hadriel | first; voice (when useless dreaming comes to an end, who will carry all your fears?)

[Nick makes a sound almost like a laugh - or it would be, except there's no mirth in it at all.]

Yup, that sounds about right. And watch out if she starts adding in the middle name, too. Then you're in big trouble.

[For Nick, that usually signified a hard slap was what was coming her way next, especially if her mother was drunk, as she usually was.]

I usually didn't get the middle name thing; I think my first was long enough and I was one of those goodie-two-shoes kids.

[The super lame kind that was always like 'but should we do the thing' yet could easily be dragged into misbehaving anyway by friends as long as they didn't get caught. Speaking of being kids, he's kind of wondering...]

Is it uh... Is it cool to ask how old you are?

[He knows that can be a touchy thing with girls.]

I'm 19, so I've only been on my own like a year and a half.

Oh, one of those, huh?

[But there's a grin behind how she says that, teasing.]

My best friend in high school was like that - straight As, squeaky clean. Nobody could ever figure out what he was doing hanging out with little ol' trash-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks me. His parents hated me - probably still do, actually.

[And, really, she's fine with that. Fuck them for thinking she wasn't good enough to be friends with their precious son.]

Yeah, that's fine, you can ask. [She actually laughs a little at how carefully he asks.] I'm not one of those fussy girls who can't stand the idea of someone knowing their real age or whatever. And I'm twenty-five. Almost twenty-six. Shit, I dunno, with how long I've been here, maybe I missed my birthday. Not that I'd be doing anything special for it anyway, but - you know. Not freezing to death would be nice.

[Never a scenario she's considered, since her birthday is during the summer.]

Damn. You're not even old enough to legally drink. That sucks.

Yeah, yeah, one of those.

[His tone is similarly amused; this is easily one of the most normal conversations he's had in awhile, and it's kind of nice to pretend everything isn't horrible for a bit.]

I think it'd be pretty boring if your friends were like, exactly like yourself, you know? My best friend and I were totally different.

[Are totally different? Which tense is right, here? He doesn't know and doesn't want to dwell on it.

And okay, good, he had thought she'd probably be okay with it, but he knows better than to assume that sort of thing.]

Ah, cool. I figured if you've been working for awhile you were older than me but who knows in this place.

[And some people do start working really young, so. Her comment about possibly missing her birthday makes him kind of curious, though--]

Do you think time here like... Counts? For birthdays and all that?

Yeah, but thankfully Canada's drinking age is eighteen.

[Not that he drinks much after last year, but still. It's the principle of it.]

So if you're the good twin, does that make your best friend a troublemaker?

[The cheer drops noticeably from her tone by the time she gets to talking about her friend, though.]

Yeah ... but you gotta have something in common, I guess. Something that sticks. Me and Andy ... I dunno, I guess we were both misfits back in Winchester, but once we got to Chicago, that wasn't enough.

[And it stings more than she'd like to admit. Andy was her best friend for more than a decade; she couldn't imagine her life without him, until a few months ago, when they had their final fight and she left town.]

Anyway ... I've been working since I was sixteen, just not at a bar, obviously. People always had trouble guessing my age, though. They either thought I was older when I was a kid, or they think I'm younger now. Here, hang on a sec ...

[She fiddles with the device for a moment, then switches it over to video, with the camera turned on her. She gives him a half-sarcastic wave.]

Hey. So this is me.

[She shrugs by way of reply to the question about birthdays.]

I dunno, I mean - it's time, right? You get older every day. But it's not like we've got calendars and shit here. So who knows. It was almost May back in Vancouver. Now it's fucking snowing, so it must be winter?

[He doesn't miss the change in her tone, partially because his does the same won the same subject.]

I guess you could say that.

[Josh is--was?--definitely more of a troublemaker, especially after everything that happened before they came here, but... It's not quite that simple, at the same time. More things he doesn't want to think much about, so he focuses on what Nick said instead.]

It uh... It sounds like something happened?

[With her and her friend. His comment is an invitation to say more if she wants, but easy to dismiss if not.

When she switches over to video he does the same, offering a small smile of greeting. He definitely would've guessed her to be closer to his age than mid-twenties, though he's never been all that great at judging ages.]

Everyone usually thinks I'm older than I am, probably because I'm tall.

[Hurray for early growth spurts. Being nearly six feet tall in high school definitely helped ward off any potential bullying for being a huge nerd.]

I guess you're right, though you'd have to count just the time since yeah, I think the seasons are all off. I mean, not that it's all that clear since it really shouldn't be snowing underground no matter what season it is, but yeah.

[Nick looks down from the camera as she thinks about Andy, jaw taut.]

Not much to say, really. I guess we just grew apart. We're from different worlds, y'know? He's really smart, gonna be an architect once he's finally done with school. I'm just a girl who mixes drinks for a living. Shit, I almost didn't even finish high school.

[Not because she isn't smart too, but because she lacked encouragement, until she befriended Andy. She was angry at the world and didn't care about conforming to societal expectations of what she should be doing with her life. She brushes a bit of hair off her face, looking up at the camera again.]

