grew up around the fire service.

Does bad weather ruin your day? Why or why not? It can definitely throw my mood off, but I guess it all depends.

What is one thing stopping you from becoming a veterinarian? I just never wanted to be one.

When you read 'bass’ just now, was it read like the fish or the instrument? Fish.

If you wear them, what is the average length of skirts you wear? Usually above the knee, but I do have a maxi.

Do you spell it like 'cheque’ or 'check’? Also, do you even use them? Check, yes.

What would you like a pint of right now? It could be anything. I'm not thirsty.

What is one thing that the Titanic has taught you? THE DOOR WAS BIG ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, ROSE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT. But really, like, don't be so arrogant to believe that you are indestructable. Anything can be destroyed. ^^I like her answer.

Are you avoiding correspondence with anyone you actually like? If so, why? Yes, because it wouldn't matter what I said, it wouldn't change anything.

Do you think snowboarding is as easy as it looks? Nope.

Out of all the cancers, which one do you think needs to find a cure first? Uh, all of them...?

When I say fender, you say… Bender.

If the opposite sex wore a lot of jewelry, what would be your impression? No, that would be weird.

When I say cricket, do you picture the insect or the sport first? Insect.

If you were ever to be famous, how would you want your signature to look? In bunker gear, hahaha.

What are two things you usually do with ice? Put it in a drink.

Was there ever a workshop in your middle school? If so, what were they? No.

What do you think of people who can tie cherry stems with their tongues? I've done it before.

Speaking of tongues, did you ever consider getting your tongue pierced? Not seriously.

If you had to only use either shampoo or conditioner, which would it be? Shampoo.

What are your general afterthoughts when you’ve finished a book? It depends on the book.

Does your mouse have a cord? Which do you prefer, cord or cordless? No, I prefer wireless....except for the fact that I'm always misplacing it.

[newagesispage]

                                                                          MARCH 2017

 PAGE RIB

*****Beyonce and Amal are both pregnant with twins.

*****The Trump international hotel and tower opened in Vancouver B.C. with Tiffany and the sons amidst hundreds of protesters and a boycott from the mayor.

*****So, did anybody see Seth Mcfarlane in Real time with Bill Maher? He seemed to just sit and pout. He sat there sying nothing and suddenly blurted out “I’ve got water.” It seems that perhaps an earlier guest got his Jack D. and he got water. It just seemed to me that he wasn’t going to add much to the conversation if he did not have his drink. Such a diva!

*****Kevin Smith and comic book men are back and looking good!!

*****TLC is back with the fabulous ‘Who do you think you are?’ The season begins with Courtney Cox and her relatives who killed the King of England.

*****Leann Rimes seems to have added a few pounds and looking healthy and well too!!

*****Have John Stewart and Ricky Gervais lost it?

*****The number 1 item requested in homeless shelters is socks. Bombas (latin word for bees) socks is giving away 60 thousand pairs in one day.

*****American rehab: Detroit on DIY told a great story of a couple bringing an old house which had been part of the family back to life for a new era.

*****Nick Cannon is out at America’s got talent.

*****Louie Anderson is just knocking it out of the park on Baskets.

*****David Cassidy went public with dementia diagnosis.

*****Who knew that Hillary Farr, the’ love it or list it ‘chick was Betty Monroe on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

*****Roger Waters is heading out on the Us and Them tour and will the poke the snake called Trump.

*****Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on Watch what happens live and seems to like Vanderpump rules. Too bad about the crash at Daytona Jr.  Hooray for Michael Waltrip and his 8th place. We do not want to see U go.

*****Stay away from the Remington 700. It shoots without pulling the trigger. Of course the company does not want to admit that.

*****Tried to watch the new sitcom Powerless. I want DC to succeed in their endeavor but hmmm..??

*****CBS Doubt looked like it had a great cast so gave it a try. The stories were of the same old kind but love the supporting cast and a nice twist. It had a little Spader/Shatner thing going on.

*****The Pats won that super bowl but it didn’t start out that way. Super bowl 51 was so up and so down. Their wide receiver, Malcolm Mitchell was asked by a woman at Barnes and Noble one day to join her book club. He joined, in part, because he couldn’t read very well. He is still with the club and it has inspired him to write a children’s book and begin a literary campaign.  For the halftime entertainment at 51, Lady Gaga gave us a statement of equality that said it all.

