The wording of his promise went along the lines of a text when the date and time for drinks with this mythical pilot associate of his were set up. Enough time has passed Lux may think he's forgotten. Nate hasn't forgotten. It's just that print and television media personnel don't tend to cross paths all that often. Television journalists like to think they evolved from print journalists and print journalists like to accuse television journalists of having no brain cells left after all the chemicals they slap on their hair and faces.
But she did receive a text Friday night. It read:
Going to The Living Room tomorrow around 11 with the guy I told you about. Don't bail out on me that's way past my bedtime.
The Living Room is not Nate's scene. Technically no bars are Nate's scene because he is curbing his drinking but so long as he doesn't drink to the point where his face goes numb and he's punching people in the face out on the sidewalk it's not the end of the world. The place is trendy and casual and has outdoor seating where you can smoke and closes at one o'clock in the morning on Saturdays. It's quiet compared to the other bars in the area.
Anyone trying to imagine how Nate convinced a 6'2" helicopter pilot to come out for a drink with him doesn't have to imagine very hard. It's a boring scene to flashback to. Their paths crossed while Nate was at the news station shaking down someone else for a lead on a story and he was like "Yo Dempsey" and Dempsey was like "Hey, Marszalek, right? what's up man?" and there was high-fiving and it was very brotastic.
They're here. They're both drinking beer. Nate looks small sitting next to the guy even though he's only a few inches shorter. Poor Nate.
Lux[I wonder what this does. Hello? Anybody?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (9) ( success x 1 )
LuxDo you know who's not very brotastic? Lux.
Lux hadn't texted a response Friday night or early Saturday morning, before the owls go to sleep and the sparrows rear their god-forsaken raptor-sharp beaks and start tweeting. If Nathan sends another text during the day or earlier in the evening, she will respond with a quote about the pleasure of surprises, probably by a poet.
Lux shows up around 11:30ish, 11:40ish. The place is busy. The music is pretty good. But really: the place is busy; a crowd is its own city, blind alleys and you don't know where you're going or who's coming.
Where is she? There she is.
Lux who is gloom-loved: Lux in an asymmetrical leather jacket belonging to some designer with a name even people who don't know designers would probably recognize the silver zipper half-unzipped and glinting, bright as a needle-prick, zipper lined pockets dramatic in such a way that go ahead follow the gleam of zippers and studs on the points of the collar and it's a reminder of the beauty of the female form. Beneath the leather jacket, nothing. At least: nothing, judging by the v of skin visible beneath her collarbone. Cuffed gray slacks.
Is Lux gloom-loved? Love's a thing people imagine for or of Lux. Couldn't she be somebody's unrequited something? Gloom has its fingers in her hair, at the nape of her neck, and tonight it's hiding in her eyes too. She's wearing trousers that flare out and shoes which are delicate frivolous things: high heels black with a shout (spray) of lace-layers (froth [midnight]) at the back.
Before she finds Nathan and Nathan's guy-he-told-her-about she finds a glass of wine being pressed into her hand. What is this? It is red. Is she supposed to drink it? She is not going to drink it. She is going to give it to Nathan. Where is Nathan?
There is Nathan! Oh, good. With a flash of a smile for somebody she knows (who did not press a glass of wine into her hand), she heads his way and either leans all reckless-reck over a bar counter or over a table to say hello.
NateThe patio is more crowded than the bar is and after she orbits the inside to case the place to try and find the young man who summoned her here Lux has to take herself and her red wine and her gloom's love out into the night again.
Some of the patio patrons are smoking cigarettes. Pot smoke clung to someone's jacket. A chatter taken on its own viability away from the music and the sloshing of ice on metal and the singing of silverware on ceramic. Strings of light between fence-beams that don't look like fireflies unless you're more lit than the bulbs are and it's a nice night outside. Cool with the sun set but not freezing.
They've made it through another June without a snowstorm. Tonight is the night of the solstice.
Nathan and his associate are sitting at a table chaired for two but they could fit three maybe four people around the thing if they tried. The guy he told her about is sandy-haired and bearded. Gets more sun than Nathan does. Outweighs the kid by stones. When he laughs it's a deep-throated laugh and whatever Nathan said right before Lux leans herself over to talk to them was funny enough to beget such a laugh.
She startles Nathan but plenty of things startle Nathan. It's a reflex.
