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savingcrxws · 9 months

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EYES ON FIRE | maybe someday

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synopsis. you and carmen just keep bumping into each other.

word count. 4.3k (gah damn)

warnings. language, hardly proofread again i'm sorry its an addiction

authors note. thank u guys so much for the support in these previous chapters! it’s really amazing to me that u guys enjoyed it so much! i would recommend listening to maybe someday by the cure for this chapter!

“Yeah, Sugar. The appointment is booked for Thursday, the reps will probably be coming in at like…three o’clock,” you mutter, flipping through the manila folder absolutely stuffed with documents and sticky notes.

You pursue your lips at all you had to get done within this week alone–sign installation permit, permit to replace the hot water heater, permit to fix the ventilation systems, reapply for occupancy capacity signs because of the restaurants lack of other permits, and holy shit…

You completely forgot to schedule the follow-up appointment with the BACP consultant.

You groan, slamming the thick folder into your forehead, the papers thwacking against your skull. Natalie sounds startled on the other end of the phone, no doubt hearing the sound on her end of the call. She questions if you’re okay, and you only respond with a gentle hum before tossing the folder back down on the office table.

“Hey, Suge, do you think I can call you back later? I need to schedule a follow-up consultation with Raquel before another rep hops on my ass about the boiler replacement.”

“Of course, hun, call me back whenever you can,” Sugar starts and you can hear some papers flicking in her side of the call as well.

You had managed to convince her to work from home more often, worried that all the stress from the demolition inside would affect her pregnancy and her overall wellbeing. After some back and forth, she had begrudgingly agreed to spend two days working on the project from the comfort of her own couch.

And even though she complains still, you know she appreciates she has a little bit more time off of her feet.

“Don’t work yourself too hard, okay, Bug?”

You nod, even though you know she can’t see you. “Same for you, Bear.” Sugar hums once again before you both give your goodbyes and end the call.

You expel all of the air out of your chest in a large puff as you slide down the office chair.

After signing onto Team Bear, your new home-away-from-home had been this tiny office in the back of the restaurant. For the most part, no one came in and disrupted your work, which allowed you to have your head shoved into piles of paperwork, be stuck on phone calls, and be forced to reread legal jargon for hours on end with little interruption.

Well, as little interruption as there could be with the restaurant quite literally falling apart around you.

Thankfully, everyone was very respectful of your work in helping the developing business. You were practically putting every ounce of knowledge that you learned from both college and the real-world experience (including connections within the industry) to help push the restaurant closer to the deadline. All the while still dealing with your other commitments to other businesses that you had prior to signing on to this project.

Staying at The Bear for eight hours a day had its benefits, though.

For example, there was always something entertaining going on in the background. Like last Tuesday, when Fak had decided to send a sledgehammer directly into the only remaining wall of the office–sending bits and pieces of drywall onto your clothes.

Another benefit of being stuck in that office chair is that you had an excuse to ignore everyone around you. And by everyone, you really mean Carmen.

After the awkward office run-in last week, the two of you hardly spoke to each other. Sure, there was the ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ that you threw to each other and the words you exchanged when you caught him up on the status of licensing, but you two had yet to have an actual conversation.

It was clear that the both of you were still walking on eggshells around each other—and everyone could see it. But you had an inkling feeling that Carmen had been wanting to say something, judging by the short glances you sometimes catch him throwing in your direction.

Kinda similar to the one that he’s giving you right now.

You feel the heat of his stare on your face before you see it. He’d been staring at you for a couple moments now, long enough for you to no longer consider it an inquisitive glance.

You peek up from the folder and make solid eye contact with Carmen through the hole in the wall. The man flushes almost immediately, the red color sinking past his collar. You purse your lips and give a small nod of acknowledgment and he stutters in his spot.

And then he’s turning away.

Like he wasn’t the one just staring at you a moment ago.

You roll your eyes and turn back to your original position in the seat. Picking the folder up again, you flick to the papers listing the requirements for the next fire suppression test.

“Men,” you mutter, before picking up your phone and making a phone call.

Three days later, the office is completely demolished and your work revolving around The Bear has been moved to a family-owned coffee shop two blocks over.

In the short span of time, all of the walls in the store had been busted down and the restaurant had practically turned into a hazardous wasteland. And since construction was too far out of your pay grade, you decided to leave the heavy lifting up to everyone else.

“Alright, permit done!” You throw your hands up in the air, your theatrics catching the attention of a couple next to you. You could hardly care for the stares, though, you had been working on getting that permit for the past four days straight. Slamming your laptop shut, you pack up your bags and head off to the cash register to buy another coffee before you go.

While you wait for your drink, you decide to scroll aimlessly through your phone to kill some time.

“Oh shit,” you hear a voice utter behind you, and you barely have time to process the word before something ice cold is running down your back. “Fuck, I’m fucking sorry, I didn’t even see you—“

You gasp on reflex, taking a step forward and shivering. The person who spilled their drink on you is stuttering out apologies. The liquid seeps into the jacket you were wearing and you pull it off immediately.

“Yo, what the fuck, dude,” you curse, watching the large stain of coffee spread even farther across your jacket. “Watch where the hell you’re walking—”

In the middle of trying to give the perpetrator a piece of your mind, you failed to recognize the familiar sound of the voice that was spewing apology out of apology. But in a second, your eyes met a recognizable set of blue and you halted your words.

In front of you stands Carmen Berzatto. In his signature colored sweater and a half-spilled cup of coffee in his hand.

And he looks petrified.

It seems he didn’t realize just who was the unlucky victim to his americano attack either until you turned around. His mouth agape, he utters out a jumbled apology, glancing back at you, your stained jacket, and the cup in his hand like his brain was still trying to understand what just happened.

“Uh-uh, fuck, sorry, I swear this wasn’t on purpose,” he rambles, placing his cup on the counter behind you and grabbing some napkins right after. He steps back towards you and shoves his hand of napkins to you. “Here, shit, I’m so sorry.”

You sigh, taking the napkins from him, noting the slight tremor that persisted in his hands as you did so. Taking in a slow breath, you close your eyes and count to ten before responding. “It’s okay, Carmen. Don’t worry about it.”

And even though you tried to maintain your peace, you can hear the annoyance seeping out of your words. Carmen glances around the counter before looking back at you and your soaked jacket. You know he probably wants to apologize some more, but honestly, one more apology might land him with a punch to the gut.

Just as he opens his mouth, you raise your free hand, silencing him immediately. You shake your head in dismissal before taking the napkins offered to you and blotting the coffee out of the fabric of your jacket. Carmen simply stood in his place, watching you, seeing if he could do anything to redeem himself in this situation.

However, after they called your name for your drink order, you dumped the used napkins in the trash, took your drink and hightailed it out of the café without one more word to the man.

After the coffee shop incident, you swear that you started to see Carmen everywhere.

You needed a quiet place to plan outside of your house so you went to one of the local libraries. Guess who’s walking outside the building?

You need a late night snack and decide to hit up the corner store. Guess who’s in the refrigerated section?

Hell, you decide to stay late at The Bear for some last minute checkups? Guess who forgot to grab a few things before leaving that night?

You swear that before you hopped on The Bear train, you never even saw a glimpse of the man. Sure, you lived relatively near the restaurant, but Chicago is fucking huge, there’s no way you would run into one of the few people that you’re trying to avoid.

Absolutely not, apparently.

Finally finishing up the weekly budget report and estimate for the following weeks till open, you decide to take a step away from work for a second and give your brain some time to breath.

“Hey, Syd, if anyone needs me, I’m outside taking a smoke break, ‘kay,” you yell across the restaurant, receiving a thumbs up from her from the other side of the room. “Be back in 15!”

Reaching into your bag, you pull out a pack of cigs and a lighter before heading to the back entrance of the restaurant. You place the cigarette between your lips and head to the backdoor. Stepping out and around the alley to the designated smoke corner, you fiddle with the lighter switch, hearing the light sizzle but seeing no flames emerge.

You groan, flicking the lighter again and again and still no lig–

“Umm, uh, you need a light?”

You scream, your heart almost skipping a beat and falling out on the concrete below you. In your alarm, both your cigarette and the lighter drop on to the ground. "Shit," you mutter and throw a glance over at whoever had scared the living shit out of you and, surprise suprise . . .

There was Carmen, standing in the alley a few feet away from the door. One leg was kicked up to rest his foot against the wall behind him and a cigarette hung loosely between his fingers. His eyes trailed across you for a second, then he glanced at the cigarette on the ground before taking another draw from his own and staring out the wall in front of him.

If you had half of the energy, you would tell him off for scaring the shit out of you and book it out of the enclosed space.

Lucky for Carmen, however, you really needed that cigarette.

Reaching back into your bag once more, you pull out another cig and walk slowly over to the man. Your steps gain his attention once again and when your eyes met you gestured to the lighter hanging out of his cooking apron.

He grabs the lighter and hands it to you. As you reach out to grab it, your fingers brush against his knuckles. Some quick thought in the back of your head wishes that that physical interaction lasted a little longer, but you're quick to shoo that away into the deep recesses of your mind.

Lighting your cigarette, you hand the lighter back to him before taking a drag. Blowing the smoke out, you slid down the wall until you could lean back into a squat against it.

The two of you just stand there, in complete silence aside from the occasional cough from an improper pull. This quiet isn't nearly as awkward as the first run-in the two of you had. Maybe it's because of the nicotine or maybe it's because continuously running into Carmen over these past days had subconsciously made you a little more comfortable with his presence.

. . .

Nah, it definitely had to be the nicotine.

You glance up at Carmen, who continues to smoke even though his stick had turned into a bud a while ago. You make note of the new tattoos that run down his arms and hands, eyes stopping at the rose flower tattoo on his left hand.

You remember when he got that one done with you at the parlor for his eighteenth birthday.

Subconsciously, you rub at the matching rose on your thigh before sighing and focusing back on your cigarette. Young, dumb decisions, you think.

Above you, Carmen watches your focus retreat back and purses his lips. In all honesty, Carmen usually never finishes a whole cigarette, but he really needed an excuse to stay out here longer with you.

These past couple of days had been tormenting him just as much as it had been you, albeit for different reasons. Everytime Carmen ran into you, whether it be in that cafe or that random grocery store that one early morning, he was plagued with memories of everything that he had fucked up.

Not just the relationship that he had fucked, but the happiness that he had stolen from the both of you.

And he had so desperately been trying to apologize, but every time you saw his face, you would get that look on your own. That dread, the anxiousness, that annoyance. That anger.

Whenever he saw that expression on your face, he would get too choked up to say anything of significance. A simple 'hey" would be all that would leave his mouth. Either that or he would stutter like he was a fucking kid again and embarrass himself in front of you like he seems to be doing constantly lately.

Carmen sighs, taking a final hit from his cigarette before stomping it out on the ground. By all previous experience, Carmen would book it out of the area by now, but something in his gut was telling him to stay this time.

Glancing down at you once more, he sees that you have taken to scrolling through your phone to kill the time. He bites the corner of his lip and decides to sit against the wall like you.

Instinctively, you toss him a questioning glance but when he didn't make any move to speak or gesture towards you, you shook your head and went back to whatever video had popped up on your feed.

Fuck it, he thought.

"I'm sorry."

You halt in the middle of your smoke, nearly coughing on the fumes but managing to swallow it. You look over at Carmen inquisitively, wondering where the hell that apology came from. The dirty blonde was wringing his hands, mouth opening and shutting as if he was trying to get the words out.

"Sorry for the, uh," he mutters, casting a quick glance in your direction to assure himself that you were listening. "Sorry for the, for uh-You know I didn't-I don't know how-"

"Yo, Carmen," you interrupt the world vomit that he was spewing, tossing your cigarette down before snuffing out the light with your shoe. You center your focus back on the man next to you, who seemed to only have you in his attention. "Just say what you want to say. No bullshit."

Your blunt words seem to ground Carmen long enough for him to gather his thoughts. He nods his head rapidly in that way he does when he's clearly overwhelmed before he clears his throat. He takes in a large inhale and clears his throat, ready to speak again.

"I want to apologize. For everything. For how much of an jackoff I was back then, and for how much I am right now," Carmen stars, eyes staring solidly into yours to show just how serious he is. "I didn't deserve you, and you did nothing to deserve the way that we ended."

You feel something burn the back of your throat at the mention of the end of your relationship. The total radio silence from him for the days prior, and just when you had managed to gather the courage to ask the question of just what the hell are we doing, Carmy, you were cast aside like nothing.

He was right, you didn’t deserve that.

Pushing back the feelings bubbling up in your chest, you nod your head to signal that you were listening.

"I-I, it's no excuse, but I was really going through some serious shit. And I really felt that if I cut everyone out of my life, I could actually get a second to breathe you know," Carmen pauses and you open your mouth to speak, but he continues. "I-I just know you deserved-you deserve better. But seeing you in this restaurant day-in and day-out, working away to help my sister, my crew--help me? I just felt even more like a piece of shit."

He turns fully towards you now and you can see his eyes turning red from the emotion he was clearly holding behind his words. "You didn't deserve what I did, and you definitely don't deserve to be cleaning up my messes now."

"You deserved the world, and I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you."

His last words send a sharp pang into your chest. Here you two sat, sitting next to each other, the distance between you two seemed to be filled with words unsaid. You stare into his eyes a little longer, at a loss for what to say completely.

On one hand, you wanted to reject his apology, tell him to fuck off and leave him alone in this alleyway. He would deserve it after everything.

But he has that familiar kicked puppy-dog look in his eyes and he's chewed his lip red, and he's actually sorry.

You sigh, leaning your head back to rest against the wall behind you. Staring up at the sky, you trace the shapes of the clouds above as you collect your thoughts.

"Yeah," you start, nodding your head to yourself. Carmen tenses up at the ambiguity behind both your words and your tone. He would have to have his own head shoved up his ass if he didn't realize that you had every right to refuse his plea for forgiveness. Frankly, that's exactly what he was expecting you to do.

"Yeah, okay. I can forgive you, Berzatto."

Carmen's heart sinks into his guts, mouth slightly agape in pure shock. "You-you can?"

You give a small smile, turning your head to face the man. "Yeah, Carmen, I accept your apology."

The dirty blonde opens his mouth again but you put a hand up in the space between you, effectively shutting him up for a second.

"But," you trail, "I'm gonna forward you that dry cleaning bill from that cafe, asshat. I've been trying to get that shit out for days now."

Carmen flushes a bright red at the mention of the coffee shop run-in you two had, a broken chuckle leaving his mouth at the obvious teasing tone in your voice. You were joking with him, for the first time in years, you two had managed to glimpse at the level of comfortability that you once shared.

Carmen chuckles again, running a hand through his curls. "Yeah, well, can I raincheck that until after the restaurant starts making money? I'm kinda flat fucking broke right now."

You giggle at the honesty behind his words. "Yeah, I ran those calculations by the way. Have fun being flat broke for at least three months after The Bear opens."

"Shit," Carmen mutters, a grin still on his face.

"Yeah, shit." You nod in his direction before pushing yourself off your crouched position on the ground. "Anyway, I'm gonna head inside to get back on that shit. Fak's fucking electric guy keeps flaking on us."

Carmen's eyes follow your form as you stand, holding eye contact with you when you glance back down at him. "Yeah, yeah, I should probably meet up with Syd for the chaos menu anyway."

He hurriedly stands up, wiping his hands on his work pants. After he finishes, he looks at you once again, noting the small smile on your face. For a second, he swears his heart skips a beat.

"For the record, Carmy," you play with the nickname on your tongue, having not said it in quite some time. Carmen flushes before nodding for you to continue. The small on your face falls for a second as you look at him. "You pull that shit with me again, I'm sicking the dogs on your ass. Seriously."

Carmen clears his throat, straightening up at the more serious tone of your voice. Although you were not nearly as angry looking at him as before, he knew that you were serious. There were no more apologies after this, no more fuckups.

You look at him expectantly, waiting for some form of acknowledgment.

He nods. "Yes, chef."

After the conversation outside The Bear, you and Carmen seemed to flow together much easier than before. Granted there was the occasional stray glance casted in your direction from the man, but overall, the two of you were on much more agreeable terms.

The rest of the crew seemed to notice the absence of uncertain tension between the two of you. You explained to Tina, Richie, and Sugar that you two had simply talked it out and were no longer on "spiteful ex" terms.

Richie, being the annoying man that he is, insisted that something else must've happened--to which you responded with a firm shoulder check and yet another middle finger.

Overall, the two of you seemed to only talk about business stuff, which made it easier for conversations to flow. Less personal, more concrete talks.

"Alright, Carmy, we got that certificate of occupancy, right?" You question, running down the legal checklist once again. When you heard no response, you asked again, only to be ignored again. Finally looking up from your screen, you glance up at the man, trying to figure out what could have possibly distracted him this time.

He's glancing, moreso glaring, down at his phone, watching it ring but making no moves to pick it up. He's spaced out almost, like he's lost in his thoughts.

You clear your throat and decide to try his name again. "Carmen!"

He shoots up a little and looks at you, muttering an apology out as he clicks his phone off and slides it into his back pocket. "What were you asking?"

"Umm, I was trying to see if you got that certificate of occupancy from Cicero mailed in," you raise an eyebrow at him. "You know, the one we need to get that other big, shiny certificate that shows that we can legal conduct business in the state of Illinois? That certificate?"

"Uhh, yeah, yeah. Mailed it in the other day, yeah."

You squint at his weird responses before shaking your head and diving back into your work. "Well, on another note, I've been speaking with a liason down at the office and he said we can have our second fire suppression test in two weeks instead of the project four."

Carmen walks up to the foldable chair you were sitting in, peering over your shoulder to look at your screen. He rests his hand against the back of your chair unconsciously and you can feel the heat of his body radiating off of him. You clear your throat and lean forward a little to get some distance between the two of you.

"Who's that going to?" The man points to an email that you are in the middle of drafting. Your eyes follow and land on the email you were writing to one of your school buddies. "Oh that? I'm just messaging one of my old classmates from college about an idea I had about our issues with that retail food license thing."

Carmen humms, peeking down at you as you explained the process you were thinking of going through. Though your eyes were stuck on the screen, clicking through different documents as you continued your explanation, Carmen's eyes were glued to your face.

To him, this all felt like some weird dream that he was having. His former high school sweetheart, sitting in his restaurant, talking all kinds of smart talk that he could barely understand, practically pressed against him. Although he didn't move over to your chair with the intent to press against you, he definitely noticed the proximity that you two shared.

Life had been a whirlwind these past weeks, but he felt that when he was near you that a lot of those anxieties he often has screaming in his head quieted down a little. He tried to chalk it up to the confidence that he had in your skills, but even though you are incredibly talented in your work, he knew that it was something more than that.

Something that he had to swallow down.

"Carmy, you motherfucker, are you even listening to me?" You call out, turning more in your chair and fixing him with an annoyed glare. Carmen swallows before nodding his head. "Ye-yeah, you have a plan to get that retail food license and alcohol seller's license at once right?"

You hum, giving him a once over again before turning in your seat. "Exactly. I think that my buddy Stephen can help us with that fire suppression test, he knows a thing or two--"

Carmen's eyes trace down your eyes, nose, and lips, noting the signature bite marks you left on your bottom one. He runs a tongue across his own before carding a hand through his hair to collect himself.

He was so fucked.

