dualismail | there you go again pretending you know what goes on

Do me a favor and tell me when you're in. I think you're my favorite bartender now.

[He'll put it in the nicest way possible.]

i wasn’t already ur fave bartender? ouch! ;)

in tomorrow. off tonight. what’s up?

I was in a fighting mood and now I'm in a whiskey mood.

well nick’s bar is open til late tonite or i can meet u somewhere if u want a change of scenery

Depends on who's working tonight.

[Which should be a damn big clue about the cause of his mood.]

just little old me. 'cause it's nick's bar, not rick's. as in my apartment. ;)

[she's trying to be funny.]

I thought you typoed, sorta like when I try to type hand but end up typing hank. I'm losing my fucking mind.

Yeah I can come by.

[Okay that dumbness made him slightly less mad.]

np see u in a bit & i’ll buzz u in

[from her window, she keeps an eye out for hank and hits the button to allow him to enter the building from downstairs. by the time he makes it up the flight of stairs, she’s standing at her open door, squinting at an app on her phone.]

Hey. Put your hand on the lock plate, I’m giving you the spare key to my place. [she looks up and smiles.] Prob’ly should’ve done this a while ago ... just in case. If I get hit by a bus, you get my music collection, by the way.

Huh... Oh. Right.

[Hank already smells a little like whiskey, not a lot, by the time he arrives. He puts his hand on the lock plate, and he realizes as he does that his mod recognizes the 'feel' of the surface as something that can scan him.]

[He's still like an infant getting used to this, a baby that's just learned that the square peg goes into the square hole and a triangle into the triangle one.]

[He understands why she'd be worried, though. She knows how hard the Heart is looking.]

[nick doesn’t keep any heart-related information or equipment in her apartment, but that’s always subject to change. if she herself disappeared suddenly, especially if she were hauled off from her apartment, she trusts hank to figure out what happened to her by whatever evidence would be left behind. also? she trusts hank in general. she’s entirely comfortable with him being in her space. she likes having him over, and this just makes it easier.

nick stares at her phone until it makes a pleasantly melodic tone, signaling a successful sync with hank’s palm print and the door’s lock plate. satisfied, nick smiles and waves him inside. there’s a pair of glasses and a half-empty bottle of whiskey set out on the coffee table, like usual. nick places her phone on the table as well, face down, and pours drinks for both of them. she hands one to hank and curls up with the other on one side of the couch. it’s her night off and she had nothing planned except staying in and listening to records, so she’s dressed more casually than normal - flowy pajama pants, an oversized t-shirt, both black, the shirt printed with an abstract geometric design in white. no makeup tonight, and her hair’s pulled back in two messy pigtails.

she takes a sip of her drink and levels a slightly concerned gaze at hank.]

So ... who do I need to go stab for ya?

Edited 2020-01-10 01:01 (UTC)

Probably not the best idea. I didn't want to fucking punch him 'cause the last thing we needed was iteration attention. I don't trust the guy not have a fuckin' stroke in the conceited part of his brain and do something fucking stupid.

[Hank's already bitching by the time he starts pulling off his winter coat. Poor Nick, having to put up with his moods.]

Your other bartender kicked me out earlier, by the way, when I wouldn't entertain his bullshit about 'why doesn't the head just use androids if he wanted conformity'. Not that I wasn't leaving anyway, but he was too fuckstupid to even emotionally react to knowing that there was a chip in his goddamn head.

Called him out on being biased. [In a place where there are androids as people and iterations as enforcers, questioning androids as the standard of bland conformity is not a train of thought worth engaging in.] He's pretty confident he knows everything and can do anything. So uh.... Glad Rick's doing the approving of who gets to go to the basement.

[nick frowns deeply as she listens to hank's rant, and there's no question in her mind which other bartender he's talking about. nick sighs deeply and rubs at her forehead.]

Erik. Christ - he kicked you out? What the fuck for, just having a different opinion?

To his credit I said I needed to bow out anyway. He wasn't fucking listening to me. And it wasn't a difference of opinion, it was a difference of opinion in the way, 'We've already proven climate change is real, volcanoes don't fucking matter because we can't do shit about those, shut the fuck up.'

[Hank settles into the crook of her couch.]

Sorry I just...

How the fuck did I even have these arguments when I was younger? God, and I'm fuckin' an android now. I'm gonna be going home to these and hearing some made up plastic STD that spreads only by fuckin' fake people.

