undergrounds | [open] I paint the ceiling so that nobody knows

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[open] I paint the ceiling so that nobody knows

I. Daytime: A DIY print shop
Oh for fuck's sake- [Behold and witness the man in his twenties, dressed in a nice, tame suit and tie in the middle of the day, throwing a mini-tantrum at a copier. He jabs at a few buttons angrily, and it spits out another sheet of paper - one that he's apparently not pleased with, from the way he scans it with his eyes and then tears it into bits.] Come on, how hard is it to make you print two-sided?

[It spits out another - one-sided - piece of paper, and Soeki Crowe frowns again at the copier.]

The family's going to kill me, you know. It's going to be all your fault. And you won't even print memorial folders for my funeral, I bet. [He's trying to get memorial folders printed last-minute for a funeral. Even witches like him, though he's not immediately obvious as one, need to have day jobs. Maybe lend him a hand? Or tell him he's talking to the copier out loud. He'd probably appreciate that.]

II. Daytime: A book shop
[And what does he spend the money from his day job on? Well, besides rent and groceries, the usual necessities, he mostly spends it on books. This shop in particular specializes in old, rare, or hard to find books, and he likes to check out the selection. He knows for a fact that one of the families he helped with a funeral for sold their loved one's old library to this shop, and there's always a chance that he'll stumble upon something good.

Something magical.

Soeki is dressed down after work in jeans and a hoodie, smelling faintly of incense and browsing the shelves with single-minded determination. He traces the spines with a fingertip as he moves down the rows of musty books, inhaling the sweet scent of old paper. He used to do this with his dad, in Manchester, the two of them relentlessly hunting through antique stores and bookstores for a hint of something magical. They didn't succeed all that often, but he still enjoys the search.

Maybe he bumps into you, not looking where he's going, or maybe you catch him leaning into a bin of un-sorted books, practically falling in. Or maybe he's reaching for the same book you are, and unlike in a romcom meet-cute, instead of seeming embarrassed or shy, he looks a little territorial.]

III. Nighttime: Guilty Pleasures
[Some would say a witch in vampire territory is flirting with danger - but really, Soeki is mostly flirting with the bartender. It seemed like a decent idea at the time, to come out and see the sights, get the lay of London. He hadn't done that when he first came into town a couple years ago, had kept his head down and worried more about settling into some semblance of a life. He'd been good.

He's tired of being good.

Soeki leans back in his seat, appreciatively watching one of the male dancers on stage in-between periods spent watching the room. If you care to approach him, he'll probably smile - earnest, somehow, more than leering or lecherous, and say,] Buy you a drink?

IV. Nighttime: Tesco
[The midnight munchies hit hard. It's more like two am, and surprisingly, he's not even high, he's just hungry, and... well, it had slipped his mind to go grocery shopping at a normal hour in the last week. Easy enough mistake to make. He'd looked up the nearest 24 hour store that still sells liquor, and he's browsing the aisles casually, in sweatpants and a hoodie. His trolley is full of junk food and easy meals - crisps, cereal, a few candy bars, beer, frozen dinners, pasta.

He stops in produce, eyeing displays of vegetables with that sort of tired, 2 am, why am I awake kind of consideration.] To be an adult and buy a vegetable or not to, that is the question.

V. Any time: Wildcard
[Hit me up at

nekky if none of these prompts work, we can figure something else out!]

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[It's 2 AM and Nancy's done working for the evening- pale, despite the iron she was on (doctor's orders) and the blood replenishment she'd taken earlier- and covered in more makeup than she usually would wear, even for work. Her bruises though, are mostly healed.

She's starving, and a new flat also meant there was no food there at the moment, so she's swinging through Tesco, her basket holding a frozen pizza and a bottle of wine. Looks like she and the guy in the produce had the right idea. He looks familiar, and maybe that's why she responds to him.]

Depends- are you going to cook it or is it going to be decoration in your fridge?