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rubrankings03 · 1 year

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Use Erotic Massages to Make Every Date an Instant Success Detroit, Michigan

Gentleman, start her engine

I often get body rubs to relieve muscular tension and fatigue stemming from a busy and sometimes stressful life. A body rub has the same calming effect on the mind as meditation. Altering your body rub technique just a little might make it more sexual. You may get a lady very sexy with this body rub technique. For one night at least, the ladies you offer these sensuous full-body rubs to will feel a deep psychological bond with you. This will make achieving orgasms less of a chore.

Learn sexy body rub techniques because...

To woo a partner, nothing beats erotic Detroit body rubs. I have honed my skills as a practitioner and can now make almost every first date a memorable one. If I am with a woman and she lets me body rub her, we will have wonderful sex. After receiving an erotic body rub, a woman's emotional and physical receptivity to touch appears to increase dramatically.

Being patient pays off

The ability to exercise patience is essential while interacting with females. Like a woman's mind and body, body rubs benefit from being given gently and with care. Given that it may take a woman 20 to 45 minutes to become aroused, teasing her with foreplay is an excellent approach to get the "juices" flowing.

Imagine beginning a body rub with something innocent like, "You mind if I give you a foot rub, Ruby?" and working your way up to a more sexually suggestive session. In other words, by the time you are halfway through your routine, she will be so excited that you can have some very steamy sex with her. Does not it just sound wonderful?

Warning!

Always get her permission before transitioning from a relaxing body rub to a more intimate erotica session. If she is into you, she will almost always say yes. However, if you are unsure as to whether or not you should transition into an erotic body rub, you should pause and then ask her whether it is okay to touch them here or there.

Improving Your Body Rub Techniques

If you want to seduce and satisfy ladies, sensual body rub should be one of your go-to "woman pleasers." You should seek out expert advice now so that you may improve your technique. You may learn the fundamentals of sensual body rub by purchasing a few books on Half.com. I do some kind of suggestion-making on my site.

Some Detroit BodyRubs ideas for beginners

Take precautions at all times...

Make sure you will not have any interruptions during the body rub if that is something you are planning. There must be no interruptions of any kind, including phone calls. Ensure that you will have at least an hour to yourself (maybe more because sex usually follows erotic body rubs).

It is important to be ready to provide a body rub. Get the mood just right by turning up the heat and playing some soothing music (like some Sade) in the background. If you want to play music, use a CD player and set it to loop the disc(s) so that the music continues to play without interruptions. It is all about timing again: it is the worst when you have to reach over to switch the song or radio station.

She will realize that you are a thoughtful, romantic guy if you take the time to prepare the scene for her. I bet she can not say that about any of the other men she is dated.

Do not overlook the body rub oils that generate heat. In case you need to reapply the body rub oils, keep them where you can get them quickly. A pause in the flow of the music is something you should avoid.

Maintaining clean hands is another must. Nails should be trimmed and hands washed before handling anything.

When providing or getting a body rub, it is best to do it in light clothing.

To body rub a woman, I normally use a bed or table, but you may also do it on the floor if you have enough pillows and blankets.

The first step in giving her a full-on sexual body rub is making sure she is completely at ease. I need you to tell her to shut her eyes and take several deep breaths. Every so often, inquire as to how it feels and if there is anything specific she desires. For instance, you may query her on whether you should quicken your pace or slow down, or if you should use more or less force. To increase a woman's sexual interest in you, just focus on satisfying her desires.

Do not let go of her; your hands must always be on hers. Do everything in a calm, rhythmic, deliberate manner.

The trick is to transition smoothly from a standard body rub (focused on the back, neck, and arms) to an erotic body rub (focusing on her breasts, inner thighs, clitoris, and G-spot). Work your way from her non-erogenous zones to her erogenous zones. She must look forward to your touch.

Start with your palms and work your way to her more sensitive parts, where you may use your fingers to carefully glide over her skin and send chills up her spine. To manipulate the bigger parts of her body, use your thumbs and hands. You will learn that certain areas (such as the buttocks and thighs) need firmer pressure and others merely mild touches as you acquire expertise (breasts and vulva).

"Okay, so where do I even begin?"

Even though there is no definitive "optimal" spot to begin a body rub, I have personally found that focusing on the feet is the most effective strategy. You need to work your way up from her feet first. She will experience a wide range of feelings when you rub her feet due to the millions of nerve endings present there. Apply pressure on the soles of her feet and the tops of her shoes using circular movements of your thumbs.

You should pay close attention to her rear, as well. Apply gentle pressure with your body while you gently make circular movements with your hands in opposing directions.

The back of her thighs are up next (so have her lie on her stomach for this). Despite its erogenous potential, this area is seldom acknowledged.

Make fun of her genitalia and breasts as you go past. As you body rub her back (or stomach), for instance, you may lightly touch and stroke her labia before working your way down to her thighs. The Nile will be rushing between her legs if you tease her in this way.

Rubbing her genitals

For a more sensual experience, rub her genitalia using a water-based lubricant.

Since every woman is unique, it is important to find out from her how quickly and gently she likes to be handled. When it comes to clitoral stimulation, some women enjoy it when you use your tongue and fingers, while others would rather you stroke and kiss their labia.

To get the greatest results, I found that starting with clitoris stimulation and working my way towards G-spot stimulation was the most effective strategy.

Do not use too much pressure when rubbing her clitoris. The clitoris should be rubbed in two stages: first, along its shaft; then, briefly, along its tip. The best approach to stimulate her clitoris is to move in circular, zigzagging movements, adjusting speed and direction as needed. Put on a lot of gel.

Final thoughts...

You should learn erotic body rub as a seduction tactic. All women need physical contact because it makes them feel appreciated and brings them closer to their lovers.

0 notes

reecewilson2022 · 1 year

Text

Use Erotic Body Rubs to Make Every Date an Instant Success

Gentleman, start her engine

Learn sexy body rub techniques because...

Being patient pays off

Warning!

Improving Your Body Rub Techniques

Some body rub ideas for beginners

Take precautions at all times...

She will realize that you are a thoughtful, romantic guy if you take the time to prepare the scene for her. I bet she can not say that about any of the other men she is dated.

Maintaining clean hands is another must. Nails should be trimmed and hands washed before handling anything.

When providing or getting a body rub, it is best to do it in light clothing.

To body rub a woman, I normally use a bed or table, but you may also do it on the floor if you have enough pillows and blankets.

Do not let go of her; your hands must always be on hers. Do everything in a calm, rhythmic, deliberate manner.

"Okay, so where do I even begin?"

You should pay close attention to her rear, as well. Apply gentle pressure with your body while you gently make circular movements with your hands in opposing directions.

The back of her thighs are up next (so have her lie on her stomach for this). Despite its erogenous potential, this area is seldom acknowledged.

Rubbing her genitals

For a more sensual experience, rub her genitalia using a water-based lubricant.

To get the greatest results, I found that starting with clitoris stimulation and working my way towards G-spot stimulation was the most effective strategy.

Final thoughts...

You should learn erotic body rub as a seduction tactic. All women need physical contact because it makes them feel appreciated and brings them closer to their lovers.

0 notes

tnvisalawinlosangeles · 2 years

Text

Considerations to Know About TN Visa in Los Angeles

In the same way, the TN visa does not allow you to function for a company you are the only proprietor of. You should have a work supply to work for a corporation.

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It is crucial to note that a TN Visa holder’s wife or little ones are not allowed to get the job done in the United States, and need to attain separate operation permits.

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On January 9, 2018, the USCIS claimed that it was not contemplating any proposal that may pressure H-1B visa holders to leave the United States over the green-card system.

To be able to qualify for a TN visa, it's essential to certainly be a citizen of Canada or Mexico. For anyone who is a lawful everlasting resident of Canada or Mexico but usually is not a citizen, you do not qualify.

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Since the TN visa is a non-immigrant classification, it truly is short-term and does circuitously bring on an inexperienced card. The TN visa to begin with grants three yrs of position in America and will be prolonged without the need for Restrict.

An H-1B employee may be only one month from obtaining their inexperienced card, however, if the employee is laid off, she or he could have to depart the nation, or Visit the conclusion of the line and start more than the procedure to get the eco-friendly card, and wait around about 15 a lot more several years, depending upon the nationality and visa category.[197]

The length of remain is a few yrs, extendable to six years; and then the visa holder may have to reapply. Regulations Restrict the quantity of H-1B visas that can be issued every year: 188, hundred new and First H-1B visas had been issued in 2019.[one] Companies should frequently withhold Social Protection and Medicare taxes from their wages compensated to staff members in H-1B status.

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sunflowerandco · 3 years

Text

Act VI: Looking Back

Rating: T for language

previous acts on the link in my bio :)

Hey everyone. After my favorite combo meal of some good ol' depression™ and school, I'm back to writing! I really hope you enjoy and I'm very thankful for all of the support if you stuck around this long. Thank you so much ❤

I hope you enjoy this origin story for Duncney in this universe

5 years before Act V

Bridgette approached a very focused Courtney in the hall. "Hey, Court. Got any plans this weekend?"

She responded, her face still buried in the locker she was trying to organize before heading home for the weekend. "Studying, studying, and more studying. I've got two AP exams in two weeks and my livelihood depends on me getting good enough grades."

"Is there any chance you have one day to let yourself have some fun?"

Courtney pondered and knew her response wouldn't please her friend. Still, she delivered it with a smile. "No." She knew Bridgette's campaign for fun was coming any second now as she shut her locker.

“You’ve been studying all week, Courtney. Come to Wasaga with us! My step-dad lent me the beach house for the weekend.”

Courtney felt apprehensive at the idea of a day on the beach with Bridgette, Geoff and their insistent need to suck face most of the time. “No thanks. I don’t want to be your third wheel.”

“You won’t be! It won’t be just me and Geoff. He practically invited our lunch period. Plus, Duncan’s coming...”

“And that holds significance to my decision because...?”

“...Because you like him.”

“I do not! He’s annoying, has no regard for authority, and is so, totally gross. I don’t need you setting up dates for me. At least not another disaster like Bradley.”

“To be fair, you did have a crush on him.”

“That was before I knew he was a total jerk.”

“What matters is that you gave him a chance. Why not give Duncan one? I've seen the way you look at him.” Courtney gave her look, signaling her to quiet down in front of everyone else occupying the halls. Bridgette smiled triumphantly and shrugged her shoulders matter-of-factly, finally getting through to Courtney.

"See? I'm never wrong." Bridgette walked off presumably to find Geoff. "I'll pick you up at two."

"I didn't say yes!"

"Love you, too!"

***

Courtney could deal with sweaty teenagers in a crowded setting. She could deal with speakers blaring in her ears. But, she couldn't stand to see Bradley's face across the room before running to Bridgette.

"Why is Bradley here?!"

"I don't know! I know for a fact Geoff didn't invite him. He was the only person off limits."

She knew she'd have to spend the better half of her day avoiding Bradley.

Courtney stood in front of the bathroom mirror of the beach house, washing her hands and reapplying her lip balm. For one thing, she had to hide from the guy she wasted a month of her life on. On the other hand, she couldn't find him. Not that she cared. Oh, no, no, no. Not Courtney. She didn't come to this outing hoping she'd find him. And she would never admit that even to herself.

When she exited the washroom, she bumped into a brown-haired, blue polo-wearing dudebro practically standing in front of the door.

"Hey, Courtney. You know you can't avoid me forever."

"It doesn't hurt to try."

"Listen, I just wanted to talk."

"In order for that to happen, there'd have to be something to talk about."

"Well, there is. I want to start all over. You and me. I've got drafts coming up for university football. Having a girl on my arm would help with my image and, well, I figured you could benefit changing that uptight, boring image everyone has on you."

Courtney scoffed, feigning interest. "Wow. While that sounds incredibly tempting-" Courtney started off with sarcasm.

Bradley wasn't the most receptive to rejection, but still persisted. "I knew you'd see it my way. It would help the both of us."

Courtney rolled her eyes at his insistent need to cut her off at every chance she had to speak. Her eyes diverted from his and her eyes gravitated to the neon green hair she spotted across the room. He hadn't noticed her stare, but seeing him made a sense calm take over her mind.

"...I'm gonna have to pass. Don't come up to me again wasting my time. I don’t need to associate myself with an asshole like you."

She finally felt like he would leave her alone for the remainder of senior year after letting him hear it. Courtney knew that wasn't the answer he wanted from his displeased layer of expression on his face. She held her hand out with a smile.

"Pleasure doing business with you." He begrudgingly shook her hand to save face from possible onlookers.

***

Duncan, Geoff, and DJ were all engrossed in conversation when Duncan's attention rerouted in Courtney's direction. DJ's voice faded slowly out of the forefront. "...All I'm saying is if dude didn't want his underwear up the flagpole, he should stop leaving it around the locker room!"

"What is he doing here?" Duncan was covertly protective over Courtney in the aspect of terrible ex-boyfriends. His reaction to seeing her shake hands with him made Geoff and DJ turn in that direction.

"I don't know, man. I swear I didn't invite that joke. It seems like they're making up, so that's good." The can Duncan held warped in shape as his grip tightened.

It was no secret how Duncan felt about Bradley. He had to spend two months convincing people that pantsing him, throwing eggs at his car and TP'ing his house were all in the name of fun and not some way of avenging Courtney.

He didn't mean to avoid her after the fact, but it made controlling his emotions easier.

***

Courtney, fresh off of telling Bradley off, finally felt she was able to enjoy herself for the day. As the day transitioned into a darker, breezy evening, her introverted nature dwindled as she allowed herself to let go. Catching up with acquaintances from various classes, taking in the ocean views, and the overall atmosphere made her feel recharged in a rare feat. Still, it was hard to find Duncan while sticking to Bridgette's side. She'd hate to verbally admit she missed trading meaningless quips with him, and it was out of the ordinary for them to be in the same setting without exchanging any words. She separated from her friend when she wandered around several spaces of the house. Then, she heard him.

He was projecting his conversation loud enough for onlookers to hear what he said. "It's actually sad how many times and ways I had to reject that girl. Even today I had to tell her to stay away from me. I mean, why would I want to associate with her?" A few laughs could be heard from the same acquaintances she caught up with at his declarations of rejection all created by him.

Duncan decided he'd heard enough and approached him. "You better watch you say around here. Courtney's not around to defend herself, and I'm known for not using my words to solve problems."

"Oh? Is that bitch your piece of ass for the week?" Bradley immediately felt threatened at how much Duncan was fuming at him. Duncan swung a fist, but he moved out of the way quick enough to dodge the attack.

Geoff immediately came between the two of them to settle the tension. "Just get out of here, dude."

***

She heard every word of it. She didn't want to defend herself for once. Her mind just kept repeating to itself. You need to get out. She sat on the sand with her knees pulled to her chest. Courtney felt Duncan sit next to her without a greeting. She still spoke lowly to fill the silence between them. "What gives him the right to think he can do and say whatever he pleases like that?!"

"You're right. Let me let him have it, Princess."

"No, it's not worth it. He's not, at the very least. And you need to stop getting into trouble all the time."

At the time, Duncan's need for revenge couldn't be subdued. He'd let it go for now, but his mind wouldn't rest until he felt justice was served on that rich, entitled fuck. "It's not like anyone cares if I do. Everyone just wants to police me-"

"I do." She immediately retreated to the ocean's view after she blurted those two words out pretty angrily.

A silent moment passed between the two of them. His brain felt like mush hearing that and seeing the bright reflection of the moon on her skin. All of his previous thoughts were clouded leaving one subject clear. He quietly said the first thing that came to his mind. "You look beautiful."

Courtney had gotten used to Duncan calling her nicknames. They were mostly delivered backhanded in response to her insults. This time it was unprovoked. It blurred the lines between real and fake. She decided not to respond and change the subject instead. She crossed her arms in defense of the drop in temperature. "I want nothing more than to leave this stupid place."

"Here." He said as he peeled the t-shirt off his back. Courtney truly didn't mean to stare as the fabric became less and less attached to his torso. He handed it to her after noticing she shivered when the wind picked up speed. She looked away quicker than she wanted him to notice.

"As if I need another reason for people to look at me weirdly."

He knew she just reacted the way they're expected to treat each other, but it still upset him for reasons he couldn't decipher fast enough. She immediately noticed his face fall, instantly regretting her delivery. "I didn't really mean that. Thank you." She smoothed out the wrinkles after letting the shirt fall over her body.

He couldn't stay mad at her for long, especially when her regret was so apparent on her face. Duncan considered the embarrassment she faced, and figured she was trying to regain some normalcy in their relationship. "Don't worry about it. Let me take you home."

Courtney didn't object, following him through the sandy plains to his car. After finding a tank top in the trunk, he slipped it over his upper half. Duncan opened the door on the passenger side for Courtney to enter. Moments that didn't include bickering scared Courtney. it was an occurrence that gave her mind the opportunity to wonder what a prolonged version of this happenstance would result in. Her feelings floating to the surface of her deeply buried psyche.

***

He didn't mean to drive in radio silence, but Duncan was more nervous than he'd like to admit. He almost ran a red light when he noticed the newly-acquired tan the sun gave her soft, warm skin as she crossed her legs in the passenger seat. He slammed on the brakes just in time, still startling her. "Duncan! I didn't accept your offer with the expectation of dying in your car!" It wasn't the greatest question, but he was relieved she opened a window of conversation to flow between them.

"What was your expectation, then, Princess?"

"Delinquent-proof driving!"

"You know it wouldn't kill you to be...nice?"

"And ruin the amazing dynamic of our relationship? I wouldn't dare!"

"I don't want anything to be 'ruined' either. Nothing will stop me from annoying you, no matter what happens between us."

Courtney relinquished in relief. She then remembered the very moment her fear took over. Acknowledging it meant accepting the affect his words had on her. Accepting those indulgent stares and rare, shared smiles. Despite her fears, she asked. "If you don't want anything to change, why did you call me beautiful the way you did?"

Surprised by the indicative effect of his words, Duncan responded as if the answer were so obvious, still attentive to the road ahead of him. "Because you are...? Nothing's gonna change because of that. I've always thought you were. I'll stop if you want me to."

Courtney felt her heart triple in size when she boldly responded, letting herself say whatever her heart told her to. "Don't... stop?" She stammered, even changed the pace of her words as she fought off her nervousness. "I... don't want you to stop."

"Okay, beautiful." Courtney's chest radiated with warm waves as she looked out the window. She looked in the opposite direction and noticed one of his hands resting in the space between their seats. Her mind and heart wrestled back and forth between doing what truly called to her. To shut them up, she turned her attention to the road ahead. And, like some gravitational pull, her hand made it's way toward his free one. A swipe of the back of each other's hands was enough to: burn beneath the surface of their skin; Duncan immediately caught on to her intentions. He tried to stay focused on the road as they fumbled, palm to palm, and slowly interlocked their fingers with the other's one-by-one. The silence after realizing how perfectly they fit was easy, comfortable, yet deafening.

At a red light, Duncan used the hand on the steering wheel to turn the radio to any random station he saved. Neither of them knew the song, but wouldn't forget any lyric of it after this.

You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't stop us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor intent on chivalry

She's as sweet as Tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

***

When he pulled up to her street and their hands pulled apart, Courtney felt hollow. Duncan's mind conjured ways to make the moment last longer. "I'll walk you to your door." Courtney didn't object once more, smiling at his reciprocated persistence.

"Okay." The path, while short and forward in leading them to the door, gave them time before the eventual goodbye they dreaded. Courtney fumbled with her keys hoping to buy more time. Fleeting, fickle, borrowed time for a moment they used to curse themselves for dreaming of. He initiated.

