RP:Killer Tattoo

Summary: Samson and his sister, Charlotte ("Char"), are out for ice cream but end up crashing Lita's place of business, SoulsKin. With Char's encouragement, Lita tests out a temporary goldfish tattoo on Sam's arm, in honor of his goldfish, Killer. Afterwards, Sam and Lita make awkward conversation about her personal life.

SoulsKin, Rynvale

Samson is in Rynvale, with plans to visit Lita, if he can ever be free of his sister. He and Charlotte had had lunch, and rather than go their separate ways afterwards, she'd threaded her arm through his and pulled him around town. They're just coming up to SoulsKin, incidentally, to buy an ice cream nearby. After taking his order, so to speak, Char had bade Sam to wait, which he does, on a stone bench, while she'd flitted into the nearby ice cream parlor to stand the queue and fetch their desserts.

Lita has a tendency to leave the front door open when she's at the shop. It let the ocean breeze waft through on occasion. The door was propped open now with a stone and Lita was standing in the doorway, leaning with her hip against the door's frame. A lit cigarette was dangling from her right hand at her side and Jax was yelling something at her from the back of the shop that she was mostly not listening to. Jax- the young kid, sixteen maybe, who spend too many days at the shop learning from Lita and Meri. He wasn't a horrible artist but he wasn't terribly creative so Lita had been steering him towards cover-up work more so than originals. He seemed to at least appreciate the challenge. Jax resulted to mumbling at Lita under his breath and she smiled to herself as she rolled on her heels to exit the shop finally, lifting that cigarette to her lips. Glancing around, she caught sight of Sam a few shops over and she lifted a hand to catch his attention with a little wave.

Samson is going through his pockets when he catches sight of Lita and the signage on the place. Of course. Her shop. He grins boyishly before he can help himself and waves back, and then, realizing how stupid that is, he gets off the bench and half-jogs over to her. "Hey," he says warmly, not sure whether he should hug her or not. He lets her body language decide, and then he puts his hands in his pockets. He's wearing jeans and a green-blue plaid shirt that's rolled up at the sleeves. "How are you doing?" he wants to know, missing entirely the ninjalike approach of his sister behind him. Charlotte is slender and small, pixieish in her movements, with chin-length hair that she's always coloring. Presently it's baby pink. Her dress has little yellow ducks printed all over it. She floats over to Sam with two cones, presents him with one, and then cants her head to consider Lita. "Hi," she chirps, smiling genially at the other woman. "You're so pretty!"

Lita isn't so shy. She tosses the cigarette when she sees Sam heading over and reaches an arm out to wrap around his neck in a loose hug. Brief cause it is kind of awkward but it's good to see him all the same. "Hey you," she echoes his greeting, untangling herself from him. She's about to answer his question but Charlotte's approach isn't missed. Her eyes go a little wide and she's completely and without shame judging that dress with all its ducks and the soft pink hair and the ice cream cones. And then the girl is chirping a compliment at her and Lita is looking like she wants to duck back into her shop and lock the door. "Uh, thanks," she murmurs. More awkwardly. She wonders if this is Sam's girlfriend and wouldn't that be great because she's had such luck with male friends and their girlfriends-fiancees-wives-whatever. "I'm Lita." she manages, waving at Duck Girl and trying to spare Sam from an awkward introduction.

Charlotte is looking at Lita like she's a person of grave interest, and then she looks at Samson with a questioning smile in her eyes. This lasts all of the briefest of moments before the pendulum of her gaze swings back to Lita. "Charlotte, or Char," she introduces herself, holding out a hand for the other woman to shake. Samson gestures between Char and himself. "This is my sister, she lives around the corner," he says to Lita. Charlotte smiles into a lick off of her ice cream, as if the relation amused her. Samson's is melting, getting on his hands a little, he follows suit in attending to it. "Lita," Char says her name with pleasure. "You're the mysterious Lita he went to the coronation with," Char is saying, lifting her eyebrows. Her face is very expressive, it matches her bubbly personality. Her eyes seem to impossibly widen as she talks. "He told me he had plans, I was a little grumpy he bumped me, but then I read the news and that was so crazy, yeah?" She waits a beat before lifting her chin at SoulsKin. "Sam said you worked in Rynvale, I didn't know it was THIS place! Brothers are so bad with details!"

