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serenasoutherlyns · 3 years

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Full of Surprises ch. 1-3

casey/alex, past alex/olivia. semi-au & fuzzy timeline, set post season 9. cross-posted from ao3 so the first three chapters are coming at ya all at once. TW for series-typical violence, SA, and discussions of mental illness. less graphic than the show. Fluff, romance, angst! First three chapters are totally SFW.

And yet, as she scanned the place, she caught someone she recognized. Sitting at the bar, bent over a notebook, was Casey Novak; her deep red hair tied back in a casual ponytail, an empty highball glass in front of her, chewing on the end of a click pen.

1 .

This wasn’t where Alex would usually find herself. Or at least, it didn’t used to be. Maybe it was now.

Emily had spent her evenings sat at a booth in the back of the local pub, watching and sketching. The books she’d filled, she kept them safely tucked in a box in the back of her closet, initialed “EC.” Alex couldn’t find it in her to draw much anymore.

Anne was alone more than not, spent long evenings reading philosophy, went running early mornings, yoga classes, taught herself guitar, filled hours on hours with ideas and exhaustion. Alex didn’t spend much time poring over The Republic these days, her guitar was long covered in dust.

In law school, her friends had a favorite table in the window of a little cafe, they would go from morning coffee to afternoon study to sharing bottles of red wine, coming and going as they pleased, debating with hopeful glimmers in their bright eyes. Late into the night, arm wrapped around Sylvia’s waist, listening to her classmates carry on, she’d watch the candles burn down. Sylvia had called her Lexi, whispered in her ear on night walks in the cold Cambridge air to their little apartment, gentle hands soothing her most anxious times. Alex hadn’t felt like that in years.

College weekends were spent at punk shows in basements, though she knows now nobody would believe it, young Alex Cabot (the nickname had been coined in those years, sharper edged than the elaborate Alexandra) knew how to have some fun, at least back then. She’d dyed her hair black and worn studs on her collar, had a reputation for being a player, and it seemed like the back of her right hand was constantly stained with marker residue. Sticky floors and lipgloss on her neck, so many firsts all at once.

Her evenings during her years in the DA’s office were usually full of work, except the odd night when she’d meet the detectives for a drink at their haunt or head out with the other ADAs to some upscale cocktail bar. Two different crowds with two different mentalities, the detectives were dedicated to a fault, while the prosecutors were insufferably full of themselves. The detectives would tire her out by 11:30, but she’d find an excuse to leave the ADA excursions before 9. Far more special were the many evenings spent in Olivia’s apartment drinking two beers each and filling the quiet air with soft laughter and conversation.

But a little library themed speakeasy? Not her typical place. Well. No time like the present to change one’s habits. She’d been recommended it by an old law school friend a couple weeks ago, bumped into him on a whim in a coffee shop, was surprised she wasn’t dead, had been there last night, said it was right up her alley. Its illicit vibe wasn’t exactly to ADA Cabot’s tastes, no. But it scratched something in Alex, that hadn’t been satisfied since those basement nights and cozy cafe afternoons. From the place’s shelves she’d pulled a book of Pre-Raphaelite poetry and sat in a comfy chair with a scotch and a San Pelligrino, pleased, at least, to be out of the apartment for the evening.

She didn’t need the money, but she’d been copyediting textbooks freelance, filling up her time with grammar and word choice. She’d been reading a lot of fiction. She adopted two extremely fluffy cats. It was a pleasant, if mundane, life. It turned out, Alex had realized, that there were plenty of eager and capable young attorneys who could do her former job as well as she ever had. She felt, finally, like she deserved a bit of a rest. Needed one, really. Someone would do the prosecuting. The thought of stepping back in the courtroom, looking at the bench, examining witnesses, made her feel sick to her stomach, though she had once loved that life. It wasn’t her anymore— maybe it never really had been. She decided this was her kind of place after all. This iteration of Alexandra Cabot would drink bubbly water in secluded speakeasies while reading poetry.

Alex didn’t expect to see anybody she knew, not somewhere you needed a password to get into, where the music was indie folk and old jazz from a vintage record player, the drinks had names like the “Lady Brett” and the “Daisy Buchanan,” and most of the patrons were dressed in flannel with their noses buried in old books. And yet, as she scanned the place, she caught someone she recognized. Sitting at the bar, bent over a notebook, was Casey Novak; her deep red hair tied back in a casual ponytail, a half-empty highball glass in front of her, chewing on the end of a click pen.

This was surprising. Alex, though she hadn’t ever known Casey well, before her first brief return to life as Alex Cabot, only as one of the white collar ADAs (they ran in a bit of a pack, didn’t shy away from imitating the lifestyles of those they prosecuted). After knowing her as a prosecutor, Alex would expect to see Casey in a sports bar watching a game, or in some chrome-gilded bar with high ceilings drinking designer cocktails and cheering on a verbal showdown between her colleagues. Or in the center of a showdown like that. Not alone, writing in a moleskine, wearing a red flannel over a simple black dress. Casey was striking, Alex realized, before she realized she’d been looking a little longer than was considered normal. She hoped she didn’t seem like a creep watching from afar. She considered getting up, saying hello, but felt that Casey may not even remember her, may not want to be disturbed as she wrote, may not even recognize her anymore. She’d changed her appearance when she’d gone back to being Alex Cabot, cut her hair in a short bob, dyed it dark brown, wore thick rimmed glasses and simple clothing, too painful to be the formal blonde she used to be. Barely the same woman who’s once-murderer Casey had put behind bars those years ago.

Alex didn’t have to consider talking to Casey, however, because almost as soon as she returned to her book, she heard the sound of rubber soled sneakers against the old hardwood floors and a voice beside her.

“Hey stranger,” she said.

“Hi Casey,” Alex said as she slid her bookmark into place and looked up at the familiar face with a smile. “Care to join me?”

2 .

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Casey said as she sat down. “I’m allowed to, uh, talk to you right? Though I guess if I wasn’t you wouldn’t acknowledge me, which would be fine, by the way.” There was the Casey Alex remembered, her words getting ahead of her.

“It’s fine, I’m me again,” Alex said calmly, “It’s really good to see you, though I wouldn’t have imagined you to be the writing type, or the underground-library-bar type” Alex gestured to the leather notebook in Casey’s left hand.

“I’m full of surprises, Alexandra Cabot.” Casey said in a tone that suggested she was sarcastic, yet convinced Alex she was telling the truth. Alex sipped her water.

“What were you working on?” She asked, not wanting to pry, but very eager to catch up, to know why she was alone in a place like this.

“Oh, nothing, nothing interesting. Just some little bits and pieces.” Casey replied.

“Not argument notes on a Saturday night, I hope?” Alex asked, though she knew that she would’ve done the same thing back when she was in the DA’s office. Casey looked pale, uncomfortable for a moment. “I’m sorry,” Alex said, trying to soothe any pain she may have caused, though she couldn’t fathom why. “I don’t mean to bring up work when you’re trying to relax.” At this, Casey just looked confused.

“Alex, have you not heard?” Casey said, searching for signs of recognition in the woman’s eyes, but finding only further confusion continuing, her voice low, “I was censured a few months ago. I can’t practice law for at least three years.” Alex’s eyes opened wide and she set her glass down on the table between them. “I’m surprised the rumor hasn’t reached your circles yet, though I admit I’m glad I get to be the one to tell someone for a change.” Alex noticed Casey cross her arms together over her chest, closing herself up, making herself seem smaller.

It was quiet for a while, the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald on the speakers, quiet conversations, and pages turning filling it. “I’m sorry, no, I hadn’t heard. That’s too bad. Do you want to talk about it?” Casey grinned at the suggestion, oddly intimate for the two women who, while they hardly knew each other, had shared some of the most intense moments either of them had experienced in a courtroom.

“I think I’ve gone over it enough in my head, but uh, thank you.” Casey said, her voice wobbling on the thanks, “You know, you’re the first person so far to actually ask me that?”

“I’m sorry.” Was Alex’s reply. Surely Casey had people who were interested in her feelings?

“The circumstances were,” Casey trailed off as she looked for the right wording, “I was at fault, for sure. But I was just trying to do the right thing, and I made a mistake.”

“Nothing shocking, I hope?” Asked Alex, still trying to ascertain the nature of the censure, wondering about what the woman sitting across from her could’ve done.

“I violated due process, technically.” Casey replied, attempting to gauge Alex’s reaction, but seeing that it continued to be contemplative rather than condemning, continued, “I shouldn’t’ve, but I think all of us have done worse in our time. But I was not in Donnelly’s good graces, so…” instead of ending her sentence, Casey sipped the last of her drink and looked up at Alex nervously, hoping the woman wouldn’t judge her too harshly.

“Oh man, Casey. That’s really tough. I’m sorry.” Casey searched for any sign of disapprobation in Alex’s tone, but finding only genuine concern, relaxed.

“So I’ve been doing other stuff for a little while. Using my undergrad,” she said, truly sarcastic this time. “What about you Cabot? What’s keeping you from your old haunt? And what’s with the brunette look?”

Alex wanted to answer, but wasn’t going to let Casey get away completely with deflecting. “You didn’t answer my question, Novak. What’s in the notebook?”

Casey laughed. “You really are relentless.” Alex just raised an eyebrow smugly while sipping her drink, as if to say, go on. “It’s a poetry journal. I’ve kept one since college.”

This admission broke the unflappable Alex Cabot’s reserve and she couldn’t keep herself from a few giggles. “I apologize,” she said, “for laughing at you. Just, the idea of Casey Novak the poet would not have occurred to me.”

“Like I said,” Casey started, “I’m full of surprises. And nobody has laughed at me in a long time,” she continued, beginning to laugh herself. “Believe it or not, I have an English degree.”

“Ok, ok, stop. I’m not sure I can take many more shocks tonight,” teased Alex.

“And you, didn’t answer my question. What’s with the brunette? You look beautiful,” Casey said before realizing what she was saying, shutting herself up before she said anything embarrassing.

“I needed a change,” Alex said, “Something to distance myself from my old selves. I never dyed my hair before, or switched up my look at all really. Just, a change.”

“I get that.” Casey said, and Alex felt like she really did get it, somehow more than anybody else had to this point. She’d seen a few old colleagues and friends, and they all had looked at her with this mixture of fear and pity that made her wish she was invisible. But Casey seemed to say something deeper in just three words.

They talked together late into the night, about books and drinks (Casey had been a bartender in college, her knowledge on pairings was unparalleled) and everything but law. It was close to 2:00 am when Casey started to yawn.

“I’m really glad I ran into you, Alex,” she said as they left the bar, her voice scratchy from talking quietly, a subtle accent that Alex couldn’t quite place showing through under the influence of sleepiness and her light buzz. It was adorable, Alex found herself thinking.

“Me too, Casey,” Alex replied, and before she could turn to start walking towards her apartment, only a block or so away, she was met with a hug. It was brief, but Alex took in the scent of Casey’s coconut shampoo, sweet and pleasing.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to be much of a hugger either,” Alex said as she pulled away, brushing her hands on Casey’s elbows.

“I guess you have a lot to figure out,” she said, playfully, as Alex handed her into a cab.

As Alex walked up the stairs to her apartment (she could afford a bigger place, but this one, this one felt right), Alex replayed the evening and regretted not asking for Casey’s phone number before she left. When she pulled her keys out of her pocket to unlock the door, she found a piece of paper, with a number and a note:

text me, so I can learn some of your surprises.

3 .

Alex was awake.

The same old dreams kept her restless. It had been a bad night, she’d slept less than 3 hours before she woke, startled, as the sun just began to rise, 5 am on a Saturday in September.

Foggily, she attempted to reconstruct the details of her pieced together dreams, her therapist, Julia, had convinced her to keep a journal. She said the nightmares of being shot, of nobody recognizing her, those made perfect sense, classic PTSD symptoms. With what happened to her it would’ve been stranger to not suffer it. But these hadn’t been those dreams.

Clare Cartwright, age 15 stood in line at the coffee shop. Her face was pink with tears but nobody saw anything out of the ordinary except for Alex, watching her from a table. Clare’s cheeks were wet and covered in running mascara but the barista didn’t bat an eye as she ordered an iced chai and sat down alone with her laptop. Tears turned to sobs turned to screams, thrashing, but she just kept typing, sipping her tea, nobody did a damn thing. Alex tried to rise from her seat, go to the girl, hold her and scratch her back while she cried, but the heavy weight of her own body kept her seated, powerless to do anything. She tried to yell across the room, tell her that it was going to be ok, she was going to put whoever hurt her behind bars, protect her from them forever. But when she opened her mouth all breath was sucked out of her lungs, she collapsed. Clare’s cries echoed ceaselessly.

Trevor Hamilton, a 20 something pro, had been turning tricks all night but one guy had taken it a little too far. He was sure his neck, hips would be covered in nasty bruises the next day. Oh well. Nobody believed a pro who cried rape. He stuffed his cash in his briefs and made his way towards the van he slept in with three other guys but before he could get there, he fell, body bloody. Nobody heard a sound but Trevor must have been shot. His blood was cold as it poured out of him onto the sidewalk but he stood up. He wasn’t dead. In the morgue, Melinda Warner ruled the cause of death a fatal gunshot wound to his back, probably a stray bullet, but he’d had sex the night he died, maybe an angry John. Alex told everyone that he wasn’t dead. Trevor whispered in her ear, asked her how could she let them say he was dead, how could she let them get away with saying such a thing like that, how could she let them call what had happened to him sex. Alex repeated herself over and over but all she got in return from the detectives were sympathetic looks of confusion as they sent her home for the day. She must’ve been too tired, Alex heard Olivia tell Elliot, maybe her mind was acting up again, sleep deprivation can kickstart psychosis. Someone would check in on her that night, make sure she wasn’t relapsing. Alex knew she wasn’t hallucinating, because Trevor had spoken to her in the clearest voice she’d heard in months. Alex wept for Trevor the whole way home and then some but nobody seemed to notice.

Annabelle Lamm wore a fuzzy pink nightgown when her grandmother brought her into the precinct one snowy night. Olivia called Alex to come to the precinct, they needed a warrant for the apartment, they found fluids in the girl’s hair of all places, grandma handed them an envelope full of pictures of Annie that nobody in the family admitted to taking. It was a no brainer warrant, Alex didn’t even mind waking up a judge for it if it meant getting whoever had been hurting this little girl as soon as possible. When Alex arrived to the building, Olivia wasn’t there and all the lights were off. Alex clicked on a lamp, wondered if Liv had found another ADA and rushed off without telling her anything. But the room was unfamiliar, empty, concrete. In the center of the room standing perfectly still was a 5 year old girl in a pink fuzzy nightgown. Alex ran to her but couldn’t get any closer. The little girl had a hollow expression and didn’t move an inch. Alex kept running and running but her feet stayed in the same spot, powerless.

Yeah. Powerless. As she awoke she felt like she was still running, head still spinning, still heard screams.

She wrote it all down in her journal. Julia had said that it was unusual for people whose jobs involved consistently levels of high stress and disturbance to have the severity of symptoms she had; that there was usually a tolerance that was built up to being horrified. Alex had either never had that tolerance or it had been washed away during the years she’d spent in WITSEC because her very brief return to the practice of law had nearly broken her.

“Sleep deprivation can kickstart psychosis,” Olivia had told her once when they first worked together, ostensibly referring to a case of statutory rape where the perp didn’t recall a single piece of the event; but Alex knew the comment was pointed at her, not the perp. Olivia could tell that Alex’s patience was growing thin, her mind unfocused; she must’ve deduced that Alex wasn’t sleeping much. But Alex already knew the warning signs.

Alexandra Cabot, age 16, sat shaking in a hospital room. It was almost finals week, she’d pulled a few all nighters, it was nothing serious, she’d told her school counselor a week prior when her friends had noticed her speech patterns growing muddled. She stayed up another 24 hours and the last thing she remembered was her roommates grabbing her wrists and pulling her inside off the balcony. After that, the school had installed locks on all the windows. Alexandra was freezing in her hospital gown, brain numbed out from the IV antipsychotics she was attached to. A few days in the hospital to take care of her injuries (she was informed that she had thrown herself against the wall while school officials took her to the ER), then a summer of residential treatment, hopefully she would be able to return to boarding school in the fall. Her father looked at her with a shattered expression, her mother treated her with cold indifference, her friends didn’t talk to her. Major depression with psychotic features.

Alex knew the consequences of not sleeping enough. She considered taking her cup of mint tea and heading back to bed, cuddling up to her cats, reading a book maybe, just trying to screw her head on right. Her body fought her though, nervous energy ran through her veins, so she elected to have a walk instead. Besides, it had been years since she’d had any serious episode. Anxiety, sure, and the occasional month or so of depression, a few close calls, but regular therapy and medication kept her more or less in the clear since college. Her family, her therapists, had suggested she go into a different kind of law, something stimulating but less distressing like, intellectual property, but she had refused, felt called to prosecuting. But her experience was what made her a great prosecutor, and it was why she had been so adamant about the proper handling of cases involving those suffering from mental illness, especially victims, but perps as well. She knew how it felt, more than she admitted to almost anybody, but she also knew there were paths through it.

