Unknown Clouds • •

[kenneally shannon rippley]

Ripper was a long way from Lochmaddy now, but he hadn’t swapped any of his heritage for New York charms. He was as broad Scottish as they came, and the things he had learnt back on the North Uist were what he believed got him through each and every day. Of course, there was humour to be found in the fact that he was a Scotsman working in the kitchen of an Irish bar, but Ripper had learnt to laugh at himself a long time ago; he had to when he saw the state of some of the photographs from the short stint he had as a child model. He questioned now how he ever thought that was cool, and how he had gone from the world of fashion to the rough and dangerous world of rugby where he had broken his jaw, rib and wrist all within the space of two years when he had been seventeen. From there he had wound up, eventually, in the kitchens of New York, a diploma in Culinary Arts under his belt while he went back to school for a second time, this time looking at Travel and Tourism.

O’Malley’s was his home away from home, and even with the yelling that the customers heard coming from behind the closed doors of the kitchen, he loved that place. The kitchen was his baby though, and he had worked in it almost since his feet had touched ground in the city. Ripper had been around almost long enough to be considered part of the furniture there now, and his habits were a staple there. It was why there was always a stocked lollipop tree at the start of every week, just for him, and why things were in the places he liked them to be. The yelling started when someone put the knife he was looking for back in the wrong place, or something similar to the like. He had his routine in the kitchen, a set way of order and he liked it to be kept that way; he had heard every chef was the same in that aspect. Ripper was just a little more vocal in expressing that wish, and with his gruff accent and appearance, he probably had scared a couple of people away from the job over the years without actually intending to do that.

Cleaning down the worktop, Ripper brushed the useless slithers of grated cheese into the bin and shook the cloth out. They had just finished serving food for the night and O’Malley’s was officially now down to bar snacks and alcohol until closing. He fancied sticking around for a drink and to annoy his colleagues, but first he needed to clean up his domain. Ripper never went home until the kitchen was spotless, and it was rare he let anyone else leave a mess in there either. Avery was with him tonight, and he knew she would do a good job, or at least he hoped for her own sake that she did. Unwrapping a lolly from the stand, he shoved the sweet apple ball into the side of his mouth and ran the damp cloth over the cooker top, scratching away a bit of burnt sauce that someone had dripped onto there and not bothered to deal with immediately. It made him glare at the mark as he removed it, and he turned to Avery with the lollipop secured between his back teeth. “Who am I putting on pot wash all of next week for this?” He asked, gesturing to the blob he had only half removed so far. It might have been petty, but Ripper lived up to his nickname at times.

• • •

TAGGED! Avery Karina Alcott
WORDS! 620!
OUTFIT! Kitchen King!
LYRICS! See Who I Am - - - Within Temptation
NOTES! <3

[Avery Karina Alcott]

Avery was out of her depth and probably out of her mind for choosing New York to return to school. She already had a degree under belt, she could technically be called Dr Alcott but she didn't tell anyone that because that wasn't what she wanted to be. And it meant she would have to open up to people and that meant people finding out the truth sooner or later. Avery didn't want the truth coming out, she honestly feared for her life if it ever did. That family seemed to have a very long reach. But she couldn't hide from her past anymore either; she was sick and tired of it. For all intents and purposes, Avery was Swiss and she was going to continue letting people think that until she really couldn't any more. It was going to be a chore and a half to get through all that and have whomever it was she told see why she'd done all that she had. Of course, not telling people was also the reason she didn't date a lot. Dates asked questions and Avery didn't like questions. She completely understood what that meant, she went to school to learn the inner workings of people but she happily chose to ignore it and instead pretend that it didn't mean what she knew it did and went about her life that way.

It was a terrible way to live life but if she didn't do it that way, she probably would have been a scared mess, always looking around the corner before she turned it, checking behind her every few steps to make sure no one was following her. Avery wouldn't have been able to live like that and with her named changed yet again, it was nowhere near what it had been when she was born and that was just fine for the petite Swiss blonde. She could go about her business without worry because she was legally a citizen of Switzerland with a student visa and the ability to pretend like she didn't understand a single word of English when Ripper pissed her off. Nevermind the fact that she was more fluent in English than nearly any of the other languages she'd had to learn when she'd moved to Bern; except maybe German. She was exceptional at German, thanks to the school system and Jordan demanded she fit in perfectly. They'd researched too many places before they'd settled and both of them had studied their asses off before even leaving the damn country!

