Lux
Evening, around nine o' clock, Nate gets a visitor. Knock, knock, or ding-a-ling.
Nathan
Shannon hasn't been gone all that long so he hasn't exactly gotten himself comfortable again. He also appears to believe that she's forgotten something in the apartment because before he even appears at the door Lux hears him yell:
"Shannon, you're not--!"
A shadow in front of the peephole. Crunching of the locks as they disengage and then Nate opens the door. He's not dressed for company but rather convalescence. Sweatpants and an old t-shirt. The same orange kitten that was crying in the dark by itself last night is on his shoulder now. He still looks pale as hell and breathes heavy for the lightness in his head but he's a little more aware of his surroundings than he was last night.
"You're not Shannon."
Lux
The kitten starts purring, but it's fear-purring. There's no differentiation between fear-purring, hurt-purring, and purring-purring, but it's definitely purring: and its nails prick into Nate's shoulder, fur drifting up like a ghost just walked through it. Animals don't much care for Lux.
"There's the guy with the noticing eye," Lux says. Lux looks good, but Lux always looks good, something indescribably lovely that wants you (just you, only you can do it [sing the sirens]) to describe it. Tonight she's in a pair of capris, a sheer tunic with a camisole on beneath, and her hair's up. "Sorry, I wanted to come by earlier, but I had things. Do you remember me bringing you home?"
Nathan
"What, last night?"
At least when she brought him home the night he was drunk he could remember it the next morning. He had been drinking water and wasn't completely blacked out. Was so grateful and happy she came out and he kept his stupid hands to himself even at the door. Called her a good friend and then woke up several hours later with a hangover.
Now Nate frowns and puts the hand not supporting the kitten's haunches over its back like that's going to do a thing to calm it down. He doesn't know the difference between the different types of purrs. They only just met the other night and the little slut is already fond of sleeping between his legs and on his chest but that's as far as their relationship has progressed.
"Yeah, no, I got... this bug came out of nowhere. I'm sorry. Thank you for..."
His eyes go briefly unfocused but not from an impending swoon. Like talking about it is dredging up something.
"Come in, I'm just gonna throw her in the bedroom."
Lux
Lux watches Nathan carefully when he speaks to her, her gray-green (crystal, moonlight, and the storm) eyes all silver-tarnished and fixed on his face. The Toreador is a touch subdued, which is different from contained but has the same parents, and whatever she sees makes her briefly something. Secrets.
"Yeah," to that 'what, last night?' and "Thanks," to that 'come in.'
Or the kitten's going to throw herself into the bedroom. Because as soon as Lux does come in, the kittens nails prick sharper and harder and fuck they will hurt. There is nothing sharper than a kitten's claws. It mewls and scrambles and claws its way down Nate's shoulder or savages his hand or both and trips off to hide.
Nathan
"Alright, Princess, relax."
He tries to kneel so she doesn't throw herself from six feet off the ground but she's scratching the almighty ass out of him and there's no keeping a cat from doing what it wants to do. Especially if it wants to escape. To his credit he doesn't swear or shout in front of his guest. Given his nature he wouldn't have done it even if Lux weren't here but he doesn't know enough to think that if Lux weren't here he and the kitten would be enjoying their night without all the melodramatics.
So he does crouch and release her to shoot off into the bedroom like half the demons of Hell are on her tail but then orthostatic hypotension kicks him in the back of his head and he loses his balance. Ends up grabbing onto the island countertop that separates the kitchen area from the living room so he can sit down on the floor without sprawling. Lux can hear him start panting after she's shut the door.
"Give me a second," he says from the floor.
Lux
He starts panting, and Lux cuts a sharp glance over to him. He said he was injured, so she doesn't immediately fly to his side like a ministering angel. Her nurturing instinct: maybe it just comes and goes. She does pause before just walking over to the couch and plopping down, looking at Nate like - " - you sure?"
Like picking him up off the ground's starting to become habit, or something.
Nathan
"Pretty sure. If I have to get carried to the couch by a lady one more time today I might actually cave and go to the doctor."
