Goodnight, my angel, now it's time to sleep.

location: In a cafe, on campus.

mood: calm

music: Can You Remember? - Kamelot (Japanese Bonus Track)

One week. Julie-uh could have cared less as per the state of her hoodie, and asking Miranda Priestly about anything at all could prove hazardous to her health. She didn’t ask what had become of it (she thought inwardly that Miranda was using it to perform a million dollar voodoo ritual), she only pined the loss of a very comfortable piece of Dark Knight Paraphernalia and moved on.

It was at eight o’clock that Miranda, in a black, subtly pinstriped Chanel pant-suit, settled her rear into a chair at The Elephant Castle. The folds of the dark grey article of clothing bunched around her figure, but she was feeling less like she was tumbling into the sweatshirt and a little more like it could be used as a mobile teddy-bear.

She didn’t speak a word, first, and Andrea’s Godiva colored irises just peered over the menu timidly. Neither party spoke first, and Miranda was in no hurry to utter the first hello.

It was after a minute that pretty Andrea had set the laminated object down and released a sigh that was exasperated enough to rattle her compressed ribcage. Miranda found herself inadvertently drawn to the two funny strands of soft, dark hair that fell just in front of Andy’s ears. They were shorter than all the rest, with that slight wave to it. Uncomfortably, Miranda wondered what it felt like to run one’s fingers through that hair. It always seemed so soft, even when Miranda felt it was nothing at all but a horrid mess.

“Good evening, Miranda.”

Finally! Miranda snuck a mental grin, and ignored the urge her lips had to turn upward.

“Good evening, Ahn-drey-ah.” Her eyelashes fluttered, set off the light masking of mascara in a brief, brilliant little dark glitter.

Sigh. Again.

“Do you…have to do that?” The crocodile smile, compressed only behind lips painted a glossy pink, flashed out. Andy couldn’t help but think of an eel in a cave, casually slinking outward in a wiggly dance. Sort of like one of Ursula’s what-were-their-names-again sea creatures in The Little Mermaid.

“Do what, Ahn-drey-ah?” Oh, she knew it, she knew it well. It was exactly why she kept it up, too. Julie and Andrea, they both had that same golden quality. Names and ticks that could be easily prodded, and if they got upset? Miranda snapped back with the ferocity of a great white.

“Do you see me going around calling you Mee-raaaaannnn-duh?” Andrea’s retaliation allowed Miranda the expression of someone just smacked across the face by a proverbial gust of wind. It seemed, under a situation where she wasn’t employed, the girl could be quite funny. Even Miranda would agree on that.

“If, perhaps, you desire to sound like eye-gore from Frankenstein.” Miranda quipped. For a minute, the two swore they were going to laugh at the same time. Oh, what a marvel that would’ve been!

“You’re thinking Young Frankenstein,” Andy remarked, and nibbled a piece of bread she’d so graciously took from the basket Miranda was ferociously eyeing like either an object of lust or a great enemy, “You know, the Mel Brooks movie…err, musical…both.”

“I don’t recall it being anything of the toe-tapping sensation category. Isn’t it merely a satirical film?” She chanced a piece of bread, by then, taking it into her plate (after very carefully studying it) and neatly squaring off little pieces by sawing through them with the knife that didn’t seem to compare to Miranda’s glare.

“No, Mel Brooks just came out with the musical, too. Oh, it’s hilarious. Roll, roll, roll in zee hay.” For a brief moment, Andy broke into a half-laugh under her breath and when Miranda looked up, a playful gleam of mocking subtlety in her eyes, she silenced and self-consciously turned a sharp pink. “I-I think you’d think it was…uh—you know, funny. It’s really funny.”

The same waiter from last week was eyeing them quietly, Andy had noticed. She assumed the guy was becoming accustomed to the anxious-Sachs-blush.

“Perhaps I should try to find a moment to take the twins to witness this. You are welcome to accompany, being this was, of course, your possible idea. If you deem it amusing enough for my kin, of course.” Sarcasm, Andrea felt like she was bathing in it.

