dualismail | (no subject)

hey trouble

got something 2 show u

lmk when u have time

Always got time for you, girl.

Meet me when I get off work. We'll take a walk.

[And he'll use his teleporter to get them somewhere private.]

[what a charmer. nick can’t help smiling as she reads the message.]

k c u then

[she shows up at the arcade a little early, winding through the place at an unhurried pace until she reaches drifter’s stand. she waits patiently until he’s unoccupied, hands shoved in the pockets of her denim jacket, nervously running the pad of her thumb over the spiked wheel of a cheap disposable lighter she keeps with her out of habit. when she approaches, she plays at being a stranger, leaning in conspiratorially to pretend at asking a sensitive question.]

So I heard a rumor that these games are rigged. Care to comment on that?

[Drifter's rocking his usual mixed aesthetic.]

[The rockabilly shirt, a tasseled leather jacket, a thick belt buckle spangled with jade and cowboy boots with dragons emblazoned into the leather. A tacky showy job as ever, but that's his shtick and he works it.]

Only if I like ya! I'm sure I could get you a stuffed animal.

[He logs out of work, and starts to shut down the booth.]

If we're not wore out, when we get back you can give a shot.

[He's guessing she has an important reason to see him. Not that he doubts her social calls, but it seemed sort of earnest.]

[he works the aesthetic well, in nick's opinion - it's quirky, but not in a pretentious way. all facades are created, but some are more authentic than others, and this one suits him. besides, leather jackets and cowboy boots are always good choices.]

Y'know, I don't think I've ever owned a stuffed animal in my whole life. [toys were not high on marlene rivenna's list of priorities for the daughter she didn't want.] Used to curl up in bed with one of my dad's old flannel shirts to get to sleep, though. That usually did the trick.

[nick's own facade was cultivated to present the image of a girl who was unbreakable and not to be fucked with, mixing goth's melancholy and nihilism and punk's rebelliousness with her father's midwestern no-nonsense realism: jeans, black band tshirts, boots. a little makeup, worn not to look more "girly," but as a warning sign. never a dress, not since her father's funeral, except when - as drifter once put it - she was dolled up.

nick often wondered why she'd ended up with that particular form, when it seemed to invert everything she chose to be.

she raises an eyebrow and flashes him a mischievous smile, words once again taking a tone of playfulness:]

Well, if we're gonna go do something where y'think we're likely to get wore out, we oughta go somewhere a little more private, yeah?

[he's joking, she assumes, and volleys the joke right back to him without missing a beat. she's thought a lot about the things he'd said the last time they were together, the night of the raid on the warehouse. be ruthless for you. i got a bad history, ill luck follows me everywhere. promise that when you need me to get out, you'll tell me. and she hadn't been able to reconcile all of that with everything else about him - carrying her to bed, the floating dance above the rooftop, the way he'd kissed her the night of the ball. so she'd given him space, and given herself some space to try to make sense of this, another piece of this part of her life, a part that made increasingly less sense the longer it stretched out.

besides, he probably didn't need to see her fall apart and struggle to scrape herself back together any more than he already did. she knows he was right - she gave too much of herself to the heart, and they took everything she gave and wanted more. she believes that she had no one to blame but herself that their deaths tore her to jagged pieces, and he didn't need to witness all of that. he has his own shit to deal with, she's not worth the trouble, and all of those other old vicious whispers that got kicked up in her head.

but she'd made a promise the first time they met, and she intends to keep it, no matter what lines between them have become tangled.]

Hey, if it was comfortable? It did the trick.

[Though behind him, as he leads her away from the stand, his ghost makes a choice. It goes back to look at the stuffed animals until it finds one that's a sparkly horse. Not a unicorn, just a little horse with glitter strands in its fluff mane and galaxy colored fur and little purple hooves. In a strange way, it looks like a cute version of the horse from Drifter's visions of the future.]

[The Ghost double checks to make sure Drifter's not paying attention and scans and transmats the little object away for later. Smaller things? That's easy to do with.]

[It poofs out of 'existance' again, and realistically it's just dematerializing and rematerializing in hidden places, small distances away from the first. It's used to hiding, and this time it watches.]

Believe me, Darlin'. I can manage private.

[He goes to the next building over, one that's a little less prompting of the Head's attention just by virtue of being a closed business (he assumes). He digs around in the back storage for a suitcase, not the smoothest of performances to accompany that line, but he produces one anyway. Huge, plaid, obnoxious, like something someone threw in the trash in the early 90s to clear out the last of their early 80s belongings.]

