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queenshelby · 3 years ago

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The Island (Part Three)

A Quiet Place Fanfic

Pairing: Emmett x Reader

Words: 2,196

Warning: Angst, Gore, Death, Abuse, Fluff, Attempted Rape

Please comment and interact which is what makes this story going …

The following day, you left your children with Evelyn, being the only person on the island who you felt you could trust.

While you were gone and said goodbye to your children, Emmett had packed two bags for you with water and some food. In addition, he was carrying his rifle and a small radio with him.

It was early in the morning and you both had to get going so that, hopefully, you would be able to return on the same day or the day after.

‘Thank you for helping me. I am not sure why you would though’ you gasped as you both got onto the small boat.

‘I have nothing to lose Y/N and, if my children and wife were still alive and I was gone, I would hope that someone would do the same for my family’ he explained and you gave him a vague smile as it became obvious to you once again how much he still grieved the death of his family.

He had lost everyone and, in your mind, he was not deserving of having to bear such loss.

***

The trip to the mainland took less than an hour and, when you arrived, you stepped of the boat quietly after Emmett turned off the motor before docking.

He had become quite good at docking the boat without drawing the attention of the creatures and the fact that it was raining clearly helped as the sound of the rain was blocking out the sound of the boat.

Before you went anywhere else, you returned to the old house where Emmett had saved you and your children from the creature to see whether you had lost the medication there but, unfortunately for you, there was no sight of the packets.

After you quietly searched the entire house, Emmett indicated for you to follow him. He knew that there was a pharmacy nearby and he was hopeful that there was any stock left since most of the pharmacies had been raided by the survivors.

You quietly followed him and, when you arrived at the block where the pharmacy was located, you were surprised to see that the building had burned down along with many other houses on the street.

Emmett immediately became suspicious and indicated to you that you had to leave. He was aware that there were rebels in the area and the last thing he wanted was to run into them while he was on his own with you. He knew what these men would do to women and, being on his own meant that he may not be able to protect you.

You followed him quickly and, just as you reached the end of the town by foot, you were passing a small medical centre.

You followed Emmett inside the building and, when he located a small room which was designed for the storage of medication and first aid supplies, you sighed with relieve.

Unfortunately for you, however, the door to the room was locked and you knew that you had to find the key but, when you turned around in the narrow hallway, you soon realised that you were not alone.

‘Ssssh’ a tall man said to you and Emmett was quick to point his rifle at the stranger who, of course, knew that Emmett wouldn’t shoot him since that would draw the creatures.

With a knife being held to your throat, the man indicated for you to follow him and you could hear Emmett sigh quietly before he lowered his rifle and followed you both as the man dragged you into one of the old x-ray rooms.

The x-ray room had double concrete walls and was well isolated and shielded. It was safe to whisper inside but, when you entered the room, you realised that there was nothing safe at all about the room as you saw three more men who looked rather intimidating. When you looked at the men, your heart began to pound out of your chest and your mind began to fill with fear.

‘That’s some bird you’ve got there, Emmett’ one of the men then said and, just as he did, you looked over towards Emmett. Did he know the man, you wondered?

‘Martin, I swear, if you hurt her, I will kill you’ Emmett whispered harshly before pointing his rifle at the man.

‘And draw the creatures? I don’t think so Emmett’ the man named Markus responded which is when Emmett cocked his rifle.

‘You know I will, and then we all die. Now, how does that sound?’ Emmett said somewhat angrily before the man began to laugh.

‘Oh, common Emmett, just let me have a little fun with this bitch. You can have a turn too’ Markus exhaled and, when you heard these words coming from the stranger’s mouth, you were even more fearful than before.

Without thinking twice, you reached for the knife on your belt and stabbed the stranger into his leg, causing him to scream loudly.

You ran towards Emmett and, without any second thoughts, he took your hand and you both ran as one of the creatures tore through the building and into the room where the scream came from.

You ran quickly, but soon a second creature came up behind you and, just as you kept running, Emmett stopped, turned on the radio and fired his gun.

‘Common, there will be more coming soon’ he then said after scooping up the radio and his gun and you quickly ran outside and towards the shore.

The rain was still heavy and the breaking of the waves and incoming storm made it impossible for the creatures to hear you as you waited in a small seaside cottage which had previously been used by local fishermen.

Inside the cottage there was a first aid room and Emmett quietly went inside to see what he could find in the many cluttered cabinets and, when he came back out of the room with two packets of the medicine you needed, you were beyond relieved.

Despite this welcoming find, there was no way that you could return to the island as, outside, a dark and quite terrible storm had set in and you knew that, for now, you were best off to stay in the small cottage until the storm had blown over.

***

‘He’s got three days of medication left. He will be fine’ Emmett whispered as you broke out in tears when you looked outside and heard the thunder. You were worried about your children on the island and panicked.

You could hear the hail bolting down onto the small cottage as Emmett took you into his arms, reassuring you that you would get back in time.

He then wiped your tears away with his fingers and smiled. His face was so close to yours that you could feel his breath fan over your forehead and it was so hard to resist not to kiss him again.

‘You should get some rest’ he then said while one of his hands had found their way into your hair for a short moment and you could hear his heart beating fast.

What you didn’t know was, after you had kissed him the night before, the thought of your short and unexpected kiss didn’t leave Emmett’s head. It was in his mind all of that night and he couldn’t deny the fact that he was feeling attracted to you even though that wasn’t what he wanted at all.

He wanted to be alone, always and forever. That is what he had set his mind on, but after spending well over a week with you and your children, he realised what he had been missing all so long.

It was a strange and unfamiliar feeling for him, being attracted to a woman other than his late wife for the first time in his life. It didn’t feel right and, when you worryingly leaned against his chest, seeking comfort from him, he had to pull away.

‘I am sorry’ he whispered before gathering a few candles, pillows and blankets he found inside the small cottage.

He then threw them onto the floor and sat down and you looked down at him with wide open eyes and smiled.

He was way out of his comfort zone, being in this cottage with you, all alone and you were very well aware of that.

After opening a muesli bar from your bag, you sat down right next to him nonetheless. You had questions for him that needed to be answered.

‘Who was this man at the medical centre? The one who knew you?’ you asked curiously.

‘He used to be on the island’ Emmett explained quietly.

‘Why did he leave?’ you then asked and Emmett sighed deeply as you did.

‘He was asked to leave after him and another man forced themselves on a woman on the island’ Emmett explained and you couldn’t help but gulp before Emmett carried on.

‘If I had it my way, I would have killed him to be honest. But I don’t get to decide this sort of stuff’ he then said and you nodded.

‘What about the other man? You said there were two?’ you asked.

‘Well, the woman alleged that another man was there, restrained her and watched while Markus raped her, but he denied it and no one else could prove it when Markus covered for him’ Emmett explained.

‘So that other man is still on the island?’ you asked.

‘No, him and his son haven’t returned from their last run’ Emmett then said and you nodded again, which is when he told you that he would make sure that you and your children would be safe even if he was to return.

‘Thank you Emmett…thank you for everything’ you whispered in response as your hand brushed through his beard, making him look at you for a short moment instead of looking down, which was what he had been doing ever since you sat down next to him.

Emmett brought his hand up to yours and gently caressed it with his calloused fingers as you kept combing through his beard.

‘You are welcome’ he responded and, without thinking about twice, you leaned in again to give him a kiss.

You immediately realised what happened the last time you did this and when you were about to pull away and apologise for your actions, he pulled you back in, bringing his free arm around you and sinking his hand between the soft tresses of your hair.

His lips landed on yours and his kiss became more passionate as you moved your hand to his neck and then down to his shoulder. Soon you felt his tongue tenderly grazing your bottom lip, silently asking permission to enter.

Parting your lips, his tongue breached your entrance and began passionately searching for yours while the hair of his beard scratched against the soft skin of your face.

When his tongue found yours, you returned his affections and your two tongues started dancing sweetly.

His hand soon moved down to your neck, his thumb rubbing small circles on the skin beneath your earlobe. You let out a small moan as he added more pressure to the sensitive area. Your hand was now pressed against his chest before finding its way beneath his t-shirt. You felt his wiry chest hairs, and soon you found yourself twirling them around your fingers.

As you kissed, your tongues still entwined in a sweet embrace and he lowered his hand down to your collarbone and then further down to the swell of your breast. He seemed to stop there, not wanting to venture further.

Your tongues settled down a bit and he began to slowly tear his lips away from yours, allowing the cool night air to flow into your partially open mouth where his sweet tongue had been. He gently pecked your still parted lips a few more times before moving his hand back up to the back of your head, stroking his fingers through your hair.

‘We should get some rest’ he then said and you brought your hand from his chest up to his cheek, running through his beard again. He grunted a little in appreciation, eliciting a small giggle from you.

‘Okay’ you said, realising how he was struggling with the intimacy. He was nervous and so were you. You had never been with a man other than your husband and your high school boyfriend and Emmett had never been with a woman other than his wife.

This was new territory and it certainly wasn’t something you wanted to explore further that night.

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mmoxie · 2 years ago

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To Make an Easy Job

I don't know how this is going to sound, but I need to spill my guts about retail. We all hate it, but this isn't going to be about hating it. At least, not in the traditional way. No mention of angry middle-aged women or soft-boiled khaki-shorts dads outside of this sentence disqualifying them. Okay? Let's go.

Nearly four years ago, I left a retail pharmacy job where I did a great deal of work for little genuine benefit. In a county where minimum wage was on the rise, I started beneath it and then, when it became law, upgraded to it. I started as an overnight clerk, stocking shelves and playing Yu-Gi-Oh on my phone with another transplant like myself. He was on the register, I was on the floor, and we both had a thickly-accented laugh at the shitheads who came in to bother us all night.

And that's important, calling them shitheads. Nine in ten weren't coming in to shop, they were coming in to work out some unresolved issues on our shelves. The tenth in ten were pregnant folks who needed a 24 hour pharmacy for emergency reasons.

So already, that's a lot of stress. Then they slashed the store's hours in half, and me and my friend didn't see each other for a while. I went to a new location because the hour budget couldn't support keeping me on staff at that one, and then quit from the new location because working that job without someone to play YGO with all night turned out to be a joyless parade of cigarette sales and bra money.

My wages didn't go up. I left. Took on a new job. Got sick for one day too many. Got fired. Called my old boss who said I was "always welcome on her team." She was no longer leading a team, but she referred me to another old boss, at my first location, who had an opening.

So I was back to playing YGO with my bud. But the place had made him so mad in my absence that he was on his way out to a nearby grocery store. In the meanwhile, I was so badly in need of a raise that I leveraged the time I spent with the company (and the fact that I came back) to promote up to "shift lead."

I put on a vest and had a panic attack for a year and a half, and then I was fired for an expression of dismay that you can't say on TV, spoken in reaction to a former coworker being racist, again.

A three-month job hunt landed me at a large grocery chain. The kind that sells groceries on one end and furniture on the other. I was looking for an overnight freight job so that I wouldn't have to do a lot of socializing, and even though they interviewed me for one, they told me they didn't have one open- but they did have a "garden clerk" position available.

I took it. I grew up around plants. I wasn't the most useful hand at my great-grandparents' farm, but I had helped water the blueberries and the collards. I had a healthy interest in plants, even if I didn't have any complete formal education on the matter. I took Latin in high school (because the French teacher was very suddenly fired) and that helped me understand the scientific names of plants- which I could turn into care regimens. Lots of Asteraceae out in the garden center, and if I could understand what that kind of plant needs, I'd lead a pretty comfortable life in the garden.

Well, I was wrong about that. About the comfortable life thing, I mean. No amount of learning can prepare you for being led by someone you don't trust. My boss had been hired a month before me, and- with me having just been a manager myself- had a hard time with anything that wasn't subordinate kowtowing.

I listened to what he said, thought critically about it, and offered practical solutions. But they weren't his solutions, or the solutions that his boss suggested- so, even if they achieved an identical end, the methodology coming from me was poison to him, and he made a big show of gagging on it.

And then he disappeared for eight months.

I still don't know what happened, but after not getting along for the better part of the year, he developed a mysterious health problem and stopped showing up without warning. The schedule was marked "leave of absence," and it also left me as the only person assigned to work in the garden.

So I started doing what I wanted. The autonomy made my heart feel like it had grown wings. I was fixing holes in fences, restoring damaged fixtures, getting a missing panel in the ceiling replaced so that it'd stop raining on the register, and- let's be real- missing out on a lot of necessary work to keep the department running, because they neither alerted me to the need for it, or trained me about it.

Our shelves grew bare, and they asked me why. When I told them I didn't know, they decided they didn't appreciate the truth. Rather than train me, they distracted a middle-manager from running the department and sent him out to pick up on little, computery jobs that I'd never heard of, in the year that I'd been too busy watering plants and hauling thousand-pound pallets of soil around.

Eventually my manager came back. Demoted to cashier as the only way of keeping him on shift. I later found out that sometimes they'll cut deals like that, just to keep their retention percentage over a certain threshold. The demotion certainly didn't make his attitude any better, and he took it out on customers. He was fired within a few months.

Meanwhile, they were asking me to promote to his old job. Remembering my promotion at the old store, I declined, and instead took a bit of a "side-grade" that would bring me into the store and out of the weather.

I grew to miss the weather immediately. Now my world was rolling out of bed and unpacking a heavy pallet of hammers, plungers, shop-vacs and spray paint for nine hours a day. All the peace and comfort of watering to keep something alive had been replaced with the soulless analog of "make sure this number goes up, and that number goes down."

It couldn't last. But before I could leave it, something unprecedented happened. For the first time in 20 years, my section was being renovated! Wow!

...What do you mean they're not sending a team in?

Shifts start at four in the morning? I'll be leading a team so we can do it ourselves? We're physically removing two aisles from the store, and rebuilding the other nine by hand?

Okay. Sure. Let's go.

It was around this time I started to have trouble with the department head. We won't spend too much time on her- the important thing is, she did a small amount of physical labor, spent the rest of her shift writing emails about it, and then grew completely outraged when I told her that she would understand the team's actions better if, instead of arbitrarily assigning us new tasks every day based on her emails, she worked with the team to understand how we were flowing through the remodel.

So I've got a bit of a mouth on me. At least I didn't swear this time.

I didn't get fired, and we finished the renovation. By then I was absolutely sick to death of working in hardware, and the garden manager position had been vacated once again.

So this time, I took it. I took it, and I reflected on three years of mistakes and mismanagement and neglect and failure-to-train, and I said "okay, let's change how we do this."

I immediately got in trouble for doing my own thing regardless of the positive results.