"So... see you on Monday?"

"Of course. Um...thanks. For everything."

"It's no problem, Courtney. Goodnight." He leaned in and Courtney's breathing wavered. Duncan gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Courtney's hand rose to her face in an attempt to calm the burning sensation he left. This would suffice for what he really wanted to do. If he was right about the impact he assumed he had, he was doing the right thing for now.

Courtney hated to see him walk further from her and toward the car. In some entranced state, her hand grabbed his wrist, pulling him in closer.

Maybe she leaned in the wrong way; she over-estimated the distance between them as their noses collided with each other's causing them to both groan in pain. Her ache quickly shifted to embarrassment as she hastily spilled out her rambled apologies. "I'm so-so sorry! Oh my God. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

Her rambling ceased when Duncan pulled her in once again, his lips crashing onto hers with a yearning force. Her lips quickly overlapped his as his fingers tangled themselves in her hair, her arms linking around his neck. They parted for air but remained still with their hands attached to the other.

He'd never done something so worth it, unaware of the events to come.

#duncney #td duncan #td courtney #duncney fanfic

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let-it-raines · 4 years

Text

your wonder under summer skies (17/18)

Summer in Storybrooke, Maine means one thing for its residents: tourist season. This year, for Emma Swan and Killian Jones, it means relationships ending and friendships changing all the while they attempt to figure out just what their relationship is. It’s somewhere straddling the line between friends and lovers, and there’s no guarantee of a soft landing if they fall into new territory.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I told you it wouldn’t take as long to get this one up! And to everyone messaging about Walking the Baseline, I have started writing the next part! ❤️

ao3: beginning | current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |

-/-

The swan is staring at her.

It is legitimately staring at her from its spot on her dresser with its beady little black marble eyes. For weeks, Emma has thought it was cute, has treasured its presence in her room. It’s the only thing anyone has ever won for her, which seems miniscule, but when you don’t have a lot, it’s a big freaking deal. That night had been awful, her heart warring with her over Neal and his presence at the fair, but then she had this dumb stuffed animal to hold onto – and squeeze onto instead of slapping Neal, if she’s honest. Killian had won it for her to make her happy, even if just for a little while, and while she hadn’t realized her feelings for him in that moment, she should have.

Anyone who plays rigged carnival games to make someone happy is probably a good person, and Killian Jones is definitely a good person.

A good person who was (is, hopefully) her friend who she then started fucking who then ended that, and now she sits in her room in the dark at seven in the morning staring at a stuffed swan.

What a weird thought process.

What a weird relationship.

What a weird couple months.

When Emma looks back on it, she can’t believe this is how her life has been lately. She ended a half-decade long relationship, had her heart shattered into pieces, and then she made the stupid decision to be friends with benefits with the last person she should have done that with. Who even does shit like that?

She does, apparently.

But the night of Liam and Elsa’s engagement party, she was tipsy and upset and needed to forget the pain. Killian seemed like the perfect person to do that with, especially knowing how easily he does casual relationships. As she now knows, having a casual relationship and having a casual relationship with Killian Jones are two different things.

At least when you’re her.

Now, though, she doesn’t know what relationship she has with Killian. They’re friends, always have been, but things have been…different since they stopped sleeping together. They don’t text as much, they certainly don’t hang out like they used to, and when they do, things are stiff. The conversations don’t flow, arguments fly more freely, and Emma has no idea what to do about any of it. She’s tried not to think about any of it and pretend that everything is fine, but then moments like this hit and it’s impossible. Liam and Elsa are getting married tomorrow, have their rehearsal dinner tonight, and Emma and Killian have to spend time together.

They’re going as each other’s dates.

And she feels like such a cliché at the end of a romantic comedy where people are being forced to gather at a wedding with romance everywhere, where she mopes around waiting for things to get better. That’s not real life, though. Some floral arrangements and twinkly lights do not solve relationship problems, especially when you’re not in a relationship to begin with.

Especially when the other person wants nothing to do with you.

Emma sighs and flops onto her mattress, pulling a pillow over her mouth and loudly groaning into it. She’s pathetic. This is why she hasn’t allowed herself to have any free time since the weekend in the mountains. She’s stayed busy, throwing herself into work and her runs. She’s even read the stack of books that’s been on her nightstand for months, but mostly she’s made sure to be surrounded by friends, even if that does include Killian. David and Mary Margaret, bless them and their inability to read the room, have continuously brought Graham around thinking Emma is open to dating him. She’s not. He’s a sweet man she gets along with and in another world, she might consider dating him. It’s not another world, however, and she doesn’t want to date Graham Humbert.

All she wants is Killian like the pathetic woman she is.

And for the freaking stuffed swan to stop staring at her.

After screaming into her pillow once more and kicking her legs up and down like a petulant child, Emma throws the pillows off of her and shifts from underneath her comforter. Begrudgingly, she stretches her arms above her head, her muscles aching from overuse, and she walks to her bathroom. Slowly but surely, she gets ready, spending extra time washing her hair and shaving while her phone plays music loud enough for her to sing along to. Once she feels alive again, she steps out of the shower, pulling her hair into a towel and walking to her vanity. She brushes her teeth and does her makeup, going ahead and applying the smoky eye she wants to wear tonight. She’ll look ridiculous until the sun sets, but she’s not coming home in between work and the rehearsal and doesn’t want to pack her full makeup kit. It’s the same reason she blows her hair out and curls it before pulling on a black jumpsuit. She’s had it for years, but never had a chance to wear it. It hugs her curves and flares out at the legs. There’s a cutout on her stomach and the cleavage dips, and to cover that up so she doesn’t get fired, she pulls a cropped sweater on top. An hour later, she leaves her apartment and drives through Storybrooke to get to the club.

This is just another day. Emma can make it through.

She’s made it through every bad day so far, most of them a hell of a lot worse than having to eat dinner with Killian Jones by her side.

With Labor Day over and summer beginning to fade away, tourists have fled from Storybrooke and returned to their normal lives. The beaches are empty, the restaurants barely occupied, and Storybrooke Country Club is only frequented by members who either live in the area or who avoid the main summer rush. Walking the hallways alone is odd after spending months not having a moment to herself, and since there’s no one around, Emma takes off her heels and walks down the hallway barefoot. There’s a luncheon in one of their smaller dining rooms, so Emma checks to make sure the linens and the menu are still correct from when she checked last night, and once she’s sure they are, she moves to their nicest ballroom where Liam and Elsa are having their reception tomorrow. They were going to have the ceremony inside as well, but since the weather looks like it’s going to be nice, they’re having it on the deck with the ocean in the background.

She thinks most of this place is stuffy and stuck-up, but she does love this ballroom. The windows are large and look out to the ocean, and if they open the doors, it connects to the expansive deck with string lights hanging over the ceiling. Tomorrow, when the sun sets and those lights are turned on along with the lights inside, everything will be cast in a magic glow. Emma looks around at the chairs lining the sides of the walls and the tables out, and she sighs. Someone was supposed to put everything out, and after calling around and finding no one, Emma starts arranging the tables and chairs herself. It takes her hours, especially when she starts putting out linens and setting the tables, and while florists won’t come in until tomorrow, she marks the places for the arrangements to be set. She nearly calls Mary Margaret and asks her to come in on her day off, but she likes being busy. It keeps her mind off things.

Too soon, though, she’s set up everything she can, and the cooks have started prep work for tonight’s dinner. Emma catches a look at herself in the mirror, sees where some of her makeup has run and her curls have fallen, and she grabs her work makeup bag out of her office and moves to the bathroom where she reapplies her powder and lipstick and brushes through her hair before pulling it into a high ponytail.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“Tonight is going to be fine,” Emma tells herself, rolling her arms to relax her sore muscles and calm herself down. “It’s just like it always is. It’s spending time with your friends but in nice clothes, and you just have to get through a weekend without fighting.”

Emma stops rolling her shoulders and leans forward, fingers curling around the sink top. “Great, Emma. Now you’re having full on conversations with yourself in the mirror.”

Inhale, exhale.

She’s got this. She has to.

Emma looks at herself one more time, does a final adjustment on her ponytail, grabs her bag and walks out of the bathroom with her shoulders back. She sits through more weddings than any normal person should, and this is a weekend to celebrate someone she loves. It’s a happy moment.

Until she walks out of the bathroom, her limbs still shaky, and nearly plows down the bride and groom.

That would definitely get her fired, and she doesn’t think her year could take losing her job too.

“Hi,” she squeaks out, stumbling over her heels before correcting herself. “How are you two? Elsa, you look beautiful.”

“Oi, what about me?” Liam jokes, and Emma awkwardly giggles, still trying to catch up. She needs a reset of today.

“You look stunning,” Emma laughs, quickly hugging Elsa before doing the same to Liam. “Are you guys excited for tomorrow?”

“You have no idea,” Elsa sighs, happy, content, so many things that brides should be but rarely are. “Thank you so much for setting everything up. I know you’ve been by yourself with Mary Margaret taking the day off to do things with us, so I really, really appreciate you.”

“I’m happy to do it for you guys. Promise.” Emma squeezes Elsa’s forearm. “If you were anyone else, I would complain.”

“Well, you know how to make a girl feel special, but I have a feeling you won’t say the same thing when Anna shows up in a few minutes.”

“I have already mentally prepared myself for it.”

Elsa looks down at her phone. “Speak of the devil,” she laughs, holding up her phone. “I’m gonna step away and take this.”

Elsa moves down the hallway, heels clicking against the tile, and Emma is left alone with Liam, the two of them swaying back and forth, eyes never making direct eye connect. She doesn’t know the last time she spent time alone with this man, and at the moment, she can’t think of them ever spending time alone together. They’re not friends, have only started getting along recently weirdly enough, but they always have Elsa or Killian to be the buffer.

There’s no buffer now.

Emma tries to think of something to say, works through a conversation about the weather and the wedding and tonight’s menu in her head, but she never says any of it out loud. Instead, she laughs awkwardly and smiles, wondering how shitty it would be to excuse herself from the room when she doesn’t have an actual excuse.

“You should talk to Killian,” Liam says. Emma’s eyes widen, and she looks at Liam. He doesn’t shift away from her gaze like she was expecting. “I’m not sure what’s been going on between the two of you, but I know that there’s something. I know I’ve never been the kindest to you, but I know that you are good for Killian as long as you don’t decide to break his heart.”

Emma crosses her arms, her heart thumping under her fingertips. She wonders if Liam can hear it or see it the way she can, like it’s the third person in the conversation. “I don’t think you get a say on what I decide to do. Killian’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions. He doesn’t need you putting up some ‘holier than thou’ front to tell his friend not to get into a fight with him.”

Liam steps closer, and with her heels, she’s able to keep her gaze directly on his. “I may not know exactly why the two of you are fighting, but I do know you’re the woman he’s been sleeping with all summer.” Emma’s jaw drops, and she’s not exaggerating when she thinks it may be broken. How? How does he know? “You two should really learn to lower your voices when you’re talking in the morning. I didn’t realize until last month right before our trip, but there was one morning where I recognized your laugh and then your voice was so clear afterward.”

“I’m not – we’re not – he isn’t…”

“Emma,” Liam sighs, pressing his hand to her shoulder, “it’s okay. I’m not trying to be an ass. I know that I am one, but all I want is for Killian to be happy. And believe it or not, I want you to be happy, too. Talk to him.”

Her mind is running at one hundred miles an hour, her heart beating even faster, and her cheeks are so warm they must be as red as tomatoes. She doesn’t know what to do, what to say, how the hell she’s supposed to react to any of that, so she doesn’t. Instead, she makes an excuse, something along the lines of checking on the food for dinner, and then she’s gone, disappearing down the hallway and into a linen closet.

Liam knows.

Liam knows, and he didn’t even blow a gasket. What kind of crazy alternate universe is this? Emma doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything.

(But Liam apparently knows a lot.)

She doesn’t know what to think or say or how she even feels about anything. All she knows is that she still has to make it through this weekend. She can’t spend all of it hiding away in bathrooms and linen closets no matter how much she wants to.

Rolling her shoulders back, Emma takes her seventeenth deep breath of the night, twists the door knob, and manages to slip out of the closet without anyone seeing her. By the time the rehearsal has finished – they did two-run throughs – Emma’s heart has managed to calm down. It wasn’t easy, especially when she saw Killian walking down the aisle, one of Elsa’s cousins on his arm who couldn’t stop laughing at whatever joke he was telling, but she was able to push back the attraction and jealousy and everything else that comes with looking at Killian Jones.

She’s always known he was handsome. It’d be impossible to miss, but tonight as he wears a baby blue shirt, halfway unbuttoned of course, and some fitted Navy slacks, his hair coiffed and beard trimmed, she’s taken aback by him once more. Mostly, though, she’s taken aback by his smile, bright and beaming, and her heart aches missing it.

Missing him.

She stands at the edge of the ballroom as people begin to take their seats, finding the names on cards on the table, and Emma knows where hers is. It’s at the head table, rather undeservedly so, but she’s the best man’s date. She gets to stick by his side.

Right now, she doesn’t know how.

Maybe she hasn’t managed to calm down as much as she thought she had.

Emma catches Killian out of the corner of her eye, still talking to that same bridesmaid, but then he’s walking away and walking right toward her. He flashes a smile, as bright and confident as ever, but there’s something off about it. She can’t pinpoint what, especially when his smile fades as he looks from side to side, almost as if he was searching for someone.

“Hello, love,” he greets before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You look stunning.”

“Thank you. You look nice.”

“Don’t I know it?” he teases, cheeky, before offering her his elbow. She takes it, looping her arm through his, and as her skin presses against his dress shirt, she can feel his warmth. It feels normal, like it has for so long, and while she didn’t forget how much she loves his touch, she didn’t realize how much she’s craved it, craved the new normalcy they’d found themselves in this summer. “Shall we go to dinner and get drunk off our asses as we listen to people give awful speeches?”

“I’d love nothing more. Don’t you have to give an awful speech?”

Killian leans in and winks. “Mine won’t be awful.”

And for a little while, things are normal. She’s sitting next to Killian, and she doesn’t have to think too hard about what to say or do. It’s just the two of them, like it always has been, and the glass of wine she’s had isn’t hurting how calm she feels. They don’t talk much, too much food on their plates and then too many people talking, but just as Emma is telling Killian about how she nearly broke her neck on a ladder today, that same bridesmaid as before interrupts her to start talking to Killian. Emma knows her name is Nora, that she lives in Portland, and that she has no problem flirting with Killian despite the fact that Emma is obviously his date.

But who is she to say anything? They’re here as friends.

They always have been.

Friends, friends, friends.

And the flirting doesn’t irritate her, not really, but the fact that Nora interrupted Emma in the middle of a story does. That’s rude, and while Emma doesn’t have the best social graces, she knows not to interrupt people. Emma ignores the two of them and looks out across the room. She wishes she were at the table with Mary Margaret, David, Ariel, Eric, Ruby, and all of the rest of her friends. Anna and Elsa’s parents have taken up most of the conversation with Elsa and Liam, so she doesn’t even have Elsa to talk to.

She’s miserable.

There’s no point in dancing around it anymore. She’s miserable, her feet are killing her, and she’s ready to go home and sleep until she has to get up. She’s never craved a Monday so badly.

Emma excuses herself from the table, not that anyone really listens, and she hurries out of the room with a pounding heart. She thought it had gone away, but it’s back with a vengeance, making her cheeks heat and her stomach fill with bile. This is the worst. Just, the fucking worst.

She’s in love with her best friend who isn’t even her best friend anymore, and she doesn’t know how to deal with any of it. This summer has been like a rollercoaster, except she hasn’t been buckled in. She’s been holding on with fear and exhilaration, and now, she’d like to get off the ride.

When she hears footsteps down the hall, she knows the end of the ride isn’t here yet.

What the hell is he doing here?

“Did you follow me?” Emma asks, not bothering to turn around.

“Well, when a woman runs off and seems upset, some might say following her is a good idea.”

“I wouldn’t.” “Swan.”

Emma turns, her heels clicking against the tile, and crosses her arms over her chest. Killian glances down, and she realizes his eyes are drawn to her boobs. Typical.

“Go back to Nora, Killian. I’m fine.”

“Nora?”

“Elsa’s cousin. The woman you’ve been oh so fascinated with all night. I don’t need a babysitter when you obviously have other interests.”

Killian huffs and steps closer. “You’re my friend and when a friend leaves a room, obviously upset, I follow.” “Well, if you’d said that a month ago, I might believe you. now, though, I don’t.”

She’s angry, she realizes. Pissed off, actually, and Killian might be here to be kind, but she’s not.

His brow arches, one followed by the other until his forehead is wrinkled, and he steps closer. “What are you talking about?”

“Really? You’re going to play that card?”

“What card?”

“The one where you pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Like, you don’t know things have been different between us since you ended things for no damn reason.”

“Why aren’t you here with Graham?” Killian asks suddenly, and she feels like she’s been slapped with whiplash. Emma isn’t sure that’s possible, but what the hell does she know anymore? “Why the hell would I be here with Graham? You and I agreed that we would do all of the wedding stuff together, didn’t we?”

“Well, you’re dating him, aren’t you?”

“Oh my God,” Emma sighs, turning on her heels and walking down the hallway before walking back toward Killian who has got to be grinding his teeth far too much than any dentist would ever recommend.

Why is that even where her brain is going right now?

Probably because she can’t stop staring at the way his jaw clenches.

“What”? he murmurs, crossing his arms over his chest, fingers digging into biceps.

Emma stops pacing, the clicking of her heels against the tile stopping, and she places her hands on her hips as she takes a deep breath.

She’s about to fuck everything in her life up, but really, how much worse can any of it get? She can’t keep living like a madwoman, her mind contradicting everything her heart says, and for once in her life, she wants everything out in the open. She wasted too much time in an unhappy relationship because she didn’t want to speak up for herself for fear of someone else leaving her. She’s not doing that again. Damn the consequences.

It is not going to kill her to put her heat in Killian’s hands even if it means he has the ability to crush it.

“I am not dating Graham Humbert,” Emma says on an exhale. She doesn’t even know where Killian is coming from thinking that, but it doesn’t matter. “He is a new friend who I have repeatedly said I had no interest in dating, and if you could get your head out of your ass for one second, you would know that the only person I have any interest in dating is you, you absolute fucking idiot.”

-/-

tag list: @capthamm @qualitycoffeethings @mrtinski @klynn-stormz @scarletslippers @jrob64 @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776 @thejollyroger-writer @sherifemma @galadriel26 @galaxyzxstark @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @teamhook @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes @jamif @shireness-says @ultimiflos @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @onepunintendid @bluewildcatfanatic @superchocovian @killianswannn @carpedzem @captainkillianswanjones @mayquita @mariakov81 @jennjenn615 @onceuponaprincessworld @a-faekindagirl @scientificapricot @xellewoods @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @singersdd @tornadoamy @cluttermind @lfh1226-linda @andiirivera @elizabeethan @captain-emmajones @csalltheway @itsfabianadocarmo

#your wonder under summer skies #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #captain swan fanfiction #captain swan

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

Text

Genie and the Savanclaw boys

So this was someting I wrote to get me out of my sour mood. Latly I haven’t been feeling to great. So I decided to wrote some platonic scenarios between my persona Genie and Jack, Ruggie and Leona, please let me know what you thought of this, I spent roughly six hours on it.

