closed.

[jumpingbird]

Characters: Altair ibn La-Ahad and Count D.
Location: Murder Manor, D's room.
Rating: PG, maybe?
Time: 5pm on the 26th.
Description: D was a charitable soul, and Altair has to snoop out why.

Comments

[cake_and_dreams]

The problem with being the city's gardener meant that there wasn't very much to do when winter storms came calling. Really, it was the last thing D had suspected, and when, the snow melted, it would be great for the ground. That didn't mean it had been easy taking care of the plants in the meantime. Not many of them were likely to survive, it seemed, and that saddened him, a little

[jumpingbird]

The sound beyond had been muffled, but not distorted enough that Altair couldn't recognize it. It still bothered him a bit, that English seemed so natural - but now wasn't the time to whine, and he abandned his attempts to jiggle the door lock undone in order to stop back; to be a good few feet away when D did open that door.

But once that smiling face and cheery "hello!" appeared, Altair realized he'd stepped back onto the most unfamiliar territory possible.

And how did he act hen he wasn't certain?

... Like an arrogant prat, really. (D had to be a saint in the making for this.)

"Hello." He'd brush past the other as though he'd been invited in, eyes immediately rooming everywhere. And while most of the furniture boxes had been put away, those that were left made him stop and somehow shock the arrogance right out of him, if only for a second. Now he was just confused. "You truly built beds here?" That - wasn't supposed to have been as much of a question as it was.

[cake_and_dreams]

In an effort to be friendly, D let the poor etiquette go. It was clear they were from different times (after all, surely anybody now would know about furniture that required assembly at home), and, therefore, different rules were needed. He followed the other man in and closed the door behind them to keep out the awful cold.

If it hadn't been so obvious that Altair had never heard of such a thing in his life, D would have laughed. Instead, he kept a patient smile as he came up beside the man and responded.

"Yes. We found some of the furniture that came with the apartment wasn't really to our tastes, so we picked out some new items and Leon kindly assembled them." Well, most of them. His dear detective had some more work ahead of him tonight.

[jumpingbird]

Maybe D should've laughed, because then it'd at least have kept Altair from staring, absolutely puzzled, at both the remaining boxes and the set up furniture. It shouldn't have been that big of a shocker, really, but it was - different. Odd. And so it did take him a second or two to finally shake himself out of it, to move even deeper into the apartment and subconsciously start edging toward the wall. He had nothing to be afraid of, but it was just habit.

What else was habit was turning his face so that D would get the angle of his hood, but probably catch nothing more than his mouth in profile (which should've been a funny image, too, but, well.

"... Did he use that as part of a 'Christmas gift?'" And, wow, talk about awkward. But Altair was trying to be a sport about it, all actual questions and polite(ish) interest rather than demand-- which probably just made him seem even more hilarious.

In his head, it was also a good starting point to getting to talk about why D had left that food outside his room. Which made him clever,