Allison frowned, letting her fingers pull at the corners of the case files spread out along the kitchen island. When she’d invited Charlie over to her place, she didn’t know she’d be bringing her work with her. Though perhaps she should have seen that much coming. 

Absently dogearing one of the pages, she lifted the next one out of its folder. A picture clipped to a page of medical terms and handwritten notes scrawled in the margins. “He seems... pleasant.”  

@th3adapt0r liked for a starter!!! 

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Klaus narrows his eyes at the woman standing opposite him in the dingy mansion foyer. 

He tiptoes nearer. He gives her berth, but leans in, and ....sniffs her shoulder. His face only wrinkles in further consternation.

     “Mkay.” 

He nods, as though having stumbled upon a great truth. He folds his arms across his slim chest. 

     “Yeah.”

He clicks his tongue, bobs his head again, licks a finger and sticks it up as though to sample the weather. 

     “Indeed.”

And then, with a kind of soft whinny of laughter:

“Hmm, can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it that much. What is this supposed to be anyway?”

The art piece in question was definitely somewhat abstract, Charlie wasn’t that uneducated. Her father had made them meticulously study various artists over the years, not that Charlie really paid much focus to it. It had kind of made her resent art a little, yet another association with her father.

Besides it wasn’t like she was here to admire the art, she was working. Her client was some fancy art dealer who was getting paranoid in his old age and hired her to watch his back. The case had caught her interest however, that and the pay check would help build her savings back up again. She’d had to dip into them to bail her idiot brother out of jail last month, so the money would be more than welcome right now.

"I’m no expert but I think it’s a....vulva.” Sure enough, the way the paint is spun into a oblong shape and, yeah, he’s pretty sure. The dhampir takes it in, though, somewhat baffled and unsure what to really think. Art sure is a thing, and not something he ever got into, nor does he particularly enjoy staring at layers of acrylics for hours and hours. 

“Well, I mean, if you were like, an eight year old, would you come to that conclusion?” What an odd question to ask. “I’m trying to find things to take my class to when school starts again. I didn’t realize field trips take so much energy and time to plan and I don’t want them traumatized.”

He’s friendly and quite chipper, there hasn’t been a moment since he walked into this gallery that he didn’t have a big stupid smile on his face.

"....sweetie...." Klaus breathes.

He leans across the couch to take Charlie's hands in his own. He kisses her knuckles, and then nuzzles them.

Wish Klaus a happy borfday! (accepting!)

"Yaaaaaaas, oh my heck."

The medium takes the stairs two at a time and ends up on the first dreary landing of the mansion, where his redhaired sister awaits with a double chocolate cake topped in chocolate-covered cherries.

"I mean that and a mint ice cream cake, but bitch, I'm not picky. You wanna split it?"

He takes the serving knife from her and brandishes it with a fiendish grin.

     There were some days when Liam didn’t care for his job- the other one. The one that didn’t involve him standing behind a wooden bar, making drinks and idly flirting with strangers. The one that didn’t require him to make conversation and smile at just the right moments. Some days he didn’t care for that one either. But the job that he didn’t care for today was the one that had him sitting alone at a café table he had known his quarry would be, head bent over a book as he listened in on a conversation across the way held by what had to be some of the most boring people on earth. Businessmen, he found, often were. He’d much rather be reading than perusing the heads of the suited up pair, finding nothing useful other than numbers and the all too prominent need to brag. He could barely pretend that he was reading anymore, having been stuck on the same page for a good five minutes, and then one minute more.