It's been close to a month, and Nate hasn't heard much from Molly Toombs the E.R. nurse at all.
She'd texted him occasionally, called him once after the time he came over to check out the haunted apartment above her head to express that the sounds still occurred from time to time, but someone else moved in and things seemed to have quieted down for the time being. But then, somewhere in mid-September, she stops reaching out. He may have his own things going on too, and when October hits Nate might start to question whether Molly Toombs walked among the living still or not.
It's confirmed one day, around 11:00am, when Molly calls him. The line rings a couple times, but it answered before it has a chance to go to voicemail.
"Nate! Hey, long time," she greeted casually. It's abrupt, that he got this phone call right out of nowhere, though, and she cuts to the chase relatively quickly.
"Look, I have work tonight and some errands to run beforehand, and I'll bet you have your own thing going on too. So I'll be quick: We should meet up, catch up, you know?
"But not at my place. And probably not around a lot of people. ....And definitely during the daytime. Can we make this happen?"
Nate Marszalek
When he picks up she can hear the frenetic chatter of a newsroom in the middle of the day. Phones are ringing and someone is shouting at someone else and about four televisions are tuned to four different stations and Nate clears his throat out of habit or maybe just to assure himself that he still has a voice in the midst of all of that and then she has him:
"This is Marszalek."
Should have looked at the caller ID more closely than he did. Her voice has gone distant from him and she can hear a background-volume yawn as he takes the phone away from his head to glance the screen for her not introducing herself. Says her name like he's surprised to hear from her. She has work tonight and errands. So on and so forth.
By the time she gets through her list of conditions the background noises have receded. A heavy metal door whines as he pushes through it. Dead silence in the background and he sounds like he's standing at the bottom of a well.
"What happened?"
At least daytime means she's still human. Or... nah man that doesn't mean shit she could be worse off than they are by now.
Molly Toombs
The bustling noises in the background told Molly that she caught him at work. She didn't have much trouble separating the noise pollution from his voice, though, and did a fine job of shutting it out so that she could hear herself talk and make sure her sentences were coming across okay.
He picked up on the underlying current of what she was trying to say. Her tone wasn't forcibly sunshiny, it was casual instead. But, still, the cue of 'definitely during the daytime' was impossible to miss and Nathan had the presence of mind to take the conversation elsewhere. By the time she'd finished speaking there was a whining hinge of a heavy door and the background noise was gone.There wasn't much happening on Molly's end of the line. Nate might've heard the rustling noise of paper scraping across paper as she turned a page in a book, but other than that all was quiet. That was the beauty of living alone in your apartment.
Nate Marszalek
She cannot see the reporter standing with his back to the joint of two ugly yellow concrete walls and an eye on the bulletproof-glass portal that peers from the stairwell into the elevator vestibule. Cannot see how he flaps his tie up and down against his midsection and tongues the back of an incisor as he runs through the conditions and the possible topics she could want to discuss.
No reason to ask why they can't discuss it right this second. Their lives were complicated even before they met and now that she's started researching and he's started digging eyes are on them. Ears. Bugs. For all they know someone is listening in right now. A record will exist of her calling him around 11:00am this day and the days are shortening.
Nate sighs and she can hear him sigh. Footfalls on the concrete. He's descending.
"I am now." He's never going to quit smoking at this rate. "There's a Chinese restaurant on Twelfth, between Elizabeth and Clayton. North side of the street. Meet me outside and we'll go somewhere else."
All those years of aiming a camera at Marine troops engaged in urban warfare is starting to pay off. If he can't get himself and one other person from a public place to a secure location in broad daylight without tipping off someone who wants to kill him then he probably deserves to die.
Either she agrees or she counters his offer but either way: he goes outside to smoke a cigarette and the call ends.
---
Saturday arrives. He's there before she is, wearing sunglasses despite the lack of sun and dragging on a Marlboro Light while he loiters outside. He's actually run a comb through his hair today. Must be part of the disguise. Ignore the fact that his hair has the disposition of a state hospital inmate and does whatever it wants even with the fine-toothed attempt at order. The rest of his outfit consists of thick jeans and a maroon henley and black leather boots to match the jacket and when Molly joins Nate he coughs and puts the cigarette into the butt stand outside the restaurant.
