#florrentine

[whtlckhale]

The campus dark room wasn't the worst he'd ever seen, though Jasper was probably the last person in the world to really comment on the status of such places. He wasn't the most artsy of individuals (usually he left that to the more talented members of his little family) but there was only so much in one infinite lifetime that he could avoid learning. Photography had erroneously been thought to be perhaps the simplest of stepping stones and while Jasper wasn't bad by any means he certainly didn't have the eye of someone like Emmy.

He admired her ability to see through a lens, to find the beauty in the most simplistic of things. He looked more analytically where she could write poetry with photo frames. At least he was trying.

The harsh smell of chemicals had burned his nose in earnest the first few times, but by now he was too used to it. There he stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder, as they worked to develop their shots for the project ---due the following Monday. He'd been spending a lot of time with her (certainly something he attributed to partnering up with her in the class on more than one occasion) but the more scrutinizing eye could tell he was enjoying her company.

Sullen as he always was, the melancholy around him seemed to lift even in the slightest when presented with the aura of sunshine that Emmy exuded. It was hard to ignore, really. And at least in her light he wouldn't reveal what he was to the whole world.

He lifted his current picture with the developing tongs and slipped it into the second bin, submerging it in the stop bath before letting it sit for the required seconds.

Feeling the emotions of those around him at all times was a bit like cheating. He tried his best to put his little shield up, and really he was quite good at it by now, but there were times when even he subconsciously wanted to be tuned in. Emmy's immediate interest had piqued his own and days in class together bled to weeks, where hours at a time were spend learning and discussing. Now well into their second semester he could say he knew her decently well, that she was someone he thoroughly enjoyed spending time with ... and that the tension between them could be cut with a hot knife.

Seldom did Jasper let himself get close. It was a risk always, especially with his piqued hunger never really slaked, ever burning at the back of his throat and waiting for just the slightest moment of weakness. In times they had been close he'd blamed his cold hands on poor circulation (and even flexed his fingers in a way that suggested he wanted to coax warmth back through them (knowing full well it would never happen, but nobody could ever say he wasn't committed to his bit)). The laughter from their most recent joke had subsided minutes ago and yet his smirk lingered: the trademark sideward, sloppy grin that so often cut his features when he was amused (with others or himself) that the Cullens had gotten to know so well.

As did that undeniable tension. Emmy worked beside him, lifting and rinsing her own picture form the fixer and dipping it into the water to rinse excess chemicals off. He watched the way she lifted onto the tips of her toes to hang it by the clothes pin to their left, then rested back onto the whole of her feet. Even in the dim, harsh red light of the dark room she exuded brightness. It was confounding.

And then she brushed behind him to get to his right - to start the process over again - and he caught a stronger whiff of her: floral in a subtle way, with hints of citrus and honey and warm blood pulsing its way through her. He found himself swallowing, dropping black gaze down to the stop bath so he could shift over to the fixer and continue.

They needed to feed. A hunt had been scheduled for later in the night and Jasper silently cursed himself for being pinned in the dark room with someone who tempted him on the best of days, never mind now. She must have read the cue as more of that static between them because when she settled she spoke in that rasp he found himself pleasantly in tune with.

❛ you can kiss me, you know. ❜

Dark eyes lifted from the fixer bath to her, where he expected to see her cheeky grin punctuating a jest. Instead he found an earnestness that didn't require use of his gift to tell she was painfully sincere. The little dam of resolve dropped, that mental block he so often employed to keep himself sane around the public and to keep from becoming overwhelmed, overloaded ... and he felt it too.

She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted a hell of a lot more than that, really, but she wanted him to kiss her.

He set the developing tongs against the plastic rim of the bath and turned to face her. The small dark room provided very little space for them, but when he pushed the slightest more into her space she moved with him, slotting her back into the wall and letting her eyes drop to his lips. He wet them - a very human response - as he rose the tips of his fingers to trace along the fine cut of her jaw. Feather-light while he watched her own tiers in turn ... really, studied the language of her body and how it worked so effortlessly with the emotional perfume she pushed out into the closet of the dark room.

Digits journeyed just below her ear, traced into the roots of thick brown waves before his thumb rubbed her cheek, he cupped the back of her neck and leaned closer.

Light ... light, impossibly gentle. He didn't trust himself, but fuck if he hadn't thought about kissing her before. A part of his mind remained sober, stuck on how soft he needed to be, aware of how impossibly fragile humans were in comparison to his kind, even now. It could be so easy to give in, to let himself push his mouth to hers with all of the roiling want and ache a lonely, tortured soul like his harnessed and lived with ... but it would spoil the moment, bruise her like a fine peach, hurt her. He didn't want that.

But he tasted at her, tongue tracing the line of her fine tiers before finding her own. He exhaled a breath he didn't need, didn't know he held, into her maw and felt the lowest and raspiest of sighs pass from his possession to hers - as if he trusted her with a deep secret. You can kiss me translated into you can taste me in the sweetest of meanings.

