Molly Toombs
East Colfax. 10:30 pm.
Molly had
come from Nate's apartment, where she had been dropping something off or
visiting or who knows what. That was neither here nor there. What was
here was this bus stop, where she was standing and waiting now.
There
had been another lovely day of sunshine and brilliant blue spring skies
in Denver, so Molly had celebrated by baring her legs. It wasn't yet
cool enough to regret the decision while waiting outside, so she did not
shiver for this. Plus, she had a light gray wool cardigan, thick of
fabric and loose of cut, to keep her warm. Under this cardigan she wore
a sleek-fitted black dress, hemmed a couple inches above the knee.
There was a brown hat on her head, a brown satchel (finally, something
besides that goddamn tote bag) at her hip, and black ankle boots with
wooden heels to carry her to and fro.
She was standing with her
arms folded loosely over her stomach, facing the sign declaring this
location a bus stop (no benches, thanks a lot), reading the schedule.
Upon finding that she had just missed the last bus and had to wait
twenty-two minutes for the next, she sighed quietly but bodily.
Dramatic thing.
Flood
This is not the ride that Molly was waiting for.
She
is probably not the passenger that Flood had in mind, either, as he
cruises East Colfax's seedy stretches in a vehicle entirely different
from the one he'd picked her up in after the horror story had played out
in that antique shop all those months ago. It's a shiny black Lincoln
MKX and she would probably be leery of who's pulling up and rolling down
its tinted passenger window to commence leering or sneering pick-up
lines at her.
Though the catcalls never come from the man sitting
in his tailored suit in its plush upholstered driver's seat, she'll no
doubt continue being leery of the familiar leafed-clover eyes that level
on her.
The Lasombra who had bit deep into Nate's neck and taken
lifeblood from it does not have fangs when he begins to speak, though
she knows how quickly that can change.
"Do you need a ride, Ms. Toombs?" An offer that comes as the SUV rolls to a halt at the patch of curbside she stands at.
Molly Toombs
Catcalls
were nothing that Molly wasn't used to. She walked alone up and down
sidewalks as a common mode of travel, such things were inevitable. Only
occasionally, and typically only on East Colfax, would cars actually
pull up and ask if she would go to a motel room with them for a fee. Go
figure, it's here at this bus stop that a big shiny black Lincoln slows
quickly and pulls up to the curb, as though on a whim.
When the
window rolls down, Molly is already looking equal parts haughty and
uncomfortable. She didn't turn to face the vehicle, nor did she
approach the curb when it pulled up. But to see the familiar face and
hear the familiar voice within, things changed up a bit.
To begin,
she no longer looked nearly so stand off-ish as she did previously.
Uncomfortable wasn't the word for it, but her guard was far from down.
Chances are solid that it ever would be entirely around this Lasombra,
or any vampire at that. He asked if she needed a ride and she turned to
face the door, leaned down and forward to more comfortably look into
the car from her lifted position on the sidewalk.
"'Need' isn't the word I would choose."
Her eyebrows, ginger-red now that she didn't pencil them in, lifted to portray interest and inquiry.
"Where are you headed?"
Flood
"I've
plans to run a few errands, but am now going about the leisure portion
of my day, which at this point is a relaxing drive," Flood answers.
"Won't you make it more leisurely and join me?"
It's a (debatably) charming way of saying, Wherever you're headed.
The
engine hums, though the bright red brake lights illuminating the
windshields of cars parked and passing behind him say he's only
standing, not stopped and certainly not parked. Getting out doesn't seem
to, at present, be part of his plans.
[ Manipulation + Subterfuge: I'm a fucking liar. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2: Whatever, you fucking liar.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Flood
There's
a hesitance there, a stroke of it before he presses the invitation
outward again, and it has a hint of restraint. This is most definitely
not a leisurely portion of his day, though, as he seems to still have
the air of a man with a purpose. His stance in that seat, the way one
hand firmly grips the steering wheel as he turns toward her to speak, it
all says that. He just doesn't seem to mind putting it on hold to offer
her a ride wherever it is she is going.
Molly Toombs
Observant
as ever, little passed Molly without at least catching her attention.