When last they properly saw each other he was sat on her couch and reassuring her after the encounter with the apartment upstairs. Handing her a small load of bullshit about how old buildings are drafty and there wasn't anything there and denying that he'd heard anything in the kitchen when he'd clearly heard something she hadn't heard and it had startled him. By now she's come to the conclusion that the damned place was haunted and she doesn't have to reach very far to speculate that Nathan can sense the dead but they've got enough on their plate now without tackling the fact that the reporter may or may not be a medium on top of being a pain right in a certain undead man's ass.
"Our options are my place or a bar," he says before she has a chance to greet him. "You didn't specify how many drinks this called for."
Molly Toombs
Molly was compliant. She didn't have any better ideas, and his was as good as any.
"I'll see you then."
"I'll see you then."
There's a pause, like she's going to say something else, but she changes her mind (a quiet sigh) before disconnecting the call.
---------------
---------------
It's Saturday, and the weather is just as cool and wet as it has been the last couple of days. Molly is dressed in a pair of black leggings, brown boots that climb up her calves, and a red peacoat that she has buttoned up. There's no earmuffs or scarf or gloves, though-- it wasn't quite that cold yet. Her dyed-dark hair was pinned back and her make-up was the same as usual-- eyebrow pencil, mascara, blush, the end. Nathan had been there long enough to start working on a cigarette, and he snubbed it out in the stand provided just outside of the Chinese restaurant that he'd told her to meet him in front of.
She looked healthy enough, in a glance over her as she approached. She hasn't lost weight, her skin was just as bright as it had been previously. She didn't have unreasonable circles under her eyes, she didn't move lethargically or cover her neck. As far as he is able to tell, she hasn't fallen victim to anyone yet.
She looked healthy enough, in a glance over her as she approached. She hasn't lost weight, her skin was just as bright as it had been previously. She didn't have unreasonable circles under her eyes, she didn't move lethargically or cover her neck. As far as he is able to tell, she hasn't fallen victim to anyone yet.
When she reaches listening-distance, before she can greet him, he counters by expressing what their options are. She raised her darkened eyebrows at him, but her expression switched easily enough to a smile (small, with closed lips, but genuine at least) and a hand slipped out of her pocket to pat his upper arm a few times before returning to the warm safety of her coat.
"Your place," she answers, and something about the underlying tone hinted at a duh!.
"There's just fewer ears that way, I figure. It doesn't have to be nighttime to be listened in on."
Nate Marszalek
The darkness of his sunglasses conceals the path his eyes take as she approaches him but that doesn't mean Molly cannot feel the weight of it on her face and then on her neck before he kills the cigarette. For all he knows she will be the next person to fall off the radar or start behaving in a manner that causes him to start asking questions.
One day he's going to stop asking questions. He'll either have fallen into the same inescapable hole that has swallowed up the rest of them or he'll be a body instead of a person.
Her hand finds his arm solid underneath the suppleness of the leather but it has absorbed the damp chill of the day. At the touch Nate peels himself off the brick wall and pushes his hands into his pockets. Suppresses a smile at the ya think? implication beneath her words and jerks his chin towards the northwest intersection. They're heading that way.
"True," he says.
So they start walking. They have to truck several blocks on foot but Molly prefers to travel on foot and pedestrian traffic gives them a cloak against anyone who might be watching them. Nate walks close to her and glances around more often than he keeps his eyes aimed forward. On the way they may speak of inconsequential things. Work. Work gives them plenty enough to talk about for as much intersection occurs between her profession and his.
His apartment building sits back from the street but it looms several stories up. Front door serves as an airlock for two locked doors standing between themselves and the lobby and he takes her into the elevator instead of up the stairs. They travel nine stories before reaching his door and Molly can hear the codependent cries of a growing kitten as the key engages with the lock.
"Alright, you maniac," he says to the ginger kitten as she charges at his ankles. Crouches down to scoop her into his arms and she lays against his shoulder to peer out at the wild world beyond the front door. No notion of what she's missing but she starts to purr as soon as she's settled. "Say hi to Molly, you little shit."