And between them, chest to chest, he felt her pulse quicken. The pounding of her heart against fragile sternum, beating a rhythm into his body that made him suck a breath (a mistake). God, the scent of her. Fine, coppery blood and flowers, honey and sunshine and warmth he could consume her. He could sink his teeth into that beautiful, long neck of hers and have a taste, just one. Just one, little taste was all he needed to fill him up, God he was so empty. He was so very fucking---

He pulled away. Pulled away and stepped back, dropped his gaze and heaved another unneeded (but very much needed) breath. The back of his thighs bumped the developing table and he heard the faint (to her) sloshing of liquid from the sudden jolt behind him. Fingers raised to push back strands of wavy gold and Jasper cleared his throat in the beginnings of an apology.

No, you cannot have nice things. You cannot kiss her. You will destroy something beautiful, because that is what you do.

"Sorry," voice soft from slight shame, from the undertones of want that he'd allowed to take him down their current, "I didn't mean to get carried away. We should, uh ..."

And he gestured to the table, lifted a hand to thumb at it too, as if it wasn't the primary reason for being where they were in the first place.

Emmy and Jasper are doing schoolwork together SMILE. @florrentine

[everharrt]

There was a problem with letting someone get close.

Blood marked all over the clean marble of his floor. It trailed from the handle of his door (which he'd left unlocked in his haste), dribbled onto the floor, caught on the bottom of his oxfords and tracked through the foyer of his otherwise tidy apartment. Where the floor turned into solid wood, a dark cherry he'd been rather fond of, dabbles of it splashed against the herringbone and began to congeal and set.

Esmé liked to keep the two lives separate. Letting someone in was historically a bad idea, it tended to lead to meshing the line between legal and passable versus things that could land him in jail. Make innocent people dead. Julia never toed that line. She had been dirty from the jump, but somehow had sullied herself beyond anything that seemed human. The thought of her name left a bitter taste in his mouth, which was especially disgusting with the little tinges of copper that he felt at the back of his throat every so often.

The red of it smeared on the floor-to-ceiling glass window in his hallway. He briefly recalled shouldering into it - taking the turn a little too loose and bumping off like amusement cars meant to collide and keep going. It was on the sink in the guest bathroom, the cabinet doors below where he'd fetched the first aid kit. More on the floor there. He'd made a mess. Blood was always so fucking messy.

And really, he'd done a very good job of keeping Emmy out of this side of his life. If she had her suspicions he was sure to always keep them as only that ... suspicions and nothing more. Obviously nobody who owned a chain of laundromats could live with his taste. He'd blamed inherited generational wealth but once more ... it could only take him so far. Emmy was no idiot. He didn't let himself get close to idiots, the were a liability. He didn't let idiots into his bed. He didn't let them see little parts of the soft, human innards that lay beneath the mechanical plating of his armor. No, Emmy surely had suspicions and he never so much as inquired. Inquiries lead to questions he didn't want to dodge, artfully or not.

More trailed back through the hall and to the tall island table just between the open concept kitchen and the living room. It smeared across the wooden tabletop, the backed-stool that was tall enough for even his feet to not reach the floor (though now he had them resting on the bar between legs) as he worked. Shirt had been discarded - more blood to smear here or there - the first aid kit had been haphazardly tossed open and contents separated into what he needed and didn't ... and there was even blood on the kit and inside from sullied fingers reaching.

If he'd thought he would have turned the lights up, but some part of him was wary to see the damage in earnest. As if dimmer sight might make it less of a problem, scar him less, make it imagined (but he knew better). Esmé sucked a sharp breath as he pulled his skin taut, worked on fishing the remnants of one very stubborn bullet from where it had buried itself in the muscle of his side.

Perhaps if he were more intelligent he would have heard the door crack.

And really, if someone wanted him dead now as surely the time to do it.

Mercifully (perhaps not) it was not his would-be assassin. It was not any assassin for that matter. Instead it was Emilia Florrent, crossing the threshold from one of his worlds into the other.

Because laundromat owners did not get shot willy nilly. And they certainly did not pull the slug from themselves (or try to) instead of seeking hospitalization.

As if a sixth sense told him she was there he looked up, expression caught somewhere between annoyance and pain, and felt what color had been in his cheeks drain down to the open wound in his side. When he spoke it was rough - as if he'd just woken up, or perhaps yelled too much, or hadn't spoken in a lifetime before that moment.

"Emilia."

A plea.

Please don't leave. Or maybe ... pretend you never saw anything. Perhaps now's your chance to run. He did not clarify. He merely remained frozen in place, the storm of his green eyes locked on her as if daring her to make a move. Any move. At all.

@florrentine discovers Esmé in a less-than ideal situation.

[aintashes]

@florrentine's emilia put a flower in daryl's hair.

emilia is quick on the draw, and he's sure she knows that she needs to be to pull something like this off with daryl, of all people. the flower that she tucks with nimble fingers into his hair is a brilliantly vibrant purple phacelia, its toothy leaves gently tickling the side of his face.

daryl shoots her a look— one that asks what are you doing? but that also knows exactly what's going on somewhere underneath his initial confusion. emilia is a lot of things, but one of the most prominent aspects of her personality is her proclivity for softness. she's a gentle soul above all else, as daryl has learned in the short time they've known one another.

so when she smiles at him despite his gruff expression, he can't help but to give a small sigh, allowing the flower to keep its place amongst his dark locks.