Sorry ... I don't usually talk about myself this much. No one cares, y'know? It's usually the other way around anyway, people telling me their sob stories over a beer or whatever.

[The way she says no one cares is factual, not self-pitying. She honestly believes this, that she just isn't that important; there's a callousness cultivated by long years of choosing to believe this rather than allow herself to be hurt over and over by believing otherwise.]

[He's quiet while she talks, watching her expression, his own sympathetic even though he doesn't understand what that's like; not exactly anyway. He's never just grown apart from someone he was really close to; some friends, sure, but not the people that meant the most to him. Those bonds were only ever broken suddenly, through death or betrayal or both.

Chris shakes his head a little at the apology, offering another small smile.]

Hey, well, at the risk of sounding like we're in a shitty Lifetime special, that's not true here okay? Good thing you get along with rule-following nerds, because now you're stuck with me.

[You've been officially friended, Nick, because feeling alone is probably the worst thing that can happen when everything is going wrong around you, and being in this place is definitely wrong. He can't imagine being here without friends, let alone no one he even knows.]

[Nick laughs, a touch hysterical - not an unkind laugh, because she's not laughing at him, just laughing as an overwhelmed response to the absurdity of everything, this whole stupid situation. This place is wrong, all of it, but - there's something so normalizing about everything Chris is saying and has said. And as much as she's hesitant to admit it, even to herself, she's grateful for it.]

You know, I think most of the people here don't even know what TV is. How fucking weird is that? I mean, obviously there's like, Third World countries with starving children and shit, but - it's different, actually talking to people who don't have any idea what you're talking about, y'know? Shit.

[She chews at the nail on her index finger for a moment. She really could use a cigarette.]

I'm stuck with you, huh. Well, Chris, I feel better about dying a horrible death in this shithole, anyway.

[She sounds flippant about it, but there's a thanks somewhere in there, too.]

[Chris grins a little at the laughter; it doesn't seem exactly like happy laughter, but it's still something. In this place and situation, laughing for any reason is probably a good thing.

When she explains it makes sense; though he hasn't run into that problem much so far, he understands the feeling in a different way. Being here was--and still is--utterly surreal, especially after everything that went down right before he and his friends arrived here.

Her last comment earns a small laugh of his own, subdued but with an edge of that same underlying sense of it's crazy this is the situation they're in, and that he can say what he's about to say.]

Well, if it makes you feel any more better I'm actually one for one on surviving shitholes full of monsters. Not counting this particular shithole, I mean.

Edited 2016-01-01 06:28 (UTC)

[And that's ... well, it doesn't sound like a joke. So is he actually serious about that, surviving monsters? It sounds crazy, but considering where they are ... maybe it's not. Nick only ever know of monsters in a metaphorical sense before Vancouver, before that thing attacked her and she too became an actual monster.

Because that's what she must be, she thinks. Some of the other Nightbane she met looked unusual - Graham, for example, took on the form of a giant golden retriever - but more often, they looked like how Nick looked when she transformed, frightening and as far from human as could be.

She's instantly sober.]

You're serious about that? The surviving monsters thing, I mean.

Yeah.

[He's a little quieter than before, but there's no uncertainty in his words.]

We were uh... I told you that my friends and I were all at the lodge on the mountain in Canada for our vacation thing, and that the tradition's probably kind of over now? It's because we got attacked by monsters.

[And other reasons, but even if the others hadn't happened the monsters would be enough.]

We'd just made it out of that whole thing like, an hour before I woke up here.

Well ... shit.

[Nick nervously chews on her fingernail again. It's clear that people come here from different places; as weird as that still is for Nick to think about, she's accepted it as truth anyway. But ... Canada. Monsters. Maybe not the same part of Canada, but it's still one hell of a coincidence.]

What kind of monsters? Was it like ... you were being stalked? Someone leaving you roses, or some other kind of fucked-up little presents?

[That's an awfully specific question, which he files away for a moment to ask about later, but just shakes his head in response for now.]

They were uh... We know what they were. Wendigos. Like... Stretched out grey people with huge teeth and claws and shit, and they're super fast and strong.

[They're really horrible creatures, and he has to kind of not think too much about them while he talks.]

They were probably smart enough to leave weird presents or whatever, but that wasn't part of their thing.

[A short pause.]

Were there monsters where you're from that do that?

Edited 2016-01-01 23:30 (UTC)

[Her eyes widen as she listens. Fast and strong - that tracks. But Nightbane are as varied in appearance as people, no two exactly alike. So that's different.

Nick hasn't talked about Nightbane much since she first Became, except with Graham and the others like her. She's shown herself in her monstrous form to a couple people here, once to pick a fight with some asshole kid in a shop, the other while helping fight off a yeti. And maybe it's because Chris reminds her of Andy, and maybe because she's been talking about Andy, too, but she's suddenly overcome with a wave of mixed sadness and outrage, because she's had to white-knuckle her way through the last few months without him, and it's still a raw, exposed nerve for her, the fact that he gave up on the two of them, decided she wasn't worth making space for in his life anymore.

