Devil's in the Details

Lux

This is a visitation for deep in the evening, beyond evening into night beyond night edging toward morning. There are hours when it is easy to presume on the time of one's living, one's day-chained associates and there are hours when one might reasonably expect them to be asleep.

This is a visitation and it happens toward the end of May. Lux comes by for Nate and he has no window for her to tap on, no window for her to knock on or throw pebbles at or scratch at until he comes to the glass and opens it for her. He has a door, but inside he also has a sister Lux most fervently does not wish to meet - a blond creature who is better than a watch-dog.

Lux's fist hovering over the door, the knuckles sharp, delicate; the shadow it spins amidst all the others, also sharp, also delicate -- and see how it smears into other darknesses. She doesn't knock or ring the doorbell after all. She turns sharply and throws herself into that big wicker chair on his front porch, taking out her phone and texting instead.

Hi! I'm here. Let me in.

Like he was expecting her.

Nathan

If she had knocked on the door it would have dragged his sister out of sleep. That girl sleeps like a corpse but this is an unfamiliar place and it's small and sounds carry. Lux cannot hear the phone vibrate on the kitchen counter where it spends the night but maybe she can feel the vibrations as they ripples through the house's frame several seconds after she sends the text.

Nathan is not asleep. She can see a shadow pass the living room curtains as he gets up and goes into the kitchen to see who just texted him.

And then he walks through the house thump thump thump and pauses to confirm that it is in fact Lux and not someone who has stolen Lux's phone. She can see a shadow dusk the blurry glass inlays on the door as he peers.

Oh. Okay.

The locks disengage.

Lux

Lux does not unseat herself when the locks disengage, but she leans back in the chair, relaxing (no) against the wicker. Lux listens to the flex of the thing, the creak as it gives that most wouldn't hear, the nuance of it. Lux listens to the sound of Nathan breathing in the cold night air, notices some animal thing fleeing her presence across the street, a lick of shadow among other shadows. Let me in she'd said. But you aren't supposed to invite vampires into your home. A second passes and another. There is a car, idling in the street. Her ride tonight. Then she does rise, goes to meet Nate at his door, to smile at him just so - the corner of her mouth a suggestion of sharpness, the curve of it a suggestion of sweetness.

"Hi," she says, her voice pitched low. "You're up late. When do you do your sleeping?"

Nathan

"Uhh..."

Heh. Maybe he was at his girlfriend's today and spent half the afternoon asleep after she tired him out. That's not the sort of thing you tell other people when they mention your sleeping habits.

Stood here with the inner door rested against his heel and the screen door propped open with his forearm he doesn't look like he intends to hang out all night. He's wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt. No shoes or socks. Watch is off. He's in for the night.

Still not sure if he's supposed to hug her when he greets her so he just stands there enjoying the sweetness in her otherwise invisible smile.

"Soon. I was actually just about to go to bed. What's up?"

Lux

"D'you remember when you were trying to track down Flood?"

- as if he would forget. Her gaze is both direct and steady, the color of her eyes a gloaming bit of tarnish - dark while the porchlight casts her features in shadow but illumines the curve of her cheek, of her throat, because the sweep of her hair is falling over one shoulder and not the other, in danger of falling heavy over one eye.

Nathan

Snort.

"I try not to."

That must explain how he was able to track down Flood's grand-whatever the hell he was without much hesitation. Either that or he's joking. Nathan cants the screen door wider and steps back to give her room.

"Come inside. The neighbors'll talk."

Lux

"They're all asleep," Lux says, lingering. If he insists, perhaps she'll step over the threshold. His answer causes a real smile to animate her face -- something sharp, a bright glint of humor.

"...And shucks, Nathan. I like to hear that. If this were a test, you just passed, flying colors."

See: she lets gravity do its work, drop her shoulder against the doorframe so that if he does insist and she does step over the threshold, she's going to slide forward with her shoulder still touching: a graceful fall. Her head's aslant; her hair's jealous of eyes on her throat and her jaw. She has to drag it back but she's not doing that yet.

"But it isn't a test. I want to know about that old man and where you found him."

Nathan

They're all asleep. She's lingering.

If he stands here with the door open all night bugs are going to get in and he doesn't trust his sister not to come up behind him anyway so Nathan drags the inner door shut behind him and steps out onto the porch.