A quick recap of Genie's powers

Vision-- Genie can see small glimpses of a person's past. "Past Vision 2/4" occurs when Genie comes into direct contact with a person's possession (it could be inanimate or their darlings), this allows her to see a quick "video" of their past which can last up to 2 minutes. "Past Vision 4/4" is a longer version of the previous power. For her to be able to view an in detailed vision of a person's past, she must first have experienced a "Past Vision 2/4" of them and this power can only be unlocked while she's in her lamp. Think of it as downloading a video and only being able to watch the first two minutes until you're in "a room with a sort of significance to you." Due to this power also affecting her, Genie is sometimes forced to relive traumatizing events that have occurred to her in the past one thousand years.

Maniacal File-- Note that all of Genie's powers are based on manipulating the "yandere side" of people and or events. Maniacal file lets Genie create multiple scenarios or events for how a person under a yandere influence may act. Think of this as someone having a multitude of one-shots or stories about one particular "character". Now, these "files" allow her to do two different things. One being able to manipulate the person to commit various acts, such as murder, kidnapping amongst other macabre deeds. Two, she's able to mimic almost anything a that a person who's file she "owns" can do. Of course for this to work, the files first have to be shrunk to the size of a USB and inserted into her encephalon manually (or with the use of a bit of magic). The more files she has on someone the better she understands them and the better she can help them with their "wishes", there is also a sentimental viewpoint to these "files". Since Genie is very anti-social and withdrawn these fils are sorta like her "friends". For her to obtain a person "files" she will need to either see them perform a sort of "yandere like" act, stalk them to better understand them or/and have a very in-depth and detailed conversation with them.

Bloody Background-- Certain environments (like the entirety of the Savanclaw dormitory) trigger "bloody background" which always Genie to see multiple "escape routs" or "attack routs". These routes can be used for hiding, stalking and multiple other things.

Jack Howl

Genie’s eyes landed on the warn out beat up door. Scratch marks ranging in size, were left on the wooden entrance, each one a declaration of war. The purple-haired Jinn traced her long slender fingers over a random set of claw marks, debating whether or not to enter the Jackel’s den. For a split second her vision flashed, the ground morphed from marble to rough rock, bones of wild animals littered the ground, the door had disappeared and in its place was the mouth of a pitch-black cave. Screams of terror scorched the air followed by maniacal laughter… She'd seen this place before, stood on the very same flooring and heard the same disparate cries o despair. “Ten more seconds and then the roar” she whispered. But the visions never last that long, it shattered into a thousand tiny shards and scattered away. Genie once again stood in front of the battered door. Inside she could hear the low grunts and huffed breaths of the ill-tempered first year that resided within. There was no reason for her to enter, she had no need nor business to invaded his privacy like this, her intentions boarded on plain rude…but the curiosity of the matter was eating her alive. She had to know!

Jack Howl first year Savanclaw student with a knack for getting into fights. He had no friends, never showed interest in a darling and the only words he ever spoke where curses and threats. Due to his harsh and brutish manner, Genie had never been able to receive a type three profile on him. Sure she knew all his attack moves and strategies by heart and could predict any action he would partake before he even knew it himself. But that left the biggest question unanswered...what kind of darling did he desire?

Based on pure analysis she could take an educated guess and say a darling whose temper was even shorter than his and who would beat up a defenseless person for kicks. But there were so many "what ifs.." maybe he liked a girl who was the opposite of him. Or maybe someone brave enough to stand in his way and tell him to stop his meaningless fits of rage. All these questions made the young girl's mind race with potential suiter for the boy.

Hesitantly the Jinn pushed on the door, it creaked as it was shoved out of her path. "Um...J-Jack", she counted her heartbeats a thing most Genii tend to do to pass the time. One heartbeat, two--

"GET OUT!" A water bottle flew in her direction, hitting the left side of her face. Ok so maybe she didn't know every move as confidentially as she had thought. "Ow!!" a court whine came after, followed by a stream of tears. Before Genie knew it she had fallen to the floor legs splayed to either side of her and loud sobs escaping from her mouth. The bruise on her head where to waterbottle had hit her pulsed with pain each time her heart beated. She frantically tried to dry the tears with her wrists to no avail. This was not what was suppose to happen, but then again had she expected anything better?

"Hey cut that out" Jack kneeled next to her frame, roughly grabbing both her wrists in one large callused hand. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp for a second debating wheater to kick or headbutt him. Slowly her white hair aggressor lifted his other hand to her face and wiped away her tears. "hey hey no more crying ok? You're going to be alright got it?" His voice was rough and demanding but it held a gentle undertone.

It took a while but eventually, Genie's tears stopped and her sobs died down. When the room had fallen into a semi-comfortable silence jack spoke again. "What the hell was up with barging into my room? Are you trying to get beat up?"

Genie casted her gaze downwards and took in a shack breath. 1 heartbeat, 2 heartbeats, 3 heartbeats...

"I wanted to...to-to talk to you..." Her voice shook with uncertainty and cracked from the strain the crying fit had left on her vocal cords.

"What for?" Jack glared at her, a snarl spread across his lips and his grip on her wrists tightened. "Don't tell me a useless pipsqueak like you want to pick a fight with me?"

In that second a strategy started to map out in her brain, Millian old gears turning and formulating words, tailoring them together to generate sentences. She swiftly lifted her eyes and locked her blood-red orbs with his golden ones.

"I-I've seen you fight, multiple times actually and I...I um came up with some strategies and suggestions for how you can improve...not that you're not tremendous I mean sorta good, already but...but um I can help you improve...if if you want that um that is."

Jack's eyes bore into her soul for a solid moment, he tossed her hands aside savagely. Getting up he stomped in the opposite direction, his bushy snow-white tail smacked her beauty in the face. He paused for when he reached his punch bag, grabbing the role of hand wrap, reapplying it to his bloody bruised knuckles. Finally, he barked out an answer "Meet me by the elephant skull at twelve am sharp, got it!"

feebly Genie stood up, using the wall as a support. "S-sure thing" she replied, surprise evident in her tone "You g-got" a large triumph smile graced her tanned face.

"Oh and bitch?"

Too happy to register the insult Genie cheerfully responded with a chirpy "yes".

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Ruggie Bucchi

Booted feet pounded on the rough uneven ground. Heavy breathing filled the air. Behind her, Genie could hear footsteps chasing after her. Panic crawled into her mind, stretching its self thinly over her mind. It's ok she mumbled to herself, just realize you've done this a billion of times before.

"Bloody Background" she whispered under her breath. Genie blinked, hundreds of tiny blue circles appeared in her red orbs. A full layout of the land before he appeared in the far left side of her sight, multiple little notes flashed in bright shades of blue and red. navigating through the notes and maps, Genie finally made heads and tails of the situation. Quickly mapping out the most deceitful rout.

--Run 10 meters then take a left, lean to the right there is a 16 cm deep pothole in the middle of the path.--

Accelerating her pace she took a sharp turn, behind her she heard the squeaky raw sound of shows scrapping rock. followed by a few curses. She kept running, watching as a blue circle highlighted the promised pothole. She aimed right, hissing as the rock wall bite into her skin. when she was a good few feet away she heard a scream and 'thump', her pursuer had hit the fallen that should give her a head start of approximately three minutes.

--with a three-minute head start run straight ahead, you'll come to a cliff jump and role down. The current calculations do not predict any major damages to be inflicted, fractures and momentary body shutdowns are not guaranteed to be avoidable.--

Her body was feeling numb, blood rushing to her fingertips. A warm dusty wind hit her face, small bits of sand sticking in her eyeballs. "Thank you Arabian desserts" she mumbled, there really were some benefits of being born in the 8th-century middle east. In front of her the earth seemed to disappear, she braced her self for the jump. Leaping into the air she curled her body into a semi-oval like shape. Upon impact, with the rugged ground, she curls her self further. She finally used the tip of her boot to dig a slow her down. Getting up again she started to run trying her best to ignore the immense pain in her right arms and the various bruises and blooding scratches over her body.

--The skull on an elephant in approaching, hid in the inside of its hollow cranium.--

No, no hiding Genie thought to herself. This whole chase -although exhilarating- was starting to get boring. She scanned the ground, reading the comments trying to find something that might help. The blue comments kept highlighting potentially useful objects and hideouts. Swiftly Genie picked up two rock shards. Holding them tight she switched her path and dashed for the elephant skull in the far right.

She entering through the mouth, quickly taking in her surroundings. Using the jagged bone matter, Genie pulled her self up climbing until she reached the window of the empty eye socket. Looking out she could see Jamil, so he'd been her mysterious stalker. Racking her brain for a second Genie tried to find a reason why Jamil of all people would be after her. Did he need something? Was he having trouble with his darling? Or did he need her for something else?

The second-year Scarabia student was only a few meters away from the skull, his back turned eyes darting every which way trying to find the Jinn girl. Swiftly Genie positioned her self, one foot resting on the opening of the eye, the other ready to push her forward. One arm held her still while the other gripped one of the shards.

One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats...

She leaped forward, crashing into Jamil's back. The third dorm's vice president landed face first in the dirt, Genie straddling his back. She raised her hand with the rock, balling it into a fist and slamming it down on Jamil's head.

"Ouch, cut that out you rouge Jinn!"

Genie didn't respond she struck him again and again. A sickly smile spreading on her face.

"Aw look at you little bunny, trying to beat a man to death."

Turning her head Genie glared at the source of the voice. Her eyes immediately widened. They're on top of an elephant spin sat the savage gluten of savanclaw Ruggi Buchi the vice dorm leader.

He leaned his head onto his hand and smirked down at the two. At that moment Genie noticed just how dark the sky had gotten and how many glowing eyes were watching her. She gulped and rolled off of the boy. Landing on the ground in a w sitting position. Jamil also got up, he placed a hand on the back of his head covering the bleeding wound. With his free hand, he grabbed Genie's wrist. "Listen here you useless genie.." Before he could finish Ruggie had landed next to him, claws leaving deep scratches in his arm. With a painful hiss, Jamil retracted his injured arm. Ruggie walked behind Genie placing a protective hand over her shoulder. "Get off our territory before Leona arrives."

Jamile sent one last glare towards the duo before returning from which he came.

"thanks" Genie mumbles

"Don't mention it, that's what a pack is for" Ruggie flashes her a predatory smirk

Leona Kingschalor

Genie leans over Leona's shoulder, arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders. A few centimeters in front of them a blue port screen is floating in the air. pictures of multiple girls rotating with their bios on the side.

"We really need to find you a darling big brother" Genie mutters as she nuzzles the crook of his neck. Leona simply takes another bite of the beef jerky in his hands, he chews slowly, relishing the feeling of his beloved "sister's" warm breath over his exposed skin. "Why are you in such a rush? Despreat to have me occupied with someone else so you're all alone and abandoned again?" He could feel her body tense, her breath hitch, and the nervous tick as she dug her long nails into his shoulder.

"N-no you're just getting older and we need to find the future king his queen. That-that's all"

Leona huffed and glared at the screen, there was something rather monotonous about these girls, they all lacked a certain "spunk" to them. Plus how did she expect him to concentrate when she was right there.

Leona didn't know when the entirety of Nightraven had decided that the naive little psycho jinn would become his "little sister" or even why for that matter. If it had been up to him he'd declare her as his darling the moment her lamp had been tossed through that magic mirror in the director's office. But something had happended, some choices, something! What that something was he did not know...only that it kept them apart.

Genie straightened and walked over to Leona plumping down on his lap and grabbing the screen, scrolling through some names and articles mindlessly. Automatically Leona's hands when to her head patting her softs then braiding a section of their hair to match his own. It was the brotherly thing to do, but when had it become so natural? "Look big brother.." Genie turned the screen and showed Leona the "file" of a round-faced hyena girl. She looked cute, maybe even try worthy...just not right now. "She's cute," he mutters turning his emerald eyes to Genie's face. No, he though her Genie's cheeks where come how rounder and puffier.

"I could set up a date if you--"

"NO!" Leona flinched he hadn't meant for it to come out so harsh. He cleared his throat and gently caressed the "young" girl's face, started pulling both her cheeks. "Why don't you give me her number and I'll give her a call after my nap...how's that?" The purple-haired girl tried to nod despite her flesh being pulled in opposite directions. "Good" Leona let go of her face and got up, lifting Genie up in the process. He walked over to the door of his room kicking it open and letting her fall on the bed, not a second later he plumped down on top of her. Genie let out a giggle and squirmed under him until she had some breathing room. "Get some rest Ruggi tells me you haven't slept in a week." This was concern, it was how an "older brother was supposed to feel for his "little sister". "But I'm not sleepy-" she tried to protest. "Don't care, do that counting thing you do sometimes maybe that'll bore you enough to drift off."

She obeyed like the good little sister she was supposed to be. As sleep took over his sense Leona heard her tiny voice barely above a whisper.

one heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats, four heart--

#twisted wonderland #leona kingscholar #twisted wonderland leona kingscholar #disney twisted wonderland #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #twisted wonderland jack howl #jack howl #Ruggie Bucchi #twisted wonderland ruggie bucchi #yancore #twisted wonderland count down

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svt-kismet · 5 years

Text

stay (tell me what you think)

pairing — soonyoung/reader

genre — angst, friends with benefits au, requested “100 ways to say i love you: 66. “stay over.””

w.c. — 1053

warnings — mentions of alcohol, implied smut

soonyoung falls in love too easily.

it’s even one of the earliest memories he has of himself. he wonders if the sand pit is still there until now, if the homeroom teacher who complimented him for coloring within the lines is doing well, if the preschool is even still up and running. he wonders about the girl who gave him the tiger drawing, who said “the tiger looked like him”. he’s pretty sure he still kept the drawing somewhere in his old house. he thinks about calling his mother to see if it is still where he left it, before stomping down the thought. there’s no use anyway: she moved away at the end of the second year they were at the preschool, and soonyoung doubts she remembers him anyways.

numerous crushes throughout his secondary and university years also further prove him. jinhee, the girl who tutored him for chemistry and had the warmest smile every time he managed to complete an equation correctly. eunbi, who made him forget he was the only guy who signed up for the dance club. even the girl who’d taken up the part-time job at the library cafe and memorised his order when he came over during exam periods. he’s almost ashamed to say falling in love numerous times has trained him to not get too attached. he wants to laugh at the irony.

however, none of that prepares him for you.

it had been on a friday night, just a few days after his birthday. his boss just let him go after ratting on him for the report he made soonyoung do when there were a dozen other employees in his team. he manages to catch seungkwan’s pitiful smile as the elevator doors close, and he knows there’s going to be a box of donuts on his desk at monday morning. seungkwan’s also the only one within the team that has an actual girlfriend and has been for the past three years since soonyoung first met him when they’d been placed into their current department.

he had only been planning on getting a few drinks at the bar a few blocks away from his office, before calling an uber and spending the rest of the night on his couch watching whatever romantic comedy plays on tv until he drifts off to sleep, before waking up with a small hangover (he knows he’ll forget to take sips of water throughout the night to prevent this, and he’ll also forget to text seokmin to ask for his hangover stew recipe.)

he didn’t expect for you to sidle up and sit on the empty chair next to him, and clink your glass to his before downing it in one go. your name tag safely nestled in a yellow lanyard that’s still clipped on the front of your blouse indicates you’re from the company across the road from his, and he thinks you must’ve seen and recognised him from moments where you and him were in the same line at the starbucks nearby your buildings.

appearances can be deceiving. your delicate blouse and dainty earrings completely throw soonyoung off from how you are in bed that night, expletives running of your swollen pink lips as you mutter how good he feels. the ring you have on your pointer finger sends a chill down his spine as you roam your hands all over his body. he hopes the smattering of bruises you left on his collarbones and neck lingers for a bit, despite knowing he’ll have to wear a turtleneck in the middle of summer and brace the looks his teammates are bound to throw at him.

when he rolls over the next morning, he finds your side of the bed empty and cold, and a sticky note stuck onto his phone. he glances at the messy scrawl of your handwriting on the small square of paper, spelling out your name, a “in case you forget” underneath, and your phone number.

over the next few months you repeatedly come over to his place, even though you barely get a glimpse of what his apartment aside from his bedroom looked like. you never linger long, though you itch to. soonyoung doesn’t even get to escort you to his door at least, and you’re too busy re-lacing your blouse and pulling your heels back on and rushing to get back before your roommate gets all up in your messages.

soonyoung even considers asking to meet up not at nighttime when he can barely see your face, remembering the yellow lanyard pinned on your blouse that fateful night. he soon deletes the unsent text bubble when he looks back on your chat history, filled with ‘come over?’, numerous other scandalous texts, and pictures just as scandalous too.

he burns with an agony that this is the limit of your relationship.

—

when soonyoung opens his eyes after laying his forearm on them, he’s alone on the bed yet again.

your back faces soonyoung as you sit on the edge of the bed, buttoning up your jeans, sliding your belt through the loops, tucking in your shirt. your hand flies up to comb through your hair with just your fingers, while your free hand is attempting to zip up your handbag.

when you’re reapplying your cherry-scented lip balm on the mirror above his dresser, soonyoung pushes himself up to lean his back on the headboard, pulling his briefs back on. his hands fiddle with each other, the need to say something rising like bile in his throat.

“you can stay over,” he says, so quietly it’s like you weren’t meant to hear him. you turn to look at him, and your soft “hm?” tells him you heard him loud and clear. even in the dark room, soonyoung sees your bright eyes.

“you don’t have to go yet. you can stay over.”

the brightness in your eyes flicker for a moment as though you’re blinking. soonyoung thinks he may be seeing things but he swore the glint from the salve on your lips fidgeted, like a smile that disappeared within seconds. the snap of you twisting the cap back on your lipbalm rings out too loudly.

the soft click of the front door going shut sounds far, far away.

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #seventeen fic #hoshi #kwon soonyoung #soonyoung scenarios #soonyoung imagines #soonyoung fic #soonyoung angst #mine #100wtsily game #repost bc of an error!!

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beckzorz · 5 years

Text

Out of Nowhere (3/21)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/OFC Summary: An offhand comment at work draws Jesse Kaplan into the orbit of Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s excited at the prospect of normalcy, but there’s nothing normal about falling in love with the Winter Soldier. Words: 3518 A/N: The awkward duo is at it again 😛 And now that Bucky’s in the picture, the picture is all about Bucky 😉 SPOILER ALERT: henley™. And the song for this chapter is one of my absolute favorite songs to dance to!!! “Bienvenue Dans Ma Vie” by Nikki Yanofsky.

PART 3: “BIENVENUE DANS MA VIE”

XXX-XXX-XXXX Yesterday, 8:22 PM

Jesse: Bucky Barnes

Today, 9:37 AM

Jesse: Hi, this is Jesse Kaplan. Marilyn is at Brooklyn Methodist. Have a nice day! XXX-XXX-XXXX: ok ty

—

On Tuesday morning, Jesse got a call from Marilyn on her way to the printer.

“Marilyn, hi, how are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m hanging in there.” Marilyn sounded reasonably chipper. “I wanted to thank you for going to the Stark benefit for me.”

“Oh, of course,” Jesse said. “I had a nice time. A friend was there, and there was a band, so we got to dance.”

“You met Bucky too,” Marilyn added. “Thank you for letting him know where I am. He brought flowers.”