*****Days alert: Ok.. Is Days going to be cancelled for Megyn Kelly? Say it ain’t so.. Word is coming that there will be no Days in 2018!! Oh NBC, it is about the only thing you have left that I want to watch. Get the picket signs ready. We can’t lose Days. I am still hurting from losing One Life to Live.  Jen and Eric have seen each other again and he is saving a picture of her. Let’s fix his hair and get these two together. The last days of February and finally some progress on that front. We need that Tom and Alice couple that we can rely on and stick together no matter what. She already has the house and they have the good foundation and they have come back from the brink. **And.. is Drake feeling better yet? Bring back John Black!

*****Twitter donated a mil to the ACLU.

*****I want to be in the middle of those great scenes with Tim Omundson and Deidrich Bader on American Housewife.

*****The house votes to roll back the background checks for gun owners .This includes those mentally incapable of managing their own affairs.

*****Are we all really supposed to pray for Schwarzenegger? Weren’t the ratings of that awful show low anyway?

*****A friend told me that 80% of immigrants are on welfare. Depending on where you look, it is really 40-51%. Do your research people!

*****SNL is back with new shows starting with Octavia Spencer and Scarlett Johansson.

*****The continuing madness of King Trump includes him waiting a week into the Presidency before handing the reigns of biz to his son’s. It wasn’t until he was called out by reporters that he finally did it. His supporters do not even seem to care. The sons have secret service all over the world looking after them with our tax dollars as they go about the Trump business. *** Steve Bannon openly admitted that they put people in place to deconstruct the administration.

*****Some republicans are now asking for an independent prosecutor to investigate the Russian contact and interference. Jeff Sessions should recuse himself.

*****Our state reps are chickening out with tele town halls. They feel they don’t have to face the people who elected them and can therefor go full speed ahead with their own agendas. They use the excuse that too many people are turning up so they have to take questions by phone. Funny how the softball questions from people who mostly agree with them get through. Quit being cowards and do your jobs or get out of the way.

*****Tom Perez is now DNC chair, the moderates win. I don’t agree with scary clown 45 that it was rigged but a little shake up may have been in order. Personally I love Donna Brazile. Is it time for a new party ,the resistance party? Some will never trust the Dems. Some will never trust Republicans. A new hard left party may be in order. It will struggle but eventually take hold. We need to start with brains and artisans.

*****The President will not come to the White House correspondence dinner on April 29. He says he was elected to get work done and to focus on the country, like getting busy on that wall.  Pendejo! Oh please!

*****Pandering to Wall Street, the house is working on ridding us of Dodd Frank that was put in place to help the financial crisis. Do we really want to relax those rules? They are going for a 75% reduction in regulations for companies to add more pollution, to not look out for the customers best interest etc. Shouldn’t we be worrying more about production? Will they do the right thing as they see how the rest of us live or will they continue to ignore the problems?

*****Scary clown 45 claims he did not know what he was signing when he put Bannon on the National Security council. Huh?

*****Elizabeth Warren was stopped from reading pertinent information from Coretta Scott King on the senate floor.

*****Charlie Rose underwent heart surgery and will be back in March. He has been spotted and is doing fine.

*****Looks like a new show Trial and Error is coming. The ads look ok but they are advertising the hell out of it. Wasn’t there a movie with the same name?

*****Carol Merna, executive director for the center for prevention of abuse, wrote an open letter to Illinois governor Rauner. She asked him to put partisan politics aside and get a budget for the state. Some neglect cases have had to be dropped due to lack of funds.

*****CNN is doing the history of comedy.

*****Bill Nye saves the World is coming April 21 to Netflix.

*****Chris Kennedy, 8th child of Bobby and Ethel that was born July 4th 1963, is running for Governor of Illinois.

*****Blondie brings us the ne “FUN”. They are touring with Garbage this summer.

*****Zach Braff and Carol Burnett are both returning to tv.

*****Burger King is buying Popeye’s, lord help us.

*****Iran has cancelled visas for wrestlers that were to compete in a world competition. The Muslim ban has upset so many apple carts. Church missionaries and Doctors have to rethink leaving the country to help others because they may not get back in. We are not all as stupid as they think and should respect us enough to at least quit saying this is about our safety. Why are Christians prioritized? This new administration does not agree with Obama on much so why keep talking about the 7 countries he specified? He did no bans for these countries. Hundreds of companies have coordinated to file a lawsuit against this.

*****If we don’t live globally, things will be a lot more expensive.

*****Isis is on a drone buying frenzy. They are buying drones off the shelf and doing much damage. Our commander in chief needs to get in front of this.

