[ ... Well, this is probably the least enthused Midnight's been to have a conversation with Gebura in the time they've known each other. So many nice topics to have, and they had to land on this one...? He's not stupid, he knows it had to happen at some point, but he rarely actually thinks or plans that far. ]
It's that, partially. The other part is.
[ Something that Gebura can't fix, really, but if he said that it was irrelevant, he'd be lying. Ah. ]
The young man in the mall. The one I was... following. [ Midnight tilts his head side to side, thinking about how to phrase this. ] He paid my agent to poison me. Slipped Originium in my food. It damaged my digestive system a bit.
[ This could have been avoided if he had chosen to leave Gebura alone. Like. Indefinitely. So this is just inevitable, probably.
... She has no idea what the hell Originium is, just that he's called it a poison. He's still alive, obviously, but permanent damage to the digestive system isn't exactly ideal. It's something having a lot of money in the City could handle, but this isn't back there and neither is his home. ]
Okay.
[ She's accepted the explanation, at least. But-- ]
[ ... Midnight laughs. Yes. How do you treat Oripathy? How, exactly? ]
Well, with regards to my ability to digest, the doctors have done what they could. I can drink more easily than I can eat, but I can eat too. It's just a rather tedious process. Small portions, you know, always toting around something with me. [ ... ] I tend to... not enjoy the tedium.
[ ... Not the truth. He shakes his head. He has not looked Gebura in the eye once. ]
I think... I still think there's something in my food. Or I don't want to risk it.
[ Well. He has about ten seconds to look at her or she's going to have to Proactively Encourage Engagement and it's absolutely not going to be because she asked him to meet her eyes. ]
So you're more or less starving because of digestive issues and your brain telling you that you can't trust the stuff here. Is that right?
[ Nnnnnnnnope this is way too vulnerable. It is easier to pretend that he's talking to himself if he just doesn't look up.
This laugh is rather squeezed out. ]
At first, you know... It was all right. Better than usual, actually. Food here just arrives, you know, no one has to hand it to me. But, uh... I had some of the ice cream from that parlor a while back. Didn't realize, you know.
[ Oh. The ice cream. The ice cream Sylvain had offered to be a guinea pig for. The ice cream with side effects.
The sigh Gebura releases is a gusty one, and. Well.
He had his chance. One foot is going up on the bench to bracket one side of him and she reaches out to seize his face in her callused palms. Anyone walking by is going to think this woman is terrorizing some poor man for his money. ]
You are an idiot, Midnight. Why the hell did you even have me come out here if you felt like crap in the first place??
And the mall, was that part of it? All this time and you could have just--!!
[ She's so angry. And it's not like he's obligated to tell her things. She's rebuffed his playful advances so many times. He'd been poisoned, of course he'd instinctively dread eating, that was just how minds worked, but the idea of him lightly laughing his way through it, pretending like he was fine, even up until the point where he collapsed?
[ I am not a very good writer so please imagine Midnight is making this face while Gebura lays into him. Thank you.
Anyway, he stays quiet about why he's here, at the fair, with Miss Gebura, because he thinks the answer to that is kind of obvious, but at the mention of the mall, Midnight makes an attempt to... sort of... not interject, but he knows it'll be worse if he lies, so. ]
That wasn't just the eating. The fever. That was... my fault.
[ ... Sort of. He's not actually clear on the details, but he's pretty sure eating and hydrating were only a part of that specific problem. ]
[ ... Midnight is very used to not fearing people, like, on an instinctual level. Vampires are apex predators. So his instincts? Not scared. However, Midnight is also, on a certain level, a very normal human being. Midnight, as a normal human being? Terrified.
Still. Terror has never kept him from sorting through his thoughts. He just thinks less about them. ]
I wasn't eating or sleeping in there. I... was just trying to find him. Or letting him find me. The Oripathy gives me fevers already, and I was sick when he tried to kill me, so jumping back and forth between reality and being there on top of everything else was making it worse.
And Gebura lets him speak, stays silent even though from the way her eyes are narrowed, this is not making her any less infuriated.
