A/N- Thanks for staying with the story everyone. I know a long hiatus sucks but it's hopefully over now.
Klaus had come to see that the world viewed the adult film industry in many ways, from a never-ending string of orgies, sex and money flowing in to a horror show of exploitation and trafficking.
What many failed to realise was that for a great portion of mid-successful actors like him it was simply a job.
Yes, there was sex, there was drugs, alcohol and a lot of self-promotion at clubs, events and orgies but at the end of the day- or the beginning, depending on what time he got home- it was a job he went to for the money and went home again to unwind.
Like any job, the day-to-day events could become rote and blend together, before he knew it, weeks had bled into months and Mystic was coming up on its first year as a production company.
Like most production companies both in the adult industry and the film industry, they'd had their flash in the pan success, something new and shiny for people to be excited by before the next trend came along, and they moved on.
As they weren't fools or egotistical enough to think they would be the porn equivalent of a major studio, without the massive funding and choke hold on the market necessary, they had done their best to plan for when they began to lose interest.
Having worked around the clock- and at one point there had been a video where they had literally worked around a grandfather clock- they had managed to ensure that when the majority left in search of the next big thing, they were left with a decent sized member-base and subscription numbers that weren't brilliant but weren't anything to stress over either.
Their main issue was what every adult film production company had to deal with, their short videos, the ones they made available without subscription to lure people in, were being posted on sites like youporn and pornhub without their permission and unless people were interested enough to follow through to their site, it led to loss of views and revenue for them.
They also had more successful companies copying their videos, not the actual scripts but they'd noticed a fellow pair of blondes signed with Fallen Angel getting a lot of work very similar to their own.
They said that copying was the highest form of flattery, but when it potentially cost them money, it felt more like an insult.
Still, they didn't have to worry about their profit margins to the point of losing sleep and at the end of their first financial year, Klaus was feeling pretty good about their prospects.
Especially because Caroline had run the numbers- more times than was strictly necessary or sane- brought in a financial adviser- whom Klaus had kicked out after he spent the meeting talking to Caroline's breasts- and decided that they could afford to buy a studio.
A physical building with offices, set and storage.
Caroline had hunted high and low, with binders that weighed more than the U.S Federal budget and was more heavily detailed, seemingly determined to view every potential space in the city until she found the absolute perfect spot.
After four weeks, when he couldn't stand the thought of another round of conversation of square footage, lighting, asbestos checks and/or location benefits. He went online, found a real estate agency that dealt with commercial spaces, rang the office and booked an appointment. Either by sheer luck, or by the receptionist having run a search on his name, he'd been paired with an agent who didn't view him as the personification of America's moral decline. All the agent cared about was whether they would be as above board and legal as possible for an adult film set to be.
"Look," she'd told him, "I'm not judging but if there is drug use, as long as it's not something that's going to make the news with police breaking down the doors, because it'd be bad publicity for us if our company was mentioned."
He'd assured her that drug use and other activities frowned upon by the public would be kept to a minimum, whilst still making and distributing porn.
In return, she'd shown him what had been a foundry once upon a time and had since been converted into an office space with a large factory floor, open plan offices and a large car park, only fifteen minutes from a street with restaurants and a small mall.
He'd liked the location, taken it back to Caroline who had then done further research- the original architect had been murdered by his wife and lover who'd then run away together- and it was in their price range, so they had read the contract twice, signed the lease and begun the slow move-in process.
There had been the basic stuff to do which Klaus had anticipated and then the things that had come out of left field for him. They had to partition the ground floor and build sets for them to film on, which could also be easily redesigned, they had to find providers for electricity, water, heating and internet, which was a lot more complicated for businesses than it was for personal use. They had to furnish their offices with more than what could be grabbed from a Walmart, which meant sourcing a company. Caroline brought her laptop and personal printer in, worked up a to-do list longer than a Tolstoy novel and assigned tasks based on ability, availability and role within the company.
