Joshua Chau

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

“Definitely not.” Brendan chuckled. “Maybe for a price, though? Can’t be giving away my luck for free.” He tsked with a grin on his face, “All in, eh?” Brendan shrugged. Well, if this man was going to love dangerously, Brendan had no problems doing the same. “Likewise. All in.”

With both players’ bets down, Josh watched as the house dealt, keeping an eye on his own cards. There was a sort of calm that came over him now. This was entirely out of his hands. “What would you price that good luck for, hm?” he asked, watching as the house lay down the cards. Pair of twos. Ten high. A shit hand. Some sort of disappointment settled in Josh’s chest. He lay his cards down. “I reckon that is a losing hand,” he said with a wry shake of his head.

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

“Better get ready to buy that drink then.” Brendan shot the man a smug grin and raised his bet again. This was by far the most fun he’d had since he’d gotten to Noche that evening. Since he’d gotten to Vegas if he were being honest. That was a damn shame.

“Going to lend me your good luck?” Josh joked, waiting for the next hand to be dealt and cracking his knuckles. This feeling of camaraderie was nice, and something Josh felt he hadn’t experienced in a while. When was the last time he had just hung out with friends? With newly-stretched fingers, he pushed the rest of his chips to the middle. “All in.”

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

“ah.” brendan smiled. obviously the man loved his daughter, and all the things that came with her. would brendan ever feel that way? he doubted it. it’s why he avoided the seriousness of relationships and commitment and all the expectations that came with that. brendan glanced at his cards and kept a straight face as he raised his bet.

Shaking himself from his daydream, Josh matched Brendan’s bet, stomach suddenly giving a churn of nerves as... yes... he lost once more. He let out a strained, cynical chuckle. “Well, there goes that. One more hand? If I win that one, I’ll buy you a drink.”

[joshua-chau]

capo-gio-romero·:

Gio was worried about Bijou after the events of the ball. He hadn’t had been able to interact with her much and wanted to check in on her. He wished he knew how to offer her more protection…that she’d also take. 

Gio made his way to the club to see if he could get a hold of her, even for just five minutes. Bijou was booked for the night, so he couldn’t get more time in than that anyway, but it would make him feel better just knowing she was holding up alright.

As the glass toppled over and spilled across his arm, Gio glared at the nervous man beside him. “This is Versace.” He growled. Gio snapped his fingers for the bartender to come over and give him a cloth to wipe the wine away as best he could. With a huff, he took the suit jacket off and draped it over his arm. “Either lay off whatever you’re on, or pop a Xanax.”

Far from a layman, Joshua knew how much designer clothes cost, and he grit his teeth and swallowed a cringe, tongue flapping useless and dry against his palette. Why was he so nervous?

“I can pay for dry cleaning,” he said, already reaching into his jacket’s inner pocket, making sure to show a flash of his rolex as he did. He didn’t want the guy thinking he was some schmuck, some loser who had no clue what he had just done, or someone to whom dry cleaning was a big deal. Let him know he was apologetic - as an equal. Still, some of that panicked sweat beaded on his forehead, and he flicked it away with a finger as he pulled out his wallet. Perhaps a Xanax was a good idea, but it surely wouldn’t mix well with the wine already in his system. Plus, who knows if he might get called into work last minute. A doped up doctor was little use to anyone.

[joshua-chau]

sorrcntino·:

                Sheepish  look  painted  across  her  delicate  features  ,  cognac  hues  cast  downward  in  embarrassment  .  Perhaps  her  soft  spoken  words  and  air  of  humour  hadn’t  been  the  best  option  to  deter  creep  yet  she  found  herself  relieved  when  Joshua  had  stepped  in  .  Not  that  she  enjoyed  being  considered  a  damsel  in  distress  .  ‘  Dr.  Chau  my  knight  in  shining  armour  .  Sorry  about  that  apparently  some  people  don’t  take  me  seriously  .  Can  I  buy  you  a  drink  ?  As  a  sort  of  thank  you ?  ‘

Watching the man stalk off, Joshua felt the anger he held in his stomach subsiding, bubbling down to a gentle simmer of irritation, quickly balmed by Gabriella’s kind offer.

“Yeah, there can be some real assholes in the world,” he agreed, smiling at her, tone not holding quite the level of bite his words did,. “A friendly drink sounds good to me, but if you would rather be left alone just say. My mother taught me to respect women and their desire to be left alone.” She had taught it with an iron fist, in fact, often giving him a firm clip round the ear should he bother her when she did not wish to be disturbed. He couldn’t blame her, however. Looking back, he had cheek.

