citylogs | [ OPEN ] July Catch-all!

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[ OPEN ] July Catch-all!

WHO: Midnight (

unreserving) & You (you)
WHAT: Midnight, please calm down, it's only been a week, you can't be this much of a disaster already.
WHERE: Lots of places! Mostly in outdoor or public spaces he hasn't been to yet. If you would like a closed or specific prompt, please PM me or take a peek at my OOC intro so I can get you set up!
WHEN: Pre and post Sylvain's shitpost. Probably mostly pre-event!
WARNINGS: Most definitely alcohol use! Some references to death and terminal illness. Will update as necessary, please see Midnight's content warnings for possible canon-typical content.

a. day (a local gym)

[ Generic workout routine. He does arms and legs on alternating days for about two to three hours there starting at about 7 am, then an hour (or however long he has at the end of the day until, uh, midnight) before showering and going home. He may also steal a practice room and swing around a stick he's found in lieu of his sword... He should probably think about getting a practice sword made, huh.

He's friendly, cleans up after himself, and will spot for anyone, but also feel free to accost him walking in or out of the facilities! But also, if your character needs... well, less of a personal coach and more of a cheerleader, he's there for you. Why'd you ask him for this? I don't know, but he's so there for you at this lateral press, bench, tiny silicone dumbbells, whatever. He is rooting for you! ]

Two more in the set and you're done. Don't think about it, just do it!

b. day (shopping center)

[ Midnight just needs to go clothes shopping. That's it. He'll carry bags for people, he'll help out with menial tasks. Look at this guy, do gooding.

Okay, specifically: ]

Do you think anyone would mind if I procured that?

[ He points at a neon sign, a bright Edison light, a small discoball, a chandelier. Something very bright, flashy, and... probably not intended for sale. ]

I mean, I don't suppose there's a manager, and I wouldn't like to interfere with their marketing, but I quite like it.

[ ... He rolls up his sleeves, drags over a chair, and begins climbing. He's decided he doesn't need an opinion anymore, or just straight up didn't wait for an answer. Look, sometimes a guy just desires a lava lamp. ]

c. evening (town hall)

[ Once the dust settles and everyone is perfectly happy with the distinct lack of helpful information in the help center, Midnight will still arrive there in the evenings, haul out a bunch of books into an empty side room, and flip through them, a plastic bag of assorted drinks at his side. (Mostly alcohol and water.)

Weird nightclub looking vampire here, books open on his lap, spinning a pen between his fingers. Occasionally, if someone walks by his room and doesn't look too busy, he'll get up, go to the door, and gesture to them, an open book in his hand. ]

Hello, love. Do me a favor and write anything you like here.

[ He clicks the pen in his hand and offers it. Man's doing some experimenting! ]

d. night (the park)

[ Remember the stick he has at the gym? He needed to find it at some point. During the evenings, but honestly any time he isn't doing something else throughout the first three or four days, he'll be poking around the park, searching for fallen branches long and straight enough to do the trick. It'll take a while, and he definitely looks like he's lost something! (Or feel free to assume that you've already joined the hunt. Find a bird's nest with no birds! An odd little gravestone! Get stuck up a tree! Help!!!)

If that is overly gung-ho Boy Scout behavior, feel free to catch him a little later in the night, either from 9-10 pm or 1-2 am, sitting at a bench, workout bag sitting at his side, his running shoes neatly tied by their laces and looped around the strap.

He stares out into the darkness. That's... sort of it. It still seems like he's looking for something, but not to the point where he's about to get up and look for it. If one would like to sneak up on him using the cover of darkness, his eyes will slide over and lock on a little more quickly than what should be natural. He sees you.

He grins. (Even if he isn't surprised, he grins.) ]

Hello, darling. Having a pleasant walk?

e. morning (everywhere!)

[ Remember when we said Midnight starts his workout routine at 7 am? He actually starts at 6 am with a jog. He'll be everywhere, just exploring, and he'll use most of the subway systems to make his way back to his gym of choice. He is... not shy at all about his body, so he'll probably pull off his shirt once the sun comes up so he can cool down a bit.