The only thing that kept that idea going, Miranda Priestly knew, was that no one noticed anything in Times Square, let alone who was at what show. Funny? Miranda had never been a big fan of funny.

“I’ve got discount tickets through The Mirror, I could—“

Miranda sneered. Discount tickets?

She was starting to dislike friends.

location: Where my guitar gently weeps.

mood: calm

music: Like a Dog Chasing Cars - The Dark Knight Soundtrack

Miranda’s irritation with Andy was steadily growing, but unlike most, it didn’t show. With Miranda it was the most subtle possibility of frustration, and it drove her to act more and more civil with each moment. Miranda Priestly didn’t snap or growl or roar, but something worse happened. She became…nice, in a Hannibal Lecter-ish fashion. She was pleasant, but in a crocodile kind of way. It was almost unbearable.

Andy had ordered a cheese omelet plus French toast (it was eight o’clock at night, was she stupid?) and Miranda had begrudgingly growled out in her falsest sweet tones that she wanted a steak, well-done. It was a distasteful demand, but the menu lacked completely. It almost frustrated her, but she reminded herself she was more a shark than a bear.

“You perpetuate to dodge my question.” Miranda was seething, but Andy didn’t do a thing but stare up at her with those big, sweet eyes, all wide and questioning. Her eyebrow arched, that threaded-moonlight eyebrow, and she pushed her nose up just a bit.

“Wh-What question?” Mousy, Miranda thought, and felt like the lion that’d cornered the rodent.

“Why you so furiously broke down my door to run your mouth off about Jacqueline.”

“Is this what you do, Miranda?” Both eyebrows were up, now. Whenever Andy tried to make a point, to be intimidating, it was sort of less of a point and more of a nervous jumble. She was jittering quickly, that much Miranda knew, and fought back the urge to grin, “Is this what you do? You ridicule a-a person once they confuse you? Is it?”

A little wild-eyed, Miranda had to push herself to calm down for a moment. It was impossible! Andrea Sachs had rattled her composure? Unpleasant.

“If you’d simply tell me why you—“

“I like you!” Andrea blurted it loudly, and the poor waiter who was just setting down the coke and the sparkling water almost jumped back with a confused look. Andrea’s face (and this Miranda noted with incredible amusement) painted over with a color that could shame tomatoes. She cleared her throat, and something in the editor-in-chief jumped in cheerfully cruel delight. The waiter retreated (frightened, no doubt) and Andrea hid behind the plastic cup to sip at her soda.

And then, the unthinkable occurred.

Just for a moment, as Miranda Priestly wrapped her French manicure around the tacky soda-pop cup, Andrea Sachs made the effort to lean forward and brush her long, pale fingers across Miranda’s. The contact almost stiffened the older lady, and she didn’t know how to react when her mind went black and little sparks behind her eyes went white.

She assessed it, once the warmth was gone. Andrea was the type who believed in the concept of touch, who believed that to bond with another touch was required. Andrea needed physical contact; to brush, to hug, to touch.

Miranda Priestly did not like touch.

“I like you, and I—I…uh—I liked you, because I wanted you to be my friend—or something like that and I wanted you to be safe, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you because I know what Runway is to you. You losing Runway is like—ah…if a bear escaped from the Bronx Zoo while I was near the cage and ate off my hands so I could never write again…and stuff—I guess.” Andrea’s shrug finalized the thought in Miranda’s head; the persistent thoughts she never voiced. They just flitted and fluttered around her brain, but she preferred they kept private. Miranda was always discreet.

Somehow, she was touched.

So, coldly, her voice razor-edged, she simply responded, “I should think you’ll show up next week at the same time, in the same arranged place. I don’t enjoy lateness and I don’t tolerate it. Should it occur, you won’t find me here.”

Andrea Sachs’ mouth may as well have taken up residence on the floor.

