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?

[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.

[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.

[ 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.

[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.

[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.]

[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?

[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.]

[ 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?

[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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No takers on 2? SHOCKING! 8[

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