Never Really Sure • •

[felix slater archer]

Things had changed a lot in Felix's life. It felt like every time he found a steady pace and a regular routine something would come along and tip his world upside down just to see where the pieces would land this time. He felt like the model in the middle of a snowglobe at times and it was not at all a forgiving place to be, or as pretty as fake snow or glitter gave the impression of. Sophisticakes was closed, the blinds down over the windows and most of the lights out, but Felix was in the kitchen with his baker's clothes protecting the shirt and jeans underneath. The radio was on quietly, but the night-time love hour was doing him more harm than good. He had wanted music and enthusiastic DJs to keep him awake beyond the witching hour, but instead he had found that the regular station the employees liked to listen to did a whiny woe-is-me romance hour of people calling in with their problems and to dedicate soppy songs to lost loves. It didn't exactly match his mood or the theme of the evening since Felix was working through the night to finish off a very particular wedding cake.

This design had been one of his mother's originals and something she loved making. However it was a very delicate pattern and one Felix remembered her spending hours perfecting before finally teaching the slow piping style to her keen son. He had hoped it would be easier for some of the employees to replicate, but when he had called in around five o'clock that day they had all agreed that it wasn't quite right and definitely something that would be noticeable to the bride and groom. For that reason Felix had cancelled his plans to grab drinks with friends, chucked his bag of school work and his jacket into the messy office he still had to get around to organising, and thanks his staff for all their hard work. They were the cogs that kept grinding out the cakes, the sweet treats and everything else the bakery had to offer. Felix always felt bad that they did so much while he focused on finishing up school, but he put his hands in where he could, coming in early to get things going for them most mornings and popping in every night to take care of things that happened during the day. This was one of a rare type of situation where his own hands were needed for more time than he had to spare. So, sacrificing sleep, he had turned on the coffee pot, encouraged his staff to go home and get the rest they deserved and he had plodded on, slowly working up the tiers to add the touches that they had struggled with. All the while he knew his mom could have made easy work of this and would probably laugh if she saw the way her only son was hunched over the table, tongue hanging out of his mouth as he concentrated hard on not screwing this up.

By the time it was finished it wasn't even worth going home. Felix prepped the mixes for the day, starting baking the morning treats and shed his icing stained jacket before collapsing into one of the few booths they had for consultations and people who wanted to eat in. His arm over his eyes, he let out a long sigh. His back and shoulders ached from the long night, his eyes felt dry and irritated from the strain and Felix remembered why his mother used to tell him to keep his piping skills sharp; even the ones he didn't use so often. If Felix didn't love the woman so much he might have ripped the design from the catalogue, but he hadn't been able to remove any of them after she died, knowing them all to be her pride and joy. He'd let them live on for as long as the bakery was his. A rattling of the locked door handle startled him from the edge of slumber and he sat up wearily, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. “We're not open yet!” He hollered loudly, but making sure to keep his tone friendly. Glancing at the clock he was surprised at how late it was in the morning. Only another hour and the staff would be arriving and he would be expected to pull a full day here. Saturdays he loved, but right now he just wanted to crawl into the office and make a bed out of some sacks of flour. Felix was about to head back through to the kitchen when the rattling came again, this time accompanied by a loud knock. “What is it?” He called, crossing over to the door and raising the blind before he even thought about turning the lock.

• • •

TAGGED! open!
WORDS! 819!
OUTFIT! Muffin Man!
LYRICS! Smoke and Mirrors - - Gotye
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Trinity Mae Sinclair]

Determined didn’t even describe Trinity’s single minded focus when it came to her work. She was the offspring of two very stubborn, very driven and very passionate doctors; and she proved it every single chance she got. But every once in a while, she felt the toll of the endless shifts and sleepless nights pouring over case upon case on her desk. She couldn’t save them all, as much as she wanted to, she was only one person. With a couple of clones, she could do it but with only her and the team she hand selected, it wasn’t likely. But she’d be damned if she wouldn’t try. Trinity had done yet another one of those sleepless research nights, trying to figure out how she was going to fix the kid in the file folder. It wasn’t a particularly difficult case -on paper. But it was never that simple. And Trinity wasn’t out to make a name for herself like that. She wanted to make a name for herself by doing things right. And heading into the operating theatre without the proper knowledge, a real plan and a backup wasn’t it. As it was Trinity usually had two backup plans in place when she booked a procedure, and because of it, her success rate was pretty impressive.