Lita is wondering if maybe one of them might be adopted. They look and act so different! But this was the sister, then. Her smile broadened a little at Char's mention that she was the 'mysterious' Lita and she lofted a brow at Sam in amusement before looking back to Charlotte. "It was, yeah," she managed in regards to the coronation ceremony. Crazy might not have been the word she'd used. Honestly she remembered more about that ferry trip back to Cenril than the coronation-assassination they'd went to. Lita followed Char's attention as it was pulled towards the shop and she lifted a hand to gesture towards the front door. "Yeah, this is it. Not much but keeps me busy." She felt odd being the center of attention. She'd been more than willing to let Meri and Jax play the front-of-house-hostesses, so to speak. A devious little grin tugged across her features as she glanced back at Char, eyeing Sam from the corner of her eye. "You know, I was telling Sam about these temporary tattoos I was making for a friend of mine's daughters and he said he'd be pretty excited to get one of those. What do you think, Char, want to watch your brother get a tattoo?"

Samson is eating his ice cream and poker facing his sister's embarrassing comments. He's used to it. She's not like this in particular as to him, she's just like this always. The Char Show, they call it, the two of them. "SO cool," she's saying, about the tattoo parlor. She sneaks Sam a sly look and works on her ice cream some more. Of course she grins into Lita's suggestion, her eyes brimming over with a sort of merriment as she considers her brother. "Uh, obviously," she says, flicking his forearm. He grunts into his cone. "I can only stay for a little though," she warns them, for Lita's benefit, "because I have to pick up the dogs for their afternoon walks! Oh, I'm a dog walker." She laughs cheerfully, as if that should have made all the sense in the world. Maybe it does. She waves them both toward the open door to the tattoo parlor. "So I'm under the crossbow on time. Let's go!" She's ushering them inside. To her brother, she says: "Sam, do you think you should get one of Killer?" To Lita: "That's his goldfish, I'm sure he hasn't told you about her at all. But I'm here to tell you that Killer exists and she's--" "We don't know she's a she--" Sam tries to cut in. "Stop mansplaining, Sam." A beat, then Char continues, "Anyway, Killer exists and she is the fattest, most friendly goldfish you'll ever see, and Sam is such a goldfish dad about her." Sam nearly chokes on his cone. ".. What." "Don't even fight me on this," the momentum of Char is unstoppable. She stage-whispers to Lita: "such a goldfish dad."

Lita is following Char into the shop and looking for Jax with a silent plea of HELP when she starts going on and on about this goldfish Sam has. And yes, she did know about Char's dog walking- not that she could get a word in edge wise- but she did not know about the goldfish. The two are back and forth and Lita decides it's better to leave them to it so she goes to a binder on the worktable and flips through a few pages before finding what she's looking for. "Here, how about this one, Char?" she's pointing to the cartoon goldfish drawing on the page, which is covered in a thin layer of some shiny translucent material. The fish in question is adorably chubby, bright orange-yellow in color and has three little bubbles rising from its mouth. Lita is already reaching for a pair of scissors to cut the fish from the page. "Do you want to try it?" she asked, handing the fish out towards Char. "It's pretty simple."

Charlotte half-skips over to look at the picture over Lita's shoulder. She immediately grins the grin of the devil. "Clearly," she says, sharing said grin with Lita before turning the full force of it on Samson. Sam, for his part, is milling around trying not to get in his sister's way. A theme, in his life... Char shoves the drawing in his face, and he bug eyes a bit before nodding agreeably. Low key Sam. "What time do you have to walk the dogs?" he asks Char, who is admiring her reflection in a mirror. "In like 10 minutes, I'll leave you alone," she says, donning a sly smile before moving to hover around Lita. "Can I get anything to help this process?" she offers helpfully. "Here, I know." She reaches up to push on Sam's shoulders, urging him to be seated in a chair. "Sit," she commands him. He sits. She winks at Lita, and then pushes the remainder of her ice cream cone in her mouth, chewing with bit movements of her jaw.

