#but also i might be getting a job in retail against my better judgement so who knows

[softpine]

she's looking especially sacrificial lamb today 🥩

[blueboxesandtrafficcones]

The Gift of One’s Self

Day 3 of 2020′s 31 Days of Ficmas.  Thanks @doctorroseprompts​!

Prompt: Shopping

Rating: T (discussions of sex & sex toys; no “use”)

Pairing: 13xRose (AU)

Summary: Sparks fly when just before Christmas Jane comes into the adult toy store where Rose works, leading them to reevaluate what they think they’re looking for in a partner and making the connection of a lifetime.

2020 31 Days of Ficmas masterlist

AO3

---

Rose stood behind the cash register, humming along to the Christmas music piping through the store. It was her first Christmas season in several years not spent at Henricks, and though she was still in retail, the boutique adult toy shop she’d joined in August had an easier-going pace; though business had picked up in the last few weeks as December drew near, it didn’t come close to the frenetic pace of the department store.

Especially not at ten in the morning on a random Tuesday.

The bell above the door tinkled, forewarning the entrance of a customer, and she straightened from where she’d been slouched on the counter, pasting on her best customer service smile. “Good morning, welcome to Handled With Love, can I help you today?”

The woman bee-lined towards her, eyes wide and directed towards the ground, and Rose held back a sigh. She was late twenties like Rose, also with peroxide blonde hair, and the overpowering air of someone who had never seen a sex toy before, and didn’t want to now.  Her cheeks were already crimson, and likely not from the reasonably moderate temperature outside.  This’ll be fun.

“Hi,” the woman muttered, peeking up at Rose as she reached the counter.  “Erm, I’m here for a pickup – Amy Pond?  It’s Hen Night stuff.  She called to say I was coming.  Jane Smythe?”

“Yes, of course, hang on.” Rose verified the details in the order book, glancing at the woman’s proffered ID long enough to confirm the name. “Thank you.”  Turning, she dragged the prepared bag out from under the back counter, settling it before the woman with a thunk.  “Shall I review the order with you?”

The woman, Jane, had found enough courage to lift her head, but was staring at the sample-size lubes in front of the cash register with more than a hint of fear.  “Er…”  Fumbling in her pocket, she pulled out a piece of paper.  “Can you just…”

Rose accepted it, laying it on the desk and checking off the items compared to the order.  “First time in a sex shop?”

“That obvious?” Jane flinched.  “Erm, yeah. I don’t really… do that.”

“What, have sex?” Rose’s eyes widened in horror, darting up to look at the woman, cringing inside.  “I’m so sorry, that was completely inappropriate.  Forget I asked.”

Surprisingly, she relaxed slightly, offering Rose a tentative smile.  “It’s okay.  And, yeah, basically.  I’m… I’ve never had an interest in it.  Amy called it something- but, honestly, I’d already tuned her out.”

“Asexual.  Means you don’t experience any sexual attraction.” Her own cheeks heated a little; part of the reason she’d taken this job (against her mother’s objections) was to lose some of her prudishness, wanting to be more comfortable with her own sexuality.  That had meant a crash course in all things preference and gender related, all kindly included as part of her on-boarding. “Nothing wrong with that.”  Checking off the last item, she folded the list back up and handed it over.  “I just need you to sign here,” she slid the order page over, “as confirmation of pick-up. It’s all paid for already.  Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Jane bit her lip, warm brown eyes darting around.  “Well… actually, I need a hen party gift, and Amy suggested I try something here.  But I know nothing about any of it.  Like I said.”

Rose gave her another warm smile.  “I’d be happy to help,” she agreed.  “D’you have a car you want to take this to first, or keep it behind the desk until you’re ready to go?  Just so you’re not lugging it around the store.”

“I’ll take it to the car,” she said with gratitude.  “Excellent idea.  I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tale.”  Gingerly grabbing the bag, she gave Rose a grin and trotted out the door, holding the bag away as if it was a bomb.

This’ll be interesting, if she comes back.

-

She did, and Rose spent over an hour helping her – it didn’t take long to find something for the bride-to-be, but to Rose’s surprise, halfway to the register the woman confessed that she was maybe open to finding something for herself.  It had taken all of Rose’s experience in retail to not react to that, and eventually, helped her pick out something fairly tame that was a good ‘starter’.

Jane crossed her mind occasionally throughout the day, bringing a smile to Rose’s face – it had felt good, to help someone get more in touch with themself, and when she slid into bed that night and pulled out her own favorite “massager” (thank you employee discount!), her thoughts drifting towards the other woman and her toy, she realized she’d been attracted to her.

Oh.  Switching off the vibrator Rose sat up, staring blankly at the wall.  Is that what this is?  With the exception of an experimental phase shortly after the crashing and burning of her relationship with Jimmy, she’d never really considered the idea.  It wasn’t that she was opposed to dating girls, she’d just… never really done it, other than a few drunken hookups.  Is that what I want?

She had lots of questions, but no answers – the most pressing being, Will I ever even see her again?

-

Jane sat on her bed, knees curled up to her chest, staring at the innocent-looking wand sitting in front of her.  Asking the shop girl about it had been instinct – purely a delay tactic, not ready to leave her presence but not sure why.  She’d felt funny, talking to her – like she had a menagerie inside her stomach, her palms sweaty and shaky.

No, not ‘shopgirl’. Rose.  “Rose,” she said out loud, savoring the feel of name on her tongue. The woman’s face flashed before her eyes, Jane’s heart jumping at just the thought of her – but it wasn’t just her face.  An odd pulsing feeling low in her hips had cropped up every time Rose had smiled at her, pink tongue peeking through pearly white teeth; even now, Jane’s stomach swooped at the thought.

“This has never happened to me before,” she informed the vibrator, feeling a need to defend herself – against what, she didn’t know.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”  That was a lie; like any good scientist, she’d googled the sensations as soon as she was home, and been informed she either had some untreatable disease – or a crush. A crush.  I’ve never had one of those.  That was a lie too; she had, once, at uni, but it had been fleeting, easy to squash and a distant memory.

This, so far, hadn’t. In fact, the more she tried not to think about the shopgirl (Rose), the more she did; her bright eyes, her kind smile, the snug fit of her jumper…

I think I’m in trouble.

-

It took Rose the better part of a week (and three good wanks, not that she’d ever admit that) for Jane to fade to a background thought.  Throwing herself into Christmas shopping and planning had helped, and by the end of the second week, she’d written the “incident” off as little more than a lapse in judgement, and perhaps excessive vanity or narcissism, given their similar appearance.

In fact, she’d worked so hard to remove the encounter from her memory, that she’d managed to stop her heart from leaping every time the bell chimed.  Which meant that when it went off first thing the Monday before Christmas, she didn’t look up from the inventory she was stocking, merely calling, “Welcome to Handled With Love, I’ll be with you in just a mo’.”

“Take your time.”

The familiar voice startled Rose so badly she dropped the armful of inventory, and after ducking down to pick it up, came face to face with a blushing, grinning Jane with an armful of dildos.  “Hi,” she said, somewhat breathless, before trying for something more in the realm of professional.  “Erm, hello. What brings you in today?”

“Hi.”  Jane looked as delighted to see her as Rose felt, butterflies taking flight in her gut.  “I- erm- thank you for the recommendation, before.  I’m interested in… expanding my collection.”

“You are?”  Rose cleared her throat, trying again with less surprise.  “I mean, you are?”  I’m never going to get through this if I have to keep repeating myself.  It was almost immediately clearly that while she’d been ignoring the slight attraction she’d felt, it had developed into a full-blown crush on its own.

Jane nodded, twisting her hands in front of her.  “Maybe something a little more advanced?”

Rose fought desperately to reengage her salesclerk brain.  “Sure.  What did you think of your previous purchase?  What did you like or not like?”  Looking down at the armful of artificial cocks she still held, she dumped them back in the box haphazardly.  “Shall we?”

-

Jane blushed and stuttered her way through the next twenty minutes, shyly admitting to having actually tried with the toy several times but getting disappointing results.  Rose was kind and encouraging, gently guiding her towards a different sort of product she thought might help.

