no beer {rafi!}

[avery carina dawson]

outfit!

Though they weren't due to get their toes done for another week, after the whole body fiasco, Avery decided they needed it right then. Her decision making skills may have been a little compromised in the last twenty or so hours with the amount of liquor she'd been consuming steadily since she made it home, but this decision was one she didn't think she'd regret when she came out of her trauma-induced drunken stupor. She hadn't given Rafi much notice that he had an appointment with her, so she hoped he showed up, but whether or not he made it, she was going to have a stranger rubbing the dead skin off her feet soon enough.

Since she wasn't sober, she had to walk to the salon, so she was forced to wear flat shoes or run the risk of falling on her ass every other minute--something she almost did anyway a few times. She hadn't had anything other than a few sips of beer in awhile, so she wasn't that drunk, but she was exhausted. Sleep hadn't happened that night other than a few minutes here and there between tossing and turning, so she wasn't thinking clearly from many things. She knew she just needed time, though, and maybe a little desensitization in the form of slasher flicks and violent video games.

She hadn't asked Rafi to stay with her the night before because she hadn't wanted to seem weak, but she wasn't sure she would mind looking weak if it meant getting to sleep. She didn't know if he'd have to work, but hopefully, his presence would help knock her out. It consoled her to think that he might not have slept either.

He wasn't there when she got to the salon, so she went inside and gave the receptionist her name. While she waited, she picked out her polish and then the technician took her back and set up the footbath. She sent off another text to Rafi as she walked back, just to make sure that he was getting them, and the pedicurist said nothing when she stumbled and had to grip the wall for support because watching the cell phone screen was making her dizzy. They had started a chair for Rafi, too, so Avery had nothing to worry about other than getting her feet cleaned.

[rufino león araya]

It was a text message that woke Rafi up that morning. It always came as a shock when he went from asleep to awake by the means of a merry pip of electricity. He had been having a seamless, dreamless sleep—an empty sleep that, although he had slept, felt like he had gotten no rest at all. The sound of the phone made him groan as he reached over to look at it. It didn’t surprise him when he saw who the text was from and he made his way wobbily out of bed and stumbling towards the bathroom. It wasn’t that he was particularly interesting in leaving the safety of his bedroom, yet he felt obligated, to Avery and to his own sanity, that he should get out and act like a normal human would.

Walking down the street towards the salon, which wasn’t too far away, Rafi looked anything but himself. He seemed quiet, subdued even in a sort of muzzy, repressed state, which was unusual for the loudmouth. In every way he looked like a child that mother nature had spent just a little bit too much time abusing. The curly, dark locks were a mess and he had dark circles under his eyes. He couldn’t explain why, or how, a dead body could alter one so much—but there he was on an entirely different track than he had been before over something so trivial, over something he never would have imagined impacted him the way it did.

The sheer magnitude of Rafi’s unfortunate situation was bewildering, even to him, and so he decided he would rarely think of it, at least intentionally. It was strange to him that other peoples’ lives could be so one-dimensional, and he wished fervently for the same fate. But what had happened happened and what he saw could not be unseen and so the Spaniard just tried to remove the memory from his brain by acting like nothing had happened. Perhaps ignorance was not the best way to deal with one’s problems, but it was Rafi’s intentional solution.

Arriving at Nailed, he pulled open the door, pinpointing Avery pretty quickly and strolling over to her, "Hey there, princesa bela," he kicked off his sandals and stepped up in to the chair. Rafi wasn't ashamed to get his feet done; however, he drew the line with nail polish and refused to get painted, even at the encouraging of the little Asian lady saying that clear nail polish would make his toenails healthier. Even Rafi couldn't reduce his man-card that far. He glanced over to Avery, settling in to the massage chair, "What’s up?"

[avery carina dawson]

As much as Avery had hated it initially, she was starting to both get used to and almost enjoy the terms of endearment that Rafi used for her. She grinned at him when he sat down, though her sunglasses were still on to block the bright light from the salon, so it was hard to tell what the rest of her expression was. "Hey," she said before turning to the lady trying to get her feet out of the foot bath. "We're together. Don't rush me." The woman stepped back--Avery always tipped well whenever someone was forced to touch her feet.