However, because of her all-nighter, Trinity wasn’t in the best of moods and it showed. She might look like some men’s perfect fantasy but when she didn’t get any sleep, she was an ice queen. The nurses often called her a heartless bitch behind her back but they didn’t see how she was with the kids or what she did to make sure they had another seventy or eighty years ahead of them. With them, Trinity put aside everything else and became the sweetest person on the planet, “sneaking” her little patients treats when they thought their parents weren’t looking and chatting with them conspiratorially; like they were sharing a secret their parents weren’t allowed to be privy to. The two nurses that knew the truth kept it to themselves because they knew it was difficult to change a person’s mind when it was made up but they were also the ones that joked she should have become a preschool teacher or something. She had turned her entire office into a fortress just so a five year old little boy would feel comfortable enough to talk to her about his problems.

Trinity knew who she was, so did the people that mattered to her. So what the nurses and her fellow doctors thought about her didn’t matter to Trinity. She wasn’t there for them; she was there for the kids. Just not this particular morning. She had no appointments and she was confident in Denver’s abilities that she wouldn’t need to do her own rounds until later. So when she was dressed for the day and she had everything she might need, Trinity headed over to Sophisticakes. She needed a pastry breakfast, something with a think creme and a strong coffee. Plus she wanted to get something for Nell, who would have to put up with Trinity’s dark mood. When she got there she reached for the door, oblivious to the fact that the door was still locked up nice and tight. Frustrated, Trinity banged on the door, demanding to know why the cute little shop was closed when she wanted in. When no answer came to her, she knocked again. She was completely oblivious to the hour and didn’t know the little bakery wasn’t actually open yet; she had assumed the place was just closed for the day and that wasn’t a good enough answer for Trinity. “Why aren’t you open?” She demanded. She probably didn’t look all that terrifying but she felt like she should scare the living hell out of whoever spoke to her.

Tag || felix slater archer
Words || 700
Clothes || On it's way!
Music || Bartender --Lady Antebellum
Notes || I'm sorry Felix has to deal with Trinity... <3!

[felix slater archer]

Felix worked hard to make his mother proud. He didn’t want the bakery to fall apart after her death, but he knew that she wouldn’t want him to drop out of school either. It was tough, and sometimes he questioned why he was putting himself through it, but Felix knew that he could do it. He was so close to graduating now, and he was made of tough stuff; the life stories of his parents could attest to that. Once it was all done he could focus his time on Sophisticakes, and perhaps even think about expanding the business to include his own dreams. He was young, he had plans for the future, too, and there was so much that he could accomplish before the golden years and thoughts of retirement beckoned to him. Felix just hoped that he had the chance to put all of those plans into practice. It would mean so much to him if his mother’s legacy could live on and grow into something greater.

It would mean more hard work from him if he wanted it to be as big as he dreamt, but Felix wasn’t shy of hard work. He had worked alongside his mom for years, balancing his own schooling with helping her out, and being the man in the house. When he thought back to how he had nearly enlisted, Felix could barely believe he had almost chosen that path in life. At the time he had wanted to feel that connection to the father he had lost when he was just a boy, but now he knew that it would have been a mistake. He was supposed to be in the kitchen, one way or another, and he knew that now. He wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to be sleeping so close to the kitchen, but after working through the night to finish that cake he didn’t really have much of a choice. Felix worked all through the weekend, putting in full shifts to make up for when he was in and out through the week because of college classes. If he left now he wouldn’t even get home before he was due to be leaving again for the bakery. He could powernap now, and again at lunch, combine it with a whole lot of coffee, and then he might just make it through to closing. Once he reached his apartment that evening he could pass out whenever he fell and not care, which was exactly his plan already.

As much as Felix loved New York, he had to wonder about some of the other citizens there. For every nice person he met there seemed to be half a dozen crazy people. It also seemed like Lady Fate really wanted to screw with him this morning. He didn’t have a lot of time in which to rest his eyes and try to recover just a smidgen of energy for the busy day ahead. Sophisticakes hadn’t seen a slow day since it had opened all those years ago, but weekends were definitely crazier than weekdays. Tilting his head to the side and taking a moment to wonder if this was really happening, Felix tapped the glass with his knuckle, right above the gold writing that listed the opening times of the store. “Because it’s two hours too early for me to turn this lock the other way.” He answered tiredly, wishing he could just close his eyes and return to the booth that was calling to him as the perfect nap spot right now.