The work they had put in was beyond what anyone should have but they needed to survive and thrive. The only way to do that was the fit in and have people believing they belonged there. Avery developed the thick accent thanks to spending all that time with her friends and chatting in German and languages that weren't English. She rolled her eyes, happy Ripper couldn't see her face. "Jamie." She told him without turning around. She wanted to get the clean up done and out of the way so she could switch to the change of clothes she'd brought with her and act like a patron of the bar and not one of the kitchen staff. She wanted to let her hair down and have a drink before she went home and tried her hand at the new recipe she'd been working on. If O'Malley's had served desserts, she wouldn't have to worry about baking at four in the morning but they didn't so at home those particular recipes would stay.

Tag || kenneally shannon rippley
Words || 596
Clothes || Swiss Sweetheart
Music || No Day But Today --RENT
Notes || <3

[kenneally shannon rippley]

There were plenty of times when Ripper hadn’t intended to be intimidating, but it happened. Stirling had once joked that he was saving money on hiring another bouncer for the bar with Ripper lurking in the back. It was true that if he ever heard any boisterous commotion coming from out front he flew out there to see what was happening and to see if he could help deal with it, but that was because O’Malley’s was like his home. The staff who worked there were people he considered family and he wasn’t going to let any of them get hurt because some drunken asshole was out of control and incapable of handling themselves. He was a tough guy, had been in his fair share of scraps out on the rugby field more than anywhere else and he could deal with trashed idiots like they were nothing. Ripper wasn’t necessarily proud of that, but it was a fact of life the way he saw it and he wasn’t going to deny something that had been proven time and time again during the long nights in the Irish pub.

However he excelled in the kitchen, and that was where he liked to try to stay. He often ended up on the other side of the bar when he could and the kitchen was closed up, but only for a quick drink before he headed home. Ripper was back to balancing schoolwork alongside running the ever busy kitchen. When he wasn’t working on filling stomachs with food to absorb the alcohol they were knocking back at the bar, he was working on assignments and brushing up on his geography. He figured he’d need to have a better understanding of the layout of the world if he was going to pursue a career in travel and tourism one day in the not too distant future. The thought of leaving the little life he had already built for himself here though was a tough one, and one he didn’t like to dwell on too much. Ripper had worked hard to make New York his home after he left Lochmaddy for the city that never sleeps, and it would be hell to up and leave all over again.

“He’s going to regret this more than he regretted mixing up that salad order last month. Boy can’t be trusted with bloody anything.” Ripper went back to scrubbing at the stove, his eyebrows furrowed at he worked at removing the burnt food stuck to the white top. He didn’t let up until it was all gone and the top was practically sparkling again. He wasn’t all that neat in his own life, but this kitchen was his baby and he didn’t let anyone leave it messy or dirty; not without demanding their head on a platter as punishment. He was a tough in the kitchen, and he knew that, but at the same time he was only that way because he knew he was great at his job.

• • •

TAGGED! Avery Karina Alcott
WORDS! 503!
OUTFIT! Kitchen King!
LYRICS! See Who I Am - - - Within Temptation
NOTES! <3

[Avery Karina Alcott]

There was nothing in Avery’s life in New York more important then O’Malley’s and the time she spent there both in front and behind the bar. She loved it more than she thought she would. At first, she’d only taken the job in the kitchen to get some extra money and for the experience. It wasn’t cheap living in New York city and every little extra bit of money helped, even if her bills were taken care of and her rent, she still had her car insurance and her phone bill to pay, not to mention if she wanted any extra spending money. Her father wasn’t going to pay for everything but whilst she was in school, he would take care of a lot of it. But Avery didn’t like asking her father for money, even though she knew she could and he wouldn’t hesitate to hand it over to her. She wanted to pay for the silly things she didn’t really need but wanted from her own pocket.