Was she…

Was she…Miranda’s Priestly’s…

…friend?

location: In a hair salon, waiting to have green highlights done.

mood: excited

music: Taylor, the Latte Boy by Kristin Chenoweth

Andy seemed beyond some form of infuriated. Miranda couldn’t bring up a single feeling besides complete amusement. Andy’s face flushed to an articulate shade of hot pink and Miranda realized the extent of how unflattering one was when furious.

“I am so very glad to see your spotless mannerisms have maintained, Ahn-dre-ah.” She’d laid it on thick, and she knew it when the brunette inhaled a shaky breath and clicked her teeth down in frustration, helpless to the Miranda-stare.

Miranda could always make her crawl into a hole just when she figured she was getting up the nerve.

“I’d like to discuss something with you.” Andrea’s face paled a little, just a bit, changed in rosy shade, and her eyes widened just a bit. What was it in Miranda’s facial expressions that made her knees turn into jell-o? Maleficent sat before her. “You recall Paris, of course?”

She swallowed a lump the size of a Saint Bernard.

How could she not remember Paris?

“Uh—yes...” Andy answered, in a fantastic state of unease. Suddenly, she’d felt like she went from being ten feet tall to the size of a mouse. Miranda was Gulliver and she was one of the sad little villagers that milled around the giant’s feet. She watched her audacity slip away slowly. It looked comparable to alfredo sauce oozing down a flight of stairs.

“Why, precisely, when you were informed that no-talent Jacqueline would clutch my position—why were you so desperate to inform me of the matter?” The silky tone was low, but it wasn’t dangerous. No, they hadn’t run into a red-zone yet.

Andy reached upward and brushed her bangs from her eyes. Miranda was just beginning to notice the slight improvement in the younger girl’s wardrobe – a pair of black, three-inch heels, a black suit-jacket combined with a low-cut, off-white blouse and a short, black skirt. Her waist (Miranda’s neck craned like a vulture. Had Andy gotten thinner?) was cinched by a black belt, and the buckle in the middle was a simple, polished silver. The editor stopped, stared a little harder—were those Christian Louboutin slingback pumps on the journalist’s under-appreciating feet? Miranda’s nose wrinkled in half-distaste, half-defeat.

Those doe eyes leapt to life, like animating a doll but, with swiftness unparalleled, flitted away from Miranda’s flint-blue ones.

“You can’t just call me and expect to make plans without asking first.” Where were the waiters? Andrea was mumbling, that much she knew, and grinding the pointed toe of a shoe into the floor.

Miranda’s first thought was, punish me as you will, but spare the shoes the suffering.

“I’m not your assistant anymore,” Her voice almost made Miranda fall out of her chair. It was leveling out, like she was trying to fit into the right groove. “So you can’t throw me around like I am.”

What Miranda wanted to ask was why Andy was deliberately and obviously avoiding the question. What reason did she have to step around the thing? All Miranda needed to hear was something along the lines of ‘I was wrong and you are the holiest and most intellectual fashion-genius of all time whereas I am a helpless and pathetic peon who cannot live without you even though you can obviously continue with your glamorous life which remains brilliantly fulfilled sans me.’

Andy’s fascinating, russet eyes could mentally be matched with so many wondrous colors. Black, red—perhaps blue? A royal shade, dark, to compliment the paleness of her skin; like china—

“Can I take your order?”

Andy heaved a sigh of relief, and Miranda’s scowl deepened until it felt emboldened into her face.

For now, it was—Andy: One, Miranda: Zero.

location: Refusing to leave my bed.

mood: calm

music: Hot n' Cold by Katy Perry

“Julie-uh,” Julia could undeniably vouch for the fact that she hated how Miranda Priestly seemed to stress that last syllable just to irritate her. She didn’t hate much, there were few things she even agreed to be negative about, but the editor-in-chief she was privy to all day took up all the space on her hatred wall.

Regardless, her smile didn’t move. “What is it I can do for you?”

“That repulsive scrap of fabric you wear, the one I’ve seen you stuff into your sinfully out-of-date Chanel purse, I’ll need to use it for my dinner with Andrea.” Jules was suddenly confused. What? When had Miranda even seen her bag? Emily demanded she keep it forced under her desk at all times. “Well—do not stand there all day in the shoes you don’t deserve to wear. Go. Go.”