• • •

TAGGED! Trinity Mae Sinclair
WORDS! 595!
OUTFIT! Muffin Man!
LYRICS! Smoke and Mirrors - - Gotye
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Trinity Mae Sinclair]

Trinity had put everything she had into becoming a doctor like her parents. She might not have had her father around to tell her what he was feeling about it all, but she had her mother and she knew Dr Ally Scott was damn proud of her daughter’s accomplishments. That was all the young oncologist could ask for at the end of the day; that he made her mother proud. She couldn’t save them all, Trinity knew that but she could save plenty of them and even if she lost sleep because of the ones she couldn’t, she would lose more looking through every text, journal and magazine she could get her hands on to save someone else. They were children after all, they had so much time ahead of them that it was completely unfair that there were even such things as childhood cancers and the wicked battles that accompanied them.

Was it too much to ask that children be allowed to grow up and have some fun, be kids before life’s realities stole it all away from them? It was a simple enough question in Trinity’s eyes. Why weren’t children spared the tough roads? The heartaches and the pains of things much older than them? Her childhood might not have been filled with memories of hospital wards thanks to cancer but she had lost her father and more than a couple of the extended aunts and uncles from the hospital family that she grew up around. Her parents hospital may not have been a small one but the people who worked together that closely still considered each other family. It had been within those walls where Trinity learned what she wanted to be when she was a big girl. It was within those walls where she practiced her skills before she accepted the job in New York.

Minneapolis was a hell of a lot different from the big apple but Trinity wasn’t daunted by any of it. She loved big cities, she loved what she was doing and she was determined to bring a higher survival rating to the hospital she was at now. Trinity lost more sleep than she got with her job but she wouldn’t change it. She would wish, however that she realised time long before she did stupid things like this. “Well, you’re in there, do something.” She said impatiently because she was just in no mood to deal with logic and reason. She was there, he was there, it should be fairly easy to just let her in and go about filling a cup with coffee and a box with treats that were already made and in the cooler for the day. She looked at the door again, refusing to acknowledge the gold calligraphy on it the first time he’d tapped it with his knuckles, telling patrons the hours before finally looking at her watch and seeing for herself that she was a few hours ahead of even her own schedule. Exasperated, Trinity threw her hands up in the air and let out a sigh of frustration. It was a damn good thing she didn’t have an scheduled surgeries, the day was not going well for her and it had barely started.

Tag || felix slater archer
Words || 563
Clothes || On it's way!
Music || Bartender --Lady Antebellum
Notes || <3!

[felix slater archer]

Felix knew that life was unfair more often than it played nice. His father had died when he was eleven, killed in action a long way from home. Felix had felt so young at the time, but quickly came to realise just how many parts of his life his father wouldn’t be there for. Every achievement he had wanted to show off to the man had instead been told to a headstone in a cemetery in Manhattan. His dad had been buried there at his mother’s request and no family had argued with a grieving widow who was trying to keep everything together for the sake of a confused little boy, and while trying to follow the last wishes of her late husband; her soulmate. He might have had his childhood with his mother, but she was still taken far too early by the cold hands of The Reaper. Sophie would never see her little boy find a wife of his own or become a father himself. Felix knew these were wishes she had for him, but now everything he wanted her to know was again told to that same headstone in that same Manhattan cemetery.

He would give anything for just five minutes with his parents again. It was probably why he had a soft spot for the down on their luck types. Tabitha was a prime example of that. No one else in the city would hire a girl whose recent history involved twelve months in prison, but Felix had seen a woman in need, and someone who deserved a second chance. She was proving to be one of his hardest workers, and as for the rest, well they knew that he would give them time off if they needed it for personal matters. Life was a bitch to some people, and Felix wasn’t about to be its accomplice when it dragged people through hell and back. He cut them some slack, but he wasn’t a pushover boss. He could stand his ground if he needed to, which had only happened once with one employee who he had hired and fired within three months. Drugs and theft were apparently way more important than an honest wage and a little bit of hard work.