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

“oh god, no.” brendan spoke the words as though having a child was one of the worst ideas in the world. it wasn’t, but it was close. “no thank you on that front, josh. i’d rather not.” he shook his head, glancing away from the man to glance at his card. “i mean, to each their own. but brendan short is not about to go making any children.” once before, the idea seemed amazing. to share a family with the woman he’d loved. but instead, she decided to get knocked up for his best friend and tell him a few days before the wedding. all that was just bullshit and a waste of time to ever, ever consider again. “good luck to you on raising a mini you though.”

Josh let out a chuckle at Brendan’s obvious distaste at the idea of a family. He could understand it, though he loved his daughter, and enjoyed the support a family gave, the companionship of it... He supposed that was less and less the case nowadays. “Eh, she’s more of a mini-her-mother to be honest,” he shrugged, pulling a face and throwing in another bet. For a moment, unbidden, the thought of having a child with Bijou fluttered through his mind, and he was paralyzed by it. What a sight that child would be, and what a sight Bijou would be holding them. But ah, what an impossibility it was.

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

“brendan.” he snickered, “don’t go blaming me for your shortcomings now, that’s never any good.” he smirked, licked his lips and watched as another hand was dealt. if he lost, he’d stop. if he won, he’d probably go again. luck always ran out, no matter how good brendan was at the game. “you might as well give up now. we all know we need a college education to get us anywhere these days. don’t want to screw up the kid’s life so soon, do we?”

“Nah, I was doing fine until you came along. I’ve just got to wait it out and then I’ll scramble back. Always do.” Josh slid his cards over each other in his hand, taking some small pleasure in their plastic glide. “Besides, we’ll be fine.” It was a morbid thought, but Josh knew his parents were nearing the end of their time on earth, and as their only son he knew the inheritance would be something he could rely on to help with any future financial troubles. “You got kids of your own?”

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

brendan laughed at the man’s response. “no need. i can do bad all by myself.” smirking, brendan readied himself for the next hand, which he won of course. “ah, look. honestly. throw in the towel now. or is it go big or go home? ‘cause i think we’re at the go home stage right now.” brendan let out a laugh and dragged the poker chips towards his side of the table again. “you not calling it quits as yet?”

“Jesus,” he hissed, and sucked at his teeth, looking at his own seriously weakened funds and comparing it to the towering pile that his fellow player had amassed. “I can’t just give in,” Josh said with a sigh and a tilt of his head. “I’ll either go for a draw or a crushing defeat at this point, but no half-assed surrender.” It was a poor decision, and part of him knew it, but the other part of him - the part thrilled by things like this, like risk, and whisky, and his phone face-up in front of his wife - won out.

“Look, I might as well know the name of the man taking away my daughter’s college fund,” he said, and reached out a hand to the other. “I’m Josh.”

[joshua-chau]

brendanshort·:

brendan grinned as he pulled the poker chips to the edge of his side of the table. he’d just won another hand, not a single person around the table being able to call his bluff. “it’s just my night, folks.” he licked his lips and set the chips in front of him, tapping his fingers on the poker table as he awaited and anticipated playing again. he was on a roll tonight. “i suggest you lot give up while you still can. i’d hate to take all your money, well .. i mean, i’d love it but you know .. you wouldn’t.” he let out a low chuckle, clasping his fingers together. “here we go.”

“Christ, man, you’re really on a roll,” Josh griped, tapping a manicured nail on his dwindling stack of chips. It wasn’t often that Joshua was this unlucky. “Did you make a deal with a devil or something?” He chucked a blind into the pile, desperate to try and come out even if nothing else tonight. A loss would set him back mightily, and he knew that people in his life were beginning to become suspicious as to where the money was actually going.

[joshua-chau]

dylnm0nroe·:

“i go away for a measly two weeks and all fuckin’ hell breaks loose.” dylan muttered beneath her breath, pushing herself from under a car she had been working on for the past few hours. she wiped the oil stains from her hands, leaning up against the truck, her eyebrow lifting at the presence before her. “now.. remind me again why you’re here? i can’t keep my head on straight..” he shook her head, snagging the water waiting beside her, taking a few sips before her gaze fell back on the individual before her.

“You’re telling me,” Joshua mumbled in an equally-quiet reply, fiddling with his pager, squinting down at the battery meter to check that yes, it really was on and he was being left alone for once, and no, he did not need to rush to the hospital as soon as possible. He barely noticed that the mechanic had hauled herself up from the garage floor, and jumped when she spoke.

“Oh, right,” he started, clipping his pager back in place, “I’m just here for the usual smog test, nothing fancy.” It had been almost a year since the last, and the time before that when he had missed the date Mary had chewed his ear off. Even his daughter had joined in, ripping on him like it was a sport and she was in it to win. Josh grimaced at the memory.