Miranda’s tone was always soft when she wanted something done right then and there.

“My Batman hoodie? Oh—of course you can borrow it.” The good-natured bounce in her step was answered only by Miranda’s casual scowl. She wasn’t at all keen on this girl, but Miranda’s own personal game of wound-the-self-esteem was becoming addictive, and it was all the more fun when the other person didn’t seem to respond. Deep down inside she was sure Julia Vanderbilt from Upstate New York with a degree from FIT and top-grade math scores was killing herself.

When her dark-haired assistant ambled in with the bundle of grey in her arms, Miranda just waved her off and peered down the tip of her nose, her eyes crinkling with the distasteful expression just at the corners, “Tell Emily to have it sent to the dry cleaners and thoroughly cleansed. It probably reeks of Burberry.”

Julia blinked. Burberry? Her perfume was Gucci, but—

“Why do you believe it part of your job to just stand around like a zombie? Go.”

All the pieces were falling into place just as Miranda had liked. She’d even the score with Andy, and then life would be able to continue. But why did it nag so at her insides that she hadn’t declared a win?

Once she had one last show-down with her former assistant (current object of distaste), it could be laid to rest. Yes, that was it.

She pulled her Fendi glasses from her pale skin, and found herself uncharacteristically nibbling at the tip of the arm, almost chewing her own lip in the process.

Uncharacteristic, once again (and one of the rare times Miranda mentally scolded herself) was the moment Julia burst in half-frantic to say that the Dior fall collection had been delayed and oh, oh whatever would they do, she almost jumped out of her chair.  She collected herself swiftly and, with nothing but a steel-laden gaze, snapped that Julia was nothing but an incompetent imbecile and should learn to remedy things herself, for once.

(Thursday, six-thirty p.m.)

Miranda was prepped and set for her ‘adventure’. She felt far too small within the confines of the ‘Batman’ hoodie, which felt awkward over her classic Chanel suit and, she was sure, awkward over anything at all. She wouldn’t guiltily admit that there was a warm-fuzzy-fluffy-feeling to being encased in a cocoon-like wrapping. Maybe she would tell Julia she incidentally mistook it for rubbish and trashed it. It would be a simple lie, and she could wear the thing around her own home. The twins wouldn’t mind, and Julia would never know it was there. She’d sooner throw herself into traffic in a pair of Keds before allowing Julia the duties attached to The Book. Every time she even thought of the girl in her house, she imagined her destroying her favorite Faberge vase after tripping over the pretty, mahogany side-table and spilling her blood via jaw injury all over her lovely sitting room.

Julia was definitely not ever delivering The Book.

“Roy’s downstairs waiting, ‘Randa—“

A pause. Suddenly, the editor had turned, and her eyes were a glacial shade so cold it was enough to freeze the marrow in her bones halfway to dead. As she slipped the pair of tan, single-lens’d Prada sunglasses stealthily onto her features, Miranda Priestly murmured frostily, “There is an ‘m’ and an ‘I’ as well within my name. It is within your best interests, I believe, Julia, to make good use of both those letters.”

Julia’s blood may as well have been intravenously hooked up to the North Pole. Miranda was out in moments.

(Thursday, seven-forty-five p.m.)

Miranda was mildly perturbed when she’d stepped out of the car and a gaggle of teenage hoodlums wandering with excessively baggy jeans had decided to refer to her as something called a ‘Kadaj’ after they eagerly chattered about her ‘silver hair’. She had no idea what kind of drug they were all, quite obviously, on.

When she’d stepped inside, though, she was neither irritated nor impressed. The place was lit dimly, small, and it smelled of breakfast and overused cologne. No one within would know the name Miranda Priestly, and she was dead sure they’d never even seen an issue of Runway in their lives. All was safe, and Miranda was still trying to keep herself from falling into the hooded sweatshirt. It felt like she was floating in a 100% cotton abyss. Her scowl was affixed to her lips.

