[Nexus LOL] Technomagic was Never meant to work like this

[chocolatechipbadass]

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood Nexus. A really beautiful day.

Six-winged birds singing, flowers blooming everywhere one looks. From far off in the distance on the other side of the Nexus people wandering the Plaza will hear a sudden loud noise and feel a very minor shake but there's no invading force. No colossal calamity to be bested. Now for the poor sod who used to own the internet cafe that's just been blown to smithereens in a cascade of firework trails raining down it's a very bad day. Tina's still swearing about Aimbots and cheaters while waving around a game controller that isn't plugged into anything while the fire burns. She's not going to stop when the potions shop next door catches flame either.

But alllll the way back in the plaza? There's no sign of trouble. Maybe the faintest glimpse of fireworks. The smell of gunpowder mingling with a bitter herb and a touch of...ozone? Honestly with all the pollen in the air it's difficult to tell. Precisely Because it's the Nexus the fallout from this ill conceived haze may not be easily noticed at first.

A flicker of a little symbol over someone's head while they're reading a book. People cutting off mid conversation to glance at their conversation partners. Or rather, over their heads. So many little 😮 popping up over heads as confusion starts to spread only to rapidly dissipate into a myriad of other little pictures when people seem to realize that whatever the flavor of the day weirdness is, it's not seemingly dangerous. Is there a rhyme or a reason to them? What could it mean? Are you affected?


[Please refer to THIS POST in the OOC comm for an explanation of what's going on. The TL;DR to this Nexus LOL is that a character's innermost thoughts will be visible to anyone who is observing them whether they're speaking or not, but they will exclusively be communicated via Emojis. The OOC post has some guidelines for using these emojis in tags and some rules so please check there before posting in. Threadhopping and mingling are required for this post as there is no real Question Asker so Have fun!]

Comments

[rockandrollvampire]

Maybe he should be immune to all of the weird shit that goes on around him at any given time, but, uh, are those... emoti...moji...con...

Oh for God's sake, he wasn't born in the era of the internet. He has no fucking clue what they're called.

The rush through all of Matt's thought in emojicon form is strange, though. Toby knows all of those symbols, but he's still very confused, both by their order and the... neutral? expression?? about seeing him. Why is he making a face like he's not happy to see Toby standing in front--

...wow. Today is not his day for being observant until he literally trips over a blind man. Well done.

Observant the vampire may not be, but Matt will definitely be able to catch a lot off of Toby's next movements. The smell of expensive cigarettes and Jack Daniel's clings to his jeans and flannel shirt as he runs a hand through his hair and rubs at the back of his neck nervously. He shifts his weight around a few times nervously, revealing the sound of very expensive - and nice, when compared to the rest of his clothes - shoes on his feet as he shuffles them. There's no weapons on the vampire and other than the lack of a heartbeat, there's not much to give away the fact that Toby's not human. Not when he's keeping a respectable distance to keep the whole "he doesn't produce his own body heat" thing to himself at least.

"Still, I'm very sorry. I didn't ruin any of your papers, did I?" He leans over a bit to inspect some of the papers, but he'll be damned if he can read them. His eyesight is good, but no one reads Braille with their eyes.

He pauses for a moment, really looking Matt over for the first time. A man with a face this nice has the short end of the stick to not be able to take advantage of seeing all the lovely people Toby's certain he attracts. What a trick for the universe to pull on someone.

He hesitates a moment longer before asking in a slow, coy tone of voice, "I'm sure you get this a lot, but you all right here on your own? This place is rather spacious for a man unable to see it. Might you be more comfortable somewhere more cozy?"

No. Toby. Don't you dare think about--



Yes, great idea. Flirt with the blind man on your first meeting. Brilliant.

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

"They seem okay," Matt assures him, though he's just gonna... take those papers and tuck them into his laptop bag for safekeeping. Despite the fact that he's (obviously) not looking at what he's doing, he has zero problems locating the right pocket and sliding the papers in.