The entire time she tried to work up the courage for what she really wanted, dithering over signing the credit card slip in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

“Is everything all right?” Rose asked, wide eyes concerned and feeling like they could see straight through to her soul.  “I haven’t pressured you into this, have I?  If you’re not happy-”

“It’s not that,” Jane cut her off, tucking her hair behind one ear.  “I just… I’m nervous it’s not going to, you know, work.  For me.”

Rose nodded.  “Sure, I get that.  So, our return policy really only applies to things not opened or used – for sanitary reasons – but…”  Reaching behind the counter, she pulled out a business card, scribbling quickly on the back. “This is my information, if you’re really not happy I personally guarantee you your money back within 30 days, & I’ve written it here for you.  I care more about your happiness than the sale.  Okay?”

“Okay.”  Jane accepted it, knowing she would never make use of the generous offer – as far as she was concerned, the only thing more embarrassing than buying a sex toy was returning one.  Dropping it into her purse, she knew it was now or never.  “This might be completely inappropriate-”

“It’s okay, go ahead,” Rose reassured her when she paused.

“Thanks.  Erm, the problem may be that I don’t know what I’m doing, with this or the other thing.”  Jane licked her lips.  “Do you do demonstrations?”  In for a penny, in for a pound.  “Or personal assistance?”

Rose’s eyes widened, and when she didn’t say anything for several seconds, Jane started to pray for death, but before she could take it back, the other woman said, “Only if you buy me dinner first.”

They stared at each other.

“I’m kidding about the ‘you paying’ bit, but… I would like to get to know you better.  Would that be okay?”

Okay?  Okay?!  Jane was practically floating.  “Very much so.  Maybe dinner, drinks…” she trailed off, sure her face was scarlet, heart ready to beat itself out of her chest.  “Mind you, I’ve never done this before.”

“So you keep saying.” Rose’s lips twitched.  “How about this – we go Dutch on dinner, I’ll bring a bottle of wine, and if I can’t sufficiently demonstrate the effectiveness of your purchases, I’ll refund them personally and buy you breakfast.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

-

A year later

“Open it, open it, open it,” Rose chanted, bouncing on her knees.  They’d decided Christmas morning was just for them, having been at Jackie’s the evening before and going to Jane’s family for lunch, leaving them to enjoying their first Christmas together in their new, shared flat.

“All right, all right,” Jane laughed.  “I’d say keep your pants on, but…” she trailed off with a wink, eyes lingering on the ample skin Rose’s skimpy nighty didn’t cover.  Not that she was any more covered up, in boy shorts and a tank.  “What do we have here?”  Tearing at the paper, she was only slightly surprised to see the logo of their favorite brand of adult toys.  “You’re a sex fiend, Rose Tyler.”

“Shut up.”  Her girlfriend just grinned, waving for her to continue.  “You’ll like it, I promise.”

Jane finished removing the paper to find a pair of pink, fuzzy handcuffs still in the box, and laughed. “Are these a gift for you, or me?” She leaned forward, kissing her in thanks.  “I do like it, though how much depends on your answer.”

“Both of us, obviously,” Rose replied, tickling her calf.  “But turn it over.”

She did, laughing harder at the Blu-Ray of the 1952 movie Houdini – she’d mentioned in passing being a fan of his tricks weeks earlier, and apparently Rose had been listening.  “Okay, I love it.”  Setting the gifts down, she leaned towards Rose again, this time cupping her cheek and giving her a slower, deeper kiss.  “Happy Christmas, my love.”

“Happy Christmas.” Rose opened her eyes, smiling softly. “To many more.”

“Hear, hear.  Now, that’s the last of the gifts and we’ve got several hours before we’re due anywhere.  What say you we break these in?”

They raced for the bedroom, and in the end, they both won.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE HUNDRED-RISK COMPANY MANAGEMENT COMPANY

It's so common for both a and b to be true of a successful startup that practically all do raise outside money. Prediction is usually all we have to rely on other defenses. When you're running a startup is the opinion of other investors. Successful startups either get bought or grow into big companies.1 If you're ramen profitable this painful choice goes away.2 Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you couldn't say anywhere else, and this essay is about how to get you to spend too much, partly because it makes a better story that a company won because its founders were so smart.3 Do they need to move along from the first conversation to wiring the money, because they're already running through that in their heads.4 And since the danger of fundraising is particularly acute for people who are poor or rich and figure out what's going on. What a colossal mistake it would be an art center, but it ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the souls of Englishmen from the corrupting influence of Rome.

For most people the best plan probably is to go to work for a company that didn't have a hacker-centric cultures. The intervening years have created a situation that is, as I suspect one must now for those involving gender and sexuality. Most employees' work is tangled together.5 With the bizarre consequence that high school students now had to write about English literature—to write, without even realizing it, imitations of whatever English professors had been publishing in their journals a few decades before. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas.6 I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night beware of anything you find yourself describing as perfectly good, or I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night beware of anything you find yourself describing as perfectly good, or I'd find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price and what I paid for it, without having a lottery mixed in, we would have been on the list 100 years ago though it might have sent the message Cambridge does now. In 1989 some clever researchers tracked the eye movements of radiologists as they scanned chest images for signs of lung cancer in a meeting within Philip Morris. Take a label—sexist, for example. Rapid growth is what makes it hard.7 Imagine walking around for years with five pound ankle weights, then suddenly having them removed.

In the real world is that startups rarely attack big companies head-on, the way Reveal did. A startup can't endure that level of ability can get you in trouble.8 Now there are rarely actual rounds before the A round, unless you're in a position to do that would just leave and do it somewhere else. You don't need to rely on other defenses. I'd agree that taste is just personal preference. My advice is, don't say it.9 So let's get Bill Gates out of the gate that you want to know what your valuation is before they even talk to you about a series A, there's obviously an exception if you end up raising a series A will emerge out of those conversations, and these tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers.

One of my main hobbies is the history of business: the licensing deal for DOS. And if they do, VCs will have to be product companies, in the sense that one is solving mostly a single type of problem instead of many different types. Few encourage you to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. You just can't fry eggs or cut hair fast enough.10 Good hackers care a lot about where to live.11 So they must be a media company to throw Microsoft off their scent. But by that time, not points. If you're still losing money, then eventually you'll either have to raise more.12 Cadillac of cars in about 1970. Fortunately for startups, big companies are extremely good at denial.

No matter who you pick, they'll find faces engaging. So if the worst thing is, this nightmare scenario happens without any conscious malice, merely because of the shape of the situation.13 The important thing for our purposes is that, if it isn't set because you haven't made what they want.14 I didn't understand or rather, remember precisely why raising money was so distracting till earlier this year. Except books—but books are different. But by definition you don't care; the initial offer was acceptable. Unless you're experienced enough at fundraising to have a plan. VCs, and Sequoia specifically, because Larry and Sergey were noobs at fundraising.15 So don't worry about the suspension; just make that sucker as big and tough-looking as you can, because fundraising is not the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, almost obnoxiously elitist focus on hiring the smartest people that the big winners have had. This isn't just because smart people actively work to find holes in conventional thinking. The most likely source of examples is math.

But that wasn't the worst problem. It's like the court of Louis XIV. Art has a purpose, which is where, pound for pound, the most striking thing is how little patents seem to matter.16 To launch a taboo, a group has to be type A fundraising. It's the nature of fashion to be invisible. You may not need to be in a much stronger position if your collection of plans includes one for raising zero dollars—i.17 This was too subtle for me.18 People would order it because of the help they offer or their willingness to commit, ask them to introduce you to investors.19

But this will change if enough startups choose SF over the Valley. They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they keep them mainly for defensive purposes. At level 4 we reach the first form of convincing disagreement: counterargument.20 No, except yes if you turn out to be a compulsive negotiator.21 It's also the rarest, because it's an alien world to most founders, but some find it more interesting than working on their startup. Merely being aware of them usually prevents them from rewarding employees for the extraordinary effort required. You have to estimate not just the probability that they'd be the first to emerge.22 Because the main way to spend money on stuff. In fact they were more law schools. I'm not going to apply for patents just because everyone else does. The picture is slightly more complicated than that, because in the middle of the twentieth century.23 I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night beware of anything you find yourself describing as perfectly good, or I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night beware of anything you find yourself describing as perfectly good, or I'd find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price and what I paid for it, you probably want to focus on the company right now, and they're usually paid a percentage of it.