After he's sat still for half a minute Nate climbs to his feet, only to deposit himself at one of the kitchen stools parked on the living room side of the island countertop.
"My friend was here with me all day today. She asked WebMD and it said I'm anemic. Or dehydrated. Or it could be anaphylactic shock, which would make the most sense, because I'm starting to think I'm allergic to bad drivers. Or people who use Bluetooths."
He pushes his hair back off of his face and picks up a huge bottle of sports drink that Shannon brought back for him and makes the long trek from the kitchen to the couch.
"So... you brought me home last night."
Lux
"Oh, come on; if I don't carry you to a couch, how can I tell my friends that somebody actually swooned at my feet, and I replied like a perfect gentleman? That has been one of my aspirations," Lux says, mouth quirking. But she doesn't go to help him, lets him make his own way. Nope. She goes to the couch, perches on the arm and kicks off her sandals (neat, precise, graceful, and sharp) so that she can put her feet on the couch too.
Then, "Yeah. I was really worried. You truly don't remember?"
Nathan
"It's not that I don't remember it's just that it's all... fuzzy."
He sits a respectful distance away from her and Lux can see he's tired just from that amount of exertion. But she also saw him last night when he was fresh-drained and right on the cusp of needing to go to the hospital. If a medical professional had stumbled upon him last night that is the first place he would have gone. He's risking all sorts of cardiac complications by not going to the hospital like his best friend and her best friend, The Internet, insisted he do.
But: she saw him last night. He looked awful, sounded awful, was confused and groggy and almost threw up a couple of times just on the way to a vehicle. At least now there's life in Nate's eyes and he can form a coherent sentence.
"And what I remember from before I can't remember doesn't make any sense."
Lux
Lux hadn't brought Nathan home alone. No. She'd called Gary, a man of indeterminate age, thirties, forties, men stop aging at some point, and Gary'd helped her bring Nathan home. She doesn't mention Gary now, and truthfully he'd stayed well back after giving the kid a look-over.
Lux puts her feet together, toes curling into the couch. Is it luxurious? Is it stiff, starchy, the kind that isn't very comfortable? How much does it give? Tactile person: live unlife sensuously. She leans forward, hair falling around her shoulders, and in this light there's a kiss more honey to it than in most of the settings he's seen her (those settings tangle her up with gloom and darkness, you see), holds her ankles and chews on her lip.
"What do you mean?"
Nathan
The couch is long and leather and relatively cheap. Easy to care for and a pain in the neck to move, with an armchair that could fit two people canted to face the wall where a TV might go one day but doesn't yet exist. Obvious he hasn't been here long, even more obvious he lives frugal for he isn't sat in the lap of luxury.
And sat beside her in the light Lux can see the bruises beneath his eyes stood out more prominent than usual. His skin is starved-white but not deathly. She can still read the throb of a heartbeat beneath his skin and his chest moves fast for the precipitous drop in his blood volume. More oxygen moving faster means he'll be fine. Humans are resilient creatures and difficult to kill.
"I don't know. A lot of things haven't been making sense lately." Nate frowns and rubs at his temple. "There was this woman."
Lux
"The beginning of every great story," she says, with a brief grin.
Nathan
The first time she's seen him smile today.
"Yeah, right?" He takes a long slug off of his sports drink and recaps it and sets it down on the arm of the couch. "She was sitting on the fountain in the park and looked like she'd been swimming in it. She had... looked like blood on her hands? And then this huge... like seven-feet-tall huge guy goes over and starts talking to her. So I keep walking. That was weird enough. Then this other guy... this is where it gets fuzzy. I'm walking, and I see this guy dressed all 1920s gaslight-special style. Keep walking. Like I was already late to some gallery opening Shannon was dragging me to.
"And then I hear the huge guy yell at me that I might want to turn around and I'm like... that was weird. So I looked behind me and then the woman from the fountain was right behind me. Scared the crap out of me. Then she hissed...?"
He sinks back in the couch and sighs.
"Christ."