[nick is silent for a moment, absorbing what hank's said. she doesn't know erik well, but she's of the impression that he's kind of hardheaded. still, this seems extreme.

then the rest of what hank's said processes through her brain and she breaks the quiet with a loud peal of laughter.]

What, like, android herpes? [she laughs again, arms wrapped around her midsection as she falls back into the couch.] Sorry, I'm sorry, it's not funny, I just - Christ, that sounds like the worst thrash metal band name. [she pitches her voice low and gravelly, an impression of this hypothetical band's singer:] Hello, we are Android Herpes, we are here to fuck you up tonight, rarrr!!

Pretty sure I would have listened to 'em.

[He relents at that one.] I'm just talking like that stupid shit people were doing in the eighties and nineties with gay people. It'll be the same shit fifty years later... Fuck I am fucking old.

[she laughs again.] You should try to check out this band I got taken to see a few weeks back. They're called Pestilential Hearse. Just wear a raincoat if you do go see 'em. Trust me.

[she dials down the mirth, then - she can recognize this is a serious issue.]

I get it. I remember it, too - kids in high school sayin' you'd catch AIDS if you used the same shower as a gay person, shit like that. I ain't too proud of myself, but I can admit that I was part of the problem, sometimes. You grow up in a tiny shit town in rural Kansas, you usually only get exposed to way one of thinking, y'know? And hell, I always thought I was the straightest straight girl who ever lived, right up until I was making out with a girl and realized I liked it. A lot. [she shrugs.] I learned better. But people are always gonna be scared of what they don't understand, and ... what was that dumb line Andy used to say ... "Fear leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side"? [she shrugs. nerd stuff isn't her thing, and she only got minor exposure to things like star wars through andy.] I know it ain't easy, but you can't let fear keep you from loving who you love - other people's fear, or your own. That's somethin' I'm only just starting to learn. An' I'm old, too - don't forget.

There was this cartoon about... God it was somewhere between superhero cartoon, one of the japanese rainbow hero team-up shows, and high school teen Scooby-doo style adventures? It's been so long I'm fuckin' dumping the name of it out of my head. But all I heard was that that paranoid hateful stuff up until I saw an episode of that where they were like, "Hey this is a disease people can get in accidents."

[He's pulled out of whatever stupid childhood digging he's trying to scrounge up, from that pitiful era before he spent all his saturday mornings at a baseball field. Or actively out playing or sleeping in because his parents learned the best way to make him sleep on saturdays was to let him stay up on Friday night.]

[Hank has a pitifully normal childhood. His parents loved him and hugged him. His mom drove him to team meet-ups. He got in schoolyard fights on the behalf of his smaller friends, because Hank grew quick and he learned the little guys needed him around. He was a straight A student, came out with honors, and still knows that he got caught up in that same fearful mindset.]

Well, Karma I guess. I'll fuck it up when it comes at me.

Edited 2020-02-02 03:42 (UTC)

Yeah? Sounds pretty progressive for a kid's show.

[nick doesn't get the reference. she didn't have cable tv growing up; it was expensive and her mother couldn't afford it on the wages she pulled in waitressing. she didn't watch much tv at all, in fact, preferring her walkman or a book borrowed from the library - usually the walkman, with one of her father's mixtapes. something she could turn up loud and drown out the reality of her life.]

Hank, we can't change who we were. All we can change is who we are now and who we're gonna be. [there's a moment's pause, then nick laughs and rolls her eyes at herself.] Christ, I sound like a self-help book. Tell no one.

Yeah, especially for the early nineties.

[He remembers it on Network TV. Some easy to reach saturday morning clusterfuck or another. And much of it's lost to his own childhood of mixed bookishness and learning baseball.]

I know that, I just dread the pain in the ass part. Don't worry. No anti-android-fucker conversion therapy in my future.

[These jokes are miserably accurate.]

Somehow I’m thinkin’ you’d be too stubborn for that to take anyway.

[she grins. being stubborn isn’t a bad thing, in her book.]

Look, I’ll talk to Rick about Erik. If he wants to be a dumbass on his own time, that’s his problem. But he can’t be picking fights with patrons on the clock.

Yeah... I mean, I'm fuckin' pissed, especially since I bring Connor here sometimes just for the fun of it? But I'm real damn worried he's gonna tell someone the wrong thing because he's a confident fucker.

