Morningstar Manor

Emma woke up in an unfamiliar position, and with an unfamiliar arm thrown over her waist. For a brief second she panicked, then she remembered and relaxed again with a smile. Last night had gone rather better than she'd hoped....

A CD of meditation music had given her the idea, the soft susurrus of the wind playing through leaves had her thinking romantic comedies, lowered lighting, and of course then she'd rearranged the lounge and her bedroom, before really cleaning up the apartment and then herself. By about nine she was ready, with pizza ordered, and the pets fed and settled. Not that she expected either Lily or Mr Cat to respect her wishes in that respect, oh no, but at least they might be more accepting.

It had been great though, the movies, the pizza, the beer, the cuddling on the sofa, and then the offer to stay, at which point he could have said no and gone home, but, dear lord, if she hadn't been imagining it, his eyes had lit up and that was that, they'd locked up the apartment and gone to bed.

She did wonder if she should get up, make coffee, but then, no, she was comfy right where she was thanks, and besides, she had the wicked idea of getting him to get up and make her a cup of tea! That would only be fair since she'd sorted out dinner and everything last night right? Yeah... now, if he'd just wake up....

Emma was idly stirring the cup of tea, half asleep, with Lily laying on her feet and a half eaten muffin on the plate by her elbow. Upstairs she knew Ang would be doing something seriously like dinner, while unpacking and doing the laundry and cleaning the apartment she shared with Alec and Gavin, but Emma was not Ang. She'd dumped her case on the floor near her bed, and collected Lily and Faith from Charlie, then taken Faith to Alec and headed straight for the Mocha. Laundry could wait, so could dusting, and to be honest, she was knackered. Ang and Alec might have dozed on the plane, but Gavin had been one wide awake toddler and Emma had been keeping him amused with games and toys and walking up and down the plane with him when he wouldn't sit still. Thank god they'd flown club class, the extra room had been very welcome.

Every now and then she added something to the short but growing list of things she had to do, laundry, shopping, unpack, walk Lily, sleep for a week, eat muffin.... she put the pen down and broke a piece off, looking round a bit with tired eyes, it was still good to be home. She swallowed the piece and then yawned, hiding her mouth behind her hand, maybe she should have gotten coffee....

Lucas was putting his cooking skills to good use in helping Jazz with a surprise for his uncle. It was his 37th birthday afterall, and while Thomas was at a meeting in La Fee Verte, Jazz had asked Lucas to help her surprise him.

Finally everything ready food-wise, Lucas washed his hands and took a look at the clock in the small screen of the microwave oven.

"Jazz? You cool now?" he called out to the next room. "I really don't want to be here to witness whatever you and Thomas do on a special day - eewww - so I think I'm gonna get my stuff and go. And don't worry, I won't be here until tomorrow afternoon."
( Read more... )

Summary: It's Avery's birthday and Lucas and Jazz decide celebrations are in order whether Tom likes it or not. Lucas handles the cooking, asks Jazz for some relationship advice and then scoots so Jazz and Avery can discuss cake, gifts, and job opportunities. Faded to black before the smut gets out of hand. :)

Thomas was at work, and Lucas found he couldn't concentrate on anything when he was home alone after the day he had had. It was going to be in the news in the morning if it already wasn't, so it couldn't hurt to call Emma and talk with her? He really felt like he needed to talk, and more importantly, with Emma.

With that thought he sat down on the black leather couch in the lounge, took out his iPhone, searched for Emma's number, and dialled.

Serving lunches was just about over and Gil was looking forward to taking a breather. Meantime, at the very least, they could all have a soda. Cooking was hot in this weather.

"Lucas," he called as he headed for the fridge. "Want a Coke? Pepsi? Seven-up?"

Laura was window shopping in the Vine Square, with big sun glasses over her eyes, her platinum hair on a loose big bun on her head, dressed in black tight skinny jeans that accentuated her long legs especially with the strappy high heels she was wearing, and the light grey tube top was another way of showing just how lean and slim she was. A bag over her shoulder she walked along the street, stopping by the windows of the small shops. She wanted to go in to several of them, but it was too hot for her to even think of being in a small confined space.

*

Emily had spread a blanket in the gardens of the Manor and laid out on it with strawberries and a novel in the afternoon sun. She had spent a morning at work, and really felt like not doing anything with her feet (except perhaps have them massaged or bathed), so being mostly immobile in the warm sun was a perfect plan, she thought.