Good of him to admit this was his own damn fault, really, points there. But still. ]
So you had a fever and that made it even more difficult to come to terms with reality and those memories and you were also obsessing over hunting him down.
[ Which explains the single-minded way he'd gone after the guy when Gebura had come across him.
[ He sighs through very squished cheeks. He sounds very muffled. This is very undignified and Midnight feels very attacked. He deserves it, but he certainly feels very put upon! ]
Miss Gebura... please understand that what you're asking for is a very long list. Would you believe me when I say I don't talk about these things very much because I find it very boring to talk about?
[ ... And! That's! True!!!!!!!! Midnight only talks about the interesting, fun parts of life, his own included. Who wants to talk about any of this?
(but also being the center of this kind of attention is very humiliating. that's obvious, though.) ]
[ Too bad, he could have looked at her from the start!! ]
There was a time when you should have explained certain things and it was well before you pretty much passed out on a bench. So I'll cut this list shorter for you.
Is there anything you don't want to tell me that I should probably know? Because now that you've made this my problem, I'm not letting you laugh this off and go on your way.
[ ... Well, if it comes down to things she should know, that's something he feels marginally less bad confessing, actually? ]
My blood is toxic. It's the Originium. [ You know, the stuff he got poisoned with? ] If you ever see me bleed — profusely, small cuts are fine — don't touch me, don't touch my blood, try cover your mouth and nose. Call Dr. Daan, he knows how to treat me.
[ This seems like the most important, immediately life-threatening information to Midnight! ]
[ Sometimes you just have to figure out how to word it. Or you have to threaten them into submission but it's fine. That is important and in response, Gebura nods in consideration. ]
That's some kind of poison, to not only do irreversible damage but continue to be a problem. [ What a cutthroat kind of coward, to want to do this to someone else. Then again, the guy who'd arranged this for Midnight would have fit right in with the City as it was. ]
I'll keep that in mind. And right now, the way to help you is to... what, grab you some food and test it first, so you know it's not going to poison you? Just water isn't going to help entirely, not at this point.
[ It is excruciating for Midnight to face the equivalent of a firehose of Gebura-style concern without being able to turn away. He is fidgeting just a tiny bit. The understanding is kind of nice, in that it's always nice for one's circumstances to be understood, but even the most business-like of problemsolving is, for once in Midnight's life, waaaay too much attention.
... It's much better that it's Gebura, though. Someone getting very emotional about him would probably activate his fight or flight instinct. Even now... uh... There is a very small part of him that is still a mildly socially anxious teen that is processing all this attention. ]
... I... wouldn't dream of imposing. But that would do.
[ ... He is way too nervous to blush right now. Actually, he has no idea what his body is doing. Congrats(?), Gebura, you're making him so flustered that he is regressing! ]
[ Seriously, how can he be flustered when she says such sweet one-liners like this? Gebura finally releases his face so the muscles can be free to relax a little and whirls on her heel, stalking off to procure actual food.
Fair food is not that helpful.
But she returns eventually, bringing with her some kind of nachos, fries, pizza and a wrapped sandwich from what looks like one of the closer convenient stores just so he has one Non-Greasy option. They're a little awkwardly balanced but she seats herself on the bench to arrange them. ]
Whatever looks doable, I'll try it first. Sound good?
[ Good thing she said that, otherwise he would have crawled away. In the fifteen minute window in which she was foraging for food, he put his now free face in his own hands and took several deep calming breaths. Most of his thoughts could be best described as question marks with varying levels of emphasis and sizes. The other few are very basic, grade school level inquiries, like so: What's going on? How did I get here? Is this a date? Does she like me?
(Hey, when I said that the best way to bully Midnight is to be nice to him, I really meant it.)
Which is to say that she definitely hasn't been gone long enough for Midnight to come back to ground level: rational thought, so when he scoots over to make room for her, he does so with the very timid conviction of a man who has at least figured out that running kind of makes him a wussy.
... It takes him a second to figure out that she's implying that he should actually choose first. Hold it together, man. (He's not holding it together.) ]
... Let's try those.