[He opens it up. There's a circle inside of it, and he lays it flat.]

This is a transmat. I'm gonna have to cover it so you stand on it first, and just hold tight. I'll be right there behind ya.

Yeah ... it did. [made her feel a little less alone, too, like she could pretend her father was still alive and that she still had someone in her life who loved her, unconditionally.] It was easy to hide, too. Ma didn't wanna keep any of his stuff around after he was gone - clothes, pictures, records, all of it got dumped. I managed to save a shoebox of his old tapes, though. Those were easy to hide, too.

[out of every terrible thing her mother ever did, nick thinks throwing out her father's things is perhaps the most unforgivable. but she's decades and galaxies beyond that now - her mother may not even still be alive. nick never bothered to find out either time she was sent back to her home world. and in the perspective of what nick's been through in the other worlds she's traveled through and all the horrific things she's seen, a terrible thing her mother did when she was eight years old barely registers anymore.

she takes no notice of drifter's ghost and follows drifter without hesitation into the next building. the suitcase gets a skeptical eye, but she still trusts drifter, so she doesn't question him about it.]

Transmat, huh ... sounds appropriately sci-fi. [she shrugs and carefully steps into the circle as indicated, then looks up to drifter with a mock salute.] Beam me up, I guess.

[and she waits for what will happen next.]

Sometimes these stories make me glad I don't remember...

[Or does he? Well, the simple fact is that it's almost unheard of for a guardian to remember. Lightbearers are born again new, and Drifter's meant no differently. There are rules among the guardian community about letting the past remain dead- most Lightbearers are brought back centuries after their death, anyway, so why worry?]

[Except Drifter's never been one to give a damn about rules.]

[The world whites out and then comes back into view. She's in a branch of the underground tunnels. Beside of where any symbol had been, Drifter's scrawled a translation.]

[He follows her shortly, appearing on the transmat circle on that side.]

It don't work unless I'm by it triggerin' it, so I don't worry about people followin' us. But I still needed to make sure it was hid, just in case. You holdin' it together alright?

[her impulse with that sort of question is always to answer that she’s fine, even when she’s not; it’s a deeply ingrained habit she picked up in childhood and refined in the years after. but nick made a promise to drifter that she would always tell him the truth, so.]

I’m ... doing better, I guess. Still not great, but better than I was. Those first days after the executions were pretty rough, but I got through ‘em. [she manages the tiniest wry smile.] Guess that’s what you meant when you said dyin’ wasn’t the worst thing, huh?

[she shrugs. survivor’s guilt is a hell of a thing, and nick’s still struggling with it every day. but she also refuses to give up.]

What about you? Keepin’ busy?

Meant a lotta things. [He says, but doesn't elaborate more than a-] Survivin' is one of 'em.

[But then he looks back to where they are. He holds up his hand to provide some additional light outside of some glowsticks he's laid out down here- it's bright enough to get around, Drifter rarely needs more than that. But comfortable light never hurts.]

Yeah. Take a look at some of what I found.

[He indicates the walls.]

Maybe sometime you can tell me the rest of them. Just so I know what to expect later on. I can take notes.

[that remark is made with a certain dullness in her voice. surviving when others don’t is incredibly painful, she knows this now, but despite what she indicated in her drunk, grieving outburst after the executions, she doesn’t want to die. which means surviving is her only option. so she guesses she’ll have to take drifter at his word on which one is worse.

nick steps closer to the wall drifter points out, frowning in concentration as she inspects the scrawlings there. these messages aren’t friendly, and she can guess who put them there.]

So these are words? I always thought they were just artwork - graffiti, y’know? [she frowns again.] I should’ve been able to read this. But I can’t. [and that’s weird. she turns back to drifter, puzzled.] How’d you do it?

[Drifter's not so much concerned with not wanting to die as much as he hates something killing him. Which is an odd balance. Letting the elements, letting other lightbearers, letting aliens have their way with him.]

Funny thing. I found a recording was in a language still floating around in one way or another. But the writing? Had no clue. It's the only sorta writing like it. And people with the chip? They ain't ever read it. So the Head either doesn't want us to know what it says, or he doesn't know.

[He runs his hands across one of the angry messages, desperately sad over being killed.]

