beautifulboy | open post

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[ The man at the table grunts, which is a relief because the way he had his forehead and cheek slumped on the dirty tabletop made him look a little too corpsey for comfort, and the last thing anyone wants to deal with, surely, is being the last person to poke a dead guy in the corner booth of some nameless diner. He makes a snoring noise, twitches his shoulder, and sits up straight as though he's resuming a conversation he'd been momentarily excused from. He looks up, violet eyes bleary and a little red, and though you probably look nothing like a staff member, he jerks the empty coffee cup in his hand toward you. ]

Yeah, refill, sure.

text
can't sleep. wanna play hangman?

Edited Date: 2024-06-11 09:45 pm (UTC)

From:

lupusintus

[ luckily for him, he picked the guy who can refill the mug, even though he doesn’t do so immediately. instead he flicks a finger against the cup noisily to get his attention and, despite looking somewhat amused, there is some concern there too. ]

Is another cup going to help? Also, has anyone ever told you that you sleep like the dead?

[ but he is getting him another cup of coffee because him and insomnia? are also old friends. ]

You’re lucky it’s not Mr. Larusso pouring your coffee, he’d either try to carry you to the back to sleep or throw a blanket over you, while giving you an earful about how it’s dangerous to let your guard down here.

[ Daniel might do that but that isn’t his style so, once he sets the coffee pot off to the side, he purses his lips briefly. ]

Is this the part where I say penny for your thoughts? Like some wise old bartender. [ he laughs, tossing a towel over his shoulder as he folds his arms and looks him up and down. ]

Can’t sleep or don’t want to? I’ve dealt with both.

From:

beautifulboy

[ The comment about sleeping like the dead has Daniel laughing like a bubble bursting in his throat, something quick and only slightly delirious that he quickly stifles with a hand. He forgot where he was for a second there, but as he blinks blearily around, the memory of this faceless City comes back into focus and he exhales a long and very slow breath that makes his thin chest rattle.

Once his cup is filled, he drinks half of it in two large gulps. ]

Uh, can't. Definitely can't. I'd love some restful sleep, but my schedule has been pretty messed up lately, and any sleep I do get is—

[ He pauses, catching himself oversharing and then realising that.. well, this guy did kind of ask him to do just that. He also realises this is probably the most he's spoken to anyone who isn't Armand for like, years at this point, and where that should be tightening his lips it only seems to be loosening his tongue. Or this bartender guy just has one of those faces you wanna open up to. Either or. ]

I get nightmares, y'know? But then, thinking about whatever it is I shouldn't let my guard down around in the waking world doesn't make the idea of sleeping all that attractive, does it? So here I am. [ He glances behind this stranger, at the diner bar. ] There anything stronger than coffee in there?

From:

lupusintus

[ he studies him carefully and quietly for a moment, eyes squinting as he mulls something over. in his experience people that suffer from insomnia are either chasing demons or they are being chased by demons. now, he doesn’t know a single thing about the stranger before him but he knows those eyes—a fellow tortured soul.

deciding that this is neither the time nor place to discuss it, he retrieves and sets an empty glass in front of Daniel before bypassing the bar stock to pull a decanter out of a cabinet. it’s a bottle he brought to the Welcome Diner specifically for post full moon talks. hell, it even has his name written on the side of it just in case anyone poked around and found it.

after pouring a few fingers of whiskey into the glass, he slides it over to him. ]

It doesn’t take the nightmares away but it lets me forget about them for a little while. Numbs the pain. Just don’t drink so much that I have to carry you home and we’ll call it even.

I’d like to say it gets better but this place has a way of kicking you when you’re down. It helps to have people from home here but, at the same time, that just adds to the stress because you want to keep them safe. Hell of a dilemma.

From:

beautifulboy

[ Daniel's eyebrows raise until they touch the curtains of hair framing his face, because when he'd asked for something stronger he'd been expecting to have to watch this guy dig through coffee grounds and syrup refills to find a secret stash tucked at the back of a cabinet... not for him to pull out a decanter with his goddamn name on it. Or at least Daniel assumes it's his name, since it's a bit ballsy to be so brazenly pilfering another guy's booze when he took the time to identify it as his. ]

Thanks, uh — [ He dips his chin to read the label again. ] — Ethan?