In fact, a lot of Klaus' current sobriety could be attributed to her, because the jobs he had to carry out involved early mornings, late nights and not a lot of time in between to get high.
And then there were the neighbours.
They were on a street with a few other businesses, a storage complex, a publishing company, a nothing too exciting and they barely saw anyone for the first few weeks.
In fact, it wasn't until the ink on the lease was dry, the funds transferred, and they had finally managed to spend a day in the building without coming across something that needed to be purchased, built or brought from home that they received a letter.
On one of the few days Klaus and Caroline hadn't been in the office, one of the neighbouring business owners had come in to see what kind of business was being set up on 'his' street. From what their staff had gathered, he'd been huffing and puffing about the threat of competition for his landscaping company.
He'd quickly been disabused of the notion that they were involved in any kind of gardening and stormed out of the building.
The next day, they received a letter shoved under their door ordering them to vacate the property and take their business elsewhere because it was 'harmful' and 'damaging' for the other businesses on the street, with risk of criminality and prostitution.
They'd checked with a lawyer, who had told them that unless their neighbour was willing to take them to court with proof that their business had caused profit loss or rise in criminality in the immediate area- which would take months, if not years, to prove- they would be fine.
But the next morning, they got to work to find that someone had hurled a brick through one of their windows.
Caroline immediately went on the offensive, wearing a smile that terrified Klaus because it didn't reach her eyes, she'd ordered him to go home and put on his white button-down and nice jeans. She'd turned up at his place barely an hour later, looking for all the world like a Stepford wife in a fifties style white dress with blue flowers and her hair held back by a headband.
In her car were more cupcakes than she should reasonably have been able to buy at eight am on a Tuesday morning, along with enough wicker baskets that he felt entitled to make a joke about her having robbed the Easter Bunny.
But the murderous glare in her eyes told him this was no joke.
"This is war, Nik," she announced, her voice horrifyingly cold as she tied a pink ribbon to one of the basket handles,
"I'm not going to let some mean, judgmental asshole try to drive us from our building, especially when I would bet so much money that he watches porn and not our porn either, but the hardcore gangbang stuff."
He takes a length of ribbon and loops it around the handle, tying it into a perfect bow that has her eyebrows trying to kiss her hairline,
"I had an older brother once," He mentions as a throw-away comment, "And I'm with you Caroline, this is my company too, nobody is going to take it from us."
Caroline's plan of attack was simple. Go to each business on the street- save one, obviously- and with Klaus playing up his second-generation British accent and Caroline putting on all the charm of a pageant queen, they would introduce themselves to the neighbourhood, hand over cupcakes, and invite them to an informal potluck set for Wednesday night.
Clearly, they had beaten their bad neighbour in reaching out to the rest of the street, because when they meet the owners or the second-in-charge or whomever answered the door, none of them had the stunned or judgemental expressions that civilians showed when they realised what their profession was.
They were surprised and slightly off-put by the effuse of friendliness, but Caroline had been betting on societal expectations to enforce polite behaviour.
Except, as they return to their office, they see something strange enough to catch their eye. A balding man in a cheap suit crouching behind a car to try and spy on them.
"That must be the landscaper," Klaus mutters under his breath, "He's exactly as I pictured him."
"Be nice," she chided automatically, "Even if you're right."
It was strange to be organising a potluck with Caroline and their team, for so many reasons, it wasn't something that was regularly done within the industry. If they ate together, it was either out at restaurants or they ordered food in, possibly because they got excited when the cash hit their bank accounts, or because they were all on so many different fad diets that it was just easier for people not to cook. Caroline, however, rose to the occasion.
On Wednesday morning, Klaus found her on the ground floor of their building, in what had been marketed to them as a conference room but had been converted into a storage room and- he suspected- a place for their team to nap or slack off when they weren't needed.
Caroline had cleared it out and was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by boxes with the terror and despair inducing IKEA logo stamped proudly across them.
