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Darkseeker
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Out of the corner of his eye, Crew could see Lindley, standing by the doorway still. She seemed a little shaken from the whole ordeal still, and Crew felt a little bit guilty for not asking her permission first. There wasn't anything he could do anymore, though, so he pushed the thoughts aside. Before he could reach the dressing room he'd watched his sister duck into, the maid appeared at his elbow. Irritation flashed across his face, he didn't need a whole other thing to deal with right now, and then, of course, a snarky comment slipped from her mouth. The frustration he was feeling grew significantly, and he bit his tongue fiercely to keep from snapping something rude right back. Who did she think she was? She acted as though she employed him, rather than the polar opposite. He wished his mother had picked another soft maid, this one was beginning to be quite the drag. He'd already saved her sorry ass twice, and she treated him like a piece of trash because his life was different than hers. His gaze stayed on the floor for a second, his jaw tense, his whole body nearly vibrating with anger.
"Oh yeah?" He mumbled. "At least my mum is healthy." The moment the words left his lips, guilt flashed through his eyes, and he went silent. He stepped away, ignoring the rest of her words, and knocked on the dressing room door. Kennedy and Maddox both exited, and he was glad to see that both were still fully clothed and Kennedy's neck was free of saliva and hickeys. He caught her arm, scowling.
"We're going home. I'll buy you coffee on the way home." He softened after a moment. "I really am sorry, Dee-Dee. Today just isn't going well."
Kennedy nodded, seemingly also done with the pictures and stress, and took Maddox's hand. Crew knew he'd have to keep up appearances now, and slipped an arm around Lindley's waist. They all took a moment to fix their faces, irritation and sadness smoothed away, lost behind masks of indifference and forced smiles for the cameras that would inevitably be waiting outside the mall. Each knew the persona they had to play and did their best to fit the mold as best they could, not willing to risk more headlines than they already would be. Crew knew he'd have to stay off the gossip pages even more than usual thanks to the kiss, which annoyed him. Everything would be all over the social media platforms. His mother would be a mix of upset and overjoyed. Capri would be angry. His father wouldn't even notice, most likely. Crew led the way out of the center, not bothering to check if he had everyone. It wasn't his problem if they had to walk back. Once he knew both he and his sister were settled, he called his mother briefly, explaining the situation, and asking her to tell that cook that they'd have one more for dinner. Lindley brightened considerably at that, and she and Kennedy started chatting immediately about what they would do before dinner. Crew kept his promise, and on the way back, pulled through his sister's favorite coffee place to get them all drinks. They dispersed them through the car, the girls swapping drinks to try all of them, Maddox joining in the conversation occasionally. Crew drove in silence, still angry and stewing. He drove much more aggressively than usual, stuck in the party whore/asshole persona that the media had always portrayed him as. Once they pulled into the back entrance to the Boston House, Crew tossed the keys to Dorian, and left the other occupants to fet out at their leisure. He went straight to the kitchens, one of his favorite places. The cook, Molly, was sympathetic to his tales of woe, and offered him snippets of the food that had been for lunch. He was sad that he'd missed it, the few scraps that she offered him were delicious, as always. The cook was already starting on dinner, and to keep out of her way, he tucked himself in a corner, between the big stove and the cold tile walls of the kitchen. This had been his favorite spot as a child, there were still small marks on the walls from endless games of tic-tac-toe, and some old toys stashed there. He relaxed in the comforting familiarity of the bustling of the kitchen, half asleep against the wall. |
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Neutral
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After everyone seemed to have been calming down from what just happened, Crew still seemed rather irritated, fuming almost. She almost could barely hear his remark, but it still clicked what he said. Her face went hot with a flush of anger and sadness. Her breathing hitched and her hands clenched like her body couldn't decide how to react. But so was the story of her life, constantly rude or disrespected to, but yet she had to keep her mouth shut for the sake of her job. She had felt guilty for somewhat betraying Crew when he had been nice to her but now she was furious. How dare he? How did he even know about her mother? She had only informed Mrs. Sinclair about her mother's condition to explain why she needed that one specific day off, but even then, she didn't indulge too much information. Clenching her jaw as her teeth gritted together. Of course Mrs. Sinclair would inform her kids. "hey everyone in my rich family, the maid I just hired has a mom who's losing her mind, haha how funny." By the time Crew had rounded up... well, his crew, and got them escorted back to the car, Liane was practically boiling. Sitting and festering as she tried to desperately to calm herself and control her breathing. She didn't need her face turning red or tears welling up. The last thing she'd do is show these rich **sholes she gave a crap what they thought. This was her job, not a friendly convention or outing. In the car she was silent. Sitting by the window as far away as she could scoot and staring at the passing scenery. She'd managed to calm herself down some, but she still had not spoken a word nor acknowledged anybody's presence asides from a forced