meadowlarklogs | one night of magic rush

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one night of magic rush

WHO: Cain, Prompto, Hideki Maeda, and you!
WHERE: The popular Asylum club.
WHEN: Night of October 26.
WHAT: Cain and Prompto's joint birthdays!
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Beyond drinking/smoking, general wild party behavior, and fake friendship, there shouldn't be much. Will update as needed.

[Set deep in the downtown of New Amsterdam's entertainment district is Asylum, arguably the most popular club in the city. The exterior is cool steel beams and tasteful futuristic architecture with a long line down the corridor, suited bouncers posed at the entrance all armed with a virtual guest list. Its interior is fashioned with bright, colorful lighting dynamic to the music of the infamous DJ Semicolon, high ceilings and acoustic sounds to lend that feeling of a constant full-body hum. Any partygoers on the guest list for this event will be funneled toward the VIP section. They will have received an invitation a few days prior via their Cooltalk profiles. Jason is specifically blacklisted, sorry buddy.

DANCE YOUR HEART OUT. Nearly impossible to book without deep pockets or wide-reaching connections, Semicolon is at the top of their game mixing popular contemporary hits with Whitney Houston's classics. From song to song, Semicolon provides a unique and talented contrast of the slow to the energetic, so no matter your dancing style, you'll find something to move you on the dance floor.

DROWN YOUR... LIVER. Courtesy of the party's host, Hideki Maeda, the VIP section's private bar will provide an ever-flowing river of your favorite expensive high-proof alcohol. Pick your poison.

CHILL OUT. Tired on your feet from too much dancing, or just need a break from the packed atmosphere? There are plenty of comfortable areas where you can relax and take it easy until you're ready to get back out there. The lights around this area cycle through different colors in reflection of Semicolon's performance set, so a slower song might lend toward romantic shades of red while a faster-paced song is brighter blue.

SMOKE, EAT & MINGLE. Asylum will be serving real, fresh meat at this party, so enjoy that luxury while it lasts. There is also an outdoor area with a beautiful view over the city itself if you want to take your vape pen out there for a smoke, just get some air, or see who's around for a chat.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's not the most favorable reaction. Wei Wuxian is fortunate he doesn't fumble his vape pen right over the ledge, and instead jolts into action, elbow jabbing backward as soon as that black curtain is pulled over his eyes.]

Hey--!

[Prickly may be an understatement. Whether or not Cain catches him with the jab, the skin contact is enough to communicate his own brief flash of emotion: fatigue intermixed with inebriated relaxation, spiking quickly into surprise when touched.]

Don't sneak up on me.

[ JUST DESSERTS - for both of them. in his eyes, this is revenge for the way cain has muddled his thoughts since they last spoke - causing him undeserved strife between himself and his two countrymen. he takes the elbow all the same, a whuff escaping him as he tips back, back, nearly toppling over entirely from the railing. it's a precarious position, but damn if it doesn't prove his core strength is good.

he comes off the railing after that, hands laced behind his back as he fishes around for the code that contains his gift for cain as well. antics aside, he's come for a reason. ]

You look exhausted, mister Cain.

[ and no wonder, having to pal around with that INTERESTING individual manning the bar inside ]

I just thought you might like a little burst of energy, after a night like yours. Congratulations and happy birthday to you, I've brought you a gift!

Yeah, well, was dancing a lot. 'Course I'm fuckin' tired.

[Scowl permanently affixed, Cain withdraws a few steps. No one's invaded his personal space more times uninvited than this guy and he's not about to forget that.]

I didn't ask for a gift.

[At least he has the decency to look... somewhat cowed, or embarrassed? It's not the first one he's received tonight, ridiculous party aside, and it rubs him the wrong way. That people are giving him things. It would've been better if no one found out.]

You're not meant to ask for gifts on your birthday, mister Cain.

