no, go away. -closed

[Ashton Wentworth]

Officially, Ashton had had just about enough of women, and all that they entailed. They were moronic. Most of the time. Usually while clothed anyway. He had only been apartment 'hunting' twice in his life, and with two different women. This time wasn't even by choice, Mama O was making him. The transfer had been sprung on him, and whenever he had come home from Christmas break....he'd been 'asked' to bring Frankie with him. It had been suggested none too lightly to him that since he had a whole spare dwelling, that it might be beneficial to the both of them that he let her stay there, rent free even. Didn't matter that he owned the building. It had been one of the first things that he had purchased after Georgie had died...and after Geoff had died too. Only one of those deaths had been expected, Geoff was old, and had lived far longer than anybody who had whiskey for blood should have lived. The bar that the very small apartment was placed above wasn't operational anymore....and it had already been asked if he was going to turn it into another thing or just make it a downstairs of the apartment. Though, truthfully, he wanted it to stay exactly the way that it was. He hadn't even cleaned that apartment out since he lived there, hadn't even had it in him to drink the well of liquor that was still down there, sealed up and gathering dust. The man had been more important than that, the whole apartment was important to him, and he didn't want a woman living in it. It went against the very fabric of his being. He hadn't ever had a single woman even stay the night there other than Georgie...and that hadn't been by choice. So, whenever she saw the place and decided that she wanted to keep looking, just in case...he had gotten rather upset at her judgment. Like she was implying that she was too good for his apartment...and of course it had ended up with them parting. He still didn't know where the hell the brat had gotten off to, and he didn't want to know. He was actually going into work to get away from her. He just assumed she was going to show up again where she wasn't wanted, made all the more irritating from the fact that she had been the one to leave in the first place.

Though, that did leave him irritated enough that he didn't really want to work either. Perhaps just lounge around his office. There was nothing wrong with his apartment, he muttered bitterly under his breath as he pushed the button he presumed was for his proper floor and pushed through to the back of the lift. Letting himself push into the people as the lift jerked one way or the other, not apologizes muttered and soon enough, people were clearing the area around him so that he could sway as he would, sinister glare still plastered on his face, but at nothing in particular. He didn't want some girl putting all her...girl stuff all over his apartment. It was better that she found a place of her own. Somewhere else that she could pay too much money for...and then he was going to hear about it from Mama. Fuck. He knew that wasn't going to end very well at all. She would blame him, say that it was his fault that she didn't go where it was safest. As if she needed his protection. She was ministry trained too. She could use a wand just as well as any other girl. Not his problem. Her grandmother wasn't his problem either. Wincing. It was only a passing thought, thinking about her as anything other than his Mama O and somehow he could feel her phantom hand smacking him upside the back of his head. It wasn't long before he was stewing alone, in the lift. When had all the people left? Why hadn't he been the first person off? He worked on the second floor...this shouldn't have been an issue...and from all of the natural sunlight now streaming into the lift he was on one of the higher floors. The lower floors windows were all sights of the street, just the hum drum pedestrians shopping mostly, level with almost all of the other buildings, only the upper floors got the natural light, the view that extended outside past the set parameters of the wizarding world. Just about the only benefit to working up on one of these floors, because all of the people who worked up here were assholes that he wanted nothing to do with. At all. He much preferred his role as the floor asshole. No competition.

Didn't even want to step out of the lift, the sunlight was a direct opposite to his mood. Ashton's fingers drummed against the metal railing that he was leaned up against, expression slowly fading to the vacant as there was nobody that he could ask to push the button for him...so he pushed himself forward just that much. Just about that time, a girl...tiny, like a little hummingbird moved past the open doors of the lift, didn't even see him. Just pushing forward, arms laden with files, pencil skirt. His anger almost threatened to spike again at even knowing what a pencil skirt was. More women, fucking with his day. He had enough women...and he didn't need to go hitting on some tiny little thing who was working. Less trouble for him...but he didn't press the button either. Just watched, for a long moment her going about her day, like there was some sort of force keeping him there, watching her put things on the various desks and move things around before going back to what he assumed was her desk. Secretary? He wasn't even bothering to try to look for floor markers to see what department this even was. He stared until she turned – which, was very much out of character for him. Women didn't intimidate him. Women loved him. Knock kneed. That had to be it. He was just thinking that she looked funny, obviously. Something to explain why the moment that she turned he turned back and pressed the button for his floor. No harm. No foul. Just leave, but the doors weren't closing. “Fuck,” of course they weren't...didn't help that he kicked them either, the panel just below the full size panel of buttons...drawing too much attention to him as he moved back in, jabbing at the button again bitterly.