polite "no thank you" or friendly smile in case Kennedy or Lindley interacted with her. Sweet girls, it wasn't their fault Crew was a bonehead. Before the car pulled to a stop at the house her phone lit up with a text from Kara. "How did your shopping trip go?" Liane blinked, how did she know? "Ummm... not the best. How did you even know?" Kara completely disregarded her question, "Remember what happened. Got to go, I am about to make dinner for Jayne." The conversation lit up in do not disturb mode. Kara often did that when she didn't want to be contacted. Great, now something to confuse her ontop of her anger. Everyone dispersed from the car shortly after they arrived back to the house. Liane felt exhuasted, both physically and mentally. It was just now the afternoon and this was the most excitement she'd ever encountered in years it felt like. She had some free time before her mother was diagnosed, but after, she barely did anything fun outside the comfort of her own home. As much as she wanted to be stubborn and stick it out with this job, could she even keep up? Dorian seemed to notice her weariness as he took the keys from Crew and allowed everyone to get out of the car before he had to go park it. Dorian offered her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a smile before he left. Not much of a talker but he seemed nice enough. With a sigh, Liane followed the others into the house. Thankful to be at least outside of the public. Never thought she'd actually be happy to just do laundry. Practically running down the stairs to the laundry room, still stumbling over the broken step but it's not like anyone saw her. And hurried down to the laundry. Luckily the washer had only stopped around half an hour ago so it hadn't soiled yet. Humming a tune to herself as she moved the wet clothes into the dryer, pausing as she grabbed the shirt from earlier. Unfortunately it was still stained, but now more of a brown than a deep red. Placing the other clothes into the dryer she laid the shirt out as she perused the storage for something to try and rid the stain off the shirt. She honestly didn't even want to question why it was there. She had had enough excitement for today. But as she was perusing, her phone buzzed again. This time with another text, but from the number that was left on the paper. "Watch where you step in the spiders' lair. One wrong move and you could be the next meal." Liane groaned aloud and muted the texts. Enough of these stupid riddles. This had to be someone trying to scam her. Putting her phone back away, she found some peroxide and quickly worked to start scrubbing on the shirt. |
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Darkseeker
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Crew was glad to be home, and glad to be out of the view of cameras. He hated that he was curious what they were saying. Even after all these years, all these times of hearing his name dragged through the mud, he was still curious. He groaned, staring at his phone, which he'd left on the kitchen island. He tried to ignore it, closing his eyes, trying to focus on the sweet and spicy smells of the kitchen, but that little voice in the back of his head egged him on even more. He scowled, and sat up straighter, reaching out for his phone. Molly stopped his hands, her face twisted with concern.
"Crew, honey. You're just gonna be upset," she said in her smooth, rolling southern accent.
He offered her his most debonair smile.
"Miss Molly, I have no idea what you're talking about."
She sighed, and dropped his phone into his lap.
"Just don't come crying to me, boy."
He nodded and turned on his phone with a sort of broken eagerness. The news stories were already everywhere, pictures of him spilling over the front page. He was startled by how real the kiss had looked; he knew it was supposed to be convincing, but it seemed so...genuine. Something his whole family was not. He scrolled past the pictures, down into the actually story they were trying to present. As usual, they were talking about how good he was at catching girls' eyes, how Lindley was probably just there for the Sinclair fortune, and the brief mention of the lack of Kennedy and her boyfriend. He sighed, this was practically routine by now. He was pretty sure that it was word for word the same as the one about him and Capri from a few months before, which was a bit irritating, but to him honestly more laughable. The things that interested him the most were the comments on the bottom. There were always a nice variety, and this was normally where he got sucked into reading them, over and over again, trying to be better. Most of them had something to do with his physical attractiveness and the fortune behind his name, a few bashed the upper echelons for their extravagant lifestyles, and a few had to do with whoever his last ex happened to be. The other ones were irrelevant, barely saying anything worth reading in the first place. These comments were no different. The top ones went back and forth between rating him out of ten, or raking the Sinclair name over the coals. Surprisingly, one of the most interacted with comments had an absolutely disgusting message, talking about all the things they wanted to do to Crew. It was very graphic and full of innuendo, and honestly hurt him more than made him proud of his looks. For once, he really wished someone would mention that he'd been attending Harvard, that he was really good at tennis and lacrosse. But no. It was always something to do with his abs, or his lips, or something even more inappropriate. And it had always been that way. Even as a fifteen year old, he had always been so sexualized that it was hard to break free from that perception of himself. If that was how he was seen, why couldn't he just act like it? It had been his way of life until Clemmy had been born, and then he'd tried to clean his act up a little more. The press, however, had not moved on, and he regretted leading them on for so long. The other comments were a little different.