The kitten keeps purring. He shuts the door behind them. The door opens into a kitchen and the kitchen looks out into the living room. An island and no carpet. The place looks like a bachelor lives here but at least it's clean. Books and electronic equipment overrunning the furniture but stools flank the island countertop. A few dishes in the sink but he grabs two clean ones out of the cupboard and finds a bottle of whiskey all with his one free hand.
"So..."
Molly Toombs
Oh the walk across several blocks, Molly and Nate did a fine job of looking normal, blending in, and vanishing amid a crowd of other humans out and about during the lunch rush of a weekend day. They talk about work and other common things. Nate's eyes keep looking this way and that, more than where he's headed, but Molly's eyes stay forward or up on the side of Nate's face from time to time as they speak.
Soon enough they're at his apartment, having ridden the elevator up, and moving inside.
The kitten that charges Nate's ankles and gets scooped up to his shoulder delights Molly, of course. Who doesn't love kittens, after all? He told the 'little shit' to say hi to her, and the kitten purred happily. Molly smiled, the expression bright on her face, and reached out to scratch at the top of the little animal's head with one fingernail. Then that moment passed and they both moved inside of the apartment so the door could close behind him.
The place looked about what Molly would expect from a single man living alone. A little cluttered, maybe, in that things like electronics and books crowded most available surfaces. There were stools at the kitchen counter, though, and Nate was already in the kitchen getting glasses to drink from. So Molly shrugged her peacoat off, revealing a loose-fitting white T-shirt underneath with a big black sugar skull design on the front. The coat was set wherever seemed best, and she sat down on one of the stools.
If the kitten had been relinquished, you know that she scooped it up against her full (but typically well-covered) bust and gave it ample scritchies and cuddles. Even while she answered the 'so' with something dark, blunt, and straight-forward.
"Whatever digging you're doing into this Flood guy? It needs to stop-- pronto. He knows that you're sniffing around and he's not happy with it."
Nate Marszalek
It didn't take much coaxing for Nate to give up the tiny ball of fluff. She's nearly four months old by now and Molly can tell that she's healthy and happy if a bit skinny. In amongst the single male paraphernalia are plastic jingly balls and stuffed mice and other random toys meant to keep Lucifer occupied when he's at work. A thick graduate-level textbook sits on the island beside piles of printed-out articles and errant highlighters.
As Nate fixes glasses of Jameson the kitten chews on Molly's hair and finds her chest much more comfortable than Nate's. He's still wearing his jacket and doesn't take off his sunglasses until Molly starts in with the purpose of their clandestine talk. The earpieces click against the countertop before he starts to pour golden-warm fluid into two small juice glasses.
"Yeah, well," he says, "maybe he should've thought about that before he grabbed me by the hair and bit my neck. If anyone should be not happy it's me."
Clunk, says the improvised highball glass as he sets it down in front of her.
Molly Toombs
The little ginger kitten chewed at hair that used to be ginger enough to match, but hasn't been for a long time now (Molly's been coloring her hair dark since her second year of college). Molly was content to let this happen, because the little bundle was warm and cute. So, when the glass was set down in front of her, Molly situated herself so she could support the kitten on top of the shelf that her chest created with one hand and reach for the whiskey with the other.
Nate expressed that Flood should've thought about that before he bit the reporter.
Molly answers this with the sharpest look that he's seen from her to date.
Her eyes were the sort of blue that was identifiable as such, but failed to strike or impress heavily. They're clear and cool now, though, as she casts him that look. It's a warning-- a clear don't fuck around with this if he's ever seen one before. The grim line that her mouth pulls into for that moment only supports the meaning behind the gaze.
"What do you think you'll accomplish though?" She lifted the glass, tipped the edge of it in his direction in a gesture of thanks, then took a small drink. A second was allowed to pass, to take the burning from her throat along with it, before she continued. "You dig and find some stuff about him-- maybe where he's from, who his parents are, a birth record or copy of some business certificate or who knows what... ...but then what?"
The bottom of the glass clinked lightly onto the counter top, but her fingers stayed about it. "They have their ways, Nate, and I'm worried he's going to feel so inclined to find one to remove you from the picture entirely. I don't want to see that happen."
Nate Marszalek
He has turned on no lights since they walked in but the place is not dark. Big south-facing windows let in all of the daylight the outside world has to offer. Not much but enough for the nurse to form a general impression of her host's health. Sleep deprivation as prevalent now as it was when they met but the shadows beneath his dark eyes are etched into his bones now and he moves the way victims move through recurring nightmares. Slow and without hope or escape.