There had been a long time when it didn’t look like things were going to turn around for them. They were looking over their shoulders constantly, moving every so often, changing their names every time and constantly forgetting who they were supposed to be. She felt like that Mary-Kate and Ashley movie, except they weren’t moving every other week because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, nor did they have government help. All the paperwork, the real stuff said her father was her father and not her uncle like he really was. They’d done the paperwork after he’d been brought into his custody. The Amish hadn’t thought to bother with any of it and since her real parents had told everyone she died, it hadn’t mattered if they’d done it or not. But her father had, adding his name to the paper and no one else’s. When he was questioned, he had a signed paper that said her mother was giving up all her rights and didn’t even want to be on the birth certificate or anything. And though, if the story her father told was in any way accurate, the woman at the counter was deeply hurt on his little girl’s behalf, she didn’t ask anymore questions and just pushed it all through. So when they’d done the last name change in Texas, then made the paper trail look like they were heading to Cleveland when in reality, they’d moved to Europe for what was supposed to be a final move.

And then she’d found herself in New York but at least her name, which had been changed for a final time in Sweden, was her official name for the rest of her life. “He doesn’t regret that. He did it on purpose. He took the rage fit you threw at him because he weighed it and it was totally worth it. I am inclined to agree with him.” Avery informed him with too casual a tone. She’d heard all about it when it happened and Avery couldn’t have been more on his side if she could. “The chick who ordered the salad was a cheating, lying, backstabbing whore who was more interested in striking ‘sleeping with every one of his frat brothers’ off her bucket list instead of having a real relationship.” She continued, as she wiped down the last of her section. All she needed to do was now finished and she just needed to go change out of clothes that smelled like kitchen and into something that smelled more like her vanilla and gardenia perfume to grab a drink. She really wanted that drink.

Tag || kenneally shannon rippley
Words || 667
Clothes || Swiss Sweetheart
Music || No Day But Today --RENT
Notes || <3

[kenneally shannon rippley]

O’Malley’s had been a part of his life pretty much since he had landed in New York City. He had started off as a kitchen hand, ferrying things about, washing the dishes and peeling potatoes until his hand cramped. He said back then that it was good experience for later on when he would be scoping out other places to work, hopefully at a higher level. In the end though, he had never left O’Malley’s and instead just taken over the kitchen. It was too much of a great place to be, with staff that might not have been there as long as he had, but were still just as crazy as those who came before them. Ripper always said that you had to be a certain level of crazy to work there. There was always something weird happening, someone getting drunk on Irish whiskey and thinking it meant they could take their clothes off and dance on a pool table, or get into a fight because it was on their bucket list and an Irish pub seemed like the perfect place to do just that. O’Malley’s was definitely different from most places as far as Ripper could tell with the stories he heard.

One day he might pass on his chef’s jacket to someone else, but it would be a tough day. He didn’t like to think about it, or what might happen if that day ever did come. Ripper had a second family in the O’Malley’s staff. Leaving Lochmaddy had been tough enough, and the population there was small enough to probably fit them all in the bar he spoke about with so much passion. Maybe that was just it. Maybe, despite his intimidating appearance, Ripper was rather fond of the close knit communities and places where everyone was open with each other. He couldn’t say he knew everything about the guys at O’Malley’s, but they were still there when each other was having a bad day, helped out when they needed to and could talk to each other. None of them seemed to hate their jobs and they were all keen to be there night after night, ready to see what could be thrown at them this time around.

Ripper let out a low growl and tossed the cloth at the sink. It fell against the draining with excellent precision that accounted back to his days of rugby playing – a sport he missed and that wasn’t at all like American Football in his opinion. He couldn’t get into that to save his life. “I’ve told him countless times not to drag his personal life into my kitchen.” He grumbled. Sure, it sounded like a god awful situation for the kid, but Ripper wasn’t going to have his staff unleashing their annoyance or anger on the dishes they served up under his name. “He’s one strike away from finding his ass in the back alley without a job.” Ripper wouldn’t put up with attitude or laziness in his kitchen. It just simply wasn’t on.

• • •

TAGGED! Avery Karina Alcott
WORDS! 510!
OUTFIT! Kitchen King!
LYRICS! See Who I Am - - - Within Temptation
NOTES! <3