“Wow,” Jesse said, eyebrows raised. Barnes had already visited? With all his extra abilities and famous connections, she’d hardly expected him to make it to the hospital at all. Wasn’t he busy? Jesse held her phone in place with her shoulder as she sorted the flyers. “That was nice of him.”

“Wasn’t it? Anyway, I wanted to ask a favor. The doctor told me I needed to wait one more day for surgery since my ankle is still so swollen. I left a book in my cube and I was wondering if you could bring it over after work.”

“Uh, sure.” Jesse winced. So much for making that stir fry.

“Thank you so much, Jesse. I’m just insanely bored. TV only distracts me for so long. Every home makeover is basically the same. How many times can I watch them knock down a non-supporting wall?”

Jesse laughed as she finally got all the flyers arranged under one arm. “I get it! I’ll see you later. May your day pass quickly!”

“You too!”

—

Brooklyn Methodist Hospital was closer to BCEI’s office than Jesse’s apartment, but the best stop on the 3 train still left her with a ten minute walk. She slogged through the humid streets, studying the people she passed with mild curiosity, plus a little grin for the few who caught her eye.

By the time Jesse arrived at the front desk, her hair was more frizz than curl. She got directions to Marilyn’s ward. On her way there, she ducked into a bathroom to smooth back her hair and wipe her face.

She studied herself in the mirror with pursed lips, then reapplied her lip balm and pinched some color into her pale cheeks.

A little better.

When she reached the right room, she heard someone else talking with Marilyn before she could see inside.

Jesse paused, curious, but the quiet man’s voice stopped mid-sentence.

It had to be Sergeant Barnes, Jesse realized. He’d heard her come, and he’d heard her stop. Why was he here? He’d come yesterday. Did he have nothing else to do?

Well, no point in lingering at the door. Jesse went in.

Marilyn was sitting up in a bed by the window; the other bed was empty. Barnes was in a chair under the window, elbows on his knees, head framed by a bouquet on the sill. He was frowning at the door, but once she came in he sat up, frown fading. He looked much less severe today. His shoulder-length hair was down and tucked behind one ear, and his jeans and henley shirt were as unthreatening as anything. And—she tried not to stare—he wasn’t wearing gloves. His left hand was black matte metal, shot through with gold.

“Jesse! I’m so glad you could make it,” Marilyn said. Jesse tore her gaze from Barnes. Marilyn’s curly hair was limper than usual and her ankle was elevated and in a cast, but other than that she looked normal.

“Hi,” Jesse said. She went and handed Marilyn her book. Barnes stood up as she approached, but Jesse quickly hopped up onto the other bed before he could offer her his chair. He sat back down slowly, narrowed eyes fixed on her. Jesse did her best to focus on Marilyn. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m alright,” Marilyn said. “I’ll be better once I can get out of here. At least here I get the good painkillers.”

Jesse snorted. “That’s something.”

“And good company—Bucky came back.” Marilyn smiled at Barnes, but he was still watching Jesse. “He says you dance wonderfully,” Marilyn added, smirking a little.

At that, Barnes jerked in his chair. “Ah,” he started, but said no more. Inwardly, Jesse was giddy at the compliment, but she tried not to show it. Poor guy probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“Well, thanks again for the dance,” she said lightly. “It was… nice.” A flush crawled up her face as the memory of it came back to her, and she turned to Marilyn to avoid Barnes’ suddenly suspicious stare. “So… surgery tomorrow?”

“That’s the plan. How’s the fort holding up?”

“Work? Oh, we’re managing.”

Barnes cleared his throat. Jesse reluctantly looked over at him, half afraid she wouldn’t be able to look away.

“What exactly do you do?” he asked her.

“Um, admin stuff,” Jesse said. “I answer phones, print things. You know. And—”

“Jesse helps everyone,” Marilyn interrupted. “She’s the one who suggested we reach out to you.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows at Jesse with frank appraisal.

Jesse scooted back on the bed and crossed her legs, a little embarrassed. It had only been an offhand remark; how was she supposed to know Marilyn would take it seriously? Or that the Winter Soldier had a philanthropic streak? “After one old man had to go to the hospital, I figured we should find one more… hardy?”

Barnes snorted. He pressed his lips together in a vain effort to hide a smile, but his amusement was clear. Was he laughing at her?

“Hardy!” he chortled. “I guess that’s true.”

“Yes, well…” Jesse stared at her hands tucked between her legs. She was never going to have a normal interaction with this guy, was she? If they weren’t both being awkward, one or the other was bound to be. The only time that hadn’t happened was when they were dancing, but it wasn’t like the Winter Soldier was going to show up at the weekly dances.

Jesse looked sideways at Barnes as Marilyn asked him about his health. The constant awkwardness was a shame, really. He’d danced so well. As good as dancing with Mike, who was her favorite…

A real shame.

“I’m going to get going,” Jesse said. She hopped down from the hospital bed, wincing—damn, they really knew how to kill backs in hospitals—and gave a little wave.

Barnes stood up. “I should head out too,” he said. “Marilyn, good luck tomorrow.” He shook her hand gently.

“Bye you two! Be good.” Marilyn settled in with her book, though Jesse could have sworn Marilyn winked at her, out of Barnes’ sight. Jesse pursed her lips, half annoyed and half amused. Once Barnes was done holding the door, he’d probably abandon her and stalk away to whatever rock he was living under.

Barnes, however, did not stalk off at the first opportunity. Jesse was already scrounging for her phone when he fell into step beside her.

“So all this is your doing,” he said.

Jesse abandoned the search for her phone. “All what?”

“The work,” he explained, glancing sidelong at her. “Getting me involved. Do you have all the ideas?”

Jesse’s cheeks warmed. “Not all of them,” she said. “I just… make suggestions.”

“Right,” he said.

Once she pushed the down button, Jesse stared up determinedly at the muted television by the elevators. She was not going to stare at Barnes, or his arms. Local news and typo-ridden closed captioning, she could handle.

[ unusually height end number of break ins have [ been reported around the burrough. Be sure [ to lock your doors and windows when leaving [ your home. Weather tonight—

The elevator dinged. Barnes stepped forward, then paused.

“After you,” he said.

“Why thank you,” Jesse said primly. She led the way in, pushed the lobby button, and leaned against the wall. The metal was cool against her bare arms. Barnes stood against the opposite wall, facing her.

“Do you go dancing a lot?” he asked.

“Once or twice a week,” she said. She smiled wryly. “I don’t know if that’s a lot.”

Barnes whistled low. “Sounds like a lot to me.”

“Well, there are people who go almost every night.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I believe in diversification.” Jesse grinned, and Barnes barked out a laugh as the elevator doors chimed open.

“Smart,” he said, eyes crinkling with a smile.

“I do my best,” Jesse quipped. She pressed her lips together, trying to keep from grinning like a loon as she led the way out. Two compliments from awkward Bucky Barnes in ten minutes? Who wouldn’t be delighted?

They both paused in the shade of the awning. Barnes stared out at the street; Jesse let out a tiny, wistful sigh. What a profile.

A thought struck her as she glanced back at the hospital entrance. If Barnes could afford to visit Marilyn two days straight on such short notice, how busy could he possibly be?

“You should come dancing sometime,” she blurted.

Barnes stiffened, then turned his head to frown at her. Jesse swallowed, suddenly nervous.

“If you want,” she added quickly. What on earth had possessed her?

“When?” His commanding tone was the same he’d used when he’d asked for her phone on Sunday night.

“Oh, um, Thursdays are when I tend to go.”

“Text me the address,” he said brusquely. He looked again up and down the street.

“Okay.” There was no wind, and she was standing quite still, but she felt as though she was standing in the wake of a sudden storm. What had happened to the friendly man of a minute ago? He’d vanished, and all that remained was a shuttered shell. “I… guess I’ll see you around.”

“Mm.” Barnes nodded once in her direction, eyes still elsewhere. He turned on his heel and left.

If he had been a few inches shorter, Jesse would have lost sight of him in half a moment. As it was, she could see his head bobbing away, getting smaller and smaller. Then he turned a corner and was gone.

–

Francisco, Jesse’s roommate, was already eating dinner at their kitchen table by the time she got back to the apartment.

“Hey, Jesse.”

“Hi, Fran,” Jesse said. She slid out of her shoes, left them in the pile by the door, and collapsed in the chair across from Fran with a sigh. “How’re you?”

“Less exhausted than you,” he said, eyebrows raised. “What happened?”

“Oh, god. Nothing bad. Just a long errand. My coworker Marilyn, the one who broke her ankle, asked me to bring her a book from work to the hospital, and—” She cut herself off. Fran wasn’t a gossip, but was it right to tell him about her awkward meetings with Bucky Barnes? Maybe, maybe not. Better to err on the side of caution. “It’s hot, and I’m starving,” she finished with a sheepish grin.

Fran laughed. “Poor Jesse. Good news is that I made enough for you, too.” He pointed his veggie-laden fork towards the counter. A wok full of stir-fry!

“Ooooh, thank you!” Jesse popped to her feet and began putting together a plate. “So how was your day?”

“Fine, just finishing up everything before vacation. One week! I’m so ready for it,” Fran sighed. He pushed his dark bangs back from his eyes. “Do you know my boss was asking me if I’d have wifi?”

“Aren’t you going to Iceland?” Jesse asked. She slid back into her seat and dug in.

“Yes!” Fran laughed. “I told him no.”

“Good call. No, an excellent call.”

Once they’d both finished eating, Jesse took both plates and got to cleaning. Fran had made dinner, so it was her job to clean up. That was their system, and it worked.

Jesse liked Fran. They’d lived together for close to two years without any major conflicts, which was a small miracle considering they had no dishwasher. Jesse’s last roommate had left dishes out overnight at least three times a week even with a dishwasher. Fran was much cleaner. Plus, he didn’t bother her in the evenings, which meant she could shutter herself in her room, flop down onto her indented mattress, and think.

What was up with Bucky Barnes? She didn’t know what to make of him. She could easily understand his awkwardness—who wouldn’t be overwhelmed and underprepared for socializing after all he’d gone through? Being a soldier in active combat was enough to change most people, and Barnes had suffered so much more. On top of losing his arm, he’d lost his autonomy, his sense of self…

She couldn’t imagine surviving all that.

Well, she would probably survive it, but she wouldn’t come out okay.

So how did Barnes manage those brief, wonderful moments? Just the thought of his soft smile and sincere compliments made her cheeks warm. Once her mind jumped from there to the memory of dancing with him, she knew her attempts at serious contemplation was a lost cause.

Jesse pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She really shouldn’t be thinking about it so much—it was one dance! Just one!—but she couldn’t help it. Bucky Barnes was awkward, occasionally frightening, but there was no escaping the heady intoxication of being held in his arms, not even days later.

She rolled over and grabbed her phone from her bedside table. She still hadn’t added his name into her contact list. He’d only texted her to thank her for Marilyn’s hospital, and there’d been no reason to think she’d ever correspond with him again. But he’d asked her to text him again. She could do it. She could text him where to go for the dancing tomorrow, and maybe he’d come, and maybe they’d dance again.

Or she could… not text him. She could ignore his request, forget her blundering suggestion that he go dancing at all, and move on with her life. Keep the memory of him locked away for quiet moments, immutable and sepia-toned like all old things.

Jesse sighed. Much though that would be easier on her mental state, it wasn’t fair to him. She’d said she would text him, and it wasn’t right to break her word to him. What would that say to him? He wasn’t worth her time? She didn’t follow through? He was a horrible person and she was afraid of him?

She shuddered. No, her feelings were her own to manage.

God help her, she’d do her best to manage them.

—

XXX-XXX-XXXX Today, 9:02 PM

Jesse: Thursdays is Frim Fram Jam at 412 8th Ave, 4th Floor, near Penn Station. Jesse: It starts at 9pm, cover is $10

9:21 PM

Jesse: Hope you can make it!

—

By the time Jesse got to the Thursday dance, she was too nervous to smile. She clutched her bag to her side as she scanned the crowd. But Bucky Barnes was nowhere to be seen.

She sighed. She should have expected this. Of course he wouldn’t show.

Changing into her suede-bottom dance shoes only took a minute, and in another minute she was dancing. Three songs went by where she danced with various acquaintances, but whenever she wasn’t forcing smiles at her partner, she stared across the room with a mix of hope and dread.

Why couldn’t she just relax? She hated being like this. The anxiety made her sick to her stomach. Dancing was all about joy, but she couldn’t manage more than a scrap of happiness tonight.

After she’d sent her text, she’d tried desperately hard not to think about the ramifications of inviting Bucky Barnes dancing. And she’d done a good job of it. No more speculating about what he’d think of her, no worrying about her face or her clothes or her hair… Well, no more worrying than usual. She’d completely avoided thinking about what would happen if he didn’t come.

Maybe she would have been more prepared for the disappointment settling in her gut if she had thought about it.

Jesse smiled absently at her latest partner and went to grab her water bottle. That might help settle her stomach. As she was drinking, Mike ambled over. Jesse quickly put her bottle away and smiled. Dancing with Mike always cheered her up. Hopefully tonight it would work its usual magic.

“Hi, Mike,” she said. “Long time no see.”

“How’s it going?” Mike asked.

“Oh, I’m okay. Nothing…” Jesse trailed off; past Mike, someone had just come in. Someone tall and pale with dark hair and a henley shirt. “Nothing much going on,” she said quickly. “Excuse me!”

She abandoned Mike with a quick smile, heart pounding. As she approached the check-in table, Bucky glanced up. His expression was guarded, but her own face split into a smile.

“You made it!” she exclaimed.

Bucky edged his way into the room. He wasn’t frowning, but he was clearly not yet comfortable. Jesse’s smile faded. She glanced around, wondering what he made of the space. The lighting was more dim than harsh, but there weren’t any dark corners. Just people’s things stuffed on and under chairs lining the edge of the room. Plus full-length mirrors on some of the walls, as in any good dance studio. It seemed entirely safe to her, but she’d grown used to it over the years.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he let out a breath between his teeth before looking at her full-on for the first time. “It’s crowded.”

“Is it?” Jesse blinked, genuinely startled—there was still plenty of room. People were doing full swingouts, for goodness sake. She thought back to her first forays into swing dancing and winced. Yeah, plenty crowded.

“Compared with outside,” he amended. He shook out his shoulders and rolled his head around on his neck. His tension dissipated somewhat, to Jesse’s relief. “For what it is, it’s not really crowded.”

“I was gonna say,” Jesse said with a grin. She hooked her fingers into her back pocket and tapped her hip in time with the music. The current song was close to ending. She glanced up at Barnes, trying to be discreet. Did she dare ask him to dance? She wanted to dance with him, no question, but what would he make of her? He’d asked her before… Wasn’t that how they’d done it back in the day? Would asking him make her seem strange, overeager? Was she just grasping at straws? Was anxiety getting the better of her?

Probably.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m okay.” Jesse pulled her hands out of her pockets and twined them together behind her back. “‘Nothing new under the sun.’”

“What?” He frowned, confused.

“It’s just a bible quote,” Jesse said quickly. “Kohelet—Ecclesiastes, I guess you might know it by. All nihilistic and so on.” At his raised eyebrow, she added, “Fortunately, I am reasonably satisfied by what is already under the sun.”

Barnes shook his head with a chuckle. “Smart.”

That was the third time he’d called her smart. Was he somehow deprived of intelligent company?

“I mean, there’s this, isn’t there?” Jesse gestured towards the dancers, all of them moving amongst each other in a mass of contentment. The music was upbeat, and best of all, no one had come to bother him yet.

“So there is,” he said.

The song ended, and one of Jesse’s favorites began to play. She instinctively glanced around to look for Mike—she always looked for him when this song began.

“Wanna dance?” Barnes asked, disrupting her search.

“Oh—yes please!” Jesse’s heart leapt, and she took his offered hand with a fresh bounce in her step. “I love this song.”

He kept them to the edge of the dance floor, away from as many eyes as possible. When he drew Jesse in to start off, her eyes slid shut in bliss. They were too close to see each other’s faces. Free from the fear of scrutiny, Jesse could finally relax.

It was as good as their first dance together—his solid arm held her close and secure, his quiet breathing in time with her own. He was wearing a glove over his metal hand again. Aside from the texture of the leather, the hand felt as real as her own. Could he tell if she tightened her grip just a litte?

She opened her eyes once they started dancing more apart, with sendouts and spins and swingouts. Jesse sang under her breath, her smile broad. Barnes was more sedate, but a small smile brushed his lips whenever their eyes met.

The only odd moment that whole song was when Jesse was looking elsewhere and she caught Mike’s eye. She smiled, but all he did was stare, lips parted, at her.

And at Bucky Barnes.

The next time she looked in his direction, Mike was gone.

—

XXX-XXX-XXXX Today, 5:43 AM

XXX-XXX-XXXX: ty for the dances

6:34 AM

Jesse: Thank you too! Jesse: ☺

#bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky barnes x oc #winter soldier x ofc #winter soldier x oc #the not for profit fic #becca writes #fictive february

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luxuryspacloud9 · 2 years

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nyfacurrent · 6 years

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Business of Art | Film Festival Strategies and Why You Need One

Harness the momentum of film festivals with these best practices.

Before creating a film festival submission strategy, check out these tips and tricks from Kathy Brew, guest curator of MoMA’s Doc Fortnight. Brew distilled her wide-ranging experience for an audience of filmmakers at NYFA in the fall of 2018; we’ve summarized her advice below.

First off, why submit to festivals?

Festivals offer filmmakers a variety of benefits. These range from sales and distribution opportunities to publicity and the prestige of being accepted as well as the possibility, in some cases, of winning awards. Festivals are also crucial for networking and generating interest in your film.

When should I think about submitting to festivals?

Consider festivals and who your intended audience is while you work on the film. Your audience will determine which festivals you apply to and help you set goals for the film. For example, are you trying to gain a big commercial distributor or are you passionate about educating the public about a certain subject? It’s also helpful to know festival deadlines and plan accordingly.

When is a film ready to be submitted?

If your film doesn’t feel ready by a festival deadline, don’t submit. Finish your film. This doesn’t mean you need to have the sound mastered, the coloring complete, and every detail finalized by the submission deadline, but festivals don’t want to see a rough cut that’s still changing.

Finally it’s time to apply. What’s my strategy?

Research festivals and think about who might screen a film such as yours. What did this festival screen last year? Who selects the films? Is there a jury? It’s also important to be realistic. The biggest and most famous festivals aren’t always the best fit for your film.

Festivals come in three varieties: large industry festivals, regional festivals, and constituency festivals (aimed at specific communities or subjects). When evaluating a festival, consider its reputation and what it’ll accomplish for you. What promotion (if any) will the festival provide? Will you be paid to attend, and is the filmmaker’s experience at the festival a priority? Will there be networking events or professional development opportunities? Will your film be given a favorable time slot?

Festival application fees add up, so do your research to find the right festival for you.

Hooray! I got into a festival. What’s next?

Attend your screening and the festival. If the festival takes place in a town or city in which you’re based or well-connected, try to fill the theater. Programmers will tell other programmers if the theater is packed. Also, be prepared with your own publicity materials on hand, like postcards and fliers.

Learn who attends the festival, identify all industry attendees, and always introduce yourself to the people you encounter. Someone you meet in line might prove to be an important connection in the future. Attend as many festival parties and events as you can.

It seems like one film can have many premieres. Why is that?

Yes, films often have everything from a world to a borough premiere. The industry ranks festivals according to prominence like so: world, international (first time screening outside country of origin), continental, national, regional, state, city, and so on.