No despair in him though. He's just tired and resigned to being tired. He was a Marine for longer than he was a crime reporter.
The sight of that stupid cat tucked into the nearest stable nook in Molly's lap has him smiling a genuine tooth-baring smile for the first time that she can recall in recent memory. When she lifts her glass to give a silent toast he mirrors the gesture and takes a stiffer swallow than she did. If anything has changed in him lately it is the frequency with which he drinks and the heft with which he does it.
For what it's worth Nate does not have a litigator's heart. Wherever his passion lies is a quiet place where it whiles away its hours without disturbing other people and as Molly speaks he leans against the opposite counter and holds onto his glass. At least his eyes stay on her. He listens.
And then something shifts in him. His expression and posture remain the same but:
"How does he know what I've been doing?"
Molly Toombs
Nate looked worse for wear than Molly did. The worst he'd seen her was the night he'd come over to help investigate the strange noises in the apartment over hers. She looked like she wasn't getting enough sleep then. She was more pallid than usual, and it made her freckles stand more prominent on her cheeks at the time. She moved reluctantly, not unlike how he did now, and seemed to have things plaguing her mind at any given moment. Now, though, in the time that's passed since they last saw each other face to face, she was looking better. She'd found a rhythm to her daily routine once more, was eating regular and healthy, and had even gotten into the habit of jogging (though she wouldn't work out heavily enough to lose the padding that provided her with those womanly curves-- she'd rather have a bit of a belly than lose the right to be called 'voluptuous').
There was also a fire to her now. A sense of purpose that Nate could pick up on, though what that purpose was, it's difficult to pin down exactly. He can hear it, though, in the firm conviction that she spoke with when she warned him to back off of Flood's case.
He asked how Flood could know what he's been doing. Molly frowned a little and shook her head, a clear indication that she didn't have the answer he was looking for before she even opened her mouth to speak.
"They have their ways," she said again. "There's more to this... world... all of this new than just simple biology. They do more than drink blood and use it to sustain themselves-- it's not just a biological process. There's magic too." She took another drink, then set her glass down so she could tug her hair away from the kitten's mouth and tuck it back behind her ears, then dedicate both hands to a full-body series of gentle scratches and rubs of ears and paws. Molly didn't have any pets at home, and she didn't have friends whose houses she visited often. Getting the opportunity to play with a housepet was seldom, so she took advantage of the chance while it was there.
"I know you'll rationalize, think I've gone off the deep end, or that they've 'gotten' me or brainwashed me or something. But I've seen it.
"They say they can wipe your memory if they want to. Or they can force you to say yes and volunteer for shit that you wouldn't have normally-- they can make you walk your ass quietly into that good night, and all you'd be able to do is scream inside your own head.
"I don't know how he knows what you've been doing. But he does. And I got put under his thumb for talking to you about him in the first place. So I should let you know now, I very much need you not to go talking about our conversation today, okay?"
Nate Marszalek
Tiny baby claws knead happy-harmless into the fabric covering Molly's thighs and if she looks down at the kitten she can see her eyes are threaded shut with the attention from a soft person. The kitten is safe and welcome here and her ass-tearing towards the door is evidence enough that she loves her person and cheers at his return home but if Molly got the impression that the kitten seeks more attention than Nate freely gives she would not be wrong.
Nate and full-grown cats have similar dispositions. This cat is still growing and gives him a reason to come home at night. She'll starve or spend the night crying alone in the dark if he doesn't get his ass home after class or in the midst of his marathon article-writing sessions at the office. That night Lux brought him back hypovolemic and shivering she had hidden away from the monster-woman until the door had shut and then she'd found his sternum.
She's a good cat but she can't keep her person from doing stupid shit.
Stood against the counter as he is Nate has his arms out at acute angles so he looks as if he's propping himself up. He is not leaning though. Looks as if he's leaning but standing like this helps him stretch out his back without drawing attention to the fact that it's tightening up on him. He'd told Molly about a roadside bomb taking him out of service two years ago but that information was buried the moment they walked over the threshold of the apartment upstairs from her.