Lux
"She sounds crazier than a cat in a rooster club on a Tuesday night," Lux replies. "So... I guess she was?"
Nathan
"Is that a thing? That people say?"
Teasing. So he must be feeling better.
"Well... she ran at the big guy and tried to do this WWF sort of move, like kick his legs out from under him, and I was like Uh oh and turned around to try and help him. Then... I think it was the guy who was just standing there earlier... someone grabbed me by the hair and told me not to get involved, it wouldn't be fair. And I struggled with him for a few seconds but I couldn't... like he had a grip on me..."
Nate rubs his brow and eyes at that, no blood left to rush to the surface with the contact.
"I must have freaked out or something. Like maybe this--" He indicates the pallor and the rapid breathing and the dizziness. "--is a psychosomatic sort of... I mean, half the guys I know from the service are seeing someone for post-traumatic stuff, like they're irritable or they're drinking too much or they freak out all the time. And they made me see a head shrinker when I was in... like I was in the hospital for a while, after my third tour, roadside bomb, right? And while I was in after that, they were worried that I wasn't freaking out? Because that's not normal, right. Only I haven't had any of that. Like, I'm fine and I've been fine the last two years but now stuff like this is happening..."
Lux
Her jaw goes tight and sharp, because Lux is angry, listening to this story, because she is moved to be pissed the fuck off, but she doesn't give it away by breathing more quickly than she's already breathing, doesn't clench her fingers or anything, just gets this dangerous glint to her eyes, which she drowns with a sudden blink, like you know: you'll see something bright and radiant and intriguing in a puddle and then bam someone'll step on it and send darkness rippling outward and make the surface uncertain and whatever you saw is gone or changed.
"Maybe there was something in the water," she says. "Maybe it was the moon," even though it's not full. "Night's full of crazy fucke... Wait, stuff like this? As in, more stuff than last night? What else happened?"
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lux
[Yeah, that roll was for nothing. So of course it was good.]
Nathan
"I don't even know how to explain it without sounding like I'm the crazy one."
Completely oblivious to the rising anger in her. Same as he was oblivious to the monster stalking him through the park, same as he was oblivious to the fangs at his neck. Same as he's oblivious to the fact that something fucking fed from him. That he isn't losing his mind.
"A couple weeks ago I went out to Aurora to follow up on a police report involving a bunch of homeless veterans who were arrested for property destruction, and I spoke to a couple of their friends, and they said that the five who the cops picked up were sharing drugs and heard a voice around the railroad tracks. These two I talked to didn't hear it and I was happy enough to chalk it up to drugs and we went our separate ways."
Dot dot dot.
Lux
"I promise I have a high threshold for 'crazy.' I'm an artist," she says, as if that should explain everything. And perhaps it does.
Then -- look. Stillness gathers behind her breastbone, gathers up in her eyes. "Okay..." Pause. "So ... What, you heard it too?"
Nathan
He sighs, heavy, and sinks down lower in his seat. Does not want to admit it. Admitted it in a drunken wave to Bo, but he admitted a lot of things that night. He had had a snootful.
"It's probably just radio signals or... I mean, it's by a bunch of railroad tracks. It's an industrial area. The warehouse I found was all boarded up and abandoned-looking, for all I know there's some sort of a subterranean generator... I wasn't really all that interested in breaking in to investigate. Did enough suicidal shit in the service. I'm a young man, I've got my whole life ahead of me. A kitten to raise."
Lux
[OH NO. I don't know what to roll here. WP?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lux
[And Subt?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Lux
[Aw yeah.]