He is truly minding his own business here, but he'll pause his run for anything, even if it's just a short conversation. Or just feel free to wonder why there's a shirtless, sweaty vampire on public transportation at like 7 am. Where does he need to be? Where does anyone need to be??? ]

f. day (city hall, again, late July)

[ Midnight has a seat he's pulled up to the information kiosk, but he doesn't use it all that often. He only sits to add to a growing list in a book he keeps on his person. If one would peek over his shoulder, the list is composed of questions, some pertinent, some less so. Please feel free to make one up, but the first on the list is definitely "Are you single?", which should tell you how seriously he's taking this endeavor. ]

g. evening (shopping district)

[ Not much to this prompt either, he's just poking around. Poking around at the restaurants and bars in the area, his planner occasionally out as he takes notes on... something or other. He tries to choose establishments that see less traffic, so it's very likely that wherever he finds someone, they're the only two in the building. ]

Sorry to interrupt your meal. Mind if I ask you a few questions?

h. wildcard

Feel free to make your own starter, or PM for one! Will match prose and bracket text, please start however you like.

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[ kaveh considers this. the voltage tester in hand, he carefully checks its power source, and then runs it gently across the wiring. the readings are intuitive enough. with the breaker tripped, the machine returns a negative. kaveh hums, carefully removing the tester and dropping it with precision back into the cloth bag below. then, he begins to run his fingers across the little electrical box there. a finer screwdriver, and a pair of pliers just in case. kaveh calls out: ]

The little screwdriver, please. And the pliers, in case I need to wrench it from its place. Sorry, you'll have to hold the chandelier for a bit longer.

[ midnight's response takes longer to parse. the picture is made of disparate parts - gestalt theory, that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, but most importantly, that each piece needs to be congruent in ways that the brain can easily arrange into its existing schema. someone who prefers to operate alone, preferring to have power to shape these relationships, and the need to have enough to give first.

kaveh thinks, this man has drawn a line in the sand between himself and the world. the line has a neat box-like shape to it. it's a line that one can plainly see when you look down. there's something lonely about this, too, because this sort of mechanism for existence doesn't occur in a vacuum. one has to look at the cards they are dealt before they create rules for it. one has to be hurt by them first. ]

You've strength to you. [ kaveh says, before he can think better of it. and then, in the darkness, he grimaces, because this is what had gotten him into trouble earlier. the filter between mind and mouth never seems particularly robust. kaveh shakes his head. ] Sorry, I'm not judging, or commenting. I shouldn't be. I've felt the weight of debt myself [ or still feels it now, he thinks, but this he'd rather not think about, ] and I know I'm not able to do much more than shoulder it. I only ask because I think it's tiring too.

[ kaveh wants the strength to gift, is the thing. but kaveh's never wanted anything without guilt. it's too much of a thought for the moment, too much entirely, really. so kaveh considers the make of the chandelier. ]

Mutual exchange, then. I'll help you install this chandelier where you live, and you can do something for me. Is that okay?

[ Midnight hums in the way men sometimes do when they're pleased to do a menial task that requires nothing but patience and a comparatively small amount of physical exertion that they're nonetheless happy to give. ]

Thank you. I work out.

[ In response to the comment about his strength, of course. This laugh is the usual self-centered delight at his own jokes, free of the raw, rough cut edges from before. ]

It's more than all right, both the exchange and your observations, although you'll have to forgive me when I say I don't actually have a home for the chandelier just yet. I'm scouting locations.

[ There's a Plan. Midnight's good at plans, when he puts his mind to them.

With regard to the observation, though... Well, Midnight has less to say about that to someone he's only just met, especially when he's already acknowledged it. What's worth saying about strength, anyway, when he's already applying it, actively, currently, in the exact way he wants to: helping someone with something they do best? ]

You deserve to be less tired, darling. I think most people do.

[ Except himself, of course, but Midnight's always thought himself rather exceptional. ]

[ why can't more men be like you, midnight, @ alhaitham in this chat. the joke lands. kaveh considers it for a moment - midnight's sense of humour is a buoy. it makes kaveh think that the man is giving him just enough width to either slide by, or enough rope to hang himself with. he doesn't know what it is with midnight that has kaveh say all the things that he really ought not to say, only that it has been some time since he's felt like this: a little off kilter, a little unlike himself, a little too much like himself.

still, the moment passes. it ought to, or rather, it must, because there are two things to address here and kaveh's considerable attention suddenly swings down from where he had been tweezing open an electrical box to stare down at midnight's upturned face. it proves futile through the beam of the flashlight; kaveh blinks, rapidly, and then, because he's kaveh, says: ]

- give me that. [ he reaches down to take it.

and then, swinging that beam around and down: ] Wait, Midnight. [ midnight. kaveh's eyes narrow into little red, suspicious slits. ] We're stealing a chandelier that you've no idea where you're going to put?