Feels like a lifetime ago that that happened and for as much fear as she'd felt that night Molly looks hale and young and free for all that she's come back with since then. They are the same age and they both look their age but they stand on opposite shores.
At mention of magic Nathan raises his eyebrows but that is the only indication that he doubts this. Nothing stains his eyes and the muscles around them do not move and his mouth is still. Supposedly lifted eyebrows mean to indicate that the person is absorbing the information and not pushing it away. Frowns are defensive. That Nate doubts instead of deflecting means his mind is open but if he threw himself at this new world the way that Molly does he'd be dead by now. Molly has an adventurer's spirit. She seeks something she can never find. Truth and Nate are bedfellows but something holds him back.
"Okay," is all he has to say to her request. He takes another stiff drink of the Jameson and flinches against it. There's that frown now. He rubs one side of his face with his ringless left hand and blows out a hot breath as he stares at her. "Molly, I talked to one person about what's going on. The guy who was there the night this guy--Flood? The night Flood attacked me. I didn't use your name. I didn't even mean to bring it up, I'd met up with him at a bar one afternoon after Flood attacked me and hadn't seen him around for a while so I thought--"
He's not saying this to cover his own ass. He's saying this to try to make sense of things that don't make sense aloud.
"He told me he quit drinking, is why I hadn't--" He slams down the rest of his drink and confers with the empty glass in silence before looking back over at her. "I don't think you've gone off anything. Alright? I believe you."
Molly Toombs
He agrees to comply with her request for silence.
Good, is what her face says.
He then goes off explaining where he's pretty sure this information leak came from. There was a man there at the park the night that Nate had his blood taken away, and Nate had touched base with him. He hadn't seen him around for a while, and that he quit drinking, and-- well, it seems that he may be connected to the vampire that's been half-courting, half-laying claim to Molly from the shadows and occasional drop-ins. That would explain it. He hadn't mentioned Molly's name, but if he'd mentioned her at all-- by age, appearance, style, profession... Anything like that could've been traced to her, and Flood could've made an assumption that turned out correct.
She wasn't going to put him at fault for this slip necessarily. How was he to know? And, at the end of the day, no harm came from it. Just a tight moment in a chair at a ritzy club that you had to dress nicely for. Then that passed, water under the bridge, thank goodness. Well, for the time being anyways.
He said that he believed her when she said magic was real too, and she nodded her contentment with this. The kitten kneaded at her thighs through the leggings she wore, and Molly didn't mind-- the pinpricks of little needle claws weren't that bad with so little pressure. Her hand stopped scratching and rubbing and petted the kitten's back absently now. She took another drink of her whiskey and sucked the flavor from her teeth.
"Good, I hoped you would. Means you believe me when I tell you I'm sincerely worried that you're going to end up with a vampire in your bedroom while you're asleep, and that'll be the end of you. All because you're snooping and got caught on to."
There's weight to her gaze, to the cant of her eyebrows, when she looks at him. The expression isn't pleading-- she isn't like a mother begging her son not to go off to the military, not to put himself in harm's way. She's invested in his well-being, but not portraying this in any overly emotional manner.
"So, will you stop? Following his trail? He's onto you, man, it's not smart."
Nate Marszalek
If Molly's fear for his life matters to him Nate's expression does not betray this. He keeps standing in the same position he has been in since the conversation started and he keeps his hand around the now-empty whiskey glass and he looks across the kitchen at her. His breathing doesn't change and nothing comes across his gaze. All Molly has to gauge his thoughts is the fact that he looks as if he's holding back the first words that come to his mind.
He doesn't have a lot of conversational tells but the fact that he doesn't respond right away is as much of one as Molly is going to get.
The kitten stops plucking at Molly's leggings and turns around on her lap and curls up in a tight ball. Her tiny chest rises and falls and she tucks her tail in around herself. Oblivious to the conversation and the threat looming out there in the night that has not fallen yet.
"Let him be onto me, then," Nate says. His affect is as flat as it ever is, no fire in his voice, and he takes his hand off the countertop. "What's the worst I can possibly do? It's not like I can call the police. They'd haul me off to the psych ward."