[He's not sure if the woman who's joined him in produce is just washed out from the fluorescent lights, or if she is really that pale. Soeki is naturally pretty white, and tends to get dark circles under his eyes, especially when he's been actively practicing magic, but this girl doesn't look too well. Still, not his business, really.]

Depends on the veg, I guess. Ideally it will end up in a meal at some point and not just grow mould at the back of the crisper. [He picks up a courgette and studies it thoughtfully. It takes all he has not to make a lewd joke about other uses for certain vegetables.] But really, who am I kidding?

[There's magic in the air, she can tell. Magic leaves a trace that most witches can sense. It rubs off on those who have been around fae and other sorts of magic, and this man has some.

Only at Tesco at 2 AM.

She looks at the courgette and tries not to make any sort of jokes. She's seen enough penises tonight thank you, she doesn't need to make a joke about one, and she's thankful that her companion seems to feel the same way.] Go with those frozen bags of mixed veggies. You can throw them in the microwave, and they last longer than anything in the crisper.

[Similarly, he feels that trace in the air, like a peculiar, homey taste at the back of his mouth. Witches in Tesco at two in the morning, only in London.

He puts back the vegetable, and thoughtfully picks up a little box of sage leaves instead. Was this on his list? He can't remember.]

Frozen's probably easier. [He agrees, tossing the sage into his basket, then glances over at hers with a friendly enough smile.] Getting ready for a night in?

[Sage is always on the list of a witch, as far as Nancy's concerned.]

It's 2 AM, the night's already over. [She gave him a wry look.] I'm getting ready to turn in. Been out since the sun went down.

[Which makes her sound like a vampire, she's well-aware.]

[Ain't that the truth. The comment about the night being over just makes him smile, crooked and amused.] It's just beginning for some of us.

[He should be getting to bed, he's got a noon funeral to prepare for tomorrow bright and early, but, well. He's a creature of habit.

He offers a hand.] Soeki Crowe.

Some of us, yes.

[Some nights, sure. London just liked to shut pretty much everything down after midnight. It was rubbish.]

Nancy Fagin, [she says, taking his hand.] Nice t'meet you.

[Life lesson number one: in your first week at a new job, you don't say "no" to people. Even if you're just a temp. "Can you pop down to the copy shop and have these bound?" Of course. And anyway, it seems simple enough.

Half an hour later, here she still stands, waiting for use of the one copier that doesn't seem to need maintenance.

Which brings us to life lesson number two: no, it's never really that simple. This was starting to get a bit ridiculous even before he started guilt tripping the machine, and now it's...okay, it's slightly funny. But it's also a bit sad -- sad enough that she can't just sit by and watch.]

I'm not sure it has a concept of death. [One eyebrow is lifted in amusement as she speaks, watching him.] Though I'm sure it'd miss you in its own way.

[He's aware that there's a bit of a line forming. Or at least one other person behind him, same thing. Soeki reflects on how that just makes this entire situation even more frustrating.

He is a walking, magical disaster, and he has never been more aware of that fact in his life than he is right now.]

I'll make it miss me- [He cuts off as he looks over at the clock on the wall, and breathes out a frustrated sigh.] Don't suppose you know how to get it to print double-sided? I've got to be at a funeral in an hour and the family terrifies me, frankly.

[WOW]

Oh, scary. [A somewhat deadpan smile.] I'm sure it's really feeling the pressure now.

[But she sort of has to take pity on him too, if for no other reason then to make sure she gets to take a lunch after all of this. She glances at the machine, taps on the "settings" button, fiddles with it for a minute.] What's so terrifying about these people, anyway?

Are you implying I'm not terrifying to errant machinery? [But it's a sort of good-natured offense, both brows quirking up.]

Have you ever planned a funeral? One that you were willing to shell out a ton of money on? That's the sort I'm dealing with today. Only the best for Grandpa Joe, apparently, not that he's alive to care if there are enough memorial folders for the whole bleeding funeral or if the flowers are arranged just so. [But thank god someone is helping because he feels like an absolute disaster right now.]

