𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐧.

"I'm about to order food, so you can sit here and sulk or eat with me." It's a non-negotiable. After four hours hunched over the back piece, if she didn't get some kind of food into her, the rest of the day was going to be some kind of hellish. For both her, and her client. "And honestly, I'm not giving you too much of a choice. You're looking a little pale." Cracking open a can of soda, she held another out for current company, "You pass out and I'm not responsible for who hears about it. No secrets here." A falsity in and of itself - the studio held many secrets for the club - but, very rarely did any of those in charming come for fresh ink, pass out - and ever live it down. "Come on, get up. Walk around. It'll help."

"⸺ nah," Peyton muttered, voice detached, wide eyes hollow, while she inspected Daniela's progress from one of the shop mirrors, "I'm pretty sure on death's door is just my default setting or some shit."

Made sense, considering these days she might as well have been moonlighting as a vampire. Up after dark, passed out just before sunrise, sustained by an almost entirely liquid diet—Slap her ass and call her a wannabe Cullen, fine, but after so many years of sinking ink beneath her skin she liked to think she had enough fortitude in her sparkle-less body to avoid passing out on an artist's table like a virgin.

Then again, nothing but the memory of last night's Jack in her system probably said otherwise. Taking one more second to track the new lines of jet carved around her spine she smiled—just a tiny, fleeting, flicker at one corner—before turning back around. "But if you insist, I guess I could eat."

OPEN TO ALL: @charmingstart

Flat on his back. Still as he could be. The scene unfolded far too quickly for Braden's liking. He should have had enough common sense to not try the tricks he could have managed when he was a teenager while on a skateboard. It was a recipe for a disaster even if he was just trying to relearn to impress his son. It was a new fixation every day with the young boy, and the newest trend now was skateboarding. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I just need a minute." He exhaled heavily not all confident in the being fine part, simply just trying to muster up the strength to stand up again after the wipe out he had moments ago when he tried to land a kick flip. His balance and timing was off which propelled him backwards straight to his ass.

Hailey had a feeling they shared vastly different definitions of the word 'fine' but, in this case, arguing as much only worked against her favor. No matter what the look on her face said, if Braden swore he only needed a minute to recover she'd give him thirty. Seconds, that is.

"Right, well." Crouching low, her expression shifting on a dime between doubt, concern, and what might've been faint amusement, she whispered, "Your wipeout just cost me twenty bucks, but you can help me win it back if you dust yourself off in the next—" Hails trailed off, glancing at her non-existent watch—"six or so seconds and get the hell up."

status: open ! (0/5) @charmingstart

aurora had gotten a call from her grandma saying that her old man had thrown out his back and wasn't feeling the greatest. it was mid afternoon at this point and she insisted on heading over to the family business to hold down the fort until closing. thankfully, it was midweek and pretty slow at the pizzeria. while in the midst of almost completing the closing shifts duties, she heared the bell to the front door ring. "we close in like twenty, just letting you know. if you're looking for a fresh pizza or breadsticks, you're shit outta luck," she called from the back.

Still, she moved through the quiet shop with unhurried patience and reached for one of the chairs still firmly planted on the floor. Didn't matter that she wasn't an employee. She'd worked enough waitressing gigs in various establishments across the country, and closing routines were closing routines. She could walk through it by muscle memory alone.

It was safe to say that the vice president’s mind hadn’t stopped whirling since the night of Arabella’s murder– on and on without much of a reprieve or soft spot to land, save for when it dared to settle on Samiye. Thinking of her wasn’t any less confusing, but it differed in the way that more questions than answers didn’t fill him with dread. Instead, his curiosity just burned, ignited by someone he’d tried to keep at a distance for far too long. If anything, Arabella’s death only served to remind him of that and had forced him to stare down the walls he piled up miles high. Would it really be so catastrophic if he simply let them fall for once? Memories of the kiss they shared that night told him no, it wouldn’t be, but caution had always been the hardest thing for him to kill. 

And yet, as he wandered the clubhouse late that evening, trying to use his steps to unravel all the thoughts twisting into knots inside his head, Aydın ended up outside her door anyway. Finding it open, he didn’t announce himself right away, but lingered for a moment, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. 

She was hard at work on something, from what he could tell between the books and papers scattered across her bed, but that wasn’t where his focus lingered. He’d noticed her glasses first, and then the slight furrow of her brow as she concentrated on whatever she was reading. His lips tipped into a soft, yet crooked smile before he even realized that they had. 

“Nice glasses,” he murmured into the silence, finally giving himself away. He hoped that by his lingering smile, she’d know he didn’t mean it in a mocking way. Quite the opposite, actually, if the way his gaze stayed trained on her was any indication. He nodded down at the materials on her bed, “What’re you workin’ on?”