Hell, I've been as careful as possible and I know the wrong thing is getting out. I'm hoping that the Head's already had other versions of people he's had for a year and realized it and got rid of his duplicates, or when he copies 'em they got big ass memory gaps from not having been here long enough.

[But he can't be here and that shit is terrifying.]

We need to speak, Nick.

u could've called me instead of texting

When have I ever called? People listen to much.

calling is more like talking than texting. u said u wanted to talk.

[she doesn't really care a lot, just being a brat.]

what do u wanna talk about?

Fine. Hold on.

[ A few seconds later there will be ringing. AS soon as she picks up he starts bitching... sorry. ]

You know how easily they can listen in to this? How much I hate telephones?

Oh, Christ, dude. I cannot believe I’m the one saying this, but chill. I was yankin’ your chain. [siiiiiigh] Yes, I know. Look, just tell me where you are and I’ll meet you there.

Chilling is how one ends up dead on the side of the road.

But yes, come meet me at the coffee shop, I have to be back to work in an hour.

Be there in a few. Try not to have an aneurysm before I get there, yeah?

[she knows the place he's talking about, and it doesn't take her long to arrive, order a medium black coffee in a to-go cup, and slide into an empty seat wherever vergil is.]

One of these days I'm gonna put it to a vote and settle once and for all who's more uptight, you or Mello.

I'm a demon, it would heal.

[ Half demon. And yes, ge waited until she sat down to say that. His drink was a fancy tea. ]

Mello, he is much worse than I.

[she clicks her tongue and shakes her head as she gently pries off the lid of her coffee to allow the drink to cool.]

Yeah, I dunno about that, have you seen how he dresses himself? Assuming he does dress himself, of course. [she laughs.] Anyway, what's so important that we need to speak about?

You haven't met my brother. He's worse than Mello ever could dream of being, and I'm sure he dresses himself, he's to prideful to let anyone else see him.

[ He actually smiled then and shrugged. ]

Nothing at all, I honestly just wanted to see you before we get to all the ceremony later this week. Your the sanest of us all, after all. Plus the family gave me a night off, I don't think they tailed me even.

If I’m your measure for sanity, y’all are well and truly fucked.

[she laughs and ducks her head, suddenly feeling a little shy. he just wants to see her? out of everyone else in the city he could spend time with? that makes her insides feel a bit jumbled up.]

I just ... I used to be a pretty terrible person, and I spent a long time hurting people on purpose. Starting fistfights, pushing people around, sayin’ the meanest shit I could come up with. I don’t wanna be that guy anymore.

[she takes a sip of her coffee and immediately regrets it, because it is still way too hot to drink.]

Ow, shit. [she glances back up at vergil with a slightly sheepish smile and shrugs.] Well, d’you got plans for your night off? I usually play at Rick’s on my nights off but he’s got someone else lined up for tonight.

[ Oh shit, Vergil actually laughed, which sadly kina showed just how young he really was. High spirits tended to bring that 'hardly an adult' out of him.

Oh, oh Nick, he's a bag of dicks. Don't fall for it. ]

I tried to take over the world after over throwing the demon king. We've all made mistakes. And if your that guy here, I'm just gonna see Dante, and your so much better than him.

[ He sat back taking a drink of his coffee. He enjoyed the burn himself, demonic healing and all, a little pain kept him alive after all.]

Not a plan at all that's why I called you. I can't stomach another night of Mello, so I came to you, and William flirts to much for my comfort. Oh yes, I forgot you played.

[unfortunately, “bag of dicks” tends to be nick’s type. there have been a few outliers since she’s been in dualis, but overall? nick mostly makes very poor choices.]

Will’s a sweetheart when you get to know him. I’ll agree with you on Mello, though - d’I ever tell you he was on the same ship as me, before we got dumped here? Kept to himself, mostly, which was a lot better.

[she pauses to gently blow on her coffee.]

If you wanted to come over and hang out tonight, I could give you a private performance.

I'll take your word on that.

[ It was a terrible idea and yet... ]

That sounds lovely actually. As for Mello, I had no idea, but I agree that would be preferred to dealing with him as much as we do.

[ He stood, tugging his jacket back on, and lifting his coffee.]

[nick chooses not to push the issue, since she knows will's an acquired taste.]

Yeah ... easier to forget he exists when he's hiding out in his room the entire time.

[which is basically what mello did. she shrugs.]

So what time are you comin' over?

there you go again pretending you know what goes on

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