“I am here under the reservation for—“

“Miranda!”

There they were. Oh yes, Andy’s warm, bright, soft, deadly chocolate eyes. They weren’t precisely excited—in fact, they seemed ultimately irritated. Had she done something wrong? Or had this…less-than-willing visit angered the unsinkable Andrea Sachs?

Clutching her black Chanel purse a bit tighter to ward off the stench of youth and Burberry, she listened as the waiter spoke, “Allow me to show you to your table, Miss.”

Miranda’s collected expression didn’t waver as she took a seat across from the brunette. Her lips pinched together into a calm line, but Andy’s face wasn’t precisely amused.

“What do you want, Miranda?” Andy hissed, leaning forward enough to allow the older to hear. Miranda could only think How droll, she’s upset.

Round one. Begin.

location: Cafe in college.

mood: amused

music: Opeth - Watershed Special Edition

By the time Emily had finally succeeded in dragging Andrea down and on the phone, Miranda was devising a scheme. Of course, this elaborate little idea would put the editor-in-chief in a few positions and places she didn’t want to be, but, unfortunately, she’d have to be a proper chameleon, this time, and mold to suit the situation.

Of course she couldn’t be seen with Andrea in any reputable place among any reputable public, because that would make people think she was going soft by associating with those she didn’t employ—like friends. The word left a repulsive aftertaste in her mouth. It was like drinking cheap wine.

Jules, Emily second-in-command and Miranda’s newest head-ache, was clacking away at the keyboard. She was a miserably small creature with untamable black curls and tolerable-to-good taste in heels. However, the single time Miranda had seen her in ‘casual attire’ all those decent thoughts had gone down the drain. She learnt the girl had a penchant for super-hero t-shirts and once had the audacity to show up in a…

--Miranda’s eyebrow arched, suddenly—

…hooded sweatshirt-type-thing with a bat insignia across the chest.

She had it all planned out, now. She would ‘borrow’ the repulsive grey blob of material (a few days in advance, to thoroughly clean it, of course) and, incognito, she would make reservations for some back-woods café in, say, the West Village where no one would ever see her. Genius, Priestly, divine!

Buying a whole other outfit was just out of the question. What if she was witnessed buying a sweatshirt? Runway would writhe in agony.

Jules’ name was, of course, not Jules, but she preferred it to Julia. Miranda absolutely refused to refer to her as ‘Jules’, dismissing it, mentally, as a stage-name used by a stripper. The twenty-something year old underling did most of the gopher work and left the ‘smart people job’ to Emily, who Miranda was convinced still wasn’t the right caliber of ‘smart’ for the job. The point was, Julie had been hired because it was rumored she could take mental notes like there was a PC installed in her head, and her untouchably optimistic attitude meant Miranda could kick her around all she liked and never worry about it ‘damaging her ego’. Plus, the first time she’d wandered in for an interview she’d been wearing the Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes most considered an ‘urban show legend’. If there was one thing the very petite assistant had decent taste in, it was certainly shoes.

“Julie-uh.” Miranda had breathed, exasperatedly, and the hazel-eyed ball of stupid-bounce skittered to her doorway. She was all smiles, as always, and Miranda remembered how irritating youth could be, “Inform Emily to pass on to Andrea that we will be having dinner on Thursday at The Elephant Castle. Explain that she should take the subway to Saint Vincent’s hospital in the West Village and plod her undoubtedly heavier self up the block to the right side of the hospital. The restaurant is right there and dinner will be at eight o’clock sharp, no later. Should she arrive at eight-oh-one, I shall refuse dinner altogether.”

When Miranda used that tone, the case was closed, and in her whip-turn to escape from the frame Jules had managed to smack her forehead with a resounding crash of a nose. Miranda only rolled her translucently blue eyes, and waited patiently for Andrea’s inevitable complaint. This girl was certainly not Andrea. Hell, she was barely a Moneypenny. Three. Two. O—

“Miranda cannot speak with you, Andrea, she’s very busy. Well, what makes you thi—no, she can do whatever she likes, and in this instance she would very much like it if—Julia!” Another crash of a noise. It appeared as though the twenty-somewhat had smashed her knee on her own desk, “Julia, you bloody git, tell Miranda Andrea wishes to speak with her.”