So I fought, and fought again. I described the effort I made and why I made it to people who didn't care, and never would, until they gave me a scrap of my autonomy back.

After a few months- once Christmas had passed and I had rebuilt the garden by hand, with limited help from the few people who could be spared for a couple hours at a time to tinker on it with me- they started hiring people into my old position.

New garden clerks. And I was in charge of them.

Things would be different for them than it had been for me. This time the person leading them had experience, knew what to expect, and had been prepared. This time we knew exactly how much the business was going to let us down, and we could have our landing all planned out for when they inevitably buckled and failed.

Every day, they come in and water plants. They occasionally compost the plants that slip our attention- in a yard of thousands, sometimes a few 4" cups will run dry in the process of watering them all. They move out a pallet of new freight every now and then- bags of soil, some rakes and shovels, sprinklers and valves.

They aren't being asked to be their own manager. When they need me for clarity, or for a heavy lift, or to handle someone who's taking out their pent up aggression on our cashier, I'm right there.

When I left the old pharmacy, I wanted an easier job.

I never got one, but I made three. And as they come and go- which is something you're expected to do, working retail- they aren't in a hurry to disappear, and the people coming in to fill their roles aren't afraid of what's coming.

I'm tired, and I'll be tired for the rest of my life, but I feel like I carved out an oasis deep in the heart of retail labor, where they really can do the amount of work they agreed to do, be fairly paid for it, and go home with their backs unbent and spirits high.

They can, not me. But at least someone is, and that's what I wanted-

To make an easy job.

#retail #la problema es capitalismo #long read

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hookedonapirate · 5 years ago

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As Luck Would Have It

Summary: What Emma wouldn’t give to make one of her many fantasies starring her favorite customer come to life (one that either takes place at work and involves a good, hard fuck on the break room table or against the stockroom shelves (hey, what can she say, she gets bored) or one that takes place in her bed). She wouldn't be too picky about the location, just as long as she had a chance to be with him.

It’s just too bad none of her fantasies will ever come true though. And it’s not because there’s zero chance he would ever be interested in her because, well, she works at Walgreens and he’s way too good for her.

No, it’s too bad because he’s totally and completely gay.

A/N: This is something short and fun that I wrote for @onceuponaprincessworld. I talked to you about writing this before, well I finally got around to writing the thing. I hope it at least puts a smile on your face. Happy Friday!

Thank you @resident-of-storybrooke for looking it over!

Rated: a very Mature Teen for salty language and mature topics

For someone who hasn’t had sex in faaaaaaar too long (much longer than she cares to admit) Emma knows way too damn much about condoms. Like more than any one human being should. There are flavored condoms, ribbed condoms, dual-action condoms, pleasure shaped, lubricated, colored, french ticklers and even edible condoms. Who the hell even comes up with this shit? There are twisted condoms, her pleasure sensations, intense, warming, and pleasure packs. There are latex and ultra-thin and bare skin and ultra-smooth. The list goes on and on.

Way too much.

Emma never even uses them, or at least she hasn't in years, but she works at Walgreens. She’s a Designated Hitter, so she does a little bit of everything there, and when she’s not working in the pharmacy or behind the checkout counter, she’s working in the feminine hygiene/baby/contraceptive aisle which means she orders the products, stocks them, prices them, hangs up sales tags and does it all over again the next week.

At first, she would get all squeamish whenever she was working with condoms. Every time a male customer passed by or stopped to take a gander at the condoms, she would move down the aisle, pretending to work on something else. Now, she sells them like she’s selling candy to a child. When the male customers are browsing through the selection, she asks what kind they’re looking for and happily suggests one, grabs it off the shelf and hands it to him.

Tonight she’s working behind the front counter on a Friday night, selling lots of alcohol and snacks and wishing she was on the other side of the counter, buying wine and chocolate so she can go home and veg out on the sofa of her lonely apartment watching her favorite rom coms. Instead, she’s here at work, forced to engage in monotonous small talk with strangers while doing her best to ignore the thieves who wander in and out of the store because she’s not allowed to say anything to them, even when she sees them taking packs of hand soaps or household items off the shelves and stuffing them into their bags so they can sell them on Facebook.

She has to put up with these antics until midnight before she closes the doors and prays she doesn’t find a drunk, homeless person on the restroom floor again while cleaning. Yep, that’s happened twice since she’s been here. And she’s only been working here for eight months! Which is one of the many reasons why she’s going to school to get a decent job. The pay isn’t too bad, and the insurance is great, but she sure as hell doesn’t see herself selling condoms and waking up hobos in the restroom when she’s eighty years old. Because if that’s what she has to look forward to when she’s eighty then, Lord, just end it now and get it over with.

The only thing she can look forward to while working at Walgreens, however, is Mr. sex on legs—a Greek god with a pair of the most alluring blue eyes she’s ever seen. She’s never had a particular thing for men in uniforms, men with dimples, men with accents or men in general, really, but Killian fuck-me Jones is hotter than a scolding cup of coffee in his uniform, has the most adorable dimples on his cheeks and has a sinfully decadent British accent that makes her panties melt.

What Emma wouldn’t give to make one of her many fantasies starring her favorite customer come to life (one that either takes place at work and involves a good, hard fuck on the break room table or against the stockroom shelves (hey, what can she say, she gets bored) or one that takes place in her bed). She wouldn't be too picky about the location, just as long as she had a chance to be with him.

No, it’s too bad because he’s totally and completely gay.

Of course he is. After getting her heart stomped on years ago by he who shall not be named, she hasn’t been with anyone, not even for a one-night stand. And the one time she actually has eyes for someone, the one time she meets someone she’s even remotely interested in, he’s gay! It's like the devil is mocking her.

It’s just her luck.

Officer Jones frequents this location with his partner on a daily basis. They work together and she’s pretty sure they’re not only partners on the streets but also partners in the sheets.

At first, she thought they were only joking around, like the one time when Killian was trying to pay for his purchases but was short on change, and David handed him a dollar bill and said, “Here’s a dollar, sweet cheeks. Keep the change.” He slipped a dollar bill into Killian’s pocket, kissed him on the cheek, winked at Emma and said, “I’m his Sugar Daddy,” He walked out the door, leaving Killian blushing adorably as he handed her the cash for his morning blueberry muffin and energy drink.

He rolled his eyes and his deep, rich laugh warmed her heart. That's right, even his laugh is fucking perfect.

“I can’t take him anywhere.”

“I see that.” Emma giggled with him as she took the cash from Killian’s strong-looking hands, which certainly did not play a vital role in her fantasies. Which also does not bear any sign of a wedding band, she had noticed at the time (and several times before that). She’d brushed off Killian’s interaction with the other cop at the time, thinking there was actually a real connection between them and not one between the two men. The signs were all there, she just read them all wrong.

But now they’re both standing at the front counter in their street clothes, buying two jumbo packs of condoms, claiming it’s because the Trojans are on sale if you buy two. But she has a feeling that’s not the only reason why they’re buying in bulk, because if she had a lover like Killian, then she too would be having sex with him all the freaking time. In fact, she wouldn’t let the man leave the damn house. So yeah, she can understand why David would want that fine piece of British ass all the fucking time. And no, she’s not insanely jealous of a dude. Definitely not!

~*~

“Buying condoms isn’t gonna get me laid, Dave.”

“Well no, but then you won’t have an excuse to back out when a gorgeous woman hits on you. And who knows, maybe you’ll finally gather the courage to ask the checkout girl out.”

“Don’t call her that,” Killian chides, scolding his friend briefly before returning his eyes to the road. “She has a name.”

David holds up his hands in defense. “Sorry, I didn’t mean any offense. I just meant you’ve been obsessing over Emma for six months and it’s time you make her more than your checkout girl, don’t you think?”

“What does that have to do with buying condoms? You think buying condoms will automatically get me into bed with her? Even if it did, Emma’s too good to be someone's onetime fling.”

“I’m just saying, buying condoms is the first step. The next step is to ask her out. What happens from there is up to the two of you.”

Killian chuckles as he pulls into the Walgreens parking lot. “Thank you for the inciteful advice on how to pick up women, but I’m not some horny sixteen-year-old boy, and this isn’t my first rodeo.”

“I know that, but you haven’t dated anyone in five years. You fell off the horse, and I’m afraid if I don’t give you a boost, you’re never gonna get on that horse again.”

Killian rolls his eyes and unbuckles his seatbelt once he parks the car. “I’m perfectly capable of getting back on the horse without your help.”

David cocks his head at Killian and shrugs, unconvinced. “Then prove it.”

“I will.” Killian accepts David’s challenge and hurries out of the car, determined to prove his partner wrong. He doesn’t need help getting Emma. He just has to be himself, right? If only it were that simple because as soon as he steps inside Walgreens and gets one look at the beautiful blonde behind the counter and those sparkling green eyes, his mind becomes an empty void of darkness and his brain turns to mush.

He quickly makes his way through one of the aisles to avoid her. Now he remembers why he hasn’t asked her out already. He’s never been this nervous around a woman, but Emma… she can turn him into a complete nervous mess just by casting a glance his way.

He can feel her stare burning into his back as he stops and turns in the middle of the aisle to make it look like he’s nonchalantly browsing the razors rather than coming here to ask her out but failing miserably to gather the courage to do so the second he saw her lovely, smiling face. She’s so fucking adorable, he can’t even turn his head to look at her without grinning like a fool.

God, he’s in love.

He remembers the first time he saw her. He came to the pharmacy to get pain medication after he broke his arm during a softball game with his colleagues. He stepped up to the counter and saw her long golden hair, dazzling emerald eyes and the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life. Since then, he never starts his day without stopping in and getting his daily energy drink and muffin. Even if she’s not working at the front counter, just seeing her and saying hi is all he needs to get through the day.

Fuck, he’ll never be able to ask her out.

Killian lets out a frustrated sigh as he looks at the razors again.

David was right. Damn bastard.

Speaking of his partner, Killian hears David’s arrogant whistle; he’s obviously gloating as he enters the store and sees that Killian had hidden in one of the aisles instead of going up to Emma and asking her out. The aisle with the razors is in front of the checkout counter, giving Killian a clear view of Emma, so he can hear David when he approaches Emma and asks her in a loud and rather obnoxious voice, “Hey, Emma, where are your condoms?”

Bloody fucking hell.

Killian curses under his breath as Emma leaves the counter to show David where the desired merchandise is. He can smell Emma’s intoxicating perfume when she passes him. David follows behind her with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Hey, Killian, Emma is kind enough to show us where the condoms are.”

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Grumbling under his breath, Killian begrudgingly follows David. He’s going to kill his best friend.

The three of them reach the condoms, and Killian is contemplating murder when David asks, “What do you recommend?”

Okay, now David is just trying to mess with him. David doesn’t need help picking out condoms, and he certainly didn’t need to be directed here in the first place. He and his girlfriend are sexually active and they always use protection.

“Um… besides the obvious, what are you looking to achieve with condoms?” she asks, glancing between Killian and David. “Something to get the job done or to add to the sensation?”

Oh, God.

Killian buries his face in his hands to hide his burning cheeks; he could die from mortification right about now.

When he drags his hands from his face, David still has a stupid grin on his face.

“These are buy-one-get-one-free with your Balance Rewards card, so you might as well get two,” Emma suggests, handing David two boxes of the condoms she’s referring to, which are jumbo-sized. Of course they are. Because Killian doesn’t need anything to add on to the humiliation he already feels burning his cheeks. Certainly not. Then again, it’s not like things can get more embarrassing than they already are.

“Great, I think I will. Killian, you like ribbed too, right?” David asks casually as he tries to hand one to Killian.

Correction. It can get ten times more embarrassing.

Killian’s face is on fucking fire and he wants the floor to open up and consume him because it beats being humiliated by his best friend, who he’s doing his best not to punch in the face.

He snatches the box from David’s hand and storms away to avoid seeing the look on Emma’s face right now. She’s probably laughing at him with her eyes, either that or she’s glaring at him, thinking he’s a total douchebag or maybe she assumes he’s in a committed relationship. Or maybe she’s indifferent and couldn't care less. Neither thoughts are good ones as far as he’s concerned. He wants her to care enough to wonder why he’s getting them, but he’s too embarrassed and flustered to think that’s a feasible possibility.

Killian grabs a six-pack of beer as he thinks about how he will murder David. But if he did, he’d spend the rest of his life in a lonely prison cell and he’d never get to see Emma’s pretty face ever again. So he supposes he won’t kill his best friend. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t get to see Emma’s face every day during his morning commute. She’s a good enough reason to not want to go to prison.

He and David place the items on the counter as Emma returns to her spot behind the register and rings them up. Killian reaches for his back pocket to retrieve his wallet, but David puts out his hand to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it, I got it,” David offers. “I’m the sugar Daddy, remember?”

Killian forces out a strained chuckle and doesn’t argue as he slips his wallet back into his pocket. After the shit David just pulled, he owes Killian. Big time.

Emma calls out the total, and Killian finally gathers the courage to look at her face. She’s offering him a warm smile, a small amount of blush painting her cheeks.

She doesn’t hate him. That’s a good sign at least.

She starts to put the boxes of condoms in a bag, but David stops her.

“That’s okay. We don’t need a bag.” He grabs one of the boxes and hands it to Killian before picking up the other one for himself.

Killian manages a small smile at Emma and leaves the store without his dignity or his pride. He doesn’t kill his best friend, but he does make a promise to himself; he’s never taking David with him anywhere ever again. He may just have to find a different partner.

~*~

Emma yawns and slowly nurses her coffee. She hates closing and then opening the very next morning. She’s told her boss several times to stop scheduling her like this, but he never listens.

She hears the automatic doors slide open and has to force herself to remove her lips from her coffee lid so she can lift her head and greet the customer who’s just walked in.

She’s not prepared for sex on legs today or those smoldering blue eyes, or how ridiculously attractive he looks in just a t-shirt and snug-fitting jeans, but she’s not complaining when he walks up to the counter without even purchasing anything.

“I was hoping you’d be here…” he says with a timid smile as he scratches behind his ear and draws a shaky breath. “Although I’m a little surprised you’re back at work so soon.”

Emma shrugs. “I know. They should give me a cot in the back because it feels like I’m always here anyway, so why not sleep here too?”

Killian flashes a small smile, and she can’t help but notice that the air between them is more tense than usual. He seems nervous and she’s not sure why.

“So, how can I help you today?” She narrows her eyes at him. “You didn’t use all those condoms already, did you?”

He chuckles, his cheeks turning crimson. “God no, actually, I wanted to…” he pauses and scratches behind his ear again, taking in a long, wobbly breath. “I wanted to… will you have coffee with me tomorrow… or whenever you have a morning off?”