"Hey!" Nate says. They've been here maybe half an hour and his beer is half gone. It may be his first one. The guy he knows either drinks slower or has gone and gotten a second already. "Lux!" He's starting to stand up while his compatriot is sizing her up. Doesn't go slack-jawed and stupid at the sight of this gorgeous woman leaning over Marszalek but he's not blind. "You wanna sit down?"
LuxNathan is startled (chase him) and starts to stand, but Lux braces herself against the table with one hand and with the other waves him down again. Lux is wearing rings and at least one of them is a wicked looking thing, a big clunky spike of a thing, not remotely biker-chic: something modern artsy.
"I'd feel just awful stealing your seat," Lux says, and here's the edge of a smile: it shouldn't be demure and restrained, not with that look in her eyes, a shadow among other shadows, but it is demure regardless. "I'll purloin another; nice word, huh?"
Hear that? - an undercurrent of pleasure. Flick of a glance towards possible victims who're soon going to be chairless but that's a brief thing; attention here.
And Lux sets the wineglass down and says: "For you. Or you?" Look, a big sandy-haired guy who gets a lot of sun. Lux's eyes snick his way first; then she turns more directly toward Mister Guy-I-Told-You-About while she tells Nathan - "Aren'tcha gonna introduce us, Nathan?"
Nate[going to pass the fuck out of this frenzy roll yo]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Nate[ehhhhhhhhhh]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
NateA body can't steal what another body offers up of its own volition but Nathan isn't going to argue with her. If she would feel awful he doesn't want to be the one to make her feel awful so she waves him down and he sits and that's the end of that.
They must have got some quality bonding time in in however long it took Lux to find her way over here. Half an hour is both a short and long time when alcohol is winding the minutes together. You have to have something in common with the person you're drinking away an evening with for the time to seem to fly. Nathan's new buddy is watching him at first and then watching both of them. Solid guy who takes up the entire chair and has his forearms rested on his thighs knees splayed under the table.
Here is a guy who tells people he's a chopper pilot and nobody goes Really? the way people doubtless go Really? when Nathan tells them he's a crime reporter. If he were to tell people he were Special Forces once upon a time nobody would go Really? the way they go Really? when Nathan tells people he was a Marine.
Nathan has a courageous heart but the heart is the deepest best protected organ in the body. He looks like a coward on the outside. He doesn't give too many shits about what he looks like on the outside.
"Yeah, Nathan," says Mister Guy-He-Told-Her-About. Deep voice even when he's not laughing.
"Fuck," Nate says with a laugh. "Dempsey, this is my friend Lux. Lux, this is Brian Dempsey, he only works twenty hours a week and gets paid way too much for it."
"Hey," Brian says with a pointed finger, "what'd I tell you earlier: never ever ever work more than you have to." That's enough ball-busting in front of the lady. He works more like thirty hours a week for the news station and another ten to twenty as a flight instructor. Thank you very much Nathan. He turns to Lux and smiles and that pointed finger becomes an open-palmed offer to shake. "Nice to meet you, Lux."
LuxThe demure edge of her smile had filtered away from her mouth and taken up residence in her eyes around the time of Yeah, Nathan, cue bro moment. Gloom-loved Lux, remember? Adored by. It may be hiding in her eyes, but it isn't hiding around her eyes: tonight Lux's makeup is dramatic smoke (glamour [beguilement]) and her eyes are a more lucent green than Nathan is probably used to seeing. They're witching eyes tonight. They're precious gems, starlight-filtered; see?
Hadn't felt the need to turn her attention from Brian to Nathan the way some people do when somebody else starts speaking, as if a glance was needed to mark them in place, turn the page. Curious observer.
"Good!" Lux says, and of course she straightens to shake Brian Dempsey's hand. Contained energy. Her hand is cool and her grip is firm and the metal of her rings is cold and there's something drawn on the palm of her hand. "I don't mind starting out with a 'nice' as long as there's hope of an 'interesting' down the road. Dempsey, huh?"
A Nathan-inclusive: "I'll be back."
Before she leaves, she raises her eyebrows at Nathan; it is not a secret message, and means nothing except I see you there; hand on the back of his chair before Lux takes herself off to purloin somebody's else's chair. People around tables standing in clusters; she even disappears from sight and she's gone a good three minutes and when she does return she has a chair but also another drink.
Here, Nathan.