"You know, I could probably get you drugs that drive you insane," he comments, mirroring her position on the floor, "Surely easier and safer than assembling Ikea?"
She raises her head to glare at him, "Either you're here to help or you can get out and go double-check the RSVP's for tonight."
He considers his options, and while it would help to absolutely know the final numbers for the potluck, right now, he enjoyed hanging out with Caroline too much to waste an opportunity.
"What are we making exactly?"
"Conference table and office chairs," she answers briefly, using scissors to slice open the packing tape and reaching in for the instruction manual,
"Temporary ones anyway," she explains, "We need them for tonight but hopefully soon, we'll have better ones."
"Alright," he says, grabbing his own box and tearing into it with a lot less precision than she had, pulling out the instruction manual and nearly ripping it when it caught on something.
It made close to zero sense to him but there were pictures and supposedly the right number of tools and weird little pieces.
"You know, you can ask for help when you need it," he tells her, keeping his tone gentle and his eyes on the herculean task before him so that she wouldn't feel confronted or challenged.
"We're partners and friends."
She grimaces and he's not sure whether it's because of the conversation or the screw she's trying to get into place,
"It's been a long time since I could rely on anybody, I mean, maybe there were some people who'd take me to hospital if I was really desperate but the little things? Like this? I can't think of anybody who would come help me."
He knew the feeling.
"Well, if you ever need a ride to the hospital, let me know and if you need help assembling furniture, I'll do that too."
She flashes him a warm smile, her eyes lighting up and he feels a tug in his chest.
"Thanks," she murmurs softly before glancing at the hardware in her hand,
"And yes, you can make a dirty joke about the screw now."
Nik was surprisingly good at everyday charm.
That was something Caroline could easily forget.
In their line of work, they tended to be always on when meeting people, flirting, flashing bedroom eyes, pretending they were picturing the other person in the middle of a round of dirty sex, whether they were meeting with directors, producers, fellow actors or public, they had to sell sex and themselves as the best sex around.
Which sometimes meant that they forgot how to act around normal people and their intensity could be a little off-putting.
But Nik was having a conversation with the owners of the catering company four doors down about how the gluten-free and paleo-fads were affecting their business and the commercial kitchen.
Caroline herself had already won over the auto repair shop, even though the father and son who ran it had clearly been disappointed when they turned up to see her wearing regular clothes.
Meanwhile, her team were moving in groups of two or three, talking about their college days, or bitching about the housing market/economy/George R. R. Martin's procrastination.
Most of the people seemed surprised by how normally they were dressed and acting, as if they had been expecting breast implants, bleached blonde hair and a bimbo act.
The receptionist at the construction company approached her and after a few basic niceties, began asking her about her work and her site with the avid curiosity that they occasionally encountered with those who thought perhaps they too could become adult film stars or were just excited by the taboo nature.
Unfortunately, this poor receptionist was just a little too plain faced to achieve any sort of success in their world, so Caroline tried to play up the long hours, weird unexpected injuries and the general lack of sexiness in the job.
They then segue-way into the employment crisis for their generation and the universal two-year experience requirement for entry-level jobs when there's a loud click and then bright flash that has Caroline blinking spots out of her eyes.
She turns slowly, trying to determine who it was that was holding the camera when she sees the slimy, cheap-suited man who had been spying on her and Nik the other day.
"Can I help you?" she asks, trying to keep her tone civil even as her stomach coils in anger.
"Oh, I'm just taking photos," he answers with exaggerated casualness, "But you're used to that, aren't you?"
Beside her, the receptionist is frowning, and she hears one of the male business owners muttering 'Come on, man.'
Nik cuts through the crowd like a shark through water, making his way straight to her side and positioning himself so that he's in the direct line of the landscaper and his camera.
"In our industry," he begins, "In this city, we don't take photos without people's consent."
The landscaper gestures to them, his hand starting at their necks and ending at their knees,
"Please, everyone knows you two take your clothes off for money, whores don't get to be uptight about photos."