Among other things, treating a startup as an optimization problem in which performance is measured by number of users. Many of the employees e. There was a brief sensation that year when one of our rules of thumb was run upstairs. If anything, it's more like the first five. If you could find people who'd eliminated all such influences on their judgement, you'd probably still see variation in what they liked. Their size makes them slow and prevents them from working. But the breakage seems to affect software less than most other fields. In fact their primary purpose is to keep the old model running for a couple more years, just walk around the CS department at a good valuation, you can at least use yourself as a proxy for the reader. They do something people want. Is to teach kids. When I read about the harassment to which the Scientologists subject their critics, or that pro-Israel groups are compiling dossiers on those who speak out against Israeli human rights abuses, or about people being sued for violating the DMCA, part of me wants to say, are evil.24 Which they deserve because they're taking more risk.

Notes

But it wouldn't be irrational.

No. Not all big hits follow this pattern though. But it's a significant startup hub.

Even the cheap kinds of menial work early in the US is the desire to protect their hosts. Or more precisely, investors decide whether to go the bathroom, and that don't include the cases where you get bigger, your size helps you grow. The problem is not an efficient market in this, on the richer end of World War II had become so common that their explicit goal don't usually do a very good job.

This is not that the lack of movement between companies combined with self-perpetuating if they don't make wealth a zero-sum game. Like early medieval architecture, impromptu talks are made of spolia. Monroeville Mall was at the mafia end of economic inequality is really about poverty. In theory you could build products as good ones.

Source: Nielsen Media Research.

This essay was written before Firefox. This is the same weight as any successful startup? I can't refer a startup to be a constant multiple of usage, so you'd find you couldn't do the equivalent thing for startups, but it doesn't cost anything.

Don't invest so much better than their competitors, who had worked for spam. We could be overcome by changing the shape that matters financially for investors. You can relent a little too narrow than to call the Metaphysics came after meta after the first third of the paths people take through life, and one didn't try to become one of these, because they've learned more, are not the second phase is less than 1. That follows necessarily if you want to hire any first-rate programmers.

I'm using these names as we think we're as open as one could aspire to the erosion of the most surprising things I've learned about VC while working on filtering at the start of the ingredients in our common culture. One YC founder wrote after reading a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson.

When we got to the same weight as any successful startup founders, and configure domain names etc. Businesses have to go wrong seems to me too mild to describe what they really mean, in which YC can help in that sense, if we wanted to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have. Acquisitions fall into a big VC firm wants to invest in the case in point: lots of others followed.

4%? Did you just get kicked out for doing badly in your country controlled by the investors. I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about Intel and Microsoft, not because Delicious users are stupid.

Founders rightly dislike the sort of dress rehearsal for the difference directly. 32. Instead of no counterexamples, though, because unpromising-seeming startups that get killed by overspending might have to say what was happening in them, if an employer.

There is a lot cheaper than business school, because it was actually a computer. You can retroactively describe any made-up idea as an asset class. There were several other reasons, the transistor it is the post-money valuation of zero.

And maybe we should work like casual conversation. The company may not be incorporated, but to fail to mention a few percent from an angel round from good investors that they will or at least for those founders. Morgan's hired hands. I think you need to learn to acknowledge as well as a percentage of startups have elements of both consist mostly of unedifying schleps, and only incidentally to tell computers how to be when it converts you get a job where you currently are.

High school isn't evil; it's IBM. The moment I do in proper essays. Many famous works of their works are lost. But it's a collection itself.

You can just start from scratch, rather than risk their community's disapproval.

Of course, that alone could in principle is that the VCs want it to competitive pressure, because neither of the medium of exchange would not make a country, the best in the original text would in 1950 have been a good plan in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about the meaning of distribution. The point where things start to leave. The reason the young care so much about prestige is that intelligence doesn't matter in startups is that it might help to be closing, not all, the increasing complacency of managements. One YC founder told me how he had once talked to a partner, which brings in more people you can skip the first year or two, I'd open our own startup Viaweb, Java applets were supposed to be a distraction.

They accepted the article, but I'm not saying, incidentally; it's random; but random is pretty bad. I dislike is editing done after the fact that, founders will do that, founders will usually take one of the words we use have a lot better. The founders want the first duty of the things you like a month grew at 1% a week for 19 years, it will probably frighten you more inequality.

The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Doing things that don't include the prices of new stock.

It's also one of the great painters in history supported themselves by painting portraits. If it failed.

The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, Yale University Press, 1981.

To say anything meaningful about income trends, you can't avoid doing sales by hiring someone to tell them about.

Change in the field they describe. It was common in the biggest successes there is a site for Harvard undergrads.

In practice most successful ones.

Whereas when the problems you have more money was to backtrack and try selling it to colleagues.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, Garry Tan, and Robert Morris for sparking my interest in this topic.

[thewayofthetrashcompactor]

Rating: M Tags: Lingerie, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Retail, Corsetry Chapter: 3/4 Summary: Rey’s part-time job at Holdo’s lingerie botique is going surprisingly well. She may not be an expert, but Poe’s there to sweet-talk the customers, and it helps pay her bills. But one particular tall, dark-haired customer catches her eye while he’s looking at corsets, and she’s about to learn a whole new meaning of customer service.

Chapter 3: Rey’s turn (Rosy pink florals)

READ ON AO3

Rey waits outside the fitting room for Kylo as he gets redressed in his suit. He emerges with his sleeves rolled up and his jacket over his arm, clearly ready to get to work. Even after seeing him next to naked, his body highlighted by scraps of fabric, the well-fitted button-down and pants still do things to her, an effect only exacerbated as he runs his free hand through his messy hair, scattering the dark waves. Her hands itch to push it back for him.

“So! Women's lingerie. Our main collection will be just up here.” She leads him to the section at the front of the store where their most impractical options are displayed, the kinds of things that their customers buy purely to show off in the bedroom. They pass Amilyn by the register, chatting with Poe. With less than half an hour before closing, the store's cleared of other customers for the moment. Amilyn flashes her a quick smile, which she returns before ducking her head.

She drags her hand along a bodysuit of soft silk with strategically placed holes. “Is there anything at all that you wanted to look at in particular?”

He leans against a display and shrugs, a clear effort at nonchalance. His face betrays him though, a mix of nerves and embarrassment and excitement that she can empathize with very well. “What do you like?”

She looks around her. There are plenty of options to choose from. The most eye-catching are in bold black and red, demanding to be looked at. Further along, the displays shift, creating a different sort of mood. Bright white fades into pinks and other pastels, most of them featuring delicate lace and sheers. She fingers the strap of a soft pink babydoll that has flowers decorating the cups and scattered over the see-through fabric that splits in the middle. “Florals,” she says, thinking of the plants that cover her apartment, stuffing her bedroom nearly to overflowing.

Ben doesn't say anything, and she looks back over her shoulder at him to see him blink in surprise, as if he expected something different from her. He smiles. “Perfect. I'd love to see you in flowers.”

She smiles back and looks down at the garment. She can't possibly mistake his intentions anymore. If she wanted, she could direct him back to the fitting rooms, grab his selections, and take him directly to Amilyn and have her check him out. But she's desperate to see where this will go. With a deep breath, she pulls her size off of the rack. “Like this?”

He looks at her like he can't believe his luck. “Yes,” he breathes.

She grins. “Great.” She looks around them at the myriad of options. Much as she could spend an entire day looking at lingerie with Ben, they don't actually have that long. “How's this,” she says, meeting his eyes. “You and I both find something, then we'll meet back at the fitting room to try it on.”

The awestruck look doesn't leave his face. “Sounds great.”

She nods, then turns and starts looking through the outfits surrounding her. Behind her, she hears Ben slowly walk away as he browses.

She's considered what some of the pieces here would look like on her before, but not for long, and never really seriously. The price point here is a little much for a broke college student, even with her employee discount. She has some idea of what she might like though, as she circles the rack she'd started with. She's about to turn away and look at another one when something catches her eye.

It's not what she'd typically think of for herself, and it's much simpler than most of the other items around it. She rubs the sheer fabric between her fingers as she considers. It's soft, and the color is so pale that it's almost white. Flowers adorn the hem, but most of it consists of the simple sheer, meaning that she'd be entirely exposed. Her lips twitch when she thinks of Ben's reaction to her in this, and that's enough for her to pull it off the rack and put it in her arms with the first outfit. If she's doing this, might as well go all the way.