[ He points at the fries. They, along with the nachos, seem more conducive to sharing, at least. ]
[ Please never say any of this to her face or she's going to be So Exasperated. The idea that being nice in order to get him to clam up would wear her out. ]
Here.
[ She picks up a fry, pops it into her mouth. Chews quietly. And then picks up another once enough time has passed that she isn't keeling over, nodding to Midnight that it's fine. ]
[ He reaches over after her little taste test, takes a fry, and eats a bit mechanically. Waits. Nothing happens because it is a perfectly normal pile of fries and the problems are literally in his head. (Which is, of course, the whole problem, but like, y'know.)
He doesn't dig in or anything, because hungry or no, he still has a physical problem with eating quickly, but as he helps finish the fries and motions that he'd like to try the nachos next, he does begin to eat with more enthusiasm. This is a lot for him, both the amount of food and the situation, and he stays uncharacteristically quiet through the whole nacho boat, but it is working. ]
I can't finish the rest. Would you like it?
[ Said rather thoughtfully over a bit of nacho. It's all good, and now that he's eating, the idea of the pizza and the sandwich sound almost appetizing, but they're physically too much for his stomach to digest all at one time. ]
Anything that doesn't sound good or that you can't take back with you, I'll just give to the other Librarians anyway. At least one of 'em will eat it.
[ Angela is surely living her best life trying all of this, as it is. But he's eating and she isn't the type to watch someone like a hawk, but she does note that he seems a little less... well. Disastrous. ]
[ He accepts the sandwich back in silence, begins wrapping it up extremely neatly in a napkin. ]
I'm having trouble finding appropriate responses. [ ... Yes, that seems right. ] I'm... accustomed to finding solutions to problems on my own. Things like this...
[ ... are difficult because he doesn't have very many stock answers for it. If he hasn't ran this scenario in his head a couple hundred times, never planned to ever be in a position to be jumpscared with help, what is he supposed to do? Tell the truth? That works when he's talking about other people, not himself. ]
[ She shrugs with a drawn-out sigh, tipping her head backwards to let her ponytail spill over the back of the bench. ]
Look, I get it. But from what I can tell about you, you shove yourself into people's problems. If that just happened to backfire on you this time, you've got no one to blame but yourself. There's no way to get used to something faster than letting it happen more often.
[ Well, he sure hates that idea, too. But what is he supposed to do? Argue the point? It makes perfect sense. He just doesn't want to do it. That is not at all Miss Gebura's fault.
He picks up his more or less finished water and turns it into a finished water. He does, in fact, feel much better. Better than he has in a month, approximately. ]
... I'm trying to find a more long term solution than getting others to taste test things for me, I assure you. This... shouldn't happen again.
[ It's just a matter of being careful, and eating enough times in controlled situations to reassure his brain that nothing will actually happen. It'll take work, but he always works hard.
... He... also probably needs to stop drinking Welt's blood as often. Too easy to use it as a crutch. Gebura doesn't need to know about that part, though. ]
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It's that, partially. The other part is.
[ Something that Gebura can't fix, really, but if he said that it was irrelevant, he'd be lying. Ah. ]
The young man in the mall. The one I was... following. [ Midnight tilts his head side to side, thinking about how to phrase this. ] He paid my agent to poison me. Slipped Originium in my food. It damaged my digestive system a bit.
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... She has no idea what the hell Originium is, just that he's called it a poison. He's still alive, obviously, but permanent damage to the digestive system isn't exactly ideal. It's something having a lot of money in the City could handle, but this isn't back there and neither is his home. ]
Okay.
[ She's accepted the explanation, at least. But-- ]
And how do you treat any of this?
cw: disordered eating
Well, with regards to my ability to digest, the doctors have done what they could. I can drink more easily than I can eat, but I can eat too. It's just a rather tedious process. Small portions, you know, always toting around something with me. [ ... ] I tend to... not enjoy the tedium.
[ ... Not the truth. He shakes his head. He has not looked Gebura in the eye once. ]
I think... I still think there's something in my food. Or I don't want to risk it.