Nathan
[PERCEPTION + SUBTERFUGE WHY ROLLING]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nathan
[u tried]
Lux
There is fury, the white radiance of which turns your skin to fire and your bones to black ash and your heart into a shadow that lasts forever. Then there is actual dread, which cuts your throat up, as if you'd just fisted a choke of stinging nettle and swallowed it all down. Apt to make you look sour. Not Lux. Lux, dread? Lux, furious? Lux dreading and furious and warily disbelieving? Nope. Lux is a morning star creature: shining, unyielding, intractable and determined, and sitting across from Nathan she takes a deep breath, then sinks forward from the couch-arm to her knees on the leather couch crawls hand over hand until she's right next to Nathan, near enough to feel how warm he is and how alive, and then she just curls, settling, and a wave of honey-kissed hair that's always been a colour could ripen in the summer under the sun and then darken in the winter when the sun never saw it (and now has darkened, and darkened, and darkened again, so her pallor is bright), well, a wave of it falls right over her shoulder and one of her eyes, catches on her eyelashes until she impatiently bats it away with two fingers, blinking rapidly.
"A warehouse doesn't sound like an invitation to suicide," she says. "Maybe the voice was a ghost. They repeat, don't they, just impressions we leave on the world after we're gone, like a book but less handy. Or maybe they were all on drugs. It told them to go destroy a warehouse?"
Nathan
If he felt better he might have reacted to her climbing towards him. But this is the sort of day Nate is having: a woman his age, a very attractive woman who is very fond of him and waiting for him to make some sort of a move that would indicate he is fond of her too, stripped him to his boxers in his bedroom this morning and all he could do was shiver and hide under the covers.
Anyway: she climbs and curls and Nate doesn't respond by doing anything other than glancing over at her before swallowing down more sugary electrolyte water.
"Ghosts are also external. You sense them, you know, these people flash-frozen in time not knowing they're dead. They don't sound like something inside your head." Don't ask him how he knows that. "This wasn't like that. It was this male voice imploring people to find a box he's in. A, uh... in my head, it sounded like 'like the box they send our fallen home in, without the flag.'"
A flat look.
Lux
Lux meets that flat look, raises an eyebrow an infinitessimal fraction of an inch. And shrugs. "Very strange. Did you ...want to?"
Nathan
"I can see why the others tore into these other buildings trying to find whatever it is this voice wants people to find. It was very insistent. Didn't stop until I'd gotten real close to the warehouse and decided I wasn't going to go in. If I hadn't it probably would have kept up. It's really..."
And then something occurs to him, only it's not something that might suggest he has a clue.
"You think I'm losing it?" A beat. "I mean I didn't think I was but I could be... I mean I'm hearing voices and thinking people are trying to kill me, that's some unhinged stuff, right?"
Lux
"Mmmmm." Lux cants her head to the side, as if pensive, corner of her mouth up in a smirk; contained like the rest of her. "Would I have moved closer to you if I thought you were losing it?" Because she is not going to play the mad angle with Nate. "I just think that really strange, unexplainable things happen sometimes, to everybody. That's the world. That's why some people fight, and that's why some people believe in something ineffable and untouchable, because essentially the world's just too full of strangeness to see all of it. Or something. It still sounds like maybe it was a ghost to me though."
Nathan
Now he sighs unhappy as hell and shoots her a look like it's all well and good to talk about things he knows have some sort of rational explanation when they're laid out like this but then they swing back around to ghosts and oh god why did she do that.
"You believe in ghosts?"
Lux
"Well, yes."
Lux has never seen one personally, but the Giovanni clan can't all be a bunch of liars.
Nathan
"You're cool as hell, you know that?"
And also sending mixed-ass signals that he doesn't know enough to worry about. Can't worry about everyone you run into at night thirsting for your blood if you don't realize that's what your current problem is. Denial, denial.
With that out of the way he adds, "I hear them. Not constantly, but a lot. And this wasn't like hearing a ghost at all. This was something else."
Lux
You're cool as hell, you know that? That earns a killer smile. But his confession earns a surprised lift of her eyebrows and a considering look, which is sublimated into consideration in the next moment. It wasn't like hearing a ghost. It was something else.
"Really? How long?"
Nathan
"How long have I been hearing dead people?"
That's what she meant, yes, Nathan.
"I don't remember exactly when it started. I was young. If I said anything to my parents they thought I was just saying creepy things like kids do, you know? Hannah used to say some really messed up stuff when she was a kid. Like right before our folks split up. So... yeah, my whole life, I guess."