Back where I'm from I made a point of decipherin' alien languages, reading old stories, old spells. Learning old tech. So give me symbols to learn by, an' I'll do it.

Words like these? Got their own power to 'em. Words that call on somethin' else. Would be beautiful if they weren't so damn desperate. But hoo... I bet these were hot as wildfire when the situation wasn't so bad.

You wanna see what they looked like? All clear like?

[He looks over to her, raised hand still glowing and brightly illuminating the space around them.]

I’ve had my chip out for over a year now - the one from here, I mean. I got a second chip in my head, from where I was before, but the only thing it does is translate. It ain’t under anyone’s control, so there shouldn’t be anything holding me back from reading any language.

[she steps a little closer toward the wall and drifter, squinting at the message written underneath his hands, like if she stares long enough the shapes will shift into something that her mind can make sense of. the words remain as unreadable as ever. nick glances sideways at drifter, an idea clicking into place in her head as he explains how he was able to decipher this alien language.]

You’re a lot smarter than you like people to know, huh? I mean, sure, you’ve had plenty of time, but puzzling out alien languages from scratch can’t be easy. Hell, I barely managed to get through my high school Spanish class, and that even uses the same alphabet. This ... [she shakes her head.] I could never figure something like this out on my own.

[she already knew he was clever, resourceful, skilled in making weapons and tech. she never though he was dumb, but this is something else he’s shown her of himself, a layer of brilliance hidden away from view. maybe that’s smarter, she silently muses, to let people underestimate what you can really do. maybe it’s a survival tactic, to avoid standing out and drawing fire. either way, it’s another interesting piece to this fascinating man, and it feels to nick like maybe she’s pieced together a puzzle of her own, or part of one. she doesn’t believe for a second that she or anyone else can ever figure drifter out entirely. she turns back to the wall, lightly tracing the edge of one of the word-shapes with a fingertip.]

Guess it makes sense, words havin’ power. My ex dabbled in all that New Agey stuff - crystals, meditation, mantras, that kinda thing. Even tried to balance my chakras once, though that was as big of a waste of time as I’d told her it’d be. But I remember she said something about the power of specific words and using them to “set your intentions,” whatever that means.

[she’d dismissed it all at the time, but nick knows that words aren’t just intangible things. words can get under your armor and cut sharper than any knife, hit harder than any fist. maybe it’s not so far-fetched to imagine that words can have power in other ways, too.

she murmurs a yeah to answer his question and turns to look over the lit-up tunnel and the rest of the writing on the walls, awed. drifter wasn’t kidding when he said he’d been keeping busy.]

How long you been workin’ on all this?

A lot more good comes of bein' better than what people think than bein' less than what people think.

[Which is the simplest way he can put it. He can't think of a single good thing that comes from being over-estimated in his life. He's got a reputation back where he's from. Honestly, sometimes he misses just being the simple farmer who pulled off some mean card tricks.]

[But he doesn't elaborate. It's covered in bad memories and loss and helplessness. All the power in the world, and the only power he has to be caught in the cycle he creates for himself.]

Words are most certainly magic. There's a concept back where I'm from. The physical universe can dominated by subjective will, all the with the power of words. What was and what might be.

Let's say I knew you back home and I wanted you to fight for me. I'd call ya somethin' like, 'O Warrior Mine'. The 'O' declares. Activates. Grips your attention to an aspect of the universe. Second word is up for grabs, it's what I name you. The title of intent. And then [he makes a small space between his fingers] 'mine' is a declaration of my own intent. Ownership, dominance. Don't worry, this isn't a word set I use often.

And that's a real subtle job of words, exerting your power over how other people see the universe. How you can make it change. No magic necessary for that activator.

Or the number 'thousands'. You put a million on the ground, scattered, you ain't gonna be able to absorb the number. Split it into stacks of thousands. Thousands, and thousands. The number is comprehendable. Powerful. Words that can help you feel out a vast amount.

These words were made to leave a mark on the world. [He runs his fingers over them, gently, not wanting to wear them too much.]

Makes sense. These people were dyin’ horribly, killed for no reason by a damn machine. I’d wanna leave a mark behind, too. I’d want anyone who came after to know.