NateAnd if they talk about her while she's gone her sharpened ears would find every other thread of talk in the place ratcheted up as well. Eyebrows lifted just before she's gone and Nate flicks his eyebrows in return. Yeah he sees her too. He looks like he's having a good time so far. Doesn't seem as tired as he usually does.
This must be what happens when he hangs out with people with whom he doesn't spend sixty hours a week in the bullpen. With people who don't hate him just on principle. Asshole male that he is. Asshole males tend to run in herds and Nathan so far as Lux can tell prefers to spend his time alone lest he chance spending any of it with someone who's going to annoy the hell out of him.
He hasn't touched the first drink she brought over to him. Beer before wine. There's a rhyme concerning the alchemy of beer before wine. Maybe he'd be fine. He has to finish his beer before he worries about a glass of wine or whatever the hell Lux just brought over.
When the chair comes back with her neither of the men has to move their seat to make room for her. She's small and there's dead space plenty for a third chair. Nate does move glasses though he knows damned well Lux won't drink anything.
"So Lux," Dempsey says as she settles herself down and Nate inspects the newest of the drinks, "you looking to get a pilot's license?"
LuxLux wants her chair in the best position for watching people (who might have stakes or fangs or be part of a pack or be part of a jackass coterie or might just be watching her for reasons that aren't the usual reasons people watch Lux). And that's where she settles it. In spite of her penchant for straddling chairs, she does not do that tonight; she just slouches into it with careless elegance and puts that second drink (what is it? It appears to be something fancy) toward Nathan, nudge, nudge, of her fingers, back of glass clinking against her rings.
Nathan knows damned well Lux won't drink anything. But hasn't he thought what procuring people for a vampire to talk to might mean? Lux has never tried to drink from Nate. Has never made a move on him -- not deliberately.
But she does get thirsty.
"Uh huh. I've got a friend who's taking up skydiving, but what sort of skill is falling out of planes? I've already got an affair going with gravity; it's been nice, but shouldn't one try new things?"
NateThe less Nathan thinks about what Lux and creatures like Lux have to do to get through their nights in order to survive the better he sleeps when he does crawl into bed. He knows damned well. Knows if she wanted to she would have done to him what her friend did once already but she doesn't want to do that to him.
Whatever Lux and Dempsey end up doing later tonight is beyond none of Nate's business. He just wants Lux to be happy.
So he sets back and drinks his beer while the other two chat. It's amusing to him watching other people interact with Lux.
"Sounds more like marriage to me," Dempsey says to the matter of her relationship with gravity. Nate makes a surprised-amused noise and Dempsey laughs at Nate's noise. "Flying, though. Absolutely. Everyone should go up at least once. Totally changes the way you see the world."
"I hate flying," Nate says.
"Yeah, yeah, you hate flying. Greatest achievement of any century ever, and you hate it."
"Come on, the Internet was a way greater achievement than flight."
"If you're a nerd who never leaves the fuckin' house, maybe."
"I am a nerd who never leaves the fuckin' house."
"Nailed it," Dempsey says.
LuxLux is watchful and she seems amused by the back-and-forth. A smirk and an unsaid thing in the back of her throat: sounds like marriage. Pleased, perhaps, to see Nathan in a context different from usual. Spine curled against the chair's back, one elbow resting on the chair's arm (because this is the kind of metal chair that has arms), and any minute now she's going to rest her knee against the table. Comfort is an artform; Lux is art. Isn't she? Decorative in the extreme.
"But how'd it change the way you saw the world? I'm asking to him," Lux indicates Brian with a tip of her sharp little chin, her gaze cutting from Brian back to Nate, "but you can answer too, but about the internet. Shall I judge which is the greatest achievement based on how good your answers?"
Beatific, man: she doesn't sound like she's kidding; she sounds ready to be entertained. Because she is.
[OR IS SHE. I CAN LIE. F' you.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Nate[f' me?!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )
Lux[HAH!]
Nate[how good is dempsey at noticing shit]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Nate"Uh, the Internet gave us streaming pornography," Nate says. He's joking. He's probably been joking this entire time. Hard to tell when he's joking as dry as his sense of humor is but Dempsey laughs now like the reporter is in fact joking. "How can you argue there's anything greater than that."
"Jesus Christ," Dempsey says as he lifts his beer to take a slug.
"You can't."
"I can, and I'm gonna."