Not much went over her head. So when Flood told her he was in the area
only for leisure, but something thrummed and hummed untrue in his voice,
warning flags went up.
Clear blue eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Her arms folded up more snugly against her ribs. This type of posture
would be a lot more intentionally alluring if her dress's neckline
wasn't up to her collarbone.
"Perhaps." Her answer came after
enough time had passed of her looking at him like that for it to impress
upon him that she knew he wasn't just moseying around up to nothing,
but she wasn't going to call him out on it because she didn't have the
patience or energy to have him simply deny it anyways.
"But only because I've missed your company." Beat. "And because I could use your insight on something."
She
reached for the door handle, and assuming it was unlocked and the
invitation was still there she loaded herself into the passenger seat.
Satchel went to the floor, seat belt across her chest and lap.
"Not
sure how relaxing I'd call a drive on Colfax, though. Only two types
of cruising I ever see on this street." This, with a pointed glance
over to the pulseless driver.
Flood
Flood may have
denied it, if she'd voiced her suspicions or hesitance, but the fact
she simply crossed her arms and stares him down for a moment in cautious
correspondence of what she knows leaves him looking back. Flood comes
from an era of conservative necklines and, coupled with that kind of
moxie, she may be doing more to increase his interest than she realizes.
In any case the lie is weathered and he doesn't come back to it.
Flood
only smiles, leans over to pull the handle of the door from its
interior and pop it open for her to enter, and waits for her to take her
seat and fasten herself in.
"You may be seeing a third,"
returning the glance as he coaxes the car into driving with shift stick
and pedal, and though it's an automatic one hand remains on the shifter
in the middle console out of habit. The car picks up speed, though it's
only a few blocks before they're stopped at a light and he can look over
at her again.
"You're dressed quite nicely. I've missed you as
well. Those are very nice shoes," always compliment a lady's shoes when
it looks like she's put thought into them, and what lady with those
shoes on hasn't?
"Maybe a part of me didn't feel like sharing that
dress with the population of a bus if I could help it. Might I ask
where you're coming from?" A bit of small talk, a few drops of sucrose
compliments and aired sentiment, before they get into what she needs
insight on.
Leisure or not, this needn't be all consultation.
Molly Toombs
Once
inside and settled, Molly removed the hat from the top of her head and
settled it into her lap instead. This would allow her to comfortably
sit with her head against the headrest should she wish it. This ride
wasn't the same sort of old roaring power that came from the piece of
impressive history that she'd last been in the passenger seat of. It
was much smoother instead. She didn't feel so many urges to hold the
door when merging lanes or coming to a stop.
The nurse's lips
twisted into a small, reluctant, but at least genuine little smile. His
compliments were thick and sweet like syrup, intentionally so no doubt,
but she accepted them anyways. She did like this dress, after
all. At the second mention of it, when he stated he didn't want to
share with the denizens of public transit, she crossed her legs at the
knee and settled her hands on top of her lap. A touch uncomfortable.
Perhaps a bit too much.
None the less, she answers:
"Nowhere
in particular. I've been out all afternoon." A glance to the clock.
And evening, she supposed, but when one gets off work at two a.m. on a
regular basis they have a different perception of 'evening'. He can
tell there's truth to her words, her clothes and hair still smelled as
though they'd been soaking up sun all day long.
"You've been well,
I hope? I've heard some whispers that things might be stirring up in
your world." Your world as in the world of vampires, not his life in
particular. But she didn't clarify, so it was up to him to interpret.
Flood
Interpret
or inquire. "Whispers? Whispers are interesting things. Whisper wrong
and it's louder than if you'd just said it aloud. I'm well. I hope to
continue being well."
"If you hope for the same, maybe you would
indulge me and share what you've heard?" He's curious. He's roundabout.
But just as the compliment, just as the invitation before it to join
him, he gets to the point and the journey is worth it in what it tells
about Flood.
If you're curious to know more about him, that is. Which Molly might or might not be.
"I'd
be glad to give my insight first," he says before she can answer. "Good
faith, or what I have of it, and what I can offer in the way of a
consult, anyway," She crosses her legs, bares more of them in doing so,
but he doesn't look at the rising hemline.