"Lots of things are up," she said, turning to Rafi and settling into the massage chair. It felt good to have the muscles in her back kneaded by a mechanical arm because tossing and turning all night had made it sore and tense. The chair may not have been as technically accurate as a massage therapist would have been, but it certainly felt nice. She turned her head to Rafi so that the chair wasn't pounding against her head and making her voice vibrate, even if that did make it sound neat.

"First, since there's an election, every candidate and their mother is sending my grandpa fancy gift baskets with champagne and wine and Frangelico and stuff, but he doesn't drink, so I am now in possession of so much fancy liquor and no one to drink it with." She pointed at him and lowered her sunglasses with her free hand so that she could give him a serious look, eyebrows up. "So I'm thinking you should come over and we should have a Halloween marathon and then, if we're still up, we can watch the Hannibal Lecter movies." Avery's strategy for dealing with what she had seen was to desensitize herself by viewing more--and not being alone.

"Second," she began, leaning back in her chair. "I got a job." She wasn't really sure how true this statement was. Will had been slippery on the phone, but she had been expecting that and she thought her persistence had made up for that, ensuring that she would actually get to go work for him. She didn't want to be a secretary, but the weekend had given her a curiosity that she couldn't quite shake. As much as she had been horrified by it, what had kept her up at night was the way it looked--left, abandoned, mysterious. She had to know.

[rufino león araya]

Rafi wasn’t, and never had been, a small guy. He was pretty sure that from birth he had always been fairly muscular and well-built even though he didn’t often work out and he felt particularly bad for his mother having to birth him. Nevertheless, the blessing of the perfect physique without any work did have its downfalls, particularly in the muscle-cramping department. In part due to his poor diet, Rafi was quite susceptible to muscle cramps and general discomfort, so the mechanic rolls pushing in to his spine was nothing short of orgasmic.

"Mmm, lots of free champagne, your life is horrible, Princesa," he was teasing her, not bothering to move his head out of laziness and just seeing her out of the corner of his eyes. The look of relaxation that came over his face was quite evident and he would have to remember to suggest to Avery that they should get a massage together sometime. "You know, I know how much of a burden all of this high-priced, fancy liquor is on you, so, I will happily taken it upon myself to come over and help you with it," he flashed her is charismatic, slightly tilted smile, finally turning his head to give her his full attention, "I mean, that’s just the kind of friend I am. I’d even be willing to watch a Halloween marathon with you, y’know, I’m just that kind of guy. I can’t live a pretty damsel in distress."

He stuck out the tip of his tongue between his teeth and chuckled. From the sleepy persona he walked in with, Rafi seemed to be slowly perking up in to his normal, sanguine self. Apparently, there was just something about mechanic rollers grinding mercilessly in to his back and some foreign old lady picking dead skin off his feet that was just delightful. Nevertheless, he sat back further in his chair as he listened. At first, he was a little surprised when Avery mentioned that she had a job. Not because he didn’t think she was perfectly willing and capable of working, but because he would have never chosen to work had he not been, more or less, forced to.

"Oh yea?" looking to her again, "That’s great, Bela! Congratulations, I am such a proud best friend ever, what are you going to be doing?" he was trying to think what sort of job Avery would do—certainly not waitressing, probably not secretarial… although he wouldn’t put it past her to have joined the police academy to become an officer or something. Still, he was curious in what she chose as her career path. "Have you ever considered bartending?" this he laughed, "I mean, Lucky’s could always use another one."

[avery carina dawson]

Avery nodded her agreement at his assessment of her life. "It's lonely at the top." She leaned back in her chair so, when she laughed at his next statement, it came out shaky and robotic from the chair pounding at the top of her shoulders and forcing her head forward. She reached over to the side of the chair to attempt to adjust the settings, not bothering asking for help because she knew the woman scrubbing at her feet was going to have no idea what she was saying or how to even answer her. "You're a great friend, sacrificing your sobriety for me."

She grinned at him. She, too, was starting to sober up from when she walked in, but rather than making her more awake and perky, it was making her sleepy and lethargic. The only thing really keeping her awake was the chair pounding on her--if she hadn't been moving, she might have passed out. That wouldn't last long, though, and she didn't think she'd really be able to sleep for awhile. It did make talking to Rafi a little bit more difficult, but he was used to her being drunk and in various other states of compromised brainpower.