"Before the Internet I used to have to hide my porn under my mattress so my little sister wouldn't find it."
"That's not a good spot to hide anything." Dempsey glances over at Lux. Hard to glean the color of his eyes when the only illumination comes from dancing bulbs the size of seeds. Stars overhead half-hid by clouds. "You can change your answer, you know."
"One of us has to answer or she's not gonna let us live it down. A year'll go by and she'll still want to know why flyest is the greatest achievement ever."
"Really?" Dempsey asks. Dubious or impressed or both. He looks over at Lux now. "You don't get an idea of how big the world is until you're off the ground. I'm from Montana, you start out down in the valley looking at the Rockies going 'Yep. Them's some mountains...'" Nate laughs another of those surprised laughs. "... and it's... I'm serious. It isn't until you climb up a ways and you can look down and see for hundreds of miles any way you turn and whatever you've got going on on the ground, it's all pretty insignificant. Because you can see, you know. Your perspective--"
"Horizons," Nate says.
"Yeah, exactly. Broadening of the horizons. And then flying. I mean people complain about flying, but a hundred years ago people were still traveling by train. And even that was a game changer. The fuckin' steam engine?"
"Yeah. But so why's flight a greater achievement than, like, sailing?"
"We didn't put a man on the moon by hoisting sails, bro."
Nate laughs a proper laugh this time.
LuxLux was looking at Nathan with raised eyebrows when Dempsey looked over at her and starts trying to give her a serious answer, but of course a serious answer drags her back and even Nathan's surprised little laugh doesn't sway her from looking. Just looking; see? You know how Lux can look at people: like it's how they want to be looked at; or like she's ready to learn a thing.
"C'mon," Lux says, coaxes, silk-voiced, helpful. Her head is canted, just so; chin lifted slightly. "You can't go bringing the moon into things. Do that, and he can claim the internet's greater because so what if two feet touched the moon the internet lets millions see the pictures. Know what the moon's made of. Know how far away it is. Or he would, if he weren't so fixated on the porn."
Lux stretches her arms up; then folds them back behind her head. The corners of her mouth deepen, shadowling little almost-smile:
"Sorry, Nathan," who she's looking at because she's addressing him, though it's a sidelong sort of glance, "but I expect more of you."
Nate"Why are you sorry? I'm the one talking about porn in mixed company."
It's Dempsey's turn to laugh like he's surprised to find something come out of Nathan's mouth to be funny. Maybe Lux is surprised too. The kid doesn't look as if he smiles ever and when he does smile it looks as if his muscles hurt from the effort. As if it is an effort. Nothing about him doesn't speak of effort. Like just getting out of bed drains him so badly he can't be bothered combing his hair or making sure his clothes aren't wrinkled.
"Besides," says Nate, "they didn't have Internet in the Sixties and people still knew about the moon landing. They've been studying other planets and shit since the Seventies. The Internet didn't become a widespread consumer industry until like... the Nineties."
"So you're saying I'm right."
"I didn't say that at all."
"Sounds like you're saying I'm right."
"Lux," Nate says, like he's trying to issue a call to arms to drag an ally into this before he remembers the point of this exercise. He's not Dempsey's wingman. He's Lux's. Shit.
Dempsey hears the rung-alarm in his tone and laughs more.
"Lux can't help you, man," he says. Nate meanwhile is digging in his pocket to find his e-cigarette. Dempsey ignores him in favor of speaking to the more attractive of the pair. "But no, seriously. Flying. You want to learn. That's cool." He shifts in his chair and takes a quick slug of beer. "Have you ever been in a cockpit before?"
LuxBrian tries to lift the conversation out of the gutter; to lift-off, as it were. But alas, how easy it would be to ground the whole thing. Has Lux ever been in a cockpit before.
Lux raises her elegant eyebrows and rests her elbow on the table and rakes her fingers through her hair, though it starts falling over the side of her face again anyway and she has to re-tuck it back behind one ear. Fluid gesture, fluid fall of gloom, but the important thing is probably the serious eyes coupled with a mouth that wants to twist up.
"Does sneaking into the cockpit of a Fokker Dr.I triplane, you know, a historical replica, grounded but functional! -- does that count for this exercise? I guess," hair falls again, tuck it back, "otherwise I'd have to say no. Oh! No, a man invited me up to the front to give me wings once."