Molly Toombs
Molly's mouth twists into an expression that is tight and sour alike. She looks like she wants to snap something at him, the brief flash in her eyes suggests the same. But, just as he had done, she bit on the first words that tried to leap from her mouth and reconsidered them instead. Swallowed them back, deciding that they would be counterproductive, and took another drink of whiskey-- this one deeper.
The glass was abandoned for the moment after that, and both hands rested gently over the purring, tightly-curled kitten's body.
"Nate, that's not the point."
She leaves a few seconds of quiet there, and in that time stares at him hard and seriously. It's curious, it seems like Nate is dealing with a side of Molly that hadn't been visible before. Sure, they didn't know each other that well. They were just familiar on a very specific and exclusive ground of circumstances. He didn't know how she reacted when faced with conflict-- she could be moody and violent for all he had to go off of. Thankfully that didn't seem to be the case, as she hadn't tossed anything or made any threats yet. Hell, her voice hadn't even raised.
However, there was definitely a firmness to her that came only when someone was incredibly convicted to a cause or concept.
"The point, I think, is his sense of privacy. And perceived status. And I think he worries what you'll find out, and that it may be shared with the wrong people in his or any other circle. And I'm not worried about the worst you could do. I'm worried about what he will do, and not even the worst of it."
Nate Marszalek
"Yeah, you know..."
But he doesn't know. Of the two of them she holds the greatest amount of understanding of what it is they're up against and she gained this information in the first place because of how Flood matches her up against someone out of his past. Nothing personal in it but the fact that Nate knows nothing and can find nothing grinds his gears.
It's a quiet grinding. Even as the conversation veers towards a more heated clime Nate does not puff up or wall himself off. He does not blurt out the first thought that forms in his mind. Might be now that Molly starts to get the idea that Nate doesn't particularly enjoy confrontation.
"... my sense of privacy used to entail being able to walk down the street without worrying about losing half a gallon of blood because some thing might decide I look like a snack."
This isn't an argument he's going to win. Nate pinches the bridge of his nose like to stave off a headache and sighs and lets go.
"Okay."
Molly Toombs
At first it seemed like he was going to keep arguing his justification. For a second, while he was expressing that he used to be able to walk down the street without worrying about losing out on his blood supply, Molly had sat straighter on the stool. She was readying herself to argue back. She wouldn't yell, she wasn't about to stand up and get in his face, or slap her hands on the counter and get emotional. She would start growing red about the neck and cheeks if she were getting to that point -- a trait of her Emerald Isle heritage that tended to betray her emotions no matter how she may try and keep them away from her expressions.
Still, though, the results are the same. She's healthy, with a flush of life to her cheeks and a bright light to her eyes. She has no marks on her neck, no bruises on her arms or collarbone. Her hair is washed and the roots have been dyed back to dark recently. She has plenty of energy, she wasn't dragging or lethargic. If the Undead found influence over her, it wasn't through any aggressive or obvious means.
He says that he hasn't found much of anything, and Molly looks like she isn't sure if she should be disappointed or relieved. More than likely, she's walking a line between the two reactions.
"That's probably for the better," she said, tone matching her expression. He'd refilled her glass with water, and she accepted it with a nod of thanks and drank half. Then the kitten was scooped up from her lap, its curled-up weight cupped in both hands. She stood up from the stool, and though she was planning on putting the kitten down on the floor she paused and instead sought out some furniture to let the little bundle of fuzz nestle into instead.
"I've got work later today, so I should probably get going. Not much time to just hang out and shoot the breeze, you know? But thank you for the drink. And I'm sorry I've been out of touch for so long... It's just... precarious, I guess, keeping that balance between this world and that one."
She wouldn't back down if he didn't first. This was the whole purpose of her coming here, seeking him out. She didn't want to see him getting killed or altered in some way because of what he knew. Furthermore, she didn't want this to come back around on her. She was the one, after all, that had helped goad him into believing that vampires were real. She'd helped him remember and think more on the man who had bitten him in the park and left him weak and woozy and sick. Certainly, if he'd gotten too far in his snooping and prodding around, this would come back down on Molly's head.
And that couldn't happen.
She still had much to learn.
But, it didn't need to come to that. He relented with an 'okay', and Molly relaxed once more. Hands worked to scratch along the spine of the little orange kitten curled up on her lap, and she took one last drink to finish off her whiskey before pushing the glass away, toward the middle of the counter between herself and Nate. She wouldn't be asking for second-- drinking too much in the middle of the day always lead to sick stomachs and headaches later on in the day.