Maybe it's a result of
her discomfort? A response to it? Maybe he now has other urges that
don't involve exposed flesh. He watches the road and waits.
Molly Toombs
Molly
had no idea what urges vampires had beyond bloodlust and slaying their
boredom. She knew they had interests and agendas, but urges were
different things. Different beasts. She wasn't sure if they still
craved flesh as well as blood, in the way that men and women with
beating hearts do, but she didn't make assumptions. She was covering
the top of her lap with the hat, either way.
The question about
who had been whispering was expected-- of course he would want to know.
That was information she was already willing to offer up. Perhaps her
making the mention was her plan all along; put something on the table
to offer to Flood in exchange for what she wanted from him. Business is
as business does.
His offer of good will was met with a look of
moderate surprise, but ultimately acceptance and some polite
appreciation. "Well, isn't that gentlemanly of you." The quip came
with a smirk.
But, down to business.
"I'm curious to know a
little more about the... ah... side-effects of the supernatural.
Spending too much time around things that people weren't meant to know.
Falling into them on accident." Her eyes hopped to the road in front
of them, watching the traffic around them in a play of casual
conversation, as she built up to her question: "I couldn't help but
notice that you might know something about losing reflections."
Flood
[ Intelligence + Occult ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Flood
There's
a pause and a look that is too long to be a glance before Flood's
attention turns back onto the road and he presses his wingtip-clad foot
onto the gas pedal.
"There are theories," Flood offers, a caveat
on what he shares. "Some of which might be true. Some of which might be
true depending on the situation. Some of which might be only poetic in
their basis," his hand relaxing on the steering wheel as he leans
forward and prepares to offer more than asterisks on what he's about to
say.
"I'm of a particular line that shows such a loss. We are a
line of darkness. We revel in the night more than even others of our
kind. Some of us even worship it. We believe that this is because the
light refuses to touch us other than to burn. Other than to curse us and
punish us as God intended to us, and more so, perhaps because we
worship that darkness more than others," he begins.
"Others might
say that it's belief that spreads this loss to others. A belief in the
folklore of the living that carries on and, coupled with the mystic
nature of our very existence, becomes empowered and true," a finger
twitching to enumerate this second possibility, joining his index as she
might only now realize he's counting them off.
A third comes up before he begins again, still loose on the steering wheel.
"And
some simply cannot bear their own existence, perhaps, and forsake it.
For some this might be considered a blessing, a reprieve. For others,
the particularly vain, a curse," a pause, and then he begins drumming
away with those fingers on the steering wheel.
"The mirrored world
as another plane of existence might denote a possible source of the
theft there. The theft by magical beings is another possibility. The
loss of the soul. The curse of magician or sorcerer, much like the one
we encountered in that antique shop, is another route for
investigation," he finishes. And then he raises his hand to the rear
view mirror, shifting it in one swift movement, so that he can see if it
is her own loss she is investigating.
When he sees her in it - if
she looks back it's at nothing, of course, as he does not appear on the
other end of the mirrored perspective - he shifts it back to a more
practical positioning.
"As for side-effects, I'm sure their are
many that have come up, but at the same time the most dangerous
side-effect might be wholly psychological: curiosity. There's
sympathetic magic, as well, finding what you're looking for. I wouldn't
worry about radiation or lead poisoning, though," he finishes.
"What makes you ask such a strange and specific question?"
Molly Toombs
As
is ever and always the case, when Molly seeks information and finds it
freely given, she sits and listens and soaks like a sponge. This is the
case now. All the while that Flood spoke, Molly sat in the passenger
seat with her eyes occasionally switching between feigning relaxed
gazing out the windshield and stealing glimpses toward Flood while he
spoke, gauging and watching for cues and making sure she wasn't about to
have hell come down on her head for asking.
When the mirror
swiveled to aim at her, Molly glanced briefly into it but hastily away
again. Seeing evidence of this reflection lacked made her skin want to
crawl for the abnormality and unfamiliarity of it.
When he
finishes up by asking, rather reasonably, where a question like that
would come from, Molly blinked, then shrugged to play off importance.