Right now, Felix was too tired to be playing super nice. He was also really in need of some sleep, which he could have if this crazy blonde just went the hell away. It was really simple to him; they weren’t open yet. “I am doing something; I am trying to sleep.” He answered snippily. It wasn’t like he could pull a pastry out of the air and brew some coffee from the exhaustion he was feeling. Nothing was ready and nothing would be ready until his staff started showing their bright and bubbly faces. Until that happened though, he wanted to squeeze in a nap, which he didn’t think was too much to ask. His eyes were strained and they needed to rest. “Look just come back in two hours, lady.” Felix said exasperatedly, really, really just wanting to crawl back into his booth already and just forget that this woman had bothered him in the first place. Part of him was wondering why he had even responded to the knock in the first place. She probably would have gone away if he had just stayed quiet.

• • •

TAGGED! Trinity Mae Sinclair
WORDS! 567!
OUTFIT! Muffin Man!
LYRICS! Smoke and Mirrors - - Gotye
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Trinity Mae Sinclair]

Trinity didn’t expect much from life. Not the way she lived it. She spent long hours searching for cures and remedies to give her patients hope to ever have a normal social life. They were all so young and should be able to be children, believe in magic, in fairy tales and enjoy playing make believe with their friends before reality sunk in and life took a turn for the worst. IF she had her way, her job wouldn’t exist and her patients could claim they’d been able to get through may of their firsts before cancer and disease were ever potential factors for illness. But it didn’t work that way, she wasn’t allowed to make the rules of the universe. Kids got sick and she did everything she could to make sure they left the hospital with their parents. Trinity didn’t like to see her patients laying on that cold metal slab in that cold, sterile room. She broke down every single time she lost a patient. Trinity spent a good hour down in the morgue, mourning the loss of a young life, hating how the world was so cruel. Trinity could remember the names of every single patient she had ever lost.

Trinity had a big heart under that Ice Queen facade she wore. But she kept it very guarded. The way her father had left this world, the way her mother and the rest of the hospital’s staff, the ones who remember still acted was enough for anyone to stay frigid at work. Nell only found out because she’d caught Trinity crying after she’d lost a patient. She knew she couldn’t save them all, it just wasn’t possible with their technology yet; the researchers just hadn’t found exactly what they were looking for. So she would continue to ease the pain in those terminally ill patients, bringing some smiles and cheer into an otherwise dull and grey world and she would continue to freeze out her fellow staff members because getting too close hurt a hell of a lot more than people wanted to believe.

The blonde doctor wanted two things from the man on the other side of the door. She wanted coffee and she wanted some treats for Nell who would have to deal with the worst of Trinity’s foul mood. The nurse knew when the blonde had pulled an all-nighter. She was a hair nastier than her usual snappy responses. The brunette was always smiles and good nature despite Trinity’s affinity for bitchy remarks and her trademark icy stare. No one at the hospital knew what Trinity could be like when she took the white coat off; she was an entirely different woman; as long as she’d gotten some sleep. “Trying to sleep? You’re trying to sleep.” She scoffed, looking down at the man with ice in her gaze. It was the look she knew, that gave her the nickname she had around the hospital. It didn’t always help her out but sometimes it did. And it usually left a very small but satisfied smirk ghosting on her lips. “In two hours, I’ll be forty minutes into a six hour procedure involving a seven year old and their kidneys.” She said bluntly, ice freezing every word she said, thankfully remembering the procedure before she'd gotten into work and saw the case file on her desk. It had happened before and Trinity had felt really stupid for it.

Tag || felix slater archer
Words || 613
Clothes || On it's way!
Music || Bartender --Lady Antebellum
Notes || I'm not really sure how many different ways I can apologise for Trinity xD <3!

[felix slater archer]

Felix’s life was currently hectic and as close to frantic as it had ever been. Of course, he never expected to be balancing college with running the bakery that had once been his mother’s. He couldn’t let her dream die though. There wasn’t anything on the planet that could make him betray his mother’s wishes like that, even if he had his own aspirations to pursue. There was no reason why he couldn’t balance both, right? He was doing it right now, working long hours and putting less time aside for a life away from the food industry. He wasn’t about to let Sophisticakes go to ruin, and he wanted to make his own name to shine brightly against his mom’s. He didn’t see why it would be impossible. There was still a part of him that wanted his mom to be around again more than anything, but it wasn’t to share the workload. He wanted her to be there so that he could tell her the stories about his days, laugh about things that had happened in the bakery with the staff there. Most of all he just wanted her company back.