Well, it's not quaking in fear yet. [Still sarcastic, of course --Effy's middle name, apparently-- but also more good-natured.]

Can't say I have done. [She's listening, but she's also fiddling with the machine, still. Whatever he's done to the settings, he's really fucking done -- it takes a few minutes, and a paper change, to get it back to default settings.] I never understood why people wanted to pay that much for a dead person, anyway. It's not like they care.

[He's managed to royally fuck it up, but hey, story of his life. Soeki is just glad that someone can un-fuck it, because otherwise, he'd be in for a talking-to from his boss.]

Lots of money in the funeral business. Who'da thunk it, right? Anyway, thanks, you're saving my arse from a chewing-out. Either from my boss or the clients.

[She's had to help with copiers at least half a dozen times in the two weeks since she started at her office. Don't worry, Soeki, she's got you covered.]

Bit fucked up, isn't it, [she muses out loud, as she puts the manual-feed tray back to its default size.] People spend more money on dying than then do on living, sometimes.[She fills the tray, glances back at the settings, and briefly shakes her head.] Don't worry about it. Here, you have to change the paper settings on the main screen, see? Not the favorites tab.

[Why Sirius hadn't considered doing his shopping late at night before was a mystery even unto him. If he thought about it, he could probably come up with several reasons but for now, he was taking advantage of the fact that it was late, and there wouldn't be a lot of people around. He still has his hood up, and is being extra cautious, but for some reason he feels compelled to answer.]

Probably help a guilty conscious later if you do.

[Really, it's kind of relaxing, shopping this late. Everything's kind of pleasantly quiet and uneventful. He can use that after a long day.]

Mm, that'd be if I ever felt guilty for not eating vegetables. I'm a bit shameless like that. [Being on his own (sort of - his dad in Salford still sends money sometimes), even after a few years, still feels novel and weird.]

Fair enough. I admit I'm in the same boat.

[And adept at ignoring the voice in the back of his head.]

Maybe we should just face facts and show ourselves to the cup noodles aisle, then. [He says with a little laugh, putting back whatever he was looking at. He's not nearly a good enough cook to buy fresh anyway.]

There are worse fates, I suppose.

[Vegetables could come at another time.]

[ Siobhan would very much like to have a similarly overstocked trolley, but it has been a bad week economically speaking and she really can't afford it, so at the moment she's just holding a couple of packets of instant noodles in her hand.

She can't help that she's looking sort of covetously at all that food Soeki has. It's not easy being almost always on the brink of broke and have a metabolism far beyond what any woman her size strictly speaking needs. ]

Depends on the vegetable.

[Life is easier when you're a grown man whose doctor father still sends you money on occasion to make sure you're eating well. Soeki is fairly lucky in this regard since his job as a funeral home assistant doesn't pay that much.]

I'm not much of a cook, so I really don't know. Any recommendations? [But then he glances to the pack of ramen noodles and realizes that was probably a dickish question.] Noodles by choice or noodles by necessity?

Necessity.

[ For what it's worth she doesn't think his question is dickish at all, and she has no problem admitting that she's in financial straits. Pride isn't really something Siobhan holds on to much. ]

If you're not much of a cook maybe go with some fresh fruit instead. Hard to screw that up.

It's not half bad with an egg dropped into the broth. [He offers the tip with a shrug, and the air of someone who has eaten his fair share of instant noodles.] I ate a lot of noodles as a kid.

[A quiet snort.] I dunno, I tried to flambe strawberries once.

[ She has to giggle at that, the mental image quite endearingly hilarious. ]

What had those poor strawberries done to you?

[Jean-Claude likes to see when people are having a good time in his club. And he an see that this person is definitely having a good time in his club. This... Witch, if he's not mistaken, considering the feeling of the magic he's got on him. If not, something very close to it. There certainly seem to be a lot of different flavors of meta humans these days.

