#claudiamcrshall

[julianxsantiago]

@claudiamcrshall

Completed scripts have weighed less than the single sheet of paper that was handed to the both of them. Their signatures stared back at them, side-by-side, underneath an official heading in gothic font, the seal of city hall a badge of needed realism in a moment that felt anything but reality. It passed from his hand to hers, a casual transfer with serious eyes, the responsibility now hers to place it while the key to the mustang filled the void. Now, he feels her diamond underneath his touch. It's transitioned from engagement ring to wedding ring in a few hours, the courthouse long faded from the rearview mirror. A squeeze to her hand comes from a shifting gear, sometimes from nothing at all. If she chooses to question him for it, he'll be answering to his wife, no one else.

"You know where we're going yet?" he beats her to it, eyes on the road, another shifting gear instead.

[wesleyfairchild]

@claudiamcrshall​

“For something that’s damn near impossible to slip on off your finger, it certainly has got a habit of slipping your mind when it comes to me, darling,” he tells her, eyes gesturing down to the ring that’s on her, wanting a more thorough look of it since the moment he noticed it. This time, where the objective is to make one to match it for the one who gave it to her, it is his only set price. There is a strict ‘no haggling’ policy in his house, hand out, palm up, awaiting to be paid upfront. “Never would I think of running off with it, not without paying a small ransom for it first.”

[ninaxmorgan]

@claudiamcrshall​

There used to be tiny fingerprints embedded in blue eyeshadow. It co-existed with that all too familiar and all too fleeting period of girlhood that emulates mothers. It's sickening to remember those one-off moments. Her stomach cinches before the palette clicks closed, a prop returned to its original place on set. This is not her bedroom. This is not Carolina's bedroom either. It's no one's. An empty, open box that will be exposed by lights and cameras until Nina's head lifts, catching the reflection in the vanity set.

"Oh, you scared me," she lets out with a found breath, always on-hand, turning to face Claudia. She knows all about big fish in small ponds, always swimming, swimming, swimming. "Lina told me to grab something she left behind." There's an extension of a small smile, a shadow of apology, while her hair is brushed back from her forehead. "You won't like this, but she won't be able to make it in today. She's sick."

[ezrafairchild]

It’s too late in the season for the air to be sweet with magnolias. Those trees have all but turned into kindle with how their leaves have browned up, but there are still rosebuds in the warm dew of Alabama, sprinkled here and there on the property. The south never does know the meaning of winter most of the time, free of snowstorms and ice, only a frosty chill can ever come from visitors that haven’t a clue what it means to be hospitable nor to accept it in a kindly manner.

“Has anyone happened to tell you he’s not all that much for conversation, that man of yours?” Ezra laughs as they stroll up the walkway, brick-lined with boxwoods to the sides and spanish moss above. “The most peculiar accent he has,” he goes on, the tip of a cane punctuating the statement. “Must be why.” Almost sounds understanding, pitying, really. A smile to the girl, all in good nature. “We do love having you come down all this way to see us.--How long is it that you’ll all be staying with us for again, sugar?“

[damionxkillgrave]

@claudiamcrshall​

He had been close to two decades as an art director before signing his contract, becoming just another one on the chopping block to wait his turn for the cleaver to come down. All that knowledge and schooling for what in the end? Not a damn thing. Only when it came to things like this, when he was sitting in his chair, waiting to be called on set, gazing out across the landscape from under the shade, just unable to help himself but /watch/. Don't get him wrong, he was no workaholic, but it helped a lot of the days, days of adjusting to wearing a ring with no one else out there with the matching one.

Okay, he's up.

"Hey, kiddo." His hands were in his pockets, eyes squinting out the sun, boots from wardrobe being worn into as he walked across the sand. "Need a hand? Got yourself a real peach of a director to work with. Let me you help out before he blows a fuse."

[seraphxdavis]

@claudiamcrshall​

The thumb flicks against the gear, that metallic grating sharp in a quiet room, the only light to its name birthed from the same cigarette lighter held in Seraph's hand. Orange hue splashes against his face, a smile with teeth baring as he looks at Claudia. The color of the flame goes well with her redenned eyes, always the prettiest when she cries, and the loss of a mother has her glowing. What good can a whore make for a mother, though? The loss should feel like a gift, a gift he's given to her, but he can't blame her when she doesn't know who's responsible.

"You scared?" he asks with eyes glued to her. A burning wick has a certain scent to it, and it swirls around them as the candle is lit and placed between them on the floor he's made them both sit on. His bedroom floor. His dominion. His girl. "I know you’re not getting cold feet on me."

[julianxsantiago]

@claudiamcrshall​

There is no longer a safe and a combination code that splits the present from the future. They're teetering on colliding with one another, the thread of separation wrapping around to create the pocket in his jacket, where inside is the box that once opened can never be closed again. His hand is coiled around it, absentmindedly shifting it from one side of the fingers to the other while he walks with the one person who holds its ultimate fate.

She's turned to while the sands of the beach imprint the soles of their steps, a little memento that they had made it here, the land that he had wanted to show her all this time. It might as well mark itself as equal importance to the first man on the moon, the first steps of something solid, something absolute, something impossible still.

"You're learning more here?" he asks after a moment, eyes and half-smile remaining on her. "To talk back to me?"

[julianxsantiago]

@claudiamcrshall​

It never clicked about holidays, no matter how many had been shared. It was a swing into routine, into gatherings, something that was just there, taken care of by another. The very first year where that same person wasn't around, what had they done? Found each other, fought, drank, done anything to distract their hearts away from mourning. It had been years, and for Felix to remind him that Christmas Eve still meant something, enough for it to be a favorite, for him to find that Luis couldn't be the only one in the world to be responsible for its celebration.

The dimmer was lowered, bare minimum, watching the reflection of the lights simmer to a bare gloss across black marble flooring. A golden glow, softened beads of it, took its place, threaded around the branches of the tree that was set up. Green and yellow, the chosen color scheme of one Claudia Marshall, all put together in one setting for her to walk in on, bookmarked book beneath it, tucked to the back.

It was the sound of the door from the garage, the light footsteps that followed, head raising up to see her on the other side of the expansive room. The open layout stretched out between them with the large glass panels leading to the pool behind him, its own soft lighting bleeding in to create gentle shadows, animated as his shoulders shifted, hand rolling once against the wrist.

"You have something more to add?"