The same old nightmares, but Alex was a different person. The old Alex would’ve thrown herself even harder into work than usual, won her cases even more viciously, assuaged her feelings of powerlessness by asserting control. This Alex knew that complete control was unattainable.

The September air was cold this early in the morning, but bracing. The contrast between her thermos full of hot tea pleased her, she pretended she was a dragon as she breathed steam. She smiled to herself at the thought and at the bright orange sun rising through the treetops in the park by her apartment. This had been the right choice, sunrises were her favorite magic. Content covered her like a well fitting dress, shaking off the nerves slowly. The most dedicated joggers and newsstand operators were the only other people out this early, the quietest time in the city. Alex’s phone buzzed.

Casey: Nice coat, Cabot.

Alex looked up from her phone, confused. What? Maybe it was delivered late. She’d seen Casey two days ago for coffee— they’d developed a friendship. Texts, coffee, nothing too deep; but then it had only been a couple weeks since they’d run into each other at the library bar. Alex liked Casey. She was funny and a good listener, and she always had something to say. She didn’t walk on eggshells around Alex either, making Casey unique among her friends. She’d tried to meet up with Liv right when she’d gotten back to the city the second time, but the way she looked at her cut way too deep, like she was a hero, like she was a victim. Both of those she may well be, but she needed to be treated as a friend. Casey did that for her, down to playfully teasing her over her eccentric habits. Another text:

Casey: Turn around, Clueless.

Not many people had ever called Alexandra Cabot clueless. Alex turned around, and Casey waved at her excitedly from the jogging path and without waiting for Alex’s reaction began to run up to where she was sitting. Alex was surprised to see her, happily so. She knew Casey was athletic, but didn’t take her to be the 5:30 running type. She wore tight leggings and a running jacket, and the biggest smile Alex had seen from her. She looked beautiful in the soft early light, Alex thought, then immediately blushed at that thought.

She’d never been one to shy away from her sexuality, especially when she realized the destructive role repression had played in her life before she came out. Alex had been out since college, but she tried very hard not to crush on straight women. She knew she couldn’t control who she was attracted to, but it always made her feel a bit dejected, so. Nip that in the bud.

Alex didn’t have much time to consider the ethics of her thoughts, because Casey was right in front of her, grabbing her hands.

“It’s so good to see you! A second surprise encounter, must be fate, Cabot,” Casey said in a quiet voice, a wink in her words.

“Something like that,” Alex replied, “What are you doing out so early?”

“I could ask the same of you; I’m just finishing up my run. You are wearing a fancy coat and looking deep in thought, in fact, you are being far more suspicious than I am, look at how many people are out here jogging, I mean,”

“Oh my god,” Alex cut her off with an eye roll, “Ok, stop cross-examining me.”

Casey gave Alex a genuine laugh, “Old habits die hard.” She paused for a second. “You look pale, did you sleep?”

“Thanks, Casey.” Alex gave her a playful glare. “If three nightmares in three hours counts, then yes, I slept.”

“Oh you poor thing. I’d hug you but,” She gestured to her sweaty figure. “You wanna get breakfast? I’ll pop back to my apartment, shower, and meet you at yours in say, half an hour?”

Alex started slightly at the familiarity, but responded, “Yeah, sure, sounds fun. Uh, here I’ll text you my address.”

Did Casey blush? Alex couldn’t be sure due to her post-run glow and the chill in the air. “Sorry if that’s too familiar, I know we usually plan these things out, and I guess I just assumed you didn’t have plans, it’s totally fine if you don’t want to, you know, runner’s high and all,” but Alex cut her off again with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Are you retracting the offer, Novak?” Alex couldn’t resist the urge to tease the woman in front of her. “Because if I recall correctly, I said yes.”

Casey grew more flustered, replied with a quick, “Nope, still happening, see you in half an hour,” and took off running, leaving Alex behind as she laughed in disbelief.

#law and order svu #calex #cabenson #alex cabot #casey novak #olivia benson #svu #svu imagines #alex cabot x casey novak #alex cabot x olivia benson #svu fanfiction #fanfiction #author #casey novak poetry nerd

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kimnamjoonsrightthigh · 3 years

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1.2/Weekend chronicle/KNJ

Series Protector, protected

Part 3/?

Summary On your way home, you encounter someone in need of your help. Giving it earns you six new friends and one new enemy.

Genre(s) Drama, fluff, bit of angst, bit of antagonists to lovers, eventual smut, hurt/comfort.

Pairing Namjoon x Reader.

Warning(s) Alcohol consumption.

Tags Tourist!AU, reader is a clumsy brave idiot, Jungkook is everyone’s baby, possessive!Namjoon, this will be a long one.

Wordcount 1.8K.

Jungkook was waiting for you outside, the rest of the gang piled into the minivan behind him. He looked dashing in his midnight blue suit, and a glimpse into your Uber pumpkin chariot told you that the others had dressed up as well. You suddenly felt much better about your choice of dress, because you hadn’t been far off. At the same time, why the fuck are they wearing suits?

“You look very handsome, Jungkook,” you couldn’t stop yourself from blurting out, earning you a one of his tiny yet radiant smiles. He bowed before leading you to the car. Only when he opened the door for you did you realize that Seokjin of the many fanny packs was missing.

“He wanted to get there early, make sure our table is ready,” Namjoon explained from the passenger seat. Ever the leader, you thought, then squeezed yourself into the middle row between Jimin and Jungkook. Yoongi seemed to be napping in the backseat, head resting on Hoseok’s shoulder. Taehyung waved to you from his spot next to them.

The driver pulled back onto the boulevard and straight into evening traffic. Namjoon had his phone at the ready and opened to Maps. You were fighting down the urge to peek over his shoulder, or to ask the driver if he knew where he was going, or to guess from the direction where you could possibly be headed. The backseat was chatting quietly, and you hazarded a look in Jungkook’s general direction when you didn’t understand a word, as per usual. He was still beaming at you. His excitement, although contagious, made you even more nervous. The Uber was taking you north on the big avenue, then swerved right into K-Town. That didn’t surprise you much because one quick Google search of their names had told you that they were most likely Korean.

The car stopped and everyone piled out into a small parking lot. Before you get a chance to look around, Jungkook linked his arm with yours and pulled you along towards the side of the building. Red lettering across the façade spelt out “Park’s BBQ”. There was a flicker of anxiety settling in your stomach as you quickly replayed everything you knew about Korean BBQ in your head – which wasn’t much. You had never been to one, you worked at city hall, so you didn’t usually stray far from downtown for food or drinks, and Ani preferred ordering in to going out.

Jungkook lead you up the stairs at the side of the building to a narrow walkway. The inside was very modern and very busy. Guests occupied almost all of the black table groups, chrome light fixtures glinted from above. Each table had a grill grate at the center, most of them in use, and you were surprised that the temperature was still so agreeable. Namjoon moved himself to the front of your little group and spoke to the hostess while Jungkook was still glancing at you expectantly from time to time. Yoongi and Hoseok were having a lively exchange, invigorated by the prospect of food. You were seated after only a few minutes, at a table that was already occupied by one fanny pack-less Seokjin.

Between the door and the table, your self-consciousness hat skyrocketed. You liked trying new things well enough, but a new restaurant with new people was a ways outside your comfort zone. To add to your unease, you had managed to sit down between Jungkook and Namjoon, one a comfort, the other a stressor. You were about ready to break a sweat, but as soon as you had all touched down at the table, you were engulfed in the guiding warmth and enthusiasm of your company. Yoongi tried to explain the different kinds of Sojus to you and which one you should not miss out on. They all ordered something a little different, promising to switch and share so everyone could have a taste. Even though Taehyung looked like he might have passed out when you mentioned that you weren’t much of a meat eater, you did try a bit of everything.

The ribs were sublime, and between the beef, rice and alcohol, you were soon lulled into a comfortable evening haze. In between bites, you asked them the questions that had kept you up the two previous nights: where had they been already, where did they want to go, how did home compare to the US, what did they do for a living, how did they form such a strong friendship in such a big group? Namjoon had to step in a few times to translate, but as the night wore on, you relaxed into your chair more and more. You had one elbow propped up on the table, head resting in your hand, listening to Hobi tell a story and laughing almost uncontrollably when your awareness of the situation hit you head on. You liked these guys, a lot. Even Namjoon had started opening up a few shots ago. He was next to you, closer than before, smiling into his hand while looking at his friends across from him. You had learned their nicknames first thing today, but something stopped you from calling him Joon or even Joonie. While Tae and Kookie were all smiles and goofiness, Hobi and Jin generous with their laughter, Namjoon towered over you even while sitting down and not above the occasional side-eye in your general direction. Maybe he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he made you squirm in your chair just the same.

Before you knew it, ten was approaching. One of the waiters approached to tell you that it was nearly closing time. The smile died on your face. You thought of all the things in your apartment and your office that had been left undone over the course of the week and knew that calling it a night was the smartest thing to do. You really, really didn’t want to, though, so when Jimin suggested after-dinner drinks, no one objected. You were pleasantly buzzed from all the soju you had been drinking, and with a full belly and the warmth of yet another beautiful summer night, you wanted to make the most of it. As soon as you had finished thanking your new friends for the invitation, the power balance shifted back towards you. This was your city, after all, and they didn’t know the best places in town. You did. The Uber took you further East, into the strip between K-Town and downtown, where bars were good but not expensive.

“The Bucket?” Namjoon read out the squiggly writing on the front of the corner building. “Sounds… interesting.”

“The Bucket has been around forever,” you informed him before pushing the door open. The inside was fairly busy already and just when you thought you’d have to kill an hour at the bar waiting for a table to open up, you saw a group of young women grabbing their purses in the unison way that indicated that they were moving on. You snatched their booth up immediately.

“So,” Jungkook next to you said as soon as everyone was seated, “the Bucket. Am I translating that correctly?”

“Most likely, yes. It used to be a scene bar in the 90s, changed hands a few times and turned into this, eventually.” You indicated the general bucket-ness of the place, with its dark wood floors and darts boards and pool tables on one side, a highly polished glass-and-chrome counter on the other. The booths lined the back wall, smaller tables took up the place between them and the front.

“I’ll get the first round,” you said after the silence became a bit too long for your taste. When you got to the bar, you saw that Hobi had followed you there.

“Oh, hey,” you said when you spotted him right behind you, “Anything you guys may want to try?” There was no menu, but a board with most of the drinks and beers they were serving. You had been to this place every other week, though, and you had just the idea. Hobi was still engrossed in reading through the cocktail list while you ordered eight Landsharks and accepted the tray that was handed to you over the counter.

“Shots?” Yoongi sounded almost hopeful when you got back to the table.

“Not quite!” You managed to put your prize down without spilling or even jostling the glasses before squeezing back into your seat between Namjoon and Jungkook. There was an excited smile on your face, considering you hadn’t opened an evening like that in forever. You grabbed one of the shot glasses and raised it. “Tequila.” You pointed at the pints. “Beer.” Then you dropped the shot glass into the pint where it promptly sank with a soft clinking sound. “Landshark.”

“Poktan-ju?” Jimin asked no one in particular. Affirmative noises were being made around the table. Seven more shots were sunk into the waiting arms of beer, then you all raised your glasses. Whatever you had been expecting from them, being able to hold their liquor as well as they did was not on the list. Soon, you had become the second loudest table in the place, laughing and sharing anecdotes and asking stupid questions. Conversation flowed easily and you became more than buzzed as the clock ticked on. You considered yourself to be somewhat of an expert drinker, but by midnight the room started to look a little unsteady to you, even though your worldview had softened around the edges. Jimin, who had been downing his drinks like water, had joined Tae and Jungkook in their peanut slinging competition, Yoongi and Jin were singing along to the music at odd volumes, Hobi stared into the void and Namjoon – was silently nursing his beer. When he threw his arm around your shoulders, you didn’t think twice before leaning back against him.

“You guys are so much fun,” you giggled into his dress shirt. He smiled, you thought, and in your inebriated state, you were hit with the sudden realization of how good he smelled. It took most of your strength not to start sniffing him. “Like, ridiculously fun. And so good at drinking!”

“Korea has a very, uh, intense drinking culture,” he slurred. Before he could go into detail about that, Jimin, who you hadn’t realized had left in the first place, returned to the table with a tray of shots.

It took you until Sunday afternoon to resurface. You came to on your couch, face buried in your assortment of throw pillows, still in your dress and tights, but braless. A small construction site seemed to have sprung up inside your head since you last used it, or so it felt. Your mouth was dry and your movements sluggish as you tried to get up. When you managed to stand, you almost slipped on your phone. It lit up under your foot and displayed a whooping 34 unread messages and two missed calls. Only one coherent thought managed to form in your mind: what the fuck?

#BTS #Kim Namjoon #Kim Namjoon x reader #Kim Namjoon x you #RM x reader #RM x you #BTS fanficiton #Kim Namjoon imagine

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ravenwritesstuff · 4 years

Text

Best Laid Plans (9/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Helsa, established Kristanna, Rapunzel/Eugene, lotsa frohana Rating: T for now, M later almost for sure A/N: Please go away and don’t read the stuff I write.

They have been out to sea for twenty minutes now, Arendelle’s coast disappearing in the distance the same way Elsa’s hope for this day to go any way even close to how she hoped vanished before her eyes.

After the safety briefing from the crew (which she barely heard) she had attempted to direct the conversation towards the contract, the parts and pieces that needed to still be negotiated and finalized, but Mister Westergaard had other ideas.

Eat first. He had said. We have all day.

Bits of polite conversation had floated around her. Hans Westergaard entertained the group with intentional questions, occasionally including her but in some ways almost purposefully excluding her. She is simultaneously thrilled and annoyed, but she is not prepared to deal with either emotion.

So she had picked at the sumptuous fare: cold roasted squash wrapped in hickory smoked bacon, miniature parfait cups with berry compote and tangy greek yogurt topped with a sprig of mint, delicate quiche bites that even served cold are still creamy and without a hint of the rubbery texture she always achieves when cooking eggs. There is mixed fruit salad with a lime reduction glaze, brown sugar crusted salmon delicately seated on lemon buttered crostini, and single waffle quarters served with ten dozen options for toppings including jalapeno infused maple syrup. The list goes on.

Elsa is accustomed to tastings and decadence when it comes to food but nearly always when planning it for someone else, some other occasion. She had little experience being the recipient of such gourmet assortments and has never bothered to learn to cook. Still knowing they will sail she does not feel a great need to indulge as she is not sure she will handle the sea well. Her stomach is already a mess.

Her team dives in, filling actual china plates with their choice delicacies as the crew comes to take drink orders. They are each handed a menu printed on thick card stock that feels like silk. The drink options are embossed into the surface of the luxe paper. The feel of it in her hand along with the weight of her plate in the other and the heat of Hans Westergaard at her side is a sensory overload she never imagined having.

“Coffee,” she does hesitate, “with just a splash of cream.”

The crew member nods and takes her drink menu for her. She notices later that a smattering of those menus were artistically mounted on stainless steel stands just in case she wants to indulge in a mango-passion-fruit mimosa or a mint lemonade slush infused with vodka. While both sound tempting she needs to stay alert. Especially with him sitting so close.

His plate is balanced on one thigh with an assortment of the fare that errs on the sweeter side. She notes the same way she would for any client. Hans Westergaard likes dessert.

She does not consider why knowing that makes her uncomfortable.

He also orders the same coffee as she.

Again she cannot be certain if this is intentional or just another ploy to generate a doomed connection. She will always lean towards the latter.

He is still close, but at least she had the sense to extend his arm over the empty seat away from Elsa instead of behind her back. There is a limit even to her control and if he touched her she may explode right out of her skin.

Her team seems to be enjoying the royal food treatment. Rapunzel feeds Eugene her favorite flavor combination, something unusual certainly, and slaps his chest at the grimace. Kristoff loads up on the protein while Anna selects sweeter alternatives. Elsa takes a single quiche, vegetable options, and crostini. She does not want to seem ungrateful but she also does not want to appear over eager or succumb to sea sickness and never be able to eat salmon again.

She nibbles the barest tip of the roasted summer squash and tries to not notice his plate while also engaging him.

“This is lovely. Thank you,” her team was watching, nodding and eating politely in agreement.

“Of course. I want you to get a sense for what I want.”

He now has retreated even further, inches between their bodies, an appropriate distance but still somehow feels too close. She is thankful and suspicious all at once. He leans in again, but just his head. The rest of him is conspicuously distant. His eyes had been green at the wedding but now they almost appeared gold. Were they hazel?

“That is my team and I would love to talk with you about. We know so little about this initiative, what we are creating, and while this is lovely -”

He cuts her off by pressing two fingers on her mouth.

She had not seen it coming and the feel of it shoots heat previously unknown through her body. She can practically hear the collective gasp from the watching four and her embarrassment is palpable. His fingers are gone as quickly as they had arrived. She didn’t even have the chance to pull back. The heat and pressure of his touch lingers and it takes every bit of self control to not pressed her lips together to try to erase the electric tingling dancing there.

If she had not been so caught off guard by the sensations racing through her body at the contact she would have had the sense to be furious.

“All in good time.” He leans back and puts the hand on his knee, the other gripping his plate. “But first a tour perhaps?”