The screen door sighs closed. It's chilly out here and Nathan is not as hardy as he used to be. He shivers when his bare feet touch the porch and he tucks his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

"Alright." She doesn't have to tell him twice. "His name's Niccolo Daniel Roma uh... Junior, I think. There was a Niccolo Daniel Roma Senior and then a Niccolo Antonio. I was down at the union hall asking around one day and they dropped his name, said he works for Flood and he's up at Florentine Gardens if I want to go talk to him."

Clearly he did. He went.

"Florentine Gardens is a nursing home, an upscale one. They've got a concierge and everything. He lived up on the eighth floor when I went to talk to him, I don't know if he's still there."

Lux

"Was he very mean?"

Nathan

Snort. He glances away brief because he's remembering but Nathan knows better than to avoid eye contact when he's being interrogated. That means you're guilty. Any time he looked away from his mother she knew he was lying.

That's how he learned eye contact is a thing vampires use. He hadn't known that when he walked into the old man's apartment at the nursing home. Flood wanted to know how he'd known that. Misunderstandings are hilarious sometimes.

When he looks back:

"He wasn't gonna let me in at first, tried to get rid of me until I told him I was looking for Flood. Told me to sit down and wanted to know why I was looking for Flood. I, uh, you know, was there about Kragen asking Molly to be a medic for his little terrorist operation, so I told him that. He offered to make coffee while we waited for Flood to show up, I asked if I could go out and smoke, he took a hand cannon out of the drawer in the kitchen and aimed it at me and told me to sit my ass back down."

Maybe that was a bit mean.

Lux

"Sounds like quite a guy," Lux says, voice gone all silk and slow, all smoke and immanence. She raises her eyebrows, too. But there's a dark thread of laughter underneath - surprised, but there it is; go figure. "Quite a night, too. I realized I never got the details of that story."

[Manipulation + Subterfuge. I'm so impulsive. We are not a liar.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Nathan

[perc + subt: shut up you did too]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Nathan

[oh shit his subterfuge is 3 ANOTHER]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Nathan

This far gone from his near-death experience Nathan can only laugh about it because he hasn't spoken to Molly since then and Kragen was in custody for a minute before he blew himself up. Because Laurel and Amber aren't texting him anymore telling him to be careful and he never told Carole or his father about it.

All he had told his father was that he needed new friends. That if he told him the truth he would think he was crazy. He seems less crazy now that he's not drinking as much.

But Lux never got the details of that story.

"Yeah, it's almost like Kragen blew up a building next night. So weird..."

Nathan

[Uh, how about THE next night. Nathan you are not Russian.]

Lux

Lux watches Nathan's face as he speaks. Occasionally, he reminds her of dead people. He often reminds her of the living. But he's his own person, too, and whatever it is he means to her, really means to her,

"Some of us," she says, wry, "were more focused on that than others were as I recall." Lux pushes away from the door frame now, reaches out to touch Nathan's shoulder; slide her fingers along the bone, slide her fingers down. It's not a hug, but it takes the place of one.

She turns her head to look over her own shoulder at the car, idling. Then she looks back at Nathan, says, with a smile that isn't a suggestion -- it's just a sudden slash: "You're really cute, you know. Call me on Friday if you're free."

Nathan

Her wryness is met with a mostly-suppressed self-amused smirk. It really wasn't funny. So focused on it that he decided to ignore Lux's concern for him. Even then after he'd seen so much he couldn't grasp why going to Flood instead of her was upsetting to him. Why they were even friends in the first place.

It doesn't matter anymore. He likes her. He won't ever do anything like that again.

A hand on the shoulder is easier to tolerate than a hug. It doesn't restrain the recipient and it doesn't trigger unwanted thoughts and Lux can feel a dormant strength in his arm one wouldn't think him to possess from looking at him. In shorts and a t-shirt it's easier to see the bulk of his muscles. The man must have good genes because he sure as hell doesn't go to the gym.

Not much to the front lawn. A gate and a sidewalk and he can answer her without raising his voice much even when she addresses him from the curb.

Flattery will get you nowhere Lux. It will only succeed in startling Nathan. He is startled. It's rare anyone tells him he's cute and then tells him to call her right after. It's enough to catch a body off his guard but not this body.

"Will do," he says. Lifts a hand to wave. "Night, Lux."

Lux

[and we wrap!]