Blood is Thicker

Lux

+4

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Lux

Thursday night Nathan Marszalek found a Mister Niccolo Roma and then he found a Flood. Flood who took a picture of him, terror-eyed, confused, sitting on a bed. Flood. You don't want to be here when the old man gets back, Nathan. And Nathan had left. Hurried out.

Thirty minutes after that perhaps he received the first call from Lux. Unanswered. Went to messages.

Rinse. Repeat.

Rinse. Repeat.

A text.

NATHAN. ARE YOU OKAY? WHERE ARE YOU?

Fifteen minutes went by, maybe.

NATE. CALL ME. NOW.

Ten minutes.

I'M GOING TO YOUR HOUSE TO WAIT. I HOPE YOU'RE OKAY.

IF YOUR PHONE IS BROKEN I'M GOING TO DO TERRIBLE THINGS.

IF YOUR PHONE IS NOT BROKEN I'M GOING TO

Another call, maybe.

Another.

No voice messages left.

At some point, Lux called a guy about a guy about a hospital.

Maudlin text.

Nathan, I don't know what the Hell happened, but we need to talk. I hope you're not

delete that.

Call again. Call again. Call again. Call again.

Gareth Miller, meanwhile, scoped out places he thought the kid might go. Most of them turned out to be dead fucking ends.

Another text.

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

Please. I need to see that you are fine. This is terrible.

Daylight came, eventually, and the texts stopped.

Nathan

The plan such as it is is that Nathan is going to stay here until he feels he has successfully gotten his shit back together.

On Friday he went to work like he always does. Caught a ride downtown with his father. Meant the motorcycle sat outside the building all day and on what passed as a lunch break he wandered over to his apartment in the sunlight to pack a bag and get rid of a five-pound animal he never wanted in the first place and tell a friend here's the cat don't call me again.

Somewhere in there he checked his personal phone for the first time since before he went into Mr. Roma's apartment at Florentine Gardens. Saw how many texts and calls he had missed.

I'm so sorry. I'm fine.

Followed by a call from a restricted number. A payphone. Because he's paranoid. And the voicemail said:

"I'm staying with my father for a while. Um... my phone's back on. You can call it. Kay, bye."

He had just gone back to his father's that evening when his work phone buzzed. It was not another text message. It was the Active 911 app on his phone announcing that police and fire and ambulance had all been dispatched to The Fern downtown.

So Nate went out. Left half his shit strewn across the bed in the guest room. Told his father it was work and then got on his motorcycle and left.

It's late enough now that a normal person would be in bed. Nathan is still up. Theodore may still be up too. It's earlier than it was last night. But Nathan has brewed coffee and is sitting at the island in the kitchen with every electronic device he owns beside it and has been on the phone with the FBI field office for the last seven minutes while waiting for his editor to read and email him back comments on his first draft. The fucking article needs to be in by three a.m. so it can go out on the front page of the Saturday paper that nobody fucking reads.

He knows who did this. Call it a hunch. He just has to fucking prove it.

Lux

[Meanwhile, let's do this.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (3, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Lux

[And.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lux

And that is when his phone rings again.

Answer it, Nathan.

Nathan

With his work phone pressed to his head he barely spares the buzzing personal phone a glance. But he does. And then he sees the name. The name makes him sigh heavy and quick-weigh his options.

He doesn't particularly want Lux to kill him so he sacrifices a lead.

"I'm--tunnel--call you--"

He ends the call with the field office at the same time he's snatching up the other cell phone.

"Hello," he says.

Lux

"I'm outside. Are you coming out?" Her voice is the thing, sometimes.

Does she sound grim? No. But what, then?

Usually when he speaks to Lux over the phone he can hear her breathing, just like a normal person, a living one. Not this time; air's just drawn when she needs to use it. And now, soft scrape of an exhale. "I'd rather not meet your dad."

Nathan

"Yeah. I'd rather you not either. Hang on."

He doesn't disconnect the call while he's traipsing upstairs to get his shoes and his jacket. To check the safety on his M9 before he jammed it down the back of his jeans and then took off down the stairs again.

If his father was up to ask what the hell he was doing Lux would hear the impression of voices but no words. And then he was outside looking around for her.

When he spots her he disconnects the call and reaches for his cigarettes.