He is already standing and Elsa can just barely catch a breath.

Her team all stand, albeit cautiously, watching her while she attempts to mentally reboot. Hans Westergaard offers her his hand, the same hand that had pressed her lips just moments before in a facsimile of a kiss. What would it be like to kiss him?

That inquisitive thought is enough to launch her to her feet without assistance. She sets her plate and attache case down with more force than necessary, straightens, and steps away from him. It takes all of her mortal strength to meet his gaze.

It is soft and warm but also fearful. That disconcerting humanness there again like he never did anything to upset her. Like he is afraid of rebuttal for his forwardness, like he knows he oversteps but couldn’t help himself just like she cannot bring herself to truly be upset by the touch. Like maybe it undid him the same way it undid her.

That idea is just as bad, if not worse, than his action.

She needs to put it behind them. Now. No. Sooner than now.

She lifts her chin and clears her throat. “I think it is best if we stick to business.”

She is responding to his offer for a tour and hopes that is how her team takes it, how he takes it. Clearly she does not need to invite trouble when he is more than willing to produce it on his own. His expression rearranges itself to something more polished, but no less intense. She can practically see his strategy shifting behind those color changing eyes and she steels herself against it.

Whatever he dishes out she can take. She has overcome more than most and there is not much that can throw her, but the way he looks at her makes her realize she has met her match.

This is not an arm’s length situation.

But to be close to him?

Close to anyone?

“I agree.” The sound of his voice snaps her back. “Which is why I absolutely insist on a tour of the vessel. It is integral to the process.”

She does not understand. Her mind reels, but she acknowledges that a tour could give her time to regroup and she needs that.

“Then by all means, lead the way.” She takes several steps away from his projected footpath putting the ornate seat they had shared well between them.

If there is any hesitation she cannot be certain. Instead he sweeps to the front of the ship where more chrome and glass greet them. “This way then.”

Thus begins a tour of a yacht that is more ornately equipped and furnished than most homes. Right of the main bow deck there is a leisure room filled with plush royal blue and rich chocolate furniture, stainless steel fixtures along with cream carpets and accents. There are florals, books, and staggering decor pieces that would be excessive and gaudy in any other context but here they all flow together seamlessly. The streamlined design of the furniture and the ship is accentuated with the extravagant accents. No. It this the height of refinement, elegance.

And this is just the first room.

There is more.

There is a board room with a massive white oak table and yellow leather swivel chairs that scream their cush. There is a movie theater complete with leather reclining seat, popcorn maker, and a custom bar. The floors are either lush carpet, marble, or white oak that gleamed so brightly she swore it was covered in glass. There is a large bathroom that is all Italian marble with fixtures that may actually be gold plated.

The second level bow mirrors the first but without the infinity pool. Instead it boasts more seating and several marble top cocktail tables that almost seem to grow out of the pristine deck. He takes them back then through the main bar, the library, and the gaming room complete with a billiard table that was once Marlon Brando’s.

“There is more above, but those are the private quarters. We have capacity for up to twenty guests to stay comfortably. Plus the sauna.” He says. “But since those are not strictly business I doubt they will interest you.”

He is teasing, directing his attention at her specifically for the first time in this tour, but she will not take the bait. She is almost ruffled by the sudden attention, by the lack of it beforehand, but the majesty of the ship had distracted her.

She had never conceived a vessel could be as luxurious as anything she had seen in the last twenty minutes.

She thought she had understood wealth, had worked with her share of affluent clientele, but nothing like this. Outside the challenge of Hans Westergaard she is quickly realizing just how out of their depth they may be. The challenge of it looms like an insurmountable cliff face. Thirty eight days to meet the highest standards she has ever faced professionally all while tiptoeing through the minefield of working with a man that clearly lacked any sort of boundaries. If she even had a chance of scaling that rock wall it they needed to start immediately.

“As curious as I am sure we all are I think it best we maximize what little time we have, Mister Westergaard, and begin discussing how we can help your initiative.” Elsa responds diplomatically.

“Your every wish is my command.”

He smiles at her then, teeth impossibly straight and white. The look in his eye seems to say he only sees her. Like somehow the whole world melts to nothing and she is the sole light of his entire universe. The intensity of it is staggering and she sways a bit under the weight. His hand is on her elbow immediately, close and hot.

“Whoa there. You’ll get your sea legs before long.” His breath hits her burning cheek as she extracts herself from his hold as quickly as possible.

She steps away, careful to not make eye contact with any of the group, and gives a sharp nod. “I’m sure I will.”

There is the slightest pause before and she can feel him staring, willing her to meet his gaze, but she doesn’t. “Right then,” he says. “Let’s return below board and we can discuss what comes next.”

Elsa is careful to fall behind, and Anna matches suit with Rapunzel.

“So you weren’t kidding about him coming on strong. Is this okay? Are we okay? Do we need to call this off?” Anna rattles off her questions on a quiet breath as Kristoff and Eugene engage Hans about some of the more technical aspects of the ship.

“Yeah. Or do we need to get you two a room?” Rapunzel asks, green eyes wide. “When Eugene looks at me like Hans looked at you I know we are about to have a really good time.” Typically her innocent honesty is one of her more endearing characteristics but now the implication of her sentence makes her grit her teeth.

“He’s a flirt. That’s all. We’ve all dealt with his kind before.” She tries to keep her whisper lighthearted, but she can sense how little her companions believe her. “I’ve got this under control.”

She gives them both a pointed look at Anna lifts a brow and purses her lips. “Do you? Because you really don’t have to.”

Elsa gapes, nearly stopping in her tracks at Anna’s presumptuous question.

And just like that she swears the ship rolls and she nearly loses her balance only to be caught by her sister and friend.

“Look. All I’m saying is the guy clearly likes you and isn’t afraid to show it.” Anna forces her to keep pace with the men ahead of them as they venture through one well appointed room after another. “And to be honest - you could use a little fun.”

“Yeah,” Rapunzel nods emphatically. “You literally have nothing to lose anyway since you’re totally into him too.”

Elsa stops in her tracks, red from head to toe. “I am not!”

Anna rolls her eyes and grabs Elsa’s wrist to drag her along. “Okay fine. You’re not, but you could be. I know you want to keep your professional distance or whatever, but why not just tell him the truth about everything and let him make up his own mind?”

Elsa’s mind goes blank for a moment at the possibility she had never considered.

Tell him the truth? She never told her clients the truth. Hell, she hadn’t told Eugene or Rapunzel until they had been on board long enough to get suspicious after her second unexplained, prolonged absence. And she definitely never told any of the dates she has had the truth. She just gave them enough time to get bored, to move on, and enjoyed a few less lonely nights. She never looked for long term because she wasn’t going to last long term. So why couldn’t she just approach Hans Westergaard with the same fatalist sensibility?

Why did the idea of telling him everything seem appealing?

She knows why, but she is not ready to admit it, never will be. That niggling What If that has haunted her since that first insanely frustrating day: what if this could work?

What if he wouldn’t be afraid, would be down for the ride as long as it lasted? What if she had the luxury of considering the possibilities?

But she doesn’t. She made her choices two years ago and she is not going to put herself through that again. She is not going to put anyone else through that. She is just going to enjoy what time she has left and leave it at that. And she is going to do it in the familiar comfort of solitude.

“The truth isn’t relevant to the job, and that is all this is. This is a job and it is a bitch of a job. If we are going to pull this off I need to focus on what is important, and dating my client is not one of those things.”

Anna and Rapunzel share a meaningful glance.

“Don’t do that.” Elsa shakes her head. “This is professional. Nothing more.”

“Okay,” Anna rolls her eyes again.

“Okay,” Rapunzel echos with a gallic shrug.

And somehow even though they are agreeing with her Elsa feels like she lost this conversation at some point.

She knows what they want and she doesn’t suppose she can blame them. They want to give her a reason to stay, to fight, to try. They want to give her a reason to change her mind as if it was that simple. She cannot blame them for not understanding but she cannot make this harder on herself than it already is. She has enough goodbyes to say without adding one more.

They are back to where they started now. The original spread is still in place but their requested drinks are waiting, all just the right temperature, wait in addition.

She stays close to Anna as she takes her coffee and conspicuously jams herself between her sister and an armrest. Between Anna, Kristoff, and herself the new seating arrangement is a bit tight but she has a point to make not only to her crew and Hans Westergaard, but to herself. She is a professional adult and is perfectly capable of acting like one.

So there.

He seems to take it all in stride, not batting an eye when he takes his coffee in hand and sits comfortably spread out on the couch that Elsa had strategically vacated. As they all settle in, Mister Westergaard reaches for a few more treats for his plate and the rest follow suit. Elsa carefully balances her coffee as she selects one or two choice morsels. The sea hadn’t caught her yet but she couldn’t be too careful. Her stomach is already in knots.

He leans back, thick auburn hair catching just the smallest corner of light and setting aflame. His high cheekbones cut with highlight and shadow of the mid-morning light. She remembers the feel of his cheek sliding along her own, the slightest brush of the silk fringe of his hair against her fingers as she had clung to him, and her eyes jerk back to her coffee.

“This is a lovely ship, Mister Westergaard,” she breaks the strange silence. “I assume you have a purpose for showing her off?”

It is not the most graceful entrance to a negotiation, but it is all she can muster. She lifts her gaze to his and sees the calculation, the wants - feels it.

“It’s my father’s. My ship - well - it won’t do for what I have in mind but I think this ship will do nicely.” He sips his coffee as Elsa sets hers aside to reach for her attache case and open it.

She withdraws her multi-function tablet. “And what exactly do you have in mind?”

They have loaded his client file with offline capability for which she is glad as she cannot bring herself to ask for a wi-fi password. She notes that the rest of her team are also bringing out their matching tablets and she hopes that they will not have too many corrections and overlaps when they finally get back to the mainframe.

He settles further into his seat with a smirk and it almost feels like he is building fortification, bracing himself for a fight he is all too sure to enjoy.

“Your company primarily plans weddings,” he does not ask as he pops a berry into his mouth. “According to your online portfolio your business is about seventy-two percent wedding related, a few baby shower, a Quinceanera, and a few corporate events. Would you say this is a fair assessment?”

So he had done his homework. Or had someone else do it for him. Had he known all of this before he came in yesterday and asked her to recite job titles and functions that were all available on their website? Was this a test the way she had felt yesterday had been a test?

She sits a bit straighter: “I don’t have the precise statistics in front of me but the majority of our clients have been wedding related, yes.”

Her mind goes to the contract, unsigned and un-amended. Had he not signed it because he didn’t want them anymore? Did he want someone with more experience outside of the wedding industry? Would she have to go to battle to prove to him that weddings were just as demanding, if not more so, than a standard corporate event? Would she have to fight for this client she wasn’t even sure she wanted?

It takes all of her self control not to fidget.

“Why is that? Why the wedding specialty?”

It is a good question. Most would assume it is the money, but there is much more money to be had planning outside of weddings and for less stress. She has a prepared answer, the standard line, but she nearly chokes on it.

She holds his gaze, levels the barrel, fires, “We believe love is worth it.”

The corners of his eyes tighten in - amusement? She cannot quite be sure yet.

“Has that been your professional experience?” His eyebrow quirks and it appears he takes a bite of his mini-berry tart to keep from smiling. It irks her just how much he irks her.

Anna clears her throat and Elsa realizes she has leaned forward, gripping her tablet between her hands like her life depends on it, and dear gods she might as well be foaming at the mouth for how crazy she is acting. She straightens, squares her shoulders, and meets his gaze.

“Our professional experience has been delivering exactly what our clients ask of us to create their ideal atmosphere and execution.”

She mentally pats herself on the back.

He nods as if to agree with her hidden sentiment. “Good. I don’t want something cold and corporate. I want something beautiful and intimate. I want what you did with Eric and Ariel’s wedding. There was - what? Two hundred people there, three?”

“Two hundred and eighty eight,” Rapunzel offers with a grin and Eugene squeezes her knee.

Hans looks to Elsa with raised brows as if asking for confirmation. Elsa nods her head. “Rapunzel is never off on numbers.”

“It never felt like that. It was a big event but it felt like having the most amazing dinner party with your closest friends. I don’t know how you did it, but you did.” He addresses the entire group and Elsa feels her insides warm involuntarily at his praise. She doesn’t want his approval to matter, but apparently it does. Then he meets her eyes and everything runs cold, hot, frigid, scalding. The look in his eye sends her heart soaring and stomach plummeting all at once, “It is a night I will never forget.”

And then they are the only two in the world again and her only saving grace is that she is sitting down. She looks down at her tablet screen but her eyes will not focus.

“We are happy to hear you enjoyed the event,” Anna jumps in this time. “We thought it was a smash. What stood out to you as being a highlight?”

Elsa’s head jerks up at that question. His gaze catches her with an easy smile that she can feel all the way to her toes, but it isn’t self-congratulatory. He is not commending himself. He smiles as if he is savoring something sweet, something secret.

“There were too many to single out just one, but I remember the dancing being outstanding,” he speaks as if the words are for everyone, but when his gaze settles on her she knows they aren’t. They are for her.

“So you want dancing at your event, Mister. Westergaard?” She uses his proper name as always, instating her distance the same way she had by forcing her seat next to Anna.

He shrugs. “To tell the truth I am not a big dancer. It all depends on the partner.”

Elsa’s ears burn and she nearly chokes on a swallow. No one else knew about their rendezvous. There was no way they could pull the subtext from what he said, but she stills feels it creeping across their conversation like steaming lava.

She forces a laugh to offset the tension she feels and is relieved when it comes off sounding halfway natural. “Well that does not give us much to go off of, Mister Westergaard. While we are thrilled that Ariel and Eric’s wedding left such a positive impression on you that does not particularly give us a trajectory for your event.”

“I understand.” He nods and turns his head towards the horizon off the bow before bringing his gaze right back to hers. “So why don’t I show you?”

[ previous ] [ next ]

#Best Laid Plans #Helsa #Kristanna #Eugene x Rapunzel #Raven Writes stuff #Raven writes Frozen #Modern AU

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architectnews · 3 years

Text

W Hotel Osaka Building Interior

W Hotel, Osaka Interior, Japanese Building Development, Property Images, Architecture

W Hotel in Osaka Accommodation

Updated 24 Mar 2021 + 9 Dec 2020

W Hotel, Osaka

Design: Concrete

Location: 4-1-3 Minami Senba, Chuo-ku, 542-0081 Osaka, Japan

W Hotel Osaka Opens its Doors

Situated on Midosuji Boulevard, a new 27-story landmark high-rise, designed by Nikken Sekkei and with a Tadao Ando supervised facade, is the home of Japan’s first W Hotel. Don’t be deceived by its simple black monolith design – inside hides a world of extravagance! Its interior is inspired by the many facets of the city, welcoming guests to experience Osaka, through the eyes of concrete.

The true spirit of Osaka Every W Hotel is designed for its specific location – with foreign designers invited to offer the fresh perspectives of an outsider. For W’s first hotel in Japan, concrete absorbed the sites, sounds, flavors and thrills of Osaka. From the simple beauty of the cherry blossoms and gingko trees lining the Midosuji Boulevard to the vibrant neon and busy streetscape of Osaka’s nightlife district Dotonburi. Concrete found inspiration in both the simple and traditional, as well as the modern, obsessive and extravagant and created a design concept of extravagant simplicity – celebrating the true spirit of the city.

The arrival The “wow” experience begins as you enter the long arrival tunnel from the main Midōsuji Boulevard entrance. Inspired by delicate blossoms and the fine art of origami, more than 3000 circles were laser cut into sturdy metal and folded randomly. The lights behind the abstract blossom change colors with the 4 seasons and shift in intensity from daytime to night – creating an otherworldly portal into the world of W Osaka. The Osaka experience proceeds in the arrival lobby. Here, the asanoha pattern was the inspiration behind the ceiling, flooring and staircase. A simple yet bold ceiling uses a scaled-up, 3D version of this traditional geometric pattern – which is reflected in the pattern on the granite flooring, in 6 dark grey shades.

The social heart – living room & bar In a standard hotel, the first thing guests see is the check-in counter. Instead, when exiting the lift, W Osaka guests immediately see the bar, the social heart of the hotel. To connect and separate the spaces that serve the W Osaka guests on this floor – like an endless shoji screen – a continuous white, sheer curtain with sharp origami-style pleats flows from here to there and around again.

Guests are welcome to relax (and people-watch) in the hotel’s Living Room – half indoors, and half outdoors. Above the indoors lounge floats a wild cloud of rectangular lamps, hanging vertically and horizontally, at various heights. White zigzag “neon” lights shine through the translucent acrylic forms, in a desaturated homage to Osaka’s electric nightlife scenery. It’s like the colors of the neon have dripped on top of the furniture, and are arranged from purple to pink to orange to yellow to blue to green.

Restaurant oh.lala… The interior design for this French themed bistro-diner draws its inspiration from traditional copper pots and pans, as well as the typical Breton blue and white striped shirt. Along the wall stainless steel shelves are styled with unique porcelain objects decorated in blue dots – combining traditional French shapes & colors with the circle obsession of W Osaka. Adding sparkle from above, are clouds of small ball pendant lights, suspended at different heights within the waves of the curtain.