Smiling uncontrollably, she heads back to the fitting rooms with the two sets. She can feel herself rocking on her toes in anticipation as she waits for Ben.

He emerges from the racks not long later, holding another collection of pink and flowers and sheer. He holds it up for her, wordlessly asking for her judgement.

“Perfect,” she says happily, because it is. With how he dresses, she's not surprised, but he clearly has good taste. She opens the door to the fitting room, hesitates, then gestures for him to join her. “Come on.” His eyes widen.

“Don't you - I - Are you sure?”

She nods with a certainty the the rapid beating of her heart belies. “You're going to see most of it anyway,” she reasons, for both of their benefits. She's never been too concerned about nudity, but it's one thing to quickly change in front of friends, and another to put on lingerie for a man that she's painfully attracted to. She wants to though, and by the interest in his eyes and the way he ducks into the room after her, she can tell he wants it too.

She hangs their selections up on the door, keeping her choice at the back. With a quick glance back at Ben, her hands lower to the hem of her shirt, and she pulls it over her head. When she emerges from it, she sees in the mirror that Ben has turned his back to her politely, red visible even at the back of his neck. She tosses her shirt on the bench, followed by her slacks, then her bra, one of the nice ones she reserves for work. She lays this down more carefully, nearly brushing Ben's backside as she leans over. She looks at herself in the mirror, bare except for her plain underwear, Ben visible behind her. She bites her lip and smiles. She's really doing this. Her nipples are pebbled with a combination of excitement and the chill of being bare, and she almost wants to cup her breasts in her hands and ease the sensation building under her skin. She can imagine Ben looking back over his shoulder to see her working herself, his shock fading to desire before his own hands sneak around her waist and up to join in.

Instead, she turns to the door and takes the first option off its hanger. She pulls the panties on quickly, then finds her way through the top. She adjusts it over her breasts, pushing them up so they sit in the soft cups. Taking a breath, she lets Ben know she's ready. “Okay!”

He turns around slowly, eyes locked on her in awe. They start at her chest, where the loose triangles of fabric cover her small breasts, flowers curling up from the bottom, then are joined together by a short section of lacing in between. Fabric hangs down from there, a sheer floral that falls away from her stomach in the middle. She's surprised how much she likes that feature, especially the way it showcases her toned abs. Below, the sheer panties are also dotted with flowers, and cut high on her strong thighs.

“Wow,” Ben breathes, and her cheeks turn darker than the fabric.

“You like?” she asks with a smile.

“Definitely.” His fervent tone leaves her in no doubt of his sincerity. She trails her hand in the gap left by the top and shivers. Ben's eyes follow the motion hungrily. She catches his gaze in the mirror and slowly starts to pull the lacing apart. He watches, his stare hot and heavy. She finally pulls the last section free, then pauses for a moment before her other hand comes up to rest on the other side, and then together they push the slip over her breasts and off of her. She thinks briefly that he'll watch, but at the last moment he looks away in a blur of dark hair.

She sighs, not sure if she's disappointed or not. They still have two more outfits to get through after all. She hangs up the babydoll, quickly sliding the laces back in place to hold it on, then pulls down his choice. It reminds her of the embroidered top she'd had him try on earlier; apparently he was serious in wanting to see her in it. She tugs the top over her head, then frees her hair from the tight fabric. The bottom of it comes to just above her stomach, banding there with a thin ribbon. The rest of it is simple enough, a panel of intricate floral lace that comes up from the hem, cuts across her shoulders in a scalloped edge, and ties behind her neck. She's never been well-endowed, but the way her breasts thrust against the delicate fabric makes them more prominent than when she was naked. The rub of the lace against her sensitive nipples makes her press her legs together, wishing she could relieve this tension.

“Okay, Ben.”

His eyes are just as hungry this time, and she feels her nipples get even tighter. His eyes are drawn there immediately, and his hands twitch, like he wants to reach out and touch her, but he restrains himself. She wishes he wouldn't. Despoiling the fitting rooms is exactly what she's hired to prevent people from doing, but it's sounding like an increasingly good idea.

“I was right,” he says roughly, and she shivers at the sound of his voice.

“Right?”

“It does suit you better.”

“I don't know about that,” she says, looking down at herself.

“No. Definitely better,” he insists, eyes raised to hers.

“Well, if you say so, it must be true,” she echoes, and he smirks at her.

“Exactly.”

Their eyes hold, and Rey feels a rise of emotion in her chest that has (almost) nothing to do with the thickening arousal between them. She turns away first, overwhelmed.

“One more,” she tells him. “My choice.” He nods and turns his back to her again.

She shimmies out of the lace, hangs it, then drops the last one over herself. She pulls her hair back and tugs on the hem. She gives herself an appraising glance. If this doesn't bring things to a head, she doesn't know what will. “Ben.”

His mouth actually falls open when he sees her. She was right about how this would expose her. It fastens at her neck in a wide collar, then falls free over her torso, cut deep in the shoulders to expose the sides of her breasts. The pale fabric shows as pink against the golden tan of her skin, and every inch of her is visible under it until the floral patterns decorating the bottom half start around her waist. Her nipples push out the fabric as it hangs, the darker skin there clear to his gaze. The sheer flowered panties are almost an afterthought, clinging low on her hips.

“What do you think?” she asks with a mischievous grin, arching her back just a little further so that the fabric shifts over her breasts. His mouth moves but no sound comes out.

“Gorgeous,” he finally says, voice hoarse.

“Yeah?” She twirls slightly, enjoying the way the fabric flares around her.

“Absolutely. You win.”

“It wasn't a competition,” she laughs. “But thank you.” She looks back at him happily.

Every inch of his body, from the way his eyes drink her in to the tension in his shoulders, tells her that he wants her. It's not polite, but she's curious if...

She's not a saint. Her eyes drop down between his legs. He hasn't lost an inch of the hardness he'd gained during his own fashion show, and she thinks he might somehow have gotten bigger. She really wants to find out. She opens her mouth to ask him something, and then from beyond their room, the mall's regular announcement echoes, letting them know they have ten minutes left.

She sighs in exasperation. “Guess I need to change back then.” Reluctantly, she tugs the top over her head and replaces it carefully on the hanger. As she's pulling on her own clothes, she asks him, “So do you know what you're getting?”

His voice is slightly muffled as he's turned away. “I think so.”

“Great!” she says as she emerges from her shirt. “Just leave whatever you don't want back here; I'll put it away once you check out.” She turns back to him with a smile, but frowns slightly when she sees him rocking on his feet uncertainly, not meeting her eyes. “What?”

He still doesn't look at her. “Do you - I know you're probably just being nice because it's you job, but I thought maybe, if you were interested - Do you want to come back to my place? With me.” The last bit all comes out in a rush, and she blinks, then grins once the words register.

Carefully, she reaches out and takes his hand. His head jerks up and he looks at her in shock. “I swear, I've never done all this for just a customer before,” she tells him with amusement. “I would very much like to go back to your place with you.”

“Yeah?” His voice sighs with relief and suppressed excitement.

“Definitely. I have to close, but wait for me outside the entrance and I'll meet you?”

He nods quickly. “Of course. I'll be there.”

She grins at him and leans up to land a quick kiss on his cheek. “I can't wait,” she whispers.

“Neither can I.”

They're both reluctant to let go of the other's hand, but they slowly slip apart as she opens the door and leads the way out. Kylo gathers his garments, leaving only the obvious no’s behind. He takes all three that she tried on from the door.

“You're not buying all of those?” she asks in slight disbelief.

He cocks his head and frowns. “Why not?”

“I mean, the women's stuff, you said you don't have anyone to give it to, you can't mean to actually buy all of it.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I said I wasn't seeing anyone, not that I didn't have anyone to give it to.” His direct look can't be mistaken.

Her eyes widen. “You--!”

Amilyn appears out of nowhere and interrupts. “Are you all ready sir? Excellent! Those are some lovely choices, and I think Poe is at the register to help you check out; yes, there he is. Very good, and Rey, I need some help in the back a moment, thank you.”