Lux

There she is. By that car. Leaning against it, actually. Legs crossed at the ankles, hair wild. Cloud of smoke, because she is smoking. Probably best Theodore doesn't see her, all told. Lux isn't looking at the house; her attention seems to be on the street, but there's something about it. Lux's beautiful in a way that compells action, good or bad. She's not wearing a coat, just a sweater. The sweater's falling off one shoulder, the sort of graceful slubbiness that's difficult to pull off and make appealing. The air is full of the promise of rain; the car's black.

Lux notices him as soon as he comes out in spite of the fact her gaze seems (is, truly) elsewhere; this is a gift of the Discipline of Auguries, this heightened awareness of the world around, and she looks over at him and straightens. Flicks the cigarette down, watch the cherry flare up when it hits the ground. [And ask is that what happened to the seraphim who fell- a swift descent, and then a sudden sharp flare brightness as they sundered into coldness?]

So she looks at him instead of studying the street, a line between her eyebrows, sharp. She'd already hung up. He said he was coming out; she must have believed him. Heard his voice real-time now, didn't need to hear his breathing, hear Theodore ask him what he was doing, etcetera. Lux would've heard the words, sharp as she is.

Nathan gets this sluice of a look. He sure doesn't look injured, and his hands look fine. She thumps the backseat of the car, opens the door.

"There you are."

Because she doesn't want to talk on the street. There's nobody else in the car.

Lux

ooc: er, thumps the backdoor of the car

Nathan

Before he steps off the porch or the stoop or whatever it is his father's condo has Nathan removes a cigarette from the pack and lights it. Pockets the pack and the lighter again and walks down the sidewalk. He has a purpose in his stride but his wariness is an obvious thing.

Nathan looks fine. About the same amount of exhausted as he usually is. No injuries that she can read on his flesh or in his gait and when the door opens he eyes her.

"Here I am."

He isn't in the mood for a lecture but neither were any of the women who received the messages they received in the mood to learn he had been talking to Daniel Flood last night. So he doesn't put up much of a fight. Just casts a glance back towards the condo where the lights are still on and then holds up the cigarette like to ask if he can smoke in the car.

If yes: in he goes.

If no: she's going to have to wait.

Lux

Lux doesn't look like she cares about Nate smoking in the car. The anti-smoking fad is some pestilence from, what, the fucking 90s, isn't it.

As soon as he's in, she shuts the door. Then she circles 'round and gets in on the other side. The passenger seat and driver seat have both been pushed up a notch to accomodate their legs; it's the little touches.

Lux looks at Nathan; maybe she's waiting for him to begin. In this lighting, her eyes are just smoke; they're just a lovely, intent shadow to fall in, only limned in the suggestion of crystalline green when she cants her head.

Nathan

Nathan is not going to begin. Nathan spooked a shadow-monger's blood-slave so badly that he had a gun pointed at him just before the shadow-monger showed up and his lawyer father has been questioning him since he showed up last night. The only way he's going to give up information is if he has a specific question.

Besides: Molly may have told him this afternoon why she and Lux both began blowing up his phone last night. Assuming she did or did not could cause a singularity event here.

So he rolls down the window and blows smoke out of it and sighs heavy before sounding as if he's taking a stab in the dark.

"Flood told you I stopped by for a chat," he says, "I take it."

Lux

Lasombra are one thing. Fathers, another. Toreador? They've got their own style. This Toreador in particular, too, huh? She is not Flood. She is not Theodore.

The window doesn't want to roll down. This isn't an old car, and the keys aren't in the ignition. They're both going to be breathing that smoky poison, but people outside aren't going to have as an easy time hearing their voices drifting down the mostly empty-street. A trade-off.

What are you to Lux?

Right now, something she's looking at so steadily, so quietly; her gaze wants to be opaque, but it's bruised; there's a gleam wick behind it.

"He's not what I'd call a brilliant photographer, but he captures a moment. Knows how to construct an attention-grabbing caption, certainly."

Her voice goes quieter than he has heard it; but it's still clear. There's an intimacy to a car, being inside one. Privacy that isn't really privacy, because people can still see in and out.

"What the the story, Marszalek? Why'd you go behind my back like that?"

Lux

ooc: "What's the story, Marszalek?" not what's the the, sheesh

Nathan

His eyebrows lift. Not high but enough that she can see the impact her phrasing has on him. How quickly men forget their promises.