The WET deck, bar & courtyard Inspired by the Japanese love for nature, the WET area is characterised by smooth walls and round corners. The endless line of the horizon is the simplest abstraction of nature. This line becomes a playful element connecting all the spaces on this floor, as a chrome horizon flows along the walls. Each area has its own character – color-coded in shades of green, grey, blue or pink tiling – defining the space’s function.

Open to the elements, with views of sky, W Osaka’s WET courtyard is an oasis, with live planting trailing down the walls of the atrium. From its elevated position on the horizon line, the pool forms a blue backdrop to this area. Directly adjacent to the courtyard, guests can grab a cocktail at the WET bar.

The guest rooms The color theme of the guest rooms alternates per floor, between sakura pink and blue – allowing guests to choose the color they prefer. The rooms consist of an open plan, with the living room, sleeping zone and bathroom separated by a contemporary glass shoji screen. Floor-to-ceiling windows bring in natural light and amazing views of the city. A wall made of grey tinted 2-way mirrors conceals an ‘escape’ lighting feature. When turned on, it transforms the room with dramatic pink or blue diagonal stripes, inspired by Osaka’s neon. Another surprise is locked away behind the walnut doors of the closets. Famous for their gamer’s pixel art, eBoy graphic designers created a “pixorama” of Osaka, filled to the brim with the city’s famous landmarks in full pixilated color.

bathroom: Having a semi-open bathroom offers guests the level of privacy they prefer – with the option of closing off the bathroom from the sleeping area – using the contemporary shoji screen. The entire bathroom is clad in grey marble. Guests can either enjoy a good hot soak in the white, freestanding tub – or use the separate shower, located behind grey tinted glass doors.

sleeping zone: In the center of the room, walnut flooring demarcates the sleeping zone. A walnut ledge runs across wall, extending into the living room. This holds the king bed, bedside tables and black cone lamps – as well as the living room sofa. Behind the ledge, soft uplighting illuminates a white plaster wall. A round, rice paper lamp, inspired by Japanese fans, subtly glows on the wall. At the foot of the bed is a large tatami pouf.

living room :The 3rdarea, the living room, is defined by soft carpet in a gradient pattern running from pink (or blue) to grey. Each room has a sofa, 2 bar stool and a walnut cocktail bar, which can also serve as a desk. The main purpose of the bar is enjoying cocktails of course! The bar extends into a niche lined with reflective, rainbow colored dichroic film, with a mirror backsplash.

EWOW suite High above Osaka, on the 27thfloor, the Extreme Wow suite looks out over – and beyond – the skyline of the city. Inspired by traditional Japanese homes, the suite was designed in a sequence of 5 rooms divided by deep, oak portals with sliding shoji screens that can be used to close off or open up the different rooms.

The overall design is based on the duality of simplicity and extravagance, allowing guests to change the atmosphere of the suite. Whether they desire an intimate and personal ambiance, or want to create a more extraverted setting for entertaining.

So open up the secret karaoke booth, roll out the dj station, pick up that mic and let’s party!

Photography: marriott international

Osaka Accommodation Building:

The busy urban streetscape of Osaka welcomes concrete’s latest interior project: The first W Hotelin Japan. With a total of 337 guest rooms & suites, W Osaka asserts its presence with a 27-story high-rise building by Nikken and a black monolith facade designed by Tadao Ando.

Created for Sekisui House and Marriott International, and in collaboration with Nikken an Nikken Space Design, the building is due to open in March 2021.

Concrete’s team of Dutch designers explored Osaka’s past, present, and future, its urban and natural landscapes, and its fascinating culture. Visually, they discovered that Osaka is water and nature – but also neon and bright colors. Struck by the contrast between the aesthetic of Japanese minimalism and the extravagance of an urban world saturated with colors. Especially in downtown Osaka an Dotonbori – Osaka’s nightlife district – the display of flashing neon is breathtakingly vivid and joyful.

The goal is to share the spirit of the city with the guests of W Osaka. And let the interior of the hotel tell a story that is truly Osaka. Celebrating the opposing – yet complementary – forces of extravagance and simplicity.

The sprawling metropolis of Osaka was once the imperial capital of Japan and the country’s economic hub. At its heart, the wide Yodo River flows into a harbor bustling with trade. Throughout its history, visitors contributed their cultures and technologies to the city – creating a prosperous port with an extroverted, lively, and somewhat rebellious culture.

All of this energy attracts international businesses and visitors. Concrete’s team of Dutch designers explored Osaka’s past, present, and future, its urban and natural landscapes, and its fascinating culture.

W Hotel, Osaka – Building Information

Interior designer: Concrete

Project team: Rob Wagemans, Bart de Beer, Julia Hundermark, Sofie Ruytenberg, Cathelijne Vreugdenhil, Femke Zumbrink, Marlou Spierts, Minouk Balster, Valentina Venturi, Petra Moerbeek, Erik van Dillen

Developer: Sekisui House Architect of record: Nikken Sekkei with Tadao Ando (façade) Graphic & signage designer: Concrete Styling: Concrete Executive interior designer: Nikken Space Design Purchasing agent: Crosslink Corporation Specialist joinery: PLUS furniture company, idc-Otsuka Lighting consultant: LPA lighting

Specialist lighting: Koizumi, Daiko lighting

Bespoke artwork: eBoy (guestrooms), Sigrid Calon (suites), Lok Jansen (sushi restaurant)

Total area: 37.000 sqm Total floors: 27 Total rooms: 337

Address: Hotel W Osaka 4-1-3 Minami Senba, Chuo-ku, 542-0081 Osaka- Japan

About W Hotels Worldwide Born from the bold attitude and 24/7 culture of New York City, W Hotels, part of Marriott International, Inc., has disrupted and redefined the hospitality scene for over two decades. Trailblazing its way around the globe, with more than 55 hotels, W is defying expectations and breaking the norms of traditional luxury wherever the iconic W sign lands.

With a mission to fuel guests’ lust for life, W ignites an obsessive desire to soak it in, live it up, and hit repeat. The brand’s provocative design, iconic Whatever/Whenever service and buzzing Living Rooms create an experience that is often copied but never matched. Innovative, inspiring, and infectious, the brand’s supercharged energy celebrates guests’ endless appetite to discover what’s new/next in each destination, to see more, feel more, go longer, stay later. For more information on W Hotels, visit whotels.com/theangle

About Sekisui House Founded in 1960, Sekisui House, Ltd. Is one of the world’s largest homebuilders and an internationally diversified developer, with cumulative sales of over 2 million homes. Based in Osaka, Sekisui House has over two-hundred consolidated subsidiaries and affiliates, over twenty-thousand employees, and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nagoya Stock Exchange.

Sekisui House aims to create homes and communities that improve with time and last for generations. With “Love of Humanity” as its Corporate Philosophy, Sekisui House believes that homes should offer comfort, security, and peace of mind for residents while maintaining harmony with the environment and its surroundings. Sekisui House has sustainability as a core corporate target and is now the global leader in the construction of net-zero-energy homes with more than fifty-thousands of them built since the product was launched in 2013. In 2009, Sekisui House expanded into several new international markets and now operates in the United States, China, Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

About concrete Since 1997 concrete develops concepts in architecture, interior design, urban development, and brand development. We work with a team of 50 multidisciplinary creatives for corporations and institutions. Next to W Osaka, Projects include W Hotels in London and Verbier, citizenM hotels worldwide, Zoku Lofts, Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady, Mongkok Skypark, Andaz Munchen, and more.

Images: concrete

W Hotel, Osaka images / information received 091220

Location: Osaka, Kansai Region, island of Honshu, Japan, East Asia

Osaka Buildings

Buildings in Osaka, Kansai Region, island of Honshu

House in Matsuyacho, Osaka Design: Shogo Aratani Architect & Associates photo : Shigeo Ogawa House in Matsuyacho

Kakko House, Osaka Architect: YYAA photo : Keishiro Yamada Kakko House in Osaka

House in Senri, Suita, Osaka Shogo Iwata photograph : Nagaishi Hidehiko House in Senri

House F Architect: Kenji Architectural Studio photograph : Takumi Ota House F – Osaka Residence

N strips Residence Architect: Jun Murata / JAM photograph : Jun Murata / JAM N strips Residence Osaka

Japanese Architecture

Japanese Architecture Design – chronological list

Japanese Architecture – Selection

Japanese Architect

Japanese Office Buildings

Contemporary Houses : Designs + Images from around the world

Comments / photos for the W Hotel, Osaka Building – New Japanese Hotel Architecture page welcome

Website: Osaka

The post W Hotel Osaka Building Interior appeared first on e-architect.

#e-architect

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infoblogifyzen · 4 months

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Making a Statement with Elegant Event Cocktail Tables

Cocktail tables – those often underappreciated, but decidedly pivotal decor elements at any event. They're not just for setting down drinks; they can transform a space, dictate the flow of conversation, and serve as focal points for your decor. When chosen and styled meticulously, these little pieces of furniture can elevate an event from the ordinary to the extraordinary, making a lasting impression on guests and in the unfurling ribbon of social media photos that document our experiences. If you're an event or flower enthusiast looking to add that extra flair to your next gathering, read on to master the art of using elegant cocktail tables to make your event truly exceptional.

Benefits of Using Event Cocktail Tables

Versatility in Design and Placement

Cocktail tables offer unparalleled flexibility in how and where you can set them up. Whether you're orchestrating a large corporate gala, an intimate wedding, or a buzzing networking event, they adapt to your needs. Unlike traditional sitting tables, the high-top design encourages a standing or leaning posture, perfect for encouraging mingling and movement.

Enhancing the Overall Ambiance of the Event

The design you choose reflects the character of your event. A sleek modern table communicates sophistication, while a more natural wood finish might whisper rustic charm. The perfect cocktail table can enhance your theme or serve as a unique pop of design.

Creating Functional and Stylish Gathering Spaces

In the ever-fluid dance of a bustling social event, you must create spaces that allow for both purpose and style. Event Cocktail tables are excellent for establishing focal points that draw the crowd and maintaining a refined layout that lets your guests know they're in good hands.

Choosing the Right Cocktail Tables for Your Event

Selecting the right events cocktail tables is at the crux of this art. Here's how to do it.

Factors to Consider: Size, Shape, Material, and Style

Begin with logistics. What size will fit comfortably in your event space? The general rule of thumb for a cocktail-style event is to provide enough table space to accommodate 30-40% of your guest count. Then, think about the shape – will a round table induce a more social atmosphere, or will a square table provide a sense of order? The material of the table will depend on your theme – mirrored glass for ultra-modern settings, rich terrazzo for earthy themes. Finally, the style must harmonize with your overall aesthetic without drawing attention away from your other key design elements.

Matching the Tables to the Event Theme and Decor

This is the fun part. If your event theme is 'under the sea', consider aqua blue tables with a nautical rope accent. For a classic black-tie feel, tables in pearlized white or seriously reflective chrome can set the scene. Always ensure the tables compliment, not compete with, your other decor.

Incorporating Floral Arrangements

The right flowers transform a table from practical to incredible.

Using Centerpieces to Add Elegance and Color

A beautifully crafted floral centerpiece not only adds height but color, fragrance, and life to your tables. They're the perfect opportunity to create a variety of eye-catching designs that continue the narrative of your event decor.

Coordinating with the Event's Floral Arrangements

If there are other floral elements in your event – archways, backdrops, or hanging installations – tie them in with the cocktail tables. A consistent thread of design motifs will knit the entirety of the event space together.

Creative Ways to Style Cocktail Tables

Once you have your tables and your flowers, it's time to put them together in a way that's all your own.

Adding Personalized Touches with Table Linens and Decor

Consider opting for bespoke table linens featuring your event logo or a design that resonates with your theme. Unique tableware, whether it's specially chosen napkin rings or stand-out glassware, adds a layer of luxury guests won't forget.

Incorporating Lighting Elements for a Dramatic Effect

An event's lighting is often its unsung hero. Deliberate spotlighting or the muted glow of under-table LEDs can transform your tables into oases of style and elegance or dramatic arenas of color and light.

Case Studies and Examples

Your imagination is the only limit to what can be achieved with elegant cocktail tables for events. Here are a few examples to spark your creativity.

A Winter Wonderland

Imagine crystal-clear acrylic tables laden with frosted blue glass and sprays of silvery evergreen. Illuminated from below, they cast icy shadows against the walls.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

In a garden pavilion, tables in rich mahogany are laced with ivy and dappled with amber lights, serving as pedestals for glass orbs filled with fairy lights.

An Urban Soiree

High-gloss black onyx tables reflect the neon of the city below. Monochrome silk orchids bloom from vases, echoing the stark, striking colors of the metropolitan dusk.

In the grand symphony of event planning, the cocktail table is the timpani – the unseen force that anchors the melody and punctuates the high notes. Invest in them wisely, style them thoughtfully, and use them with intention, and you'll find that the statement they make is anything but silent. It is, in fact, a bold exclamation of the style, grace, and creativity that marks you as the architect of truly remarkable events. Now get out there and set the scene for magic.

#cocktail tables for events #Event Cocktail tables

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crushedbyhyperbole · 4 years

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Promises - Chapter Five

Chapter Summary: Salaciously the seduction goes down. The situation and the proposition have Bucky feeling uncomfortable. What can he do when he's simultaneously offered something he's always wanted and put in a position to lose it all?

Warnings: Drunkenness and bad flirting. Did I mention the flirting is terrible XD

PROMISES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | MOBILE MASTERLIST

Belated Prologue Pt 4 - The Proposition

In the morning, Bucky woke up to the smell of coffee brewing. Izzy stood in his open-plan kitchen hunched forward and leaning against the counter for support.

She must be feeling real rough, Bucky thought.

“Morning.” His voice was croaky with sleep.

“Morning.” Izzy didn’t even have the energy to be startled. “Coffee?”

“Please.” He sat up and allowed himself a moment before standing to go to the bathroom. The last thing he needed was to be exhibiting morning wood to his guest. “There’s bagels in the fridge.” He said from the bathroom before closing the door.

Izzy looked cute with her hair all tousled, and ridiculously comical with mascara smears under her eyes. Bucky smirked at her when he accepted the mug of coffee from her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He smirked again as she checked her reflection out in the chrome surface of the kettle.

“Oh, fuck you!” She rolled her eyes and turned her back.

“How you feeling?” He asked after his cup was half gone. His caffeine levels were directly proportional to the amount of socialising he was prepared to do first thing after waking.

“Peachy.” Sarcasm exuded from her tone. “I had a wonderful night.”

“Yeah you seemed to be enjoying yourself until some point down the I495.” Bucky smirked into his cup. “Wanna tell me what happened with Brad?” He’d gotten the drunk version last night but the sober version would be more reliable. “Was it really that bad?”

“It’s not bad like ‘I propositioned my best friend for sex’ bad or anything like that, but it’s pretty bad.”

Bucky didn’t know whether to laugh or be shocked. So he did both. Practically inhaling his coffee and spluttering into the cup. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary choice.

Izzy looked concerned for a moment until Bucky held his hand up to say he was ok. He wiped the coffee off his chin before looking at her with a sad smile.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky.” She had tears in her eyes. “You were so good to me and I had to go be a pathetic, whiny, needy mess. I didn’t mean to push any boundaries.”

“I meant what I said.” He spoke quietly. His heart was hammering in his chest; excitement, terror, and more.

“Huh.” It was more a surprised noise than a query.

“I said I’d think about it. And I would still do that.”

“You also said you’d get a pinky promise tattoo so is that still on the cards?” She laughed mischievously.

He could tell it was a deflection and he didn’t care. He’d have her however she chose to be with him, obviously the more of her time he got, the better. He’d get a tattoo for her, no questions asked.

“What if it is?” He teased back.

She laughed, grinning big. “Oh Barnes, you’re so gonna regret saying that.” She tried to hide her amusement in her cup just like he had, but her smile made her eyes twinkle in just the right kind of way that had him staring at her, wishing she’d look at him like that for ever.

“Yeah, yeah, bring it on!”

The tattoos became a reality. They both got the word promise tattooed on the inside of their right pinky finger in the Izzy’s cursive handwriting. Steve became part of the pact too, which made Bucky feel it was a little less special but he approved nonetheless, and it did take some of the tension out of it for him. Having her handwriting tattooed on his skin bound her irrefutable to him. He needed only to glance at it and he got a tingly feeling in his stomach. It was like her mark on him, permanent and heart-felt.

It was a couple of weeks after that when the whole friends with benefits thing came up again.

Izzy was at Starks with a few of her girlfriends from the office. The tall blonde with a huge rack had been hitting on him at the bar all night and, although Bucky had no qualms bedding someone who pursued him that hard, he didn’t want to mess with any of Izzy’s friends or colleagues. He loved and respected her too much to do that. Despite the blonde being salacious, he had to decline.

Bucky came over to the table to collect empties and to check in with Izzy.

“You good? Need anything?” He asked, leaning over to scoop up a few bellini flutes.

“We’re getting table service from bar manager Barnes?” Izzy was practically flirting with him.

