Charlie's Recipe Swap

"I'm gonna do this year different," The tall, blonde woman slides off the bed with a light-hearted bounce in her step to cross the small dorm room and the plain vanity. She unlocks the window and raises it. A comfortable, warm breeze comes in, but it wouldn't be the temperature that catches your attention.

It's the music.

You're in the heart of New York City, and it's clear that someone with a formidable boombox is sitting out in the courtyard below.

"Do you have any shears, Char?" The tall woman looks back at the other girl in the room, sitting cross-legged on the other bed with a heavy biology textbook on her lap.

Char shakes her head and rolls over to reach for a neat stack of small storage boxes beneath her bed, looking through the transparent blue plastic until she found the one she wanted. She pops off the lid and pulls out a glue stick and a pair of craft scissors.

"I sharpened these after we finished the lab yesterday. They aren't much but they should be able to handle split ends if that's what you're worried about," Char smiles and stands up to offer the scissors to the other woman, but the blonde beats her to it and leans over her to receive them with aplomb. "Which would be, hoo, odd, 'cause you don't really have any split ends that I can see, Roxanne."

Roxanne winks and cups Char's cheek, before kissing her forehead and skipping back to the mirror. "Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. You're a gem."

Charlotte shakes her head, closes her storage box and joins Roxanne at the vanity to watch. You'd note that with the length of Charlotte's hair, all dark brown, nearly black and hitting the end of her back, she's probably never cut it.

Roxanne brings the scissors down to the end of her hair... then an inch or two above. Suitable for ending split ends you'd agree.

"Would you go much shorter than that?" Charlotte crosses her arms, seemingly mesmerized by the act... by the short snips Roxanne begins with. But then Roxanne tilts her hand and then radically alters the pattern to cut a few locks right at her scalp.

"Roxanne!" Charlotte gasps and covers her mouth, watching the light blonde hairs fall to the floor.

Roxanne doesn't even answer; she just starts whistling and keeps cutting until she can feel the breeze on the nape of her neck.

Charlotte is stunned into silence.

"Oh, Charlotte, don't ya even give me that look," Roxanne raspberries at her friend and runs her hand through her hair. The cut is quite even. If you knew Roxanne, you'd know that she didn't even have to plan things like this in order to do them well -- she had a knack for expertly completing most tasks she took on.

"Just... wh..." Charlotte timidly reaches up to card through the short, straight hairs. It's clear to you that she's still processing what happened.

[[ immersion like madrilenoartista did last week seems the best way to do these. ]]

Only the vaguest details of the bedroom can be seen; it’s cloaked in darkness and fairly standard, if shoebox-sized. In fact, it’s not a bedroom at all: you’re in the living room, facing the couch, which you only realize is occupied after lightning strikes outside the bolted window to illuminate the slumbering lump under the blankets.

The latest rumbles of thunder make the person on the couch groan and sit up, eyelids heavy and the bags beneath them heavier still, but they do not see you. They look straight past you but they don’t move otherwise. They’re waiting for something.

As if on cue, a few seconds later, the door to the actual bedroom opens, and soft, muffled footsteps inform you of the child’s presence, before the lightning strikes again and you see the boy. He’s got those same baby blues as the man on the couch. He’s probably his father.

The man waits until the boy touches his arm and tugs on his shirt, before pretending to wake up all over again, exaggeratedly stretching his arms and picking the boy up into his lap.

"Scared, John?"

The boy, now John, shakes his head and sets the large stuffed animal in his hands between himself and his father.

"…N-no, I’m not. You said ‘s just the rain. But, um… Casey’s scared!"

The man smiles knowingly and gives Casey a big squeeze, before guiding John to lay down with him.

"So only Casey needs to sleep out here with me, right? People that aren’t scared can probably sleep in their own beds."

John looks down at his feet, frowning a little bit before throwing his arms back around his father, after burying under the covers.

"Nope! Casey said I had to stay because she’s still scared."

After adjusting the covers, the man makes a point of keeping both John and Casey close to his chest before he closes his eyes again.

"That’s brave of you. I think there’s room for three."