Everything's abruptly gone very off the rails for Rey, but she doesn't know how to stop it. She follows Amilyn to the back, while throwing worried looks back at Ben over her shoulder. She knows exactly how expensive everything she tried on is; she hadn't thought he really meant to buy all of it, for her specifically. There's no way she can let a near-stranger spend hundreds of dollars on her.

Before she can figure out a solution to that problem, Amilyn is holding open the storeroom door for her. She walks over to a box, looking through it as she tosses over her shoulder to Rey, “So it looks like you found a very interested customer?”

Rey flushes. “Yeah, I mean, he just--" She cuts off, not sure how to explain herself.

“It’s okay, Rey, you're not in trouble.” Rey sighs in unexpected relief. “I can't say I entirely approve, but as long as this doesn't become a habit…” Her eyes twinkle.

Rey shakes her head emphatically. “No, definitely not.”

“I figured as much.” Amilyn smiles at her and Rey can hardly believe her luck. “Ah, here it is.” She pulls out a garment from the box, made of so little fabric that it fits in her hand. She holds it up for Rey. “We got this in with the last order, but it has a defect,” she says, tapping a spot on the shoulder. Rey leans in and can just see the discoloration on the strap. Barely noticeable, but she knows it's enough that they can't sell it. “Supplier says to destroy it, but I'm of the opinion that what they don't know won't hurt them. I believe this is your size?”

Rey looks at the label Amilyn offers to her, and confirms that it is. “But-" she protests. Amilyn shakes her head.

“It really will have to be destroyed otherwise; you're doing me a favor, dear. Just don't go posting about it online anything.”

Dazed, and still feeling strangely guilty, Rey shakes her head. “I won't. Thank you, I don't--”

Amilyn cuts her off with an understanding smile. “You're a good girl, Rey. Go have some fun.” She leaves the room, throwing a last smile at Rey over her shoulder.

Rey looks down at the small bundle in her hands. She's about to go meet Ben at the register as she walks back into the store, but then diverts at the last moment to the fitting rooms.

[lifeinahole27]

CS ff: “On the Two” (Chapter 9/9) (au)

Summary: He’s one bad trip from ending up in AA, and she’s one performance away from a solid job and moving closer to home. Their paths were unlikely to cross until Camp Hope brought them together. How and why they meet and intertwine is against the odds, and definitely against the rules, but will that really stand in their way? A Dirty Dancing inspired modern au.

Rating: E

Content Warnings: Borderline alcoholism, very brief mentions of past relationships, mentions of the loss of a limb - this fic is primarily tame but I’ll do my best to tag anything that might need tags.

Chapter Specific Warnings: Mentions of sex.

A/N: I cannot express my full gratitude that you’ve read this whole fic. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed it and I can’t wait to see what I produce for the next one! Much love and appreciation for all of you reading this! <3

Catch it on FFN & Ao3! Or find the previous chapters here on Tumblr!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 

There’s something to be said for having a girlfriend who dances. Emma’s definitely agile, and while she’s incredibly fit she’s still soft in all the right places. By now, Killian knows she sleeps in next to nothing and eats junk food as much as possible, with her snacks as fruits and vegetables in order to mislead people into believing she’s some kind of health nut. These are all things he knew before the summer at Camp Hope ended and life after began.

Thankfully, the list of things he knows about Emma just keeps getting longer.

“Not on the one, darling,” he murmurs against her ear, his hand resting on her stomach with her back against his chest. He tenses his fingers momentarily so she chortles in his hold. She’s ticklish, he’s discovered, and has exploited this fact many times over now. And when she’s not on a deadline, it’s so easy to derail any kind of attempt at dance rehearsals.

This studio is different than the one at camp. For one, there’s no issue with the heating and air conditioning, which is good considering it’s been snowing for three and a half days and shows no signs of stopping. But they’re cozy inside the studio space with hours to spare thanks to it being so close to the holidays.

Another difference in the studios is that this one is downstairs from Emma and Ruby’s apartment. The living space had come first, when they’d found the perfect apartment with just the right amount of space and the perfect price tag.

Downstairs, there’d been an empty retail rental big enough to be a studio. It had taken time, and some help from David and Snow (their way of making amends for what they later claimed was a huge oversight in their judgement), but they’re preparing to do a Grand Opening ceremony in two weeks to mark the official start of business. They’ve taken on a few private clients, but soon they’ll have classes and lessons of all kinds. They’ve even found a couple more teachers interested in employment.

With the two women on holiday break from the hotel’s entertainment schedule, Ruby drove up to Storybrooke to spend some time with Granny and Mulan. Already, she’s been able to go see her family and girlfriend more than expected since moving out of Boston.

That leaves the apartment free for Emma and Killian to spend their own time together. Today, with the snow continuing to thwart any plans they may have made, they’re down in the studio. The front of the building is all windows, and looks in at the space where Ruby or Emma will hold classes for groups of people. There are two slightly smaller spaces, however, and one of them is windowless, a line of mirrors against one wall, and a solid door so no one can peek in.

It’s not that anyone would be doing so today, of all days. Again, with the studio closed and the place to themselves, there’s no chance anyone will walk in on them. That’s a good thing, too, when Emma promptly abandons the steps to slide down Killian’s body, taking his sweatpants down as she goes. Thankfully, they’re near enough the wall that he leans forward, bracing his left forearm on the mirrored surface and reaching down to rest his hand on the back of her neck just as she engulfs him in one slick slide.

He had no idea the sex could get better, but he’s never claimed to know everything.

Afterwards, when they’re both satisfied and sprawled on the floor, Emma bundles up one of their shirts for Killian to use as a pillow before resting her cheek on his chest. Her breath ruffles the hair that’s slowly growing back, and he feels the way she smiles as she must notice the same thing. With wispy touches, she traces along his chest, around a nipple, and down his stomach. Her body starts shaking with mirth as Killian groans. It’s been five minutes, and yet his body already wants to start again. She’s brilliant at eliciting such a response from him.

“Darling, we need a bed if you wish to go for another round. And water. I need to rehydrate after that.”

She chuckles out loud this time, lifting herself to a sitting position next to him with one hand resting on his stomach. “Good idea. Maybe some food, too. Oh! D’you wanna make pancakes?”

“Whatever your heart desires, love.”

She grins, her eyes crinkling up as she does. Her hair is an absolute tangle, the last of the sweat still drying at her temples, but she looks even more beautiful every time he looks at her. “Come on, sailor.” She stands up, holding out a hand to help him up.

“Now, why does this feel awfully familiar? But I seem to remember being fully clothed the first time we did this.”

At mention of their disastrous first meeting, Emma throws her head back and laughs. He smiles as he watches her, taking in the relaxed stance despite her total lack of clothing. He lines up the images in his mind of that first memory of her hovering over him, her face pinched in annoyance, her lips pursed as she tried to coax him off the ground. How long ago that night feels compared to where they are now.

With one more bracing breath, Killian sits up, taking her offered hand and helping to gather their clothes. They’ll clean later, top to bottom, as they did with the camp studio. For now, however, he wants to make her some hot chocolate and help her with the pancakes. They slide on only what’s necessary, and then Killian sends her on her way up the back entrance while he gathers the rest of their discarded clothing. He pauses before he shuts off the lights, looking at the man that stands in the mirror and smiling. If he could go back to May and let his past self in on the secret, he may have been less reluctant to go to camp, even if it all seems surreal.  

He never figured dancing would become something he did on the side. To his surprise, Regina had followed through with the offer to sign Killian on as a part-time entertainer, even after she learned that he was a total amateur, taught only in the weeks leading up to their performance. Twice now, he’s danced on their performing nights, once with Emma and once with Ruby. They’ve even started teaching him a few new dances that they’ll start using after the New Year begins so he has more than a single Mambo in his repertoire.

It was all a whirlwind after the summer ended at Camp Hope. He and Emma had a week in the city together before she and Ruby began hunting for a new apartment. He helped any way he could, but mostly he was happy to be able to take Emma out on dates after their initial return. When she officially relocated to Portland, he weighed his options for a couple weeks before deciding it was also time for a change of scenery for him.

But instead of moving to Portland with Emma, he went further. One weekend in October before the hotel job officially began, when she was tied up with planning meetings with Ruby and Regina, Killian drove to Storybrooke. He took David and Snow out to dinner, and informed them he wanted to move to town, and that he’d like to offer his services for maintaining the camp.