“You came over to see me, didn’t you, sugar?” The blonde, Claire, said as she seductively trailed her finger around the rim of her glass.

Bucky laughed short and nervous, his adam’s apple bobbing slightly before his tongue made a quick pass of his upper lip. He felt so damn uncomfortable. A quick glance at Izzy revealed her amusement.

Well, this is going to get more awkward before it’s over. He thought with a sigh.

“Would you be a darling and rustle up a couple of my favourite cocktail? No one in the whole of New York makes them like you do, Buck.” She bit her lip purposefully, glancing down to his mouth and back up to his eyes.

He frowned slightly. Very confused.

What the hell kind of game was Izzy playing? This was uncharacteristically flirtatious, forward, predatory, whatever the hell you wanted to call it; this wasn’t normal.

Bucky nodded slowly.

“You better leave me a good tip though.” He winked at the other women, suddenly feeling like it was a game he’d been enlisted to play. He didn’t want to make Izzy look stupid so he decided he’d bite. “You ladies got to appreciate a man with skills.”

That got a titter of giggles from them all.

Delivering the cocktails himself had been a bit of a mistake. The ladies insisted Bucky sit with them a little while and Izzy was more than happy to continue tormenting him. She teased her cocktail straw with the tip of her tongue before taking it between her lips for a sip, eyes fluttering closed in pleasure, a little nasal moan escaping before she swallowed.

His palms were getting sweaty just watching her.

“You’re so hot.” One of the ladies said, leaning in to touch his thigh.

Bucky laughed, looking down and shaking his head, embarrassed. Women had told him that before but he’d never sat at a table with the girl of his dreams and had other women try to bed him. This was all too much.

“That’s the cocktails talking.” He deflected.

“Cock-what? Yes, please!” Someone said, earning themselves a round of lewd laughter.

There was no hint of jealousy in Izzy’s face or her body language. It was like a neon sign to him that she didn’t feel anything other than something platonic for him. She was watching him, intrigued and mischievous.

“Just feel how hard that is.” The woman said, inviting the others to touch his leg. “All that perfectly toned muscle.” She sighed.

“What would it take for me to have you in my bed tonight?” The blonde, Claire, was relentless.

Bucky blushed hard, laughing again as his nerves got the better of him. Izzy shouldn’t be okay with this, he was supposed to be her friend and he was uncomfortable as hell in this situation. He wished he hadn’t played along in the first place.

Shaking his head and with a bashful smile he could barely make eye contact with any of them. Blushing hard he protested. “Stop… You’re making me blush.”

That earned him a round of ‘awww, so cute’ from them all. He really couldn’t win.

Izzy’s eyes hadn’t left him and when he stood to leave, making excuses of tending bar and cleaning up, she followed him to the bar.

“Can I get you something?” He was a little short with her but she didn’t notice.

She had seemed only tipsy at the table but now he saw she was pretty damn drunk.

“Remember that conversation?” She said playfully.

“Which one?” They’d had thousands of conversations over their many years of friendship, he probably could remember all of them but he was clueless as to what she was getting at without a pointer or two. “The one about the end of the world? Who we’d have on our team?” That was one from a couple of days ago.

“No.” She was deadly serious now, it gave him chills. “In your room, the night you picked me up from Long Island.”

“Oh.” Suddenly the air was oppressive and his mouth dry. “Um, okay, yeah. What about it?”

“I’ll be wanting your answer now, Barnes.”

He kind of liked this side of her, boldly asking for what she wanted. The way she looked at him then sent a tingle over his scalp and down his spine right to his cock.

This can’t be happening.

“Right now!?”

“Right now.” Her lips curled subtly in a lopsided but flirtatious smile.

“You’ve been drinking and I would hate to take advantage…” Bucky trailed away as Izzy shook her head.

“Who’s taking advantage?” Her laugh was bright and completely her. “You did not just see yourself get torn to pieces by that pack of lionesses over there.”

She had a point but still, he wouldn’t feel right about this at all. It had to be sober or nothing.

“What about the rules?” He became aware of a customer waiting. “One sec.” He gave Izzy a placatory look.

Bucky filled the order and came back to her a few minutes later. She’d finished her drink and pushed the glass towards him, slowly, her fingers trailing up the stem through the condensation on the side to the rim where she circled with her index finger. Her tongue slowly traced her upper lip as she stared him down.

Christ! She was trying to seduce him. Not trying. Succeeding. What the hell was this? What had changed?

“Rules, you say?” Even her voice was pitched lower, more sultry. “I can do rules.”

Maybe he should just tell her that she didn’t have to make all this effort, that he was hers already and always would be, for as long as she wanted him to be.

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.” He chuckled ironically.

“So it’s a ‘yes’ then?” Was that hope he saw glint in her eye?

Had he said ‘yes’? His answer should be no. Their friendship might get ruined and then he’d be without her in his life at all. But then again what if she grew to love him, was that not worth a risk?

“Conditional approval, pending suitable rules.” He couldn’t help the playful smile that spread across his face. “And sobriety.”

Izzy was smiling too and she looked stunning, stood there with flushed cheeks and twinkling eyes. Maybe drunk was a good look on her, hell every look was good on her.

I’m so fucked.

“You’re gonna make me wait for it?” She teased but seemed more than a little disappointed.

“Damn right I am.” Bucky flirted. “I’m not the sort to put out on the first date.”

“You totally are!” Her head dipped forward as she laughed, snorting like a pig in the middle which made them both laugh harder.

“Alright, alright, so maybe I am.” He chuckled as she came down from her laughing fit. “But you shouldn’t.” And he was serious again. “Text me tomorrow when you’re not drunk.”

Izzy actually groaned in frustration. What had gotten into her?

“Now, go on! Scoot.” He flapped her away from the bar with both hands.

His face burned but not as much as the fire in his chest. Simultaneously terrified and excited, he could barely focus on his work for the rest of the night. Tony grumbled that he wasn’t giving the customer his full attention, and the old man was right, Bucky wasn’t. He put on a smile when his whole soul was racked with bewilderment. He didn’t know if he wanted her to forget what she’d asked of him or if he wanted her to take this idea of hers in both hands and never let it go. One thing Bucky knew for sure, he was never going to be able to say no. Not to her. Not ever.

Continue to chapter six >>>

A/N: I just want to say thank you to anyone who is reading this. I kind of feel like this things is a giant flop or that Tumblr still hates me and won’t let any of the chapters for this show up in searches. But if you are reading, I won’t let this be a forgotten work because the story is so close to my heart. If I do lapse though, feel free to kick me up the arse.

Tagging @renxzs because you are so invested already and I love you for your dedication to this thing <3

#bucky barnes x ofc #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky fanfic #bucky x ofc #friends to lovers #bucky barnes fanfic #promises #my writing

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clansayeed · 4 years

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Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 10: Smoke and Mirrors

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Taylor and Vera reunite just in time for a stand-off between hands, guns, and a little too much screaming. He’s really starting to think he’s not cut out for this ‘main character’ gig.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Taylor recognizes the restaurant when a waiter exits the kitchen with a large silver cart laden with all the materials for their specialty flaming bananas foster. Peeks as best he can, standing on the tips of his toes, to see the bustling front of the gilded establishment before one of Smoke’s henchmen catches him looking and shoves him forward with a grunt of warning.

As if he wasn’t seriously dejected at the fact that he’s already having to miss out on the promised onion rings.

“What — is Smoke gonna make us clean dishes as punishment?” Cal sneers. The comment earns him a smack to the back of the head but even with a werewolf growling in his face the other suited guard doesn’t even blink.

Four men in mobster-movie suits ushering five unusual-looking characters around the back walls of the five star restaurant should raise more than a few alarms but you wouldn’t know it based on the staff’s reactions.

How they purposefully look away and give their entourage a wide berth; some even moving aside to take the long way around to where they need to go.

If they were actually being held captive and against their will it wouldn’t be any use to try and beg for help. Every waiter, cook, and busser knows to keep their attentions on their jobs. Whether they’re bribed or threatened into silence is the only question but ends in the same answer.

They’re on their own.

The journey ends in a large chrome door. One of the guards reaches out but jumps back as a broad-shouldered woman exits with a wooden crate of vegetables.

Not a word passes between them. Part of the deal no doubt.

He holds the industrial freezer door open and jerks his head. “In.”

“Yeah… not gonna happen.” Ryder gives them a look of ‘really, like we’re that stupid’ but then again they did all agree to join Cadence for his not-so-friendly meeting with Lady Smoke… so they very well may be.

Well; no. Cadence agreed — which automatically implied Katherine would join him. And the startling revelation of Lady Smoke’s real name meant that Taylor was either going to go at their side or find a way to sneak in on his own — this was just easier and less likely to cause injury.

And where Taylor goes Ryder is never far behind. Cal, too, apparently.

Not that the Shift trio didn’t try to tag along — but they already looked like an ambush waiting to happen. Probably best not to actually be one.

“Funny you think you still got a choice.” But before Ryder can call his cocky bluff one of the armed men whips out his gun and smashes it into the Nighthunter’s shoulder without warning or hesitation.

Taylor throws away any consideration that those around them might be getting paid off. Only fear would keep any decent person from helping the way Ryder cries out and buckles to his knees.

His assailant stows away his gun almost too slowly — like he’s ready to use it again; but just ready but eager. “Get in the fuckin’ freezer. Or else.”

If he felt useless before Taylor’s glad he’s suddenly too cold to dwell on how he feels now.

He blindly grabs for the nearest thing — a potato of all things — and holds it against Nik’s throbbing injury while helping him up.

“Are you okay?”

“Aw, Rook, I didn’t know you cared.” teases Ryder; probably to hide the wince in his smile.

“Not funny.”

“Admit it; a little funny.”

The three mortals are already shivering when two of the guards step inside with them. The click of the freezer door locking them inside definitely doesn’t help matters.

“Step back —” says the apparent leader, actually shoves Katherine into Cadence who holds her close and looks ready to add ‘asshole bodyguard’ to the restaurant specials for the night, “— I said back!”

So they press themselves against the shelving on the walls and watch — with some interest, but mostly spite and murderous intent — as he reaches behind hanging garlands of herbs and grabs for something blindly.

With a metallic thunk the back wall — no, the back hidden fucking door — loosens enough to be pushed forward and open. Revealing a set of rickety and definitely code-violating wooden steps that lead down into a no-less frigid abyss.

Before the guard has the chance to bark another order Cadence steps forward with hands raised. “Let me guess; in?”

The guard’s upper lip curls. But all it takes is a flash of the vampire’s true face for him to back off and mutter under his frosty breath.

Down, down they go one at a time with their new friends at their backs. The only consolation being, what, that it’s slightly less cold? Sure he can’t see his breath anymore but that doesn’t mean he’s not already a Taylor-sicle.

Cal arrives at the bottom first; opens the door to some kind of back office. Like a security room, only… underground.

A similarly-suited woman looks up from a row of fuzzy monitors as they start to crowd inside. It’s not a space meant for this many bodies especially when one of them is a broad-shouldered wolf and the other is a vampire too-damn tall. Judging by the abandoned snack wrappers and the digital solitaire game on her screen this isn’t a post that ends up with many guests.

She leaps to her feet; chair rocketing backwards on rickety wheels to collide with a small space heater loudly. But after catching sight of their captors before she can reach for her holstered weapon — she relaxes.

“The hell, man,” she yanks her chair away from Cal’s mere vicinity. Might be in the wrong business if that’s how she reacts to a wolf, but it’s not his place to comment. “You were only supposed to bring the fighter.”

He pushes between Ryder and Taylor — and Taylor swears he hears something like “you try arguing with these crazy bastards” under the man’s breath — to the only other door at the far end of the post.

“Fuck off.”

“Hope for your sake she’s in a mood for company.”

“I said fuck off.”

Good to know witty workplace banter applies to all occupations; even those of the hired henchman variety.

“Now listen here,” it takes him a second to realize he’s talking to them, now; and beyond monosyllabic orders — it’s a Mardi Gras miracle, “none of you are guests here. So don’t touch nothin’, don’t even look at nothin’. One toe outta line and it won’t end pretty for you.”

He looks pointedly at Cadence then. “No wards to protect you now, bloodsucker.”

But if he hoped to instill some kind of fear he’ll have to try a bit harder. Afraid seems to be the last thing he is — especially when he casually, almost coyly tucks his hair behind his ears and looks at the mortal man over the top of his glasses.

“None to protect you, either.”

And hopefully those threats won’t really be held up because the moment the door opens to a luxurious — and warm, thank the heavens warm — casino floor Taylor looks at every single thing he can. Blatant disregard; living life on the edge.

But who could blame him?

It’s not the same glitz and glamor of Persephone’s main atrium but that doesn’t make the underground treasure any less glittering. Lady Smoke’s Den is swathed in rich violet velvets and polished golden trim; every gemstone in inky black bright enough to catch the reflection of whatever passes nearby.

From the black iron of the gambling tables to the uniform designs on the back of each deck of cards in play there’s no denying the wealth it takes to wind up down here. Where the underbelly of Persephone was filled with rusted metal and bloodstained concrete this place undoubtedly hosts the cream of the crop.

Whether that specific crop is of the poisonous variety, though? Well Ryder is still using a semi-frozen potato as an ice pack so that pretty much says all that needs to be said.

He came here to meet Lady Smoke — without a doubt in his mind she must be some relative of Vera; even in New Orleans their family name is too unique; too ethereal.

But by some twisted hand of fate he doesn’t even have to go that far. Not when he recognizes a sleek pair of black satin gloves nursing a cocktail at the black diamond-encrusted bar across the room.

Two steps forward but someone yanks him still by the back of his collar. Turns to see Cal’s eyebrows raised in incredulity.

“Just ‘cause this place doesn’t look as dangerous as the fights doesn’t mean it ain’t, Taylor,” but his hard, stern tone quickly melts into just plain concern, “come on — you know better than to wander ‘round a place like this.”

“I — I’m not.” Taylor keeps looking back to the bar; keeps his eyes on Vera’s turned back. Refuses to have a repeat of last night at Persephone’s — refuses to let her slip through his fingers again like… like smoke.

“Then what the hell’re you doin’ Rook?” Ryder joins in but it’s hard to take him seriously with his spud pack. Even he looks at it like it offends him — makes quick work of disposing it on a passing silver tray of empty champagne flutes. “You asked me to follow ya on blind faith but the more I’m doin’ that the closer an’ closer I’m gettin’ to taking an injury I ain’t comin’ back from.

“So no more wandering off — not until you come clean about what you and Lady Smoke have in common.”

It’s been fifteen whole seconds and he’s terrified he’s lost her. Or maybe that she was never there to begin with. But even with Ryder snapping his fingers in Taylor’s face to draw back his attention he risks a look — exhales in audible relief when he catches her face in profile as she smiles and makes casual, inaudible conversation with the bartender.

“Her.”

In a reversal of fortune — and while Nik looks up to find just who he’s talking about — Taylor pulls at the side of the leather coat and digs around for the Nighthunter’s phone. “Hey — what — watch the coat!” But he steps just out of arms’ reach protests aside.

Luckily Cal’s on his side; stops Ryder from yanking back what’s his as Taylor quickly dials and holds the phone up to his ear; turns to watch intently as the metallic dialing starts chiming.

Across the floor decked in a rug more expensive than his theater company’s entire yearly budget the tiny digital first keys of the AME theme begin playing. Loud enough to draw an unimpressed frown from the bartender and a look of horrible realization from Vera.

The three men watch as she fumbles around; digs through the inside pockets of her black leather blazer. She procures Taylor’s phone from the left side and looks at the screen of dancing lights like she’s never seen such a miraculous and terrible device before.

Taylor ends the call by flipping the phone closed with a little too much force. At the bartop, Vera’s relief is short lived as the music ends and the screen goes dark. But the shudder that rolls down her spine is large and all-consuming. Makes her look around practically petrified when her gaze finds home on Taylor and his definitely not impressed frown.

“So that’s the girl who has your phone, huh.” Ryder doesn’t have to say it; they both know. She was there. She was there that night, and she ran away, and whether or not the Vera he saw in Persephone’s betting crowd was real she’s very much real here and now.

“What’re the odds?” Cal gives a surprised little laugh. But it’s not his fault; he doesn’t know the whole story.

Taylor, though — he’s starting to think nothing in this town is ever by chance anymore.

“Really, really likely.”

And it’s good to feel like he has support as he marches straight the-fuck up with a werewolf and a Nighthunter at his back.

Where were Cade and Katherine? Okay — okay — one problem at a time.

Only now what’s he supposed to do? Because he kind of wants to slap her — but that isn’t happening. One of those things that’s supposed to stay in the back of the mind and no further.

He could shout; make a scene. But that would make all their pushing and shoving and freezer-standing for nothing. And eventually they will find Cadence and help him out. So… no to that, too.

And it’s all so complicated and hard and makes his stomach twist and turn so finally Taylor just thinks fuck it and says the first thing that comes to mind. Turns out to be something a little more heavy than he’d anticipated but no less important.

“You knew about all this,” he jabs his finger into her shoulder, “about… about everything —”

“Tay, I didn’t —”

“And even if you didn’t know exactly what was happening you had some frickin’ idea.” Now that Vera doesn’t argue against — though she’s only barely biting her tongue and he can see it.