[ He lifts the glass to his mouth, downing about half of it without much reaction, then taking a smaller sip and exhaling slow and careful. ]

Damn. That's better. [ He rolls a shoulder as though stretching his body out to prepare for the conversation that's to come. ] I don't really have anyone to keep safe anymore, or at least no-one I need to worry about. I take it you do?

[ There he goes, asking the tough questions before he's established his angle. It's a wonder he ever got anyone to open up to him in his heyday. He clears his throat, backtracks and pivots to a different path. ]

What's so bad about this place, anyway? Everything I've seen has been pretty cookie cutter, and I've only talked to a few people, but they've been... vague. I take it there's something they're not including on the brochure?

From:

lupusintus

Ethan Chandler, and no problem. I’m no wise man but I can tell when someone might need it as much as I do sometimes.

[ he tips his own cup, full of tea nonetheless, in a silent cheers before taking a sip and setting it aside. ]

Don’t get complacent, this place doesn’t play favorites and can pull the rug out from under you in seconds. I do, even though I know they’re capable of protecting themselves—even if it’s against me.

[ a morbid way to end the thought but, thankfully, he’s become a lot more candid since his rampage here. even if it still churns his stomach to admit it to strangers. better to let them know and bolt now than to hear it later and be shocked. ]

Oh, you know, the usual. Can haunt you with dead faces from the past, takes just enough of your power away to keep you strong enough to feed the place, pits you against the friendships you make here. There’s good here but lately? I feel like I’m up shit creek without a paddle.

[ tapping a finger against the decanter, he lets out a sigh. ]

I’m a werewolf. A few months back, I rampaged during a full moon and hurt people I care about because I grew complacent after a few uneventful months. I’ve never been able to control myself during them and I only remember what I see in the morning or what I heard from the survivors. People don’t survive back home. Getting someone to tie me up worked until it didn’t.

So, when I say I understand not being able to sleep, I mean it. [ for some reason, he has a feeling this guy isn’t going to run away screaming, so he continues. ]

Most people would be halfway across the diner right now. What’s your story? And your name, since you figured out mine. [ despite the info dump, he actually manages to look amused. ]

From:

beautifulboy

[ Daniel is following the crumbs of this conversation pretty successfully so far; nodding encouragingly while he swishes the booze around in his glass and wonders if it would be rude of him to reach out and refill his glass back to a reasonable line without Ethan's invitation.

The thinly veiled suggestion that Ethan might be someone capable of inflicting danger piques his interest, however, so that his polite reactions become more engaged, and he leans forward in his seat a little. He isn't expecting the word werewolf to come up in conversation, and idly his own words from so many years ago float back through his mind — I'm really anxious to hear why you believe this — and Louis resounding no, his insistence that they couldn't start in that way, that Daniel had to believe with an open mind... He inhales, then exhales, looking at the glass between his fingers and then back up to Ethan's face. ]

Most people probably would, yeah, but I've met my fair share of unbelievable things over the past few years, so I'm a little harder to scare off than I used to be.

[ As if to prove his point, Daniel shifts up a hand and moves the collar of his denim jacket to the side, revealing a shining scar mottling the side of his neck in the perfect shape of two even holes; an obvious vampire bite that never healed properly. He taps the scar once, with his finger, then relaxes once more and fishes a packet of cigarettes and an old metal lighter out of his inner pocket. ]

That sounds pretty rough, though, the not remembering aspect. I expect that weighs on a guy. [ His eyes slide to the decanter, and another piece of the puzzle slots into place. ] Makes sense.

As for me... Well, I'm not half as interesting. My name's Daniel Molloy. I'm human, in case that wasn't obvious, and I'm a collector of stories. Or a journalist, depending on whether you're hiring me or not. [ He lights a cigarette, flipping the lid closed with a satisfying click, and inhales before continuing: ] And I've recently had a fair few run-ins with the vampire community of San Francisco. So I guess our reasons for missing sleep are two sides of the same coin.

From:

beautifulboy

[ feel free to have any of these take place over text if that vibes better, but its easy to assume he'd do any or all of these in a bar/at a party ]

would you rather
Alright, I'll bite. Would you rather never be able to go out during the day, or never be able to go out at night?

never have i ever
Never have I ever been in jail. Yeah, I know, right? I wouldn't believe me either.

truth or dare
C'mon, you're never too old. I'll even go first, if you want. I don't mind warming things up a bit.

dealers choice
Sure, but you should know I've got nothing to give you if you win.