[joshua-chau]

sorrcntino·:

                ‘  woah  dude  ,  nope  nuh  uh  .  never  happening  .  ‘  nurse  chuckles  at  drunken  male  attempting  to  hit  on  her  ,  wine  glass  is  nursed  in  other  hand  whilst  she  gestures  for  him  to  cut  it  out  .  gabriella  needed  to  wind  down  especially  after  how  busy  the  er  was  on  her  last  shift  .  that  and  she  needed  to  get  rid  of  some  unwanted  memories  trying  to  resurface  .  

“Hey,” Joshua snapped, trying to get the man’s attention over the din of the bar. He had been watching from his place nearby, at first attempting to ignore the mans slurred lines but quickly finding that they forced his attention. Josh didn’t really want to draw attention to himself - he wasn’t meant to be here, he had told his wife he was on call - but after a while of listening to the man make a fool of himself and ignore Gabriella’s rejections, he found himself becoming angry.

His attempt at verbally getting the man’s attention failed, waved off like a fly, and that anger bubbled up into a thick wave. “Hey,” he repeated, placing a long-fingered hand on the guy’s shoulder, forcing his attention away from Gabriella and pulling him around. “She said no, man, find someone else to try it with.”

[osolemio]

[joshua-chau]

//C L O S E D: @capo-gio-romero

   The lounge was quiet this evening, and Josh reasoned he could guess why. The kidnapping of Nadya Volkova was still fresh in the minds of the public and press alike, and though no blood had been been spilled at the moment of her taking, Noche seemed stained with it. Each breath felt laced with iron, dripping red and viscous. Joshua had inhaled fresher air in a morgue.

   But, he thought, Bijou was worth it. She was worth the discomfort, the itch between his shoulder-blades, all for the possibility he would see her there and grab some small bite of her time. He’d not sent a message ahead - far too dangerous, what with his wife sometimes answering his phone - but instead sat at the bar, peering this way and that through the sparse crowd for a glimpse of her. 

   Lost for a moment in his search, he groped blindly for his drink on the bartop, hit his fingers against the stem of a wine glass, and sent it clattering. A pool of pale fizz spilled over the bar. “Shit,” he cursed, coming to his senses and leaping from his chair. The wine was spreading quick, dripping off the edges in small streams. He followed it with his eyes as it ran and gathered, and finally soaked into the sleeve of the man closest to him. “Shit,” he repeated, “I’m so sorry, I...”

[lyricalmusingstuff]

                       You’re like:                         a drug to me,                        a luxury,                        my sugar                         && gold.

[joshua-chau]

oanico‌:

habits died hard. nico found himself fiddling around with right about anything he could get his hands on, and in that very moment it so happened to be the lining of the lounger at the emergency room. you could say he was rather uncomfortable with having to be there in the first place, his mind was running loose – his mother was worrying over nothing, he was sure. it was then, that his train of thought was interrupted by the doctor entering the premises. 

“josh!” the young man chirped happily. if he had to be there, he was glad it was in the other’s hands. “well, you see… I was helping my mother get some of the leaves out of the drain that runs along the top of the house– and well you see I may or may not have lost hold on the stair thingy I was on and slipped off.” the young man continued to roll his eyes ever so slightly before adding, “I told her I was fine, but she insisted on having me go see the doctors so here I am.”

“Nico,” Josh grinned, and almost went in to slap the guy’s shoulder before remembering he was a patient, and instead slumped a little haphazardly on the nearby desk chair and rolled it towards the edge of the lounger. Nico’s story was a believable one to which he nodded along, and whilst Joshua couldn’t see any obvious injuries on his friend - no legs at odd angles or dislocated shoulders - he did think that Mrs Aguilera was sensible in pushing her son to go to hospital. 

“How many stories did you fall?” he asked, grabbing the small pen torch from his pocket and beckoning Nico closer so that he could check his optic reaction to light. 

[joshua-chau]

               Joshua rolled his sleeves up, the long white coat he wore feeling cumbersome and unwieldy. Behind him the hectic buzz of the hospital droned on and on in the ringing of a phone, the beep of a pager, the wail of a baby. He sighed heavily, each sound drilling into his eardrums and inching further and further to the sensitive soft flesh of his temples. He felt a migraine coming on, teased out by exhaustion, by ten hours already felt working in the Emergency Room. He sighed, huffed, rubbed his hand over the furrow of his brow. 

The curtains loomed before him in a sickening shade of mint, and he pushed them aside, already speaking before he could catch sight of his patient. “Right, I’m Doctor Chau, and I’ll be examining you tod- Jesus, what happened to you?"

[joshua-chau]

Joshua's aestheic board is here