Her smile is beatific. Not sly, but with an edge of curiousity. "How the Hell'd you see your first cockpit?"
Wisp of an accent on 'cockpit.' Lux is French, man. Or is at least a Toreador with a francophile Sire who spent years and years perfecting certain suggestions of location, wiping away her mortal roots, obliterating them.
Hello, Nate. Lux's eyes flick from Brian to Nate; inclusive, though she's not talking to him. Wingman, pfah. She's Nate's wingman.
Lux[Wait. Fuck that. She's not saying 'triplane,' stupid google serving me wrong, she's saying 'Dreidecker']
Nate"Joined the Navy." Nate laughs at this. Good old Navy versus Marines rivalry. Dempsey glances over at him and makes a face that's begrudging in its acceptance of the ball busting. "Laugh it up, Chuckles, y'all didn't swim to Iraq."
That just makes Nate laugh more. It's not entirely out of the question that Brian and Nate smoked pot at some point tonight.
"You know how some kids get this idea in their head of what they wanna do when they're out of school, and they actually do it? I'm not trying to sound like an asshole or anything, but I've always known I wanted to be a pilot. It was the coolest thing in the world when I was a kid and it just gets cooler the more I do it."
"Didn't you want to be an astronaut?" Nate asks.
"Man, I still can be an astronaut," Brian says.
"You're getting a bit long in the tooth, aren't you? Flying a news chopper?"
Pointed change of attention from Nate to Lux and Brian says, "I swear to God." Annoyance feigned. Nate's laugh returned to its normal sedate state.
"The hell's a Dreidecker?" Nate asks.
LuxBrian swears to god. Lux reaches an affectionate hand out to ruffle Nathan's hair.
"Don't you know?" Lux asks, as if surprised. A guileless thing, and isn't she lovely in it? Don't you wanna fall? [True North--hello needles.] "They're those planes with three wings cobbled together, you know, not as good as the biplanes, but so fancy looking -- the Red Baron flew one. Fighter planes from World War I. There was a circus lady, an aerialist, in the 20s named Mitsy Miles who became famous for the stunts she'd do on 'em when they were being flown real low at airshows and the like. Her son helped smuggle one of Dr. Seuss's nephews out of Germany and I guess Oh The Places You'll Go was written for him."
Bullshit or not bullshit? You decide.
"I like the idea," Lux tells Brian, with the air of an aside, "of flying in something that isn't all around me, you know? Something that feels like flying, not sitting on a growly bus."
NateAnd Nathan wrinkles up his nose when she ruffles his hair. Submits to it but he's a grown man. Can't act like he is doing anything other than tolerating affection from a woman other people think to be his sister or his cousin for how unromantic they are with each other. Folks see a man and a woman together and they assume. Dating or fucking or one of them's gay.
Rumor has it that Nathan's gay but then again he was with that photographer and he was with that cop but the photographer died in a car crash and the cop dumped him. Neither of those women serves as proof that Nathan isn't gay. Rumors like that are slow to die once they get going.
The ruffling of the hair is endearing to watch. A woman who can ruffle a man's hair while talking about World War I-era aerialists has to appeal to a certain kind of guy. But Lux didn't really need Nate for this operation. She could beguile a man all by her lonesome.
She likes the idea of flying proper.
"You're looking at the right machine, then," Brian says. "All a chopper really is is a carriage with a couple of rotors keeping it in the air."
"And he wonders why I hate flying," Nate says.
"Rookies hate flying. You're too old for that 'I hate flying' shit."
"Dude, there is nothing about being up in a helicopter that doesn't make me wanna blow chunks. Just thinking about it I kinda wanna blow chunks."
"How many times did you blow chunks before a drop?"
"All of them. Every single time. Fuck helicopters."
That strikes Brian as being pretty funny. Nate doesn't laugh. He drinks his beer like this is serious shit and when Brian stops laughing he says, "Alright, I'll only invite Lux up in the bird, then."
Lux"Is that an invitation? Or are you just batting my hopes and expectations about, cruelest of the cruel?"
- and how is it she manages to be insouciant and serious at once? It's in the juxtaposition of the expression in her eyes and her tone; that curve to her mouth set against that lift of her chin.
And perhaps more gently, afterward, to Nathan: "Are you afraid of swimming, too?"