Getting a read on the stranger is weird, to say the least. But Matt has a lot of practice using all his remaining senses, and there's both a strong scent and an odd cold spot for him to focus on, so that helps. Better than trying to rely on just his ears, with all the rambling text-to-speech he hears going on around him.

It takes a moment for it to sink in that he's being flirted with, and Matt's eyebrows go up in surprise and mild embarrassment. "Thank you, but I've been getting around on my own for a while now," he answers politely. There, nailed it. "Are you all right?"

[rockandrollvampire]

Hey, Toby can get around most of London without opening his eyes if he so chooses. Do something enough times - and have heightened senses to help out - and you can do just about anything without looking.

"...ahh, yeah, I suppose you get used to it after a while." Wait what. Matt's turning him down? But he was so smooth. How is it he keeps running into people in the Nexus who aren't drawn in by his charms? It can't be his technique, because several centuries of practice means he's flawless at that, so is he just... not... the general Nexus' type?? What has his life become?

Setting that kind of thought aside with a large mental push, the vampire finally takes a moment to look himself over. He brushes off his jeans and shirt, checks his pocket for his cigarettes, and shrugs. "I seem to be. All in one piece still." Except for his pride. Ugh. Cue an exasperate sigh and a pout as he sulks about it.

"Little weirded out by all these emojicons floating about your head, though. Is that normal for you?" He motions vaguely in the direction of Matt's head. People here are strange in ways he never imagined could happen back home. "I've never seen anything like that before. You always been this way?"

If Matt's guessing that Toby doesn't realize his own thoughts are on display in the same manner, he would be correct. Focused as he is on the man he almost fell into, Toby's quite distracted from what's happening above his own head.

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

Right now, Matt is actually going to be pretty grateful for the ongoing LOL, because without a heartbeat to read the stranger's mood, this would be a lot harder otherwise. And wow, that is one dramatic response to being turned down. Doesn't happen to this guy often, Matt is guessing.

"This is visual for you?" Well, that explains why he hasn't heard anyone griping about all the noise that Matt is currently being bombarded with. "I'm hearing it ready out loud, myself." He gestures in the general direction of the stranger. "You're doing it too, actually."

[rockandrollvampire]

Oh, right. Blind man won't be able to see the emojicons. Yeah... right. He knew that.

"Yeah, they're floating above your head." "Been there since I got here."

...hang on. They're above his... head... too... Toby looks up and sure enough, there's the question mark showing off his confusion.

"Shit." Well. Matt has certainly heard all of his thoughts now, hasn't he? That's embarrassing. Or whatever it is that he gets that's like being embarrassed these days.

Sighing, Toby shakes his head and draws his cigarettes from his pocket, fiddling with the package to give himself something to do with his hands for a moment as a distraction. "I take it this is an unusual occurrence around here? I've only been a handful of times, so I don't know it all... works from day to day." He huffs a laugh as he pokes a smoke between his lips but doesn't light it. "Am I making a lot of noise? I've been told I'm not good at keeping my thoughts to myself."

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

Matt is so very very glad this is such a harmless thing, whatever it is, because this would not be nearly as funny otherwise. "Well, this is the first time this place has done that since I've been visiting, so I hope so."

He was going to put it more diplomatically, but the symbols above his head kind of ruin that whole approach. "A little, yeah. Though if I'm honest, I might not have known you were there otherwise." Yeah, okay, so it's playing into stereotypes a little, but he really is curious about why the hell he can't pick up this stranger's heartbeat.

[rockandrollvampire]

At least Matt's thoughts are being honest. Toby appreciates the lack of subtlety when it comes to mortals, at least in situations like these. Who needs subtlety when the emojicons give everything away for you?

Though that last set of symbols is unexpected. Heart... not... sound? That's what all those are, right? Why would Matt think those things? Did Toby miss something about how hearing works over the years? Or is it that a blind man will hear things differently than everyone else?

