— boys dont cry

Margo usually didn’t go to small clubs and bars, not because she despised them, because she barely had time. But today her younger sister Sofia had a gig with a band and she insisted. Of course the red head was there to support her sister — the only person she truly cared about. Finally the they were done with the gig, and left the stage.  She quickly made her way to the back stage and opened the door. “Wow.” Margo chuckled before taking a sip from her beer. “You guys were great up there. Honestly I didn’t think I was going to have this much fun.” She said, turning her gaze from her sister to the blonde guy. @aidenhayes

Their vocalist sure is getting on his nerves. As they walk off the stage, Aiden finds Sofia smiling at him and thanking him to which he returns with a smile of his own in spite of his already rotten mood. This is the fourth time their vocalist didn’t show up for their gig and if it wasn’t for Sofia who turned out to be miraculously available to sing for them tonight, they wouldn’t have been able to perform at all. Just as he’s about to pack his guitar up, he hears the door swinging open and he looks back over his shoulder to find an unfamiliar doe-eyed redhead walking in and complimenting their performance. She looks like someone who would be hard to impress so this must be a once in a lifetime flattery. “Thanks.” He beams, feeling his mood lift a bit at the praise. “If it wasn’t for Sofia though, we would have been a total goner.”

“I know we’re not even in September yet, but I already have this year’s Halloween costume picked out. –I still have to actually convince my husband to go along with it, but I think the odds are in my favor…” The raven-haired woman murmured, her lips twisting into a wry smile. “Anyway– have you figured out what you’ll be doing? Thinking of dressed up or doing anything special?”

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely thinking of going as Gomez Addams.” Aiden says as he steps away from the clothing rack he had just been checking out, not really interested in what exactly he was looking at. But he owes Maggie a favor which explains why he’s even here in the first place. “But wow, going for a couple costume sounds pretty cool. Are you guys going as... Tom and Jerry? No wait... Batman and Catwoman-- the Tim Burton version.”

“Hi, I’m Alba, sometimes I completely fail at life.” She slumped forward onto the table and buried her head in her arms, leaving her coffee uncharacteristically untouched. She could feel the slightest remnants of a headache forming at the crown of her head and she wanted nothing more than to scream into a pillow at that moment. She lifted up her sketchbook and pointed at the dress she had drawn there. “It looks weird right? The hemline, it’s all wrong.”

“Whoa.” Aiden watches as a woman he barely knows sit down across from him. He quickly reaches out to gather all the pieces of paper scattered on the table before the odd stranger could place her coffee on one of them. Just as he had gathered the written songs he has been working on, a sketchbook has been brought up by his new companion and he looks up to find a sketch of a dress. He doesn’t exactly see anything wrong with it, but maybe because he’s not a very fashionable kind of person. “It looks cool to me.” He says with a shrug. “But maybe it can be used for some high fashion shit, you know? They always have weird dresses anyway.”

        “That’s not going to get you into my panties,” Vivian brushed off the nasty remark thrown at her by some guy as she was sitting on a bench waiting impatiently for her Uber to arrive. “Moron,” Vivian was not a fan of costume parties, but she loved parties so if wearing a costume was necessary, then she’d do it. Clenching her phone in her hands, her eyes glued to the Uber app, she heard footsteps approaching her. “Here we go again,” she said loud enough for the person to hear her.

“I love my job, I really do,” Della sighed. There was an air of annoyance in her voice as she shifted in her seat, bringing her fingers to mess with the straw attached to her cup. “And I knew that dealin’ with passionate drunks would be somethin’ I’d have to deal with, but honestly I don’t know how much longer I can put up with guys, young and old mind you, grabbin’ my ass when I’m just tryin’ to shoot some t-shirts out of an air cannon,” she huffed. “It’s gettin’ old.”

“You should hit them with the air cannon then.” Aiden suggests as though that’s the easiest thing the girl could do. But he had seen some women hit touchy perverts before so it wouldn’t be a surprise if this woman in particular would do the same. She looks like someone who could throw a punch granted by her faint cattish expression. “They’ll be too drunk to even remember your face anyway.”