*

Lucas sat outside the Mocha doors in the garden, but still in the shade of the building and the trees. He was rolling fags and did his best not to look too shifty about it - he had put the special plant he had received from Nick as a thanks to some good use. While his fingers worked the thin little slips of paper he was thinking about calling Emma - he wanted to do something with her, but he had a feeling he needed to figure out something better than smoking joints.

Emma was smirking a little as she filed her nails in the Mocha, a plate of cookies and a large hot chocolate on the table in front of her. She'd had a call from Ang yesterday afternoon, confirming they'd landed safely and were all checked in to their hotel. It hadn't quite sunk in until just now, as she'd arrived back at the Manor after work, but, then, well.... Freedom beckoned. Apart from some summer classes and work of course, but, wow... FREEDOM!!! No oversight, no All-Knowing-Alec to worry about... no slightly disappointed Ang leaning in.. summer was suddenly looking right up. So much sunnier already, even if the skies were overcast today.

She sipped at her chocolate, and nibbled on a cookie, and looked up as someone walked by, oh the things she could get up to, but she was going to need some help with the having fun parts. Some things were just so much more fun when you shared the experience.

Thomas had been complaining for the whole day - how he couldn't even dress properly on his own, how he felt like an old vegetable of a grandpa when Lucas pushed him in his wheelchair out of the hospital, how his side hurt when he did absolutely anything thanks to the broken bones, how impractical the casts on his right leg and right arm were. How come there weren't any waterproof casts yet, hmm?

Finally when Lucas and Jazz got him to the Manor and up on the 12th floor to his apartment, Thomas fell into a grumpy silence. He realized that this was his prison now for the next weeks, and Lucas and Jazz would be the guards.

"Come on, grumpypants! Your home with your wines and cigars again!" Lucas said overly enthusiastically to cheer Thomas up, and patted his shoulders firmly.

"Aww fuck that hurt," Thomas grunted. Yes indeed, even his left collarbone had been broken.

The cut on her ear had been checked and found to be more dramatic looking than it actually was. It had clotted on the ride over from Morningstar and the nurse here had done nothing more than cleaned it and dabbed some antiseptic on before sending Jazz away to the waiting room where, she'd been told, someone would be along to talk to her about Tom.

Tom.... Her chest constricted, the heavy weight that had taken up on her intensifying. He'd still been unconscious, lying so pale and still, when the ambulance had arrived at the hospital and they'd whisked him out of sight without a word to her. And she still had yet to hear anything now.
( Read more... )
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as more tears threatened, telling herself to stay strong until she at least heard something. But behind her eyelids she saw herself back in the mailroom, just a few days ago, showing Tom the poster for the party and heard him saying he didn't want to go.

If only she'd listened! If only she'd left it be....

Guilt touched her soul and she knew she'd never able to forgive herself.

"Is that what you're wearing?" Thomas gaped at Lucas as the boy came out of his room wearing what he usually did - Vans shoes with a skull print, faded and worn skinny jeans hanging low, a grey long sleeved shirt with a black and red punk band t-shirt on top of it, with a scarf around his neck.

"What?" Lucas asked innocently. "The tattoos don't show!"

"Your mother is going kill me. I was supposed to make a man out of you, and now look at you!"

"Oh come on, you haven't even tried," Lucas snorted and started pulling his jacket on. "Why are you so afraid of her?"

"You'll get a good reminder of why as soon as we go to the Empress and you get to meet your dear mother and sister for the first time in two years," Thomas answered ominuously. "Beatrice will be perfectly amicable, until after a few days when she gets a good chance to embarrass me properly in front of someone who knows me. Mark my words."

( Family reunion - Lunch at the Empress )

Thomas had pulled on his knee-lenght black jacket and was having a cigarette in the cramped little courtyard behind La Fee Verte by the employees entrance. He took every small chance to have a cigarette since those chances came very rarely, and he sure needed the nicotine to get through without snapping at the customers or the waiters. What really did not help his blood pressure was the fact that he had not seen his dear bonita in a long while properly and this week, he had realized, did not even know what was going on with her or where she was. What was even worse was that he was on the phone with his sister Beatrix. Thomas paced up and down in the courtyard arguing with her - she had apparently decided to come and visit him and her son Lucas some time soon, and Thomas really could not be very thrilled about the news.

*

Wearing her chef's whites and her long hair on a bun, Emily sat down heavily on the chair in the kitchen office of La Fee Verte. She held a big coffee mug between her hands and stared at the paperwork on her desk and the emails that needed answering. When would she have time to do all those? She needed to be making mise en place for the Christmas specials and finishing the orders for the New Year's specials. She felt like every year the Christmas season got harder and busier and more taxing than the last one, and always at this time of the year she found herself wondering if she should quit or she might get a serious case of burn-out.