[ his is a simple thing, at the least; he's not exactly rolling in the dough in this place, what little earnings he gains from his social presence and street music is, however, enough to buy little scraps and pieces to twist together the item he has folded up in his pocket. ]

You're given them because you're being thought of fondly.

[ even by him. ]

Also, I wanted to thank you. You're working very hard alongside Toto, I hear.

[Initial prickliness fading, Cain slouches against the railing, one elbow hooked over it. He eyes the other man with mixed suspicion and curiosity.]

Toto? Who the hell is that?

[And why would this stranger think of him fondly? Cain's proved nothing but gruff and rude with him.]

Toto! Prompto! He called me "Momo", how could I not reciprocate?

[ he can't say he has an idea what the two of them are up to, only that someone as prickly as cain and as good-hearted as prompto must be working hard to stay in the good graces of someone as flighty as the one throwing them the bash. ]

Hold your hands out, mister Cain. Receive your gifts already, I'm too excited to keep waiting!

Remind me never to get caught alone between the two of you. Sounds like a loud headache.

[Apprehensively, Cain extends one hand, palm up. That should serve well enough for whatever Wei Wuxian intends to drop into his possession.]

Your name is too short to do anything fun with, I think you're safe from that.

[ wow don't diss prompto's impromptu (impromptou??) nicknaming skills. he's clearly having himself a good time out there; but what's more important is that cain is holding his hand out. it allows him to press the object he's collected on his travels to kitschy stores into cain's hands - it resembles, of all things, toast. ]

They're hand warmers! You smoke, so I figured if you have to be outside to do so, you can at least keep your hands warm while you're out there. Their faces change when your hands are adequately warmed, from little sad ones to happy ones! The best part is that you can recharge them anywhere, just set them on a charge station.

Edited (broke my code) 2019-05-25 00:58 (UTC)

Is this... toast?

[Cain makes a bewildered expression. Of all the gifts he's received tonight on behest of others, this one's come the further out of left field. He touches the electronic mittens as though they might grow teeth and bite his fingers, turning them over in his palm with an experimental little squeeze while that explanation's provided.]

My hands never get that cold. [Mumbled under breath, and not true for long. October's going to roll into the colder months eventually.] ... uh, thanks. I guess.

[Whatever!!!!!]

They're hand warmers in the shape of toast!

[ confirmed.

the gloves are fingerless, very soft and plush - probably some form of recycled microfiber with a little heft where the rechargeable batteries are, but they're super cute. they're also pre-charged, since they resemble actual toast and not just plain bread -- ]

I sent a copy of the instructions to your inbox. When I saw them - I just thought of you! Do you like them?

[ the best gifts are those kinds, he thinks ]

[Feeling put on the spot, Cain takes one of the toast-gloves and slides his hand into the soft plush of its shape, fingers flexing through. The face on the front flickers, tiny mouth open in a grin, blush over the toast's... face... growing bright and pink. He can feel the warmth immediately.]

They're okay.

[Cain looks at him as though uncertain why he'd be gifting it to him at all. But that reply's about as close to yes, thank you, I like them a lot as Wei Wuxian's going to get.]

Kinda weird choice, but... sometimes it gets chilly at night. [With an embarrassed huff, he slides the glove off and tucks both into his pocket to be worn later, in full secrecy.] What'd you get Prompto?

[ because whether or not cain likes him, wei wuxian is a people-person who is also getting a vicious little thrill in putting cain ( who has mixed him up with just a few words ) in something adorable like toast-shaped hand warmers. "kill 'em with kindness" is not his normal skillset, but he can work with it. ]

I didn't spend much time with him before the party, so I didn't get him anything outrageous - red envelopes full of money are a traditional gift where I'm from. I didn't think a gift like that would suit you, though.

Oh, so you thought cutesy hand warmers with little faces on them suited me instead?

[He raises a disbelieving brow, arms coming to cross over his chest. Don't think he hasn't noticed the insistent niceness. Still, it's better than an alternative, and he doesn't have any true ill-will toward Wei Wuxian. A thought comes to him then -- reflective on their last conversation.]