At his suggestion, she snorted. "Hah. Yeah, that would work out. I'd just stay sober the whole time like I'm supposed to." She rolled her eyes. "And you know how I'm so good at breaking up bar fights." Avery shook her head slowly--a pacifier, she was not. It would be cool to work with Rafi, but then they'd probably get fired and, while this was fine for Avery's well-being, it wouldn't be very good for his. It wasn't like this mattered, though, since she hadn't gotten a job as a bartender and so she didn't need to worry about the state of his financial affairs.

"Nah, you know Will Baxter? The detective?" she said, shivering as the woman started pumicing the bottom of her foot. "He needs a secretary. And by that, I mean I'm going to be a detective who pretends to sort through his shit." She wiggled her eyebrows, more excited about this than she was willing to let on, but too excited to not let on at all.

[rufino león araya]

“I am a pretty great friend,” he agreed whole-heartedly, setting his back against the robotic arm cranking mercilessly in to his spine. By now, the little pedicurist was well underway scrubbing away at Rafi’s feet and he couldn’t suppress the giggle as she began to brush along the sides. Still, he glanced back to Avery and, mid-chuckle, “Anytime you need my sobriety, babe, I’m here for you.” Of course, it was usually the other way around. It was usually Avery being there for Rafi, but nevertheless, as the man in their friendship, it was his role to pretend like he was the badass, which he clearly was not.

Rafi fell quiet for a while—closing his eyes and allowing himself to relax. The perpetual grinding into his muscles forced him to relax and, if nothing else, it felt nice. “Mmm-“ he listened to her version of bartending to which he gave a nod, “You do have to stay mildly sober,” he agreed—although Rafi always flew under the radar as he had his boss charmed. Having the boss charmed came with benefits: free food, free alcohol, never getting in trouble for being late, but it also came with its cons, primarily when his middle-aged boss would come up and start petting his hair and back and calling him “such a good boy.”

Nevertheless, Rafi just chuckled the matter away, “You wouldn’t make a very good bartender,” he agreed—“And it’s probably good we don’t work together.” They were barely functional human beings when they were together and not working. If they were together and working, he was pretty sure that everything could go wrong would go wrong and they’d end up accidentally burning down the entire building. Now, Rafi didn’t like work—but he didn’t hate it that much.

Rafi nodded when she mentioned Will Baxter—they had met once or twice and he was vaguely aware of who he was. “A secretary, huh?” he smiled with mild surprise, “Well, congratulations Miss Sec-“ giving her a quirked eyebrow of his own, now just teasing because he could. “So, you’re going to tell me about all the criminal records? Can you tell me if and what Caden has ever been arrested for?”

[avery carina dawson]

Avery snorted and rolled her eyes. She doubted Caden had ever been arrested for anything except maybe being at a party that got broken up, but there was no need to burst Rafi's bubble that there existed somewhere dirt on Caden. "He'll only have the files of people who go to him for help. I don't think this gives me access to like, police records. Although, I probably could get access to those any day without Will's help. Maybe I'll go check out your record." She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

She didn't expect Rafi to have much of a record, either--sure, they sometimes did stupid things when drunk, but they'd never gotten arrested and he didn't strike her as the type of person to go off committing crimes. Her record was really only vandalism, and that hardly counted, since graffiti was a silly crime. Still, now the thought of sneaking into the file rooms down at the station was starting to have its appeal. She was sure that Will somehow managed to look at them--maybe if she offered that as an extra provided service, he would be more willing to take her along on cases.

"Do you think anyone ever does anything interesting when someone's hired a private detective to follow them?" she asked, leaning over to look at him. This was short-lived as the woman started slathering her legs with lotion and kneading the bottoms of her feet. Avery's eyes started to drift closed, but she tried to keep talking to make sure she stayed away. "I mean like, the guys who are crazy jealous or suspicious of what their wives are doing. Do you think the wives ever like, do anything? I was watching a show once and the wife was having an affair with a dude who turned out to be a murderer."

It was true that Avery had first tried to get the job because she had hoped that Will would be working on the as yet unsolved case of the dead Brother, but she liked to think she was sort of realistic. Anything that involved solving crimes of some sort was okay with her. "Hey, hey." She leaned up and away from the back of the chair, turning as much of her toward Rafi as she could without upsetting her foot massage. "We could open a stalking a business. And stalk everyone." Logical and lucrative. Avery was ever the savvy businesswoman.