Premieres exist to create buzz for your film and the festival. Some festivals will demand premiere status for a film to be eligible, which creates problems for filmmakers accepted to multiple festivals. In this case, your film can’t premiere at two festivals, and you will need to choose one. This is why you must consider what a festival will do for you. A name brand festival might sound like a good idea, but it may not offer you any coverage or it may screen your film at an inopportune slot. A smaller festival, though, may offer you the opening slot and promotion, which can ultimately lead to distribution opportunities and other deals.

What are my options for distribution?

Film distribution is the process of making a film available for viewing by an audience. Like festivals, distribution also follows a hierarchy with top-tier festivals seen as being at the top, followed by museums and theaters, semi-theatrical releases, TV/broadcast, educational market, home video, and VOD/SVOD (subscription video on demand). The thing to know about distribution is that it’s easy to move down the distribution ranks, but difficult to move up. Learn more about the various film distribution models.

If your film has commercial potential, consider finding a sales agent to represent you. Sales agents know festivals and will negotiate directly with distributors on your behalf.

How do I deal with festival rejection?

Different selection panels have differing thoughts on what makes a film the right fit for a festival. At some level, this process can be subjective; a rejection is far from a conclusive negative judgement on your film. Panelists can also change from year to year, so if you feel strongly that a festival is right for you, don’t hesitate to reapply.

What are some common mistakes to avoid?

Don’t rescind acceptance, even if it means delaying your confirmation. The festival programmer recognizes that a filmmaker may have submitted their film to several festivals and will be aware of the various deadlines. That said, you may not want to delay acceptance because you’re waiting to hear from a large industry festival like Sundance but don’t have any assurance you’ll be accepted. It’s best to begin getting your film in front of an audience.

And again, never send rough cuts. You want to be considerate of the panelists’ time.

What’s the general shelf life for a festival film?

Doc Fortnight only looks at films from the last two years. Many other festivals also follow defined time frames, so be sure to read the guidelines carefully. A topical film may have a more limited shelf life, while other films are more evergreen.

Selected Festivals and Helpful Resources

Capital A Festivals Sundance Cannes Berlinale Toronto International Film Festival

Documentary Festivals International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam Hot Docs Visions du Réel Full Frame Sheffield Doc/Fest AFI Docs Dok Leipzig CPH:DOX

Shorts Festivals Clermont-Ferrand Tampere Film Festival International Short Film Festival Oberhausen

Additional Resources Docs for Sale British Council Film Festival Focus International Documentary Magazine POV Resource List

About Kathy Brew

Kathy Brew has been guest curator of the “Doc Fortnight: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media” since 2017. Previous positions include co-director of the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival; curatorial consultant to the Reframe Collection, Tribeca Film Institute; programmer at Lincoln Center’s Scanners Festival (formerly the New York Video Festival); and series curatorial consultant, Reel New York, the WNET series for independent filmmakers. She is also a filmmaker whose award-winning documentary and experimental films have been shown in festivals, theaters, and online platforms.

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Image: Documentation of BRIC work-in-progress, Leigh Davis, Inquiry Into the ELE (Sponsored Project), Photo credit: Etienne Frossard

#fiscal sponsorship #nyfa fiscal sponsorship #business of art #professional development #filmmakers #madeline scholl #kathy brew #film festivals #instagram

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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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FML: Why millennials are facing the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression.

Huffington Post Highline

Part II

What Scott remembers are the group interviews.

Eight, 10 people in suits, a circle of folding chairs, a chirpy HR rep with a clipboard. Each applicant telling her, one by one, in front of all the others, why he's the right candidate for this $11-an-hour job as a bank teller.

It was 2010, and Scott had just graduated from college with a bachelor’s in economics, a minor in business and $30,000 in student debt. At some of the interviews he was by far the least qualified person in the room. The other applicants described their corporate jobs and listed off graduate degrees. Some looked like they were in their 50s. “One time the HR rep told us she did these three times a week,” Scott says. “And I just knew I was never going to get a job.”

After six months of applying and interviewing and never hearing back, Scott returned to his high school job at The Old Spaghetti Factory. After that he bounced around—selling suits at a Nordstrom outlet, cleaning carpets, waiting tables—until he learned that city bus drivers earn $22 an hour and get full benefits. He’s been doing that for a year now. It’s the most money he’s ever made. He still lives at home, chipping in a few hundred bucks every month to help his mom pay the rent.

In theory, Scott could apply for banking jobs again. But his degree is almost eight years old and he has no relevant experience. He sometimes considers getting a master’s, but that would mean walking away from his salary and benefits for two years and taking on another five digits of debt—just to snag an entry-level position, at the age of 30, that would pay less than he makes driving a bus. At his current job, he’ll be able to move out in six months. And pay off his student loans in 20 years.

There are millions of Scotts in the modern economy. “A lot of workers were just 18 at the wrong time,” says William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University and an assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor in the Obama administration. “Employers didn’t say, ‘Oops, we missed a generation. In 2008 we weren’t hiring graduates, let’s hire all the people we passed over.’ No, they hired the class of 2012.”

You can even see this in the statistics, a divot from 2008 to 2012 where millions of jobs and billions in earnings should be. In 2007, more than 50 percent of college graduates had a job offer lined up. For the class of 2009, fewer than 20 percent of them did. According to a 2010 study, every 1 percent uptick in the unemployment rate the year you graduate college means a 6 to 8 percent drop in your starting salary—a disadvantage that can linger for decades. The same study found that workers who graduated during the 1981 recession were still making less than their counterparts who graduated 10 years later. “Every recession,” Spriggs says, “creates these cohorts that never recover.”

By now, those unlucky millennials who graduated at the wrong time have cascaded downward through the economy. Some estimates show that 48 percent of workers with bachelor’s degrees are employed in jobs for which they’re overqualified. A university diploma has practically become a prerequisite for even the lowest-paying positions, just another piece of paper to flash in front of the hiring manager at Quiznos.

But the real victims of this credential inflation are the two-thirds of millennials who didn’t go to college. Since 2010, the economy has added 11.6 million jobs—and 11.5 million of them have gone to workers with at least some college education. In 2016, young workers with a high school diploma had roughly triple the unemployment rate and three and a half times the poverty rate of college grads.

Once you start tracing these trends backward, the recession starts to look less like a temporary setback and more like a culmination. Over the last 40 years, as politicians and parents and perky magazine listicles have been telling us to study hard and build our personal brands, the entire economy has transformed beneath us.

BOOMER: 306

MILLENNIAL: 4,459

Hours of minimum wage work needed to pay for four years of public college

For decades, most of the job growth in America has been in low-wage, low-skilled, temporary and short-term jobs. The United States simply produces fewer and fewer of the kinds of jobs our parents had. This explains why the rates of “under-employment” among high school and college grads were rising steadily long before the recession. “The way to think about it,” says Jacob Hacker, a Yale political scientist and author of The Great Risk Shift, “is that there are waves in the economy, but the tide has been going out for a long time.”

The decline of the job has its primary origins in the 1970s, with a million little changes the boomers barely noticed. The Federal Reserve cracked down on inflation. Companies started paying executives in stock options. Pension funds invested in riskier assets. The cumulative result was money pouring into the stock market like jet fuel. Between 1960 and 2013, the average time that investors held stocks before flipping them went from eight years to around four months. Over roughly the same period, the financial sector became a sarlacc pit encompassing around a quarter of all corporate profits and completely warping companies’ incentives.

The pressure to deliver immediate returns became relentless. When stocks were long-term investments, shareholders let CEOs spend money on things like worker benefits because they contributed to the company’s long-term health. Once investors lost the ability to look beyond the next earnings report, however, any move that didn’t boost short-term profits was tantamount to treason.

The new paradigm took over corporate America. Private equity firms and commercial banks took corporations off the market, laid off or outsourced workers, then sold the businesses back to investors. In the 1980s alone, a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 were restructured. Companies were no longer single entities with responsibilities to their workers, retirees or communities.

They were Lego castles, clusters of distinct modules that could be separated, optimized, sold off and put back together.

Businesses applied the same chop-shop logic to their own operations. Executives came to see themselves as first and foremost in the shareholder-pleasing game. Higher staff salaries became luxuries to be slashed. Unions, the great negotiators of wages and benefits and the guarantors of severance pay, became enemy combatants. And eventually, employees themselves became liabilities. “Corporations decided that the fastest way to a higher stock price was hiring part-time workers, lowering wages and turning their existing employees into contractors,” says Rosemary Batt, a Cornell University economist.

Thirty years ago, she says, you could walk into any hotel in America and everyone in the building, from the cleaners to the security guards to the bartenders, was a direct hire, each worker on the same pay scale and enjoying the same benefits as everyone else. Today, they’re almost all indirect hires, employees of random, anonymous contracting companies: Laundry Inc., Rent-A-Guard Inc., Watery Margarita Inc. In 2015, the Government Accountability Office estimated that 40 percent of American workers were employed under some sort of “contingent” arrangement like this—from barbers to midwives to nuclear waste inspectors to symphony cellists. Since the downturn, the industry that has added the most jobs is not tech or retail or nursing. It is “temporary help services”—all the small, no-brand contractors who recruit workers and rent them out to bigger companies.

The effect of all this “domestic outsourcing”—and, let’s be honest, its actual purpose—is that workers get a lot less out of their jobs than they used to. One of Batt’s papers found that employees lose up to 40 percent of their salary when they’re “re-classified” as contractors. In 2013, the city of Memphis reportedly cut wages from $15 an hour to $10 after it fired its school bus drivers and forced them to reapply through a staffing agency. Some Walmart “lumpers,” the warehouse workers who carry boxes from trucks to shelves, have to show up every morning but only get paid if there’s enough work for them that day.

“This is what’s really driving wage inequality,” says David Weil, the former head of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor and the author of The Fissured Workplace. “By shifting tasks to contractors, companies pay a price for a service rather than wages for work. That means they don’t have to think about training, career advancement or benefit provision.”

This transformation is affecting the entire economy, but millennials are on its front lines. Where previous generations were able to amass years of solid experience and income in the old economy, many of us will spend our entire working lives intermittently employed in the new one. We’ll get less training and fewer opportunities to negotiate benefits through unions (which used to cover 1 in 3 workers and are now down to around 1 in 10). Plus, as Uber and its “gig economy” ilk perfect their algorithms, we’ll be increasingly at the mercy of companies that only want to pay us for the time we’re generating revenue and not a second more.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #Millennials #student debt #economic inequality #poverty #huffingtonpost #capitalism

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johnshelbymylove · 7 years

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More than Beneficial

gif sources: x , x

Michael Gray x Reader

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (coming soon)

~warnings: swearing and mentions of sex~

Prompt: Michael and you are friends with benefits.

A/N: Someone requested Michael smut but I like to write the lead-up to them first because it makes the smut more intimate. I hope you are all okay with that. I can imagine that this fic will be maybe 3 Parts when I map it out in my head. Sorry if this one is boring. I promise part two will be a lot more exciting. I tried out doing different Point of Views(POV) because I thought it would help make more sense of the story. Please leave feedback so I can know what I should change for the next part. Did you love it? Hate it? Let me know! Also, Happy Easter to everyone!

You turned the corner on your way to The Garrison. Isaiah and Michael had taken off from the offices an hour or so before you had. You needed to finish some work. Plus, you wanted to reapply some makeup and redo your mess of hair that you threw up this morning to avoid being late.

“Come on, Y/F/N! Let’s just get out of here! You have been staring at paperwork all day. I’m surprised your eyes still function and that your brain hasn’t fried. Plus we are the last ones here.” Isaiah joked sitting on the edge of your desk. You didn’t let your eyes stray from all of the work laid in front of you. The papers on your desk still required lots of attention and seemingly so did Isaiah as he grabbed the pen out of your hand and holding it far out of your reach.

“Isaiah, I’m serious I need to finish this! Tommy’s gonna have my head if I don’t get this done!” You pleaded, pausing to change your tone. “And I’m going to have yours if you don’t give that back to me right now!” You demanded, standing to try and grab it out of his hands. You bit your lower lip to keep yourself from laughing, trying desperately to look stern.

“Fine, but only because you asked nicely.” He said sarcastically, holding it in front of you and pulling it away again jokingly. You gave him a stern look, to which he gave it back to you still chuckling. A curse word came out of your mouth as you started laughing with him. You really didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had made you laugh.

Michael approached you two looking slightly uncomfortable at Isaiah’s apparent flirting. He had no reason to be jealous and even if he did, he had no right to be jealous. You and Michael were not together but lately, he seemed to be getting a little more possessive of you lately. He told you many times that he and you weren’t together yet he still seemed to get overprotective. The more you had sex the more it seemed to mean to him. You had wanted more out of the relationship but he refused and made it very clear early on that feelings were not allowed. Your relationship was to be purely sexual and friendly. No strings, ever. The idea of being with Michael used to sound fantastic but now you were unsure. Denying you of a relationship other than sexual didn't fully sit well with you. Isaiah had every right to flirt with you just as you did with him if Michael was not willing to commit to you. You didn’t know if Isaiah knew about your and Michael’s arrangement. It wasn’t a secret really but you didn’t want people thinking you were easy. Michael and you didn’t exchange many words. In fact, you and Isaiah were actually closer friends but maybe that’s what drew you and Michael into this arrangement. He was always a big mystery to you. You honestly had given up on getting any more out of the weird relationship you and Michael had. It hurt too much to hold on to hope, so you let it go.

“We heading out?” Michael asked as he walked towards your desk. He looked from Isaiah and then to you. He eyed you hungrily to which you pretended not to notice.

“No, she’s holding us up.” Isaiah stated and stared at you to try and make you cave.

“Seriously, go on ahead of me! I’ll meet you guys there in a while.” you said trying to get them to leave so you could go back to finishing your work.

“Fine, but you’re going to have fun tonight or else! You haven’t done anything fun in forever.” Isaiah commanded playfully taunting you. “Seriously, when was the last time you did anything remotely fun?”

Your eyes automatically fixed themselves onto Michael, recalling the fun you and him had had a few days ago. He devilishly chuckled as your eyes shot away from him in realization of what you were doing. Isaiah looked back and forth between you both and gave up trying to figure out what was going on.

“I don’t know.” you said awkwardly, trying to avoid the topic.

“Oh, come on don’t be so boring Y/F/N and you seriously can’t remember the last time you had fun?” Michael hummed obviously trying to drop some sort of hint to Isaiah. “I seem to recall a time earlier this week when-”

“Fine, I’ll have fun. I promise, but I need to finish this.” You interrupted, keeping Michael from speaking any more.

“Okay, Okay, we will leave! Hurry up!” Isaiah gave up, putting his arms up in surrender. He walked away to grab his jacket from Michael’s office, while Michael lingered a bit longer. You just sat looking down at you papers as your necklace swung down slightly swaying above the desk. You looked up only moving your head to see Michael still standing over your desk.

“Look, I wanted to talk to you about something later.” Michael said nonchalantly, making you think nothing of it. “Also, do you not want Isaiah knowing about our arrangement?” He inquired.

“It’s not- I don’t- It’s fine for him to know, I just don’t want him to think I’ll open my legs for every person that walks down the street.”

“I know I’m just oh so special aren’t I?” he beamed flashing a large toothy grin.

“Yeah a very certain kind of special.” you mocked, calling him crazy and sticking your tongue out.

“Ouch!” He joked pretending to be hurt by what you said. The look on his face stayed flirty but transitioned from playful to devilish.

“Like Isaiah was saying, though, I want to make sure you have fun tonight.” He bit his lower lip as his eyes fell to your chest that was partly exposed by your low-cut dress and your leaning over. He smirked, licking his lips, and moved his eyes back up to your face.

"If that is code for having sex with you, I doubt I’ll be having any fun.” You laughed.

"Wow! Double Ouch!” He laughed, acting hurt, placing his hand on his chest as if he had just gotten shot. The flirty expression on his face stayed but changed to a more devilish look. He walked around your desk, leaning against the edge of it. “But seriously, does tonight sound good? My place?”

"Michael, are we leaving or not?” Isaiah called from the front of Michael’s office. Michael’s and his jacket were slung on his arms. He stopped in his tracks with a strange look of questioning on his face. His eyes shot back and forth between the two of you. This caused you to realize just how close your and Michael’s faces were to each other. You shot away from him, grabbing at a bunch of papers off your desk and straightening them, frantically trying to look busy doing something else. Isaiah started to question. "Are you guys-”

“I’m ready to go, Isaiah! Bye Y/F/N, meet you there!” Michael said frantically, cutting Isaiah off and pulling him to the front door of the betting shop. Michael peaked his head back inside the betting shop. “I still didn’t get an answer to my question.” He smiled.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to wait and see Michael Gray.” You hollered in his direction.

He grinned cheekily before exiting the betting shop, onto the streets.

Michael exited the betting shop for a second time catching up to Isaiah.

"So…you’re fucking Y/F/N?“ Isaiah questioned. Michael just laughed while pulling a cigarette out and lighting it and then offering one to Isaiah. "Why didn’t you tell me? You guys are together?” Isaiah continued rambling.

"It’s more complex than that.“ Michael exhaled, breathing out the smoke he had just inhaled.

"So, you’re not together?” Isaiah spoke emphatically wanting to know more about this secret his best friends had kept from him.

"We are…involved. Not together.“ He stated flatly trying to use the right words.

"Well, why not? She’s obviously into you and fine as fuck.” He rambled more.

“It’s…” Michael started.

“I swear if you say the word complex one more time I will hit the complacency out of you.” Isaiah threatened, laughing.

“I told her I wanted no more than a good fuck and a friendship. I can’t just go back on that as easily. She might not even be into me romantically anymore. You should’ve seen how much it crushed her for me to shut her down the first time. No way she feels anything more than friendly towards me now.” Michael worded not knowing if it even made proper sense.

“Well you and her still fuck, so she’s sticking around for some reason. Just saying, there is no way to know until you ask. ” Isaiah said pushing open the door to the Garrison. Michael still turning around that thought in his head.

The recollection of what had happened an hour ago snapped away as Finn caught up to you, tickling your hips, startling you. A yelp escaped from your mouth.

“You frightened me half to death!” You yelled smacking him with your purse on the arm as he continued chuckling. “You meeting up with Michael and Isaiah, too?” you asked getting your breathing back to normal.

“Yeah, they told me to meet them there. I haven’t seen you come out for a drink in a while.” Finn remarked lighting a cigarette.

“I made a promise that I would have fun tonight.” you admitted.

“How awful!” He proclaimed laughing and holding open the bar’s door for you.

As you entered many of the guys looked you up and down, including Michael who glanced up and down your figure, wide-eyed. You pretended to not notice and continued conversing with Finn.

Isaiah glanced around at all of the other guys staring at you and turned to Michael. You and Finn started approaching Isaiah and Michael slowly.

“You better make her yours soon or else.” He mentioned to Michael nodding towards all the other men looking you up and down.

“God help me..” Michael looked around and then grabbed his full glass of whiskey gulping it in one go.

#michael gray #michael gray imagine #michael gray fanfic #michael gray fanfiction #Peaky Blinders #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #John Shelby #isaiah jesus #Arthur Shelby #finn shelby #thomas shelby #ada shelby #polly shelby #more than beneficial #mine

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thepaleadventurer · 5 years

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*Discaimer: This product has been discontinued.*

Online Description:

What it is: A limited-edition collaboration between Clinique and Crayola™ Crayons for a collection of Chubby Stick™ for the lips.