It's good to see a person enjoying himself, and as he sidles up to the other man and slides into the seat beside him, finding himself offered what is honestly a rather charming smile, he can't help but be slightly charmed himself. Hey, just because he's 600 years old and a charmer himself doesn't mean that he's oblivious to a pretty face.]

If you would like.

[Yeah, as a witch, it's probably a bad idea to be here - but hey, he's Circle Midnight, and currently he's living his life on the wild side. Where's the fun in being good? No fun at all in being good, his brain agrees, as suddenly there is a very handsome man in the seat next to him, accepting his offer of a drink. Suddenly he's not entirely sure what to do.

His smile takes on a slightly flustered note as he's not outright rejected.] What are you drinking?

[Jean-Claude isn't the type to discriminate. Certainly not in his night club. Not if everyone's playing by the rules. So regardless as to whether the fact that he's a witch makes Jean-Claude feel wary (for reasons of self-preservation, of course), he has no qualms about this young man in his bar.

Especially not if he's enjoying himself. He smiles at him, leaning forward to rest his elbow on the bar and his chin on his hand as he does.]

Nothing at the moment. Though I'm open to suggestions. [Alcoholic and otherwise.]

Can't go wrong with whiskey. [He turns back to the bartender and signals for two more. It's at least something to do that doesn't make him look like a moron. Having a bit of trouble with that one. He never really expects anyone to take him up on that sort of offer.]

So. This place is... an experience.

[Jean-Claude can't help but laugh at that observation. An 'experience'. He wonders in what way the young man should mean. In fact, there's no way to find out but to ask outright.]

An experience in what way, if I might ask?

[Kenzi hadn't been explicitly told to serve drinks in the club. But her sire was the owner and...well, frankly Kenzi wasn't going to contribute by shaking her ass on the stage in the middle of all these attractive guys.

Plus she was trying to avoid the fae dancer - Stephen. So doling out drinks was her go to way to avoid contact with him or any of the other dancers.

Soeki was... well she was instantly jealous smelling the magic on him. She missed it. She wanted to be herself again.]

Oh, I don't think you wanna do that.

[Kenzi flashed a smile that popped some fang, just to let him know she wasn't drinking alcohol much anymore. She was experimenting with combining blood and her favorite drinks when she was still a witch but... so far it was all just gross.]

[Well, that was definitely, definitely fang. He's not so oblivious as to not take note, but honestly, it doesn't bother him that much. Maybe it's a little thrilling, to be hanging around among vampires. "Guilty pleasure" is right. He seems a little flustered, a little embarrassed, but he keeps smiling anyway.]

Uh, sorry. Okay, so what's the vampire equivalent of buying you a drink?

[Snorting with fangs out was a lot less scary than she was hoping to come off as. But Kenzi wasn't exactly intimidating as a person being a whopping eight stone soaking wet.

The whole bloodsucking thing could make it work though, right?]

You do know we eat people. Right?

[Kenzi asks as staccato as she can, just to make sure he gets it.]

I'm aware of that, yes. [He says flatly, leaning his elbow on the counter, his chin in his hand and his eyebrows quirked.] I'm not that stupid. Okay, I'm stupid enough to be here, but I'm not oblivious.

Just checking, Fabio!

[Kenzi holds her hands up, all fake defensive with a grin that isn't nearly good enough for that to hold water.]

Sometimes we get geniuses in here.

[Joscelin doesn't make friends, as a general rule. Even Jean-Claude, at whose bar he is a regular fixture and with whom he doesn't completely hate spending time, can best be described as a close acquaintance.

Still, he's been coming to this particular shop every few weeks since before it was even a Tesco, having come to know its usual night clerk decently well over the last fifteen or so years. Susan doesn't ask questions; a rare gift that he very much appreciates. It's not friendship, but it isn't open enmity and for Joscelin that's as close to the next best thing that it gets. In exchange for her jaded silence, occasionally he will stop by with a bottle of some very old vintage, and she will both refrain from calling child protective services and refresh the coffee pot.

