“I’m not entirely sure..” She remembered her friends or ex friends setting her up but the rest was a blur. “But I’m actually enjoying myself, it’s nice.” Emerald eyes wandered up to the waitress that stood by their table. She nodded her head towards him. “No, not a vegetarian.” Tauriel waited for her to leave to answer his question. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, being a cop was actually pretty boring, it was mostly paperwork and sitting around. “It wasn’t bad for being a cop.” She smiled and threaded her fingers together in her lap. “Though I did get to handcuff a guy today.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What do you do for a living?”
“Not the most interesting of tasks.” He distracted himself with the folding of the napkin, placing his silverware in a methodical and compulsive manner. Bard flickered his vision back to Tauriel, he mustn’t be rude now. It was his unsettled mood, that was all. “Especially compared to a dashing cop like you–” He flashed her a rather overdone smile, laughing at the end of it. “Does that work? When you pull people over for speeding, and they bat their lashes away, even though they are not innocent at all?”
"I work in a brokerage right now. Insurance,“ he said to clarify, as it was a part of life that people usually did not care too much for until something happened. "Sometimes I need the aid of the police, if something catastrophic occurs, but I hadn’t the liberty of running into you yet in our workfields."
Kili jumps when he hears someone call out. This couldn’t end well. Maybe they would try and mug him, not that he had anything left. He eyes the man suspiciously. “I am fine.” He says, his voice sounding fairly rough as he spoke. “I was just… going to my… brothers house.” He lies through his teeth.
He can’t help but continue to be suspicious. He was raised around people who always seemed to back stab him. To add onto the lie he gives the man a large smile. “Never been better. Wished it was a bit warmer out. Can’t stand the cold.”
His brow rose with a well-acted quirk, steady as the other was seemingly not. His hands are deep into his pockets, a faint shadow of the man’s words because heck, yes. It is miserably cold. “And how far off is your brother’s house?” There weren’t many houses around this area, mostly worn down apartments and shoddy motels. If for no other reason, Bard was suspicious because of this, and how dodgy he was acting.
“Look, I’m not here to hurt you… Or rob you, I’m not interested in none of that. Seriously, are you okay? Do you need me to call a cab or something for you?”
“—and tell me why it is that my coffee tastes like shit this morning? Have you magically forgotten the precise amount of sugar and cream that I indulge in?”
Voice irritable, eyebrows drawn together, a scowl dusting the pink of his lips—Thran gestured towards the offending coffee cup with vigour, as if to further emphasize his displeasure.
“And a copy of the papers from the dealings with Erebor—I understand that this may fly over that brain of yours, but I do need them to make sure that Oakenshield doesn’t pull a fast one on us—”
“—and that tie is horrendous, did your blind mother pick it out for you or something?”
With an impatient sigh, Thran settled back into his chair, his fingers drumming upon the magnificence of his carved desk—his eyes flickering up to his secretary in distaste.
“Well? Are you going to continue to keep me waiting?”
Somebody definitely rolled him off the wrong side of the bed this morning. He willed his eyes not to roll, and not to heave a sigh under his breath at the man’s positively jarring attitude. How is it that he managed to do business with others again and run a multi-million dollar business–?
Oh right, the appearance, the finger snap and suddenly he’s a cheery face. Not everyone got to witness this side of Thran that Bard did, and my, what a privilege.
’Why yes, I would love to keep you waiting, and no, you can get your own cup of coffee.‘ Oh how he wished he could say his thoughts aloud, but that would get him cut in more ways than one.
He flinched visibly, looking down towards his tie; why it looked fine this morning in the mirror— Bard tried to make up for apparently, all three errors he’d already piled onto, and it was hardly a blip throughout the entirety of the day. His fingers begin to untie the alleged monstrosity, and he moved towards the door, if only not to have to look at the venom in Thran’s eyes for a second longer.
“No, sir, I haven’t forgotten, and I am sorry you had to deal with sub-par breakfast. It will be remedied at my own expense as soon as practicable.” The man laid the papers that he’d almost forgotten in his left hand on his boss’ table, and turned in hopes of making a hasty escape.
Kili did feel fairly cold. He didn’t realize how much the temperature was going to fall that night. He shivers as he holds himself close. His ragged coat giving him what little warmth it could. From the feel of it, he couldn’t stay here.
He gets up, leaning against the wall, feeling a bit out of it. He didn’t have any money, so he couldn’t stay anywhere. The last people he had stayed with kicked him out because of his… problems. He lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. He needed to keep warm.
Bard didn’t know why he relocated in this particular location, but it was just a combination of work and finances. He didn’t have the most of riches, and the apartments here were what was best for him and his son. That was that, and if it permitted for him to not look out the window and turn a blind eye onto situations around the condo, then so be it.
Yet on his walk home from the subway station, he spotted a man who seemed too distraught, and the compassionate aspect of his mind couldn’t help but pitter-patter with indecisiveness. Should he help? It was often he chose to ignore, to hope and pray that someone did not rob him of his wallet– but it was such a cold night, so he– Bard was compelled and moved forward to the man, keeping a safe arm’s length away. “Hey, you… you okay?"
Thran leans his head back against the plush of his chair, the cool leather a blissful relief to the pounding that intensifies like bells in his mind—he winces, running his hands through his face, his hair—weary lines running jagged through the softness of his skin. Deals with Erebor Corporations were always a nightmare—ever since Thran’s fallout long ago with Thorin Oakenshield, did the two companies build upon a frightening, vigorous rivalry—one that, to Thran’s utter delight, Mirkwood Fashion Industries was winning—gaining more and more of the public’s heart with each passing day.
It was with swift, deft movements of slender fingers—fingers that could shape and create, build the world over and over, an artist’s hands, the hands of a lonely child—that he undid his suit jacket, tossing it upon the wooden floors with a sigh.
He reached for his coffee—caffeine was truly gifts bestowed from the gods, Thran had always reasoned—
—and promptly spitted it back out, lips curling in disgust, nostrils flaring—
“Bard!”
He hasn’t always had the highest hopes for his career, knowing which path to tread on, but never shooting for the stars. Rather, he shot for the basketball hoop across the street, which was not very stellar in comparison at all. But he wasn’t one to risk everything on a stock, nor was he the type to step over everyone— which was precisely how he landed a job as– as– a Mirkwood Fashion Industries’ assistant.
And assistant he was, to the ‘big boss’, nonetheless. Not too shabby, for what he aimed for, but what he had presumed to be an atypical easy job, he was wrong! Because Bard would be a liar if he said that Thranduil was a low maintenance, bald, fat, cruel man of a CEO.
Well, three out of four weren’t bad, Bard grumbled mentally when he flinched implausibly, almost dropping the pages bundled in his hands when he heard the yell. Releasing a low breath, he cracked open the door rather warily, shutting it behind him. “Yes, sir?”
He skated his eyes over the cup of coffee in his hand, and he bit at his upper lip— ah, this was it. The part where he would regret wholeheartedly to request that someone else pick up the beverages due to his part of being caught up with another task earlier in the morning. Shit, princess.
Amusement danced in her eyes as she picked up his words as a form of a challenge and she moved to him now, her hips still moving to the beat of the song that pumped through the speakers, gaze going to connect with his. “Do you think I mind? If I did, I would not have asked you to join me.”
“I suppose not—- you’ve always been rather forward, or is that just my insinuation off this conversation alone, oh, perhaps that too.” He trailed off as he averted his sights from her hips to her eyes that possibly seared even more than her movements did. He cleared his throat rather abashedly, and tried to come across as nonchalant. Yes, yes. It was probably not working. “I’ve got two left feet, if anything—"
