It was new release Tuesday and Sachin had five more boxes of new releases to unpack and shelf. His employee was in the back inputting the new releases into their system, and he was upfront adding them to the shelves. When the bell above the door chimed, he was on the step ladder with a stack of books in his arms being held upright with his chin. "I'll help you in just one second..." He called to whoever had come in, trying not to let the stack fall. Sachin added the books to the shelf and then climbed down the ladder, moving towards the front counter.
"How can..." He finally looked up at who had come into the store, and did a double take. "Ziva?" Sachin hurried towards his sister, a sudden panic overtaking him. "What are you doing here? Has something happened?" Had something happened to one of their parents or family members, surely someone would have called him. But there was no other reason for Ziva to come all the way to Washington from Zurich... at least not unannounced. "Are you okay?"
closed starter for @arabesq
Forbes & Santos wedding
All Hannelore needed to hear was a single note of You're Still the One to recognize it. Each and every time she heard the Shania Twain classic, she was swept back into the past, slow dancing with her new husband on their wedding night. The first time they'd heard the song on the radio, they turned to each other and said "this is it" at the same time. They'd been on the hunt for the perfect first dance song, and the this one fell into their laps three months before their wedding. Every anniversary they'd turn it on and slow dance in their living room. Hanne still played it every year, even though she could no longer dance with her beloved in the living room. But, tonight, she had the next best partner a girl could ask for.
"Oh, it's me and daddy's song, dance with me, Dec..." Hanne stood up from the reception table and held her hands out for her son. On the dance floor, she put her hand on Declan's shoulder and kept her fingers wrapped around his other. She smiled up at him. "Remember how we all used to dance to this song in the living room? It's such a good song..."
CLOSED EVENT STARTER FROM: SHREYA @arabesq
WHERE: STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL
the humidity had never truly felt like summer to shreya; it was less a seasonal shift and more of a physical imposition, a damp wool blanket dropped over the town. but today, the atmosphere in the crowded square possessed an entirely new layer of misery, thick as it was with the cloying, aggressively sweet aroma of macerated sugar and bruised, expiring fruit. she shifted the weight of her canvas tote bag, the strap digging into her shoulder. ironically, she had purchased the thing from one of the very vendors she was currently trying to avoid, its surface garishly patterned with fading strawberries. instinctively, her fingers drifted downward to find the cold, reassuring perimeter of her mood ring, her thumb tracing the metal band as her eyes scanned the chaotic sea of townspeople. to shreya, the annual strawberry festival was, by any reasonable metric, a public health catastrophe masquerading as community spirit. it was a minefield of tactile horrors; a varnish of sticky, syrupy fingerprints coated every single wooden picnic table, while angry yellowjackets traced high velocity orbits around the rim of overflowing trash cans. and she had already spotted at least three local toddlers sprinting aimlessly through the crowd, their faces smeared with bright red juice in a manner that looked less like a culinary indulgence and more like a poorly managed forensic crime scene.
she lifted her wrist to consult her watch. 12:14 p.m.
he was exactly four minutes late. it was an entirely minor scheduling infraction, one that any normal person would dismiss, yet it was currently serving as the catalyst for a tight, deeply familiar knot of anxiety that was beginning to coil itself into the base of her stomach. a quick glance downward confirmed that the surface of her mood ring was accurately reflecting this internal shift, its liquid crystal shifting into a stressed, dark amber. it was the exact same ring declan himself had gifted her when they were children, a cheap piece of trinket jewelry that she had sparsely removed from her finger in all the years since. then, by some strange internal compass, she turned her head toward the edge of the pavilion and spotted him.
the relief was instantaneous, a softening in her chest that she felt compelled to combat immediately. fighting back the urge to smile, she quickly crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a posture of supreme annoyance purely for the sake of giving him a bit of theatrical grief. "you're late," she announced, though her lips betrayed her, ticking upward at the corners before she could stop them.
My Blood - Skinny Living // Sinister Kid - The Black Keys // Family Tree - Kings of Leon // He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - The Hollies // The Boys Are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy // Brother - Kodaline // Me and My Brother - 5ive // Young Volcanoes - Fall Out Boy // Another Night on Mars - The Maine // Here's to Us - Halestorm // Read My Mind - The Killers // Ends of the Earth - Lord Huron // My Blood - twenty one pilots // Renegades - X Ambassadors // Eye of the Tiger - Survivor // Come Together - The Beatles
Event starter for Hanne & Silas
Where: End of Summer Pool Party
@arabesq
Hanne's flip flops slapped against the concrete as she skirted through the partygoers and towards Pinehaven's one and only mayor. She'd heard someone complaining about the lack of vegetarian options at todays pool party, and the fact that Silas had told multiple people that he didn't have tofu dogs so, naturally, Hanne thought it would be funny to mess with him a little bit. She'd been in Pinehaven long enough that she thought she'd earned that right. Plus, she and the mayor went way back. "Oh, Mr. Mayor," She called out, a musical lilt to her tone. Hanne approached the grill, putting a hand on Silas' shoulder in greeting. "People are raving about the tofu dogs! I simply must try one..." Hanne made a show of looking around at the various meats that were being grilled. "Do you have any left?"