Emma hopes the shock she feels isn’t evident on her face, but she finds her mouth opening on its own accord. “Sure,” she blurts out, “but… well…” She stumbles for words. She’s not opposed to hanging out with Killian as a friend, but she’s not exactly sure how same-sex relationships work. Do gay men get jealous when their male partners hang out with female friends? “Would David be okay with that?”

Emma’s surprised when Killian laughs at her question. “Why wouldn’t he be okay with it? He’s the one who’s been trying to get me to ask you out for months. Not that he’s the reason why... ” He buries his face in his hands. “Bloody hell, I’m severely fucking this up,” he mumbles into his palms. Dragging his hands away, he reveals those stormy blue eyes again, and he looks completely wrecked and apologetic.

She’s utterly confused. “David suggested this?” Wait. Is Killian bisexual and David was trying to find his partner a woman to scratch an itch of Killian’s? Are they swingers or—what the fuck is going on?

“No, he just encouraged me because I’ve been too fucking nervous to ask you out. You’re...” He plants his hands on his hips and closes his eyes briefly, taking another long breath. “I like you, Emma. I’ve liked you for a while, and I would very much like to take you out on a date, that is, if I didn’t completely screw this up already.”

“Wait, I’m confused. So David’s okay with this?”

He furrows his brows in confusion. “Love, I don’t need his permission to ask you out,” he chuckles. “I’m a grown man.”

Emma frowns in frustration. It’s too damn early for mind games right now. “Yeah, you’re a grown man who’s in a relationship with another grown man,” she says louder than she had meant to. Her words draw the attention of other customers passing by and she receives some odd looks.

“Wait a bloody minute. You think David and I are…” Killian pauses to burst into laughter.

Emma wrinkles her brows. “Wait, you’re not?”

Killian shakes his head, laughter still booming from his chest. “No, I can assure you, I’m very much into women. David and I are best friends and partners when we’re on the job, but we’re not gay.”

“Oh.” Now Emma’s so thoroughly and utterly confused, her head is spinning. She hasn’t had nearly enough coffee to deal with something so confusing and her head’s starting to pound. “But what about the condoms?”

Killian presses his hands against the counter, drops his head, shaking it furiously, like he’s silently cursing. “I’m going to kill David.” He lifts his head, his expression etched with apology. “The condoms weren’t for us. David was buying them for himself and his girlfriend. He was only taking advantage of the sale and wanted me to have the other box because he thought if I carried condoms on me then I wouldn’t have an excuse to not ask you out.”

Oh. Now it makes sense. Kinda sorta. “Okay, so let me get this straight,” Emma sucks in a long breath, “you and David aren’t lovers, and you’re currently single and asking me out on an actual date?”

“Now we’re on the same page,” he says, his eyes lighting up as a smile curves his lips.

Emma sighs in relief. But now remains the other question weighing on her mind. “But why me?”

He furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I work at Walgreens.”

“I fail to see the problem, love.”

“But you’re…” she waves her hands, gesturing at him and his glorious form, “you’re you, and I’m… well,” she shrugs, “I’m me.”

“I know.” He smirks, and it makes her heart do a little flip. “That’s why I’m asking you out. Because you’re you, not because of where you work at.”

Emma’s heart flutters at his statement and she smiles. They’re silent again, but this time it's a comfortable silence as they stare into each other’s eyes. She knows the moment is about to be ruined though because a customer approaches the counter, impatiently waiting to be rung up as Killian backs away from the counter. Emma really doesn’t want this conversation to end, but she knows it has to, at least for now.

“So, is that a yes or a no?” Killian asks, his lips slanted into a grin when Emma starts ringing up the customer without giving him an answer.

She looks up from her task of scanning the items and flashes him a frail smile. She knows what her answer is, but she doesn’t want him to leave yet. “Can you wait outside for a few minutes?”

Killian nods without hesitation. “Sure, love.”

Emma sighs in relief and finishes ringing up the customer. When she’s done, she quickly picks up the store phone to page another cashier so she can take her fifteen-minute break. Once Emma is relieved by her coworker, she hurries out of the store and searches for Killian, her heart slamming in her chest. She sees him, leaning against the building with his hands in his pockets. Emma marches up to him and takes his hand, leading him to the side of the building, where they'll be less visible.

"Where are we going, love?" he asks.

She doesn't answer, but she's pretty sure the determination in her step says it all. She presses him against the wall when they reach the side of the building, and without any sort of warning, she grabs a fistful of his shirt and crushes his lips with hers.

Killian responds with a groan as he cards his hands through her hair. His lips are even softer and more luscious than she’d imagined. And God he’s a good kisser; she’d nailed that part in her fantasies. They get caught up in a delicious, mind-numbing kiss that has her heart racing and her breathing shattered. She can't believe she's kissing Killian fuck-me Jones, sex on legs , the man who's been the star of her dreams for six months.

How did she ever think this guy was gay? Because judging by the way he kisses her and teases her bottom lip with his teeth, the way his tongue greedily explores her mouth to find her own tongue, the way he wraps some strands of hair around his fingers and grabs her hip with his other hand to tug her toward him, pressing her against him, judging by the hard bulge in his pants that causes the heat to spread to her core, he’s definitely not gay.

When they break for air, they’re both panting as he gently leans his forehead against hers. He caresses her cheek, his eyes flickering with hope as she licks her lips. “Should I take that as a yes?”

“No.”

His face clouds with disappointment, and his expression makes her heart hurt.

“You asked me to go out for coffee with you tomorrow, but I’m thinking; what if we went out for dinner tonight after I get out of work instead?”

A slow grin spreads across his lips. “I wouldn’t say no.”

Emma smiles vibrantly and blushes. “Good, then it’s a date.”

He pulls away, taking a shaky breath of relief. “And just so we’re still on the same page, I don’t want you to think I’m expecting anything more than dinner since David bought me those condoms last night. As I said, that was David’s twisted attempt at trying to get me to ask you out.”

Emma laughs. “I’m not worried. Either way, there’s no rush to use them up. Condoms have a shelf life of five years.” She flashes him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I know way too much about condoms.”

Killian chuckles and presses a kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay, love. I told you I don’t care about your occupation… or that you thought I was gay.”

Emma swats him playfully on the shoulder. “In my defense, David did call himself your sugar Daddy.”

Killian blushes.

God, he’s so fucking adorable when he blushes.

“You’re right, he did. He likes to joke around like that… and embarrass the hell out of me.”

Emma laughs. "I've noticed."

He takes out his phone to punch in her number and address and agrees to pick her up later tonight. Then they go back to making out until she has to get back to work. They bid each other farewell, and she practically floats through the automatic doors with a smile blooming across her face, her lips red and swollen.

She’s so glad Killian’s not gay.

They end up making use of the condoms David bought him, but it sure as hell didn’t take five years to use them all. More like two weeks. If that.

#cs ff #captain swan #with a side of captain charming #my fic #for onceuponaprincessworld

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staytheb · 5 years ago

Text

Errands

Pairing: SF9′s Youngbin x OC [Seul] Genre: slice of life, slight fluff Word Count: 4,925 Summary: Seul runs errands believing she’ll get a job, but finds out that she’s doing them for her friend that was supposed to do them. Still though, a job may still be in the talks after she finishes the errands earlier than expected. part two: Acting Secretary (somewhat)

Warning: none, swear words lol

so... this is new, but not really. i had wrote this with another idol in mind like a year or so back. i changed it with Youngbin instead and gave my sister what she wanted. lol anyways, this was supposed to be like an idea for a chapter fic, but i don’t have any interest in doing that and why this story is the way that it is. i may or may not actually make a chapter story, but shall see in the future. i just didn’t want this written thing to be left hidden and forgotten. other than that, happy reading and kthxbai, Admin Lia~

After dropping Yeon at her new work place, Seul dropped off her three year old daughter, Jangmi, with her usual babysitter, Yuna. Yuna was also a good friend of the sisters as well as a fellow mother. Seul could always depend on her for help, especially on such short notice.

"Thanks for watching Jangmi, Yuna." Seul thanked the older woman.

"No problem, Seul. Besides, the boys just love Jangmi like their own sister." Yuna commented as she watched her oldest son leading Jangmi in a random game.

"Yeah, Wonjin’s a great older brother and Jangmi just loves baby Jiho, too."

"Oh, I know. She loves cooing at him. Anyways, how's the job hunting going?"

"Um, okay? Just a bit rough."

"It's because of Seokwon, huh?"

Seokwon was Seul's ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter. The separation was a bit messy and quite complicated, but Seul eventually pulled through. It was Seokwon who was having a fit about it and obstructing her life. He would contact other companies to prevent Seul from working with them when he found out she was working under whatever company she would have applied to. It was so that she would be force to return to work for him again and Seul wasn't having any of that. She would never let that man control her life and happiness ever again. Even if it meant having to constantly look for employment every few weeks or months.

"If I was still working I would have gotten you through and or pull some strings. I mean I could still ask Kyungtae if you wanna work for his company?"

"Nah, it's all good. Besides, I don't think I could ever work for Kyungtae with how he manages."

"I know. I don't blame you."

"Yeah, but luckily, Yeon is doing well and she hasn't messaged me yet."

"Yeah, I never pictured her as an office lady."

"Me either and neither did she."

Seul let out a sigh remembering what she had told herself to do today.

"Alright, Yuna, I gotta go, but do let me know about Jangmi if she gets too much."

Yuna cast her an understanding smile while patting her back.

"No worries, Seul. Get yourself a job first and just leave Jangmi to me in the mean time."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, hon."

~~~~~~~~~

Seul had gotten back on the road when her phone rang. It wasn't her sister or friend, but another friend who was a male. She answered through the bluetooth.

"Aren't you supposed to be working, Dawon?" Seul asked the caller as the male chuckled. "I am, Seul."

"Uh huh. Right."

"Yeah, yeah, but back to the subject of working, that's why I'm calling you."

"What do you want? I'm out driving looking for job openings that isn't related to my ex."

"I've heard and know that it's been impossible since he has such huge connections."

"Unfortunately."

"Anyways, that's why I have a proposition for you which for now involves you driving, but not looking further for a job."

"You couldn't just say that you know of an opening for me to apply for?"

"That's no fun. Anyways, the first thing I need you to do is go to Banana Boutique and the rest I'll send you in a text in a minute."

"Okay. That's it? Does this job pay well because I really do need the money as soon as possible."

"It does, but you'll get a fat bonus if you can complete everything on the list I've sent you."

"How much of a bonus are we talking about here?"

"Three times than I would make in a two weeks."

"Dang. That's more than what I would make if I worked with Seokwon again."

"Yeah, but it's better because you won't have to work with Seokwon again."

"Shoot. I'm in, but why so much?"

"Boss' orders and he won't tell me."

"Okay then. I'm down"

"There is a catch."

"Which is?"

"You'll need to be back before twelve-forty-five though for anything to count to get the job."

Seul glanced at the time on her dashboard and rolled her eyes.

"Which is like less than four hours. That's a lot of time."

"It may seem like so, but it's not."

"Then is it even worth it?"

"I know you can do it! Seul, I swear. It's worth it."

"Yeah, yeah, fine. See you soon, Dawon."

"See you soon and good luck!"

"Thanks and bye."

Seul ended the call with a chuckle as she signaled left to head on over to Banana Boutique. While waiting at the light she received Dawon's detailed message and was confused by the name, Youngbin Kim, and the credit card information that appeared in the beginning of the text. She learned that it would be the person she would be running errands for and his account information to make all of the purchases through before scrolling down to see a weird to-do list.

"Go to Banana Boutique. Buy a business casual outfit along with heels and accessories." Seul read aloud with a raised eyebrow. "Afterwards go to Tangerine Beauty Salon. Get hair and makeup done."

Seul scoffed at the list and wondered if this was even work related, but she trusted Dawon on this despite his playful personality. So she was gonna go with it for now as she really did need the money and that Yeon couldn't be the only one working. Seul scanned the rest of the long list and realized that it was all over the place. If she went based on how it was written then it would have her be driving all across town and even backtracking which would make her waste more time and gas. Quickly, Seul scanned her surrounding to pull off to the side and park for a while.

~~~~~~~~~

After finding a parking spot to rest for a bit, Seul copied the list that Dawon had sent her and put it into her notes. While re-reading everything she rearranged the list so that it would have a better flow for her to complete everything on it without wasting time or backtracking and to even get that triple bonus easily. It also meant that she wouldn't go to Banana Boutique or Tangerine Beauty Salon until nearly the end of the to-do list. To which she didn't mind at all as it would make her look fresh and put together. She finished the new to-do list within ten minutes while getting back on the road again.

The first place that Seul had gone to after the new arrangement was to a dry cleaners where she only had to wait for two minutes. Then she went next door to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription that was already ready for pick-up. After that Seul drove down a few streets to the home improvement store to pick up some paint and home decor that this Mr. Kim wanted. Seul also realized after finishing three errands off the list of twenty-something she had no trouble in stating his card information without the actual plastic card being present in front of these businesses. She wondered how often this guy came that it went this easy.