Absent-mindedly Emily sipped her coffee, and flinched right away. She cursed under her breath - she had not realized to wait for the coffee to cool down enough and had instead burnt her tongue. Great. She really needed a day off, or even better, a short holiday. She had no had time to go dancing with Vincenzo in a while, or even spend time with him properly other than crawling to bed to sleep next to him for a few hours before one of them needed to go to work again. Just a couple more weeks, Emily thought, and it would be January and a lot quieter.

*

Lucas was idly stirring a cup of karma chai at home. During the last few months the new kind of tea had become a habit for him and he had a cup or two every day. Last night's party, however, got the young man slightly suspicious of it. What kind a tea could also be injected and used like a legal drug? He wondered how soon the papers would be full of demands for making karma chai illegal, but then again, he had not noticed any real harmful symptoms of it. Not really - the dreams had to be because of stress, anyway. Right?

*

Walking down the street watching all the shop windows full of seasonal decorations, and all the families busying themselves together shopping for Christmas on the last weekend before the holiday itself, Robbie thought he should have taken up the offer from his family and travel home to Ireland for Christmas. Stubbornly he had decided to stay in the City, concentrate on getting some over-due things done for work, and spend Christmas alone. What more was it anyway than a few extra days off, that's all. Except that everyone else was with their families, their children and wives and insufferable mother-in-laws. Robbie had no idea what he would do over Christmas, other than watch classic films from TV that he had seen a hundred times. Where was the point in making any Christmas food or putting up decorations either when you were alone?

*

Laura had decided to spend her day off wrapping Christmas presents. No matter how much she despised the holiday, she could not deny the fact that she made neat and beautiful gift wrappings. She was going to drive to New York next week to spend Christmas with her family, and she had had to get gifts for her parents and cousins and grand-parents and practically the whole family. She still had not remembered to ask Smith what he was doing on Christmas, but seeing as the difficult and potentially dangerous situation with his job had not yet been cleared, Laura doubted he would agree to come with her to New York. Nevertheless, Laura wrapped his Christmas present in a stylish silver-and-blue paper and without even realizing it herself, was humming a mix of Christmas songs.

(OOC: Mun shows she is still not dead and that the people in her head are also alive, and starting to chatter amongst each other again. I might activate again soon!)

In the afternoon after getting his laundry to the washer, Robbie went to the games room next door and picked up a pool stick. While waiting he entertained himself in a lonely game of pool.

*

Emily chatted up Lucas in the queue of the Mocha and interviewed him about working at the Flamingo Lounge and what kind of a boss Gil was. After they both got their orders, Lucas headed outside to the Gardens for a cigarette to go with his coffee, while Emily headed towards the coffeeshop with her cappuccino looking for a table.

*

Thomas hadn't had a chance to check his mail in several days so now in the evening on Sunday, coming home from work, he stopped by in the lobby floor to see if had received anything of interest. He stood there in the mail room going through the pile in his dark suit, sorting them in appropriate piles.

*

Laura had decided that a good way to end the weekend was a long yoga excercise topped off with a swim on the roof. Having done all that, she descended into the hot tub in her white bikini, laid back, and relaxed.

Shameless plug of the most divine new tea!

Hello all you me2me2-ites -- you've probably noticed the new banner ads around? Pastel and vaguely Buddhist, with some serene Boddhisattva on it? That is Karma Chai -- and forget for a moment that every time somebody clicks on a banner and ends up buying tea, me2me2 gets two cent.

We got a box of the stuff today, courtesy of our new sponsors, and all those neophile geeks that work here piled into the coffee pantry and tried a cup. It tastes really, really nice, and it makes you calm and focused, so you can achieve lots -- a bit like really good green tea, a bit like guarana. Actually, people were discussing what it was most like, and we all sort of ended up comparing it to our usual coding brew of choice. Instead of whacking myself awake with a triple espresso, I might resort to the pink stuff in the future.

At lunchtime Nick had been listening to the radio and had heard potentially very bad news indeed.

There was a cold front coming in from the north-west bringing with it frost and a possibility of snow.

The Manor was well geared up for this and Nick had no fears for the tenants but it had occurred to him that with Charlie away there could be a disaster on their hands.

As soon as he could he went up to the roof and crossed the roof garden to round the side of the pool house. Yep it was getting colder.