"Behind your back?" he asks. "Lux, Kragen Kingsmith blew up a fucking car today. I found out a couple weeks he asked Molly to work as a medic for him. She doesn't want to listen to me so I thought--"

He clears his throat.

"Wow. It sounds a lot stupider saying it to you than when I said it to my father."

Lux

Lux waits. The fingers of one hand curl inward, make a whisper sound against the seat. He stopped mid-sentence, suddenly self-aware. Her silence isn't cold; it's a cup. She's just looking at him, like looking's going to help her read this story out, like Nathan Marszalek prince of the old print as he's speaking it's all going to be made clear. Or maybe it's not like that; maybe she's just looking at him like that because he's been the only thing she's thought about since she got that picture and here he is and this is the shape of him this right here.

Nathan

Deep sigh stained with tobacco smoke. He presses the thumb on the hand holding the cigarette to his temple and rubs. Christ, he's tired.

"She was drunk one night and called me to come get her. I took her back to her apartment and she showed me this stack of business cards your cohorts've given her. I saw Kingsmith's in there. He'd given us one... months ago, and I pocketed it and figured I'd look and see who he was. I had no idea she'd seen him again until I saw the second card. That's when she told me he'd approached her about a job. And... everything else she's been up to lately. She thinks she knows too much and can't just walk away. Which is stupid. If she keeps inviting people in like this she's going to get killed. So I thought if I talked to Flood he'd... I don't know. Reason with her.

"He showed up at his... I don't know what he is to him. His grandfather, I think. I was at his apartment and Flood showed up and the guy told him I wanted to kill him. Which... I don't know why he thought that. Maybe once I did, but that wasn't why I was there. The guy left and Flood threatened to find my parents or my sister and I was like yeah, you know, if I could, I'd kill you right now. So he..."

Nate frowns. Still can't believe this actually happened.

"He made shadows come out of his body. They grabbed me, and when they let me go he left. Said I shouldn't still be there when the old man got back. So I left and came here to make sure Dad was okay."

Lux

[Hmm.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Lux

Lux is not expressionless. He lumps Kingsmith in with 'your cohort' and one eyebrow arches (infinitessimal). He mentions Molly's dilemma and her eyebrows draw together once more. Intent. He says he thought if he talked to Flood; and Lux's mouth presses more firmly together, an expression somebody somewhere thought it was a good idea to sketch, heavy charcoal, such mood, fineness expressed in shade. Sometimes her mouth does that before she smiles, but not now. Her eyes drop closed so she listens a while in darkness. He could try to kill her; he's got a gun.

He made shadows come out of his body has her opening her eyes to meet his. When he's done, she says, "Obtenebration. It's a potent discipline; I have seen it draw and quarter an older-than-a-century revolutionary. Did they hurt you?"

Lux

ooc: "Did they hurt you, the shadows?"

Nathan

They caused him pain. That's a very different thing than hurting a person. Nathan cannot recall the intensity or quality of the pain. Just that he felt it. That it was intense and that if they meant to they could have crushed his ribs.

Nathan sets his jaws and shakes his head. His cigarette is down to nothing so he cracks the door to toss it to the curb. Shuts the door again.

"No," he says.

Lux

"Why did you go to Flood instead of coming to me?" Beat. As hard as he's ever heard her, Lux, wouldn't she make a great femme fatale: "We'll talk about Kingsmith in a moment, and how much he is no thing - " he can, perhaps, the lick of hatred there. " - of mine."

And her tone quiets again: "But why? I thought we had reached an understanding. Something happens, you reach me."

"Instead, you..." Lux runs both of her hands through her hair, eyes closing again briefly, lashes low on her cheeks, profile a delicate-carved thing against the gloom pressing in against the window, the Monet halo of street-light scidding across glass, and she sets her shoulders against the back of the passenger seat, having shifted so she's braced that way and her feet are on the backseat and her knees are up but she's facing Nate.

Nathan

"I don't know."

Of course he doesn't. Nathan didn't sit down and draft a list of pros and cons before he made the decision to start hunting down Flood and confronting him with Molly Toombs' various entrapments. All he had to do was go to work the next morning and boot up his computer and start typing queries into a database. Pick up the phone and start providing physical descriptions to his contacts to see if they knew anyone who knew anyone who knew this guy.