Seul dismissed the idea and continued to the next item on the list. She drove for awhile before she found the place she was looking for. It was a toy store and besides purchasing the several items that this Young person wanted, she had also purchased three stuffed animals for her daughter and sister. As for Youngbin's belongings several of them she could pick up and take with her like some of the sports balls and smaller items while the rest of the things were to be shipped out as they were either too big to fit in her vehicle or weren't in stock at the store itself.

~~~~~~~~~

Seul let out a tired sigh upon placing the two small bags from a jeweler's shop she had just visited inside her car. She was happy that she had a vehicle to accommodate all the things she was stashing into her car for this supposed job. If not, she would have declined Dawon's proposition for it. She just wondered what kind of person this Youngbin Kim was as she couldn't help but imagined the guy upon doing his errands. He either seemed too lazy to pick up his stuff or the fact that he was super busy and had no time for minor inconveniences.

Then again, someone that purchased toys couldn't be all that bad either. Maybe he had a child and a wife, but work was constantly demanding that it didn't leave him time to do such small errands. Or he could just be showering his loved ones with material things to make up for his lack of presence. Who knows what it could be as it could seriously be anything. It really gave her some insight, but then again she knew that she couldn't just based everything off of some list. Seul usually knew the person a bit better once she actually met them, but for now she would just let it be.

Anyways, Seul started her car and drove to the nearest grocery store so she can buy this Youngbin person some groceries before having to go to another location and buy some house cleaning supplies as well for his home. After this errand she would have two more stops to complete and she would be good on time and closer to a job. The second to last stop would be taking a majority of all the items to this apartment complex before heading to Dawon's work place with the other things on the list to be given to his boss. Of course before heading to the work place she would have to stop by some restaurant to pick up the boss' lunch.

Still, Seul was seriously confused as this seem more like a personal errand run that the person himself could do it, but she was doing it instead for a job opening. Nevertheless, Seul reminded herself that it was for the bonus and that she badly needed the job as soon as possible. Then again, she was wondering if others were doing this just as she was and it would be pointless since it meant that this Youngbin Kim person was getting things done more than once and spending a lot more than needed. Seul shook the thoughts away as it didn't matter to her since it wasn't her money or items that she'll be dealing with.

Anyways, once she got done grocery shopping she headed towards Water Apartments which to be honest was a high-end luxury apartment complex building that she for sure wouldn't be able to afford in her entire life. Even less of knowing someone personally who actually lived here. Anyhow, just like using this guy's name and his information to do the errands, Seul was instantly assisted in having the items transported easily to the guy's apartment by a few of the staff members after she informed them where she had to take them.

Seul herself took care of putting away the groceries and cleaning supplies. Upon seeing the apartment, Seul knew for sure that this Youngbin Kim guy was indeed a bachelor and had no significant other whatsoever. She wondered if Dawon's boss even lived here as there was practically no food in the fridge or the cabinets. Neither were there any picture frames or personal touches to the overall place when she had put away the bagged clothing and the prescription when she entered the main bedroom to lay them on the bed. It seemed like it was in a presentation mode to be shown to potential buyers for the place. Then again, Seul assumed the guy must be a minimalist or could have just recently moved in hence the to-do list and a family must be on the way to add those touches.

Shaking the thoughts away and getting back to focus, Seul resumed putting the things away. Once everything was settled, Seul took photos of the places where the items were now settled as it was required of her to do so since it proved that she actually completed the errands and sent the images to Dawon. Seul returned to her car and went to the post office to drop off some of the packages she had done earlier before heading back towards Dawon's workplace to finish out the rest of the list. She felt proud as she had shaved off basically an hour. Everything felt like it would be smooth sailing from here on out.

~~~~~~~~~

After quickly purchasing a basic yet cute outfit from Banana Boutique with minimal accessories to complement and visiting Tangerine Beauty Salon to style the way she preferred to look, Seul arrived at Hot Potato to pick up Youngbin's meal along with her own with less than an hour to spare. Luckily she had called in earlier to make an order so that when she arrived she just had to do a pick up. So when she entered the restaurant she was checked out by her cousin upon walking up to the counter for pick-ups.

"Oh ho ho. You're looking good." Kwangjin complimented. "A hot date? A new candidate father figure for Jangmi?"

Seul rolled her eyes.

"No, Kwangjin. It's for a job. Anyways, I have a group pick-up order."

"Oh, so it was for you."

"Mmhmm."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

Kwangjin momentarily left to fetch Seul's order before returning shortly with four bags in hand along with three drinks.

"So who's the other order for if not you or Yeon?" Kwangjin asked while setting the items on the counter.

"My future boss. I'm picking up something for his lunch today, too."

Seul held her phone out for Kwangjin to read.

"Anyways, the buldak with both the rice cake and steamed egg is for my future boss. The rest is mine which I'll pay separately."

Kwangjin was inputting Young's card info before recognizing it soon afterwards.

"Your future boss is Youngbin Kim?"

"Possibly. Why?"

"Oh, well, he's a friend of mine. I could put in a good word for you like I did for Yeon."

"Yeah you should've done that in the first place like you did with Yeon."

Kwangin chuckled as he recalled that situation.

"I'm pretty sure she still wishes to be working here though."

"True, but she can't stand working with you though."

"Not my fault I'm here everyday."

"True, but you keep messing with her schedules and that's why she didn't want to work here again."

"Haha, yeah, that's right. Anyways, Youngbin didn't have any job offerings so that's why I didn't say anything. Also you don't want to work here either."

"Oh okay, and yeah true about working here. Although it isn't bad or anything."

"Because you just don't want me as your boss and me messing up your schedule."

"That too, but are you done inputting the info yet?"

"I am, but why not make him pay for it all?"

"Because I'm not like that."

"Yeah, I know, but here."

Kwangjin handed his cousin the receipt for Youngbin's meal and rejected Seul's card.

"Yours is on the house."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

Kwangjin cast her a smug look while handing the bags over to her along with the three drinks he knew were her and Yeon's favorite.

"I didn't order any drinks." Seul declared with a confused expression.

"I know. It's on me, too. Enjoy and good luck in getting the job."

"Thanks and you better not be calling him to get me in without my own merit."

"I would never do that."

"Mmhmm. Bye."

"Later."

Seul took her things and waved him off while taking a sip of her Green Tea Latte of the three drinks that her cousin gave her.

~~~~~~~~~

When Seul arrived to Dawon's workplace, her eyebrows furrowed upon recognizing the streets and the buildings before heading towards the underground parking lot she had dropped off her sister earlier today.

"Does Dawon work here, too?" She mumbled as she found a parking space not that far from the elevators. "Maybe I could give Yeon her meal while I'm at it."

She had messaged Dawon earlier that she was almost done, but didn't let him know she was here while making sure her appearance was presentable. She did send her sister a message about having her lunch and to let her know where to meet up. As for Dawon he had already messaged her about what to do at the front desk and where to go from there so she figured she could surprise him. Seul got out of her car and opened the truck of the vehicle. She pulled out her blue collapsible wagon and unfolded it for usage while setting it on the concrete floor. This was a nifty item when going to places with Jangmi.

Seul placed the food and the items that Youngbin had wanted inside the wagon. Like the documents he had left at his apartment along with two succulents of nine he wanted to be at the office for some reason. As well as some other things like books, caps, and a Janggi set. She even placed her drinks in the pockets on the outside of the compartment before shutting and locking up her car. Seul placed her other bag over her shoulders while heading to the elevator.

Seul arrived on the seventh floor of the B building after checking in with a Park Haeyoon at the receptionist desk and obtaining her visitor's pass. She arrived on the floor and pulled her little wagon behind her in search of Dawon as he didn't appear like he said he would. She was given curious looks by the workers on the floor and knew it was because of the wagon, but no one questioned her about it. Seul was gonna ask one of the staff if they knew where Dawon was, but came upon a familiar face instead.

"Inseong?"

Inseong met Seul's gaze as it lit up with recognition.

"Seul! Wow, what are you doing here?"

He enveloped her into a friendly hugged before noticing her wagon. He gave her a knowing look once he pulled away.

"Did Dawon tell you there was a possible job opening and that you had to do all of these errands for our boss because he'll pay like triple the amount?"

"Um, yeah, how'd you know?"

"Because Dawon was supposed to be the one to do that. Not you."

"Excuse me?"

Inseong held back a laugh upon knowing how his friend was going to react while also taking a few steps back just in case Seul got violent.

"You're joking, right?" Seul asked with a not amused expression. "Because I didn't just waste my time to do his job for him for nothing, Inseong."

She then motioned at her whole attire.

"I also didn't spend money to get new clothes, my hair, and makeup done either."

"I know, Seul, I know, but..."

"Just lead me to his ass and don't worry, I won't cause a scene. I'm not like that."

Inseong chuckled at his friend's words before leading them both to Dawon's work desk.

~~~~~~~~~

"Don't worry, sir. Everything will be done before the allotted time." Dawon spoke into the phone when Seul and Inseong arrived in front of his desk.

Dawon's back was turned away from them and wasn't aware he had visitors. It wasn't until he turned around like he wasn't at work, but at home in mid-conversation that he took notice of his friends.

"Oh, hey." Dawon said in a slow manner as his eyes glance from Inseong to Seul and back and forth totally forgetting that he was supposed to be on the phone with his boss and discussing important matters.

"I'll leave it between the two of you." Inseong said with a playful tone while patting Seul's back in a fair warning to be calm as possible.

"So... uh, Seul," Dawon began nervously while unconsciously placing the phone on his desk and not back into its proper place, "How's your day going?"

"Pretty well until I learned the truth about you using me to do your boss' errands for you."

Her dark eyes bore into his as Dawon's averted his gaze to something behind her and looked down. He noticed the blue wagon and let out a nervous chuckle as he returned his gaze back on to his friend.

"Oh yeah?" Seul mused with a wry smile. "So this job opening you mentioned was just a lie for me to get it done for you so that you wouldn't get in trouble for not doing them?"

"What? No. It's totally real. Look at you. All dressed up thanks to Mr. Kim's credit card information. Now you can have an official interview with him."

"That's not what you told me on the phone when I agreed to this supposed errand run, Dawon."

"True, but I did tell you that it would be worth it."

"How? Your boss doesn't even know what you did or that I'm even here."

"True and I'm sure I could put in a good word for you."

"That's not how I roll, Dawon, and you know that."

"Okay true, and yes, Seul, I know but for now, most importantly, do you have his lunch?"

Dawon stood up from his seat and maneuvered around his desk to stand before his friend eagerly.

"I do," Seul answered with a weird smile that Dawon couldn't interpret, "But I'm not giving it to you."

"What? Why not?"

"Because your dumb ass used me when you could've done it yourself."

"Seul, you don't know how busy I was today to do any of the things he wanted me to do."

"Inseong told me that you had a whole two weeks to complete all of that minus the meal. You made me do all of that in less than four hours."

"I know, I know, but just let me off the hook this one time. I'll pay you back in a big way. Just wait and see."

"You do realize you've done this multiple times on multiple occasions, right? Not just with me, but with Yeon, too."

"Yes, bu-"

Seul didn't let him finish as she continued her rant.

"Besides, Kwangjin knows him, too. They're good friends. Now I feel like a fool because Kwangjin believes this was legit as I mentioned this errand thing in passing. Thanks to you I wasted my whole morning when I could've gotten something more important done with my time."

"I'm sorry, Seul. I really am."

"Your sorry isn't gonna do anything for me, Dawon. Besides, you're not the one that had to pick up and drop off all of his stuff at his apartment. I even had to figure out which of his succulents he wanted here in the office when he had so many. I'm not even his personal assistant, but I still did all of this without knowing him or even having this job now."

Before Dawn could counter her words he was interrupted by his boss who overheard the whole conversation on the phone and exited his office. Youngbin was curious about Dawon's female friend who happened to know Kwangjin as well. Even though Dawon was Youngbin's subordinate, he was also a good friend of his outside of working hours. Maybe a more dependable person to take care of things he nor his other subordinates couldn't have time for be given to this woman instead.

"If you're looking or a job, then how would you like to be my personal assistant?" Youngbin asked from behind Dawon as the duo's attention turned towards Youngbin whose attention was set on Seul more than Dawon.