Wearing

[Rowan Whipple]

And the last representative on their way out to lunch walked past the secretary desk with a file in their outstretched hand. Done and ready to be sent on to the next point in the file’s life. Rowan took hold of it, looking over the front of it to see where to send it. A small noise left her throat to get their attention, her eyes not leaving the file as she made sure the rest of it was completed. “Not labelled, where?” He didn’t even stop, just turned his head to reply and head for the stairs. “Press release.” She nodded, slipping it into the stack with the other files going in the same direction. “Thank you.” To the untrained eye, the desk in front of Ro was utter chaos. The untrained eye would, however, be very wrong. There was an order to the seeming disorder, one that only made sense after having had the same routine of disorder for years. That pseudo-pile was ready to go out to differing locations, depending on the colour-coding of the file. That pile still needed to be addressed, and could be seen to by just about anyone in the department. That folder was stuffed full of things that Marlon preferred to attend to himself. Underneath that folder was the schedule book. She had a system, damn it. The Timestopper was gently laid out over top of the precariously stacked desk. She was reading through it like she did every morning, looking to see if there was anything new and important in it that day that should be brought to attention. So far nothing but the usual, the latest Quidditch scores and the like.

Satisfied with what she found in the paper, it was time to move on to the stack of files to passed out before everyone came back. She slid her heels back on and stood up from her chair, folding the paper back up as she went. She picked up the pile of files that still needed attention, sliding them into the crook of her arm, and moved around her desk so that she could distribute them on the other desks on the floor. Now, who had claimed the paper next? Oh right, it was going on this desk here with these two files. Walking to the next desk, she moved the coffee cup further from the edge of the desk so it wouldn’t be accidently knocked over and set another file down on the stack still there. At the next desk she picked up the files that were done and hadn’t been given to her yet, sliding three onto the desk as she switched hands. She heard the doors to the lift open up, as she continued to pass out this round of files. Must be later than she thought it was if people were already getting back from their lunch hours. She always took a different hour than the rest of the floor just so that there was someone here when they all went out. There was also the fact that she had to make sure that a certain Minister of Magic ate lunch as well in between the seemingly endless meetings that were pencilled into her schedule book. That she needed to go look at and check when the next meeting was. She walked back towards her desk with the finished files and pulled her schedule book out from under Marlon’s folder. Oh, plenty of time.

She picked up the files that were going to the press since she would be walking past it on her way out. She heard the sound of something going on over at the lift, surprised it was still at this floor, and looked over to the clock to check the time. Definitely could head out to do the coffee and lunch run now, no idea what she was going to get Marlon yet, but she’d think of something. When in doubt, there was always Chinese food. She grabbed her purse that had her ID card and everything in it and called out to the person left in the lift. “Hold the lift!” But the doors were starting to close anyway. Had he not heard her? She doubted that, if there was one thing she could do it was be loud when necessary. “Hold the-oh fuck’s sake.” She hurried her steps and slid in between the doors sideways just before they closed behind her, lucky not to have lost a limb in the doors really. “Thanks so much.” Unbelievably rude, but it happened more often than not. She hit the button to head down to the lobby and looked at the man at the back of the lift sideways before settling herself against the side of it. She glanced at the buttons again to see which floor he was headed to, rolling her eyes to herself. Probably shouldn’t have been so blatantly antagonistic to the person she was going to be stuck in the lift with almost the whole way down. Just open mouth, insert foot sometimes.

Wearing