Edited Date: 2024-06-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

From:

beautifulboy

[ There's the sound of an umbrella opening shortly followed by a colourful curse and then the offending — and quite impressively inside-out — umbrella goes skidding across the floor. Just his luck, really.

Bag of tapes clutched to his chest and protected by the not at all waterproof fabric of his denim jacket, he gives the weather a scowl from the limited protection of the awning he's currently cowering under. He looks to his side, to the only other person sharing in his misery, and sighs. ]

Don't suppose you know how long this is supposed to last?

From:

keepgodwaiting

[ Let's say, it's one of those days in the City where winter hasn't quite let go and spring hasn't quite woken up. March coming in like a lion or April showers in advance of whatever, something like that. Let's say, a woman in a white trench coat comes ducking in under the awning, swearing and shaking wet hair out of her face bad-temperedly. ]

Fucked if I know, bruv. Was that your umbrella that just missed me?

From:

beautifulboy

Mine? No. Well. Not really. I threw it, yeah, but it's not mine. I found it.

[ With one sentence, Daniel makes his rationalisation painfully clear; he's a man who has fast gotten used to picking up what he needs and knowing it will only be his until someone else takes it from him. If the holes in his clothes didn't make that clear enough already.

He looks at the woman at his side, and then he looks again because well, he's a guy. ]

Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you with it or anything.

From:

keepgodwaiting

[ Johanna notices him noticing her, because, you know, she's a red-blooded woman and he's a nice-looking guy. And-- ]

'Sall right. Sorry, have we met?

[ There's something familiar about the lines of his face that she can't quite place. It conjures a remembered feeling, like when you smell a particular throat-closing dryness and find yourself thinking of your gran's dusty attic. Something fond, and something not un-sexual.

Could just be he's cute, of course. ]

From:

beautifulboy

[ Daniel figures that being asked if they're familiar is a good enough excuse to give her a proper look up and down, a bit more pointed, a bit more lingering, even though he knows damn well that he hasn't ever seen her before in his life. She's pretty, and that coat makes her look eye-catching and professional, though there's something about her stance that makes him think she could just as easily get into a scrap if the occasion called for it. Not a woman that will giggle at his mediocre flirting, at any rate. But she's looking back at him, so who can really blame him for lowering his bag and settling his posture a little more casual in return? ]

I dunno — you ever been interviewed around San Francisco? I don't usually forget a face, and I feel like I wouldn't forget one like yours, but... well, I didn't often end those nights sober.

[ He chuckles, shrugs. ]

What's your name? Maybe that'll ring a bell. I'd remember writing it on the casette.

From:

keepgodwaiting

[ She won't giggle at him, no, but she does snort, genuinely amused. ]

Johanna. Nah, closest I've been is Los Angeles, and I was only there two nights. You ever been to London?

[ She offers a handshake: the black polish on her nails is starting to chip, and her grip is firm, even a little challenging. ]

The bloody City could be adding deja vu to its bag of tricks, too. Wouldn't put it past it.

From:

beautifulboy

[ He accepts the handshake but his eyes never leave her face, his expression landing somewhere between curious and analysing, like he's trying to guess the twist in the novel before he reads that far. She'd definitely be the kind of woman he'd hang off of all night if he bumped into her in a bar, just to get a few minutes of her life on tape. It's been so long since he's wanted to record anyone, but he can feel those old muscles working themselves back to life now. ]

Ah, no, not yet. I've mostly stuck to the US for now, but I'd like to someday. Maybe when I do you could show me around — I'm guessing you're from there, right?

[ What excellent observation skills, Mr Molloy. And then he adds as an afterthought, gesturing to himself: ]

Daniel. If it's deja vu, it's a one sided phenomena, I'm afraid. But that's good for me. It means we have plenty we can talk about.

From:

keepgodwaiting

Daniel.

[ It's almost there. She chuckles absently, looking up at him, eyes a little unfocused as she tries to place him. No, still not quite. ]

I suppose if we're stuck waiting out the rain we might as well. It's talk to each other or run for the nearest station, and that's-- [ She cranes her neck to try and figure out which intersection they're on. ] Farther than I want to run.

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