He would have a better chance of sprouting wings and flying to top of The Empire State building. He knew that, and he tried not to dwell on the past and things he couldn’t change. Instead he looked to the future, how Sophisticakes could expand, and how his own dreams could become a reality. It was a hell of a lot of hard work no matter how he thought about it, but he wasn’t the type to shy away from that. If he was, then the business wouldn’t be doing so well now. They had themselves booked up on cake orders for the next month and more came in with each passing day. It really wasn’t a surprise that he had to come in and work through the night. What was a surprise was that something like this hadn’t happened sooner.

Maybe if it had happened before now he would have known to ignore the knock at the door. Maybe he would have kept his mouth shut and let the stranger go away, rather than wind up engaged in this stupid conversation. Felix already knew he would much rather be sleeping. “Yes, I’m trying to sleep. Now, please, go away.” If he lost one customer through his cranky mood it would not be the end of the world for the business. In another two hours when Felix did unlock the door and let the people in there would be enough of a crowd to keep them busy and it would stay that way for the day. He knew this from experience. “Well, good luck with that, but your Ice Queen attitude is going to do jack shit here, lady. I’m not able to do anything for you right now.” He was out of patience, and it didn’t matter who a person was, he had no time whatsoever for people who stomped their feet and hoped to get what they wanted because they had somewhere to be or did something important. “Nothing is ready, and nothing will be ready until then.” He tapped the opening time on the door once more and then tugged the blind back down. “Now, good night!” Felix was determined to catch some shut eye before they opened, even if it was only twenty minutes.

• • •

TAGGED! Trinity Mae Sinclair
WORDS! 579!
OUTFIT! Muffin Man!
LYRICS! Smoke and Mirrors - - Gotye
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Trinity Mae Sinclair]

Trinity didn’t actually expect much from life. Really, she wanted to lead a simple one. She didn’t honestly expect to find love at all, she was a workaholic, or have children of her own, a thought that both relieved her and terrified her at the same time. She expected to live a quiet life with her work and her few friends. She really didn’t think it was too much to ask for. Her life plan was a simple one, and it suited the blonde doctor. She didn’t like drama, her job was drama enough, so she hated it in her outside life. That was probably another reason the nurses and other doctors called her an Ice Queen. She didn’t add herself into conversations that didn’t originally involve her, she only gave an opinion when asked for one and that was so rare, that she didn’t actually count it toward anything unless it happened twice in a set time; which it never did.

The blonde doctor liked keeping her personal life separate from her work life. She almost felt like two different people because she didn’t like crossing that line but it made things easier for her. She didn’t have to explain herself at work if she wasn’t at the top of her game the morning after a night out. The nurses that came in looking rough had to detail their nights for the other nurses. She’d been friends with just about everyone at her old hospital, they were her family and she didn’t really feel like expanding that any further than she already had with Nell, Denny, Dylan and Taylor. Plus on her nights out, she could forget for a few hours that she was Dr Trinity Sinclair, pediatric oncologist. She could forget that she had a serious job where innocent lives were in her hands, her care. When she was out, she was just Trinity Sinclair, New Yorker and nothing more than that.

It worked for her because she didn’t get attached. She had her drinks, danced for a few songs and went home. Sometimes alone, sometimes not; it was up to her. And she didn’t have to explain her decisions in the morning to her coworkers. But those nights were also few and far between. Most nights she spent much like the night before, pulling an all-nighter to do the proper research. Trinity understood that they were both exhausted and cranky and could easily use another half dozen hours of sleep but he could, apparently, go back to sleep, she couldn’t. She had to be at the hospital and ready for surgery in less than an hour. There was no time for a nap before then. She ignored his plea for her to leave and the one about her attitude. She was well aware she was a bitch; she didn’t need a stranger telling her as well. She may have been cranky at the moment but surely there was something that could be done. “Ugh.” She said, running her fingers through her hair. “I’m not even going to bother offering you money. It’s obvious you wouldn’t take it anyway. Fuck.” She said, viciously and more to herself than to the mean man throwing her away like yesterday’s rubbish. All she wanted was coffee and some sugary treat, if wasn’t like she was asking for a million dollars or a date with Channing Tatum! It was just coffee and a damn cupcake!

Tag || felix slater archer
Words || 619
Clothes || On it's way!
Music || Bartender --Lady Antebellum
Notes || I'm not really sure how many different ways I can apologise for Trinity xD <3!