*****New Power Rangers coming out this month.

*****Mar-a Lago, the former home of Emily Post and E.F. Hutton was donated to the government but Nixon did not really want it. After scary clown 45 bought the Palm Beach estate there was much ado about his flag pole. He also wanted the flight patterns changed so as not to disturb his guests. With the racist white house raging on, it is hard to believe that he was once more welcoming. The old guard of Palm Beach was not too crazy at who he was bringing to Mar-a-Lago. The resort would welcome anyone who could pay the fee. Initially it was 100 thou but as soon as he became President it was doubled, being President pays. Oh yea, and the flight pattern has now been changed. ** Scary clown 45 seems to think he is under some sort of cloak of invisibility when he is there. Hillary’s e mails were a problem but he can discuss anything classified on his own cell?? Are you fucking kidding me?**And speaking of Palm Beach, the President is spending a lot of time there. Before the election he claimed he would have no time for golf and relaxing. He has spent about as much of our money on secret service and his travels in a month as Obama spent in a year. This does not even include Melania and the NY digs and the sons who travel the world for the Trump business all the time. Of course, the business is benefitting from this.

*****Kevin Brady and Orrin Hatch can make The IRS show us the Presidents taxes.

*****Nordstrum’s dropped Ivanka’s line. Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, Sears and Kmart are in agreement.

*****If you give up freedom to get security, you get neither. –Ben Franklin

*****Why are the Sunday morning political shows just repeating the same mainstream stuff all the time? Let’s follow Bill Maher and John Oliver who at least talk more about our rights that keep getting stripped away. John Oliver is putting ads on the shows that scary clown 45 watches so he can at least get some real information. Marijuana laws, transgender rights, voting rights are all under attack. The pot industry is booming, why does this administration want to start taking away U.S. jobs? The department of agriculture has removed regs about the treatment of animals. The will no longer make lab inspection results and violations publicly available. Now, you must file a request to the freedom of information act if you want to know.** John Kasich is still making sense, why couldn’t the republicans have went with a sane person? He met with the President on health care. He feels the ACA needs reform but that you can’t just pull the rug out from 20 million people. Kasich tries to do things in a calm and reasonable manner much like the left. Is it worth trying? The administration says that the opposition is acting like 5th graders.  How many times do we reach out and try to do things reasonable only to be shut down?

*****Thank you J Lo for reminding us of Toni Morrison’s words about how important artists are in times like these.

*****Thank you A tribe called Quest for yelling “Resist” and telling us to break through the wall.

*****Seattle severed ties with Wells Fargo in protest of the DAPL. ** A federal judge denied the Sioux tribes request for a halt to the pipeline. And while the CPAC was in full bloom, the protesters were dragged away.  Some moved across the river and some moved on.

*****Good news for Kim Cade: Camping can help you to sleep better by shifting internal clocks to align with daylight hours.

*****Jimmy Carter put in enough solar panels to power half of Plains. Go Jimmy Go!!!!

*****North Korea launched a ballistic missile.

***** It was something to see when Paul Ryan was asked over and over again about Flynn and the Russian situation. He was annoyed right away. Really? How does it feel? And Hillary held up for 11 hours. Who can take it and wo can’t? Pussies!

*****FLEXIT: After many denials, Mike Flynn , the man who started the ‘lock her up’ chant, was finally ousted. When will they find proof that they all knew about this? They are not even good spin kings but how do they live with themselves? And Pence calls himself a good Christian? Did he know?** Did they make a good choice with H R Mcmaster? Of course, he is active duty so he could hardly say no. He is getting a lot of support because he wrote against Johnson and the handling of Vietnam and Bush with Iraq.

*****White house flunkie Steven Miller was getting invited everywhere after he told George Stephanopoulos he would go on any show, anywhere. Colbert and the View were waiting but he never showed. LIES,LIES,LIES: GET OUT!!!!

***** Streisand men ,past and present, seem to be showing up at CBS. James Brolin has been there for a couple of seasons and Elliot Gould is on the new Doubt.