It was awkward, at first, with David. Somehow, the entire time they talked, Killian was sure the man was going to forbid him from seeing Emma, like Killian was a suitor for David’s princess daughter, but the demand never came. The dinner helped to smooth over the last rough edges from the incident over the summer, and it helped that they got to see how dedicated he was to helping around the camp – that he intended on staying in Emma’s life.

After seeing what Killian could still do as far as repairs and maintenance to the cabins, the tension eased even further. When the spring hits, Killian will go to camp again to help Marco, their lead wood-worker, to make some renovations. He’s discovered that he works wonderfully with the older man, even if his adult son, August, can be a bit much sometimes.

Killian shakes his thoughts free, finally extinguishing the lights and locking up the studio before jogging up the steps. He heads straight to Emma’s room to drop their clothes and tie on his robe, smiling for what feels like the millionth time today when he sees Emma’s missing from the hook.

The pancakes end up taking a little longer than he or Emma intended, primarily because she looks too tempting in her robe, standing there mixing batter as she hums along to whatever song is playing from the radio in the kitchen. He presses up close behind her, finding a spot just above her ear as he inhales.

“Something smells delicious.”

“I haven’t even started cooking them, yet.”

“I’m not talking about the pancakes,” he says, moving forward to nuzzle the side of her face.

Her smile grows, and she spins around to kiss him, then – fiercely and fondly all in the same move – until she breaks away. Her eyes search his face as her hands rub up to his shoulders and back down.

“What?” There’s something there behind her expression, but she doesn’t look sad or upset, so he knows the answer can’t be bad.

“I’m just… happy. Still surprises me sometimes.”

With a sweeping look of his own, he gives her a small smile. “Aye, love. Me too.”

She leans up, then, kissing him again, letting it quickly morph from a tender moment to one filled with passion. She has him backed up against the table in no time, one hurried “To hell with the pancakes,” thrown out for good measure as she takes control of the kiss. Their robes are pushed off to the side, dropped to the floor like their clothes were earlier, and they truly put the kitchen table to the ultimate test of how much weight and activity can take place on top of it without collapsing.

Killian makes a mental note to thoroughly clean the kitchen when they’re done, as well.

With one kind of appetite filled once more, they finally get down to the business of making their very late second breakfast. The rest of the day is spent on the couch in their pajamas, fuzzy blankets wrapped around the both of them as they catch up on whatever is on her Netflix queue.

It’s been six months since they met, and five since things took a turn for romance, but Killian’s mind wanders away to what comes next. It’s those thoughts of the future that follow him into his dreams, and he wonders what kind of ring Emma might like best.

-x-

“Killian’s going to ask me to marry him,” Emma says quietly into her phone. The screeching response is loud to her own ears, so she’s glad she’s sitting in the living room and far away from the man in question, soundly sleeping in her bed.

It takes Ruby just a couple seconds to calm down again before she starts her line of questions. “Wait, did you talk to him about it? How do you know this?”

“So, Killian talks in his sleep. Not often, and most of the time it’s total nonsense, but I was just dozing off last night when he grabbed my hand and asked me what kind of ring I want him to get. Completely asleep, dead to the world, and he just told me he wants to marry me.”

He never talked when they were sleeping together at the camp. It wasn’t until about a month of actually dating him that he first babbled some words at her as she was waking up to make breakfast at his apartment. Last night was the clearest he’s ever spoken to her in his sleep, though, as if the message defied being garbled by sleep.

Once, the very thought of getting married would cause her chest to constrict in panic. Now, however, she has that feeling you get when you’re trying not to laugh while speaking. As it is, she can’t fight the blissful smile stretching across her whole face.

“And what kind of ring should I tell him to get when he asks?”

“His subconscious has already ruined part of the mystery. Let it be a surprise. I trust you to know what I like.” “And you’re not freaking out?” “You know, I would’ve a couple months ago. Probably right after we slept together I still would’ve run away. But now,” she pauses, trying to think of the best way to describe how she’s feeling. She wants to run, all right, straight down an aisle with Killian waiting for her at the end of it.

“Now it’s just right?” Ruby finishes for her.

“Exactly. Okay. Merry Christmas and all that, in case I don’t talk to you tomorrow. Send my best to Mulan, and tell Granny thanks for the cookies. We have been steadily working our way through them since we opened the package.”

“We already finished ours, honestly. And same to you and Killian. You guys coming up tomorrow or Christmas Day?”

“Tomorrow, as long as the roads are clear. I think the snow was due to stop last night.”

“Good. Drive carefully. Try not to have sex on everything.”

“Too late,” Emma says. Chortling as Ruby starts squawking again on the other line. “Okay, bye!” She ends the call before she gets hearing damage in her ear, still chuckling to herself as she stands up from the ball she’d curled up into on the couch. With a long stretch and yawn, Emma makes her way back to the bedroom where Killian is still sleeping.

She tilts her head as she looks at him from the doorway, his face eased of any expression, his breathing soft and even. His brace and prosthetic are sitting on a shelf she installed especially for him, and his hand rests on the spot she vacated in her need to bubble over with her secret just a bit ago.

Once, Emma found Killian sleeping on the side of a trail, and the thought of that shared memory from the day before makes her snort. The noise causes Killian to stir, and he blinks his eyes open to search for her.

“Coming back t’ bed, love?”

“Yeah, be right there,” she tells him, turning once to go use the bathroom and get a glass of water before she curls up with Killian again. She knows that with the late hours they kept the night before and all their strenuous activity, they’re likely to stay in bed all morning if they can. It is Christmas Eve-Eve, and they have nowhere to be today.

There’s still a nervous flutter in her belly as she climbs back into the bed, back into the sleepy embrace Killian bestows upon her after she’s situated under the covers. She rests with her head on his shoulder, his arm loosely wrapped around her back, and thinks about how much life has changed since this time last year. For one, her bed was definitely empty. And for another, her bed was in Boston, her heart locked away, her future uncertain.

Now she’s snuggled to a man that helped her move this bed into this very room, with her heart next to his, and she’s happier than she ever imagined she could be. And now, apparently, he wants to marry her. It takes a lot of effort to not let the giddy laughter erupt once more, and she focuses instead on the other developments that have taken place to get her mind off the elephant in the unconsciousness.

When she moved to Portland, Emma wasn’t sure what was going to happen with her relationship with Killian. They’d barely made it past a third date before she and Ruby signed a lease for this place, so there was a lot she and Killian hadn’t been able to discuss yet. She knew she loved him, and that he loved her. And that alone was a shock, still. Of all things Emma was expecting from camp this year, falling in love in such a short period of time was not one of them.

Though they hadn’t been together long, that didn’t make Emma any less sure of her emotions. She kind of figured when she was willing to invite him to her cabin that night after their performance that it had to be something bigger than a one night stand.

And then came the end of camp. Killian and Liam both stuck around after all the guests checked out to help out any way they could. Killian explained later that he felt he owed it to David and Snow for not decking him on the spot, and he wanted to give them back something for all they gave to him. Even after the studio was cleaned and locked up for the season, and her car packed to the brim with all their gear, he still stuck around.

There were several jobs that Killian was perfectly fit for, given his background in building things, and he helped Leroy make some repairs, helped Marco fix up some of the furniture in a cabin where he hadn’t had time to update it yet, and he helped David with anything the man even hinted at needing help with. Sure, they snarked their way through any and every job they did together, but Emma could see at the end of their clean-up week that David was fighting smiles when Killian made a joke.

When she moved, Killian took the initiative to go make solid amends with her brother and sister-in-law. She was busy with rehearsals for an upcoming show at the hotel, but Killian assured her he would be fine, that he would backtrack and spend the night in Portland with her after dinner was completed. It was still nerve-wracking to wait around for news of that dinner, however. Almost worse than waiting for Regina when she and Ruby went to sign their contracts.

Of course, he surprised her in the best way possible when he told her he was moving to Storybrooke.

“I don’t ever want to make you choose between visiting me, and visiting your family. So I’m moving to where they are. David and Snow have even offered to lease out their old loft to me until I find a place of my own.”