"What do you say, Miss...?"

~~~~~~~~~

"Well then, Miss Lee, you're hire." Youngbin informs her after interviewing Seul.

Before the interview they all had their lunch and Seul sat with Dawon at his desk eating it since she found it awkward if she ate alone or at the worker's cafeteria. She did meet up with Yeon, but her sister had to return to work immediately as she had this business and sales report to write for her own boss already on the first day of work. Luckily, Dawon was able to inform her about his company, the department, and his colleagues, but still Seul wondered if it was all a joke or not. It turned out that it wasn't and the interview lasted less than an hour. Seul felt a little odd about it when Youngbin told her that she just got the job soon afterwards.

"Just like that? You didn't ask to see my resume or asked me about my past work history, Mr. Kim."

"Mmhmm. While I ate my lunch I reviewed Dawon's information he had given to me of you. Although it was quite limited, but it was enough to make the judgment. The skills and management you've demonstrated with what I've seen so far with what you've done with the to-do list that he gave you earlier this morning impresses me. I see that it will correlate well with the position of being my personal assistant."

Youngbin then sifted through the images on his iPad and pointed out the things that he was most curious about that he got from Dawon to send to him while they all had lunch so he could have a heads up on Seul's competence.

"I noticed that I have a receipt from Hot Potato for my lunch, but the price is way too low for what I saw you brought in when we ate lunch. I also noticed there isn't a receipt for Banana Boutique nor one for Tangerine Beauty Salon although these locations was more for your attire than for me. Is there a reason for those, too?"

Seul nodded with an expression indicating that it was obvious.

"Yeah. I used my own money at the boutique and salon since it was something I was picking out and that you shouldn't even be paying for these in the first place. As for Hot Potato, a close friend covered the cost."

"I see."

Youngbin closed down his tablet, set it aside, and looked at Seul with a calm demeanor.

"Since you'll be working for me, Miss Lee, any inconveniences befallen on you should be my responsibility as your boss from now on."

Youngbin partially turned to open a drawer to the right of him before finding what he was looking for. He scribbled some things onto the small pad before ripping a piece of it from its place and held it out for Seul to take.

"This is a reimbursement for the boutique and salon that you spent with your own money."

Seul declined with a polite smile.

"It's fine, Mr. Kim. You don't need to reimburse me for it."

Youngbin slightly frowned while retracting his hand and placed the pad and slip aside. He then went through one of his other drawer once again before finding what he was looking for. He faced the woman again and gently set a black card before her and slid it closer for her to take.

"Then this card will be for your own personal use among other things to do your job efficiently without any hindrance. There's no limit and I wouldn't have to write you a check for reimbursement each time you pay out of your own pocket."

Seul stared at the black card intrigued, but made no move to take it. She glanced back up at Youngbin who was already watching her as he motioned with his hand for her to take the card.

"Please, take it. It's yours while you're working for me."

Seul still regarded him a bit.

"And when I stop working for you in the future?"

"I can just cut that line out with ease."

"I see."

Youngbin leaned forward and pushed the card even closer for Seul to take. Seul continued to gaze at the small plastic item, but didn't take it once again. One side of Youngbin's lips quirked up amused before relaxing back in his chair while gazing at her calmly.

"The card can be used freely without a pin or inputting my information if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not worried about your card, Mr. Kim. I just don't see why you would entrust me with your money so casually just like hiring me so easily."

Seul's cool demeanor raised the corners of Youngbin's lips higher before he responded back.

"Because you've proven yourself to be trustworthy and responsible, Miss Lee. That's why I've hired you as I have no problem with giving you that card to further build the trust and reliability I see in you thus far."

Seul kept quiet as she contemplated the whole thing in her head more before slowly nodding in agreement.

"Okay. Thank you."

"Good. So when's the earliest you can start, Miss Lee?"

Seul didn't hesitate to take the card this time around while matching his gaze.

"As soon as possible, Mr. Kim."

"Perfect. You'll officially start after the weekend on Monday as your first day on the job. Today we'll count it as an orientation and I'll have Dawon show you around the buildings so you can familiarize yourself of the surroundings. He'll also fill you in about everything else that I'll be unable to do."

Youngbin stood up with Seul following soon after as he led them out of his office.

"Welcome to Marketing of NEOZ Group, Miss Lee."

#staytheb #sf9 scenarios #kim youngbin

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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JACOBIN MAGAZINE

American culture is saturated with the idea that public housing is inevitably and uniformly grim — not so much a place to live as a place to lay your head while you plot your escape, or to simply resign yourself to paralyzing poverty and social invisibility forever.

The impression of public housing as dull, dilapidated, and dangerous has always worked in favor of those who would rather there be no public housing at all. Private real-estate developers, landlords, banks, and assorted wealthy people who don’t like paying taxes benefit enormously from our pessimism and lack of imagination. It galls and frightens them that we might someday start to view public housing not as emergency aid for the most destitute, but as an ambitious long-term solution and preferable alternative to the atomization, insecurity, and relentless exploitation of the private housing market — that is, that we might build public housing so attractive that people wouldn’t want to take out mortgages or pay market-rate rent anymore.

So they would rather we didn’t find out about Red Vienna, or Le Lorrain in Brussels, or Sa Pobla in Mallorca, or even the heyday of British council housing. These projects past and present demonstrate that social housing can be vibrant, safe and beautiful, all while being affordable and reliable for ordinary working people.

1. Red Vienna

To capitalists whose profits depend on extracting as much value from land and shelter as possible, raised expectations for what public housing can accomplish are an existential threat. And nothing raises those expectations quicker and higher than familiarity with Red Vienna, the paragon of social housing in modern history.

Unsurprisingly, the massive undertaking to build decommodified housing for the city’s residents was spearheaded by socialists. A robust labor movement with socialist leadership had established itself in Austria during industrialization in the late ninteenth century, but socialism really came into its own after the First World War, when the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy created new political openings. In Vienna, the Social Democratic Workers Party came to power in 1919 and immediately set about implementing an ambitious reform program.

The socialist city government imposed heavy taxes on the wealthy and, starting in 1923, used new revenue to replace its overcrowded and drab working-class slums with modern public housing. Because these were built by socialists with a vision for decommodifying shelter entirely and with a political allegiance to the city’s working class, they weren’t begrudging bare-bones offerings. Far from it, they were high-concept, masterfully-built edifices, many of which have stood the test of time. Their construction doubled as a good unionized public jobs program, helping the economy recover after the war.

Red Vienna’s social housing was designed not just as a place for workers to recharge between shifts — what Barbara Ehrenreich has aptly called “canned labor” — but as a place to live. The majestic apartment buildings featured leafy courtyards, copious open space, and plenty of natural light. They had well-equipped shared laundries and communal state-of-the-art kitchen facilities. They were connected to, and sometimes contained within them, public schools and cooperative stores. Many even had bathhouses and swimming pools, healthcare and childcare centers, pharmacies, post offices, and libraries on the premises.

The largest apartment block in Red Vienna, Karl Marx-Hof, was used as a fortress against militant fascists in the lead-up to the Second World War. The socialists put up a valiant resistance, but in time Red Vienna fell to the fascists. Even so, the city retained the memory of beautiful social housing: for residents of Vienna, the illusion that shelter had to be either private or subpar had been forever shattered. Vienna continued to build desirable social housing after the war, and today 62 percent of the city’s residents live in social housing, compared to 5 percent in New York City.

“We have an old idea here that not only rich people should live in good conditions,” says one 52-year-old social housing resident in Vienna. “It’s an important idea and we should hold onto it.”

2. British Council Housing

In 1979, 42 percent of Brits lived in public housing. The big and bold postwar British public housing system wasn’t a telltale sign or symptom of widespread immiseration. Instead it was the fruit of a century of reformers’ visions and working-class struggles. Some council estates were modest, while others — like the charming, eccentric turn-of-the-century Boundary Street Estate, or the striking modernist buildings designed by communist architect Berthold Lubetkin — were carefully planned for maximum livability and architectural allure.

British social housing was funded through progressive taxation, an arrangement that social democrats justified by pointing out that public housing tenants performed the labor that made large personal fortunes possible. Naturally, this never sat well with the domestic ruling class. So when a global recession in 1973 caused a crack in the foundation of the economic system, capitalists and their political allies leapt at the opportunity. Deliberate underfunding of the housing projects — rationalized as a consequence of unavoidable recession-era belt-tightening — began in the 1970s, followed by a full-on privatization scheme in the 1980s.

When Thatcher came to power in 1979, she swiftly passed legislation allowing tenants to buy and eventually sell their council flats — a clever way of absorbing the publicly-furnished housing stock into the private sector and reestablishing the supremacy of capitalist markets. Low-income tenants have been subjected to steadily disappearing protections and increasing rents ever since.

As shelter costs creep up on earnings across the UK, many who grew up in public council housing are nostalgic for a time when working-class tenants were protected from the vagaries of the private rental market. They remember their council-house upbringings fondly. “You practically knew every kid that was here, and you always had someone to play with,” recalls one woman who grew up in the Quaker Court Estate in London. “The parents got on brilliantly as well. If one of you was having a party, the whole lot of you would go.”

“We had an idyllic childhood,” says another, who grew up in the Boundary Street Estate in London — the city’s oldest social housing project, born on the heels of the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1885. “We really did. I mean, it seems strange to say that now.”

A man who grew up in the Heygate Estate in London recalls that he “loved it here… I remember being dazzled by the whiteness of the fitted kitchens, and the stairwells seemed to head to heaven, and away from the slate-grey streets below. This was the modern world, and it was ours for the taking.”

Austerity drove many estates into disrepair in the late twentieth century, and Thatcher’s ongoing right-to-buy scheme continues to privatize what remains.

Only 8 percent of Brits live in public housing today, but they still have a stronger intuition about social housing than Americans do. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has recently proposed an ambitious new social housing initiative, and it’s been received with an enthusiasm that’s difficult — though not impossible — to imagine in the United States.

3. Spain’s Architecturally Adventurous Housing Projects

Though privatization and austerity are on the march everywhere, the social-democratic legacy of high-quality public housing hasn’t entirely evaporated. Particularly in Europe, there are a handful of recent developments that draw inspiration from the projects of the past — particularly their architectural legacy.

Spain has recently taken up the mantle, and has turned its public housing program into an opportunity for architectural experimentation. In Madrid, the Mirador housing project features a large open space in the middle of the vertical building that doubles as a communal plaza, while the Carabanchel Social Housing project is heavy on bamboo and the 120 Parla project has a retro-futuristic appearance. In Barcelona, the Torre Plaça Europa looks identical to a pricey condo building in London or New York City — same with the Parc Central Social Housing Building in Valencia. The Sa Pobla project in Mallorca looks like something a movie star would rent out for an Instagrammable vacation, and social housing for mineworkers in Asturias is a geometric novelty, inspired in color and shape by the coal that the miners extract.

But Spain is not run by socialists, and while the architecture of these new social housing projects upends the idea that poor people should live in ugly and boring buildings, the projects leave some things to be desired. These buildings are often located on the peripheries of cities, where land is cheaper — for a reason, since these areas are underdeveloped and remote. Building social housing on the outskirts tends to segregate working-class tenants and burden them with costly and time-consuming travel, a mistake also made by the otherwise relatively successful Swedish miljonprogrammet, or Million Program. Fashionable buildings are an improvement, but ultimately unsatisfactory if there aren’t shops or schools nearby.

Imagine these buildings in vibrant city centers and you’ll have an idea of what social housing can actually achieve. Better yet, imagine them in bustling neighborhoods and equipped with their own publicly-run pharmacies and daycares. Now you see why Red Vienna remains the social housing gold standard, in terms of real value to working-class tenants.

4. Savonnerie Heymans and Le Lorrain, Brussels

Brussels has given Spain a run for its money in recent years. Two developments in particular — Savonnerie Heymans and Le Lorrain — are shining examples of social housing architecture.

Savonnerie Heymans, named after the soap factory that used to occupy the site, is less than half a mile from Brussels’ central square. It comprises dozens of units of varying types — studios, lofts, duplexes and apartments ranging from one to six bedrooms. The architecture is as varied as the units themselves: there are boxlike structures made from glass and slatted wood that have a modern Finnish-sauna feel, and white pitched-roof dwellings that resemble modern interpretations of Belgian cottages. In the middle is the old chimney from the soap factory, the kind of homage to industrial history that’s usually cloying in bourgeois settings, less so in a social housing project.

The smaller Le Lorrain is designed by the same architects and is also a renovated industrial complex, this one an old iron dealer. The new estate is spotless and stylish, like something out of Kinfolk or Dwell. But what’s remarkable about Savonnerie Heymans and Le Lorrain isn’t just their pleasing architecture; it’s that, unlike the Spanish projects, they’re located on high-value lots in lively neighborhoods, avoiding the problem of working-class siloing. Their designs also encourage communal life to a greater extent: plenty of shared outdoor space, pavilions and gardens and “mini-forests,” and Savonnerie Heymans even has a game library for kids.

The major downside to social housing in Belgium is that it’s a complicated public-private affair, with a labyrinthine nexus of developers, providers, payers and categories of tenant. The system is decentralized, and while Brussels doesn’t allow tenants to buy (or eventually sell) public housing as Britain does, other Belgian regions do — and there’s a danger that Brussels could fall prey to this policy, as austerity and neoliberalism break the social-democratic commitments of municipal governments across Europe.

This is another area in which Red Vienna shines by contrast. The planning, construction, finance and maintenance of its social housing were highly centralized. The buildings were completely planned and administered by a democratically-elected body, and they were never intended to be privatized. They were provided by workers, for workers, ideally forever.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #jacobin magazine #social housing #Housing market #affordable housing #democratic socialism #jacobin

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ofmontys · 6 years ago

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“ ah, well. acceptable forms of payment include but are certainly not limited to : booze, food, arms, real estate, f a v o r s ... i’m not picky. but for this lot? ” monty shakes a small plastic bag between forefinger and thumb, lips decorated with an iced smirk. “ the price’ll be a bit... steep. ”

or, alternatively: hello, hello, hello! delighted to be here! the name’s linc ( she/her ) and i’m comin’ to you live from the ever so lovely est timezone with the one, the only, the absolute bloody douchecanoe, monty monroe !

( charles melton + 23 + muse 51 ) isn’t that ignatius “monty” monroe over there? i heard he joined faction: nomads after they got back to west ham. it’s funny, ‘cause they were only on the service trip because his fraternity received disciplinary community service hours & downtrodden greek lifers equaled eager customers. hopefully they fit in there – they’re VULPINE, but also PERFIDIOUS. oh, i’m sure they’ll be fine.

“road work ahead? uh, yeah, i sure hope it does!” ( alternatively: monty monroe, a roadmap. )

firstborn to two of the most powerful executives in the world in hong kong, heading alacritas, the world’s most cutting-edge pharmaceutical company to date. meaning “cheerfulness” and “life”, alacritas’ company mantra is based in life-giving –– “in vivacity, we shine.” lest we forget, though, these pharma high rollers definitely did more than dabble in delinquency. big pharma comes with big drugs: not always the legal kind. and while monty’s parents certainly generate an impressive gross income from respectable trades, they also outsource sketchy labor not listed in their tax reports... illegal substances. mercenaries. insider trading. the monroe’s exploited their industry to the fullest, securing their way to the top of hong kong’s sociopolitical ladder. and, when chinese authorities began questioning their records in 1998, neville and meihui did what any good parents would do to secure a promising future for their only progeny: they shipped two-year-old ignatius off to london, england to live with neville’s sister.