"Maybe if I had--" Gone to her instead of Flood. "--that psycho wouldn't have blown up a car today. Alright? I'm the one who's gotta live with that, and I've got an article going to the printer in like four hours and it's front page so my editor is flipping the fuck out because I've never been anywhere near the front page, and I've gotta somehow slip the word 'Dogwood' to the Feds and not sound as nutty as the jack-offs trying to claim al-Qaeda had something to do with it, and--"

Nathan

[+5]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

Lux

[+9]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Lux

"Stop," she says. Cuts him off.

"Just stop. Kingsmith is an entirely different matter. Stop trying to -- what are you trying to do? You're concerned about him. Well, if it makes you feel slightly less incensed, the people in the car were probably vampires, so that's all right, isn't it? Dogwood will be dealt with. You should have fucking told me Kingsmith was trying to recruit a normal, albeit snoopish, mortal for his thing. I hate that creature. He is vile; foul; contemptuous. A murderer, who delights in it. Who thinks murder is his lover, his muse."

"Fuck that. Fuck him. Listen to me."

"I need you to tell me things first. I do blame myself, all right? I clearly should. I should never have told you Flood is all right, or if I did, I should have been perhaps more specific: Flood is all right under certain circumstances; there are worse."

"But you don't know? You don't think I could have facillitated a conversation with Flood if you had to have him? Am I not vampire enough for you? Have I not behaved in a supernatural enough fashion to be asked for advice when a friend you care about is having a hard time?"

"I'm just -- " furious.

"You," deliberate. "Are my friend and my heart aches."

Nathan

No it doesn't make him feel slightly less incensed. Nate is frowning at the thought that he ought to write off all victims just because they're vampires when he's sitting right next to a vampire. Ignore the fact that he used the words 'cohorts' and 'Kingsmith' too close together and gave her the impression that he's lumped her in with that asshole. That's what he gets for not dropping Flood and Kali and Bertram Kohl's names while he was at it.

He should have fucking told her. He already conceded to that point. But his point and her point aren't the same.

Other people have trouble figuring him out. At his core he is a decent law-abiding citizen who cares about other people and strives to do the right thing but he acts without consider for how his own health and wellness impacts other people. Did something last night that caused a woman who is trying to be his friend to break her own hand on a brick wall. Turned around today and told his best friend he didn't want to hear from her again. Is lying to his father because to tell his father the truth would mean doing to Theodore what Molly did to Nathan.

He's been acting like an asshole ever since the car crash that killed Shannon Everett. Let's just continue not talking about how being surrounded by the dead and the act of dying and the physical evidence of death is making you devalue your own mortality, Nathan. That's working out real well.

Am I not vampire enough for you?

Nate mouths What? but doesn't interrupt. Because she goes on. She's furious and he's her friend and her heart aches.

"I'm sorry," he says. Looks her in the eye when he says it.

Lux

He looks her in the eye; what a guy. Lux looks him in the eye too. Didn't Flood say something to Nathan about not meeting his eyes; who taught him that?

"Did Flood mention my name to you in the course of your conversation with him?" she asks.

Nathan

"Yes."

Lux

"Why do you think he did?"

She sounds curious. Not - idle curiousity, not faux-curiousity where she already knows the answer. Just - curious.

And there is going to be a fucking point, Marszalek.

Nathan

"He asked who I was to you. I thought he might want something from you and was going to use the threat of killing me against you, so I told him..."

Nothing like owning up to a lie to give a person acid indigestion. Nate shifts in his seat and glances towards the house again. Checking again to make sure nothing has come skulking up the front lawn out of a shadow he wasn't looking at this whole time.

When he looks back:

"I told him I was your friend, but you'd forgive him if something happened. And he left pretty soon after that."

Lux

Lux closes her eyes again. Opens them.

There are people who, when they are furious, go pale. Lux isn't one of these; she is already pale. There are people who, when they are furious, flush. Lux is also not one of these. Lux is one whose eyes become a certain whettstone thing, an execution of shade, a clear shade for lucence to go ahead and die at. Lux is one who goes so still; who looks so much lovelier; energy, alive, but still-poised.

"How thoughtful," she says, tone curling with just a touch of dark wry, considering. Less wry: "Thank you for the effort."

"Although if you thought we were friends," Nathan, he didn't say that. She said it. Lux; she shakes her head, aborting that line of thought. The 'we' there was meant to be her and Flood, not Lux and Nathan.