“You did; you had more pieces of the puzzle than us. And knowing that you… you let Krissy and I jump over that wall and to our own damn deaths.”

There’s a startled noise from Cal but that’s all. Taylor can’t quite care in the presence of all the frustration building up; bubbling over.

There’s been a nagging voice in his subconscious threatening him not to cry but Vera’s choked out words make that impossible.

“Is — Is Cookie dead, then?”

Taylor finds himself torn between wiping the tears before they can fall down her cheeks and telling her every. gruesome. detail just to make her cry harder.

“No —” — Vera claps her silken palms over her mouth to stifle a soft sob — “— no she’s not dead. Not yet.”

But she is in a coma; or probably worse. She’s in a strange hospital room in a strange city and she’s suffering untold horrors from that awful grotesque creature’s wicked touch and her two best friends in the entire world are in the same city and still haven’t gone to see her.

They are officially the worst people in this world and the other, preternatural world that borders theirs on the head of a pin.

“I’ll take my phone back now.”

She offers it like an olive branch; maybe he gets a little satisfaction from yanking it from her and shoving it in his jeans.

Then, because he’s mad but he’s not cruel; “I’m glad you’re safe Vera, really.” He opens his arms slightly but waits for her permission for an embrace — remembers what Kristin had said about Vera liking her personal space.

Now though he’s not so certain it’s that simple. He knows a lot more than he did when they first met.

“A-hem.”

They pull apart. Ryder stands with his arms crossed and an expectant tap to his boot. “Are we mad at her or not?”

“We’re…” Taylor and Vera exchange looks and there’s no doubt in his mind that her remorse is genuine. “We’re getting over it.” We, he thinks with a laugh. But doesn’t dare mention it lest Ryder close up more than he already is in this place.

Like he is right now.

“Good. Then maybe you can give us a proper introduction.” He’s zeroed in on her gloves; Cal too, he notices. Whatever has them on edge its more than a simple case of being protective of him. As if they didn’t have enough problems — and enemies — already.

Taylor clears his throat awkwardly; gestures between the meeting of two worlds who seem not to want to meet. “Uhm, okay. Vera, this is Ryder, my, uh, my bodyguard — don’t ask,” thank god she doesn’t, “and this is Cal; he’s a friend. Cal, Ryder; this is —”

“Vera, yeah, we got that,” interrupts the hunter lowly, “though how you came to be so buddy-buddy with Lady Smoke’s kid is my problem at the moment.”

And while Taylor’s brain is still turning rusted gears and starting to smoke with the sheer what the fuckery of Ryder’s accusation — Cal pipes up; “Smoke’s runaway kid, if I’m gettin’ my stories straight.”

Is he getting his stories straight, the look Taylor gives Vera — eyes so wide the whites go all the way around and jaw on a broken repeated hinge of not-quite-open and not-quite-closed — asks.

But that’s nothing compared to the look of utter shame that darkens Vera’s expression; to the way she looks around for listening ears and prying eyes.

“Keep your voices down.”

Ryder sees her buttons and, in classic Ryder fashion, pushes. “Yeah you ain’t gettin’ outta talkin’ that easy.”

She looks around with worry etched into her forehead. Finally lands her eyes on an empty poker table about as far out of the way as possible in the intimate space; half-obscured by a black-tile fountain where water the color of lavender fields bubbles and streams in arcs around an indiscriminate figure. “Fine, fine. Just — not here.”

And the Vera he sees now is definitely not the same young woman he’d met previously. She takes charge easier — less of a babysitting role and more of a… a woman who knows what she wants and asks for it unabashedly. At her call the bartender summons an attendant with bright, catlike yellow eyes that narrow into slits when she’s told to set them up a game at Vera’s preferred table.

Just like at Persephone they stick out like sore thumbs — but unlike at Persephone it doesn’t seem to matter. The attendants are ready to turn their noses up and away but the sight of Vera — the sight of her gloves like some status symbol — has them smiling, crooning; offering hors d'oeuvres more expensive than Taylor’s rent and drinks of all kinds. Even ones Taylor can partake in much to his surprise.

So they may look like they’re engrossed in a game of poker but one would be surprised to discover naught but a clever ruse.

Or at least a ruse on his end. Taylor’s got no living clue what he’s doing. But the cards are nice.

"Was it really you I saw at Persephone last night, Tay?” asks Vera. His nod earns a low whistle. “I figured I was just seeing… well, that you were a spectre of some kind; a manifestation of my guilt in leavin’ you and Cookie high and dry. And you really knew nothing about the supernatural world before y’all were attacked?”

“Since Twilight doesn’t count, yeah — er, no. I didn’t know a thing.”

“When you go in, you go all in, huh?”

If she means it as a joke it doesn’t really come off that way. Just makes him look down at his fancy deck and shrug. “Not exactly by choice.”

“Right. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“For what, though,” pipes up Ryder after downing a long gulp of his beer, “are you sorry for bringin’ it up like a joke or for leavin’ him utterly defenseless?”

“Christ, Nik.”

“Am I wrong, Miss Reimonenq?”

Something tells him the glare exchanged across the cards isn’t the first, nor would it be the last between them.

But Vera takes him by surprise when she shakes her head dejectedly. “No, no you’re not.”

Like a nervous habit Vera tugs at the edges of her gloves; hikes them up higher over her elbows. Cal physically shifts his chair over as she does — like she’s hiding knives and guns in the skin-tight fabric.

“Okay,” Taylor tosses his cards — it was probably a shitty hand anyway — and looks between the locals one by one by one, “usually this is the part where something weird or coincidental happens and I don’t end up having to be the one to ask the stupid questions. But apparently not this time.

“So either someone starts telling me what the heck is up or I start doing dumb shit until my answers come to me freely. And Nik — you know I can do some dumb shit.”

Taylor only adds emphasis because of the hesitation clear in Nik’s frown. The way he looks at Vera as if to get her to do it instead of his usual bravado-riding explanation train.

But neither of them say anything. So Cal leans back and nurses his whiskey with his words.

“Lady Smoke ain’t your average mafia boss, Taylor.”

“Yeah, yeah I got that part. Your brother was in a cell, there were death fights. The guns aimed at us at the Shift. I was there.”

The wolf gives him a little smirk. “Thanks for the reminder. But it ain’t just guns and suits and shady deals with Smoke.”

“Underground casino notwithstanding?”

“Let him finish, Tay.” mumbles Vera; the look she gives Cal is a grateful one. Taylor holds his hands up — mimes zipping his lips.

“The Reimonenqs are an old Quarter family. Y’all’ve even got Laveau on your tree, right?” He nods to Vera. “Certainly been ‘round as long as the Pack, and the only ones older than that are the Lamrian folk.”

“— Local fae colony,” interrupts Nik lowly, “we’ll talk about it later. Just know it was here before the city was even settled.”

“So you’ve got roots here, is that a big thing?” Taylor asks — would rather hear it from her than yet another secondhand account of something else. He’s getting far too many of those.

When Vera finally answers her hands are folded in her lap. The picture of politeness if not for the shining fear in her eyes.

“What you need to understand, Tay, is that the Reimonenq name used’ta belong to all who practiced under the coven. Eventually the coven became jus’ family so it didn’t really matter, but you won’t find anyone born and bred here who doesn’t know the name — and fear it.

“And she’s used that her whole life — my whole life — to build this awful, cruel mockery of an empire.”

“‘She’ being Lady Smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“Lady Smoke being your mother.”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom; Lady Smoke. The big bad everyone talks about like she’s a boogieman story — the woman who sent what basically amounted to hitmen to kidnap our friend for standing up to her and keeping Cal’s brother from getting mauled.”

He’s not saying it to be cruel, though Vera winces at every injustice like she personally signed off on it. Taylor’s just… a little out of his element. More so than usual.

“How many times does the girl gotta tell you, Rook? Yes.” Ryder’s knee knocks against his under the table. It’s enough to draw him from his factual-overload stupor; only just.

“So she’s — what — a witch? Wait — does that make you a witch?”

Witches, werewolves, and vampires; oh my.

Before Vera can open her mouth to answer their game is brought to a halt by the arrival of a familiar suit-clad asshole. And he’s got friends. This time Taylor pays close attention and watches the pain Vera stomachs in order to put on a brave, almost commanding atmosphere.

“We’re a little busy here. And we’d like some privacy.”

The henchman’s upper lip curls at the sight of Ryder — a grimace he only barely tosses aside as he answers Vera; “You can finish up your game of Go-Fish later. Lady Smoke requests your presence, Miss Reimonenq. And the presence of your… guests.”

“She can’t just summon me. I’m not one of her lackeys.”

“That may be — but you are under Lady Smoke’s protection. Or did you forget what you agreed to when you broke onto the floor last night?”

Taylor’s teeth grit painfully. “Back off, you soggy cockwaffle.”

“Tay —” her touch on his arm is gentle; appreciative, if concerned, “— hon’… he’s not wrong, okay? No matter how much I wish he were.”

“So much for bein’ the runaway…” Cal mutters under his breath.

“Lady Smoke doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

And he probably can’t pull his bully-type shit with Vera, not without some serious consequences whether there’s family tension or not, so there’s no missing the sick sense of satisfaction he gets in yanking Taylor’s chair practically out from under him.

Lucky him that Taylor isn’t unfamiliar with childish bullying tactics. He just expected people to grow out of them once they left high school.

Unlike before their goon leads the way rather than corralling them at the back. Gives them the chance to talk in hushed and hurried whispers because they’re being led fast.

“Magic — real magic — is something we’re born with; a gift we can’t give back no matter how badly we want to.” Vera continues hastily; “Yes, I’m a witch. And I ain’t proud of it, not like my mother is. I’ve spent my whole life tryin’ to get away from her and our curse.”

“And that meant running away to New York.”

“I could have run farther but… I refused to let her dictate where I was going to be. How I was going to live my life.”

That’s something he can definitely understand — but Vera’s actions are singing a different tune than her words. “If you hate her so much then why are you here? Why’d you go to her?”

“Because —”

“Because whatever was huntin’ you guys that night scared ya enough to look to the most powerful woman in the city for help.”

Nik doesn’t interrupt with a question — sounds so sure of himself. But Taylor’s ready to hear Vera out, really he is, until she suddenly can’t look him in the eyes.

It had been a whole other side of her; but Taylor had chocked it up to fear. Fear could make people do crazy things — like hide in walled-off cemeteries.

Finally Vera chokes out wetly; “Yes.”

The suit stops them in front of a closed door.

Nik reaches out and grabs Vera — holds fast despite how she jerks away. Leans in to whisper something so quiet Taylor has to step in himself in order to hear it.

“You know what it was, don’t you?”

“I-I —” stammers Vera.

“What was it?”

“I don’t…”

“This ain’t just about you anymore. Now quick, before they —”

“In.”

It’s too late. Judging by Cal’s look of apology he tried his best to give them as much time as they could but the door’s open and they’re out of time.

“We’re not done.” Ryder growls into Vera’s ear; lets her go before the suit decides he doesn’t want to ask a second time. The touch he lands on Taylor’s middle back is far kinder, coaxes him forward and through the awaiting doorway.

He doesn’t have much of a choice but to follow. Still throws a look back to Vera as she wipes away the smallest tear and puts up all the walls she needs to follow them inside.

“You didn’t need to be so harsh.” Taylor hisses at him.

“Sometimes there ain’t much of a choice.”

There was this time, Taylor’s about to say, when the literal fog obscuring the room beyond clears as though it’s been waiting for their arrival to part. Lady Smoke’s a witch, he remembers.

So maybe it was.

The ambiance of the back room is the same as the front — the only difference being the smoke that clings to their ankles and obscures the rug at their feet.

Off to one side a large couch curves in a wide semi-circle. Relief washes over him at the sight of Cadence and Katherine sitting close together with drinks in their hands; the honey-amber of Katherine’s bourbon catches the light in a way the contents of Cadence’s tumbler doesn’t. He’s content not to think too hard about what’s inside.

But for all their supposed relaxation the pair are stiff — tense. Their ease and touching outer thighs more about keeping close for safety rather than enjoyment. Katherine’s smile isn’t her usual teasing; instead rather strained. A grimace wearing an ill-fitting mask.

At the other end of the room rests a large desk — the kind Taylor might imagine a CEO would buy never to use and only to show off. But the papers and folders spread in a kind of organized chaos across the finished wood tell a different story; one of a business that never stops working.

The woman in the high-backed leather chair behind it is Lady Smoke without a doubt. Not just because he can see the resemblance to Vera — a family chin, the creases in her forehead decades ahead of her daughter’s; a living vision of what’s to come — either.

She emanates power in the way Kristof did. Control, dominance by birthright without mistake. The aura of someone who was meant for powerful things from the moment they entered the world; where the only thing left up to choice was how they planned on using it.

The gloves are pretty much a dead giveaway, too. Black lacework on golden fabric. She matches the den outside the way the sun matches the solar system; she sits at its heart and lets the rest revolve around her because it has no choice.

An unnervingly familiar wheeze of a voice catches him off-guard; probably for the best with the way he was staring.

“Well well well, justice for Meerl!”

Meerl cuts a scrawny figure between them and Lady Smoke. Tap-tapping his long claw-like nails together with the same smarmy grin as last night — only this time with a harsh red line of purpling pressure around his skinny throat.

Beside Taylor, Ryder’s laugh is nothing short of utterly shameless. “Nice choker you got there, Meerl. It’s a great look on you, really.”

His laughter incites a bloated face of rage in the con-goblin. “You mock Meerl?!”

“Was I not bein’ obvious about it?”

“Pissy—pissface—pissant Nighthunter! Meerl will—!”

“He will do nothing until he is told.”

There’s a touch of gravel to Lady Smoke’s voice. She doesn’t shout because she doesn’t have to — because the moment her lips part the only thing that matters is what she has to say.

Especially to Meerl given the way he backs off, cowers like his nightmares are coming to life.

It must be a reputation thing, Taylor concludes. Because she’s definitely the more-badass-and-less-fictional version of Don Corleone — no doubt. But for nothing but a sentence to get that kind of reaction? It’s almost satirical.

“Meerl apologizes, Lady Smoke,” the urchin cowers with every word, “the Lady knows Meerl does nothing Meerl is not told to do.”

But he might as well be talking to thin air the way she addresses him. Not at all. Because he’s no longer important to her — for the moment at least. Not now that Vera steps up from behind Taylor while the door closes behind them.

Immediately Smoke’s face softens; a shine in her eye, what she probably thinks is tender warmth in her half-smile. What people who can’t love must think love looks like as an expression.

“Vera, baby girl, you —”

The nickname makes Vera cringe. “I told you not to call me that.” She’s probably the only person who could get away with interrupting the mob boss and leave alive.

“Vee —”

“No, mother; no names but my own.”

Smoke’s brow twitches but her frustration is well-corralled. “Very well, Vera.”

“Where do you get off on demandin’ to see me like this? Or makin’ your wardens bully my friends into coming with?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with the troublemakers at Persephone?”

There’s nothing familial about their exchange but Smoke still manages to make Vera feel like a scolded child. Ducked head and eyes searching for a spot on the carpet — but hindered by the fog.

“You know I don’t like non-answers, Vera.” Smoke presses, but Vera doesn’t yield. Earns them all a heavy sigh while Smoke leans forward and folds her hands together atop an open date book. “Lucky for you, girl, I know all I need to on account of how helpful our friend Meerl has been.

“See, he knew I’d take care of everything — but I can’t fix what I don’t know is broke. And would you believe he was the only one to tell me about the unfortunate situation of the fights before morning?”

The goblin practically preens — likely taking her words as praise.

“The Lady knows Meerl only wants what is best for the Lady’s business, of course.”

“Especially if it keeps his ugly hide from getting flayed alive?”

The haughtiness of Ryder’s tone doesn’t have an ounce of remorse. Not even when it drags the almost golden-yellow of Lady Smoke’s eyes to him. Resting with the full weight of her frustration just below the poised surface.

“You never cease to surprise, do you Mister Ryder?” she croons.

“‘Dunno what you’re talkin’ about; predictable’s my middle name.”

“If that were the case you wouldn’t have been waist-deep in my affairs at Persephone.”

“And here I thought I was building a reputation for stickin’ my nose in other peoples business.”

“This ain’t just anyone’s business, though, is it?”

It hasn’t occurred to Taylor until just now that Kristof and the Jensen Pack may not be the only big-wigs in New Orleans that Ryder has crossed. Luckily it seems like a distant familiarity though. A mutual respect; and an unspoken threat on both sides to stay out of one another’s way.

And now Ryder’s gone and drawn first blood — er, well, metaphorically speaking.

Oh this could be bad. This could be very very bad.

Only the ice in her tone seems to have the opposite of the intended effect. Makes Ryder stand up straighter with his jaw clenched tight, his words a snarl that makes even Cal blink in surprise.

“If I’d a’known you were in the business of pimpin’ out kids for your cash fights, Smoke, I would’ve gotten involved a lot sooner. You can bet on that.”

The color drains out of Vera’s cheeks. Catches her torn between looking at her mother for any kind of denial and, finding none, unable to face the truth without feeling like she’s about to wretch.