Now he just had to figure how to cram his bulk through the tiny gaps in the piping to the little area where the best weed in four states was in peril!

Emma had been waiting outside the Flamingo Lounge when Lucas finished work, and together they'd gone game shopping. Looking for something they'd both enjoy playing, but that could be played cooperatively was a challenge, but they finally settled on Neverwinter Nights 2, a role playing game format with plenty of monsters and a definite team work requirement.

Now, arriving back at the manor they were both laughing, partly because the image of Emma as a hulking barbarian was rather funny, but also because it was just nice to toss ideas back and forth about what made the best weapon choices, and which attributes should be increased first. They crossed the lobby, and took the elevator up to twelve, then headed into the apartment Lucas shared with his uncle.

"You're sure he's out at work?" Emma set the pizza box down and soda cans down on the coffee table, "This place is um, kind of clinical? Does he not do homey and comfortable?"

In the morning Lucas was having a smoke in the gardens before heading to work. To bide his time he was juggling his cell phone, wallet and a pack of cigarettes. It didn't matter if they fell - the yellowed grass was soft enough even for the phone. He tried some new moves he had seen a while ago - throwing one item behind his back and so on, and occasionally he succeeded in it.

*

Around noon Emily could be found sitting in the Mocha with her laptop and some notes she had scribbled down. She was writing a new Me2Me2 blog entry - it had come to her habit to write a public foodie post twice a week - and this time she was sharing ideas and recipes on stir-frys.

*

In the evening Laura left her apartment to go down to the Mocha. Not that she really wanted anything special, but she felt like moving about in case she would bump into Smith since she had a strange feeling about him. She joined the queue in the Mocha, however, without having seen a glimpse of him, and eyed the apple pie wondering if it had any nuts in it or not.

*

Robert peeked his head out of his apartment and since the corridor was empty, he left and walked to the elevator. He had been avoiding Olivia all week and felt terrible about it. So terrible in fact that he felt like having a pint or five, and so he was going to the Slaughtered Lamb.

*

Dressed in a charcoal suit with a dark violet shirt with no tie, Thomas entered Sanctuary after work. It had been an unusually long while since he had been out the last time - two weeks! - so he was happy to feel a familiar buzz when he was surrounded by loud music, women with long legs and short skirts and other people as concerned with appearances as he was.

Perched on a machine that was gently tumble drying beneath her, Jazz worked on an assignment she'd put off the week before. Her left leg was stretched out, hanging off the edge of the dryer, with the text flopped open over her thigh. Her right leg was up, holding the open notebook upright while she wrote.

Occasionally she looked down at the book and seemed to check something against what she'd written, but in the end it didn't really matter, it was all mostly gibberish anyway. She'd put it off because she was enjoying her free time and didn't want it to be in the way - now she was having trouble concentrating on it.

Only on the outside did she look any better...on the inside she still felt miserable. She just couldn't seem to shake it. Or him.

On his way down from the 12th floor Lucas half-expected the elevator to stop on the 3rd floor and have Emma step in, but instead it stopped on the fifth floor only to have someone he didn't know join in for the ride to the lobby. Lucas slouched out and looked around the lobby and took his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie to check the time. According to it he was three minutes late.

I got a weird tip today at work! 2 free tickets to the movies. I know why i got them too, they need to be used by the end of the month lol! Wanna come and see a movie with me tomorrow?

Robbie, in his black leather jacket, stepped into the Slaughtered Lamb. There was nothing on TV, he knew all his DVD movies by heart and he had no other company, so why not have a pint in the local pub?

*

Laura felt the chills of fall on her skin as she relaxed in the lotus position in the gardens. The evening was getting cool, and she opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the sky painted with violet and rose, sensing that it was about time she would get long sleeves on after the yoga excercice.

*

Lucas stumped his cigarette right outside the main doors of the Manor and stepped inside the lobby while stifling a big yawn. He was coming home after a day - actually a week - at work waitering at the Flamingo Lounge, and he felt it in his feet.

*

Emily slowly but surely sorted through her mail in the mailroom. She had not picked it up in days because she had had better things to think about - but now she was making three different piles of mail on the small side table of the room; one for ads, the second one for bills and other painfully obligatory things and the third for things she would actually read through with interest.

*

Thomas blinked hard in the queue of the Mocha. He had not been working on tables in the restaurant on Sunday but he had been picking up on paperwork for the whole day. It had left him slightly numb and very bored, and he tried fixing that with a big mug of tea.