[ I SAID Midnight is going to steal that man's man, I meant it—

Midnight flinches away from the sudden light — he doesn't have to be light averse for that to sting — but his laugh is sudden, loud, a touch hysterical. Necessarily so. If he doesn't laugh this hard, he's going to kiss the scandal right off Kaveh's face, and he's not that much of a beast, thank you. ]

I've an idea, just no physical location. That's next week. You're free to join me on my search, if you like. Much less chance of an infraction occurring. None, if you'll believe it.

[ There is nothing illegal about a host club. Really! Nothing at all. ]

[ midnight laughs. the edge of hysteria is tempered by the way he looks as he does so in the light - dark hair spilling into murk, the softening of the long, lean lines of his face into something like elation-made-motion. this midnight is different than the midnight kaveh has been speaking to. this midnight is the same as the midnight kaveh has been speaking to. it's a matter of perspective. vision, alhaitham had once told him, begins not in the eyes, but in the brain. and kaveh - what he is thinking, is that midnight's eyes hadn't been red after all. they are pink.

kaveh's judgment wars with the scowl of something like abject exasperation. it is tempered, only, by the knowledge that it's a stake not worth fighting, mirth in a situation as ridiculous as it is funny. ]

Given how our two meetings thus far have involved you and some manner of crime, what am I supposed to believe? [ is what he says, light and quick. ] Are you planning on carting a chandelier around as you look for a place to roost? What manner of new workout is this? At least have a warehouse for your things! And where have you been sleeping all this time?

I've been living in an apartment, if you can believe that. Across the way from a nice man called Welt Yang. We drink together, sometimes.

[ See? Other nice men have been babysitting him. No need to fret. (Every need to fret, but none that Midnight is going to be forthcoming about, certainly.) ]

You really do need to be a bit more careful, darling. You're so terribly cute when you're up in arms like this. It doesn't so much as defeat your point as it does make me forget what all the fuss is about.

[ He is saying this not to throw Kaveh, but because it's very true and the self-control it takes for him to step carefully around the truth can only last for so long. Anyway, that's what all the fussing was amounting to, wasn't it? That Midnight hasn't any idea how to care for himself and a newly adopted light fixture. Midnight does have a storage unit he's taken up for himself, so he considers that a non-issue. Kaveh's indignation takes much more precedence, here. ]

Edited 2023-08-14 09:25 (UTC)

[ darling, kaveh thinks. that's the third time. you didn't get very far as a world-renowned architect if you took it to heart every time a client said something flattering about you. you also didn't get very far as kaveh if you didn't know where you stand with things. that's the thing - one can be beautiful and undesirable. kaveh understands it to be both. the choice of wording, then, has kaveh pause in something like consideration, a riboshland tiger having looked down from its branch and noticing something with fangs lurking beneath still waters.

kaveh crouches. his elbows settle on his knees. with the two-tiered table system they have going, it puts him at eyelevel with midnight with a nary few inches between them. the light is tilted down, just enough that their faces are cast in shadow. kaveh looks. ]

Midnight, you are flirting with me. [ kaveh says, with something like cautious bemusement. ] Are you doing it on purpose, or are you just like this?

Why can't it be both?

[ Midnight does have pink eyes. They catch the light in the back like a cat's eye, giving them a shine at the right angle, under the right light. If Kaveh insists on his observations, here's evidence for one he may have already started to gather: humans, in most worlds, have evolved past all apex predators. All of them. Nothing preys on a human being except for other human beings, and even then, it's mostly in a metaphorical sense.

Except for vampires. Vampires, like Midnight, are exceptional. Of course. ]

What's more, you've put yourself right within strike distance. All one has to do is this...

[ Chandelier still in hand, he tilts his head to the side, mimicking the pre-kiss motion of letting his eyes flutter shut, coy. But he grins instead of puckering up. His eyelids open as quickly as they fell into the charade, as fully present and lucid as before. ]

Call it flirting if you like. I like to think of it as amorous pattern recognition.