NateIt takes Brian a second to debate with himself whether or not she's joking. Hard to tell with some people and Lux isn't like the average woman one encounters while out at a bar. Even a place like The Living Room which considers itself hip and trendy and a slew of other adjectives that don't describe Nathan.
"Aw," says Brian, "I would never. Yes. That is an invitation. Would you, Lux, like to come up in the bird with me sometime?"
Nate is just watching. We'll get to how he feels about swimming in a moment.
LuxThere was a time when one could punctuate that kind of question with a scrawl on a napkin or an arm or a hand -- of course one can still do that. Lux does still do that. She likes drawing and writing on other people's skin as much as she likes to be drawn upon and written across. Right now, she takes her phone out and says, "Say, what's your number?"
NateSome folks will argue the Internet is alienating at the same time as it is improving ease and speed of communication. It's a paradox. Who knows what Brian and Nate think about it. They left the Internet behind because Nate wanted to talk about porn instead.
Brian takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time before he gives her his number. The area code is not from around here but then neither is Nathan's. Nathan got his first domestic cell phone contract in North Carolina nine years ago and never changed his number.
So Brian dispenses his and then unlocks his phone. This is a ritual now. One person receives the number and the other receives a text or a call.
"Do that again," Nate says.
"Do what again."
"With the lock screen."
"It's my fingerprint, bro."
"What's your fingerprint?"
"To unlock the phone."
"Whoa. Let me see."
"It's gotta go back to sleep first."
"Why doesn't mine do that?"
"Because yours sucks."
LuxLux has to check, just in case, just in case, to see whether or not she'd missed any messages (oh, just in case, just in case), and she has missed a couple of texts but texts are inconsequential.
Lux sends Brian a text. Lo, her name comes up as x. dubois. The text says: Yes, Brian Dempsey, I would like very much to go up in the bird with you sometime -- even if you are Bryan with a Y and bear me a grudge for the rest of my days.
Will it be exciting?
Because who says one can't have a text conversation while also
resting her chin on her fist and watching the back and forth with green eyes a-gleam, corrosion at the edges just a story one tells when confronted with the shadows.
She hasn't seen Nathan this -- is it relaxed? This relaxed ever -- or perhaps since the first time he picked her up on his motorcycle and they went out to the dam in the dark and he did not try to kiss her.
NateNathan doesn't have very many friends period let alone from work. Most of the guys working at the Post are nearing retirement age if they aren't his father's age and the ones who are his age have children. There's one guy from the sports department who is younger than him but he annoys the ever-loving shit out of everyone on the floor.
Even if he isn't relaxed he's at ease with Brian. Despite the ball busting Brian seems to think Nate is a good guy. They have plenty enough in common but it's easy to like Nate. Easy to love him too but he's also a difficult man to love. Closed-off and mistrustful and frustrating. Brian seems patient and warm. Maybe he has kids. He doesn't have a ring on his finger but that doesn't mean anything these days.
But Brian is nearly a decade older than Nate. He has more life experience and he has a proper career to which he has dedicated his life and he enjoys his life. He is excited to go to work and he's excited to go out to the bar and meet new people. Going out with Nate and meeting Lux has been a good time so far. Nate is having a good time.
He watches as Brian unlocks his phone and says "Whoa" again and then Brian leans back to read the text from the new number and save the thing in his phone.
"You know what drives me nuts?" Nate asks.
"This oughta be good," Brian says. He's typing with his thumbs.
"People who say shit like 'My phone's a piece of shit' and it's like a year old."
"Who says shit like that?"
"You'd want to punch this guy in the face if you met him."
"Oh, it's one of your people."
"He's a sports writer. They're a different species."
"Sounds like a dumbass."
"He is a dumbass."
Brian puts the phone down as he asks, "What are the qualifications for becoming a sports writer, anyway?"
"He's the CEO's son or something, I don't know."
"That's fuckin' lame."
"Tell me about it. He was bitching about his phone not getting any signal in the break room the other day, it's like, 'Dude, you're like twelve stories up and encased in concrete, no shit your reception isn't amazing right now. Go stand by a fucking window or something.'"
Brian laughs. Somewhere in Nate's mild rant came a notification that a text found its way to her phone.
It says:
We're going to be 5000ft in the air cruising at 125mph. No Y, yes exciting.
LuxLux laughs (because of course she does; Lux likes to laugh -- better have fun now, because eternity's too short, enjoy yourself) around the time of You'd want to punch this guy in the face if you met him / Oh, it's one of your people.