Lita is trying not to bug-eye Charlotte for having just unhinged her jaw and devouring that ice cream cone whole. Okay, that might have been an exaggeration. But all the same, she was giving Sam a 'holy cow!' expression at the fact that this was his sister. Not in a rude way, jus suddenly realizing why he was so Low Key. She had enough Personality for the both of them and then some. And she still wasn't sure about those ducks prancing all over her shop. "Just takes a minute or two." She managed as she fetched a damp wash cloth. "Roll his sleeve up." she requested, letting Char be helpful in this process. Lita peeled that transluscent substance from the image of the goldfish, careful not to touch the ink, and pressed it to his upper arm, laying the damp cloth over it. She applied a little pressure against his arm, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was a little nervous. "I haven't tried this on anyone yet," she admitted in a whisper at Sam. "You get to be the guinea pig. Don't worry though, I'm mostly sure your skin won't turn green." She winked playfully at him, smiling softly. And after a couple of minutes she slowly peeled the paper away from his arm, now wet, and revealed the cartoon goldfish which had been transferred onto his skin. She beamed a proud smile and gingerly ran her index fingers over his skin to make sure the ink had set. "Oh, now you're cool." she teased him. "What do you think, Char?" Remembering she was there.

Charlotte's eyes likewise widen, as she immediately gets brain freeze and has regrets, but that's sort of how she lives her life, doing what she wants and thinking about it/dealing with consequences later. And indeed, the existence of Char and The Char Show is why Samson is as low key as he is. He allows Charlotte to help with his sleeve. "This shirt is ancient," she pronounces, designating an area for the goldfish tattoo to appear. She rubs her palms together, craning her neck this way and that as Lita begins pressing the sheet to her brother's arm. Sam, to his credit, contorts his face into a series of pretend winces, as if this process were causing him increasing levels of pain. This play acting gets old after maybe 15 seconds. "Can't wait to show Killer," he says, deadpan. "She's going to love it," agrees Char, breathily, squealing as Lita slowly pulls the edge of the paper back and reveals the final product. "Holy smokes it worked!" she exclaims. "Ohhhhhh snap," exhales Sam, looking at Lita. He flexes his bicep, grins at her as she touches the image. "That's so cool!" crows Char. "Oh man." She also touches his bicep, and then, throws her head back and cackles. "That is my favorite thing of today," she announces after that, pulling her handbag over her shoulder. "Kay, I have to go walk dogs. Bye, dude." She pats his head. "Bye, Lita, so nice to meet you." She reaches to squeeze Lita's forearm.

Lita is not a stranger to that momentary deer-in-headlights look Char is sporting as she works to figure out her next move. Hmm, maybe they had more in common after all. But then Char and Sam are back to discussing the goldfish as if had more than three brain cells and she shakes her head at them. She grins sideways at Char at the girl's surprise that this whole process has actually worked. She's just as surprised, really, but she's not about to let that show. She tenses a little as Char squeezes her forearm, more out of instinct than actual reaction but she manages not to yank her arm away unnecessarily. Instead she nods at the girl and lifts her free hand to wave at her. She waits until Char has rounded the shop's corner and is out of sight before she leans her hip against the work table and her eyes widen a little at Sam like Wow, but she's smiling softly. "You and your sister are uhm," she's trying to choose nice words in her head. "really different." she manages at last.