Sami muttered the prompt out loud, but if she didn't remember how to solve it the first time around, the fourth wasn't any better. The practice questions on her laptop might as well have been in a foreign language. She'd been staring at them for so long her eyes threatened to cross.

On some level she knew she should call it quits. Close the computer, put away her papers, and spare herself an inevitable migraine. She knew that yet, still, she pushed on.

"A five kilogram bowling ball is bowled twice. If it's thrown six meters per second on its first throw⸺" Though little more than a low murmur, gravel and steel crashed through her focus. Choking on a quiet gasp, she jolted, eyes wide and honed in on the doorway. On that voice. On him. Aydin.

Her fingers flew to the glasses in question, an old pair due to be replaced at least two prescriptions ago. They hovered there, as if tempted to rip the frames off her face and toss them to the floor, but something stopped her. Maybe it was his smile. Maybe it was the sudden flood of memories from a unexpected night spent together in a dark kitchen for a few brief, mind-altering moments.

Either way, the glasses stayed. Her cheeks stained pink.

"Oh, uhm..." Sami fumbled to clear up the pile of notes and hastily scrawled math equations strewn over her mattress. "Just... just studying for a test."

What test, she didn't clarify. Admitting she never finished high school was always mortifying, but even more so when it came to Aydin—Especially when she could still remember the taste the cherries and chocolate and melted ice cream mixing with whiskey on his lips.

Everything went to shit shortly after that, and they hadn't talked since, but she wondered if he still thought about that kiss as much as she did, or if he'd already erased it from his mind.

"Did you—" Sami paused, gaze lingering over the harsh and devastating relief of his features. Was this official business, or a social call? Did it even matter? Regardless of the reason for his sudden appearance at her room, she couldn't tamper the slow curve of a smile. "Did you, uh, need something, or is this visit just a happy accident during another hunt for a new hideout spot?"

The entire shift had been the sort of dogfight that Cameron liked to avoid, particularly when the chaos reigned from deep in the night well into the early morning hours. He was exhausted, his limbs weighed down by the sort of weariness that sleep couldn’t fix and his vision blurred from lack of sleep. Such was the life of a trauma surgeon, but even for as heavy as the load often felt, Cameron knew he wouldn’t change it, because by the time the shift had ended, most of the patients that had come through the bay overnight were stabilized– most of them would be okay, and that was enough for him. It had to be.  On the way home that morning, he’d decided to stop by the cafe for just that pinch of caffeine needed to get him through the rest of his trek. Naturally, he’d wandered in during the morning rush, had nearly fallen asleep standing in line more than once, but somehow, he’d made it to the front– all for a simple cup of coffee, nothing special about it to be named, but it felt like a lifeline. He dug out his wallet, forking over the cost of that all conquering cup of black coffee and reaching out for it like his sanity depended on it– and maybe it did, after the night he’d had. He went to pocket his wallet then paused, “Wait–,” Cameron started, reaching for a few more bills and sliding them across the counter, “For the person behind me too,” he clarified. He’d always been taught to pay it forward, and after last night, cashing it in felt like the right thing to do.

Shocked, and a little lost for words, she was quick to keep the trend going by offering to pay for the person behind her, and then just as quick to head for the pick up end of the counter in hopes of catching up to Cameron. Sneaky man.

"You know—" she hedged upon sidling up next to him, her back to the display of napkins and colorful sugar packets— "it seems a little backwards for you to be buying my breakfast when it looks like you've gone days in the trenches without any yourself."

A pointed look dropped to the plain black coffee in his hand because, no, that didn't count. Not in her books, at least. But by the time bright blue eyes returned to his face her expression softened, landing somewhere between teasing and genuinely concerned.

"Looks like it was a long one." His shift, that is. "You wanna split my croissant? And know now if you refuse I'll likely spend the rest of my day riddled with nauseating guilt."

''Took you long enough,'' Elijah sighed, wasting no time as he rid himself of his shirt, fingers toying with his belt buckle when he looked up to notice them hovering in the doorway. He'd had very little work in his time in Charming so far, primarily out of paresse, though he'd missed getting back into the groove of his craft. ''What, no phones?'' A smirk tugged at his lips, hand shooting out to grab the phone he'd placed on a tripod, shutting down the camera and advancing on the new arrival. ''That's fine, I can work with a practice run.''

Cocktail waitress. Bartender. Those were the positions she inquired about over the phone, neither of which could be demonstrated in—A private room. As the confusion wore off she realized that's where she'd been sent. Not an office.

"I don't—I don't think I'm who you're waiting on." Couldn't be. Could she? Her thoughts took a frantic detour back through the call, lingering on the woman's final statement: come on in at eight. I'm sure we can find something for you.

Realization dawned across her face in real time. Well, shit. "Not Elijah, as in a manager then."