"Gee, what else drives you nuts. Say something that's not work related, or I'll think you covet the sports writing position."
Oh, look, a text. Lux keeps her chin cupped in the palm of her hand, elbow on the table, reckless slouch, and while she's listening to Nathan -- eyes snagging briefly and completely on a puff of vapor from his electronic cigarette, or maybe just the cigarette -- she replies.
'cause of course she does.
Fun! Will there be loop de loops? Can a helicopter do loop de loops?
Dyou mind if there's screaming?
Nate"You don't want to hear what else drives me nuts," Nate says.
"I do," Brian says. "You're always so fucking quiet when you're at the station."
"That's because the rest of you are so fucking loud."
"I'm not loud. I'm gregarious."
"You're the loudest motherfucker in the building, dude. I can tell you're gracing the earthbound mortals with your presence all the way out in the parking lot, you're so loud."
That makes Brian laugh. He has a boisterous laugh. Nate puffs on his e-cigarette while Brian picks up his phone to check his messages.
This is the world they live in now. This sort of thing isn't considered rude. People multitask like they were born with phones in their hands. Brian doesn't miss a beat between reading and responding. Even manages to look Nate in the eye for a second as his laughter trails off.
"Yeah well," Brian says, "I'm glad you came out tonight, man. I thought you were gonna puss out on me."
"This was my idea!" Nate says in a tone of profound yet affected offense.
"Terry from production says you pussed out of going on a double date with him and his girl and that chick from OEM."
"What chick?"
"Wanda?" Brian says as he sets down his phone.
"I don't know a Wanda."
"Neither do I. But he says you pussed out."
"Glad we cleared that up." Nate downs the rest of his beer. Lux's phone flashes. "I'm gonna take off."
"What!" Brian says.
"I'm tired."
"You suck."
The AH 64 Apache can pull off rolls and flips no problem but the R44 we've got at the station probably won't. If you want to scream I've got other maneuvers that won't cut the main shaft if I don't keep enough g load on the rotor blades.
Lux[But wait. Are you okay, Nate? HEY, I can read your aura!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Lux"But Nathan, don't you want any of my drinks?"
Because he hasn't touched them. Has he told her that he's trying to drink less? If so, she has forgotten. A graceful little gesture which encompasses them, and she makes a study of Nathan. He's alive and he's warm and she wants to know what colours he is radiant in, now that he's leaving. She has lifted her chin from the palm of her hand, canted her head just so; indicative of (playful? because why not) suspicion.
"You're not going to turn in yet, are you?" Of course that's to Brian, and she pulls her eyes away from Nathan to look at him instead.
NateAnd the emanation surrounding Nathan is not a vibrant thing. He is alive and he is not yet damned or bound. If she were to read him when he was in the midst of a ghost whispering to him Lux would see his aura scramble like the television's reception had gone poor. He would be anxious and he would be distracted during the course of the conversation. His entire life he's been a beacon for ghosts but they still scare him. Of course they scare him. He doesn't understand them.
He doesn't understand people much more than he understands ghosts but Nathan is charming without trying to be so long as he's comfortable in his surroundings.
Depression causes feelings of guilt and hopelessness and sadness in people who have done nothing wrong and for whom nothing in life is wrong. She can detect no guilt or hopeless or sadness in him because he is not guilty or hopeless or sad. He's depressed.
But around the gray of his depression is thin-thin white Lux almost cannot see. Even if he doesn't think he is Nathan is free from moral corruption. He does not hurt people and he does not break laws and he tries not to lie. He isn't a saint and he's done his fair share of sinning but even in this he's innocent.
Nathan wasn't lying. He wants to go home and go to bed. He's tired. He's standing even as Lux is asking if he wants any of her drinks and he gives her a smile that doesn't show teeth. Shows he's tired. But he does smile for her.
"I don't want a DWI," he says. "Make Dempsey drink 'em."
"Wine is gross," Brian says. He doesn't get up. He's not turning in.
"Wine is delicious."
"So sit your ass down and drink it."
He does not sit his ass down and drink the wine. He takes a step closer and bends down to hug Lux. Silver lining: his back used to cause him too much pain for him to bend like that. It doesn't seize up on him now. He's getting better.