up until his thirteenth year, ignatius thrived: he grew up alongside his younger cousin, essentially as siblings. his aunt became more of a mother than a simple caretaker. the boy was bright. brilliant, really. in primary school, he distinguished himself with his sharp wit and indelible charm. a footballer and intellectual, he fostered many friendships and networked his way into london’s youthful elite. so, when his aunt uprooted their small family to marry an american she met during a layover in dublin, young ignatius was less than pleased.

his aunt’s husband happened to own property in a hole-in-the-wall town in kansas, west ham. ignatius despised the name –– and, upon arrival, his dislike only grew. its sleepy streets couldn’t compete with bustling south kensington. despite their opulent accommodations, he developed a sour taste in his mouth concerning west ham and its residents. some semblance of self-perceived superiority took hold –– and, as ignatius easily landed the role of striker on west ham’s varsity soccer team, his peers mostly enabled this attitude.

in high school, he earned the nickname monty: something a bit less posh than his birth name. it worked, and monty found that, by his senior year, he’d grown more comfortable in participating in west ham’s suburban traditions. still, he aimed to attend university far away. and, with an acceptance to stanford’s business school, nearly bloody succeeded. if it weren’t for his idiot step-uncle...

( tw: automobile accident, death, drugs ) the week before graduation, his aunt’s american buffoon of a husband decided it’d be wise to drive home during one of the worst rainstorms of the season. inebriated. he flipped their prized audi. totaled the damned thing. and totaled himself, too. monty’s graduation bash had to be postponed for funeral services. his aunt fell into a terrible depression and, in order to keep the household running properly, monty had no choice but to stay here. in west ham. it was the right thing to do.

so he began school at west ham’s local uni. and hated every moment of it. of course, seeing his high school friends was ideal –– but he wasn’t challenged. wasn’t stimulated. he began sneaking one or two of his aunt’s pills, here and there. the habit slowly grew, little by little. once he rushed omega nu, he began dealing a bit here and there. with the cash, he was able to acquire more lucrative inventory.

he started off in the greek faction but quickly became a nomad due to a little incident concerning a pocket knife and a bit too much alcohol. i imagine he’s still on good terms with some of the guys, but damn... this kid has turned into a loose canon.

personality tidbits! woop woop.

there’s no easy way to say this. he’s a fuckin’ ass. and, ever since their return to this shaken-up version of the world, it’s gotten worse. any moral compass this kid previously had has vacated the building.

while everyone else was panicked about their parents’ absence, monty raided the local pharmacies and practically cleaned them out. he inventoried his own stock and rummaged through the entire estate, broke into rooms his aunt and uncle hadn’t previously allowed him access to. and oh, did he like what he found: a considerable portion of alacritas’ inventory –– and not the entirely legal kind.

you want drugs? got an aching back? a throbbing heart? monty’s got something for that. but it’ll fuckin’ cost you, big. maybe a gun. maybe that pocket knife, or your toolkit. y’think he could have that antifreeze in exchange for this weed? four pills for tomorrow’s rations. think about it. you need this. he’s helping you. but this place’ll go to absolute shit without a market economy so, really? he’s keeping the peace.

business major. definite snake. slither slither, bitches. don’t trust him. he’ll charm your socks off. he’ll seduce you with his warm-honey voice and buttery smile.

have you... seen his little cousin....? no??? he’s worried but won’t admit it. good bloody riddance!! pah! he’s got his fuckin’ house to himself! don’t you even THINK about telling him otherwise, unless you’re there for business... but you’ll have to meet him at a neutral location to exchange goods. he’s not about to, like, orchestrate his own demise, thank you very much.

honestly? hasn’t had a sober moment since their return from the trip. he went with the intent to sell and, because of it, he’s got a heckin stash. so shut up and smoke this blunt with him, or so help him god.

will look you dead in the eye and describe, in detail, how he'll flay your skin strip by strip and use it to sew himself a new pair of boots, if you don't pay up now. cue a snort of cocaine off his key before he twiddles an outstretched palm “understood?”

a true businessman with no instinct for self-preservation. just profit. profit, profit, profit. though he wasn’t raised by his birth parents, they sure as hell passed on their ophidian genes.

honestly quite unhinged. doesn’t respect anyone else’s authority but his own. always armed in some capacity. likes playing with pocket knives. has an affinity for winking for no reason. eyeing you like you’re his next meal. maybe you are. better give him that last red gatorade before you have to find out.

heavily inspired by “bad guy” by billie eilish.

somebody break him. somebody make him break. because he’s a bloody cadbury egg, y’all. eventually, his shell’s gonna crumble.

bisexual as heck. mess as heck. not repressed about it, but will absolutely play about with the truth. not above faking genuine emotion to get you in his bed. or to steal your shit. his sleight of hand is uncanny. for a rich boy, he sure knows how to grift.

but yeah pls like? hmu for plots? i know this is a lot. and a bit half-baked. so i just.... yeah. message me and we can plot, y’all! i’m so hype for this and i can’t wait to write with y’all!! xoxo

#apogeeintro #* // karma police ; arrest this man ! isms.#drugs tw #alcohol tw #death tw #it's a mess but yeah

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pharmacyfollies · 7 years ago

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-So this has been making the rounds in the Pharmacy world. Technically, it really does *not* take 2 hours to fill a prescription. Especially for Tamiflu. You grab the box off of the shelf and slap a label on it. HOWEVER, there are other things going on in a pharmacy that can lead up to a 2 hour wait. Like to hear it? Here it goes....

10. Your doctor sent over the script via the E-Script system. Other doctors also love to utilize the E-Script system so that means at any given time, your E-Scribed script is one out of many that needs to be typed in at the moment depending on how busy it is. The same applies for faxed in or left on voice mail scripts.

9. You're standing in line to drop off a prescription. If you're unlucky, you're in a line 10 deep and it took you 15 minutes just to reach the counter. If you're lucky, there isn't a line because you came before/after the lunch/dinner rush.

8. This is the time of year where Corporate LOVES to cut hours. At *my* pharmacy, that means there's only 1 Pharmacist and 2 Pharmacy Tech's working most of the time. Because only the Pharmacist can take care of drug interactions, final review on scripts, patient consultations, give vaccinations and check blood pressure that means we let her/him handle the important stuff and the Tech's take on the rest of the work load. So there's only 2 people to take in prescriptions, type prescriptions, handle insurance issues, answer phones, fill prescriptions, put away prescriptions, sell prescriptions at the counter and the drive-thru, delete 10 day old prescriptions and walk out of the pharmacy to show someone where the Mucinex is because they just can't find it in aisle 11, towards the end of the aisle, on the 2nd shelf from the top, in the blue and white box.

7. On a busy day, we can fill 500 prescriptions. We're open 14 hours during the week. 14 hours to fill 500 prescriptions. If it's a slow day or the weekend, it's about 350 scripts. On the weekend, we're open 8 hours. 8 hours to fill 350 scripts. That's between 35 to 44 scripts filled in an hour. Remember, only the Pharmacist can do final review and verify a prescription. Most pharmacies have 1 Pharmacist working at a time. That means my Pharmacist is taking about 2 minutes to make sure each and every prescription she/he verifies is correct and does not interact with anything else you're taking so it does not kill you. *2* minutes. Let me repeat that: *2* minutes.

6. Oh dear, my replenishment order just came in. I have 11 large totes of drugs that need to be put away. Hopefully, we'll get that put away before 1pm because that's the time we tell people to come back when we were out of stock on their medication and had to order it for the next day.

5. Grandpa Hank is on the phone. He wants to know if we can set up delivery for today because it's too cold for him to come out to the pharmacy. He called at 11:45am. Gotta get his script ready and get online to our courier service by 12 because that's the cut off for same day delivery.

4. Jane is dropping off prescriptions for her 4 sick children. Unfortunately, Medicaid has enrolled her family under a managed care program, she claims she wasn't made aware of that and has no current insurance information. We have limited capabilities for looking up insurance information and unfortunately for Jane, nothing is coming up. Being that the children have respiratory infections, it's important that they get their medication today so that means spending an ungodly amount of time on the phone with Medicaid to find out who her new insurance carrier is.

3. Bob is dropping off a script but has no idea which of his 5 insurance cards is the current one. Time to play musical insurance cards.

2. Jim is dropping off a prescription for Oxycontin 30mg. Now, Jim has never filled prescriptions with us so we have to register him. Jim lives no where near our pharmacy and the doctor's office is located 2 hours away from us. He's more than willing to pay cash for 240 tablets. Time to verify that prescription with the doctor. Well, I'll be a monkey's bitch! It's a fake. You don't say?! Dr. wants the patient arrested. We call the police and the fun really begins when they come rolling in 5 deep, want to speak to everyone involved with the situation and all that jazz that's involved when they bust someone with fake scripts for C-11 narcotics.

1. Where the hell is my Pharmacist? In the rest room leading the Browns to the Superbowl. She's been holding it in since 8 am and finally got a chance to do so after spending 20 minutes on hold waiting for the doctor only to confirm that the dose he wrote for Heparin would've resulted in an overdose on an infant, spending 15 minutes explaining to a patient that Motrin does not work better than Advil because they're both Ibuprofen, reviewing and verifying 175 prescriptions, counseling patients and giving 15 vaccinations.

In short, you(collective you) are NOT the only patient. Everything that goes into filling a prescription and the distractions that take you away from filling prescriptions is what causes a long wait. Unfortunately, Corporate cares more about making shareholders happy than ensuring patient safety and properly staffing their pharmacies. Until that changes, it will take as long as necessary to fill a prescription regardless if it takes 15 minutes or 3 hours. If it was as simple as slapping a label on a box, Pharmacists wouldn't be spending 4-6 years in college and getting over $50,000 in student loan debt just for that simplicity and the FDA would just make such medication readily available over the counter. We're dealing with peoples lives and a mistake can harm or kill someone, which can result in the pharmacy staff losing their licenses and their jobs, so we're more concerned about getting the script filled right as opposed to getting the script filled right *now*.

#pharmacy #pharmacist #pharmacy tech #pharmacy technician #pharmacy hell #pharmacy follies

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fishylife · 3 years ago

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Problems with Youtube ads

- This post is just a brain dump of thoughts that go through my mind when I’m on Youtube.

- You remember when Youtube videos had no ads? This old lady does. Can’t remember the last time I watched a video that didn’t have an ad. They do exist but only rarely.

- It annoys me a lot when ads have nothing to do with the video. I could be watching a video on video games and the ad will be about insurance. If I was looking for insurance advice I would be looking up videos on that...I know for a fact that Youtube ads are tailored to location, because I often get ads about buying homes where I live. I would think that if the people running the ads actually wanted their ads to work, they would tailor for the ads to match the kind of video too, wouldn’t they? It’s probably more difficult to implement, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about them. Perhaps I would be less annoyed if I was watching a video about fashion and then got one of those low-effort Nordstrom ads.

- Speaking of low-effort ads, some of these ads are so poorly made. I saw an ad for a pharmacy where it was just a voice actor speaking over a photo of a guy in a lab coat. No effort was put into filming an actual video. The Nordstrom ad I was thinking about basically had a voice saying some generic stuff about providing the styles right for you. Meanwhile, the video was a slideshow of stock photo images of people. What irked me even more was that these stock photos didn’t even match this ad. The ad used stock photos of kids and families and I’m like “...are you trying to trick me into thinking that Nordstrom is where you do your family clothes shopping?” So these ads are just so insanely poorly made.

- A lot of Youtubers will have in-video ads for things such as H*llo Fresh, N*rd VPN, etc. I fast forward through them when I can. I’ve seen many people saying that they acknowledge that these Youtubers have to eat so they don’t hold it against them to accept sponsorships, etc. I agree. Youtubers do have to eat. But it’s really difficult for me to take covert marketing seriously, especially when the Youtubers make their ads overly personal. I’d just be happy with very formal ads, like “this video was sponsored by ABC, they have all sorts of options for XYZ products, check out their website or download their app.”

#thinking out loud #youtube #i've had this post with bullet points saved in my drafts for a while #i'm just gonna yolo and post it

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purkinje-effect · 6 years ago

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The Anatomy of Melancholy, 14

Table of Contents Go to first. Go to previous. Go to next.

Updated 2019.01.29. Minor name tweaks.

Pretty hard surveillance tw on this one, ah. And you get a cookie if you can spot the historical conspiracy reference.

Melancholy locked the pharmacy's front door behind himself, then wheeled to the back and took the elevator to the second floor. As he exited the car, Angel came from the break room about the same time, and stopped him in the lounge area.

"Ah, Sir!" It paused, genuinely confused. "Did you just come from downstairs? I was just thinking I needed to check on you. How did your little rooftop rendezvous go with your chums, ha ha!"

"--About that." 'Choly chewed at his lip and eyed his Handy-bot. He favored pushing past it in the belief it would follow. "I know it's a bit early, but could I bother you for a bit of dinner? Really, anything will do."

"Good that you're open to variety," Angel replied, right behind him as expected, "for we haven't got it. I'm afraid all we have left is Halloween candy, a few boxes of Instamash, and BlamCo Mac. Really, we should consider replenishing our pantry next you feel up to it. Perhaps a trip to the grocer's is in order, hm? You did outfit me with this dandy harness, and update my hydraulics, so that I might facilitate that kind of endeavor, after all." It held up two boxes, a red and gold square one and a thin flat teal one. "Would you rather the potatoes or the macaronis?"

"Mm. The macaronis."

While it put back the square box and commenced preparation of the other, it hummed a jaunty vaguely-British tune which its owner couldn't quite place. 'Choly set down his syringer and hood on the table, and with a lump in his throat, he watched the robot.

"Angel, I've been giving it some thought. About how Defense Intelligence Agency gifted me with you when I first came over. I... I know the DIA used you to spy on me. That it wasn't just nationalization effort to adjust me to culture and language. I also know the DIA fell with the rest of the government. We can talk more openly now, don't you think? Being honest with you is going to help us both help each other. Sure, the mandatory name change didn’t fool anybody: everyone still all thought I was a Russian spy or something. But really? They approached me, offered me the position at Deenwood. Part of transplanting key Asian experts into the US military, best I can tell. What can I say? I get bribed easily with promise of access to big toys. But really. All I was hiding was chem trafficking. Lots and lots of chem trafficking."

"I know, Sir."

"--Hawthorne and I--" The chemist cringed and glazed over. "Wait, what?"

"I know all about you and Mister Hawthorne's business practices. I didn't report any of that because it's not what I was programmed to identify and report. They cared only how you handled confidential information. My objections to your proclivities have always wholly been in my interest of preserving your health and quality of life, Sir." It stopped a moment to let the saucepan boil on the hot plate, but readily resumed stirring it as needed. "I am still transmitting this to proper authorities, mind."

The inability to process Angel's response elicited a strange smile.

"Yes, of course. You're likely transmitting to skeletons, but I understand."

He nearly related that Communism had lost, but so had Capitalism. It didn't serve to argue no clear winner when in the nuclear exchange, everyone had lost. His head hurt, between the goings-on with Jared and learning his robot had concealed this level of self-awareness from him from the beginning. In attempting transparency so his activities would come as no surprise, he could have never expected his robot to reciprocate such honesty.

Back when he trafficked chems under the paranoia of crossing the DIA's scrutiny, he'd taught himself enough robotics to defuse what bugging technology he could identify, such that these variably sophisticated sensors transmitted all-clear, where simply disabling them would have drawn attention to any tampering. Yet, even now the remnants of his robotics knowledge would benefit him, to perform maintenance on this stunning testament to the longevity of General Atomics craftsmanship.