God he hopes that's what it is, because the last thing he needs to do is spring the whole "I'm a vampire" thing on someone new.

...shit. Moving on! Hopefully before Matt catches that!

"You mean my bumping into your table and shuffling around didn't give me away? Or are those kinds of sounds not loud enough for you?" he asks with a laugh. He certainly feels loud enough with everything he does these days.

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

Sorry buddy, too late. There's an annoying scramble of text-to-speech going on everywhere, but vampire in such close proximity is something that Matt can't exactly ignore, and his eyebrows shoot up above the rims of his glasses.

"I mean besides that," he amends. "I'm usually pretty good at keeping track of people around me before they run into my stuff."

[rockandrollvampire]

Oh Hell. Well, so much for his anonymity when it comes to what he is. At least Matt isn't freaking out about it???

"Your hearing is that good?" Honestly, he's quite curious about that. Especially when this man seems to not care - at least for the moment - that Toby's not exactly human. "I've met plenty of ...extraordinary people in my life," he won't call them monsters even though he's thinking it, "but I don't think I've ever met someone who told me they could literally hear me coming over the din of the world."

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

After the astonishing variety of lifeforms that Matt has met in his short time here, a vampire is honestly just par for the course. He's not exactly your typical human either, himself. Though it's still a bit weird just... letting people know about it.

"Better," he confirms modestly. "It's kind of a long story. There was an accident, when I was a kid."

[rockandrollvampire]

The series of emojicons remind him of scifi serials and things he's heard about superheroes from others over the years. Sad to hear (and see) that Matt had to go through most of his life without his sight, though.

"So rather than rely on your sight, you rely on your hearing to get around?" "Or at least to let you know when people are about to fall over you so you can avoid them?"

Yeah... embarrassing as that might be for mortals, it's just one of those things that happens for Toby. When you're as old as he is, tripping over people is an inevitability.

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

"Among other things," Matt agrees, though he can't see the parade of other senses being proudly displayed above his head. "Hearing is one of the stronger contributions to how I perceive the world, but it's everything working together, really."

It occurs to Matt that they haven't really introduced themselves yet, though he doesn't offer an actual handshake. That sort of thing can be awkward. "I'm Matt Murdock."

[rockandrollvampire]

Toby definitely notices those. "You can smell me?" Other people might be weirded out by that, but Toby's never met anyone else who can smell people in the way he does, other vampires excluded. Now he has to ask this next bit. "What do I smell like?" He knows what everyone else smells like, so he's curious to hear this in reverse!

Uh, yeah, handshakes are not necessary. Toby's too cold for most folks and he can't exactly use his charms on Matt (the blindness thing is helpful in that way, at least), so they can stick to swapping names instead.

"Tobias Matthews. It's a pleasure to meet you, Matt. Sorry I almost ran into you and ruined your papers. We all good?" He hopes so. His cool guy moves aren't going to help him out, soooo here's hoping being cool is good enough?

[he_put_the_devil_in_me]

The immediacy with which those appear speaks to how little Matt needs to focus beyond what he's already getting from Toby, though of course it helps to voice it out loud. "You're a smoker, and your last drink was Jack Daniels. You use lavender scented soap. And you had lunch today at the greasiest diner you could find."

Eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes.

Without a heartbeat to listen to, it's hard for him to tell how anxious Toby is about the whole trample-the-blind-guy's-paperwork thing. Fortunately Matt's response would be about the same, either way. "We're good," he affirms. "Honestly, it's not the first time that's happened to me."

[rockandrollvampire]

Okay, wow, that is incredibly impressive. Bravo Matt!

"Spot on - minus one detail." Yes, he's going to be a smart ass about this last detail. It's in his nature and dammit he's not going to hold back now. "I had lunch delivered. I'm not much of a 'go outside in the middle of the day' person." Because, well, vampire.

"I can imagine," he chuckles. "People aren't always the most observant when explosions happen." Nice cover for missing that he was blind for so long, Toby. Real smooth.