“Momma, you didn’t…”

“Don’t you start that now, Vera.”

“But a kid?”

Smoke stands with her fingertips spread and pressed into her desk. Her sigh carries a visible weight in her shoulders. It’s heavy for sure but if it isn’t the burden of guilt then whatever she’s feeling means fuck-all to him.

“The Lowell boy was betting with money that wasn’t his. On top of that — he thought he could swindle my hard-earning regulars without consequence. Sometimes they have to learn young.

“You’d know that, baby girl, if you hadn’t left.”

Tears well up, misting over Vera’s eyes. But its an incredible feat of willpower that keeps her from shedding them — that lets her choke them down. Certainly not the first, and likely not the last.

“Don’t you dare play it off like you were trying to parent my kid brother.” Only then does Lady Smoke actually notice Cal. Cal with his face flush with fury and canines bared; Cal with his eyes as yellow as the gold the mob boss wraps herself in.

“Mister Ryder; I suggest you rein your feral friend in a tad.”

Nik throws his hands up. “No way.”

There’s a very well in the roll of her eyes. Has her walking around her desk with a lush black velvet cape trailing at her modest heels.

“You must be Cal.”

“What the hell gave you that idea?”

“Then I will tell you the same thing I told your fledgling con artist brother. It’s an old saying — perhaps you’ve heard of it. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Smoke stands there, haughty and higher than them all — even as Cal roars “You callous bitch!” and makes for her ready to draw blood. And a lot of it.

Whatever witchy-mojo she has must be fucking powerful even if Taylor can’t feel it. All it takes is Smoke’s raised hand and even Nik holds his breath.

“You had posters,” the wolf seethes, “locked him in a cage like he was an animal!”

“Your brother had racked up quite a debt.”

“He’s just a boy!”

“Enough!”

When the gloves come off — literally in Lady Smoke’s case — all hell breaks loose.

Taylor looks around wildly, feels himself being pulled back on two sides — catches the first and likely only time Vera and Nik are of the same mind. Backing him up against a wall-length bookshelf so hard he knocks a few volumes on their sides.

For the first time since they arrived Cadence is sprung to action. Holds Cal back with a firm hand but keeps his distance from the witch and her exposed skin. The same look of cautious fear in his eyes as he had in the cage.

And at the couch, their drinks forgotten and seeping into the rich upholstery, Katherine aims a familiar-looking gun dead between Smoke’s eyes. Completely disregarding the also-familiar sister weapons now aimed at her from across the room.

Now would be the opportune moment for the main character to leap out in the middle of the fray and convince everyone to calm down; to shout “Nobody needs to get hurt tonight — we’re all on the same side!” or some other amount of crap that would be the bare minimum in getting everyone to see the bigger picture.

Ha — no thanks. No way is he getting mixed in with a vampire who tore a Minotaur to shreds, more guns than should legally be allowed in the same room, and whatever danger Smoke’s manicure ignites.

Nope. See, the best he can figure is there’s a reason Vera and Nik were so hasty to pull his only-a-threat-after-a-ton-of-spicy-food ass out of the crossfire. And that’s good enough for him.

Only when everyone’s stayed statuesque-still for the better part of a minute does Cadence pull back — away from Lady Smoke, eying her palms with the same look Vera’s giving the guns.

“Enough,” he repeats and is no less forceful, “enough of this, Tonya. You force me here, you force others — innocents — here, all for this flagrant abuse of your power? I settled the Lowell pup’s debt. You and I are even and he’s out of your cross-hairs.”

“So you’ve been saying, Smith,” — so why doesn’t she sound like she’s content to agree? — “but I don’t recall agreeing to your commerce de dettes. As it is not the place of they who owe to decide what is suitable payment.”

“You may be speaking of Dominic Lowell, but the same could be said for you.”

Smoke curls her fingers in the air; reminds Taylor of spider legs.

But Cadence has to be right or she’d have thrown back a snide retort instead of the silent treatment given.

Finally she speaks but her answer is strained. “We never outlined the terms and conditions of that particular contract.”

“Because I know better than to get something in writing with you. I may not know much but I certainly know that.”

“I cannot let this abide, Smith. Actions must be made; consequences for those who would publicly challenge the safety I provide this town —”

Maybe there’s more for her to say but she doesn’t get the chance. Not at the disgusted noise that comes off to Taylor’s right — nor the bewildered look Lady Smoke throws their way. Only when she throws up her pointed finger like a gun instead of a stern mother’s tool does Vera make the noise again.

“‘Safety,’” now she actually sounds the part of the witch, too, with her curled upper lip and fists trembling at her sides, “you’re gonna dare stand there in front’a me and call New Orleans safe? After what I told you was after me?!”

Taylor’s glad he’s between them when Ryder turns a murderous flush of violet.

“Now is not the time to air our family grievances, Vera.”

“You did know.” Taylor whispers. Loud enough for Vera to hear, to flinch and hug her arms around herself. Looking the same measure of scared and young and vulnerable as she did that night. “You—you do. Know; what it is. You know.”

She nods.

“Why didn’t you say?” When Ryder asked, when we locked eyes under Persephone, before Kristin and I jumped over the wall and to our deaths. “Why didn’t you help?”

“I didn’t wanna be right.”

Tonya raises her voice, tries to speak over her daughter. “Vera, this is not the way.”

“How the hell would you know, mom?!” she lashes out a sob, “You’re content to hide here and pretend everyone’s safe when they aren’t?!”

“You’re safe, baby girl, that’s all I care about.”

“Well I ain’t that selfish.”

It’s taking everything in her to not choke; lose her nerve. “If I’d known you spent all this time thinking it was after you, Taylor, I’d’ve told you sooner. I swear I didn’t mean for Cookie to get hurt — you neither. I thought when I split that you’d be safe.”

“Wait — back up. You think this thing is after you?” Nik interrupts, surprised.

“Not another word Vera Claire Reimonenq, so help me God.”

Ice-cold demeanor finally melted, some version of the real Tonya Reimonenq shines through in the crack in her voice. In the way she bites her bottom lip so hard it might burst like the vein in her temple might burst.

Taylor just doesn’t get why everyone is suddenly so freaked out about the way her hand is held aloft at Cadence’s neck. One deep bob of his Adam’s Apple away from choking the life out of the undead.

Katherine the opportunist takes the stunned pause to aim instead at Vera. Passes the barrel of the gun over Taylor’s chest and this is now officially too many times in the same week his life has flashed before his eyes and been less-than satisfying.

“Back. off. Smoke.” The huntress orders.

Cadence resists swallowing — painfully so.

Time to finally take the hint and get as scared as the rest of them it seems.

“You even think about pulling that trigger — you know what I’ll do to him.”

Katherine’s laugh is an unfeeling thing. Like a whole different woman stands before them — someone used to carrying the gun, to doing what needs to be done.

“And the payday of a lifetime goes down the drain, sure,” but her finger doesn’t stop caressing just shy of the pressure point, “but I’ll always find another. Don’t think the same can be said about a daughter, though.”

“Katherine —”

“Shut up, Nik. I let you do your stupid shit. My turn.”

Taylor’s one stupid heroically-inclined thought from stepping in front of Vera when she speaks up; “Stop it, momma. Just — stop it. Too many people been hurt already.

“Too many more’ll be, too, if we don’t try to get help.”

“You think they’ll help us? The whole city will turn their backs on us — make sure we’re the ones who suffer instead of them!”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know them!”

“Stop being so damn naive!”

Voices, tensions rising. Arms wavering with the weight of their weapons and sweat beading like the first of so many bullets down everyone’s backs; their brows.

It’s not the heroic, main character thing to say but that doesn’t stop Taylor from feeling really good about it when he finally shouts —

“Will someone please just say what the literal flippity fuck is out there?!”

“A bloodwraith!”

The way Vera covers her mouth he half expects to see blood dripping down her chin to stain her blouse. Her tongue bit off as divine — or supernatural — retribution for her admission.

Not that that’s the case. In fact he’s left feeling a little bit like he was denied some grand climax.

So he does what he always does — because this other, darker world seems to exist to make him look absolutely ridiculous in how little he knows — he looks to Nik for the textbook entry he’s missing.

“And a ‘bloodwraith’ would be…?”

“Trouble, Rook…”

Lady Smoke’s pulling her gloves back on. The gun hangs limp at Kathy’s side. Even the biggest bully of the henchmen looks ready to wet himself. There’s nothing reassuring about Cadence’s slow nod of realization — the way the natural enemies vampire and werewolf share a look of ‘well hell.’

Sometimes it’s not a rallying cry that gets opposing forces to work together. Sometimes fear is more than enough.

And the way Nik pulls him in close, hugs him with one strong arm like he’s already a dead man walking? That’s… uh… that’s pretty damn fearful.

“— It’s really, really big trouble.”

#nightbound #choices nb #playchoices #nik ryder #cal lowell #nik ryder x mc #vera reimonenq #katherine nightbound #oc: cadence smith #nightbound mc #mc: taylor hunter #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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cooperhewitt · 4 years

Text

I Need a Drink…

And so did millions of Americans when Prohibition was repealed at the end of 1933. Perhaps it might be better to say a legal drink? Alcohol consumption for the thirteen years after the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment had by no means stopped. In basements of brownstones and behind backroom doors, a generation of Americans gathered in “speakeasies” to illicitly drink. Buoyed by a post-war economic boom, this generation reveled in the rebellious act that set them apart from the social and moral conservative movements that led to the passing of Prohibition.

Cocktails became a staple of speakeasy culture. The liquor most available during probation was of poor quality and high proof, the result of illegal, and thus unregulated, distilling operations. To make these contraband liquors more palatable, bartenders added different bitters, juices, and sweeteners inventing many of the most iconic modern cocktails.[1]

When Prohibition ended, cocktail culture moved from the speakeasy to the living room through the newly popular buffet party. This novel, and particularly modern, form of hosting embraced and domesticated the growing informality of 1920s youth culture. Rather than undergo all the formalities—and, for that matter, costs—of a traditional seated dinner and its required accoutrements, hosts would set tables with pre-made fixings and pre-shaken cocktails for guests to pick at as they please while mingling throughout the room. This change in cultural practice was as much practical, as it was stylish. It was a less expensive way of hosting as the effects of the Great Depression became increasingly felt by middle class households.[2]

To capitalize on this growing market of informal hosting ware, many companies turned to modern designers to provide an appropriately modern look to this modern form of hosting. The Manhattan Cocktail Shaker is a perfect example of this. Designed by the American, Norman Bel Geddes, the simple cylinder-like form of the chrome-plated shaker conveys a sense of modernist efficiency—one paralleled by the efficiency of the buffet party. The title of the service and the stepped edge of the tray make unambiguous allusions to the decidedly modern urban landscape of New York City. Finally, despite its industrial form, the tall stemmed coup glasses suggest a refined and polite form of alcohol consumption suitable for a domestic party that differed from the Prohibition years. As Kristina Wilson writes, “These stems presume a carful user—a person who can drink with dignity and protect their fragile form through responsible behavior.”[3]

Devon Zimmerman is a graduate curatorial research fellow in the Product Design and Decorative Arts Department at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park.

[1] Kristina Wilson, “‘The Happiest Party in Town’: Cocktail Accessories and American Culture, 1945‒1965,” in Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920‒1980, ed. Joanne Dolan Ingersoll (Providence, RI: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2011), 70.

[2] Kristina Wilson, Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design during the Great Depression (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 83‒84.

[3] Wilson, “‘The Happiest Party in Town’,” 72.

from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum https://ift.tt/38ffKHb via IFTTT

#cooper hewitt #design conversations

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fullmetalscullyy · 5 years

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my inferno - chapter 1

summary: singer riza hawkeye has the gig of a lifetime at a new high end bar that's recently opened up in central - a passion project of roy mustang's, the poster boy for central city records - which opens up a whole lot of new avenues for both their careers and personal lives

rated: t | words: 2781

an: yo so ya gal is back with another fic but this one will be pure happiness and fluff I SWEAR. i've been wanting to do one like this for aaaages (that's what "let you love me" was supposed to be lmao) so it's finally here. there's no ~royai relationship~ angst, but riza's backstory will get explored which will obvs have angst in it

read on ao3 or ffnet

The bar was busy tonight – a regular occurrence but still a constant worry in Roy Mustang’s mind. His newest venture was working out well, but he’d been in the game too long to let it get his hopes up. A good start was all well and good, but he’d need to retain these customers in order to maintain his success. This bar was a passion project of his and he didn’t want to ruin it.

Laughter and chatter filled the space. The bar itself was packed as people conversed and as others tried to buy their drinks. Every table was filled, all the seats taken, and people milled about in the free space in between, celebrating the end of the week with their friends and co-workers.

Seeing it with his own eyes and feeling the atmosphere of the place soothed his fears and he let loose a long breath, a smile spreading across his face.

He was so happy this was working out.

Ignis was a higher end bar in Central, the drinks a little more expensive than what the regular person would spend, however it was expected in the capital of the country. Roy himself wanted his bar to be open and attract everyone, but due to the location it wasn’t possible. Until it was well established, he would need to cater to a particular clientele, and in turn those rich kids would keep his dream alive. He was thankful, but until he could cater to all – not just the higher end of society – then Roy wouldn’t class this as a success.

Roy scanned the bar from the balcony outside his office. The décor was modern and minimalistic. Black tiled floors and white walls was the main theme of the bar. The ceiling was open, showing the pipes and lighting wires in the ceiling. The lights hung low over the black topped tables and matching chairs, the lampshades white but the bulbs inside were dulled at the moment, giving off a cosy feeling. They could change colour to whatever Roy wished them to, but for now the dull amber light was perfect – and his favourite. There were candles on every table as well but were unlit at this time of night. Tipsy customers and fire decidedly would not mix well, even if the name of the place was Latin for fire.

The bar itself had a black tiled front with a black marble top. It ran the length of the wall opposite the door and he watched as his staff effortlessly moved around one another to pour drinks and serve customers. They each laughed with those they were serving, and Roy felt a surge of pride inside him. He wanted to be known for having staff like that – those that would welcome anyone and act like a friend to those who entered.

“What’s up man?” a voice asked, clapping Roy on the back. Maes Hughes grinned at him from his right, setting his forearms on the chrome railing that surrounded the balcony to mirror Roy’s stance. He looked down on the space below.

“Hey, Maes.”

“How’s it going?”

Roy let out a breath. “Good,” he replied sincerely. “Really good. Everyone seems happy, the bar is busy, so… yeah. Good.”

“You are a natural born wordsmith, my friend.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been stuck in that office all day responding to emails and making phone calls. Excuse me if I’m not up to par on my conversational skills after talking for the last right hours.”

“I’m surprised. You seem to love the sound of your own voice I thought you’d be used to speaking for so long by now,” Maes joked, laughing loudly when Roy elbowed him in response.

“The live music is organised for tonight,” Maes revealed. He turned to face Roy, crossing his arms and popping his hip to rest it on the railing. “I managed to pull in a last-minute favour.”

“You’re the best, Maes, thank you.” His act for tonight had pulled out two hours ago and Roy’s bar was the only place in the city known for its live music every weekend – Friday to Sunday. He’d only been open a month and didn’t want that weekly tradition to be slipping already.

“Now, the act is… slightly different from your usual music, but I think you’ll like it.”

“That’s fine with me, I’m open to anything,” Roy revealed. “As long as the people like it, I’ll be happy.”

Maes grinned. “Excellent. I’ve been told she’s fantastic.”

“Does “she” have a name?” Roy asked, amused.

“Riza Hawkeye. No band, just one woman and a guitar. Not well known but I heard a sample of her material that the manager passed along and –” Maes whistled low showing his appreciation. “She is fucking good.”

“I’ll take your word for it. There’s a reason you’re the head of live music,” Roy grinned. “You’ve got a good ear for his stuff.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he bowed before laughing and leaning against the railing again. “I know,” he sighed, as if his “gift” was a burden. “It’s a tough life listening to good music all day.”

“I’ll bet,” Roy smiled wryly.

“I need to get going. I promised Gracia I’d be home before nine o’clock for once in my life and I intend to stick to it.”

“Go for it, man. I won’t keep you.” The poor guy had been a saint helping Roy with his opening and keeping the business afloat for the last month. It was about time he earned a break. “Take tomorrow and Sunday off too. I’ll be here anyway so there’s no point in both of us being in.”

Maes clapped him on the shoulder again, thanking him. “Have a good one, Roy.”

“You too, Maes. I’ll catch you later.”

After Maes left and after one last cursory glance over the busy bar, Roy returned to his office and shut down his computer. He’d spent too long looking at that damned screen all day and he wanted to get out there and enjoy the live music and the atmosphere of his own bar. Those remaining five emails that were calling to him could wait until tomorrow afternoon when he would be back in.

“Hey, Roy!” Jean Havoc called to him with a grin from behind the bar. He lifted a glass in greeting, bringing it down to fill it with a pint of beer for a customer in front of him. He said something to the man who grinned and laughed in response. Jean beamed at him, slinging his dishtowel across his shoulder across his shoulder while turning his attention to his boss. “What can I get you?”