"Do you know," she says, again. "I spoke to someone else who I call friend, as I call Flood friend, while I was trying to find you last night. I called you mine. I hate possession; it's just fucking rude. But as far as other Licks go, you are mine. Do you get what that means?"

Nathan

"No! I don't get what that means!"

Ohho. Someone's had enough. He's not shouting but there is an edge of frustration or fear or something whetting his tone.

"Jesus Christ, Lux, you're not making any sense." He coughs out a laugh and glances skyward like to ask for some sort of divine intervention and then looks back at her. "You're the one who decided out of the fucking blue to bum a smoke off me one night. You didn't think that would've been a good time to be like oh hey, guy, I'm--"

He scowls and goes for the car handle.

Lux

"I'm not making any sense, Mister 'I Don't Know'? Maybe you should just listen. Do you think I like having this conversation? Please do not get out of the car yet."

Lux; she sits up, pushing herself out've that half-slump, cradled between the back of the front passenger seat and the backseat. There is nothing awkward about it. There wouldn't be, would there?

Reaches over to snag the arm of his jacket; his arm. No pressure in it; just - hold.

She says please because Lux doesn't like commanding people; because Lux believes in free will and the individual. She believes that two individuals can argue and they don't need, say, the Camarilla to come in and rule that interaction up, that an argument needn't come to blows.

She believes people can behave reasonably; that they want to.

She believes she wants to snap Nathan's neck and fix all problems: Theodore won't be threatened by Lasombra then.

Nathan

[self-control: can we wait until we're back inside to have a meltdown, nathan, please?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Nathan

For a millisecond after Lux grabs his jacket a spasm of anger grips him. She has never seen him lash out at anyone and when he's raised his voice it's been due to distance or detrimental acoustics. This isn't the sort of spasm that means he's about to hit her. It means he's trapped in this car and he's spent and tired and just wants to go back inside and work but Lux is insisting on talking about things that he knows nothing about.

If he hadn't thought to take this deep breath in through his nose and let it back out again he might have whirled on her. Said hurtful things he could not take back and then she would have snapped his neck. As if Theodore wouldn't have noticed that his son said he was just going out for a cigarette and left his laptop and work cell on the island and then never came back.

So he takes in another breath and turns back to her and lifts his eyebrows again.

"Please," he says, holding his shit together and obviously making the attempt, his frown and his voice confused and angry but not out of control, "fucking explain to me how I'm yours."

Lux

[Here is a roll for a thing that is not directed at Nathan.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Lux

"I am invested in your life. I have decided to interfere if some other thing tries to take possession of your will, your mind, your heart, whatever. You're 'mine,'" and her voice is so - a lick of hatred, "because if you're not 'mine,' you're up for fucking grabs. Not that there's any guarantee I can stop anybody from fucking with you; especially if I don't know what the Hell is going on. And as for fucking with your family," a throb. Lux does not punch the door at this time. One needn't punch doors to seem dangerous of-a-sudden. One needn't yell or say a lot to be a promise.

Lux is not trying to frighten Nathan; the opposite. But isn't she terrifying?

Lux is always a lovely thing; lovely enough to make love inevitable; its ending even more inevitable, huh? Be frightened. Lux is always a loely thing, but this has nothing to do with loveliness. It's just her. The sheer fucking fall towards of her [Morning-star creature].

Can't she be terrifying? Terrifying, at this precise moment, when she says with quiet and absolute certainty, "No."

No one will be allowed to fuck

with Nathan's family.

Nathan

[WP!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Nathan

And he doesn't think that she is going to hurt him but the stakes have changed in the last 24 hours. He did something incredibly stupid because he didn't know the world he was walking in. All he had to go on was that Flood bit him one night not knowing who he was. That Lux was there to get him home and Molly was the one who later warned him about talking to people about Flood. Against trying to find out who he was and what his angle was.

It was stupid because he is a stranger here and he didn't have much of a choice as to whether he would be involved or not. Now he is. Now he doesn't want to be.

Once already this week has he felt terror in the presence of one of her kind. This is not the same thing. It's a purer sort of fear that comes up being in her presence. The hellfire passion in her voice when she speaks of an investment in him. In people fucking with his family.