[ midnight's eyes, kaveh thinks, really are pink. they are pink in the way one might describe the exact ratio of pale chalk pigment mixed with the crushed shells of insects. you couldn't use that pink to describe a hazy fontainais dawn. that would be too benign. it's the sort of pink that came with promise of warning, a single band of it across a frog's back, the feather of a tail-spined bird. it was a pink that reminded you that it was humans who attributed weakness to it, that in nature, it had always been the colour that informed predators that there was blood in the water.

kaveh is thinking about that trail of blood as he studies the sharp-hooked edge of midnight's grin. the initial mortification is there, as is the impetus to step back. kaveh is only human. he is a man who bleeds when cut, who bruises when hurt, and who burns when put to the torch. nobody ought to look at the cast of midnight's dark lashes into the bleeding sea of his eyes and not understand the implications there.

but that's the thing, with kaveh. when you live in a perpetual state of fight or flight, your instincts eventually get used to the process of it. and only those who don't know kaveh well will assume that he tends towards flight. midnight grins, and kaveh looks, and kaveh thinks- ]

So why is it that your flirtations became overt when I began asking about your living standards? Should I call this a deflection pattern recognition instead? [ kaveh makes a face. as if to forestall the argument, he lifts his finger. it ghosts itself over the line of midnight's lips like the infinite approach of a sweeping asymptote
] We can at least wait until we've gotten the chandelier down before one of us has to call someone's bluff or another and this ends up all over the floor. Are we at least in agreement for this?

[ Midnight's eyes go rather stormy. Red skies at morning, sailor's warning. ]

Only until we're both quite sure neither of us will sustain any chandelier-based injuries. And if you do that with your finger again, I promise nothing.

[ But Midnight relaxes, docile and unassuming, and does not change position at all. He's done nothing in all this time except tilt his head once and write a few checks with his mouth. ]

You had the audacity to ask after a stranger's wellbeing, you know. Aggressively, one might add. I'm mirroring the energy you've created. Seems rather simple to me.

[ Midnight laughs, a wellspring of eternal delight with the lovely things life presents to him. He's always smiling. Why not? The past is dead. The future is a promise of something better. ]

[ like a chameleon changing its colours, kaveh thinks, or a snake retracting its bite. but that bright pink remains the same. a storm would recognise its own ilk anywhere. do like things not draw upon one another like starvation? but kaveh thinks: it's a colour that belongs on a canvas wider than this one.

kaveh breathes out, low, slow, in the way of a sigh. ]

If we're going down that route, might I point out that you were passed out drunk with your picture being circulated when I first laid eyes on you? Are you not at least culpable for half this conversation's existence? [ kaveh retracts his finger. and then, uncoiling from his crouch, he slips the flashlight into his mouth, and points it up. the beam of light cuts once again through the cloistered darkness, illuminating the little electrical box.

thirty seconds of a pair of screws and a bit of pliering, and the weight of the chandelier sinks into midnight's hand proper. kaveh removes the flashlight from his mouth, and, because kaveh, first shakes out his hair. ]

Done. That wasn't so difficult. [ he maintains his position on his chair with care, and looks down. ] Can you get it down to the floor? Do you need a hand?

[ This is another moment that will lodge in Midnight's brain, dislodging and washing ashore as soon as he gets back to his rooms and realizes that the past day was real. He won't look at it with regret, exactly. Just with thoughts. Criticism, at best. Don't scare others off, now. They don't need all that. Just enough. Enough for the next day, then the next.

Not now, though. Now, Midnight just laughs. ]

I understand when what happens to my image goes beyond my power to control it, dear Kaveh. It's your response that interests me.

[ Now that the flirtation is out there, Midnight feels quite comfortable with staring a bit more openly at the way Kaveh works at the the chandelier, although he isn't so lost in his little viewing session that he needs direction once the time comes to lower the whole thing to the floor. He shakes his head, braces the whole thing carefully, and lets the solid frame at the center descend carefully onto his knee before removing his coat and beginning to wrap the whole thing up in it. ]

Just some assurance that I won't inflict irreparable damage to it before I manage to give it a final home will do. You've done more than enough, believe me.