“Okay, pretend we’re talking, yeah?” Callum said without preamble to the person now stood in front of him, looking over his shoulder shiftily at the woman he was currently trying to avoid. 

“Um, okay.” Aiden shifts his gaze awkwardly to anywhere but the blonde before refocusing back at him. “You avoidin’ someone? Because I don’t know if pretending to talk to me is gonna work. I have a very approachable face.”

“On a scale from one to ten, how familiar with these parts of town are you?” Amy asked the first person she saw, the urgency in her voice as vibrant as the searching look in her eyes — she was on a mission, and she really wanted to finish it today. “I’m looking for a fabric store. Doesn’t matter which one, any will do,” she explained, clutching her black sketchbook, samples of fabric sticking out here and there.

“I would say I’m a ten.” Aiden beams a tad bit proudly. He had been asked four times for directions today and each one he had lead them to their destinations with great accuracy. Or at least, he thinks he had but he can’t be too sure either since he never really walked with them to wherever the hell they were going. “There’s this fabric store nearby run by a creepy old lady. Want me to walk you there?”

“Then I consider myself lucky to be the recipient of so much love and devotion.” Ethan added with a hand to his chest and a tilt to his head, a teasing grin on his lips forming though he was trying to keep his features still. It was a light effort to bring up humor in such dire times though he sighed heavily after hearing the fate of his friend’s place. “Yeah, my place wasn’t either. It’s just—you never think this would happen to you, you know? You read about it on the papers or see it in the news but you never think it’d be you someday who loses their home to a damn storm… do you have somewhere to go in the meantime?”

“Ha, sorry. It’s not like a big secret or anything.” Brett replies, shrugging a bit. “Yeah, it’s pretty damn close. He’s great, isn’t he?”

“Thanks man, I’ve always thought that I had a pretty decent man.” Anthony replied, letting out a chuckle. It wasn’t common that people commented on his name. He had felt that it was a pretty normal name, but he liked it. He was always incredibly thankful that his parents decided to give him a normal name instead of trying to be unique. “I think that was mostly just due to good luck, but who knows. I am a high school history teacher. Perhaps that is why I at least appear to be organized.”

“Wow, a teacher.” Aiden repeats, evidently impressed. Back in high school, he wasn’t very fond of teachers simply because they loved to call him out in class even if he wasn’t raising his hand to volunteer. But as he got older, he somehow grew this kind of respect for them. They are teaching future doctors, leaders, and whatever titles that make people feel important. “I bet you get headaches a lot, yeah? I wasn’t a particularly good kid in high school so I could only imagine all the rebellious students you have to put up with.”

“That’s a definite plus.” Jace figured there was no point being miserable what had happened, it wasn’t as though complaining or moping was going to help anybody. Moving to lean forward a moment, elbows on knees, he frowned, staring out at the street in front of him. “Yeah, I’m with my brother. Somehow he got lucky and his place survived.”

“Likewise I’d hope,” said Ben with a laugh, shaking his head. “But kind of offended by the Death comparison here.” Another laugh, a snort almost, and he rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat for a moment. “I was the kind of kid who was getting bullied himself, to be honest. When you spend your evenings getting painted up like a lion it faces a lot of ridicule.”

“Hey Aiden.” Eli smiled easily, glad to see his friend was equally breathing and not in any discernibly bad shape. “Nah, the record business is doing better than ever in this digital age.” He shook his head, running a hand over a row of vinyls. After a few unanswered texts and his own short stint in the hospital, he had been making an effort to check in with his friends in person, and Aiden was no exception. They had exchanged a few stilted text messages, sure, but that didn;t supersede their friendship. “Yeah, haven’t seen you since that storm. I’ve been meaning to pop in.. but other stuff came up. How’re you doing, man?”

"That’s true. Two steps forward one step back.” Aiden quips as he turns back around to redirect his focus on rearranging the records displayed. Though, it’s more of a way to not look at the guy since he doubts he could continue to fake a smile if Eli intends on hanging around for a while. “I’m swell. My place is more of a shithole than usual though. I’m actually disappointed I didn’t get myself in some weird danger. What about you though? If I did well during that catastrophe, I’m assuming you did better.” Since you’re oh-so-morally better than me, Aiden quickly shakes the bitter thought away.