*****Catch Trevor Noah on Afraid of the Dark.

*****Glad that Nightcap is back for season 2.

*****Scary Clown 45 gave his presidential address on the last day of February. He started the day by letting us all know that the protests and problems were Obamas fault. He started to adlib about 8 pages in. A lot of attention was paid to Karen Owens, the widow of navy seal Ryan who was killed in Yemen. The VP insists that the reports of nothing being gained from the raid are false. Trump pulled back on the immigration agenda that he earlier seemed to soften on. He did mention black history month which never happens. He is still talking about repeal and replace with the ACA. He did not shut it down first day like he said on the campaign trail. He said the same stuff in this address that he has been saying, just with a slightly different tone. He sure changed his tune about the Jewish hate crimes. Former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear gave the democratic response. What?? Why the fuck did they pick a FORMER Gov.? It was a pretty middle of the road response. He gave Trump polite hell for his lashing out at military, media and the intelligent agencies. He scolded that just because they disagree does not make them their enemies. Agreed but Yawn!! The best part of the night was afterward on MSNBC. Kathy Griffin, Michael Moore and Rob Reiner put a wonderful cap on the evening. Thank you for some sanity.

*****Better Call Saul is starting to run ads for their April 10th premiere. So fucking excited!!

*****Comedy Central is bringing ‘Colossal Clusterfest” to San Francisco on June 2nd. The fest will include stand up and sketch comedy, podcasts and music. The lineup includes Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Sarah Silverman, Hannibal Buress, Bob Odenkirk, Fred Armisen, Tig Nataro, Ice Cube, Tegan and Sara, Reggie Watts and Princess and interactive offerings with South Park, Seinfeld and It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia.

*****Finn Whitrock, Sally Field and Joe Mantello appear in Broadway’s The Glass Menagerie.

*****The Grammy awards which I have never really understood came and went again. Some of the audience looked a bit perplexed when James Corden purposely flubbed the opening. They rarely honor anyone I really respect. But Adele’s George Michael tribute , once on track was amazing. Chance the Rapper won best new artist and claimed his victory in the name of the lord. Lady Gaga sounded great with Metallica. Again there were sound issues that you would think the Grammys of all places would have worked out but… Best dressed were Lady Gaga and Audra Day. The worst was Taraji P. Henson.

*****HBO is making a documentary about Andre the Giant.

*****The Independent spirit awards were on Feb. 25th and made some great choices. Molly Shannon won best supporting female for Other People. Moonlight won best picture, best director for Barry Jenkins and the Robert Altman award. Casey Affleck (best actor) and Jenkins took their best shots at Trump.

*****Bison have been reintroduced to Canada’s first national park after 140 years.

*****The Oscars were the next day, Feb. 26th and oh what a finale they had. Most everybody knows by now that the wrong film was announced, but that was not the entire show. It was only the second time an envelope mishap happened. Sammy Davis Jr. opened the wrong envelope last time. I always wished that they would show the honorary awards as well, they look like fun. Jimmy Kimmel seemed casual about his hosting gig and never stuck the knife in too deep. The Matt Damon stuff never really gets old. Tourists were brought in and Gary from Chicago is already getting offers from just being there. He had just gotten out of prison 3 days before after a 20 year sentence. Wal Mart is giving he and his fiancé wedding gifts. ** During rehearsal a big part of the set fell down.**The Salesman from Iran won and a statement was read about the Muslim ban. A lot of people were wearing ACLU ribbons to show solidarity. The best dressed were Emma Roberts, Haylee Steinfeld, Ava Duvernay, Laura Dern, Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, the dancer with Timberlake wearing the red and black dress, Luciana Barroso, Nicole Kidman, Ryan Gosling and Meryl Streep. Honorable mention goes to Halle Barry, Viola Davis, Michelle Williams, Karlie Klass and Emma Stone. Worst dressed were Leslie Mann, Dakota Johnson, Octavia spencer, Trudie Styler and Felicity Jones and some chick in the audience with a bold blue and white striped lace fiasco. There was a story about Karl Lagerfeld saying that Meryl Streep wanting to be paid to wear a dress but nobody believes it. In the fallout after the best picture controversy, Les Moonves said he’d fire his accountant if this happened. Matt Damon said he was not at all surprised and that is what you get when you let Jimmy host.