What it does: Get vibrant, nourishing color in sheer-to-intense shades with Clinique Crayola Chubby Sticks. They’re loaded with mango and shea butters so that lips are left feeling comfortably soft and smooth.

What else you need to know: These products are allergy tested and free of fragrance, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, toluene, DPB (dibutyl phthalate), and camphor.

How to Use

Apply directly to lips. For subtle definition outline lips first, then fill in with natural-looking colour. Never needs sharpening: simply swivel up to reveal more lip colour balm.

My Thoughts:

I’ve had great results with various products from Clinique, so when I saw this product on sale, I knew it would be worth it. Occasionally, I will browse, out of boredom, on Sephora just to see what products go on sale, and every now and then, get suckered into buying a product because of FOMO. Marketing tactics make us anxious to get a product out of fear that it’ll never be available again, so we need to get it now. Well, that tactic worked with this product, but I didn’t end up feeling cheated or manipulated like some products leave me.

I’m not sure why Clinique wanted to partner with Crayola, maybe it was just to sell the nostalgia, but the product is the same as their regular colors, just with Crayola trademarked color names. What does that mean for me and everyone else that caught this on sale? Score. That means I got a high-quality product that I know is going to work well for me, without having to pay even half of the price of the traditional colors in their line, all because of some words on the label. What I think that they’re marketing team didn’t take into consideration was that consumers would love the nostalgia behind this, but most grown adults don’t want to look like they’re using over-sized crayons on their face, especially when in public or in a situation that requires formality and high professionalism.

Here comes the double-edged sword: I agree and disagree with those negative reviews online. While I do respect someone wanting to look their best, especially in a situation where they’re wanting to be taken as a serious, business professional, that shouldn’t mean you deprive yourself of something you know will bring you joy, from the nostalgia and from the quality of product behind the packaging. A simple fix to that complaint would be to have a designated lip product that makes you feel empowered and confident for those impactful moments, and use this when you’re at home or just enjoying a casual day. Personally, I almost never use this alone, I like to use this as a preparatory step in my makeup routine to keep my lips moisturized while I do my makeup and I can achieve an easy lip application at the end. One of the things I’ve respected most and love about Clinique is they prioritize skincare, and makeup comes in second, so I feel confident that regardless how this product ends up looking, that my skin is in good hands. Even if I wanted to return this product because the pigment wasn’t as strong as I wanted it to be, I wouldn’t have to worry about having a breakout or other skin reaction because of their track record and integrity to uphold skincare before anything else.

Performance/Wear: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★/5

This is a winner, all-around, for me. There isn’t a single issue I have with this product. The application is easy and quick, and there’s no drag that causes tugging of the skin. This is one of their more-pigmented colors, but it is still flattering for many looks and all complexions. I get the immediate gratification from the mango and shea butter benefits as the first application intensely moisturizes my lips, and I can feel the light weight of the conditioning layer on top of my lips, assuring continuous moisture during its wear. Another benefit of this being a tinted balm is you get the best of color added to your lips, without the worries of some lipstick or lipgloss formulas, like bleeding or staining. Yes, the product does transfer, but it is slight and subtle, so worrying about gross smears around your lips from eating or drinking are not a concern here. Since it does transfer, you would have to carry it with you to reapply throughout the day, but that’s a worthy trade-off, in my opinion, for moisturized, healthy lips, that those mattifying formulas don’t always guarantee.

Some of the colors can double as blushes, bronzers, eyeshadows, or luminizers, depending on your skin tone, just keep in mind that the tint is still going to be light, regardless how you apply it in your makeup look. Another great benefit of this lip balm is that there isn’t a scent, which makes it safe for people who have headaches or migraines that are easily-triggered by certain scents.

Price: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★/5

Since I got in on sale, I’m already doing a happy dance for how great of a deal this was, but even at its retail price, it’s a good deal. My usual lip balm favorite has been from Fresh, but this offers some fair comparison, without the lemonade scent and subtle taste that the Fresh lip balms have in them. Since the formula is thick and rich with moisturizing benefits, a little goes a long way with each application, further extending the value of this product.

Packaging: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★/5

I have to give credit where credit is due and it was due yesterday, for this product. I LOVE that they use a twist-up (swivel-up, as described on their site.) tube for their packaging, instead of wood packaging that requires sharpening. With this packaging, consumers get to maximize their use of this product, without having to throw away half of their product on shavings. My only other request would’ve been if they use some kind of divot, that would lock or “click” the lid into place, assuring that it stays closed while not in use. It’s quite frustrating to open up my bag and find that my lid wiggled off and has been smearing all over the other items in my bag, which wastes product and can possibly ruin other items in my bag. I’m not saying that to imply that this product might have dangerous ingredients in it, so, I’ll use an example. For instance, most purses or bags are manufactured with a combination of materials and textures, like cloth and faux-leather. Trying to remove a waxy lip balm with a tint in it is no easy feat, even for a dry cleaner, especially if you have a bust schedule and can’t drop everything to get said bag to a dry cleaner the moment the product comes into contact. What usually happens is it isn’t noticed until after it’s already had time to set into the fibers, possibly creating a stain that won’t ever come out. So, just be cautious if you want to keep this in a bag that has a lot of sentimental value and requires more maintenance and care.

Despite the lid, the rest of the packaging is quite durable. A quick fix I’ve used is simply using a strip of tape to keep the lid on the tube. I know that seems tacky, but it works so I’m able to carry this product with me and reapply throughout the day and not get it all over the inside of my bag. Inside my bag, this gets rubbed against by various items like my keys, crystals, cards, coins, etc. Despite all those things causing friction against the label, the lettering and detail remains intact every time. Now, I know that won’t be the case forever, but I’m impressed how well it’s held up against some of those abrasive items.

Ingredients:

Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Caprylic / Capric Triglyceride, Vegetable Oil / Olus / Huile Végétale, Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax / Candelilla Cera / Cire De Candelilla, Beeswax / Cera Alba / Cire D’Abeille, Ozokerite, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopherol, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter, Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil, Hydrogenated Olive Oil, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil.

May Contain: Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Mica, Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Red 7 Lake (CI 15850), Red 22 Lake (CI 45380), Red 30 Lake (CI 73360), Carmine (CI 75470), Red 6 (CI 15850), Bismuth Oxychloride (CI 77163), Red 33 Lake (CI 17200), Red 28 Lake (CI 45410), Blue 1 Lake (CI 42090), Yellow 6 Lake (CI 15985).

Pros:

Noticeable tint of color

Doesn’t bleed

Doesn’t stain

Doubles as a cream blush

Very moisturizing

Fades evenly

Twist-up tube

No scent

Gentle and easy application (No skin tugging)

Lettering doesn’t scratch off easily

Cons:

Cap slides off easily

Texture: Cream Stick

Scent: None

Recommend? Yes

Repurchase? Yes

Retail: $17.00

Size: 0.10 oz.

Clinique – Chubby Stick™ Moisturizing Lip Colour Balm: Crayola™ (Razzmatazz) *Discaimer: This product has been discontinued.* Online Description: What it is: A limited-edition collaboration between Clinique and Crayola™ Crayons for a collection of Chubby Stick™ for the lips.

#Makeup

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siding-colors · 5 years

Text

BECOME 100% DEBT FREE IN 2019 Part.2

What we will discuss next is known as Truth in Lending.

BECOME 100% DEBT FREE IN 2019 (including your home!)

The property and it is known as 100% debt free for life training.

Guess one of the scariest documents you'll ever have to sign, and unfortunately you'll have to sign it every time you get a mortgage. Let's go together, because it is first of all amazing that the interest rate of 5.2% is amortized over 360 months, which equates to 30 years in which I would like to challenge you interest rates Interest rates are important banks in your parents and who has your parents taught the banks and their parents? Let me remind you that we agreed earlier that banks are in business to make money so they do not set the rules for us and I want to put it in perspective for 12%, that is everything that is upset right now.

BECOME 100% DEBT FREE IN 2019 including your home! If I offer you a loan at the same level of 4%, it will be a little more attractive if I tell you the second half of the equation, which is equally unimportant, the element of the time I want to bet it is You do not really care if you think about the interest rates you really care about how much total interest you will end up on it 'It is not the interest rate but the interest volume over the 360 months in which Dan and Megan have an interest volume of US $ 283,000 Dollars, which means that $ 1,000 will be spent in 30 years If I pay your attention, the easiest way for most of our coaching students is to stick to it. We are not here to persuade you to adopt a system that is not compatible with your plan. I know that we can both agree that you really want to achieve results and that your lender and bank have pledged you to close could be a good starting point to keep your money. But keeping it in the long run is wrong. The cool thing about the formula we teach you today is that banks benefit from it when you use them. Therefore, I will teach you how to use the tools you provide, that we have a summary page on Dan and the negative cash flow cruncher in a mutually beneficial manner. You can see here that 3.2 years after we got to know them, they bought their house, they had that $ 290,000 credit on their new Borgosz closer to 320,000 2% interest rate, as you saw in the truth in the payroll and the If their sum brought in $ 283,271 in interest, their net household income was about five thousand nine hundred, which is the average that Dan was self-employed and Megan was World War II, so we really need to rely on an average of $ 1,600 to conservatively And to make this example of a $ 2325 US dollar living allowance are all the items you need to pay even if you are debt free. The monthly total cost was $ 3,925 per month. The monthly net income averaged $ 2,025, or even 20% of the interest they would otherwise have pocketed, and we are doing this to properly use those debt weapons to keep them in line with this plan, so we're going to get that debt weapon Borrowing $ 25,000 for this gun I'm going to hunt about $ 20,000 from this jet weapon.

BECOME 100% DEBT FREE IN 2019 We have a specific formula that we use to determine how much we want to borrow from the 25 available aloes Reserves 58,500 instead of the original $ 78,500, which is approximately $ 270,000, which equates to $ 90. Now we have this $ 20,000 debt weapon available as checking account Discuss with you for a moment if your money is unemployed and watch TV on the couch all day long if you have a financial day all day Having an independent woman who goes home and deposits your money on the bank for an average of 20 to 28 days During this time, the bank uses your money every month and you know that you pay little or nothing. In addition, compound interest will ultimately affect all your debts. At the end of the month, the bank will harvest all the reward certificates, and this process will be washed out and repeated 20 to 28 days a month, your notes in a checking account or savings account. 22 equals 3/4 of an inch equal to 3/4 wasted We'll show you how you can use every dollar for 100% of your remaining life to show you the impact that now replaces the inadequacy of your check and savings account and I'll get back later when we cover it up, but what about this average monthly income worth $ 5,950? Account every month, then they pay their bills and their cash flow is left over instead of paying them, or $ 2,950 into their checking account, which is now deposited into that debt weapon, works in the same way as the checking account so they deposit, that 5950 of the 2400 were repaid against this $ 20,000 balance. One in love now has to pay his own. Yes, he pays the cost of $ 2,325. You'll find, however, that he does not pay a mortgage in the first month because he's already paid $ 20,000 for a mortgage payment. Another two things that forgot about that debt, what to write about, we forget when they borrow $ 20,000. You have an assumption, what if you pay checks for an average of $ 5,950 a month, and from that account that counts or does not count that as a monthly payment. You're right, it counts as a monthly payment, so you will not have another payment in addition. All you have to do is take care of his interest, the innermost thing they add to the cost of living at $ 2,325. If we can repay this quickly, there will not be much interest, compared to the 5.2% lower interest rate in the US market Show that you will approve it from month 2, when they collectively receive $ 5,950 as a household, where they would normally use the money for the banks, because they have their liquidity comfortable, from the FDIC we do not know that they better All the good reasons are reassured, but what if I could provide you with liquidity security and a better way to raise money, then you would replace the bank with what you are doing now. They will pay checks and lower the estimated balance to approximately $ 10,425, which is equivalent to the average daily balance of this account means they pay at the end of the month, so you can see that they have to pay the mortgage now because they do not specify any further lump sum to have. This lump sum counts only as a payer t and then the $ 2325 must be paid for the living, which means that every month until that balance is repaid, it will be repaid by the end of the $ 2350 cycle then they will pay the expenses.

BECOME 100% DEBT FREE IN 2019 The total spend of 3009 and the cash flow 2025 will remain as if they were their checking accounts or savings accounts, so we can take that $ 14,350 and share them through the cash flow. How many months does it take to repay this when it comes to 0% would be, so that total is 7.1. Take 14,000 350/2025. Total will be 7.1 months How many years are 8.9 months interest rate estimate for this exam? Which is way too high if you actually calculate the mass conservative estimate, but I would like the total number of months here to be on the order of 10 months per cycle. Where is every time you raise a lump sum of $ 20,000 for these debt weapons? The mortgage will be repaid within 10 months. It's hard to really understand the power of what I'm about to show you, but let me demonstrate this a little more clearly. One of the most insidious devices ever developed by humanity, it's called the eradication plan. You will see the interest and in gray the principal amount of a 30-year loan. This is the zero-year nature of your loan and the end of your loan 29 where you can see that most of the interest paid at the beginning is actually a simple interest loan. Many people have a little bit of confusion about that oh so much born beginning has reapplied a lump sum of $ 20,000 from a debt weapon. There was not even money that put them into the repayment plan, which meant they were in the month in which they paid their first monthly mortgage payment, paid the same amount of capital for that time, possibly paying four of them, and a year and a half, how long it takes to repay that $ 20,000 lump sum 10 months later. It was not until the 11th month that they did exactly the same and spent another $ 20,000 on the already repaid debt weapon. You now have a new lump sum of $ 20,000. Emagazine.credit-suisse.com/app/art...1007 & lang = DE The remainder of the debt a paycheck deposits and pays the mortgage in full and you can see that an equivalent for about 8 years pays for this mortgage disassemble amortization plan into small pieces and observe that the original interest amount for the loan over a period of 30 years is only 70 years, which means that we have them in this plan With a forwarding of 257 payments totaling $ 210,760, I can show you the results in a mathematical mortgage calculator table that I will provide you with. That way, all the data you enter on each of these tabs is summarized on the assets and liabilities side of your living expenses, paid business costs, action steps, and the loan calculator, so they had a starting balance of $ 290,000 and their interest rate was 5.2%. I should see if I plug this over a 30-year attempt to calculate total interest the same as we had $ 83,271, now it's a school, then you can see that this page is split into two numbers of payments In the bottom Half we look again at the first payment. What happened in the first month was a lump sum of $ 20,000. I know that it may be a bit difficult to see what you should do is look closely at the number of payments you save the amount of your total savings $ 64,398 in interest on this mortgage. Well, what kind of interest rate of 20% has been repaid, but how quickly do you show me that you have done exactly the same thing again in the eleventh month and although this is a 12% interest rate that really does not make any difference as the interest rates, which are saved the first time, so significant is that there is another lump sum of $ 20,000 for the dead weapon and now $ 11,280, as you can see here, as I mentioned almost eight years ago, if you use a tool that the banks have provided them, ask yourself why you were not at school, and the same exact techniques apply to the consumer debt for which your mortgage must be valued mortga Already for 5 years the action does not matter, but it would not be great if you could eliminate 95 payments in this way - a wise decision to have your property clear and clear when it comes to the difference between the Rü There is a difference in disposable income when you get a mortgage sample, when you pay off your mortgage, you have 50 1140 and the total mortgage rates that are paid out during the year of 11,500, which means that disposable income George wants more disposable income So it makes no sense to maintain a mortgage. There are a few other benefits if you are mortgage free. Yes, your money repays a mortgage and may invest a higher return than what your mortgage is for you. In this way, it is a guaranteed return that is medical trouble or unforeseen circumstances that my car has never won before would break Read the full article

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let-it-raines · 4 years

Text

your wonder under summer skies (9/?)

rating: mature

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |

-/-

“Do you have on sunscreen?”

“I basically took a bath in it, Marg.”

“You’re looking a little red.”

Emma sighs and looks down at her chest before turning to her shoulders. She’s the slightest bit pink, and she sighs. Dammit. She sprayed herself down twice before she got here, and it’s only been an hour since she’s been outside.

“Do you want to finish the rest of these inside then?”

“We’ve only got a few left, but you need to make sure to reapply before we go out to the festival.”

Emma nods and keeps stuffing bags with water bottles and snacks. They’ve got to get these to Ashley and Aurora before lunchtime and then need to get to the dining rooms to check on their members. Mary Margaret can leave after that since the club is mostly shutting down early to encourage everyone to support local businesses and the festival, but Emma’s got to meet with two brides before she can go. She doesn’t know why the hell they picked her to coordinate over Mary Margaret, and if she got paid by commission, she’d really appreciate that. Since she doesn’t, though, and really only wants to get a tan and eat funnel cake, she’s not too interested in having to talk weddings for a few hours.

“So,” Mary Margaret hums, “have you met the new Sheriff?”

“Nope. David likes him, doesn’t he?”

“David loves him! Oh, Emma, he’s just great! David says he’s organized and always on time, and he’s great at building morale. We had him over for dinner last night, and he was the sweetest thing. Very handsome, too.”

Emma’s hand falters on the bag of animal crackers she’s holding before she drops them in the bag and glances over at Mary Margaret, who is doing her best to avoid looking Emma in the eye.

Smooth, Marg. Real smooth.

“No.”

“No? I didn’t even say anything!”

“You are about as subtle as a gun, Mary Margaret Noland. You’re trying to set me up with the new Sheriff, and I’m not interested. I mean, I just broke up with Neal.”

“A month a half a go!”

“After five years, a month and a half doesn’t seem like that long, does it?”

Mary Margaret finally has the courage to look at her, and Emma wants to be annoyed. She really does. She just can’t seem to find it in her today to do that.

Good intentions, she reminds herself. Mary Margaret and David nearly always have good intentions.

Doesn’t mean she has to like them.

“I’m not ready to date someone, and I don’t think the new Sheriff is rebound material for me.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because you like him, and David works with him. Do you really want for things to be awkward when I inevitably break up with him?”

Mary Margaret’s sigh can probably be heard in Australia. “How do you know you’re going to break up with him?”

“Because I’m not ready to date! I just said that. I’m not too interested in getting hurt again.”

“Oh, Emma, those walls of yours may keep out pain, but they also may keep out love.”

She’s going to crush these poor kids’ animal crackers if her fist doesn’t loosen soon.

Good intentions.

Good fucking intentions.

“Marg,” she whispers, “I had my trust ruined by a man I thought I could have been with forever. That doesn’t just go away, okay? You’ve been with David for your entire life. You guys have only been apart for two days in fifteen years. I’m sorry, but you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through right now or how damn hard it is to know that Neal is still in this town walking around with Tamara without a care in the world. I loved him, and that wasn’t enough yet again. So maybe just let me have some time, okay? Let me be able to see Neal walking down the street and not have a meltdown. I’m not ready to seriously date someone else.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean – ”

“It’s fine,” Emma lies as she inhales and tries to get some much-needed air into her lungs. “Let’s just finish up here. The sooner we’re done, the sooner I can get to my funnel cakes.”

“You and those funnel cakes.”

“They’re the best part of the holiday.”

“Not the fireworks?”

“Nah, it’s the funnel cakes.”

Mary Margaret drops the conversation, and she miraculously doesn’t bring up anything having to do with relationships for the rest of their day. It’s all updates on the bathroom renovation in the house and David’s new obsession with homemade lasagna, which Granny is definitely going to be pissed about. Then she moves onto Elsa and Liam’s wedding, which does verge a little into the relationship territory but is also their job, so she lets it slide.