Charlotte heads out after that, wiggles her hand in a wave to the both of them. Samson likewise widens his at Lita now that his sister has left them in peace. His mouth creeps up in a slow smile at one corner to acknowledge her observation. "Yeah, she can be a little bit extra," he says, looking at the goldfish on his arm. He is still working on his ice cream, it's down to a nub at this point. He likes the waffle cone the best, though. "Oh, I should have offered," he realizes, meaning to get her one, or to share some of his. He looks around him at their surroundings, the bustle of the tattoo parlor. He grimaces at Lita. "I just barge into your work, import my sister, and start eating food and don't offer to get you any, I'm the worst."

Lita lifts a hand to wave it at him. "It's alright. Think I have one more appointment later on and then it'll be mostly consultation work. Sketching people's designs, working through what they want and where, all that jazz. It's easier to do a dozen of those sessions in a day and then schedule the actual tattoos throughout the week." Not that Sam had come here for a lesson in how she ran her business. She made herself stop rambling and her smile softened a bit at his offer of the ice cream. "No, it's okay, most food kind of tastes like cardboard now." She shrugged a little. "Except raspberries, for some reason? and Simon's honeyed whiskey up at the Barrel. Superb."

"Hey, jeez. Sounds like a lot," says Samson, overwhelmed by Lita's job even though all he's done is hear about it. Dead people never complain, an added benefit to working at a funeral home. (Their relatives do.) He realizes that she's been warm ever since he and Char crashed into here, maybe he'd been wrong to think that the strangeness of the failed coronation had nipped their friendship in the bud. He'd ask her about her boyfriend, but she's distracted him by this mention of food tasting like cardboard. Huh. He pops the last of the ice cream cone into his mouth and considers her anew as he chews, head canted. He swallows. "Food tastes like cardboard," he repeats. A beat here. "Are you...." he's going to take a guess, he bobs his head to signify that he's doing so, "a... vampire?"

Lita could practically see the wheels turning, the way she had with Char. People were mostly easy to read and she knew what was coming next. She lifted a hand, tucked stray curls behind her ear and turned her head a little as she reached idly to nudge a piece of broken charcoal a few inches across the work table with her index finger. It was kind of strange to hear him say the word, like it was some secret or taboo thing. Not that it was something she went around advertising. Maybe she should give him more credit. "On a good day." she managed in a playful tone. She was trying to keep the conversation light hearted and people- humans- tended to be more unpredictable in their reactions to the admission that she was a vampire. Even though her an Sam had been hanging out, becoming friends, there was no telling what he might do.

Samson can hardly believe that Lita's a vampire, the only vampire he knows (well, suspected vampire) is his boss, Bradyn. He doesn't miss her attempt at levity. "Huh," he exhales, in a musing tone. He looks sheepish. "Well I had no idea, you don't seem like a vampire at all," he comments, adding, "I only know one. Well, I think my boss is one. So I only know one unconfirmed vampire and now you." He's a bit afraid to look at her directly now, as if it would appear too scientific and invasive. He tosses his head to move his bangs which are shading his vision a bit. He remembers her scampering without a care up the bluff. "Makes sense why you're not scared by very much," he remarks, chuckling. He's still a bit stunned by her admission. "Yeah I did not at all get the vampire vibe. You are so not like my boss..." he falls short of saying she seems normal, but he thinks it. He wonders if harboring that thought is racist. Probably.

Lita probably hasn't met Bradyn yet in this timeline. So she doesn't know about Sam's boss yet or the fact that he's kind of creepy and likes to stare. That would be for another conversation, surely. She was tempted to ask what a vampire was supposed to seem like. She'd read most of the bedtime stories about monsters who attacked villagers and children, drank their blood and then left the corpses in the streets. Was that what a vampire was supposed to be? Stuffy and rooted in tradition and heritage and living up to some clan hierarchy? Hanan- her sire- had told her about all of this. But Hanan had left that world long before Lita met her and so Lita had never been a part of it. "Being a vampire has nothing to do with not being scared of things," she mused. She was remembering the cliffs, too. "It makes it easier, sure, but I was scaling cliffs and running headlong into stupid decisions before I changed." She liked 'changed' better than 'turned'. Becoming a vampire had been one of those reckless decisions, come to think of it. The words were soft. It felt strange making such an admission. She was pretty sure she'd never had to have this conversation out loud before.