Breathless, the moron jittered to the desk and timidly squeaked, “Andrea wants to talk to you.”

“Inform Emily so as she may inform Andrea that I am currently away from my desk and cannot be reached. Reservations have been made, and I am positively dying of excitement to be graced by her presence. She cannot disappoint me.”

“Got it, can’t disappoint.” A pause, a breath—Miranda waited, but to her dismay Thing Two didn’t receive more cranial damage, “Emily! Miranda told me to tell you before she left her desk that it’s been set up and nothing can be done and she’s very enthused to see Andrea so--”

Emily simply mouthed the words, “I heard, idiot” to Julia, and the intimidated girl hunkered down a little shamefully. She was just doing her job, wasn’t she? This career was entirely impossible.

Miranda Priestly turned her chair, back facing the door, and smirked casually down toward the city. Her eyes gleamed cheekily, and she let out a throaty, pleased “Hmm...” of a sound.

The queen had moved and it was the pawn’s turn, now.

In the end, Miranda Priestly knew she would win.

location: Under my fuzzy blanket.

mood: content

music: Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run album

Miranda Priestly felt it nag in unpleasant ways all around her pleasantly styled head. Andrea’s leave left her calm, yes, left her trying to find an assistant just as charmingly erred as the brunette, but one thought wouldn’t just leave her be.

Assistants came and assistants went, but when assistants went—

She couldn’t chase the look on Andrea Sachs’ face from her mind. Floating around desperately, screeching to Miranda about incompetent Jacqueline…

…and those big, dark eyes, all doe-worthy and warm, glinting with the floundering need to help Miranda Priestly.

The silver-haired editor’s insides turned with rage at the memory. Her lips pursed together tightly; pinched into a thin, set line. She was displeased, of course, not by the fact that Andrea was determined to renew her faith in the human race, but by the fact that the expression she’d never forget was the kind that dared to hint toward the thawing of Miranda’s ice-heart.

Let it be known that Miranda Priestly’s frigid coronary organ melted for no one.

All she knew was that her hands were curled into white-knuckled fists and they lie against the cold wood of her desk. Her pale blue eyes were affixed on her own trembling digits, and she couldn’t suppress the slight, hardly noticeable flinch developing in her right eye.

Andrea Sachs. Andrea Sachs and her big, stupid, naïve, moronic, sweet brown eyes.

Andrea Sachs, who thought she could slip away unnoticed after frantically caring for Miranda. It wasn’t the subject of human emotion (but oh, no, god forbid) that enraged Miranda, but more that it implied pity. It implied pity for, even worse, the weakness that was further implied. Andrea had thought she needed someone to swoop in and assist her. Miranda prided herself in the thought that assistants were people who she ran like the queen in a hive; not people who really aided her.

The thought was enough to make her toes curl within her patent-leather Manolo Blahniks.

And Miranda Priestly was not okay with that.

“Emily.” Miranda always spoke with the softest, calmest edge; that way if Emily didn’t hear her, it was just so much easier to be upset with her for ‘not doing her job’. It was maddening, the ways she plotted to release her frustration.

However, Emily so happened to be clacking her way past and paused. The usual pallid flush of the features occurred, and the devil herself just arched a peppery eyebrow to speak delicately, “Get me Andrea Sachs on the phone.”

Emily visibly seemed to sag at that, but her twitchy nature didn’t take a back-seat to her unease. “We no longer have her number, M—“

“Then find it.”

Emily’s eyes widened, and she skittered away unsurely to flip through the yellow pages. She knew vividly that there would be a thousand Andrea Sachses just dawdling through the pages, and Emily had never been surer that her career was coming to a swift close.

Miranda Priestly pursed her lips again, and casually slid her thick-rimmed, black Dior reading glasses from her eyes. Her gaze narrowed dangerously, and she found she was gripping at her desk again. Her lips had formed something of a curved scowl.