Mary Margaret was very much meant to help others plan their wedding days. The sparkle in her eyes alone shows that.

After they check in with the two luncheons that are happening, Mary Margaret takes her leave and goes home, promising to meet Emma at Eric’s restaurant later tonight. Emma’s brides are both early, both far too overenthusiastic, but they keep under their hour-long appointments, and by four, Emma is in her car and on her way home to change and get ready for tonight.

The funnel cakes are still calling her name.

As soon as she gets home, she takes her shoes off at the door, heads back to her room and changes into a bikini before pulling on a pair of jean shorts and an old flannel shirt. It’s too big on her, and when she looks down at it, she realizes it’s Killian’s. For a moment, she considers changing, but it’s comfortable and will be warm for after the sun sets.

Plus, his cologne is still lingering, and he wears some damn good cologne.

It’ll also annoy the hell out of him if she doesn’t give his shirt back, so the benefits of keeping it on continue rolling in.

Getting to the boardwalk is nearly impossible with the roads blocked off for some of the rides and booths that have been brought in, so Emma ends up turning around and driving on the outskirts of downtown before finding parking outside of Killian’s place.

Skipper greets her through the window of a back office, and Emma taps on the window before looping around and heading through the back door so she doesn’t set off that damn alarm.

“Hey, boy,” she greets, “hey, you working hard, my friend? Giving yourself a case for employee of the month?”

“I am employee of the month, always.”

Emma jumps and backs up against the wall to close her eyes and take a few deep breaths to calm her heartbeat.

“Where did you come from?”

“So, my mum and dad, somehow, had sex, and then – ”

“Somehow? Do you think parents don’t have sex? That’s how we all get here.”

“My parents hated each other for most of my life. I can’t imagine them ever liking each other enough to want to sleep together.”

“Hate sex is a thing.”

“I will pay you to stop talking.”

“Really? How much?”

Killian steps up to her and dips his head until his lips brush across the shell of her ear. “Whatever your heart desires.”

A shiver works itself down her spine and up over her arms as gooseflesh appears, and Emma’s breath stutters. “I’ll stop talking if you buy me a funnel cake.”

“I’ll buy you two.” His teeth tug down on her ear before his lips brush against her cheek, and then he’s pulling back and putting some space between them. “Give me twenty minutes to set up the answering machine, and then we’ll walk to Ariel’s together. Can you feed Skipper for me?”

“Is he not coming with us?”

“No, I didn’t want to have to keep up with him tonight, and the fireworks scare him.”

“Do they scare you, buddy?” she says to the dog as she scratches his ears. “They scare you, and your dad is going to make you stay here all by yourself? That’s not very nice.”

“I’ll leave the TV on for him, Swan. He won’t hear a thing.”

“You love Killian so you can’t see his flaws, but a good owner would never leave you.”

Emma snickers as Killian groans behind her. “If you want to walk him for the next several hours, feel free.”

“Nah, I’m good. Is the food upstairs?”

“In the kitchen.”

Emma nods and starts walking up the stairs, whistling so Skipper will follow her up, and when she gets to the kitchen, she finds the bag of food, pours it in the bowl, and then refreshes his water bowl while he eats. A bit of water accidentally splashes on the counter, and Emma picks up the mail that got wet to try to keep it from getting even more wet.

“Going through my mail then?”

“Good God,” Emma breathes out, “do the two of you insist on scaring the shit out of me?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Emma sighs, turning around to see Liam. “Your brother just scared me when I walked in the office downstairs. I swear the two of you don’t have footsteps sometimes.”

Liam shrugs. “Is he downstairs?”

“Yeah, he’s making sure everything’s all set for you two to take the night off. Elsa told me you found tuxes you like. You know, if you have enough groomsmen, they might give you a discount on rentals or on yours if you want to buy it. I know you haven’t decided on everyone, but it’s something to think about.”

Liam’s lips press into a forced smile. “I will keep that in mind.”

Silence falls between them, and Emma awkwardly shuffles the mail in her hand before dropping it back to the counter. She doesn’t remember the last time she was in a room alone with just Liam, and really, she should be better at coming up with small talk since she has to do it all day every day.

Or, maybe, she can’t do it now because she’s just so damn tired of doing it and can’t put in the effort.

“So, would you happen to know who my brother is seeing?”

Emma nearly chokes on air. “What?”

“Do you know who Killian is seeing?” Liam repeats, stepping closer as the floor creaks below him. “You two are close, and, I don’t know, he’s keeping who he’s seeing from me, which he’s never done before. I figured you…I guess I was curious and wanted to know.”

Oh God.

No. Just no.

She is not having this conversation, especially when this conversation is about her.

Not that Liam knows that.

Hopefully.

Wait. Is it her? Or is he seeing someone else? He could definitely be seeing someone else at this point. She thought he would have told her, though. That was the agreement.

He definitely would have told her. Killian is a man of his word. Of that, she is sure.

“Is he seeing someone?”

Liam clicks his tongue, and damn, that is such a Jones thing to do. “I assume. He doesn’t come home some nights, occasionally takes a longer lunch than usual, and I swear he’s been sneaking someone in and out.”

Oh shit.

How many times has Liam almost caught them? That’s not good at all. At least she hasn’t had to jump out the window again. That was a pain in the ass. Literally.

“Look,” she sighs as she straightens her back, “even if did know who he was seeing, it wouldn’t be my place to tell you his secrets. If he’s not telling you, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

Liam’s eyes narrow as he crosses his arms over his chest, and if she got a dollar for every time he did that, she’d be rich. “So, he is seeing someone?”

“I don’t know. Let him tell you whatever he wants to tell you. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

“Doesn’t hurt to have someone else helping him out.”

“It does if that someone can be overbearing.”

“Are you referring to me?”

“I really feel like I don’t have to say who I’m referring to.”

“Hey, you ready to go? Ariel texted and – oh, hey, Liam.”

Liam blinks, slowly, before turning from Emma to look at Killian. “What did Ariel say?”

“Just that she’s got the big table on the deck saved for all of us. Do you want to walk with us or are you waiting for Elsa?”

“I can walk with the two of you. Elsa is working in a booth, remember?”

“Of course. We’ll have to stop by and get some ice cream after we get Emma her funnel cakes.”

“Funnel cakes, ice cream, and dinner at Eric’s? That’s quite the spread, lass.”

Emma pats her stomach and smirks at Liam. She guesses their conversation from earlier is done. “What can I say? I like food, and the fair only comes to town once a year.”

“I thought the club put on a fair in August.”

“That’s for kids, and we don’t have funnel cakes. Come on, Joneses, I’m ready to go.”

Killian and Liam spend the entire walk talking about a baseball game from last night, and as much as Emma enjoys it, she really only enjoys watching it, not debating about it when the game is over and done with. She knows she’ll have to debate it when she and Killian go to New York next month, but for now, she drowns them out and looks around the boardwalk. String lights are hung above them, criss-crossing between buildings and stalls, and she can’t wait for the sun to set so they can be turned on. There’s something weirdly magical about fairy and bulb lights when they come on, and really, she’s looking forward to that more than the fireworks.

Obviously, she’s got high-standards for things that she enjoys.

Kids keep running in front of them, not looking where they’re going, and Emma almost trips at least twice before Killian tugs her back so she’s not walking slightly ahead of the two of them.

She would have loved being able to do things like this as a kid. It would have made her life just to be able to waste all of her money on these rigged games trying to win a stuffed animal, but she was never given the opportunity. Now, she knows better than to waste money on something she has no need for.

Except for the funnel cakes, which she can now smell.

“KJ, you owe me two funnel cakes. I’m cashing in on one now.”

He turns his head and raises his brow. “Now? We’re about to get dinner?”

Emma points to the stand a few feet ahead of her. “I can smell it. I need it.”

“There’s quite a line at that booth.”

Emma stops walking and tugs on Killian’s t-shirt while batting her eyelashes. She knows it doesn’t work, but it’s all she’s got. “C’mon. The table will still be waiting for us.”

“You two go,” Liam says. “I think I’m going to see if Elsa needs help. She said she her summer staff working, but I’m sure she might like the company.”

“You could also go let those teenagers enjoy the carnival.”

“That was my plan, little brother.”

“Younger.”

Liam winks and smiles. “It’s the same.”

“No, it’s bloody well not,” Killian shouts as Liam walks away, waving as he goes.

“You two have a very weird relationship.”

“You have no idea,” he sighs, wrapping his arm around Emma’s shoulder and pulling her closer until his lips and lightly brushing against her temple, and she swears that he breathes her in. That would be ridiculous, though. “Let’s get you funnel cake one.”

“I would riot if you didn’t.”

The funnel cake is as delicious as she thought it would be, and she doesn’t even care that her lips and her fingers are undoubtedly covered in sugar now. She can look like a clown to everyone as long as she keeps getting to eat this pure, sweet sugar.

Even if Eric is a little agitated with her when they get to the restaurant.

“Are you bringing in outside food to my restaurant?”

“Yep.” She pops another piece in her mouth and makes sure to exaggerate her chewing. “And unless you made onion rings today, this is going to be the best thing here.”

“You do know I am an excellent chef, right? And I can make food other than junk food.”

“She has the palette of a child.” Killian gently tugs on a piece of her hair and pulls her in closer. “Don’t try forcing anything else. It’s not worth it. I, however, will take all of the good food you’ve got.”

“And that is why you’re my favorite.”

“Hey,” Ariel grumbles.

“Besides you, obviously.” Eric shakes his head and smiles. “You two go sit down. I have to get back to the kitchen.”

“It’s never going to be as good as this funnel cake.”

“Shut up.”

Emma sticks her tongue out at Eric because she is the height of maturity. Obviously.

She maneuvers out of Killian’s hold and walks to the table, pulling out the chair across from Ruby while Killian sits down next to her.

“Why are you two so late? Did you finally decide to fuck each other?”

The funnel cake she was chewing gets stuck in her throat, and Emma starts coughing, doing anything to try to get air while her cheeks have got to be turning the color of tomatoes.

“Ruby,” Mary Margaret hisses, “there are children around. Don’t use that word.”

“Why? That’s how they got here.”

“Funny, I feel like I’ve already had this conversation today.”

“So, you were fu – sleeping together then? I knew it!”

“We,” Emma breathes out as she still hits her chest, “are not sleeping together. Why is your mind always in the gutter?”

Ruby scoffs and picks up her wine. “My mind is not in the gutter. I’m just saying that you two are both very hot, and you’ve got this whole sexual tension thing going on. We’re all waiting for it to happen. One day you’re just going to show up and tell us that you’re secretly in love.”

Emma rolls her eyes as Killian’s hand falls against her thigh underneath the table. “We are not secretly in love. And we are not sleeping together.”

His fingers inch further up her thigh, and a shiver runs down her spine.

Asshole.

Killian is the better liar than Emma, so, really, he should be the one lying to all of their friends right now. It’s not really a conversation she thought would ever come up, but it’s Ruby: nothing is safe.

“I’ve always thought you two would be a nice couple,” Mary Margaret sighs. “I mean, you were always with Neal, so I never said anything but – ”

“Never said anything? You talk about it all the time, honey.”

“David, that is not true.”

“It is. You love meddling in other people’s business, and since Ruby is, well, Ruby, the only two you really like to plot about are Emma and Killian.”

“Excuse me? Plot?” Killian raises his brow before winking at Emma. “You’ve been plotting about us?”

Mary Margaret’s face is as red as Emma’s was earlier, and if the woman wasn’t at least showing some remorse, Emma would be agitated.

Maybe she still should be, but she’s obviously on some kind of funnel cake high where nothing can piss her off, even having her personal life examined for the second time in one day.

“I have not,” Mary Margaret protests, flustered. “All I want is for you two to be happy! I thought Emma was all settled, and I really wanted someone for Killian. Now, though, you’re both single, so you know…”

Killian’s fingers tickle along her thigh before he squeezes. She really hopes Ariel cannot see underneath the table.

“And Eric says I’m the meddler,” Ariel sighs.

“You are all meddlers,” Emma finally says. “Each and every one of you. You all need hobbies like painting or reading or, hell, crocheting. Anything to keep you occupied so that Killian and I can keep living our lives.”

“Yeah, living your lives totally wrong.” Ruby swishes her wine glass and tilts it toward Emma. “I’m just saying – when, and I do mean when, you two get together, I want a personalized gift and the ability to say ‘I told you so’ as much as I want without reproach.”

“What kind of personalized gift?” Killian asks. “Just so I can prepare for when Emma finally falls for my charms and kisses me.”

Emma laughs and turns to the side, gently pushing Killian’s arm.

Asshole.

Cocky, annoying asshole.

“Please,” she scoffs, “you couldn’t handle it.”

Killian leans in, eyes slanted and lips curled up to the right while his tongue flickers across his teeth. Emma gulps, but she doesn’t blink, even when Killian’s finger hooks inside the hem of her shorts.

“Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it.”

Glass rattles as someone smacks the table. “See,” Ruby groans, “just look at all of that untapped chemistry. I feel frustrated just looking at the two of you.”

“Okay,” David squawks, his voice breaking, “please change the subject. There’s only so much of this I can take. It’s like hearing about my little sister’s sex life.”

“See, maybe if you weren’t so overprotective of Emma, it wouldn’t be like that.”

“She’s our friend. I can’t help it if I am. And you’re one to talk, Mary Margaret.”

“What does that mean?”

“We just talked about what it means.”

Killian laughs at their friends bickering before leaning into Emma’s space even more. He never really moved out of it, but she didn’t notice.

“For the record,” he whispers as his nail traces along her skin, “we both know that I can handle it.”

Emma swallows the lump in her throat, and she can suddenly feel her heart beating, faster and faster and faster until she feels it between her ears while she blinks at Killian and tries to form some kind of coherent response.

Where the hell did all of her words go?

“Do you think Eric would hate us if we ordered the pizza?” Ruby asks.

“He just yelled at Emma for bringing in a funnel cake and wanting onion rings, so I think that’s a possibility.”

Killian winks once more and then turns from her so that all she can see is his jawline. “You guys do know this is a seafood restaurant, right? With damn good seafood. He only sells the other things for the tourists. We are not tourists.”

“It’s the fourth of July carnival. We’re all tourists for the night.”

They end up getting the pizza.

Eric is beyond pissed off at it, but absolutely no one cares, especially when Will and Belle walk in and order another one because the first two were completely obliterated. Robin stops by with Roland for five minutes to get food, but then Robin is being dragged off because Roland wants to do go on the spinning tea cups that are set up in city hall’s parking lot.

Emma has eaten so much tonight that she definitely can’t imagine being on anything that spins around.

Especially when Killian still owes her another funnel cake. It’s too bad they don’t keep well in the fridge.

“I have to go make some rounds,” David announces as he stands from the table. “Do we have any other plans for tonight?”

“I have to go back to work,” Ruby says.

“Yeah, me too,” Ariel adds in.

“Belle and I are free.”

“As are Emma and I,” Killian says. “Mary Margaret, what about you?”

“I think I might walk around with David, but do you all want to meet back at your place for the fireworks at ten? I think the roof will be the best place to view them.”

“Sounds perfect, lass. We’ll see you then.”

Belle suggests watching around to work off dinner and see if there’s anything new this year, so they start with the booths on the side of the boardwalk no one has been down yet. It’s emptier because it’s away from all of the rides, but there are plenty of food stalls, a few games, and several booths from small businesses around town. Belle immediately finds a stall selling books for a dollar a piece, and she ends up getting two tote bags that Will grumbles about carrying. Killian buys the one book Belle didn’t snatch up, folds it, and sticks it in the back pocket of his jeans.

Emma swears that Belle nearly has an aneurism over that.

“Hey, look, love.” Killian points over to a booth with balloons pinned to the wall.

“What exactly am I looking at?” He grabs her hand and pulls it in front of them to point back to the booth. “Still not getting it, KJ.”

“The prizes. I think there’s one you might like.”

Emma steps a little closer and then sees it at the very top of the shelf. It’s a giant white swan stuffed animal.

Oh.

Well, yeah, that is kind of cute and very apt for her name, but it’s pointless to look at it. She has no need for a stuffed animal, even if she was thinking about it earlier, and she definitely isn’t about to waste money on it. But it was a nice thought.

“Cute,” Emma laughs as she keeps walking only for Killian to tug on her arm and pull her back. “What? What are you doing?”

His lips curl up. “I’m going to win you that damn swan, Swan.”

She rolls her eyes.

He’s an idiot.

Just…a big idiot, but there’s this feeling in her gut, this dumb one that she hates, that wants him to win her the damn swan. She wants to have that experience she so craved as a child, even if she does still think that games like this are still pointless.

She wants.

In the back of her mind, she thinks back to Neal never even offering to walk around the carnival with her. He always said it was stupid and that he would not be showing up. It was never so much that he wouldn’t come here, but it was more that he was like that with everything that was important to Emma.

How could she be so stupid?

And how could she still feel like she loves him?

Loved him? Definitely loved.

There are no feelings of affection left, not even in memories. She’s just so fucking pissed sometimes.

“Killian, you don’t have to – ”

But he’s not listening to her. Instead, he’s already standing in front of the booth, cash on the table, and darts in his hand.

He pops a balloon on the first try.

“Woah, were did that aim come from?”

“I’d say the Navy, but I think it might be natural talent.”

The guy in the booth rolls his eyes, but Emma doesn’t care. He’s probably dulled the darts and gotten some kind of indestructible balloons to make sure no one wins anything, but as Emma keeps watching, Killian keeps popping the balloons. It takes him several tries and far too much money, especially when Will rejoins them and starts heckling him, but eventually he gets the stuffed Swan from the top of the rack and hands it to Emma.

It’s so dumb.

(But it’s not.)

(Things like this never are.)

Emma holds onto the swan as they keep walking around until she stops and gets something to drink. Then she hands it to Killian, who holds it in his hand that’s draped over Emma’s shoulder so that the damn beak keeps hitting against her cheek as they walk.

“You’re being obnoxious,” Emma laughs as Killian keeps poking the beak against her cheek. “You’re an actual child, Jones.”

“I’ve never said I was mature. It might also be all of the sugar I’ve had today.”

“Having one bite of a funnel cake does not count as having a lot of sugar.”

He pokes the beak in her face one more time before she turns on him so she can see the frankly obnoxious grin he’s sporting.

Maybe that little bit of funnel cake was a lot of sugar for him.

“You know, Swan, I used to think you were kind to me, but that thought is disappearing.”

“Is it now?”

“Mhm.” He wraps the swan around her neck before placing his hands on her hips. Emma glances around, searching for Will and Belle, but they’re nowhere to be seen. When did they run off? “And apparently all of our friends think we have some kind of sexual tension going on, that we’re compatible, and that’s just not true.”

His fingers inch toward her ass, and Emma cranes her neck to try and figure out how long it would take to get to Killian’s place. That’s where they’re supposed to be headed anyway.

“Oh, no, it’s definitely not true. We don’t get along at all. You’re getting a little brave touching my ass right now. I don’t think we can, you know, on the middle of the boardwalk.”

“Well, we could, but then David would arrest us.”

Emma grabs onto his hand and moves it off her ass. “Then let’s not do that. Let’s – ”

Her words die on the tip of her tongue as her gaze falls upon the last person she ever expected to see here.

Neal.

-/-

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#your wonder under summer skies #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #Captain Swan

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