Hey, forgot to ask that guy about you. What were you trying to make me check? That you weren't flirting intentionally?

I thought you looked miserable in the cold.

[ in the dream, in that place of snow and the skeleton of a ship.

he leans back as well, positioning himself within arm's reach of cain as he tips his head back and looks up at the starless, neon-rich skies. there's a lack of natural in the world that he mourns, though he embraces the new way of living life in the city. and he chokes a little, comedically, when cain brings back up his "flirting".

the look he gives him is withering: ] No. Just that I -- that it doesn't come off like that to anybody but you!

[ please don't bring it up, he had a gay panic moment a while ago and literally ran from the feelings ]

[Miserable not from the weather, but he won't share that. The cold is part of life on Mars. He's far more accustomed to it than others as a result, given why the experience in New Tokyo was nothing new in terms of extreme weather.

That reaction only eggs Cain on.]

Maybe I'm the only one brave enough to say something. Most people don't know how to react when someone flirts with 'em, either they don't have the self-esteem to think it's serious or they're too oblivious, or too shy, or too polite, whatever reason. Maybe you don't mean it. But you definitely flirt, buddy.

[Hope this is a wakeup call for you, Wei Wuxian.]

[ his toes curl in his shoes, tension inching into his calves - he's never really been on the receiving end of such a pursuit, not even from nie huaisang, with his lackadaisical attitude hiding the cunning underneath. he had been one of wei wuxian's childhood friends, however; cain was a stranger, one that he didn't begrudge. and how could he, when he had held his stomach when it had bled and bled and threatened his life, and he had later learned of cain's injuries from abel. abel, who had been so scared for him. how could he begrudge someone who another cared for so deeply? ]

Maybe you're the only one who's noticed - so, how do you respond when someone flirts with you?

[ it's easier to play, when he's not relying on the written word. wei wuxian has a thick face, the acting ability of an entire theater performance - it was enough to fool the man who was his sworn brother, once. it should be enough to play off of cain's movement, the way he would play off of a horse and cannon with a chariot of his own. ]

Well, no matter how, you needn't worry, mister Cain - I'm no homewrecker.

[ movement one. ]

[No pushover, nothing here to take lightly. Cain sees that. A brow arches at the question as it plays into that last statement, I'm no homewrecker, and nothing shines through his expression except the sharp edge of amusement underlaid by irritation. Wei Wuxian is more than words or gestures, each action with a suggestion of cunning underneath it, mercurial and flighty. Maybe he's reading into their interactions, but he doesn't think so. It's a gut instinct.

That reply alone is digging for, what? Deflection or weakness?]

Sure thing.

[Let him read into it all he wants. He's already made subtle confirmation of his relationship to Abel, so there's no reason to act dumb or embarrassed. The details will stay private -- and those are more important.]

Someone flirts with me, I see if they're really serious about it. Flirt back, play with 'em, whatever's fun. Maybe I sleep with them if I'm interested. [Not anymore, with Abel here, but that was his old routine.] Said you weren't trying to get in my pants, I got that. Just gotta be careful or you'll give someone the wrong idea. Somebody who's not as experienced with this shit as me.

[Dark eyes rest on him, Cain's weight leaning back against the railing in a casual slump.]

Wei Wuxian. Was that it? The real name you don't go by here.

[ what he fishes for is not cain's shame, nor his ire, but confirmation enough that he acknowledges whatever is between him and abel. wei wuxian likes the navigator enough, he's an emotional tenderling, but only because his heart is in all the right places; he'd seen him cry over cain, "his fighter", so more than anything - he just wants to see. not a why, not a how - he just wants to see it between them, because maybe it will answer the own questions brewing in his belly. the ones he doesn't even know how to voice. ]

It sounds like it's difficult on you.