Samson's laughter again breaks in sheepishness. "Well," he says, not knowing how to finish that statement now that he's started it. He should probably say something. "Well .. and here I was trying to feel like less of a wuss," is what he lands on. Oy, not an impressive statement. He shrugs, grimaces at himself. This truth about Lita is now seeping into everything he knows about her. Her boyfriend's got kids, so ... he's human. And no wonder the mother doesn't like her, that makes even more sense. He can understand why she keeps her status as undead close to the chest, and he feels empathy for her. This thing, if she told people, they'd think she was dangerous or generally creepy, like his boss. She must trust him to tell him, he realizes. He smiles at her. "Well, hey, I would never have guessed," he says.

Lita feels awkward, like she's supposed to say thanks to his comment about not being able to tell that she was a vampire. It wasn't as if she tried to hide it but it also wasn't as if she was going to be introducing herself as Lita the Undead either. Somehow this whole thing made her feel weird. Had she tried to hide it from Samson? She was trying to think back to all their interactions. Surely she hadn't been but maybe she'd given him that impression? Did it matter? Her head hurt. Talk about something else. She backtracked to his earlier comment, about trying to feel less like a wuss. Did that mean she was intimidating? Great. "Hey, tattoos are pretty impressive." she teased, motioning towards the newly-stuck image of a cartoon goldfish on his skin. "They're edgy, right?" She hated herself for stealing Sarge's word but it made her smile. "Badass?" That didn't sound any better but it coaxed a laugh from her anyway. "I mean, if you had told me you had a pet named Killer, a goldfish would not have made my top ten list of possibilities."

Samson feels a bit of racial friction happening between them. That thought is underscored when Lita abruptly changed the subject back to his tattoo and, relatedly, his goldfish. He grins weakly. "Killer's a present from Char, she thought my living alone was sad and needed to be remedied," he concedes. "I'm not a fish person, if fish people are even a thing, Killer is just a thing that started happening and kept happening and now..." He lifts his shoulder in a shrug. "Reluctant goldfish dad I guess. I'll show Killer your work, I'm sure she'll be into it. She's very enthusiastic, and by very I mean she has a limited range of reactions and they generally seem to be food-focused." He hopes that they're past the strangeness that had settled over them. "Not all that different from dogs and cats in that respect."

Lita didn't always have a reference for normal pet relationships. Hanan had had a cat but it had hated Lita and so Lita had not tried very hard to impress it. She had without affection referred to it as Demon. She'd had a horse once but it was a long time ago now and otherwise she kept company with Chio, who was in no way normal in her opinion. But it worked. "I think it's kind of cute you have a goldfish." Though she though it was cuter that he had such a good relationship with his sister. "I get the whole living alone thing though. I don't know what I'd do without Chio around the beach house most days." She shrugged a little, as if it wasn't as sad as it sounded. She was clueless to the fact that Sam might be thinking that she didn't live with this Boyfriend Mysterioso and his kidlets.

Samson chuckles a little at this high praise for Killer, aqua wingman. He scratches at his ear a bit. "Yeah..." he doesn't know what to say to that. His ex-girlfriend had thought Killer was cute too, but doesn't seem a thing to mention. Maybe the goldfish appeal had been the whole design in Char's decision to give him the goldfish to begin with. He nods as she explains the company provided by Chio. There's no way that Killer occupies the same emotional space that an actual (zombie) dog does, but at least they're past the awkwardness of him accusing her of being a stealth vampire. She lives alone, though, apparently, that's something. That must feel a little lonely, with the boyfriend situation. "Do your boyfriend's kids get along with Chio?" he asks, maybe to make conversation, maybe because he's a little nosy.