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[ Well. He has about ten seconds to look at her or she's going to have to Proactively Encourage Engagement and it's absolutely not going to be because she asked him to meet her eyes. ]
So you're more or less starving because of digestive issues and your brain telling you that you can't trust the stuff here. Is that right?
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This laugh is rather squeezed out. ]
At first, you know... It was all right. Better than usual, actually. Food here just arrives, you know, no one has to hand it to me. But, uh... I had some of the ice cream from that parlor a while back. Didn't realize, you know.
[ He waves a hand. ]
So. Yes. Right. That.
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The sigh Gebura releases is a gusty one, and. Well.
He had his chance. One foot is going up on the bench to bracket one side of him and she reaches out to seize his face in her callused palms. Anyone walking by is going to think this woman is terrorizing some poor man for his money. ]
You are an idiot, Midnight. Why the hell did you even have me come out here if you felt like crap in the first place??
And the mall, was that part of it? All this time and you could have just--!!
[ She's so angry. And it's not like he's obligated to tell her things. She's rebuffed his playful advances so many times. He'd been poisoned, of course he'd instinctively dread eating, that was just how minds worked, but the idea of him lightly laughing his way through it, pretending like he was fine, even up until the point where he collapsed?
She's furious. ]
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Anyway, he stays quiet about why he's here, at the fair, with Miss Gebura, because he thinks the answer to that is kind of obvious, but at the mention of the mall, Midnight makes an attempt to... sort of... not interject, but he knows it'll be worse if he lies, so. ]
That wasn't just the eating. The fever. That was... my fault.
[ ... Sort of. He's not actually clear on the details, but he's pretty sure eating and hydrating were only a part of that specific problem. ]
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The noise she makes is almost like a growl. I'm very sorry. It's been a while since she's been this mad. ]
What do you mean it was your fault?
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Still. Terror has never kept him from sorting through his thoughts. He just thinks less about them. ]
I wasn't eating or sleeping in there. I... was just trying to find him. Or letting him find me. The Oripathy gives me fevers already, and I was sick when he tried to kill me, so jumping back and forth between reality and being there on top of everything else was making it worse.
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And Gebura lets him speak, stays silent even though from the way her eyes are narrowed, this is not making her any less infuriated.
Good of him to admit this was his own damn fault, really, points there. But still. ]
So you had a fever and that made it even more difficult to come to terms with reality and those memories and you were also obsessing over hunting him down.
[ Which explains the single-minded way he'd gone after the guy when Gebura had come across him.
She's getting a headache. ]
Anything else you don't want to say to me?
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Miss Gebura... please understand that what you're asking for is a very long list. Would you believe me when I say I don't talk about these things very much because I find it very boring to talk about?
[ ... And! That's! True!!!!!!!! Midnight only talks about the interesting, fun parts of life, his own included. Who wants to talk about any of this?
(but also being the center of this kind of attention is very humiliating. that's obvious, though.) ]
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There was a time when you should have explained certain things and it was well before you pretty much passed out on a bench. So I'll cut this list shorter for you.
Is there anything you don't want to tell me that I should probably know? Because now that you've made this my problem, I'm not letting you laugh this off and go on your way.
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My blood is toxic. It's the Originium. [ You know, the stuff he got poisoned with? ] If you ever see me bleed — profusely, small cuts are fine — don't touch me, don't touch my blood, try cover your mouth and nose. Call Dr. Daan, he knows how to treat me.
[ This seems like the most important, immediately life-threatening information to Midnight! ]
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That's some kind of poison, to not only do irreversible damage but continue to be a problem. [ What a cutthroat kind of coward, to want to do this to someone else. Then again, the guy who'd arranged this for Midnight would have fit right in with the City as it was. ]
I'll keep that in mind. And right now, the way to help you is to... what, grab you some food and test it first, so you know it's not going to poison you? Just water isn't going to help entirely, not at this point.
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... It's much better that it's Gebura, though. Someone getting very emotional about him would probably activate his fight or flight instinct. Even now... uh... There is a very small part of him that is still a mildly socially anxious teen that is processing all this attention. ]
... I... wouldn't dream of imposing. But that would do.