‘ is this 'cause i ruined twizzlers for you? ’

[radiaking]

+ memes / accepting!

@florrentine said: Think the bar is open?

        As they wrap up, her packing up her various lenses and equipment, and several others removing some props they used, he raises his wrist to check his watch. It's late but it is LA. While it's not officially The City That Never Sleeps, it doesn't get much rest itself so the odds are in their favor.

        "Guess there's only one way to find out...first round's on me." They'll all be on him, should they have more than one but they can cross that bridge when they come to it.

[nghtmarish]

@florrentine / 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 ; 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆.

     𝐦𝐚𝐞𝐯𝐞  𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬  𝐡𝐞𝐫  𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝  𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡  𝐚  𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐟𝐟,     not  looking  at  emmy  as  she  took  another  drag  of  her  vape.     why  did  people  keep  thinking  she  was  suddenly  ready  to  be  the  rebellious  type?     starlight  was  constantly  on  her  case  about  stepping  up  to  do  the  ' right  thing '  and  now  here  is  cipher  asking  her  for  help.     exhaling  the  smoke,  looking  back  at  her  with  a  dark  look  in  her  blue  eyes,  unsure  of  what  exactly  she  was  expecting  from  her,     "     whatever  you  thought  you  were  gonna  get  when  you  came  here,  you're  wrong,     "     maeve  told  her,  she  didn't  have  it  in  her  to  keep  fighting,  she  didn't  know  why  everyone  had  brought  into  the  bullshit  that  vought  had  been  selling  about  her  for  years.     maybe  once  she  had  been  a     𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨,     or  she  could've  been,  but  not  anymore.     that  was  long  gone  now.     blue  eyes  look  her  up  and  down  for  a  moment,  she  didn't  have  the  energy  to  keep  having  these  conversations  with  hopeful  people  who  still  thought  the  best  of  her,     "     you  don't  need  my  help.     you  have  the  power  to  get  whatever  you  want  from  vought.     so  what  are  you  really  doing  here?     "

[everharrt]

The soft, neon liminal glow. The comforting whir of a commercial dryer. The gentle tones of synthwave pouring through the so-clean-you-could-eat-off-any-surface of the laundromat. These were the ingredients of Esmé's long nights at The Lucky Coin. 24 hours, for your convenience, meant that someone needed to be behind the register. Usually nights were much easier - people working second shifts came in and laundered their hospital scrubs, anyone within a certain block vicinity that happened to be a night owl would come by and sip the complimentary coffee while they waited for their things to be done.

Anyone new might think he looked out of place with his expensive suits and nice hair cut, but by now he was a staple of the business. He was always busy running the books in some fashion, budgeting out bills and jotting down things in the planner for the day crew to tend to. Even his handwriting was immaculate - something almost technical as if a robot were writing instead of a man. Some of the units needed servicing. The gas man was coming later to read the meter. There was a leak in one of the bathroom faucets that needed to be looked at.

It looked less like a place to wash your things and more like some nighttime laser bowling alley with the soft neon glow. That hot pink that radiated off of the marble tile and filled the otherwise dimly lit business with a little life. It kissed his skin and added the illusion of an expression against his features even, something that made him look less like a statue behind the register.

Though he did perk a little when she approached. Tongue was slow to leave his mouth, wet at his lips as the ghost of a smile graced them after. He handed her some change slowly, amusement glimmering behind wild green hues.

"i don't think you want me to go."

She'd been in here a few times before, at night. Maybe during the day when he was asleep or tending other business, he wasn't sure. He was familiar enough with her to know her by appearance, the shape of her frame as it filled the door when she entered with her sack of whatever needed washing. Full-lipped smiled were always offered when he nodded in greeting and once or twice he'd pulled a garment bag from the cupboard under the register for her to use for her delicates. Nice things.

"Admittedly," he swallowed, fingers grazing her palm as he dropped the coins into it, "It'll go back to being lonely when you leave."

Not that they'd spoken much. The addition of a second body was more than enough to sate that existential empty feeling places like this tended to gather when just one person occupied them. He looked down at her through his lashes, set his hands on the counter's edge before him and clarified.

"Maybe I could take you out for coffee sometime."

@florrentine, from here. accepting.

[radiaking]

+ memes / accepting!

@florrentine said: you call THAT a PLAN ?

        Plan is a word that Cooper uses very loosely. He likes to say that he thinks best on his feet. And for the most part that works out pretty damn well for him. If it doesn't...well, he's the fastest draw in the Wasteland and that usually takes care of any loose ends. So his plan is...no plan, really, just his wits and his will. "Well, shit, sweetheart, if you got a better one, I'm all ears."

[aintashes]

‘ when i was younger— younger an' prouder, i was nobody. ’

( @florrentine, lyric-based starter for emilia. younger & dumber by indigo de souza. )