[maybe not five years ago, but now? now that she is determined to survive, nick knows she would rage against death until her very last breath, her very last heartbeat, and she would engrave that dying rage on the world she was leaving behind with the last of her strength.

what drifter explains to her about the power of words sounds crazy, but no more crazy than any of the other weird, crazy shit she’s seen and lived these past few years. there’s something elegant in the simplicity of it, three small words that can change reality, and she goes silent, rolling this idea around in her head until it finds a place to stick.

she knows exactly what she wants to say next, just as she knows she probably shouldn’t. but nick’s never been good at leaving things unresolved. heartbeat racing, she tears her gaze from the words on the wall and allows it to settle on drifter instead.]

Y’know, if you wanted me to fight for you, y’wouldn’t need to own me with those words. I’d do it anyway.

[there’s no trace of jest or flirtation in her words. they’re truth, and she wonders how they’ll be received.]

[He straightens up when she offers that. Puts his hands on her shoulders.]

I wouldn't want you to, Darlin'. Not unless I offered you somethin' to make it worth it. And kind words? A little approval? It ain't.

[One day he might ask her to.]

Don't fight for nobody, and I mean nobody, unless you're fightin' for you first.

[She's got a lot to give. He can always see it in her. He just wish she could see that all she had to give was made of gold.]

But don't worry. I'm too fond of choices to tailor my language to the 'anthem anatheme'. I ain't a queen or an emporer. I'm just little ol' me. I wanna make sure every person at my side is comin' out ahead.

Especially you.

Especially me? [her eyebrows push upward, because that's a pretty puzzling thing to say.] Why me especially?

[she's not that special, she thinks. and she may not be a skilled warrior, but the nature of what she is gives her an advantage in coming out ahead.]

What if I thought you were worth fighting for all on your own, without needing anything else for it?

[she does, and in a way, she is, even if it's only fighting for drifter against himself, his ideas that he's too much trouble to keep around for long, that she's going to get tired of him or need him to leave, for whatever reason he thinks she might. not a violent fight, but one from which she isn't inclined to back down.]

What if - what if fighting for someone else is just what I wanna do? Not 'cause it's what I was told to do, not 'cause I got forced into it - just 'cause I can? I mean, I'm no hero, I don't wanna get recognized for it or paid for it or whatever. But I know what it's like to feel totally powerless, and I'm not anymore. So if I could help someone else feel a little less helpless, or maybe just show them that they're worth keeping around ... is that really such a bad thing?

[nick hesitates for a moment, then traces fingertips up to the collar of his jacket and catches a corner of fabric between her finger and thumb. she focuses on it, watching as her thumb rubs against it, musing her way through the last part of a thought to the conclusion she finally reaches. she shifts focus to his scarred face and makes her guess:]

You haven't really had a lot of people give a shit about you except for what you can do for 'em, have you?

Yeah, but... thing is? That's how I sorta live on purpose. I mean, no one catches me givin' gifts freely. Oh, I still do it sometimes. But I never wear it on my sleeve.

[One hand is still oven warm against her sleeve, the other cool, and he looks at her with his thick brows raising.]

And I say especially you 'cause you still gotta learn your limits to givin'. To what's really worth it and pays you back.

So I ain't gonna accept your help- [he says earnestly] -unless I give you somethin' tangible and useful in return. I mean, I get backin' up allies is always a good plan. Don't get me wrong there. But don't give somethin' so valuable as busted knuckles away for free.

Not for someone that can damn well hold his own, anyway.

[He spreads his hands with an off-kilter smile, and winks. Let him surprise someone one day.]

[nick suspects the answer drifter gives her isn’t the full story. she doesn’t know for sure, she’s only guessing, but she’s seen the way he guards himself, and she knows from her own life that it’s easier to go through your days believing that no one truly gives a shit about you, because then at least you’re spared the pain of disappointment that comes from believing otherwise and being proven wrong. and he did admit that his life was a lonely one, and whether it’s by design or chance, he didn’t give her the impression that it was something he strictly enjoyed.]

My busted knuckles ain’t that valuable - they heal up fast. [the corner of her mouth turns into a tiny, wry smile.] And I get what you’re sayin’, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just that the only way I ever learned anything is by fallin’ on my face and pickin’ myself back up. So I’m sure I’ll learn eventually, but my limits might be different than yours.

[she should really stop there, shut her mouth and move on, she knows she should, because continuing on is a gamble, and confessing the rest of it risks drifter getting angry or spooked or otherwise put off by her and deciding to enforce distance between them. but nick has realized, in the aftermath of the heart’s public executions, that she no longer wants to live with the regrets of words left unspoken.

so with her heartbeat hammering high up in her throat, she continues:]

I guess the point of what I’m tryin’ to say here is that if you wanted me to be yours, you wouldn’t need to force me into it with magic words. All you gotta do is ask.