[ midnight says 'dear' in the way that causes kaveh's caustic knee-jerk reflex to spit out an equally confounding 'and in what way am i dear to you'? but kaveh thinks, he's starting to understand it - or understand his own need to build his own understanding of it. the elderly neighbour next door with her near-blindness and her tendency to fuss over each and every member of sumeran society unlucky enough to be within fussing distance says 'dear' in the way that has failed first children of high-expectation parents everywhere to prickle up in something like abject shame. midnight says it with a laugh that bleeds into the darkness of the clothing shop.

more than enough, midnight says. kaveh's head cants in something like acquiescence, and then he sets himself to rearrange his hairclips. deft hands, deft feet, they bring him down onto ground level so that he can watch with the swaying light in his hands midnight swallow the chandelier up with his jacket. ]

No, I think the chandelier is in rather safe hands. But if it happens to be damaged because, say, you run into someone you need to hit over the head with something and the chandelier is all that you have, let me know. I know where to get little crystals that look like those to fix them back into place. [ kaveh begins, and then, perhaps a little less forcefully- ] ... and I am sorry, for what it's worth. I don't usually... [ kaveh's fingers slot his clips into place. then, at a loss for what to do next, he waves his hand vaguely. ] Or rather, I shouldn't have had that sort of reaction. I've said a few things I probably shouldn't have. Don't take them to mind.

You're apologizing for nothing. Or rather, I don't take the things others say to heart.

[ No one deserves that level of scrutiny. (Well, Midnight does, but he needs to be careful. He's stronger than most. Exceptional.) Anyway, he's put away everything relevant for later, wrapped up tight like the chandelier he's scooped up into his arms. He smiles down at Kaveh, both completely at ease and a little confused that Kaveh's found anything to apologize for in the first place. He's playing. Midnight loves to play. That's why he's very careful when he playing... He doesn't want the world to give him a reason to stop.

Anyway, the very idea of Kaveh hurting him is already unfathomable. What will he do? Hate him? Midnight knows what that looks like. This is just a lovely person doing lovely things. ]

Would you like to follow me to my storage unit? Save you a trip once I figure out where I'm going to install this.

[ easy come, easy go - or so kaveh thinks. midnight is already moving on, shouldering the chandelier with the ease of man who carries nothing but the burden on his back. paradoxically, kaveh suddenly gets the sense that this is only the very beginning of this conversation. the backlit pink of midnight's eyes linger in kaveh's near-memory. you don't look like that, with that kind of deflection, without having understood the lines you've drawn in the sand.

but to date, kaveh has apologised, and while it doesn't necessarily make him feel better, nor is it meant to, it at least means that he has established his own culpability. with that aired out, kaveh's shoulders seem to relax a little, before he shakes his head. ]

This city isn't large enough to get lost in. When you've found a place to install it, just let me know. It's for some kind of a larger establishment, isn't it? I'd thought that you were going to hang it your apartment, and while I wasn't going to judge how gaudy that would have been, this certainly makes more sense.

It is for a larger establishment, yes.

[ Not one that Midnight is going to expand on at the moment, because he's really just met Kaveh, and explaining the ins and outs of a host club might take a bit more honesty than he'd like to dole out for one meeting. So he instead grins. ]

But come now, would it really have looked all that bad in a bachelor-sized room? With enough flash and extra furnishings, I think the effect would have been striking.

[ Expensive taste central. Not exactly bad taste, just... Maximalist. ]

[ kaveh gives midnight the kind of look that suggests there is only one place where gaudy maximalism ought to exist, and that is dumped somewhere in the great garbage patch of the pacific ocean. ]

Well I can concede that some individuals may be able to make it work, the general effect it causes is - well, striking wouldn't be the wrong word for it. As in, with the potential to strike your eyes from its sockets.

[ kaveh examines midnight. and then, he sighs. ] I'm not going to say more, in case it encourages you. But you've your chandelier and I'll be on the lookout to see if I get summarily arrested in the next twenty-four hours. Let's meet again at a later time, shall we?

[ Midnight has a contrarian in him. It is, in fact, both metaphorical wolves. They conspire to make his path as interesting as possible. He grins, then nods to Kaveh in farewell and walks to the mouth of the shop, single visible brow raised in amusement. Maximalism it is. ]

Looking forward to it. You know where to reach me.

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[ OPEN ] July Catch-all!

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kanna.... have u slept...

why sleep when the gays need me??? (i made it to work on time and have had 2 full meals 👍)

looks... at.... (but good!!!)

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