Tonight is one of those nights. He has the bottle hidden under his coat when a human comes into the usually empty store and begins to jabber away at him, completely upsetting the delicate balance of the moment.]

...I beg your pardon?

[He kind of has to do a double take. For some reason as he'd approached the produce, he'd thought he was talking to an adult, but at another glance... well. Soeki pauses mid-sentence and raises both eyebrows at him, then the clerk across the way.]

...Sorry. Isn't it a little late for someone your age to be out? Do you have like, a parent, around or something? [Shit. How bad does this look, a grown man talking to a strange kid in the middle of a nearly-empty grocery store at night.]

[Woah.]

[That is one mean look, Elizabeth doesn't think reaching for the same book on the shelf is quite worthy of a look like that. She raises her eyebrows and withdraws her hand-- she'd rather keep it, after all.]

[Is it just her, or does he looks familiar, though? Didn't she have a conversation with him about... ground sage? Hypothetical ground sage?]

[She looks at the spine of the book again, recognizing it as one Norrell keeps in his library, and fixes this territorial book-collector with a little smile. Either he just happened upon a magic book in a shop and burned sage, or there's something else happening here. Her vote is for the latter.]

[Both eyebrows raised, he slides the book out as the other removes her hand from it, and adds it to the small stack in his other arm, a little protectively. So that look of his isn't quite murder, but it is a bit along the lines of 'you tried to steal my child' or something.

It doesn't even occur to him that they've spoken before. He's bad with names and faces, and most of his mind is on his impromptu little book hunt.]

You might try the shop down the street. [Because like hell is he giving up what he thinks he's found.]

Mm, they don't exactly cater to our sort of clientele though, right? [She raises both her eyebrows back at him, and turns to scan over the shelf as she walks along it. It isn't that she wanted that particular one, which is why she's letting him have it without any discussion or sour look, it just looked interesting. Surely she can find something else...]

I've heard this is the best place to come if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck but need something a library card won't get you. Looks like it's true.

[ She could have asked Illya to take the copies for her, could have used the Institute's copier -- but the documents she needs aren't exactly... day-job related, and the print shop she'd seen while walking around the block seemed to be perfect for the job.

Gaby picks a time when most people are on their lunch break, when the shop is the most likely to be empty... except it isn't. The amusement value the stranger is currently providing her with, though, more than makes up for it. ]

I doubt it can answer you. [ Her voice is light, airy, as she walks closer, the same high heels that previously made no sound when entering the shop now clicking sharply against the floor. ]

But if it could... you wouldn't know if it did print anything for your funeral, no?

[Well, at least he's brightening someone's day with his ineptitude. Really, he's a much better witch than funeral home director's assistant.]

You're assuming I wouldn't haunt this place in retaliation. The vengeful ghost of the copy shop, the copier ruined his funeral.

[Is he joking? Not joking? It's hard to say.]

[ She at least seems to take his words at face-value, pulling down her sunglasses just enough to be able to give him a look that's at once scrutinizing and nonchalant. ]

A vengeful ghost? Hm, but haunting a place is hard work... and boring, in the end.

[ With a quick, fleeting smile, she walks up to him, tiny even in her high heels.]

That family... I'm sure they'll let you off easy. Murder is rather an extreme reaction for late copies, don't you think?

[Abigail has her forefinger curled into the spine of the book, where the binding curves. She tilts her head as soon as she's realised someone else is going for it.]

I believe there's another copy in the return bin.

[Because she's not giving this one up, thank you. She's been hunting for this book, and she doesn't know if there's another copy.]

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[open] I paint the ceiling so that nobody knows

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No takers on 2? SHOCKING! 8[

no one is into book (fight) club i guess :V

Apparently not. 8<

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