[and here again, nick knows she should apply the brakes, maybe just see what drifter has to say to that. that would be the smart thing to do.

nick often does not make smart decisions.]

But you wouldn’t do that, right? ‘Cause you gotta protect me from all your bad luck, all the bad shit you get mixed up in. ‘Cause I’m some fragile thing that needs to be protected. I mean, tell me if I’m wrong.

[she releases her hold on his jacket and takes a step back, jaw tense, eyes pinned on him, watching closely. she didn’t ask to see him so she could start a fight, but this sure feels an awful lot like being back in high school and daring some mouthy boy to take a swing at her.]

The problem with busted knuckles ain't healin'. It's accepting violence onto yourself. It's nothin' slight. Havin' someone out to harm you? Even if you heal up quick? Well, you've seen how fast I put back together. I still don't like people raisin' hands against me.

If I asked it of you, I'm not askin' you to fight for me. I'm askin' you to accept someone shittin' on you. And to be honest, I don't wanna do that.

[He shakes his head, hoping she understands what he means. He's killed men for having violent intentions towards him.]

Nothin' about bein' fragile. It's about respect.

[she’s spent most of her life getting shit on; it feels normal, and it’s being treated well that feels weird. she doesn’t like violence either, but it’s what she knows.

but she’s not talking about taking on the role of fighter anymore. maybe what she said was too ambiguous. maybe she just needs to speak plainly like she’s only ever done a few other times in her life. with a frustrated groan, she rakes both hands into her hair.]

Christ, I can’t tell if you really are this dense, or if you’re just playing at it so I’ll give up and go away. [she inhales a deep breath to steady her nerves, unwinds her fingers from her hair, and brings her head up to stare him dead in the eyes.] I love you, OK? And I don’t expect you to love me back, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you could at least stop tryin’ to talk me out of it. It ain’t respect to act like I’m some idiot fucking child who doesn’t know the first thing about how the world works. I get it - bad shit happens around you, and you don’t think I can handle it, and you’re wrong. And even if you were right? I don’t care. I’m not gonna let anyone talk me out of what I feel, ‘cause I did that to myself for most of my life, and I don’t wanna live that way anymore. I don’t want anyone else to die or disappear and not know how I feel about ‘em.

[nick drops her face into her hands then, rubbing away the tears that have sprung up by the time she finished her outburst. in the span of just a few minutes, she’s been more honest with drifter about the contents of her heart than with anyone, ever before, and it’s left her shaking.

... she did promise that she wouldn’t lie to him, though. and for better or worse, the words are out of her mouth now, and they can’t be shoved back in.]

[He's taken aback by the admission at first. And in a way, her first assessment is more correct than her latter one.]

No... No I uh... I actually just meant I run combat games back home. I pay the participants. So uh...
'
[He motions to her, then to himself. Then rubs the back of his head. He's holding those words in confusion as something that, in the lifetimes he clearly remembers, he's never heard before.]

Yeah.

I mean... why?

[Now that the topic's arisen, he really doesn't understand why anyone would love him.]

[oh. ok, now nick realizes that she and drifter have been talking about completely different things this whole time, and she laughs, a sound somewhere between weak and hysterical. at least that answers one question. she shakes her head, halfway embarrassed at herself for getting so emotional.]

Y’know, I asked the same damn thing the first time anyone told me that, too. Couldn’t wrap my head around why anyone would - nobody did before, and I just figured that’s how it was. I wasn’t worth it.

[she paces slowly back toward drifter, hands resting at her hips.]

“Because you’re worth loving. Because you deserve to be loved, and because I want to love you.” That’s what she said. [she shrugs.] I dunno, I’m not any good at this self-analyzing shit. All I know’s that being with you makes me feel more like I’m alive than I ever have before, and I hurt here - [she taps at her chest, the spot over her heart] - when you’re not around. Because you’re funny, and you’re sweet in your own way, and you’ve been through so much shit and you’re strong enough to keep going. Because I can see how you hide the ways you’ve been hurt, ‘cause a lot of it’s like lookin’ in a mirror. Because you’re you, and I fucking care about what happens to you. Because - because I just do, OK?

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un: justnick

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