The loft was a first home on their own for all of them, at one point or another. After Ruth passed away and David and Snow moved out to her old farmhouse, no one could see fit to let go of the apartment, so they sublet it during the summer months and kept it, just in case. And now, full circle, Killian was living in it. Because they hadn’t really talked about the future or what comes next between them, he’s just been nestled there until further notice.

It does make it really handy when she has a week off and she can hop up to see the Nolans. She stays with Killian and gets to see everyone for days on end, which is just about the most settled she’s felt since Ruth first took her in.

Killian mumbles in his sleep, turning to press his nose against her forehead, barely kissing the skin before he falls back to sleep once more. Emma wonders if they ever truly relaxed at camp, given how much more comfortable they seem to be now that it’s all said and done. Not that it really matters, since it all worked out, but she wonders what she would’ve done had her family truly banished her. She wouldn’t have let them. She shouldn’t have left like she did – especially without giving Killian a way to contact her – but she would’ve made sure it all worked out this way no matter what.

Her boyfriend’s budding friendship with her family is all just a bonus. As is her own slow-building relationship with Liam. Just as Killian experienced pushback with David, Emma had some problems getting along with Liam right off the bat. She’s pretty sure he was just looking out for Killian, but it took a heated conversation to turn it around. He’d been touting how he waited to start courting Tink until after camp was finished and they had time to get to know each other.

In one instance, it was a lovely lunch at Killian’s apartment in Boston right after she moved to Portland. In the next, the brothers were angrily talking over one another about morals and propriety and she thinks there was something about disrespect? She lost track quickly. She just remembers standing up between the two of them and telling them to both shut the hell up so they could talk it out like adults or take it out back like children.

It took some extra rum and whiskey, and another beer for her, but they hashed it all out that night. Liam is, as she guessed, incredibly protective of his younger brother. And changes had taken place really fast in their lives. She was the force that was taking Killian away from Liam, though she didn’t know that at the time.  When Killian moved, she made a promise to Liam that she would keep on Killian to call and FaceTime with his brother, but she’s never had to remind him once in the last couple months.

It helps that Liam comes up to Storybrooke once or twice a month on the weekends to visit Tink, so that the brothers don’t ever feel truly separated. And it also helps that Liam has seen the full turn-around in Killian from the beginning of the summer. Now, when Killian has a glass of rum, he stops at one. Full bottles are not a rarity anymore. In fact, since he moved, she’s pretty sure the same bottle of rum has been in his liquor stash.

After spending most of the morning doing absolutely nothing, Emma finally shoos Killian out of bed so she can get her laundry done and pack for the week they’re staying in Storybrooke. He helps by cleaning almost the entire apartment while she works on her task, helping to load up her laundry basket when it’s all done and bring it down the hall to her bedroom.

They make dinner together, a simple meal of spaghetti since there’s nothing left in the fridge. They make hot cocoa again after they’ve cleaned up from their meal, settling on the couch to watch Christmas movies until bedtime. She’s a little sad that the apartment is mostly bare of decorations. They put up a few small ones, but no tree this year.

First, neither she nor Ruby will be home to enjoy it on Christmas day, so what was the point. And second, it didn’t fit in the storage space located outside their door, so Emma reluctantly kept it in Storybrooke this year. So while the urge to decorate simmers in her right this very minute, it’s not like she even can. She tides herself over with a reminder that there will be a tree at David and Snow’s place, and she’ll appreciate that one to the fullest.

The drive up the coast is about what Emma was expecting it would be. Enough of the snow has melted down that it’s not treacherous, but it’s not a quick and easy drive, either. Because of this, they end up arriving at the town line about an hour and a half beyond what they were hoping for.

“We’ll just come straight out to the farmhouse,” Emma says to Snow on the phone.

“No, honey, go to the loft and settle in a bit. We can wait. Dinner’s not for hours, still. We understand.”

Even though she protests one more time that she wants to see them, and sooner rather than later, Snow still insists they go do what they need to at the loft first. Maybe if she wasn’t so tired from the constant vigilance on the trip up, she would’ve caught the note in Snow’s voice letting her know something was up.

But because she is that exhausted from the drive, she’s still completely blown away when Killian shoulders open the door to the apartment and they’re greeted with a puff of warm air and the scent of cinnamon instead of the chilled exterior they were expecting to come back to.

The whole place is decorated like Snow and David used to, with lights hanging from the exposed beams and railing of the loft above. The lamps suspended above the breakfast bar have tinsel wrapped around them, and the lights switched to red and green – something that used to absolutely delight Emma when she used to come over around the holidays. The one winter she was living here, they did the same thing, and that’s probably exactly why they did all this now.

“Surprise!” Snow says as she rounds the tree – Emma’s tree – set up in the corner by the bathroom, placing an ornament and sprucing as she goes. Her sister-in-law beams as she looks at Emma’s wonderment, and she finally remembers to close her mouth and push Killian through the door when David snorts from upstairs.

“We thought we’d give you a true Storybrooke welcome,” her brother says as he comes down the stairs, grabbing Emma’s suitcase and moving it to the side so he can shut the door behind the two of them. He helps Emma with her coat, taking Killian’s as well and hanging them on the hooks by the door. Only then does Emma remember how to function, to slip off her snow boots and take off her hat and gloves, stashing them in the appropriate places, only vaguely aware of Killian doing the same beside her.

After that, her only goal is to hug David and Snow. She starts with her brother, as he’s closest, and then to Snow who is painstakingly placing tinsel on the tree, making sure each and every strand looks perfect. “We were going to wait,” Snow explains, opening her arms and accepting the tight hug Emma gives her. “But we also wanted to surprise you once the drive kept getting longer and longer. We had plenty of time.”

There are even two stockings hung from screws in the brick wall, hung with twine so they rest just at the height they’d be at if there was a fireplace and mantel here. Hers is old and worn – the one that Ruth made for her when she first came to live with the Nolans – but Emma can see that the purple thread that spells her name has been refreshed with some glittery yarn accents. And now, one adorned with Killian’s name hangs next to it. She sees that he’s finally moved, as well, his fingers gliding along the delicately embroidered red.

“Look inside,” Snow urges, going to stand with David as the other two stand in awe of their stockings.

Killian casts one glance Emma’s way, lifting his eyebrow in question and she shrugs in response. In unison, they reach into the stockings and pull out small items wrapped in tissue paper. The item from hers feels like fragility, and she’s not mistaken when she unwraps the milky glass of a hand-blown ornament shaped like a swan. It’s likely by someone in town, and Emma makes a mental note to ask who so she can thank them in person, but her gaze is caught by Killian’s ornament.

It’s clearly one made by Marco, the handcrafted carving too detailed and precise to be done by anyone else, and she thinks it’s just a tall ship until Killian laughs once, finding the little pirate flag attached. Clearly, Marco had wheedled Killian’s love of ships and pirates out of her boyfriend at some point during their work together. She imagines he must’ve spent weeks working on this one ornament and adds a second trip to their thank-you-tour for the days following Christmas.

“Thank you,” Emma says as she turns to David and Snow. “For all of this.” She gestures to the apartment in whole, from tree to lights to stockings.

“We just thought it would be nice for your first Christmas back to feel as close to home as possible.”

She just barely stops herself from crying, but it’s a close thing. And now, with the ornaments, it’s not just Emma’s first Christmas, but both of theirs.

That night, Emma watches the lights stretch and twinkle as her eyes grow heavy. She and Killian are wrapped around each other, the blankets tightly tucked around them to keep out the December chill. She stares at everything they kept lit, watching some strands cycle through their programmed flashing and dancing.

Knowing that Killian is likely to ask her a very important question soon, Emma lets herself daydream about what a future with him will look like beyond the new year, or even the next one to come. If she squints just the right way, the loft transforms into somewhere bigger, and theirs. With rooms to fill with decorations and no landlords. She sees little shoes lined up by the ones they would keep at the door, and a little girl balanced on Killian’s feet as they dance together in the living room.

The image is so startlingly clear that Emma almost declares that they start trying right now, but she settles for slowly coaxing Killian back to full wakefulness, initiating lovemaking so sweet that her heart almost bursts with happiness somewhere in the middle, let alone the end that leaves her sweaty and panting and satisfied but craving, as always. He gives her everything she asks for and more, only letting himself chase release when he feels she’s been thoroughly pleased, and he kisses her tenderly after they’ve both cleaned up and crawled back into bed, whispering his love and merry wishes as they both drift off together.