"A
friend of mine had his reflection stolen. I want to help him. Given
that I've seen that you don't have one yourself, I supposed that your
insight on the matter would probably be the best I could find."
Then, quickly, a follow-up:
"Why
would something want to steal a reflection, though? One of those
things in the mirror world, I mean. What use is a reflection to someone
it doesn't belong to?"
Flood
"That would depend
on the nature of reflection one prescribes to, wouldn't it?" He seems to
waver, considering the options again, before continuing.
"Perhaps
it allows a level of control and offers power over an individual. If it
is the soul, maybe the loss of a reflection is only a symptom of a
greater problem. If it is the act of a trickster, maybe your friend's
reaction to its loss is the reason enough to take it. I'm sure there are
other reasons, but to be honest, it's difficulty to answer that
question without knowledge of the circumstance," and he gives a
deliberate shrug, as if he's said most, if not all, of what could be
said on the matter.
But Flood gives one last insight.
"I can
say with certainty I've never heard of a reflection disappearing for no
identifiable reason. Neither in folklore, myth, or in my own kind's
history. That should illustrate my point: circumstance is key," and of
course it is a question meant to summon up more shared knowledge,
tete-a-tete and quid pro quo, about the friend she speaks of.
Molly Toombs
Again, the information comes all at once. A flood. Again, Molly is attentive as can be.
What
it boils down to is this: the symptom itself is apparently not all
that rare, and came from a number of different causes. Apparently it
was a symptom of vampirism itself, the 'line' of vampires that Flood
himself came from anyways. It could be stolen from another plane, or by
a magic-wielder, or by a trickster of some kind that Molly probably
couldn't dream of.
She knew ("knew") that this particular
reflection was stolen away from an average young man who came across
some kind of relic. That something (a woman? a female entity of sorts)
stole the reflection away through that mirror. This wasn't the same
thing that caused Flood's reflection to go missing. But, it was a good
start. She at least had some basic groundwork of knowledge to work
upon.
So, finally, she nodded.
"Thank you." She sounded
like she meant it at least. "That helps. I, ah...," and she cut a
glance in his direction, "hope that wasn't a sensitive subject or
anything." She regretted the comment immediately, and it showed in how
her brow furrowed and her went straight through the windshield once
more. She just seemed to be stumbling across those with people lately.
She recovered by clearing her throat and rubbing thumbs on the rim of
her hat.
Flood
"It isn't," he answers, and he does
seem to be unaffected by the discussion. His tone, throughout, had been
academic. It had been the solving of a puzzle, or at least the offering
of pieces, and little more. And at no point does he seem to contemplate
his own lack of a reflection and its ramifications.
The night is too and full to dwell on such things for long.
"And
you are welcome," not pressing her for any more information, though
noting that she is careful to not offer up any more than is necessary.
"You
are very good at keeping others' secrets. It's good to know. I hope you
do the same for me. Have I come up? Now there's a question," weighing
what he'd said for a moment. "Is that a secret you'd keep for others?
That they're asking after me? I wonder," looking over at her again, as
he asks it, timing it at another red light so that he can fully take in
her ginger-framed visage for tells.
Molly Toombs
The
glance that Flood steals to the red-haired woman in his passenger seat
yields only that she appears to be in consternation. The kind of
thought that was serious and deep and cautious. She was thinking about
the question he posed for her-- whether she would keep his secrets from
people, and if whether people were asking was the type of thing she
would keep from him.
She didn't appear introspective, though. She
already knew her answer. She was trying to figure out how to put it
(or how to lie about it).
Molly leaned forward and wriggled her
shoulders to shimmy her way on out of the thick gray wool cardigan she
was wearing for protection from the breeze outside. This revealed the
sleeves of her black dress to be just as snug as the rest of it, and
three quarters of the way down her arms. Things were resituated so the
sweater was folded over her lap, the hat now settled atop that. She's
looking over at him again when she answers.
"It's a secret I might keep. For some people. Depending on the circumstance."
Beat.
"You did come up, but only very briefly. I ran into our mutual friend Mr. Kingsmith the other day."