"Oh, for God's sakes," Betty- the caterer- snapped, "Lay off will you, they've been nothing but pleasant since they got here and if a woman doesn't consent to having her photo taken, you have no right to take it."
"Why are you even taking photos?" her husband asked, "John, they're porn stars, who cares? As long as they don't have wild parties or block the street, it doesn't really concern us."
"If she doesn't want her photo taken, maybe they should go somewhere else," he snaps, "I was here first."
He sounded like a spoiled little boy in the school yard screaming because someone was on the same swing set as him.
"Seriously?!" she cries, "What do you even want photos for anyway? Just go online if you want to see me that badly."
John sneers at her, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
She's about to shout at him when Nik puts a hand on her arm,
"What Caroline and I do is no business of yours when it doesn't affect you," he argues, reasonably, "Especially when our site promotes healthy, consensual sex as opposed to…"
He lists three sites that seem completely random to Caroline, as far as she can tell, the only thing they have in common is that they're degrading and bordering on illegal. She's about to chime in with more mainstream sites when she sees that John has flushed deep red and then deathly pale and Nik is grinning triumphantly.
"When you posted abuse on our Facebook page this morning, I traced your IP address," he explains, "And then ran it through a site to see what your proclivities were. Must say, mate, even as a whore, I was shocked by your internet history and horrified. You might want to get a VPN unless your goal in life is to have the FBI breaking down your door."
John opens his mouth as if to speak but closes it and raises his camera one final time to take a blindingly bright photo before turning on his heel and pushing his way out the door.
Caroline turns her arm over to grab Nik's wrist with her hand,
"He posted abuse on our Facebook page this morning?"
Nik gives a half-shrug, "I suspected he might do something of the sort, so I monitored our various pages, deleted it the moment it showed up and then with a youtube tutorial and some help from Josh, traced his IP address and somehow accessed his internet history."
Her surprise must have shown on her face because his lips twitch in response, "I told you, sweetheart, you can rely on me."
Despite John the landscaper having caused a scene, or perhaps because of it, the potluck was a success and their neighbours were surprisingly friendly and accepting of their company.
Again, Caroline suspects that John was enough of an annoyance that anything that irritated him was welcomed by the rest of the street.
He tries to start a twitter campaign against them, but obviously he doesn't have enough knowledge of social media or even communications because his twitter account has thirty followers, twenty random and ten being his employees and family. He lists their business address but they had already planned to list on their site under their contact details anyway- once they'd hired a receptionist. If he was hoping that scores of protesters would come banging on their door, he was going to be sorely disappointed. They weren't anywhere near a church, schools or day care centers, any outraged pearl-clutching 'think of the children' warrior mom would have to go out of her way to find a reason to shut them down. And again, they were one porn company in an industry of thousands, one of a hundred in their city alone.
So, when she hears the buzz of the door sensor and heads through to the front to see a pretty, blonde young woman walking in, she assumes that she's an actress looking for work.
"Sorry," she said brightly, before the other woman could even speak, "We're not hiring right now, but if you leave your name and details…"
She trails off when the woman raises her head and if she's of legal age then she must have had her birthday yesterday, because she looks young.
"I'm looking for Nik Morgan?" she prompts, looking around the foyer nervously and Caroline does a little head shake as she tries to figure out what's happening.
Had Nik got a girlfriend he'd forgot to tell her about?
Seriously?! If they had to have the safe sex, STI chat she was going to be pissed.
"Caroline?!" Nik calls as he comes up behind her, "Remind me, were we introducing Marcel and Aya today or tomorrow? No-one put it on the boa…bloody hell!"
He's staring at the girl, frozen to the spot when she squeals his name,
"Found you!" and throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and nearly knocking him over.
And Caroline is beginning to worry that there was a stalker he'd neglected to tell her about when he finally manages to find his voice, looking at her with wide-eyes.
"This is my younger sister," he stammers, still clearly in shock, "Rebekah."
A/N- That happened. Thanks for reading.