This wouldn’t do at all. This thought was vital.

She’d need to discuss with her former assistant.

location: I really don't leave my bed.

mood: jubilant

music: Glitter and Be Gay (Candide) by Kristin Chenoweth

Olive Snook was not one who was foreign to the rules of attraction. Ever since she was young, Olive had known that she was pretty. Perhaps even exceptionally pretty in a way that took a little while to notice and a lot of while to stop pining over. So, of course, she understood Chuck’s sudden anxiety around her—

But what had spurred Chuck’s sudden attraction to her?

“Can I help you with those, Olive?”

The tiny waitress paused to stare briefly over toward Chuck, whose disturbingly wide smile has now become one full of anticipation and mild (slightly reminiscent of teenage) nervousness. She shook her head, and pressed herself against the sink in order to reach a counter only the ridiculously tall Pie-Maker could reach. This kitchen was not created for the vertically challenged.

Sometimes, Olive realized that Chuck’s sweet, warm naïveté and snuggly willingness to leap into a situation was what made her enjoy the dead girl’s companionship.

“You can help me out by drying these off, though,” Chuck had added an interesting new item to her repertoire of Olive’s interesting qualities, a small check-off list composed off neat marks within her brain. This particular mark was placed next to the words ‘charmingly adorable voice’.

“Then I can go make you tea?”

The waitress sighed, and couldn’t help but crack a tired, if not loveable smile.

“Then you can go make me tea.”

Chuck’s sudden decision toward Olive Snook did not seem rational. It did not ring clearly, like any sort of crystal bell or seamless echo. It did not reverberate perfect sounds within a hollow room. The thought was polluted by wads of feeling-stoppers in the forms of words. These feeling-stoppers were not getting through to Chuck, who was decidedly quieting them by blatantly ignoring.

If Ned could not touch her, and Ned could not love her, she had found her mind was wrapping itself easily around the next best thing. Or perhaps the very best thing? Her mind was never too keen on decision-making.

“Chuck! –Chuck! …You’re dripping all over the floor. Jiminy Christmas—ground control to Major Chuck, you in there?”

The rapidly quickening sense of magnetism rose to a definitive peak for Charlotte Charles, who, inside of a few hours, had quickly found herself loving Olive Snook. Chuck’s smile quirked ever wider, and then she was, decidedly, amused. She was amused to the extent that she’d begun to laugh under her breath, and the Chuck-chortles were now Chuck-giggles.

“…What?”

In-between small bouts of laughter, Chuck simply raised an eyebrow. Now it was her turn to be cheeky. “Jiminy Christmas?”

“—Dry the dishes.”

location: Still in my bed.

mood: ditzy

music: Cry For the Moon by Epica

It had been exactly two hours and ten minutes since Chuck had begun her absorption in the shade of Olive’s hair. The soft, lovely gold became more and more prominent in the dead girl’s mind, but then, so did other things.

Chuck began to quietly admire the very way Olive seemed to move, with a stylish grace so eloquent and simple that her four-foot-eleven height was completely belied.

“Well…” Olive brushed past again, eyeing the clock with an exhausted countenance that proved how badly she wanted this day to end, “Quit gawkin’ like a dumbfounded loon and help me clean up.”

Olive’s incessant order-barking just sunk into Chuck’s brain like the contents of a newly baked-and-warm pie. She was unfamiliar with this spellbound feeling so eagerly curling up within her mind, but she did not push it away, either. Chuck was getting the very first spark of what she would later understand to be infatuation.

Now, Chuck was almost clumsily dropping plates as she kept a close eye on the waitresses’ every step. When she breathed, Chuck could imagine this funny, soft, squeaky sound following. The thought made her smile, and the smile lit up her pretty, greenish-brown eyes.

“Again, where is your head at, Chuck?” Olive’s mood having lightened since she’d ‘gotten off work’ (could one ‘get off work’, when their place of work was right downstairs from their home?) put Chuck in a much more comfortable place. She and Olive had become considerably friendly, but Chuck’s unwitting, subconscious mind wished they would get friendlier.