"Night, Lux," he says as he hugs her. It's a quick hug. He barely touches her unless she returns the hug.
"Lame," says Brian.
"Night, Dempsey."
"Laaaaame."
Lux[Let's be a Manip + Subt sneak!!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Nate[AW COME ON]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
LuxLux is sitting, slouching, careless, casual when Nathan hugs her, and he is standing and has to come into it from the side or from behind; it doesn't give much space for returning the gesture. Lux puts a hand over his forearm and up to his bicept and that will have to suffice for a return-hug. Cold. No; cool. Cool, with a suggestion of too much time spent outdoors. Lux's hair smells like roses tonight, or apples. Apples and roses.
Nathan knows that she is hiding something when she smiles at him the way she does, eyes wide open and too clear, but not what it is.
"Good night, Nathan."
She watches him go for only a moment; then she says to his friend: "So d'you wanna - " and here. Here's that smile: you know the one, right? The one that's impulse-driven, unplanned a spark. " - see if we can have two different conversations at once? Or maybe you can just tell me about these other maneuvers, the scream-worthy ones."
"Because you lost me at 'cut the main shaft' -- or the 'g load.'"
NateIn another life Nate was a bulky young man used to moving through life with fifty pounds of equipment on his back on a light day. He still carries himself like a man who is used to weighing more than he does but as he walks away Nate looks small. He is not an emaciated thing but he's not as large as he looks clothed. She's seen how small he looks in a hospital bed. Hospital beds make everyone look small. A body doesn't wind up in one unless something has gone wrong. Mortality lingering on the other side of the rails asking how you're doing.
Both Lux and Brian afford him a sliver of attention as he walks away but Brian has no reason to care about him. Nothing supernatural to tell him something's wrong. Nate looks depressed sure but he also looked like he had a good time tonight. At least Brian understands. Brian was deployed too. He's seen combat. He knows guys who didn't make it back.
The moment passes and Lux takes the conversation out of messages and Brian laughs.
"The less the passenger knows about positive weight in a vertical loop situation the better," he says. "Basically, a chopper isn't designed to fly upside down, but it can. A chopper can fly because the rotor blades create what's called vertical thrust. The blades are built to create lift face up, but if the chopper's inverted, the rotors can still do this, the pilot just has to get the blades to create thrust by tilting them down instead of up. It's a dangerous maneuver in a commercial chopper because the rotor blades aren't rigid enough, so a lot of times what happens is if you tilt too far or you hold that inverted position too long, the blades flex too close to the body of the chopper and they rip off their own fuselage and..." Glug. "... down you go."
Lux"Hmm," she says, by way of reply. Lux seems like the kind of young woman (forever, forever) who likes excitement, but there is a difference between thoughtlessly doing something dangerous and thoughtfully doing something dangerous. Lux doesn't lean closer and say, So that's what we're going to try, right? Because she likes to live. Because she has no desire for Brian to prove that he does not or to see how he'd reply. Maybe something that dangerous will be on the menu at some point: who knows?
"So what the heck are we going up in? An AH 64 Apache or the station's R44? Can I ask a question," and she knows she's already asked a number of them. That's not the point; look at her, all a-lean now, all a-conspiratorial.
What question she asks isn't important. Lux has a lot of questions. She's a good conversationalist; likes drawing people out (for her own entertainment [but isn't that entertaining?]), likes seeing what they're passionate about and basking in that glow, likes learning new things; likes being around people as often as she likes to be alone.
Brian's a good way to forget for a while; a wishing well, fling a coin in and don't think about tension. Lux: likes to play games.
Likes to have fun.
At some point maybe Brian makes a move and maybe they go who knows where and without a doubt she Kisses him, so sweetly, leaves him light-headed but why wouldn't he be? A creature like Lux. Tonight, Lux doesn't make the first overture. Her thoughts are elsewhere.
Maybe he doesn't make a move. Maybe when Lux departs it's because she gets a call. No firm promises, just: I don't want to wait instead of I can't wait to go flying!
The nights are tuning her like a string, taut enough to snap and sing out-of-key when she does.
She doesn't think about Nathan and his halo of gray, gray like a fog, gray like asphalt, gray like dirty pools of water reflecting steel, gray like a cat, gray like a sock lost on the road, gray like sneakers abandoned -- not until later. She doesn't think about him until tomorrow night.
And when she does, she keeps her thoughts to herself.
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