“Kraken and coke,” Roy replied, entering behind the bar with the rest of his staff.

“Coming right up!” He effortlessly poured the drink, not wasting a drop of rum as he poured the shot then transferred it to a glass. The man was an artist with his ability to create drinks. His cocktails were part of what made the place kind of famous. The designs he could create even baffled Roy. He had no idea how Havoc did it.

He glanced at the clock, noting it was five minutes to nine. Roy stepped into the kitchen behind the bar and turned the music low, signalling tonight’s act would be starting soon. The murmur died down for a few moments before being replaced by a more excited aura.

Roy felt pride surge inside him once more. All his hard work had paid off and it had all led to moments like this. He was no stranger to success in his life, but seeing this idea finally come to fruition after years of hard work and delays was infinitely more satisfying than any of his previous success.

He retrieved his drink from Jean and at nine o’clock he turned the music off in the back completely. His skin prickled in excited anticipation as it always did once a new act came to perform at his bar. Normally he would listen to their stuff beforehand, but this had been way too last minute and if Maes Hughes – once one of the most prolific talent scouts in music – said the act was good, then the act was good. He hadn’t even said this Riza woman was good, he said she was fucking good and that put her way up in his estimation.

A woman stepped out from behind the black curtain behind the stage to the left of the bar. She had her acoustic guitar in tow, her long blonde hair falling in front of her face as she organised her set and made herself comfortable in the chair he offered the acts. The chatter had died down as some watched expectantly – Roy included.

* * *

“Where is this place again, Becca?” Riza asked as her oldest friend and manager ushered her rather quickly into her car. Apparently, Rebecca had found her a last-minute gig for the night, and it started in less than an hour. Riza lived on the outskirts of Central and they would have to book it across town to make in time. She was already bracing herself for a ride with her eyes closed. If she couldn’t see her friend’s manic driving in Friday night traffic, then her anxiety wouldn’t play up and she wouldn’t begin to fear for her life. Seriously, it was a wonder Rebecca Catalina hadn’t crashed her car yet.

“It’s called Ignis. The newest and hottest bar in Central right now,” Rebecca revealed with a pleased glint in her eye. “It’s very exclusive, and ya gal has just managed to book you in there,” she grinned.

At the word “exclusive” Riza’s stomach sunk. She faltered in her walk, only to have Rebecca place a hand on her back and firmly keep her moving towards the car. She didn’t want to play “exclusive”. That meant rich kids and stuck up assholes. They wouldn’t be interested in her kind of music. Riza’s palms begun to sweat.

“Wait, exclusive –?”

“It’s just what the papers say,” Rebecca cut her off, waving away her insecurities. “And nobody really pays attention to what they say. It’s just a ploy to get people to go there. It’s all advertising.” Rebecca opened the boot of her car and gestured for Riza to place her guitar case in there quickly and for her to get her butt in the car pronto.

“And what was it called. Ignite?”

“Ignis,” Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You’ve never heard of it?” Riza shook her head, strapping herself into the car. “It’s on Third Street.” Riza’s anxiety kicked back into gear. That was a high-end part of town. He didn’t get much time to dwell on it because Rebecca took off at a breakneck speed and Riza grabbed the handrail above her head for that little bit extra security. “Next to Lizzar’s.”

Riza cocked her head as she racked her brain for a moment. “Didn’t that used to be Velocity?”

“Riza,” Rebecca stated, tone condescending. “Velocity was replaced ten years ago. Since then it’s had two name changes.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. This was news to her. “I… I thought it had always been Velocity…” She trailed off, realising just how much she was digging herself into a hole here. She loved Rebecca, and vice versa, but Riza new she got frustrated with her not-up-to-date-on-anything ways. All her friends did – not that there were many.

“Oh my god, you really do live under a rock,” Rebecca sighed in exasperation.

“I don’t,” Riza huffed, leaning her head on the car window and looking outside. “I’ve just got better things to do than sit and stare at my phone for every minute of every day.”

“Well me staring at my phone every minute of every day got you this job.”

Riza sighed. Rebecca was right. Her tone wasn’t clipped or irritated, just a friendly reminder for Riza that the world was moving on quickly and she needed to catch up. As per usual. Riza liked her lifestyle right now and was pleased she wasn’t a mindless zombie strapped to her phone. She got out into the world and appreciated it for what it was, rather than staring at it through a screen.

As they passed by the front of Ignis Riza felt her stomach sink. She was pleased to see there was a queue already forming outside the bar complete with two bouncers outside, but how many people were actually here to listen to her? She was last minute and not the typical music found at a trendy place like this. Her anxiety returned with a vengeance.

“Who owns this place?” she asked, taking in the black tile behind the silvery-white writing above the entrance. Tiny lights sparkled in the black tile, giving the impression the background was sparkling. It looked really nice, Riza noticed. Not what she expected, which was flashy and gaudy. This place looked classy, nothing like Lizzar’s they just passed next door.

“I don’t know. Some rich dude with glasses?” she shrugged. Rebecca rarely had time for the finer details which made Riza’s life slightly more difficult at times. For one thing, she liked to know the name of the person paying her before she turned up at the venue. That always led to awkward introductions and didn’t exactly leave a good impression.

Rebecca drove and parked around the back, jumping out before the engine was completely off and ushering Riza inside. She barely had time to grab her guitar before Rebecca almost ripped it out her hands and carried it herself. Riza held it protectively against her body and glared at her no-nonsense manager. God, the woman could be infuriating.

“Come on,” she rushed Riza, gesturing for her to hurry up towards the curtain backstage.

“Becca, I don’t think this is a good idea –”

“It will be fine.”

“But they’re not exactly the type for this –”

“Riza.”

“I really think I shouldn’t –”

“Riza,” Rebecca cut in. “We’re out of time. It’s nine o’clock and you’re due on,” Rebecca told her firmly. “We both need the money so get out there and knock ‘em dead. We both know you will.” She smiled encouragingly at Riza and it was needed.

Rebecca could be a pain and pushy at times, but she believed in Riza – more so than herself – and she often forgot that. Rebecca had never steered her wrong before and every gig had been a success so far – despite not being called back yet. She’d only started singing semi-professionally a year ago in between working in the coffee shop below her apartment. It paid the bills and it was what Riza loved. With Rebecca’s help, Riza had become successful. If she said there was nothing to worry about, then there was nothing to worry about.

Riza took a deep breath and steadied her nerves. “Right.”

Rebecca grinned at her, squeezing both her shoulders. “Go out there and show Ignis just how good Riza Hawkeye really it.” Riza rolled her eyes at her friend but passed through the curtain with a grin.

She organised herself on the small stage overlooking the bar. After a quick glance she saw there were already a few people looking at her expectantly. She angled her head so her hair fell in front of her, shielding herself from their gazes.

Steadying her slightly shaking hands, she repeated that she could do this over and over again in her head. Riza took her seat and strummed her guitar, finally looking up and meeting the gazes of the people staring at her. She took a deep breath and let it out in one go.

Her pre-gig ritual was complete.

“Hey everyone,” she greeted into the mic. She cringed at how loud she sounded. She’d always hated hearing herself back, but Riza blocked it out. She couldn’t help but smile as a few people whooped and shouted “yeah!” after her greeting. “It’s good to be here tonight,” she added, strumming her guitar a few more times and tuning it how she liked. “I hope you enjoy my stuff. If not, my manager has ear plugs just for this occasion.” The self-depreciating joke went over well, and more than a few people laughed. It was a lot more than she expected.

“I’ll ease you in slowly,” she told them, adjusting the earpiece so she could hear her guitar better with every strum. “This is a cover of a song that I’ve loved for years. It’s called Ships in the Night. I hope you like it.”

Riza opened her mouth and blocked everything else out, beginning her set of the night.

#royai #royai fic #royai fanfic #royai au #emma writes #my inferno

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purkinje-effect · 5 years

Text

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 40

Table of Contents. Second Instar, Chapter 7. Go to previous. Go to next. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. That’s... not an old fashioned, is it, Liv?

____________________________________

The dark walls, pale carpeting, and little furnishings of the general’s office belied the actual dimensions of the somewhat small space. At her ebony dry bar, General Francis poured the two of them each an old fashioned, with dried rind curls 'Choly imagined were mutfruit. The ghoul placed one in ‘Choly’s gracious hands where he sat, and took hers to her leather office chair opposite the desk. She took a sip and slicked at her side-shaven asymmetrical blonde french twist with a tense sigh.

“Call me Olivia. Please. I hate the rank and pomp of being the last breathing wretch on base. Ghoul or not, I’m still a person, you know?”

‘Choly nearly murmured a whooped and then some. His tongue sneaked against the back of his teeth behind a faint smile. He lingered in the numbness of an iced drink in his palms, and stared into the handcrafted cocktail a little too long before remembering it was for drinking.

“Olivia, it’s... really been just you here for all... or most of this time?” He held the short glass to his cheek, eyes glazing out of focus. “--Gosh, ice. You’ve got a working ice machine.”

“Imagine if you’ve been milling around for a few months now, you’ve come to appreciate most prewar commodities as current day luxuries.” Olivia downed about a third of her drink before setting it down to lace her leathery hands on the desk. “It’s been just me and the robotics fleets for a very long time, yes. I’ve whiled the decades doing maintenance on them all. I consider them a sense of found family. They keep plugging alongside me, and they keep me plugging.”

She drew a cigarette from the silver case on the desktop, and lit it with a gold flip lighter. After taking a deliberate puff, she offered up both with a genial gaze. Not to shy from her hospitality, he nodded and followed suit. A long exhale melted him into a comforted disillusionment.

“It really has been a jarring adjustment. Especially not having soap every day. Menthols and muddled cognac on the rocks. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to coax me into a tough patch.”

“You’ll find a great deal of the amenities on base have been repaired and maintained.” A grin pulled her thin lips across her teeth and she sat back, sustaining eye contact. “Deenwood in every way has kept me busy.”

“And the Rust Devils?” he asked over his sipping. His attentive oily eyes skimmed her wasting features, to skirt the acknowledgement she hadn’t dismissed his supposition. “They’re keeping you even busier?”

“Don’t tell me they’ve expanded operations outside Lowell,” she growled, suddenly furious. “I’ve lost twelve robots to them just this year. Bastards took to the RobCo Towers. It’s a wonder I’ve managed to stay as ahead of them as I have been, further encrypting the Sentry Bots and Assaultrons especially. And the front doors, of course.” When he watched her expectantly, she snorted through another slug of her cocktail. “RobCo Towers was the company’s home base for Pip-Boy development and manufacture.”

“Encrypted the... front doors?” He frowned thoughtfully, somewhat distant. “Aside from confrontation with a Mister Gutsy, I didn’t have any trouble getting on premises.”

“Your bars have RFID encryption technology in them.” With a sneer, she pointed her smoke hand at his Pharm Corps coat. “The system’s biometric scanners have a two-factor screening process. You were smart enough, to turn up in enough of your uniform, to look the part of an officer--and lucky enough, to still be human enough, for the system to be able to match your genetic scan. Honestly, when I heard an officer had made it on base, I thought the Rust Devils might have figured out a way to sheepskin their way in here.”

“I guess it is a bit of luck, that my service uniform survived all this time. It’s one of the few belongings I still have. I don’t recognize the flavor of these bitters, but damn if this isn’t smooth cognac.”

Olivia topped off his glass with more cognac from the decanter on her desk, which he accepted greedily.

“The licorice, or the mint? It’s some East Central Commonwealth label. I like it well enough. These days, you tend to take what you can get your hands on. The cognac, though. That’s my favorite.” She shrugged in the direction of her liquor cabinetry, uninvested in getting up to scrutinize the exact identity of the liqueur. “Don’t discount, either, that you still have your Handy. A lot of my maintenance on Deenwood’s robots hasn’t just been to keep them running. It’s so they can continue defending themselves, and stay out of raider hands. To this day I haven’t determined a more effective approach than to be proactive. They just keep trying.”

Angel had stayed out in the hall to chat with robots it hadn’t seen in two hundred years.

“I wouldn’t be alive right now, if Angel weren’t with me. I know that much.” ‘Choly picked the desiccated rind curl out of his drink and chewed at it. “I’ve had my run-in already with raiders myself. I’ve half a mind to think Lexington’s still on fire because of me. Ha!”

Her dark eyes wilded, more punch-drunk from delivery than she was from the spirits.

“You can’t just drop that on me and leave it.”

His sheepishness poorly contained how oddly tickled he felt then by such a traumatic experience. Unmistakably, the physical condition of his company had everything to do with his craving to impress.

“After I came out of the vault outside Concord, I holed up in the Walden Drugs in Lexington. I got along with the raiders in the Corvega factory for a few months. They... pushed me around, and I... I.” A self-conscious grin tugged at him, unable to tell if the modus operandi were appropriate to divulge. He noticed he’d let the cherry fall off his unattended cigarette onto the leg of his Vault Suit. He brushed away the ashes and deposited the half-smoked thing in the crescent shaped ashtray. “...In so many words, I overdosed their leader on opiates. So they Molotov cocktailed the pharmacy while I was asleep, and chased me out of town.”

Olivia’s head kicked back in a sharp, barking cackle, and she only calmed herself enough to start on a fresh cigarette.

“Sounds like you’re more uniquely suited to the Wastelander life than you give yourself credit for. And believe me when I tell you, you don’t have to skirt talking about CM anymore. It hasn’t been restricted to your pay grade for a hundred eighty years, and the DIA’s bit the dust just like the rest of the government proper.”

‘Choly’s face slacked in culpability. He avoided eye contact a tic, and set down his half-finished half-cocktail to fold his hands under his legs.

“I’m proud of the way I’ve adapted Syringer rifle darts. CM’s... surprisingly versatile weaponized.”

She gave him a sleazy, approving grin when he admitted what she’d intuited.

“I don’t remember that we got along all that well back in the day, but damn if I’m not glad to see you. Not speaking ill of my chrome family, but I don’t get to see a flesh and body face all too often these days. It’s not going to be easy for you to get back out, now that you’re in, I’m afraid. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Maybe after you get some rest and think on it, we can form some kind of a game plan to deal with these assholes down the street once and for all?”

Struck dumb that she’d not torn into him for what he’d done with his military intelligence, he sat frozen at length. He found himself staring at the chrome Pip-Boy on her left wrist, vaguely nagged by his inability to identify the model. Her proposition soaked into him slowly, and he picked his drink back up to work on finishing it. He sucked on an ice cube and feigned anything but total adoration.

“You said that the residential block got hit hard by the fallout. Is... any of it still standing?”

“Most of it, yeah. But it wasn’t prepped to shield that heavy a rad barrage, is what I meant. The rads have since aired out of the majority of the lot. You’ve got your pick of any townhouse on the lot, except mine.” She straightened, drawn back to reality a ways. “There’s just the one thing. Only drink or wash in the water from the compound. Residential plumbing still runs for the most part, but you’re a smoothskin. Don’t risk the rads.”

He choked on the acknowledgement of the fundamental difference between the two of them with a nervous chuckle. The supposition she might be immune to radiation titillated him.

“...About that. I’ve... come across a good number of ghouls since I woke up. But you’re the first fully rational one I’ve met. I think I’m only now finally understanding what people meant when they called a ghoul feral.”

Olivia gave him an uncomfortable grimace.

“Fortunately, you won’t have to deal with ferals on base. Deenwood is monstrously secure, so nothing can get in. They make me a might bit skittish myself. Don’t like the thought of encounters with them being only a bubble off looking in a mirror. Anyway...” She cleared her throat to punctuate that she’d noticed just how much he’d been caught staring, and he flinched. “Enough nightmare talk. We have an early morning of it. I still keep military hours, even though I’m the only non-robot here. Makes the robots happy, so it makes me happy. Habits die hard.”

“--Don’t they ever. I’m just glad that, now that I’m back, we’re not right back glued to cooking up CM and testing formulations on soldiers. Chase’s R&D’s the nightmare talk for me.”

She topped off her glass one more time, and ate her dried cherry.

“No, we’re far past that now, aren’t we?” Olivia rose and ushered him out of her office, meeting objection. “Imagine you don’t need me to show you around, even two hundred years later. The Gutsies and Handies can help you, if you’ve forgotten your way. I typically stay close to the Robotics wing, if you need me. We’ll meet back here at, say, oh-six? That’s plenty of time for breakfast first, mm?”

His head slurried with him standing. He glanced at his Pip-Boy. Already seven o’clock. He gave her an uncertain but obeisant nod with a little too much rattle in it, too cowardly to press her continued company.

“Goodnight, Carey.”

He stopped her from pushing the heavy paneled wooden door shut, and he continued holding out his arm a good ways after doing so, tottering on his feet.

“I, you. You said you prefer to be called Olivia. I’ve made a bit of a name for myself in the past few months.” She looked to him with attentive fatigue. “Melancholy. ...‘Choly.”

After thinking on it a moment, she patted him on the cheek.

“Really rings what’s survived of your accent. Goodnight, Melancholy.”

The door clicked shut, and he heard it lock.

When Angel didn’t come up on its own, he belted out an insistent, deep whistle that cut down the corridor both ways. And he waited to be escorted... home. He shuddered, and couldn’t quite say why.

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