[ ... He is way too nervous to blush right now. Actually, he has no idea what his body is doing. Congrats(?), Gebura, you're making him so flustered that he is regressing! ]
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[ Seriously, how can he be flustered when she says such sweet one-liners like this? Gebura finally releases his face so the muscles can be free to relax a little and whirls on her heel, stalking off to procure actual food.
Fair food is not that helpful.
But she returns eventually, bringing with her some kind of nachos, fries, pizza and a wrapped sandwich from what looks like one of the closer convenient stores just so he has one Non-Greasy option. They're a little awkwardly balanced but she seats herself on the bench to arrange them. ]
Whatever looks doable, I'll try it first. Sound good?
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(Hey, when I said that the best way to bully Midnight is to be nice to him, I really meant it.)
Which is to say that she definitely hasn't been gone long enough for Midnight to come back to ground level: rational thought, so when he scoots over to make room for her, he does so with the very timid conviction of a man who has at least figured out that running kind of makes him a wussy.
... It takes him a second to figure out that she's implying that he should actually choose first. Hold it together, man. (He's not holding it together.) ]
... Let's try those.
[ He points at the fries. They, along with the nachos, seem more conducive to sharing, at least. ]
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Here.
[ She picks up a fry, pops it into her mouth. Chews quietly. And then picks up another once enough time has passed that she isn't keeling over, nodding to Midnight that it's fine. ]
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He doesn't dig in or anything, because hungry or no, he still has a physical problem with eating quickly, but as he helps finish the fries and motions that he'd like to try the nachos next, he does begin to eat with more enthusiasm. This is a lot for him, both the amount of food and the situation, and he stays uncharacteristically quiet through the whole nacho boat, but it is working. ]
I can't finish the rest. Would you like it?
[ Said rather thoughtfully over a bit of nacho. It's all good, and now that he's eating, the idea of the pizza and the sandwich sound almost appetizing, but they're physically too much for his stomach to digest all at one time. ]
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Anything that doesn't sound good or that you can't take back with you, I'll just give to the other Librarians anyway. At least one of 'em will eat it.
[ Angela is surely living her best life trying all of this, as it is. But he's eating and she isn't the type to watch someone like a hawk, but she does note that he seems a little less... well. Disastrous. ]
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They can have the pizza, then. If... I may trouble you to. Try the sandwich.
[ ... Nope, cannot ask with eye contact. MIDNIGHT YOU ARE BEING SO ANNOYING. ]
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I'm not sure why you're suddenly talking to me like I'll bite your head off.
[ As she picks up the sandwich to break off a piece and try that too. As expected, she continues to live.
(Maybe because you were glaring at him like you were going to bite his head off, Gebura.) ]
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I'm having trouble finding appropriate responses. [ ... Yes, that seems right. ] I'm... accustomed to finding solutions to problems on my own. Things like this...
[ ... are difficult because he doesn't have very many stock answers for it. If he hasn't ran this scenario in his head a couple hundred times, never planned to ever be in a position to be jumpscared with help, what is he supposed to do? Tell the truth? That works when he's talking about other people, not himself. ]
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[ She shrugs with a drawn-out sigh, tipping her head backwards to let her ponytail spill over the back of the bench. ]
Look, I get it. But from what I can tell about you, you shove yourself into people's problems. If that just happened to backfire on you this time, you've got no one to blame but yourself. There's no way to get used to something faster than letting it happen more often.
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He picks up his more or less finished water and turns it into a finished water. He does, in fact, feel much better. Better than he has in a month, approximately. ]
... I'm trying to find a more long term solution than getting others to taste test things for me, I assure you. This... shouldn't happen again.
[ It's just a matter of being careful, and eating enough times in controlled situations to reassure his brain that nothing will actually happen. It'll take work, but he always works hard.
... He... also probably needs to stop drinking Welt's blood as often. Too easy to use it as a crutch. Gebura doesn't need to know about that part, though. ]
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