"The whole Sinclair family is so pretty" one said
"I wish they'd just donate all their money to charity. I hate rich people"
"Manwhore"
"Wasn't he dating someone else? All men are the same"
He winced at some of those. Stunts honestly hurt the people who tolerated him more than they hurt him. If he led them on, said he was dating Capri, but actually wasn't, that was bad enough. But then making himself look even worse to save face for his whole family? He sighed, and tossed his phone away.
"Molly? What's for dinner?" |
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Neutral
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Liane had stayed down in the washroom long enough that she'd already worked through four baskets of laundry, and even ironed and/or pressed a majority of Mrs. Sinclair's and Crew's nicer shirts, she even found an old sewing box during her organization of the storage and patched a rip in one of the girl's dresses, she couldn't tell which though. So lost in her work she hadn't even kept track of time until one of the other maids from earlier came to fetch her. Betty she thought her name was. "Miss.. you have been asked to get cleaned up and put on the attire that has been placed in your room. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair and their children are expecting guests and we need extra help with refreshment refills and bringing out plates." The lady was polite, but every word she spoke only seemed to continuously stab Liane. She was so content, just sitting down here cleaning and organizing. She often found it very relaxing to just be placed in a room and told to clean because she will also organize every single drawer, clothing, table, shelf, etc. Forcing herself to adorn a polite smile, she tipped her head in a thankful gesture. "Thank you, ma'am, I will be up right away." she assured her. Betty was pleased with this answer and moved to head up the stairs herself. With a few grumbled curses, Liane placed down what she had been working on to head up the stairs to her room. Luckily she was given some time to actually clean up, so that she did. Relishing in the relaxing hot water of the shower. Maybe this is why rich people always look good. The water pressure and multiple shower heads was amazing. They even provided soaps until she was able to get her own. Honestly, the perks of this job were great. Anybody who couldn't make it before obviously have not been desperate enuogh to realize how great this is. Even though she does have to deal with Crew. Her face grimaced at that. Her first day and she already couldn't stand one of the employers. She was probably even more annoyed she had even thought of him though while she was getting ready. She fixed her hair to allow the soft natural waves to flow freely, and managed to scrub her face so it looked glowy. With some light makeup she quickly threw on, she hurried out to get dressed. It was a simple black dress. With a sweetheart cut neckline, short sleeves, and the waist was cinched in slightly to allude to some curves. It was plain, but still pretty and elegant almost. Liane almost didn't recognize herself as she gazed back at her reflection. The bags under her eyes were starting to disappear, and her eyes were especially bright partnered with the dark contrast of her dress. A knock at her door startled her from her thoughts and she swiftly moved to greet the door. Betty again, who gestured for her to follow. Liane quickly fell into step behind the older lady who moved her to the kitchen. Most of the maids were some form of black dress or black shirt and pants, but all styled just a tad different. Whichever way was more flattering on that particular person. Nice attention to detail. Not all styles fit the same on everyone. Liane watched for just a moment as she watched the staff bustling about. Evening had set and the guests were to be arriving any moment now. Liane was shoved through the door with a bottle of wine in one hand and a glass bottle of water in another. With her instructions tossed at her in a very quick manner as they moved to perform another task. Liane nodded as if to reassure herself and began filling up the appropriate glasses. Everyone got a water glass, a few of the of age people got a glass of wine, the under age ones were allowed a flavored sparkling water as an alternative to just water. It was perfect timing. As soon as the doorbell chimed to announce the arrival of the guests and Dorian hurried to greet them, Liane was pouring the last glass. Glancing up for just a moment she could feel her stomach gain an extra 30 pounds. Or at least that's what it felt like. Like her stomach is trying to weigh down through her gut. This was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. Liane retreated to the safety of the adjoining kitchen and as instructed to be ready to place the appetizers in just a moment once everyone got seated. |
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Spring 
Night 
Flood Moon: 