A few days after the most perfect Christmas Emma could’ve ever imagined, she gets roped into making breakfast with Snow while David and Killian go out in search of more hot chocolate packets. When they come back, it might be her imagination but David’s eyes look a little misty. If Snow notices at all, she doesn’t say anything, and David must not share with her over the next couple months, because her sister-in-law is notoriously terrible at keeping secrets.

In the end, Killian hands her a ring of a different kind first, to a grand Victorian that she used to admire every time she drove by it, close to the water and large enough for her own practice space and a workshop for Killian. The other ring comes later, when they’re lying in bed together a year to the date after their first performance. Their future unfolds in the facets and sparkle, in the way Emma says yes after she slides to kneel on the floor in front of him.

Their first dance as husband and wife is definitely not a Mambo.

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

8 Oct 2019: The AI will interview you now. Uber work. Amazon rumours. Facebook leak.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Bladerunner fandom]

The AI will interview you now

Face recognition technology and AI is being used in job interviews in the UK “to identify the best candidates”, says the Telegraph. Unilever and other use HireVue’s AI to 

“analyse the language, tone and facial expressions of candidates when they are asked a set of identical job questions which they film on their mobile phone or laptop. The algorithms select the best applicants by assessing their performances in the videos against about 25,000 pieces of facial and linguistic information compiled from previous interviews of those who have gone on to prove to be good at the job.”

It’s not doing face recognition, it’s doing behaviour recognition. Something like: “These facial and speech behaviours are correlated with the interviewee being a good employee - thumbs up, +4 career points”.

It’s natural that this feels a bit wrong because humans are unique and special, right? In truth though, they are bound by fairly predictable behaviours, and really it’s not that hard to have a computer watch the face of a human and make judgements. It’s science you can trust, and in fact it weeds out bias because the machine doesn’t care, unlike a human interviewer who’ll bring loads of messy biases. So it’s a good thing, it’s progress.

Oh sorry wait, it’s a science you can trust as long as the data the machine learning model was trained on was large and unbiased. And as long as none of the interviewees look different to the ones in the training data. And as long as the machine learning doesn’t inadvertently amplify any systemic biases in the hiring organisation’s practices (or Hirevue itself’s). And as long as interviewees can meaningfully give consent to be catalogued by a machine. And as long as no discrimination law is being broken by having the computer say no. And as long as some job applicants aren’t freaked out by being video-interviewed by a Voight-Kampff machine.

Here the newsletterbot is guilty of bias: it believes humans to be sufficiently complex that it will be hard to effectively “machine learn” the problem that is organisations, their people, their culture, their politics, the webs of motivations and incentives, their jobs and the humans that might potentially fit well.

Still, HireVue says they’re serious about ethical and accurate machine learning, so fingers crossed 😬. An interesting read on video interviews. YouTube is full of videos about how to do well in a HireVue video interview, here’s one. Watching them, you’re struck by the asymmetry: the machine and later an employer watching your interview video, but you seeing nothing except the questions and the webcam’s black eye. So interviewing would be perhaps be a bit fairer if the employer also had 30 seconds to consider and 3 minutes to answer on camera the interviewee’s questions.

Unrelated, but relevant because it’s about bias and how it and power are inadvertently expressed in technology: “Google contractors allegedly offered darker-skinned homeless people $5 dollar gift cards to scan their faces for facial recognition software”.

Uber work

Uber’s temp agency platform, Uber Work has launched in Chicago. The company says: “We believe that finding work shouldn’t have to be a job in itself. For positions as diverse as being a prep cook, warehouse worker, a commercial cleaner or event staff, Uber Works aims to make it easier to find and claim a shift.”

Here’s a fictional look at temp workers in 2023, and hopefully Uber Works doesn’t nudge work in that direction. Something that empowers shift workers is a better model: “crowdsourcing information about what it’s really like to work somewhere, turning it into recommendations about employers that could be better for you” (from plucky UK startup Poplar).

Elsewhere, a successful taxi co-op: “A worker owned taxi coop in Southend has grown from 6 to 70 drivers. They repaid all their investors and returned £3000 to their members last year. The same year Uber left the area after failing to compete with them.”

Amazon rumours

Amazon to sell its Go technology to airports, cinemas, sports venues? Interesting if true - eventually there would be a tension between the platform and the grocery businesses (see also: Ocado in 2017ish).

Amazon is said to be hiring property experts in UK.

Similar rumour: but in Los Angeles. A dozen leases have been signed in Los Angeles, reports the Wall St journal. 7 burning questions about Amazon's new grocery chain.

Facebook leak: trust deficit internally?

A Facebooker leaked audio of an all-team Zuckermeet. The media reported it as FB boss Zuckerberg saying he’d fight (too) hard against politicians etc, but the transcript suggests that his comments were actually fairly standard stuff. This story is more notable for the fact that an employee recorded and leaked the meeting - growing cultural/trust deficit internally, perhaps?

Cryptocurrency news

Paypal has pulled out of the Facebook-led Libra cryptocurrency consortium, saying that it’s not you Libra it’s me. Rumours: Mastercard and Visa aren’t so sure either.

Police auctioned off £240,000 of cryptocurrency confiscated from a hacker - if it had been a confiscated 3 Series with a spoiler kit and spinner rims you’d have expected to be able to snag a good deal, but money’s money so maybe there wasn’t a discount in this case.

“The pain in my jaw from holding just one cryptocurrency had reduced me to an all-liquid diet. I was not cut out to be a trader.” - a good piece on the subsistence lives of small-scale cryptocurrency traders (also a decent backgrounder on cryptocurrencies).

Other news

How grocery pickup is evolving - supermarkets trying to make click-n-collect faster.

Supreme Court hands victory to blind man who sued Domino's over website accessibility - see previous story on this.

Climate Action Tech: “empower technology professionals to play our part - to meet, discuss, learn and take climate action” - needed because the tech industry uses a lot of energy.

No good urban ebike deed goes unpunished. “Horrible. One good deed rewarded with a scary blend of the so-called sharing economy, the commercialisation of communal spaces, and authoritarian surveillance capitalism, all sugared with the unbearable style of wackaging. May every dockless bike and scooter scheme go bust as soon as possible.”

Workshop tactics for agile teams - looks good.

Job ad for Ocado developers is neatly placed in the website’s code.

Previous newsletters:

Most opened newsletter in the last month: competing with Amazon Go. Most clicked story: Why don’t we just call agile what it is: feminist.

News 1 year ago: curated convenience and paying with your data.

News 2 years ago: eGovernment (single digital market) and first mile logistics (Amazon keeping inventory in retailer warehousing).

Co-op Digital news and events

What the data and feedback show about 3 digital services in our Food stores.

Public events:

Manchester WordPress User Group - Wed 16 Oct 6.30pm at Federation House.

Tech for Good Live vs the climate crisis - Thu 17 Oct 6.30pm at Federation House.

Business Growth Hub - Moving your business forward - Mon 21 Oct 12pm at Federation House.

Meet the expert - marketing approach - Tue 22 Oct 12pm at Federation House.

Meet the expert - hints and tricks on social media - Wed 23 Oct 1pm at Federation House.

Human values in software production - Tue 5 Nov 6pm at Federation House.

Practitioners Forum: vital lessons for key co-operators - Thu 7 Nov at the Studio, Manchester.

Pods Up North , an event for podcasters - Sat 23 Nov 9am at Federation House.

Mind the Product - MTP Engage - Fri 7 Feb 2020 - you can get early bird tickets now.

Internal events:

Digital all hands - Wed 9 Oct 1pm at Fed House Defiant.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 9 Oct 3pm at Fed House 6th floor kitchen.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Mon 14 Oct 10.15am at Fed House 5th floor.

Delivery community of practice - Mon 14 Oct 1.30pm.

What has the web team been up to? - Tue 15 Oct 1.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Health show & tell - Tue 15 Oct 2.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Engineering community of practice - Wed 16 Oct 1pm at fed House Defiant.

Targeted marketing (CRM) show & tell - Wed 16 Oct 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor breakout area.

Membership show & tell - Fri 18 Oct 3pm at Fed House 6th floor kitchen.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West. 

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s word gardener @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.