Nathan is not terrified of her. But she is terrifying. He keeps his hand on the door handle in case he has to escape and he must be figuring by now that he cannot escape if one of them decides to kill him. He's breathing hard in and out through his nostrils and his eyes are wide and he's frowning. He doesn't understand even now what she's talking about.

"O--" His voice catches in his throat. He swallows. "Okay. That... still doesn't make any sense. Lux. Why are you invested? When did you decide to get invested? What... Jesus Christ."

He quick pinches the bridge of his nose to center himself and when he releases his face Nate holds the hand out in an open-palmed gesture of appeal to her. Laughs a scared voiceless laugh that flashes teeth.

"I don't know what you want from me."

Lux

He keeps telling her she doesn't make sense. Every time he does she wants to unwrap his bones. Lux: she is relieved he is alive. Lux: she is happy he is alive. Lux: she is still so -

He's holding his hand out in a gesture of appeal. Lux does not suddenly gentle. Her eyes do not soften. But her voice isn't that promise - that certainty - of an unhappy end for whoever or whatever decided to trouble Nathan or Nathan through his family. Hadn't she reached out to take Nate's jacket sleeve? Had dropped her hand from it as soon as he stayed. Now she uses that hand to drag her hair out've her eyes and send a glance Heavenward though there's no help for creatures such as she is ("am I not vampire enough for you?") supposed to be.

The roof of the car is not very interesting.

"I don't understand why -- " she begins. Hard stop. Begin again. "My interest in you doesn't make sense? Or why I'd tell other Licks you are mine so they know they can't fuck with you sans consequences doesn't make sense?"

Lux

ooc: actually man Lux doesn't need to breathe that can all be one question sentence so: "My interest in you doesn't make sense or why I'd tell other Licks you are mine so that they therefore know they cannot fuck with you sans consequences doesn't make sense?"

Nathan

She isn't making sense because nothing around her or beyond her isn't making sense. Because Nathan wants to be back inside where the things that make his life make sense because they operate within parameters set by human mistakes and human greed and human chaos are inside. Human pain makes sense to him.

Licks and their consequences don't make sense to him.

Appealing to her isn't helping. His breathing has calmed but his frown has not waned.

"Why," he asks, "are you interested in me?"

Lux

"I don't know." Right now: she doesn't. Not the way she thinks he's asking; what makes him worth it? He's not that special. She hasn't had to let anybody know about her (other) relatives. Never has, though Charlie always knew. Watched from afar, and that was fine. Why the Hell did she decide to talk to Nate and keep talking to him? Part of it was just [Rebel]

"I don't know how to explain it. I was just interested, and then..."

And then he was almost drained in a park, almost hunted by a Gangrel.

"And then you kept brushing up against troubles, or things that would become troubling, but I didn't want you to get hurt. I liked you. I didn't want you to know a fucking thing about any of this. I'm not a fucking monster, so I invested myself. I decided to."

Beat. "I don't regret it," she says, but does she? "because otherwise you would probably already be dead. Don't you ever just like people, Nathan? Don't you just want people to get a chance to become something great? Don't you think a good heart's a good thing to keep around? Don't you -- "

Another cut-off. Lux's voice had become too much of an appeal. Wistful, yearnful- she doesn't want to sound like that.

Nathan

"Sure I do."

Now he sounds tired. Because examining truths about himself is exhausting. Because he survived so many months of therapy and dodged so many deaths that to sit still for a moment and think about his own framework makes him want to curl up and sleep for twelve hours straight.

"I just... I got used to thinking people aren't permanent."

A glance back towards the house.

"You know? And... death being a part of life, they're not supposed to be. My liking people or not liking people doesn't have anything to do with this."

Nathan isn't talking about a fear of death. He's been around death his entire life. What he expects is that people will abandon him. That he will inevitably become a thing that people regret. That's what he isn't saying.

Lux

This is another moment when Lux stays silent.

Because of course his liking or not liking people doesn't have anything to do with this. It's her liking or not liking people that's the key, at least in terms of why Nathan. There aren't a lot of satisfying answers in this world.

Silent. Silence. And then, "I'm not going to be around forever." Yes she is. That's the plan. See what's on the other side of eternity, and not get fucking bored in the meantime. "If you never got caught up in this, what, fifteen years from now, we'd've lost touch. Maybe before. I don't see you staying in Denver for your whole life."