Lita's glad they've gotten past that awkward bump in conversation too. They seem to be good at this awkward thing though because he's stalling again, not sure what to say. She narrows her eyes at his question. Boyfriend? Who in the world- and then he mentioned her Boyfriend's kids and she sighed a little, trying not to laugh. "Hudson?" she almost spit it out the name, trying not to laugh as she realized the conclusion he'd somehow come to. "Don't let his wife hear you callin' him my boyfriend." She was teasing him. "They finally got hitched after forever." Literally it felt like. She didn't mention it would make things awkward for other reasons too. And then, because clarifications were apparently necessary, "Hudson's not my boyfriend, we're just friends. And I don't really make it a point to introduce Chio to people. Most people don't know what to make of him. The fact that he seems to like you is a complete mystery to me, honestly."

Samson widens his eyes as Lita repeats a name at him that he's never heard before. He nods tentatively, because he can't really confirm that they're talking about this alleged Hudson but if he's the guy with the kids then he's the boyfriend he means. Except apparently he's not her boyfriend at all. Sam's eyes stay wide. "Oh, jeez I'm confused," he excuses himself, rubs the back of his neck sheepishly as Lita explains a bit more. "Probably because I smell like dead stuff due to my job," he says, remembering that she's got the same theory. "Man, and here I was feeling bad that I got you in trouble with your boyfriend for the whole coronation fiasco. He grimaces at her. "Awkward. I'm .. going to go crawl under a rock and hide now."

Lita was trying to segue conversation away from the whole Boyfriend mishaps thing and back towards pets because they had that in common. She nodded at his reminder of her theory, that Chio was just used to that smell of dead stuff. Perhaps that was a bit of a crass way of putting it but it got the point across. "Hudson is the dad of the twins I started this tattoo project for." The temporary ones, that is. "But we're just friends." She felt the need to reiterate. Completely for his benefit. Mostly. "I'm sorry if I gave you a wrong impression."

Oh gods, she's talking about her relation with Hudson now, clarifying even further. Samson had gotten the picture: he'd been wrong! He cringes at himself and nods along with her explanation. "There's nothing to apologize for," he says, chuckling awkwardly as a silence creeps in immediately after that. He feels the need to say words just to fill the space. So he says, "Just you know, worried I got you in trouble, turns out I didn't, well great. No harm no foul. And... now I'm just rambling, because I had already said that, so..." He grimaces into his palm, which he runs across his face. "Alright well," he sighs. "That's probably a sign I should let you get back to work."

Lita is thinking they would be well served to market this ability they seem to have of finding awkward silences. They could turn it into a drinking game. Shots, shots, shots. Hello, ultimate ice breaker. They'd be great at parties. Lita might have argued but there's an older guy at the counter chatting with Jax, complaining about how he's been waiting to see The Artist since before Samson walked in the shop. The guy's eyeing Lita from the corner of his eye like he thinks it's bad enough The Artist is a girl but now he's having to wait!? Lita manages a polite smile. "Yeah, I should get back. But you'll have to let me know what Killer thinks of that tattoo, yeah?"

Samson feels like his spirits sink. Crap. He hadn't expected her to actually take him up on that. He'd hoped, in his heart of hearts, that somehow she'd demur, tell him no actually, she's done for the day, should they grab a beer, or something. Something that would have extended their time together and given him an opportunity to hang out with her and patch up the awkwardness created by this Boyfriend Revelation. Anyway, the reality is just that, the reality. He chuckles, accepting it. "I... will," he tells her, offering her a crooked grin. He should say something like, Let's hang out again sometime, but now those words feel too weird, after the Boyfriend Revelation. He shifts his weight from one foot to the next, seemingly trying to deal with himself, before clicking his tongue and nodding his head. "Anyway," he says. "Later."

Lita is thinking she should invite him for a drink. Not beer, that's Hudson's thing. She really should get back to work. But what was the point of owning your own business if you couldn't blow off for a day here and there? If Meri was around she might have been more inclined to pass off possible clientele to the blonde. Hopefully she'd see Samson again. Maybe they could get past this awkward stuff. She'd lift a hand and wriggle her fingers at him in a wave as he took his leave of the shop.