CLOSED EVENT STARTER FOR : SHREYA + DECLAN
WHERE : PERSEID METEOR SHOWER
the late august dusk had slunk over centennial park, leaving the sprawling lawn draped in cool indigo and dotted with the silhouettes of townspeople sprawled across tartan blankets. while most of the crowd milled around the steep stop kiosk, claiming paper cups of steaming roast and paper bags of cinnamon pastries to ward off the midnight chill, shreya had claimed a patch of turf at the highest crest of the ridge, well away from the ambient glow of the park lamps. beside her sat a sprawling assembly of polished brass and salvage hardware. it was a home built telescope, a painstaking project she had pieced together over months of late night tinkering, complete with knobs scrounged from an old microscope. it lacked the sleek, manufactured polish of a store bought rig, but the optics were terrifyingly precise.
"the astronomical alignment tonight is exceptionally favorable," shreya murmured, her fingers deftly making minute adjustments to the focuser knob. her tone carried that distinct precision she brought to her work, but there was a subtle, unmistakable brightness beneath it. a spark of enthusiasm reserved for the cosmic phenomena that governed the upper atmosphere. "the moon is thin enough not to wash out the faint trails, and the earth is passing straight through the densest core of the tuttle debris field. we’re looking at potentially eighty to a hundred entries an hour if the thermal currents stay calm."
she leaned down, pressing her eye to the rubber eyepiece to check the orientation on a distant star cluster, her hand resting on the counterweight shaft. "most people just stare up and see random streaks of light," she continued, her voice dipping into a fluid, animated cadence as she pointed a finger toward the northeastern horizon. "but what we're actually watching is ancient comet dust vaporizing fifty miles up. i swapped out the mirror last week for a parabolic ground element. it gives a much wider field of view. so when the peak hits, the clarity should be absolute."
satisfied with the alignment, she straightened up, a faint curve of satisfaction softening her lips. "i even modified the mount so we can follow the radiant point near the constellation perseus without having to..." she turned as she spoke, her sentence evaporating mid thought. declan was right there. much closer than expected while she was buried in her technical monologue. the cool night air suddenly felt dense, the space between them shrinking until every minor detail of his face filled her entire field of vision. shreya froze. her analytical mind, usually so swift to process data and formulate a response, hit an absolute wall. thoughts buffering in the electric vacuum that opened up between them.
her breath hitched in her throat. she stayed perfectly motionless beneath the starlight, her gaze trapped in his, her usual witty defenses completely out of reach. after a long, stretching beat of unbroken eye contact, her lips parted, and she managed only a single, breathless word. "...hi."
"Are you even listening to me?" Shay asked, deadpanned. He leaned into Malachi's eyeline and snapped his fingers in an attempt to wake his brother up from whatever stupor he'd fallen into. To be fair, the zone out was warranted. They'd been working on this song for hours. The arrangement wasn't coming together like it had in his head and they hadn't yet found the right notes to go with the lyrics Malachi had written. Even Shay had started to lose interest for the night. But at least he was still paying attention. "Where the fuck is your head?" He grumbled, leaning back in his seat, and stretching his arms above his head. Before he even finished stretching, the annoyance he'd been feeling moments before dissipating completely. He'd never been the type to stay annoyed for long, especially with his brother.
"I propose we eat," Shay suggested. "And drink... maybe getting a little drunk will help us figure this shit out." They'd written their song Banshee while completely wasted and it was one of their most popular. So, maybe a beer or four would make this shit come together.
these biweekly excursions to the local grocery store with sheridan were pretty much the only reason saffy’s refrigerator ever saw a full house. it wasn't a matter of self neglect; they just operated on a short term cycle. a handful of ingredients to survive a night or two was usually enough, given how frequently they ended up ordering takeout with the spin crew or drifting into diner booths with friends. as they moved down the aisle, saffy found a steady stream of amusement in the stark visual contrast between their two carts. sheridan’s basket looked more organized than the store display itself and saffy’s, by comparison, was a reckless mosaic of dented cardboard boxes, mismatched branding, and whatever random cravings had caught their eye at waist level.
"the eggs are fine, sheri. they're built to bounce," saffy hummed, tracking the precise moment their sister’s eyes locked onto the absolute lawlessness happening in their cart. saffy had just dropped a heavy frozen pizza directly onto the fragile styrofoam carton, quickly followed by the careless missile launch of a generic salsa jar and a bag of tortilla chips right on top of the pile. at their side, aaliyah marched in lockstep with the rolling basket. the dalmatian's spotted head remained perfectly level with saffy’s knee, her ears twitching occasionally but otherwise entirely unfazed by the fluorescent hum and the rattle of metal wheels against the linoleum. "besides, i'm scrambling them tonight," saffy added, a dry smirk breaking through their gravelly tone. "they only need to survive the three minute drive back to my apartment."