And maybe that's why she decides to tell Chris about this. Because keeping it a secret locked away inside of her makes her feel hollow, more empty than she even feels in her doll form, when she is a void surrounded by a frangible porcelain shell.]

Yeah ... [She nods, frowning.] Yeah, but they weren't called wendigos. The thing that attacked me, it had a ton of piercings all over its face, and it oozed blood when it talked.

[That sounds... Pretty horrifying, really.]

I'm sorry, that's... Monsters fucking suck.

[It's so an understatement, but he's pretty sure the sentiment is the important part. It's kind of reassuring on some level to know that the sort of thing that happened at home happens other places as well, but mostly he wishes it didn't. No one deserves to go through any of that.

Something she says stands out to him, though, and he has to ask...]

It talked? What did it say?

[Wendigos don't talk, unless they're parroting something a human's said.]

It called me by my name.

[Nicky Nick Nick. She still remembers the horrible way its voice sounded, rolling her name out of its bleeding mouth, the way it scuttled toward her with a crazed look in its rolling eyes. Nick squeezes her eyes shut and shivers.]

Said it was gonna fuck me up, take my knife and cut me open. It had - a rose, it threw it at me. It'd been leaving roses for me, at the hostel where I was staying when I first got to Vancouver.

[Her head drops, and she rakes her fingers up through her hair.]

It was following me for a while.

That's super fucked up.

[Like seriously, what the hell. The wendigos were smart and violent and horrific but nothing they did was personal, they were just hungry; he'd gotten a fair share of creepy, stalkery attention from a different threat on the mountain, but that's more than a little different from it being from a monster.

He wants to ask what happened, and if she got away from it or just ended up here right in the middle of things--like Sam did--or something else, but it feels wrong to ask. He'll just leave it up to her to continue or not.]

I know, right? [She laughs bitterly, picking her head back up to face the camera again.] I mean, I've had some creepy, weird fuckers try to follow me home from the bar, but this ...

[She shakes her head, at a loss for the words to describe just how fucked up that was.]

Lemme tell you, anyone ever tells you to go check out Stanley Park, you should probably punch 'em in the face. I mean, I got away, obviously. But going back? No thanks.

[It's not exactly a lie. She did get away, but only because another Nightbane named Jaqueline intervened and succeeded in knocking Nick's attacker unconscious. Still. Nick feels a tiny twinge of guilt over not coming completely clean. Chris has been nothing but nice to her, with no real reason for it. And he's been through a trauma too.

But she can't help thinking that because he's dealt with monsters before, he might not be as nice to her if he found out she's one of them.]

Edited 2016-01-02 03:46 (UTC)

I have no idea where that is, but yeah. I will totally avoid it, even if we're from completely different worlds.

[Which... Could or could not be the case. He hates to think there are other horrible supernatural creatures out there elsewhere in his world, but why would it be just wendigos? What would make them so special as to be the only legend that's real?]

You should probably like, try not to go near Blackwood Mountain either. Just in case.

[He wouldn't have taken her reveal too badly, all things considered, but it's still probably for the best that she holds off for now.]

It's a big park up in Vancouver. Lots of huge, old trees.

[She smiles sharply, rubbing at her temple.]

Trust me, if I get outta this place, I'm staying as far the fuck away from Canada as I can get. Who knows, maybe I'll give LA a shot. Not like I've got anywhere else to be.

[As homesick as she feels for Chicago, it's still too weird to think about going back. She's spent too many years there, with Andy, and Kennedy too, and it's a big city, but there are still too many ghosts waiting for her around corners and down darkened alleys.]

Edited 2016-01-03 18:57 (UTC)

Staying out of Canada sounds like a plan, actually.

[He'll probably do the same for the foreseeable forever; his only reasons to return to the country are pretty gone now, after all.]

You should; at least LA is warm like, all the time. I'm pretty over snow at this point.

[Nick laughs weakly.]

Yeah ... I always feel like winter in Chicago's never gonna end, but it always does, eventually. It just takes forever, and it feels even longer when you're right in the middle of it, y'know? This kinda feels the same.

[Except maybe this winter really will last forever - or until they all die, it's more or less the same thing.]

I think it's the waiting for it that makes it feel like it takes so long, or something like that.

[He knows that the night on the mountain had definitely been the longest night of his life; it's hard to believe everything happened in only ten hours. Coming straight from it to this place, and even more now that it's snowing here too, just makes it feel like it's all been one long event.]

Yeah ... like when it's busy at work, the time goes by pretty quickly. But when it's slow, it just drags on forever. All that waiting. You'd think these assholes could at least give us a book to read or something.

[That's what she did, when work was slow - read, or sometimes write in the journal she kept in her purse, things she never let anyone read.]

Though I guess that would spoil their fun of watching us suffer.

first; voice (when useless dreaming comes to an end, who will carry all your fears?)

[Voice] - cw mention of physical abuse + alcoholism

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