[ gut instinct, as always. one can't be an effective detective, or a senior cultivator, without being able to cold read someone. he imagines that it can't be easy to play pretend all the time, event though he is a man who does nearly the same thing on behalf of his own loved ones. ]

Honestly, I didn't know that was... how someone could take this. At least, someone who's not a woman. We don't overtly -- flirt, not between men. It's not wrong, mind you. It's just a quiet affair. And yes, that's my name. My real name, not the name of... [ quietly, he touches his fingers together - guides them to his body's forearms in thought, reflective and grieving - for "himself", yet not himself ] The person I'm trying to do right by.

[ he can give cain that, there's no harm in it ]

Pass that here. I'll pay you back, I promise.

[ and he holds a hand out, for the item that the other man has been huffing on outside ]

Edited (missed html) 2019-05-27 17:15 (UTC)

Not difficult to fuck someone.

[While that was clearly not what Wei Wuxian meant, it's another deliberate deflection, one shoulder rolled in a slight shrug.]

So, it's just a problem of it being other guys? [Cain's memory flashes back to that dock, the lotuses afloat on the still water, the stiff air of serenity around them. Not a place for wildness. Something in those mannerisms comes across old, traditional, stuffy. Not like where they had traveled from in the dreams, within the landscape of Cain's own mind he's not eager to discuss or relive.] Welcome to the future, nobody gives a shit here.

[Surfacing the device from his pocket, he holds it out as offering.]

Press the button till it glows red, then inhale from the tip.

Difficult to play with someone, I mean.

[ cain might try to dodge it, but wei wuxian fires back without hesitation.

their entire conversation is really, really feeling like a constant attempt to set the other one off-guard, and then to maintain that advantage over them. he does consider the question at length, trying to encompass all of the things he knows about society into the simplest of terms - who actually likes hearing about cultural relations and social stratification, after all? - without missing the nuances that make it important. ]

It's not a problem, [ he emphasizes, ] as long as it's not loud. No relationships are meant to be loud, even between a man and a woman. "Restraint" is so important, and so very stupid. While I've never had a relationship - I wouldn't want to be subtle about it. I've been lucky to live three lives now, and each one does nothing to temper my desire to live it well.

[ he thinks of mo xuanyu, the young man who's reputation had been absolutely annihilated, simply because he had been a little too earnest, a little too naive. the rumors had lead him to absolute unhappiness, to ruin, to his death. ]

-- I think the future would have been far kinder to that person.

[ the words are rueful, and he takes the device when it is offered, following the instructions until he's exhaling into the air. it tastes good, like an old itch being scratched. ]

[Three separate lives. Is it a figure of speech? Dark eyes follow him through the motions, that exhalation an opaque cloud of vapor over the air. The wind soon scatters it.

Which person is it he means, Xuanyu Mo? Spoken as if someone entirely separate from Wei Wuxian, not the same flesh, not the same bones, not the same identity. He doesn't understand it, but that must be as intended. Nothing's been given to him straight out except the names, the little insinuations of something more.]

You know, I like you better like this. [A gesture toward all of him, one sweep of a hand.] When you're not fucking around with me.

[Maybe he hasn't, this whole time. Still feels like it. The teasing, the flighty energy, all of it working to get under his skin. This wears more honesty.]

Three lives, and you've never been in a relationship?

[ he turns the electronic item over in his hands ( it's been ages, a decade and three, since he's smoked - he prefers to perform such a task at the desk, etching his studies and notes into a stack of papers the thickness of his wrist by the time of his first death -- yiling's manifesto, yiling's studies of demonic cultivation -- ), while cain remarks on his manner. it's less obtuse, like this.

his brows are softer, his expression a little more suitable for a man in his mid-thirties than the flush of youth that mo xuanyu had been in. it makes him look like he's trying hard, as he draws one last time on cain's strange little smoking stick and then hands it back. ]

It's all me, [ he offers, as if the knowledge that his high-octane joviality and the coiled spring of severity that overcomes him being one-in-the-same is a thing that eludes most: ] But, if it makes you happier, how can I resist? I'm surprised you find this "me" more soothing than the other, most people I knew found me threatening.