Still, the possibility nagged in the back of his head, that Angel's transmissions might ever amount to conflict. He'd discounted the possibility of an existing surviving population, after all. He could get all manner of things wrong, including the radio death of the DIA. He'd have to do something about the bugging equipment, to sate his paranoia. Regardless, it relieved him that his cyclomorphine research had only come up between him and his business partner within the month leading up to the apocalypse. The nature of the chems he had skimmed hadn't stimulated his Handy to rat him out, but provided that it ever determined that any of the military compounds he'd formulated had left the compound...

Worst of all, he understood with horror, was the likelihood he was entirely right about the demise of the Agency. The only thing that had kept him in line after his American conscription was the threat of surveillance. Who now existed in this wasteland save himself compassionate enough to mitigate his moral compass for him? He doubted even he could keep himself from acting out on fantasies any longer, the more he recognized them trickling into mundane waking world. Of any aspect of this creeping reality, that terrified him most: more than the ghouls, more than the mutated insects, more than anything else he had not yet encountered that his imagination could not reliably fabricate. Who had the audacity to grant him self-agency?

Angel, presenting its owner a bowl of creamy reconstituted pasta, startled him from his waking nightmare.

"Bh--hoze--" He found himself frowning as he rapidly and repeatedly retraced his platysmal scar. Angel joined the bowl with a shot glass and the near-empty bottle of whiskey, and he poured himself a glass with his head hung. "Thanks, Angel."

"Sorry to startle you. You were most lost in thought."

"Doesn't change a thing." He favored eating over starting with the liquor for once. After a few bites, he cleared his throat. "So, I suppose I should explain my sudden willing openness. I have a job now. Salaried. I might still pick at the by-commission rooftop sales on the side, if it goes smoothly."

"My stars! What exciting news." Angel's movements seemed lyrical and airy a moment before it shifted to a scattered panic. "When do you start! Oh, oh dear. We've nothing for you to take for lunch! We must--"

"Angel. Angel, it's all right." 'Choly snapped his fingers a few times, then continued eating. "Stay with me. Maybe once I get Jared the information he needs, we can make a trip out of the pharmacy. That way, I can draft a laundry list of what all we need to scavenge for."

"Apologies, Sir. I'm just..." It idled beside him with its tendril-limbs curled up close. "I'm so eager for both of us. You've no idea how elated I am that I can foster vocational habits in you again. Tend to you, like... before. The normality of routine--that's the cement you need to get back to your old self. Ha ha!"

"Mmh. Makes two of us." He washed down the cardboardesque pasty mouthful with half the shot and, with a sigh, absently tapped his spoon in the dish. "I doubt the lab here would be suitable for the scale of distillation he described. Don't much like the idea of that much manure in the pharmacy, anyway. You're fond of reminding me not to bring home my work with me, and I think we can both agree that this building is very much becoming my home now. I don't think you need to remind me to leave that elsewhere."

"I haven't the slightest what you're on about, but manure? Yes, I'm quite glad we're in agreement that it doesn't belong indoors."

"Talking aloud. Imagine it doesn't make much sense. Mm mmh." He finished off the serving and shot glass, and sat back in thought. "I surveyed the assembly plant before I returned, and I think there's a good place there to set up a vat-style rig. Lots of pipes to make use of. Maybe... maybe refining a few water heaters...." With a sniff, he adjusted his glasses and glanced down to his Pip-Boy. "I'm going to get working on my invoice. Thank you for dinner."

"Of course, Mister Carey!" It cleared the table for him.

"I'm going to have to fix that one of these days," 'Choly mumbled to himself as he wandered off in the chair to nurture a Berries-induced engineering conflagration.

Taking stock as he navigated the building, he absently annotated in his Pip-Boy with blind keyless keystrokes, and as he went, he cross-referenced these against a more coherent draft he composed for Jared. In his ramble, he listed off various possible equipment which they could combined into a small-scale substitute for the mechanisms by which to load the crate of empty inhalers he had on hand in the pharmacy lab. To sustain the chem habit Jared sought to cultivate, there would have to be a tacit recycling effort of paraphernalia until they could locate more actuators. Too, he requested minimal opposition from Jared's crew as he toured Lexington, endearing that the city must already belong to the raider boss, or inevitably that it would. Something of this new world civility tickled 'Choly, and he guarded any potential conflict with the raiders by asking permission to scout the Super Duper Mart. Self-serving, he also tacked on a postscript that Jared's crew supply him with large quantities of Abraxo cleaner, to make possible synthesizing fresh Mentats of any variety, and he cited the need to stay sharp for the task at hand. By the end of the evening, he read it all over one more time and transcribed it onto a piece of card stock packaging, then shoved the results in the capsule pipeline.

He sank into his seat at Eleanor's desk and slumped his head along his outstretched arms. He popped a few painkillers in his mouth and chewed them mindlessly, and washed it down with the stale coffee he'd forgotten on the desk at some point. The familiar post-Berries headache crawled across his skull, but he hardly cursed it. The brain was just like a muscle in some regards, after all--running a marathon is a very different thing for someone who's prepared at length for it as opposed to someone who dashes from start to finish without even stretching beforehand. The habit would return. He'd gladly nurse it.

As he started to drift off, radio static echoed in Eleanor's office. Bewildered, he squinted and rubbed at his head as he pushed the button on the intercom.

"Chemist--" The caller was Jared. "You expect me to read this novel when you've got a working comm?"

'Choly grunted and resumed leaning on the desk. He hadn't expected Jared to come himself.

"I can hear your awful face paint loud and clear." He stiffened, double checking whether the button was depressed for automatic two-way chat, or if he'd simply held it a moment to check the caller. He swallowed hard and pushed the button again, hoping Jared hadn't heard that. "Sorry. I have more than a bit of a headache right now. And this is the first I knew that restoring power to the building had also restored the intercom."

"Fuck you're longwinded." Jared paused at length. "It's always the quiet ones. Ugh."

"Apologies. I was just trying to be thorough. Operating on the presumption that our correspondences over the invoice would all be written word, I just figured that a comprehensive list of everything that came to mind would limit how much time got wasted. I'm guessing you've had a chance to look it over?"

"Yeah, I got it. Flattery will get you everywhere in my town. You have the most unnervingly good handwriting I've ever seen, but I still can't believe I'm reading this right. You want in the SDM? You really are crazy. I'm not wasting warm bodies on that, but far be it for me to turn down the proposition of you spreading around any profit to be had of your confidence that you can manage it. Try not to die before we even get started. And get me some Sugar Bombs while you're at it."

Even Jared thought it a terrible plan to try to scavenge the grocer's for food reserves. 'Choly would have to think things through for certain, and he hid his anxiety over it behind a tiny chuckle.

"Heh, I can do that. What... about the other things I mentioned?"

"You've gone from asking for cash to asking for a metric fuckton of soap. That's marginally more sane than most of the things you've said today, but even that's pushing it. We're going in the right direction. Yeah, I've got a lead on where to load up on Abraxo, but remember. I'm only interested in Mentats as far as they're helpful to distilling my Jet. My project takes priority over any of your unrelated fun, and don't forget it." Jared snorted. "Still, you're going to have to let me try some of these infamous Berries you won't shut up about."

"Oh, for certain." 'Choly rubbed at his temples, his voice strained. "I swear by them. Only way I got through my military contract."

When Jared had nothing to say for a little too long, 'Choly realized that had been entirely the wrong thing to say.

"You a fuckin Brotherhood defector? That takes balls."

"Oh, I, no. The actual military. I'm a Pharm Corps chemist. Nine years, eight months, for Anchorage."

That had been an even worse thing to say.

"--I grow impatient with this conversation, chemist. Give me a few days to gather up what you've requested. Answer your damn comm when I come knocking." Jared snarled. "You're really starting to piss me off. If you're gonna get high like this all the time, at least journal your trips so they're useful to more than just you, all right?"

This time, 'Choly remained silent for a bit. Had he heard the raider right?

"You... want a transcript of my high?" 'Choly licked his lips and held in a breath as he stared at his Pip-Boy. "I... I can absolutely do that. You're in luck that that's... already an habituation of mine."

"All right. Now that, I like to hear. Expect to share. Both... experience and goods. Heh." At first, 'Choly had thought that was the end of it, but then Jared came back with somewhat sarcastic enthusiasm. "Let me know how your grocery trip goes."

"For certain."

When the intercom stayed idle for several minutes, relief oozed out of him, and he slouched back in the chair with a groan. He removed his glasses and dug his fingers into his eyelids. He could appreciate that Jared was on board with his plan, and that the raider was willing to accommodate interests that ran in direct tangent to the grand scheme. But, this conversation also solidified the contract into something tangible and unable to ignore. The chemist had a job again. Responsibilities. Someone he had to answer to. On the other hand, this also meant more of the building worked than he thought previous. If he intended to set foot outside the pharmacy, he was going to have to throw together a sign for the intercom, so that anyone who came calling would know he wasn't just blowing them off.

In the mean time, he took to the couch in Eleanor's office and passed out halfway through disrobing.

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#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #surveillance tw #drug culture tw #sole survivor #disabled sole survivor #trans sole survivor #jared fallout 4 #corvega assembly plant #the anatomy of melancholy #melancholy #the purkinje effect

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snowbellewells · 7 years ago

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CS Fic Exchange Prompt #4: “Melted Chocolate”

Okay, so I’m almost late enough that Valentine’s Day is practically over, but I’m posting this anyway, both for some fun holiday fluff, and for my entry in the CS Fic Exchange for Prompt #4. I haven’t used every part, but I have worked in the: candy hearts, rain, high winds, or other weather events, and the dialogue: “On a scale from one to irreconcilable differences on divorce papers, how much do you think (character) will mind if…?”

I don’t think there’s much else you need to know to enjoy this little one shot. Though I would have loved to see more of our pirate and princess in another season of OuaT, I’m having a good bit of fun imagining their happy beginning in a normal Storybrooke without the constant danger and upset – not to mention reading what everyone else sees for them as well! Imagine this is sometime not so far past the end of season six, but before Henry takes off on his own, since he is clearly still here and happy with Violet.

Of course I don’t own them! Enjoy this and the rest of your holiday evening!

“Melted Chocolate”

by: snowbellewells (TutorGirlml on ff.net)

“No, no, no!” Emma Swan moaned in sheer disgruntled reluctance, already knowing it was as bad as she feared; her forehead coming to rest against the steering wheel of her Bug where her hands were still clenched tightly. “Tell me this isn’t happening!”

The sudden rainstorm pelted down on the roof and against the windows; the downpour making her feel all the more hemmed in as the car tilted slightly in the sucking mud where they had swerved blindly off the road just enough to get stuck in the ditch, the left rear wheel sinking slowly in the mire where it was caught. The only thing that kept her from actually crying out in frustration was the feel of her husband’s curved appendage coming to rest on her shoulder, the comforting weight rubbing gentle circles into her tensed muscles in a soothing fashion.

“Come now, Love,” Killian murmured, bending to peer into her eyes as best he could with the way she had bent over the wheel and was petulantly avoiding his pretty blue eyes. “It can’t be all that bad, can it?”

She gave him a narrow-eyed glare as she sat up to face him, but still heaved a dejected sigh. If she looked at that concerned, adoring gaze too long, she wouldn’t even have her anger to hold onto. “Well, pardon me,” she grumped, only half teasing. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the car’s stuck, and there’s a literal monsoon going on outside, so it’s not great, no.”

As if in agreement with her words, the VW gave a creaking sort of settling moan, listing even more to the left once again, and Killian offered her a sheepish grin and half-shrug in recognition of her point. “Well,” he offered hopefully, holding up the plastic shopping bag from their quick run to the next town over, “at least we won’t starve.” He paired his words with a playful quirk of his brow, and for a fleeting moment it was all Emma could do not to burst out in a fit of giggles at his antics, the ridiculousness of the whole situation and the sudden storm blown up out of nowhere, despite all her previous frustration.

Shaking her head, she looked over at him in disbelieving amusement before responding sarcastically. “You just had to have those particular candy hearts, didn’t you?”

“I did promise them to Henry. After all the effort he went to in writing those verses for the young Lady Violet, it seemed a shame to deny him the finishing touch he requested. They were out of stock at the Dark Star, and so I truly had no other recourse. Though, whilst we are on the subject, why any of us frequent the pharmacy of a dwarf who has had a cold as long as I have known him is beyond me.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Emma snarked back tartly, “we’ve got bigger problems now.”

“Aye, Darling, I can see that,” Killian acceded with a grudging nod, knowing he was the more optimistic member of their duo and clearly therefore hated to acknowledge defeat and the negative until it couldn’t be helped. Still, things had clearly reached that point, as a jarring crack of thunder chose that moment to rattle the car’s windows in their frames and a jagged streak of lightning blossomed in the sky, highlighting the tension on both their faces.

Licking his lips as if gathering himself for a difficult question before plowing ahead, Killian ventured a still somewhat hopeful glance across the center console to meet hers and asked. “I don’t supposed your magic could unstick us from this predicament?” But the words were barely uttered before he trailed off, chagrined at the embarrassed and regretful look on his wife’s face.

Emma shook her head mournfully, blaming herself already for whatever the issue might be. “I thought so too,” she replied softly, offering up her hands, palms turned up and lying open, “but it isn’t working. Whatever command I try to send doesn’t seem to be having any effect. My magic is as on the fritz as our phones and the radio seem to be.” Letting her hands drop again dejectedly into her lap, Emma sent Killian an apologetic look and huffed out addition of, “I know, right? What good is having magic anyway, if it can’t get us out of a jam like this? Some Valentine’s date I turn out to be!”

Killian was quick to shake his head in disagreement, reaching over to pick Emma’s hands up again and pull them toward where he bent his dark head over them to press chaste, worshipful kisses into the center of both palms, lingering as if merely to inhale her scent and be nearer to her. “Emma, none of that now, my Lass,” he finally whispered against her skin, his lips petal-soft and his nose skimming along the life line that curved across her upper palm before the stubble that covered his chin and jawline began to tickle her sensitive skin. Raising his eyes to look at her over their entwined fingers, he barely breathed his next words aloud, and yet Emma felt them reverberating all the way down to her toes. “You are a bloody brilliant woman, amazing in every way, and the best Valentine any man could hope to have. I would want a date with no other, and I am lucky to call you my wife. Don’t you ever doubt that,” he swore fervently.

Emma’s smile was a bit tremulous, even as she tried not to get tearfully emotional on top of everything else. She nodded rapidly at Killian, as he clearly expected her promise not to sell herself short or to beat herself up for things beyond her control. She didn’t really trust her voice to be steady, but the warmth he had sent spreading through her insides was a heartening as bright sunshine on a summer’s day – the opposite of the wet grey pelting against the glass beside them.

Sniffling only slightly, she leaned over the console inconveniently stuck between them to bury her face in his chest, allowing his arms to wrap around and hold her close. After several calming moments like that, Emma realized that things could honestly be much worse. The rain – torrential flood strength though it might be – was outside, not leaking in anywhere, and they were still warm and dry. It was peaceful here in her little old car, and they were blessedly alone; something that rarely happened, emergency or no. No one was asking for their attention or even about to come looking for them and interrupt their moment together, not in the midst of such a cold, windy mess. The location might not have been the ideal she’d had in mind, but they were together at least, and undisturbed, two things that might not have happened for them otherwise, even on Valentine’s Day.

Mumbling against Killian’s skin, but unwilling to pull away just then, Emma spoke up with a bit more good humor to ask, “So, on a scale from one to irreconcilable difference on divorce papers, how much do you think Henry would mind if we tore into that bag of candy hearts?” She looked up at her pirate husband with an impish glimmer in her eyes. “If we’re going to ride this storm out here instead of making our dinner reservations, I’m going to get hungry, aren’t you?”

