Inked [1x1]

"You're getting seriously lucky, here," he said with a laugh. "How've you not messed up yet? Are you normally pretty good at this?" He asked.

_ _ e / _ a _ _ _ _ / _ o _ _ e
 
She laughed, "Most words have vowels in them. I always start there." She considered the blanks, ignoring the meaning behind that particular word. "T and H"
 
Otto shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Don't know how I've ever thought of that," he admitted. He looked at what he wrote, and sighed. "That looks really bad. I'm sorry," he said with a nervous chuckle.

t h e / _ a _ _ t _ / h o _ _ e
 
She chuckled at what the letters spelled without the rest to fill them out. "Not your fault," she soothed. This time she took more time to consider the words, having gone for most of the obvious. There were more vowels, though, and she went for their safety "I."
 
Otto laughed. "Good. I don't want to get blamed for that," he said with a snort. He filled in the letter, then sighed. "It still doesn't look reasonable," he said.

t h e / _ a i _ t _ / h o _ _ e
 
"I think I'm the one to blame, providing the letters." Laila snorted. "Or we both are. S."
 
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Otto filled in the letters, then looked down. "If you can't tell what that is now, I don't know how," he said, tapping the letters on the page.

t h e / s a i _ t s / h o _ s e
 
"The Saint's horse." She guessed, with confidence. And then she was beaming, "Didn't miss one letter, either."
 
Otto beamed right back. "Y'see, you're wrong, by one letter," he teased, drawing in the head of the hangman. He looked back up at Laila, still smiling. "Wanna take another guess?" He offered.

t h e / s a i n t s / h o _ s e
 
She blinked. That had been unexpected. What other letter would fill in that empty blank. She leaned in closer, as if the view up close would provide an answer. Then she smacked her head, "I was going to guess U earlier but didn't think it would fit. The saint's house?"
 
Otto laughed at Laila's expression. "Yeah, you're right there," he said, filling in the last letter. He held up one finger. "Never doubt yourself during hangman," he said, like an old time propaganda poster. He laughed and shook his head. "Your turn, then?"
 
She nodded and took the pen.

Back and forth they went, Laila keeping Otto company for a few hours. When they both grew tired of the game and had spent more time talking, she sighed. "I should probably go, I've taken up a lot of your time and your coworkers are going to wonder." She smiled, "And I have some writing to do."
 
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Otto was starting to get more anxious towards the end of the 'consultation'. He tore out the page they'd been using for their games and stuffed it into his tunic pocket, and started to sketch some things on one of the pages to make it look like they really had been brainstorming for the past while. He laughed a little. "Good thing is that I can be as vague as I want. We're not allowed to disclose what goes on during consultations," he said, standing up in the chair. "I'm going to have to call you miss when we're out there, though."
 
She felt a little bad about keeping him locked in the room but hoped that he appreciated the company. "I'll be sure to be just as cordial and estranged," smiled the blonde. She waited for him to lead the way out of the consultation room, lips pursed as if she was unsure about their whole encounter. "Thank you for your time."
 
Otto laughed, but turned his face to something that would look like general friendliness to anyone untrained, but to those with a fine eye it would scream of mild annoyance and general relief to be seeing such a 'problematic client' off. "It's no problem, miss," He said, waking to the front door and holding it open for her. "I hope you'll come back some time," he said, and with his back to his coworkers he gave a quick wink.
 
After saying her goodbyes, Laila took the first bus home she could. She liked to think that Otto had enjoyed their time together, even though he was supposed to be working, but she decided she wouldn't fret over it. Instead, she went home, found the earplugs he had given her, popped them in and began to write. That's where she spent the rest of her evening and engrossed in her writing she didn't have time to worry about the consequences of growing close to someone, particularly an inker.
 
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As soon as the store was empty of customers, Otto let out a fake almighty sigh as he returned to the staff room. "She might have asked for me, but she barely let me do my job," he complained, taking a seat in the room.
There was a snort from his fellow inker Leandro, who glanced at his watch. "We were wondering what you were doing in there," he said. "Was she picky or just indecisive?"
"A bit of both, really," Otto said, putting in one of his earbuds. "I don't see why you even come for a mark if you're not gonna cooperate with the inker."
Leondro nodded. "I get you," he said, then went back to his work.

Otto returned to his own drawing with a slight sigh. He honestly felt a little bit guilty about lying about the interaction. It was less about lying to his coworkers and more about lying about Laila and making her seem like a pretty horrible person.
 
The weeks passed as Laila worked on the alterations to her book. She spent some nights talking with Otto on the phone or actually spending time together, but she didn't go back to the inker's place of work. She could only imagine what it would seem like if she'd been so picky and unsure of her choices and then tried to go back and she didn't want to risk causing any trouble for her friend.

A month had passed since she first went to the publishing house and they called her to let her know that her she had an offer for the book. Once off the phone Laila danced in her living room and this time, Otto was the first person she called.
 
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Unfortunately, Otto was marking someone when Laila called. It would be another half an hour before he could call back. He saw the woman off, the entirety of her left arm all wrapped up - that mark, in particular, was a multi-week piece. He was glad to see the back of it, in all honesty. He needed a breath of fresh air in his work. He returned to the staff room, washed his hands once more to be sure, and then went to his phone. He winced when he saw the missed call, and called back right away. "Hey, Laila, so sorry about that," he said quickly. "I was doing a pretty big mark for someone."
 
The young woman was a little disappointed that Otto hadn't answered, but she knew she'd called while he was at work so she wasn't upset. She waited, though, before calling any of her family to tell him because for whatever reason she wanted to tell him first. Instead, she cooked dinner and played with her cats (who were growing way too fast) and was in the middle of a movie when the phone rang.

Laila paused the VHS player and answered without looking at the caller id. "Hello?" Otto! "Oh, hey, no problem. I figured you were working. I really try not to call you at work, unless there's something important." She couldn't contain the excitement in her voice. "I have a poem for you: Roses are red, Violets are blue. I got a book deal, how about you?" She wrote him bad poetry all the time "Roses are red, Violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and so are you" had been one of her favorites), but this is the first time something in it was worthwhile news.
 
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