Nathan

He never saw himself here at all. Saw himself enlisting and buying into the bullshit. Seeing the world and protecting democracy and making something of himself. Making up for all the shenanigans he got into in high school. Staying in the service for twenty or thirty years and then retiring and doing something awesome with the rest of his life.

No one has their life figured out when they're in their twenties. They think they do. They delude themselves into thinking they do. Nathan hasn't deluded himself but he's done a good job ignoring his obstacles.

Now he's looking out the window instead of looking at her. Like he can hear her disappointment and her regret.

"Neither do I," he says. Deep breath in before he looks back at her. "I'm not going to do what I did yesterday again. Alright? If you want to part ways, that's... we can."

Lux

"No, we can't."

Lux brings her hands up to her head; digs her fingers into her hair, sharp. Delineated by shade as she is, the car's interior a gloomy, smoke-stained thing, she still cuts a beautiful shape; chiarroscurro suits her. So does that sharp lash in her voice, metal wire.

"I'm not going to abandon you just because you did something so stupid I - " - now she owes two kindred favors. One of them a Lasombra. "I'm not. That isn't my style, darling. Besides, you are already associated with me."

Pause. Voice becomes a lick of dark across a swathe of silk; she's taking out a pack of cigarettes because she either needs one or wants to offer one to Nate. Probably not the latter. "When you say you're 'not going to do what you did yesterday again,' to what are you referring exactly?"

Lux

ooc: eh, Tremere are as bad as Lasombra. Make that 'One a Lasombra with questionable motives. The other a Tremere, ditto that.'

Nathan

"Any of it."

He's too young to sound so tired. He knows he is. He knows he doesn't have any idea how much more taxing life can be. Never been married and never had kids. Never had to battle unemployment or illness. This isn't the tired of a self-indulgent lazy brat. Nathan doesn't want to give in to his exhaustion. Doesn't want to stay in this car but here he is. He hasn't gotten out yet.

"Ugh..."

He takes his hand off the door. Scrubs his face and runs the palm overtop his hair.

"Lux, I have so much work to do..."

Lux

"Researching Kragen," curdle, hate, "can wait a few minutes more," she says. She does not have any sympathy for Nathan's weariness.

Because, before. She just fed him crumbs. Wasn't as focused. She doesn't want to keep him in the car, either, Lux. She is still so furious at him, and she is not human.

"So in the future, you will come to me? It is very important Nathan."

She wants him to say yes. She wants to believe him.

Nathan

"I came to you tonight, didn't--"

Wait a minute. He's never told her his father's name. Nate frowns.

"How did you know where to find my father's house?"

Nathan

[OOC: Make that "How did you know where my father lives?"]

Lux

"I had a private dick find out for me," she replies. Lux didn't know (want to know) where Theodore lived until she needed to go find Nathan.

"And I came to you tonight."

Nathan

"Okay. Congratulations. You're a better person than I am."

He opens the door and starts to get out.

"Have a good night, Lux."

Lux

Lux also opens her door. Lux does get out. Quick. Quick, quick, quicksilver, quick. Looks across the car at Nathan. Hasn't yet tapped a cigarette out of that pack.

"In the future, you will come to me? Call it due diligence. Checking your facts against expert testimony. Whatever it is you newspaper men say these days. Will you?"

She doesn't think she's behaved 'supernatural' enough for him; her eyes are opaque with consideration.

Nathan

He's walking towards the house when she gets out and calls after him. It turns him around.

Will you?

"Are you gonna do something about Kingsmith?"

She thinks she hasn't acted supernatural enough. Isn't vampire enough. Hasn't scared him bad enough to make him want to go to her instead of Flood. With his back to his father's door and his hands held palm-out towards her Lux can see he's frustrated and scared and angry more than tired. Tired is just his default.

"Tell me you're gonna do something about Kingsmith and I'll say yes."

Lux

Lux looks at Nathan.

Lux is standing on the kerb now, leaning against the top of the black car. She reflects in it; pale ghost image of her, carved out, portraiture. She cants her head, and reaches across the car with one arm, slides like gravity's pulling her; the other arm she has folded up, elbow on the metal, hand in her hair, but she is quite intent.

He wants to make a deal now. He's frustrated, scared, angry. And he wants to make a deal.

