#c:st.

Quietly slipping a new roll of filming into her precious camera, she tip toes back down the way she'd just come and angles the lens just inside the room to snap a quick round of pictures, and when the screen shows up distorted she move even quicker around the door frame to see if she can catch anything with her own eyes. What she's met with instead is a vaguely familiar, very real man and what results is a very unfortunate screech of terror. Ghosts are one thing. Strange men in condemned buildings tend to lean toward her personal items ending up in an evidence bag. It's only after the humiliating sound as left her and she stumbles back into the wall opposite the door that she recognizes him. She almost wishes he were a serial killer instead. "Oh, for fuck's sake, August!" It takes only a second to compose herself but the damage is done. "What the hell are you doing here?" As if that isn't very evident.

Tonight was an absolute thriving success as far as gigs go when deejaying in a tiny dive around London. Which is to say that the crowd, for how small the joint it, was impressive. She comes out from the back, still buzzing in her bones. It feels surreal every time she steps off stage and Blair slips back into the being a nobody named Ella. She's is dragging her feet toward the back entrance, looking to ride out the last of her adrenaline with a cigarette that she taps out of her rumpled pack.

He's holding a stack of papers and a fancy envelope. "Before you stab me or kick me out— I came to ask a favour and I am prepared to get on my knees and beg you for it. Here, in public, where you work."

He should have walked away. Well and truly cut ties and walked away. It's just that the number of people he considers friends can be counted with less than one hand. While Neil is the first to run always and he had been with them, it's not so easily done now that he's carved out a life for himself here that isn't temporary. So, they keep ending up here, in each other's orbit by force proximity. Except— that's a lie. He may have put an end to whatever they were on the road toward but it was a never a matter of wanting his distance. He'd just been scared of what that road led to. Neil still takes every excuse to be near them. "You wanna go out for a smoke?"

Thus, the handful of pebbles. The pathetic, wind wild poet beneath his beloved's window. The sorry excuse for aim that hits the siding more often than the glass. The wrong siding next to the wrong glass but he doesn't know that yet.

She knows before she gets to the door that misfortune has fallen— no one ever pays a visit at this hour, at this door, for any other reason. Her breath still catches at the sight of blood, expected or not. Her back props open the door to clear the way for entrance; she wastes no time on hellos. The injured is new to her but Floyd and TJ have brought many a pup to her door. Practiced caution causes her to glance around behind her guests to assure they weren't followed. Most wouldn't dare— the company of ghosts tends to make every ground feel hallowed. "How'd it happen?" She asks, latching the lock before she wheels around, gesturing toward the table. Whatever details they can give will help. Despite the urgency of the situation her tone remains calm. Her attention turns toward her new patient, smile slight, "Is there anything I need to know? Species? Allergies?"

He stayed behind to close despite his last client having settled up hours ago. It wouldn't have been unusual for him to leave her with the keys and leave early but it wasn't exactly unusual for him to wait for her either. When her last appointment leaves, he's stolen a joint from Jay's tin and lit up in the non-sterile stockroom. "Soleil's riding an American cowboy."

It is the closest his face gets to a smile — the slight lift of a person relieved to be leaving work on time and no obligations to his bandmates. "You doing anything —?"