[ three lives, he counts them as. his first, the second that "ended" at koi tower, and this one, in new amsterdam: the third. ]

I didn't really have time for such things. Like you and Abel, I was also fighting a war before my first life's end. My second was - oh, barely a year long, I was so clumsy with it. This one doesn't seem to have room for love or sex either, I'm a nobody here, yet beholden to a great many. I can't let you outshine me, after all.

[He retrieves the device from that hand, tucked between his own lips to inhale a peel of vapor and exhale it back out into the void of the sky. It scratches an itch, a heady veil of nicotine that doesn't last. Overlaid with all the alcohol he's had since the night began, Cain feels relaxed, even in the face of this man before him. Even as Wei Wuxian seems to change, chameleon like a flipped switch.]

Dunno, should I find you threatening? [It reminds him of the posturing of fighters, of men afraid of war, too many frustrated and homesick soldiers trapped in one space, kept separate by regulation. It's familiar. He knows how to navigate someone like this, or so he thinks, whoever this is. A man wearing more than one face.] So what you're saying is you've lived three different lives? Whole different people? [His eyes narrow on Wei Wuxian as he inhales another white cloud of vapor.] Don't get it, but it's not the weirdest shit I've heard yet.

[Superpowers, alternate timelines, literal gods. The list of unbelievable claims is endless.]

And you're not a nobody. We're all fuckin' special, in case you hadn't noticed. But if you're trying to find sex it's really not that hard. [Cain rolls one shoulder in a shrug.] Can't give you advice on love.

Edited 2019-05-30 06:14 (UTC)

No.

[ actually, he's glad that cain treats him like this. as someone to navigate but not take seriously; cain doesn't know a thing about his old life, his old reputation - that violent and ugly thing that creeps along at his heels like a faithful, sickly hound. all red eyes, carrion birds, gravedirt and haunting elegies played on the dark flute he keeps bound at his waist no matter where he goes. ]

I was born Wei Wuxian. In that life, my reputation took on a power of its own -- and then I died. I wasn't lying to you, in that dream, about knowing how much death hurts. I was reborn into this body, "Mo Xuanyu" gave his life up for me. For some reason that I don't understand, but I'm not going to mistreat him --

[ we're all fuckin' special, cain says. it's not something he really wants to hear, when he's so content living a life that's as carefree and unattended by watchful, prying eyes as possible. he could be happy, busking the streets forever; he tells himself that. ]

I want to be nobody, mister Cain. I can sing and usurp the mind, I could easily fade away and make everyone forget about me. One by one. I just want to get my countrymen home, and then I want to be a nobody for the rest of this beautiful new life. I love it. Are you sure you don't know what love is? Sometimes it's as simple as that. Just a beautiful, fresh opportunity to do something differently.

[Love is a minefield. Love is a territory he doesn't want to venture, not in this conversation, not with this person, not when he's still chewing on the knowledge that Wei Wuxian is more than one man who's died and been reborn into different identities, different lives. It's not a simple thing. Cain understands having more than a single name, but he's never died -- the hole in his gut is the closest he's come. Maybe he will die from it, if he ever gets back. Maybe the Alliance will find them. Maybe they'll escape, run to some other place on the lam.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But he's here right now, and this is the only life he knows.

Cain turns away and drapes both arms over the railing, casually smoking, inhaling and exhaling another white cloud of vapor.]

Go be a nobody, then. Hell if I'm gonna stop you.

[Why would he? It's not his business, he's not going to question what it means to make people forget, to have their minds taken over. He lets the silence lapse for a few empty heartbeats before he breaches it again.]

... How'd you die?

one night of magic rush

smacks wrist

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