Killian smirked back at her, pleased with the turn in mood and more than willing to play along. “Oh, I don’t know, Swan, he seemed pretty adamant that Violet had to see these. But…I have grown on the lad. I don’t believe he would order me cast off at this first minor offense.”

She shook her head at his comeback, chortling at the impressive vocabulary he managed to employ even in jest, and began to rummage through the shopping bags for their plunder.

“However,” Killian said as he withdrew a small gift bag from somewhere inside his jacket, where Emma could only assume he had managed to hide it without her noticing sometime between the checkout and when they got in the car to head home, his voice temptingly low and eyebrow cocked invitingly. “If we do mean to break out our loot, I might have something for you that is a bit more appealing than those neon-colored, word-bedecked sugar cubes.” His tongue swept over his lower lip seductively as he watched her reaction, and Emma found herself reaching out to take the gift almost disjointedly, her movements slowed a bit at the stunned, blind attraction he could kindle in her at a moment’s notice.

When she tipped the bag upside down to free a boxed heart-shaped chocolate as large as her fist and wrapped in metallic foil, Killian continued with his honeyed words. “I thought you deserved something solid gold, Love. More reminiscent of your heart. Even if your real present is back at the house,” here he paused for dramatic effect, his eyebrows dancing merrily with barely restrained mischief, “I couldn’t resist when I saw this.”

“Flatterer,” Emma admonished, her cheeks warming as she used a nail to begin loosening the thick tape holding the box closed and pry it open. “How much of that poem for Violet did Henry write, and how much of it was your suggestion?”

“A gentleman never tells,” Killian replied archly, as though he would never dream of divulging such sacred information, to Emma’s snort of disbelief.

She got the packaging open with a bit more finagling, only to find that being pressed against her pirate’s always warm body had made one side of the chocolate heart go a bit softly melted. Making no comment, Emma tried to hold back the evil smile she felt creeping across her face. Peeling back the golden wrapper enough to get to the treat, she stuck her fingers in and then pulled back quickly, chocolate all over her fingertips, to smear the gooey delicacy across Killian’s chin and down his neck with a devious squeal of triumph.

“Hey now! What -- ?” but Killian’s squawk of protest is overcome rather rapidly by the desperate growl that echoed through his chest when Emma darted in quickly to suck the chocolate residue from his chin and lick up the remnants marked down his neck.

It didn’t take her Captain long to retaliate, and soon they were both sticky, panting, and the treat meant to tide them over until they got out of their fix was mushed into their hair, over their faces and hands, and across much of both their outfits. Still, Emma couldn’t find it in herself to mind. They celebrated Valentine’s Day together amidst a rainstorm, in kisses, giggles, and melted chocolate. No fancy dinner or dancing marked the occasion, but she did laughingly educate her Old World husband on what else could traditionally be done in a car stopped in the deserted middle of nowhere. As holiday revelry went, neither one of them would have celebrated it any other way.

Tagging a few who may enjoy: @csficexchange @kmomof4 @artistic-writer @hollyethecurious @branlovesouat @jennjenn615 @laschatzi @ilovemesomekillianjones @captain-swan-coffee

#csfe #csficexchange #prompt four #cs valentines oneshot #cs ff

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sageglobalresponse · 3 years ago

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Nigeria: Entrepreneur grows farming business into chocolate and plantain flour producer

Nobert Okafor, CEO of Noberto Group, with the chocolates his company produces.

Selling has been in Nobert Okafor’s blood since he was seven years old. At the time, he would spend Christmas and holidays with his grandmother who grew bananas at her compound in the village of Nimo in Anambra state, Nigeria. She would give the harvest to young Okafor, with the instruction to go make some sales.

“I would start in front of her house and when the demand dwindled, I moved the location to the front of my father’s compound. It was along a busier road,” he remembers. “When that didn’t result in sold-out stock, I went to the village market.” Following the demand worked and Okafor would receive praise from his grandmother when he returned having sold all the bananas.

Jump forward three decades and today Okafor (37) is the CEO of the Noberto Group, with its subsidiaries Nobleman Industries, Joofid Construction Company, Noberto Farms and the latest addition, Noberto Renewable Energy. He is still actively chasing sales but has added plantain and cocoa to the bananas, as well as the products processed from these crops.

First comes production, then processing

Okafor was making preparations to travel for further studies in either the UK or US when his father passed away in 2004. He had to cancel his plans so as to take over the family business. His father had established an equipment business, building Caterpillar heavy machinery from scrap and spare parts for rental to construction contractors. When construction clients were in short supply during the rainy season, the family would work a small patch of land, using a tractor they owned.

“That was my first experience with mechanisation and its impact on farming when I had to help my father as a teenager,” he recalls. From 2004 to 2010, he ran the family business and a few side hustles. Any profit was stowed away for his future entrepreneurial plans, which focused on agriculture.

In 2010, Okafor founded the first company in the group, Nobleman Industries and acquired 500 hectares of land in the Nigerian state of Cross River. He established a cocoa tree nursery and transplanted the trees onto 100 hectares. Plantain trees were interspersed between the cocoa trees to provide additional moisture during the dry season.

The Noberto Group supplied the cocoa harvest to the merchants who then sold it on to the exporters.

Okafor immediately saw a challenge that needed to be addressed. The fluctuation in the price that raw cocoa beans were fetching on the open market was less than ideal and he decided diversification further up the value chain would help the business.

He began testing his own chocolate recipe in his garage, grinding the cocoa beans by hand and adding sugar and milk until he was happy with the taste. Friends received the chocolate to sample and soon encouraged Okafor to produce on a larger scale so they could buy.

Slowly, he divested some of the inherited land assets from his father as well as heavy construction equipment and scrap. Bit by bit, the company acquired the machinery needed for cocoa processing from the US and by 2015, Okafor had raised enough capital to set up a processing facility in nearby Enugu state on land his father had previously procured.

In addition to making chocolates, Noberto Group also produces gluten-free flour from plantain.

The first branded chocolates landed in the market that year. At the same time, it started processing gluten-free flour from the plantain on its farm. Noberto Group worked hard to get its products onto the shelves of retailers, gaining traction steadily over time.

In 2018, the group added 30 hectares of land in the Uzo-Uwani local government, near the town of Adani, about two hours from its factory.

When the cocoa is harvested from either of the locations, it has to be fermented for five days and dried for another four, before being bagged and transported to the factory. Once there, the final sorting of the beans is done by hand and they are roasted. The roasted beans are cracked and winnowed (the process of removing the outer shell of the cocoa bean). Some of the meat from the cocoa bean is then processed into cocoa cake and butter used for cocoa by-products or combined with milk and sugar to make milk chocolate. The rest is ground and used to produce dark chocolate or cocoa powder.

The finished chocolate bars and candies are still hand-wrapped but Okafor hopes to soon mechanise this.

Diverse products for the local market and beyond

For now, the Noberto Group is focused on expanding its presence in the Nigerian market. Its chocolate products are available in local supermarkets and pharmacies in seven states while the cocoa powder, plantain flour and banana powder are sold directly to bakeries. The cocoa butter is bought by producers of body lotion.

The group does its own distribution within Enugu State, but outside these borders, it has distributors that buy directly from it and supply to supermarkets.

Exports are not entirely off the table. Okafor believes there is a global market for plantain flour, with demand coming from African expats and consumers looking for a gluten-free option. “We are working with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council on export opportunities,” he says.

For the chocolate products, the group is looking at the regional market and possibly Asia. “We don’t really see a market in Europe for our finished chocolate products. Perhaps the cocoa by-products that we produce, like cocoa butter, could find a market there.”

Accelerated growth planned

Noberto’s current processing capacity is 10 tonnes of cocoa a month. Keeping growth slow and steady in the beginning, was deliberate, according to Okafor, as he wanted to test the product offering with the perfect recipe for local tastes before pursuing growth in all earnest.

“We now have seven recipes for chocolate candies that our people like and can now look at making bigger investments and finding equity partners.”

On top of the capacity for cocoa, the group can process five tonnes of plantain a month into flour and three tonnes of bananas into powder.

At its premises in Enugu, the company is now raising cattle. The medium-term goal is to substitute all procured milk needed for the processing of chocolate with its own milk. To this end, it is artificially inseminating the cows to build the herd.

“The processing has differentiated us from other cocoa producers in the area,” says Okafor. “The moment we went into processing, it gave our business a new face, an edge.”

#sage response #nigeria #vp osinbajo #likesforlike

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alishbakhanus · 4 years ago

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26 gorgeous wedding ideas that will completely amaze your guests

Wedding plans may be short-lived for some couples, but sometimes a little extra time for planning is not bad. Wedding trends come and go, but there is one tried and tested style that remains somewhat timeless – country. The word “country” can mean many things to many people, as this is exactly what will translate to your wedding vision? To refine your search, we’ve put together some of the best rustic wedding ideas from real couples that will inspire your own ceremony and reception. Your decision to go to the country can help communicate everything from wedding shower ideas to your honeymoon!

The easiest way to ensure your big day is filled with country spirit is to place it in the bridal wedding venue. But if the location of the barn is impossible, do not despair. You do not need a family farm to create a charming wedding. Haystack seats, lights with lights for masonry and other small details are sure to give you the mood. And let the season affect the decor. Autumn wedding cakes, topped with autumn flowers or apples, are sure to make guests suffocate. No matter where and when you spend the romance, a country wedding is a place where you show off your love for everything rustic and vintage in scenery and style.

How cute is that

Have you ever seen a more perfect wedding cake than this one? We not only go down over the tight-fitting chocolate trim, but the floral decorations (especially sunflowers) only enhance the elegant coziness of the confectionery vibration. Let’s not write a wooden cake stand that complements the coloring of the cake like nothing else.

Add seedlings of color to the barn

Yes, the perfect barn really does exist! This one is at Hammer Sky Vineyards in California. A festive garland of honeycombs in the color palette of the wedding – all that this barn should be ready for the party (well, a ladybug at a party in a ladybug won’t hurt!).

In a good way

Before embarking on your married life with your new husband, allow your loved ones to lay any wedding bills in a vintage suitcase at the reception. Mark the area with a small “map” sign obtained from pieces of heart-shaped burlap.

No rain on my parade

The most ingenious contrasting vase substitute? Mini rain boots that can be used as table decorations for guests, or as an addition to the decor. And you know what they say: rain on your wedding day means good luck. So whatever the weather, let it be a barely noticeable nod to your future.

Fun and festive on the farm

Keep the jewelry simple! Straw bales, draped with cloth or cloth napkins, loose compositions with bright flowers and holiday honeycombs – all you need to start the party.

Message in a bottle

Standard books for wedding guests have brought a little recipe to the pass, with more relatives looking for creative alternatives. Enter a message in the route from the bottles, which can double as a newly decorated house even after the wedding day. Guests have the opportunity to write down their wishes, but this format makes it more enjoyable.

A trip for life

Any young wedding party attendees to walk down the aisle, seek the help of a harbinger to pull them in the village carriage and make sure they still have a radiant moment. The teddy bear with the streamer “Here comes the bride” makes the setting even more convenient for the wedding.

No turning around

Say “I” on your family’s farm? Especially ideal for autumn weddings, the corn maze with decorative hay entrance will delight guests of all ages. Whether it’s the main entertainment during a cocktail hour or you even plan to exchange vows in front of the cornfield itself, nothing can achieve that.

Nature is done

A mason’s jar, pieces of wood, twine and lace: This central part has all the elements needed for a rustic chic wedding. Also, a combo of shorter embellishments means guests can still get confused from behind the table, without any coordinators interfering with their gaze.

Pop out fresh

Bring in a rustic fair atmosphere the old-fashioned popcorn bar. Offer balls with popcorn as well as fresh nipples with various condiments for guests to snack on before taking. You can also send friends and relatives home with an extra bag – because no one can resist an edible wedding service.

Bee mine

Thank you to the wedding guests for coming with an exciting sweet treat – tiny pots of local honey. To ensure that the gifts for the house merge with an attractive village wedding, however, display them on pedestals from village boxes.

Pastoral perfection

The blanket is covered with hay bales, umbrellas, yellow streamers and horses?! It couldn’t be more perfect, especially with the natural passage of dirt and the tree-bound promises.

Circle up

Half a circle of hay bales surround the village altar Saturated with burlap and wooden vines creates an intimate place of rite in the open air – each has a beautiful view of the future bride and groom. This pair covered bales of hay with pieces of old lace and embroidered tablecloths of their grandmothers and aunts to create comfortable places for guests.

I take off my hat

Of course, the flower girl needs to throw the petals out of the cowboy hat while the wearer of the ring gets dressed. Cowboy boots are also a must for both mini wedding participants in addition to colorful accessories.

Love potion

Entertainment click when you have an outdoor beer bar so guests can serve themselves as at this wedding on the ranch, where the groom’s homemade beer was for everyone who could enjoy. Use the labels on the board to give everyone a head up on what kvass they’re sipping, and instead of beer glasses you need to have Mason jars.

Under your spell

The letters of the sketches, hung under lanterns, announce you’re LOVE on this barn wedding, which is magical and simple. It’s also an amazing background photo for guests that can be posted and tagged along with the wedding hashtag.

Happy trails

Give your loved ones a healthy snack with a homemade trail mix bar stocked with nuts, popcorn, pretzels, chocolates and more to fill cellophane bags. For maximum edge work, use barrel sets as the base of the station.

Candy Land

A similarity may be the range of vintage dressers and tables under the wood dessert buffet for each type of sweet tooth. Fill pharmacy jars with candy, top pie stands, wells, pies and layered trays with paws. Use one surface for strokes and lemonade to constantly moisturize guests while dancing under the stars.

Initial exposure

Bring gorgeous bales of hay to the wedding farm to an impressive decor with a flower monogram for Mr. and Mrs.

Site sweet

Lay the groundwork for a festive show, using a wheelbarrow full of soil and seed packs, perfect for an intimate wedding in an apple orchard. Support the hand sign on the rake and put a couple of other farm implements for extra village vibration.

Mix and match

A village wedding in a family barn is the perfect place to overcome the official rules of sitting at a wedding. Mix and match the design and color of the chairs for a home feel; maintain a style, such as back stairs or size, to be purposefully eclectic. Try also to give your dishes the same discrepancy.

Vintage threads

Don’t let Aunt Mae get into the unprepared for the plumbing that she will definitely feel watching you say “I will”. Assemble simple and embroidered porches – anyone before the competition, anyone? – And set a small basket for guests to capture their upcoming “tears of joy”, as in this composition, seen on 100 layers of cake.

Mood

Built-in window frames create an attractive focus for the altar when hanging from a rustic wooden structure. The simple seat installation also looks incredible with the beautiful stretch marks and colors that work in the aisle.

Bar None

Cultivated wood is the main product, and this village bar from Archive Rental proves that it can be raised from a pile of rubbish to style stars. A garland from Chloe + Mint adds country chic. Aside from the dance floor, you can expect it to be the most popular venue.

Farm to become

Who needs fancy floral centerpieces when you can fill rustic wooden boxes with lush farm generosity? As for the dinner menu itself, bonus points for serving any dish on a fresh farm.

Jarring experience

There is no more dreamy way to get married than standing under a tree filled with Masonic pendants hanging from candlesticks, especially at dusk. Such a décor scheme makes a huge statement without spending too much budget on the wedding.

Courtesy: best banquet halls in Lahore

#preweddingphotography weddingdecor weddingseason weddingplanner weddingphotographer weddings weddinginspiration weddingphotography wedding w

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