Lux considers for a still moment. The sky has been saying it's going to rain all night; now it's finally beginning to, drop, drop, cold as any kiss. Some of the streetlight gets into her hair, gilds the gloom with a suggestion of honey but Lux isn't blond and it's been ages since the sun might try to pull any hues that aren't blood or darkenss out've it.

Then she smiles at Nathan. It's such a smile; isn't it? Perhaps? It's not an impulse-driven smile, it's a smile like a beat before the song gets good, you know, a smile that's one-part tender and one-part muse and one-part a promise. Nathan, don't you know Lux doesn't wanna give up on you?

Nathan, don't you fucking know?

"I stole that punk's fucking lucky lighter; call me tomorrow, and I'll tell you about him and what's going to happen." The smile diminishes; she hasn't yet read the paper. Hasn't yet felt a surprising surge of anger at her brother-by-blood's property being so damaged (mingled, perhaps, with relief - because less servants for him mean less eyes looking for - ).

"So say yes, please."

[Enough of this. Entrance. Appearance + Empathy. Diff 7. Specialty applies. - 1 BP. C'mon, 1 or less successes.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lux

[4.]

Lux

[How killer was that smile? I will willpower that because fuck botching the land. Charisma + Empathy, I guess. Or expression.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Lux

[Aw yeah, WP. Mwah.]

Nathan

It's the people who don't give up on Nathan that he doesn't know what to do with.

Easier for him to be the person who doesn't do the giving up but even then it isn't easy. He did it just today. Decided he had had enough of trying to protect a woman who doesn't want to protect herself and cut his ties with her. Her own undead protector may have wanted him to take up the mantle. Be a source of security during the day where he cannot reach.

But Nathan said No. Nathan said Don't call me again.

Lux and he don't have an easy relationship. It has confounded him since the moment he suspected she would not be receptive to any romantic interludes but hey. Maybe she was a lesbian. Maybe she just wanted a friend. That was something he could and did respect. He has never tried to forge from their friendship anything that wasn't already there and for a time he didn't question her so often or frantic as he has tonight.

His eyes are beginning to grit from having been opened so long. He looks at her and he sees her cast a smile at him and the thought occurs to him that she's being perfectly reasonable. He's just tired. He's cranky. He needs to go inside and finish his work and then sleep until his phone starts to ring. Until people realize it's his fucking name on the byline on the front page and start harrying him for his sources.

Sharp as she looks at him now Lux can see a devotion come into his gaze that wasn't there before. Something like smitten adoration too. No idea why he was fighting her so hard earlier. The frustration and fear are gone from his voice.

"Yes, Lux," Nathan says.

Lux

Lux has known how to tug at heart-strings for all of her life. Before death. After it, why wouldn't she've sharpened that particular Discipline? Why wouldn't she be able to walk into a room and draw it into her orbit? Why wouldn't she want to know how to become so terrible that somebody'd claw through a wall to get away? Men are unkind to women alone at night. Other kindred are unkind, too.

But tugging on a single heart-string, like this. She has practiced in order to be able to do it. She has wanted it. Desired it. Decided to have it. She doesn't feel a qualm about using the Discipline of Presence the way she will about the Discipline of Dominate if she manages to pick up that knack (and she will, because she has decided she will, is determined to). Dominate is a command you cannot refuse. Presence is love and hatred and Lux is a creature of both things, isn't she? Beloved. Hated.

But Nathan is special to Lux and she wanted to compell his heart like this no more than she wants to have him drink her blood.

So it is with mixed emotions that she watches Nathan's expression change, and the set of her mouth becomes a suggestion of rebellion. Her eyebrows rise and she pushes back from the top of her car, a heel-rock fluid grace of a thing back. Cigarette taken from the case now. Takes out a lighter, not Kragen's cursed murderer's trinket, but something else taken from someone else. Lux collects other people's lighters.

"Thank you," she says, and sounds sincere, and also fervent. "G'night, Nate. Good luck." Her gaze cuts to the window above the stoop and the building's front door; a light went on. Gaze cuts back, and she turns her head in order to close her eyes and light her cigarette.

Instead of getting back into the car, she goes for a walk. She'll wave if he's lingering, but then she'll just lower her head and put the hand not occupied with her cigarette in her coat's pocket and walk.

Can't walk off fury. Siren wailing somewhere. Multiple sirens.

Maybe she'll go hunting. She's hungrier now and if bombs are going off it's going to be a pain in the ass to -

Or maybe she'll just go find Gary.