"Good," she'd said, shoulders rounded in a show of relief. "....How much have you found out, anyway? I'm curious to know."
Devilish. She's scolded him for digging then encouraged him to share what he's found.
Nate Marszalek
When the empty glass comes to the countertop Nate doesn't refill it with whiskey. He doesn't refill his own either. His eyes have not gone glassy from inebriation but his skin has acquired a hue of health ordinarily gone from him. Doesn't look any more spry than he did when Molly first arrived at his place. Their conversation has him speaking less than she's heard him speak in the past.
He rinses the glasses and fills both with water from the tap and gives Molly's back to her. He drinks deep from his glass and then considers her. If Molly feels as if the man is examining her no one would blame her. For all they've been discussing this afternoon this is the first time he seems wary of her.
"I'm a crime reporter," he says, "not an investigative journalist. I haven't actually found out much of anything."
Molly Toombs
Nate's examining her again, much like he had done when she'd initially approached him out in front of that Chinese restaurant. That was a brief, cursory overview though. This was more in depth.
He was justified. Molly had shown up after being absent for close to a month, and she was (in a way) rallying for and defending the privacy of a vampire that had accosted her friend in a park and left him severely hindered, sick, and endangered. The last couple of times that they'd spoken on the matter she was defensive against this new, big dark unknown. Now she was intrigued by it, enthralled with it, combing for information and even going so far as to ask after whatever Nate himself may have found. She was being suspicious, and he was right to stare at her the way he was.
Nate Marszalek
For a moment it looks as if he's holding his breath like to make sure she's going to accept what he'd just said. Could be her imagination. Secondhand paranoia. His posture doesn't change and no hidden tension leaves his features but that sense of normalcy returned after suspended animation is not just something she's conjuring. He picks up the water glass and slams it back with more force and purpose than that with which he'd treated his alcohol.
He said she didn't have to apologize, and that he understood she was busy. Hell, he even thanked her for stopping by. If they'd been spending more time together, if that gap in contact hadn't occurred, she would probably hug her farewell. But the ground they were building had come loose underneath them-- Nate had been working his way toward the rabbit hole, and Molly was already one leg into it. He wasn't sure he could trust her anymore, and he was justified in this shake of faith.
So, she doesn't hug. Instead she pats his arm and is on her way.
"We'll be in touch. Bye, Nate."
When Molly stands the kitten makes a small disgruntled noise but doesn't fight the displacement until they're at the couch. The couch is cold and will not pet her. She writhes away from the cushion like she was dropped from a height and not gently set there and finds her way back onto the floor. There's plenty of stuff to bat around down there. A jingly ball skitters underneath the couch and the kitten follows it.
This would be an opportune moment for him to reassure her. They have this in common. He hears dead people and has kept that to himself for however many years and one would think he would want to reach out to someone who can understand what it is to have to feign adhesion to a world without dark things slinking about in shadows and long-forgotten dust-choked books.
It would be and it is. But Nate doesn't take it.
"You don't have to apologize," he says. He draws a breath to mentally prepare himself to walk across the room and pulls it off despite the size of his shot and his previous lack of success with drinking great quantities of alcohol. "I know you're busy. Thanks for stopping by."
Molly Toombs
Molly paused near the sofa that she'd deposited the kitten on, watching the little animal squirm and writhe its way displeased onto the floor. A smile curved on her apple-cheeked face to watch Lucifer the Kitten spring to life upon finding the ground and chase a ball underneath the couch.
"Heh," she said, and turned to glance back to Nate while he walked to the door. She took up her coat and donned it once more, fingers working familiar over the buttons to secure the garment closed. "Your cat's awfully cute," she advised him as a side note, and walked to meet him by the front of his apartment, where he hovered by the door to see her off.He said she didn't have to apologize, and that he understood she was busy. Hell, he even thanked her for stopping by. If they'd been spending more time together, if that gap in contact hadn't occurred, she would probably hug her farewell. But the ground they were building had come loose underneath them-- Nate had been working his way toward the rabbit hole, and Molly was already one leg into it. He wasn't sure he could trust her anymore, and he was justified in this shake of faith.
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