*****You can now get Dateline’s Keith Morrison on your GPS.

*****Michael Moore has put out a 10 point plan to get rid of Trump. Most of it is common sense but good o remember:

1.       Call your senators and reps: 202-225-3121 or 202-224-3121. A call a day keeps the Trump away

2.       Visit your members of congress and both senators once a month.

3.       Create your own personal rapid response team, form a group to be ready to leap into action.

4.       Join national groups like Planned Parenthood or the ACLU.

5.       Remember the women’s march. Join in.

6.       Join the democratic party.

7.       Form ‘regions of resistance’. Pass state laws.

8.       Run for office. Everyone can run for precinct delegate.

9.       Become the media. Report the truth.

10.   Join the army of comedy. Spread the words of great comedy about scary clown 45.

*****Elvis Costello and the Imposters are touring in June.

*****George W. Bush is making the rounds with his new book, Portraits of courage. He pays tribute to the wounded warriors and at the same time raises money for vets. He also probably feels that it is safe since he is small potatoes compared to the new Prez. We can’t forget the havoc that he and Cheney brought upon us today is today.

*****Lisa Marie Presley is in the middle of a nasty custody battel. Priscilla has her twin grandchildren living with her.

*****The Prez has already cut domestic spending so he can pour millions into the military budget. We spend as much on the military as the next 7 largest military spending countries combined.

*****Spain is going to appoint a sex czar.

*****Another Sandusky, the son Jeff was arrested for sex offenses against minors.

*****Scary Clown 45 made his

*****RIP William H. Busch, Richard Hatch, Al Jarreau, Erwin Corey, George the Animal Steele, Ward Chamberlin, Clyde Stubblefield, Bill Paxton, Judge Wopner and Neil Fingleton.

MPtdH��[�u

[fuck-customers]