That was less painful than he thought it was going to be. He turns his head to read the reaction on her face and the fall of her hair over her shoulder and lets his breath go out his nose easier than he has since he sat down.
"So if you don't think I'm losing it..."
You're sitting awful close, there, Lux.
Lux
[So if I don't think you're losing it, what? You good, bro? Percept + Emp!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3) ( fail )
Lux
He reframes the question and she gives a negligent nod. The kind of thing you don't care for, toss it away, scrap of a fine thing, and she listens intently to when he says it started, through all of that.
"I really don't think you are," Lux says, with a smile that lifts her shoulders and seems to put a gleam in her eyes. "Like I said, the world is full of strange and unexplainable things. They just are."
"I'd say 'we all have our talents for a reason,' but I don't believe that. We have talents, and whatever reason they have is given to them by the way we live our lives, you know?"
Nathan
[perc + empathy I LIKE ROLLING THINGS TOO]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Lux
[You don't know me.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Nathan
"I could get behind that."
Behind the couch and off to the side is a sliding glass door. Beyond it a balcony. Nate turns from Lux then to cast it a yearning look. Normally he smokes like a chimney. Also normally he is only home for a few hours at the end of the day and smokes outside until it's time to go to bed. He hasn't lit up once since she's come inside.
"If I swoon when I stand up, promise you won't Instagram it. I need a cigarette or I might actually die."
Lux
"You should smoke less," she says, who met Nate because she asked for a cigarette. There's not a lot of actual punch in it. Maybe cigarettes kill, maybe they don't, Nathan'll die one way or another eventually. As long as he has some kids first, she's fine with it. (Well, she might be sad, but life goes on when you don't die.) "And maybe take some iron supplement. You do look really pale, guy."
Nathan
You should smoke less, she says, and Nate laughs but heeds her advice. He doesn't actually stand up and go outside. Just takes another slug out of the bottle and hears her when she tells him he looks really pale.
"I was fine yesterday. Maybe Fedora Man stole a few of my organs when I wasn't paying attention."
If he can't come up with a reasonable explanation on his own might as well make outlandish jokes.
Lux
Lux's shoulders round, and she lies back. He should get used to this kind of behavior: cats take over couches too just like it. Her grin is a curl of smoke, and she puts one arm over her forehead, staring up at his ceiling without blinking.
"'I was fine yesterday.' That's what everybody says when they're not fine today." Then: she sort of tilts her head against the edge of the couch, dragging her fingers through her hair to hold it back or untangled, and says, "I should get out of your hair and let you play with the kitten. What's its name, by the way?"
Nathan
So she lies down and then she considers getting out of his hair. Nate for his part just hitches his feet up so he can rest them on the coffee table. He's wearing thick socks in August and he doesn't appear to have air conditioning in his place. Fedora Man messed him up but good.
"She doesn't have one yet. My friend Shannon just talked me into letting her invade my apartment a couple days ago. I'm still getting used to the fact that she likes sleeping on top of my head. What do you think of Face-Hugger for a cat name?"
Lux
"You can do better," Lux says, and then -- and look, she is one graceful creature, preternatural about it you know, swinging up and slipping one foot then the other back in her shoes, fists pressing into the couch like she needs the purchase. "Maybe name it 'Skitter.' Or 'Valkyrie.' Or," and here, a smile, "Spectre?" Once she's up, she pauses to look Nathan over, then reaches out to ruffle his hair. "Call me."
Nathan
And if he were the skittish sort he would have tensed up at the touch of a hand to his hair after last night. He's not. The doctors are right about him: he's well-adjusted. Though he wrinkles his nose at the playful mussing of his hair it's a show.
"I will," he says.
He does get up to walk her to the front door but that's just because he needs to brush his teeth anyway. Isn't planning on sleeping on the couch. Besides, the kitten isn't big enough to jump into bed with him yet. Little shit is going to sit there and cry all night if he doesn't place her there.
"Night, Lux." And then, once she's out in the corridor: "Thanks, by the way."
Lux
If she hears that last, it's covered up by the gentle closing of the door.
Click.
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