“My head? Oh, my head is right where it always is…on my shoulders, silly.” And she found the blonde’s sarcastic chortle of a laugh was enough to make her chest uncomfortably tingly. Perhaps, she thought, bemused and amused all at once, this was how the Grinch felt when they expanded his heart several sizes too big.

“Well keep it there! –And come on, if Ned gets back and we’ve got a mess, he’s sure to be angrier than a starving jackal,” Chuck stopped, and couldn’t help but give her a look that enunciated the thought ‘Starving jackal?’. Olive nonchalantly brushed it off, her charming little giggle edged so thickly with anxiety it was a wonder Chuck could still breathe the surrounding air.

Olive’s confusion with Chuck’s behavior was ever-mounting. When she looked at the brunette, the woman either seemed to brim with delight pouring out of her eyes, or shyly glance away while fidgeting nervously. Why had Chuck suddenly taken up this behavior? She’d never acted like this before toward Olive, and this both worried and confused her. Did she have something on her nose? Whenever Chuck gave that half-delirious stare, Olive merely returned it with a gaze as though creatures were crawling from Chuck’s ears.

The last plate clanked into the sink and, as Olive was just about to begin the arduous task of tippy-toe dishwashing, a voice swiftly pulled her from her task...but it was less a query and more of a blurt.

“When we’re done here—can I invite you up for some tea?”

Olive’s heart briefly kindled into a warm glow, and she felt somewhat delighted by the extension of kindness. Promptly, the not-so-perceptive woman chirped, “I would love to.”

Chuck had decided a number of important things in her life. When her father had passed, she had decided she would move in with her two aunts—well, not quite decided, but regardless it was, in essence, a sort of decision. She had decided to go on that cruise. She had decided to be a good person. But her current decision, though menial, was regardless another thing decided.

She admired blondes. She found the color was something that took a great deal of effort to pull off, uniqueness that Chuck, herself, was not willing to live with. Something about the lustrous shade made a person stand out, and Chuck looked to anyone who could stand out so boldly and still enjoy it with interest.

This particular blonde whom she had made the decision about happened to be a certain Olive Snook.

The miniature waitress was forcing out her own brand of pie-laced glee to the customers as Chuck idly examined from the back-counter, forbidden from touching a thing whilst Ned and Emerson went about their business elsewhere identifying corpses and other questionable acts of necromancy that was not quite so necromantic. Chuck found herself wondering an array of interesting things. Was Olive a natural blonde? How did one happen upon a shade so brilliant?

Chuck’s mental etch-a-sketch always made Olive into a red-head, somehow. She found the girl to be brilliantly outspoken in so many ways (even if they were at Chuck’s expense), fiery and vivid and opinionated to almost dangerous ends. All of that, in Chuck’s head, evened out to auburn, or perhaps a calm copper.

But upon Olive’s head sat no form of dusty red. Every hair was a spun gold, and that made Chuck’s little nose scrunch in a slightly irate way. She liked what she saw in her head better, when it made a little more sense.

“Thanks for your productivity,” Olive’s high voice yanked Chuck from her reverie, “It’s so appreciated in pie-world.”

Sarcasm was Snook’s forte, Chuck had found, but her motto had always been that you caught more honey with flies than with vinegar. So she just smiled, and hardly a thought against the beautiful waitress even flickered across her mind. She watched Olive snatch up a cherry pie from the counter and wander off with it to the designated table, returning to her intent study of the woman’s follicles. They seemed to shimmer in the light.

Chuck’s nature was one of simple captivation. She never thought twice before losing herself to detail, which was why she seemed to love books so much. To Chuck, Olive was the moving character in a novel she found herself already knee-deep in. Her eyes plastered themselves to Olive’s back, tracking every motion with precise ingenuity.

It was in that moment that Charlotte Charles had begun to fall for Olive Snook, and Olive Snook had just begun not to take notice of said falling.