I've been working in the supermarket for only little mire than a momth and I'm already fed up. These are some of the more unpleasant encounters I've had with customers in this time: -Maybe third or fourth day in the job and the first day I didn't have someone shadowing me, an elderly lady comes in, and before even saying hello demands someone to come help pack her bags. Now, I'm new and didn't even know we did that kinda thing (apparently this is more common in america but here we don't have designated baggers) and I didn't exactly know who to call for so I fumbled awkwardly for a minute until the lady's adult daughter who was behind her in line stepped in and said she'd help with the bags as she had just finished loading her stuff on the belt too. While I'm cashing out the old lady, I'm having to look up most of the fruit and vegetable numbers in my little booklet because... well, I'm new so at this point I only know apples and bananas off the top of my head bc those are the most common ones. So with everything i look up, she keeps telling me (in a very exasperated tone) what they are. Hey lady guess what. I know these are champignons. If I didn't know what they were, a) I'd ask you, and b) I wouldn't be able to look them up because as you can clearly see from where you are standing, this list does not have pictures. So she kept doing that, and her daughter kept being like "Mom stop, let the young lady work" and I kept getting more pissed off and anxious at the same time because I felt like I was taking too long (on my very first day I even had a panic attack because of this feeling of taking too long) so I said in my best customer service voice: "I'm really sorry I'm taking so long, I just started this job and I don't know everything yet!" And the old lady just said "Yes, I can tell." Like wtf rude!!? Can you just chill?? She also did nit say goodbye or thank you when I said "Have a nice day" as she left, her daughter shot me a look that just screamed "I am so sorry" (The same old lady came back a week or so ago, I only recognized her because she asked for help bagging again and this time I knew what to do and also didn't take as long because by now I have the most important numbers memorized, so she was a lot friendlier to me and even smiled at me, so maybe she was just having a bad day the first time around.) -A man came to my register with a small collection of items and two empty gas cartridges for those water carbonator thingies for at home. Our supermarket does this thing where you can bring in your empty cartridges and exchange them for new ones. However, they come in two sizes and I only had small ones left at my register while the ones the man brought were big. The two or three next registers in front of me were unmanned at this time and I was at the last one so no one behind me. I also couldn't call out to a cashier further down through the speaker system to ask if they had any because of course the speaker at my register didn't work, just my luck. And yelling across three registers was out of the question. So I told the man he'd need to go to another register to exchange his cartridges, at which he got really pissed and started yammering about having to get back in line etc. Sir. You can just walk up and ask, and nobody will complain because the exchange takes next to no time. Anyway, I finish cashing him out and ask if he wants his receipt, as I do with every customer, and in this really rude tone he goes "Yea I guess I DO need it because I HAVE TO GET BACK IN LINE" and walks away without a goodbye of course These next three all happened within the same day, on which I also happened to be really fucking sick but I dragged myself into work because I just got this job and didn't want to be fired. -A man came in with his young son and asked about a point promotion we had in cooperation with the WWF, where for every certain amount spent you'd get a point and with a certain number of points you could get a figurine of one of a few different endangered animals (Elephants, pandas etc) and of course parents and kids were all over that. I used to own a ton of these figurines myself as a kid, now I think my brother has most of mine. But anyway the man asks about these figurines and just earlier I had seen a note about this in the cash office so I told him what I had read on the note- that only registers with an even number have a basket with these toys, which meant I didn't have one because this time I was on register Number 3. He immediately got pissed because of this and was like "God, why don't you guys put a sign up?!" I ofc in customer service mode go "Yes I'm really sorry about that sir, I'm not sure why we don't have one, I'll bring it up with a manager later" yada yada ya know that fake shit but he just keeps bitching about having to get in line again and I have anxiety so I was kinda freaking out and didn't think to tell him that he can just walk right up to a register without getting back in line and ask to check out the toys, which people did all the time while it was going on. He ends up paying for his stuff or whatever and then walks off without saying goodbye (I see a recurring theme, when customers are mad they drop the greetings and basic politeness) and as he's walking off with his son and without a toy he's just muttering about shit service yada yada. -A little while later I was doing a return for a lady who had noticed the mugs she bought scanned for more than the price on them and I had missed the sticker for the new price because it was on the bottom and I hadn't turned the mugs over. She was really nice about it, she could probably also tell I was sick and made an honest mistake out of not being able to focus that well. Anyway I had already called for a superior to authorize the return because cashiers can't do that by themselves and this man I had cashed out a minute ago stomps up, cuts next to the lady, slams down a net of oranges and starts semi-yelling at me for ringing it up wrong- the net didn't have a barcode on it (not sure why, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't and sometimes when they do they don't work... it's weird.) So I punched in the number for oranges and weighed them, because I didn't really know what else to do? The net was supposed to be 2,99 and weighing it made it a little more expensive but not by much, maybe 10 cents- so really nothing to throw such a fit over. I tried to explain and showed the man that it didn't have a barcode to scan so I had no other way to determine a price but he kept interrupting me, telling me he didn't give a shit why I did what I did but that I did it wrong and to fix it and fix it now, yada yada. I could feel a panic attack coming on but the lady I was doing the return for (which nobody had come for yet, by the way) helped keep me calm and shot the guy a dirty look foe being so aggressive, I was super anxious because not only did I have to deal with two people waiting for something now, it was also super busy and I also kept cashing people out while they were waiting and I actually had to call for someone a second time because just nobody was showing up to authorize the damn return, and when someone finally did, the superior took the two of them to a different register to do the return because I had a bunch of people in line with big carts. -The last one for that day wasn't even that big of a deal but it still kinda pissed me off just because I was already upset from the previous encounters- a customer came up with a few cans of... let's say beans for simplicity- and he had stuck these stickers on them from a promotion we had going on, they had their own barcode and if you scan that barcode and then scan the product it takes a percentage off this product. However I had not seen the stickers until the guy pointed them out after I pulled through about five of the cans, because as I said I was having trouble concentrating because I was sick and the stickers were almost exactly the same color as the cans so I had simply missed them. The guy didn't trip about it and I called over the speaker for someone to authorize cancelling the proces so I could restart the process since I'm unable to apply the discount manually. A few minutes of awkeard waiting unable to continue pass and no one comes. I call out a second time, assuming I had simply not been heard or understood as my voice wasn't in the best shape, so i made sure to speak extra clearly. A few more mintes pass. Nothing. I call out a third and a fourth time, and after a total of what felt like probably ten minutes someone FINALLY got their ass to my register so I could do my thing. Of course customers in line had started getting impatient and I had heard one guy saying "oh my god what kinda bullshit is this" (i know right, it doesn't normally take this long i swear, normally someone's with you within a minute!!) Of course that guy did not greet me or respond to anything, just wordlessly held up his card to indicate how he wanted to pay and then left without a word. Please don't do that? It's not my fault that apparently everyone didn't hear me calling out four fucking times. Also on the same day, I had to stay on the clock for an extra 20 minutes because my register and no. 6 and I think one other one were the only manned ones and 6 was currently switching with someone, so my coworker that I don't like because she always talks to me like I'm stupid came up and told me to wait with clocking out until they were done switching which took them pretty long as they're both new. Like please you can clearly tell I'm sick just let me go home who cares if there's only one register open for a few minutes? The store wasn't even that busy at the time. The only reason I had something to do all of those 20 minutes was that the customers that came up had their carts filled to the brim. Guess who ended up in the emergency clinic shortly after because I'd been working all week despite being sick and got a pretty severe ear infection as a result? That's right, it was me.