Flood
"It
has been some time since I've seen him hanging around. Mr. Kingsmith...
Would you really call him a friend? I'm not certain I would choose that
word, 'friend', to describe him, " very reminiscent of what she'd said
earlier about her being in 'need' of a ride.
"How did that run in
go? I'm curious what context could've brought my name to his - or your -
lips." And again what he says is evocative of a past conversation, this
time of when he had grown angry about Nate asking after him.
The
car continues, a cocoon of warmth that leaves her shedding layers, on
its way toward downtown Denver. Though her destination had not yet been
named, her home seems to be he is heading. Or at least the area he knows
it to be located within.
"Though if you'd rather not say, let me
offer up another topic: Things stirring. And how you know about those
stirrings," leaving it as an easy out.
Molly Toombs
"Those answers actually come together as one."
She
raised an eyebrow in his direction, but settled comfortably back into
the passenger seat and rested her hands folded one over the other in
front of her hat. She wasn't bothering with playing coy, glancing out
windows or feigning comfortable discourse. Molly was more openly
engaged in the conversation now that she wasn't simply listening--
receiving a lesson on reflections gone missing.
"We ran into one
another on the street and got to talking." And dancing, but she didn't
mention that. "He was warning me that he was back in town due to these
'stirrings'. And that I should be ready and on guard. That I should
pick a side, so to speak.
"He'd mentioned that you may have called him back into town."
Flood
"You
should always be ready and on guard. I think you already know that. You
should avoid picking a side at all costs. You probably know that too,"
Flood says in a matter of fact tone, happy to undercut Kingsmith's
recommendations.
"We have business. I don't think I'm his only
reason for lingering about, though. Wars make carrion and the jackals
like Mr. Kingsmith are always around to feed off of it. You should've
asked him what side he picked. I'm sure," a smile growing onto his lips.
Blossoming there. "I'm sure the answer would've been a vague and veiled
one."
"I'll have to have a word with him, now that I know he's about," nodding again.
Molly Toombs
Lips
pressed together and her expression went reluctant, a little
uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat. "I hope it's just a word...
He's not gonna cause any trouble through me. He just likes to flirt is
all." She'd never seen a violent Flood. She's seen a fast one, yes,
when he was hauling her hastily through the antiques shop, but when
things had gone violent in the back room Flood had done nothing. He
hadn't needed to do anything-- a swift and well-aimed bullet had ended
everything as quickly as it had started.
But, the thing to be learned here is that Molly doesn't want to see Kragen get hurt, for whatever reason.
They
were headed in the direction of her apartment, and she'd made no move
to correct him. Apparently that's precisely where she'd been trying to
head on her own in the first place. His assumption had been correct.
So, she didn't stop to make any suggestions on where to turn or which
roads he should take. This may also be a test to see if he lets on that
he knows certainly where she lays her head. If it seemed he didn't,
she might have a better chance at restful sleep tonight.
"I will
be honest with you, though." Because, for having such declared and open
distrust for the man, she often made a habit of being honest even if it
was vague responses that she gave. Thus far he seems to have been
offering her the same courtesy. She hasn't been able to disprove that,
at least. "I am a little.... nervous about where I stand. Just in the
scheme of things." She cleared her throat, then clarified. "Nervous
someone may come wisk me off to my demise now that I'm riding in cars
with vampires."
Flood
"One school of thought would
be that you should stand near the the most dangerous of the bunch. Ride
in his car and hope that proximity will serve to protect you. Many
people fear our shadows. The longer and larger the better," he comments,
and it's no secret who the supremely confident vampire might be
referencing as he says this.
"The other would be to stand amidst
the herd. Let the stragglers get picked off and make sure you keep up
where it's safest," and now he sounds like he's genuinely weighing her
options for her to come to an actual (and maybe useful) conclusion.
"I
know very little about where you stand in the scheme of things. I only
know what you let me know, and despite the fact I'm a talented
consultant, that's very little," and as if to illustrate what he's just
said, he pulls up near her apartment at the very same corner she'd
abandoned him twice before in order to preserve her own privacy and his
ignorance of where she sleeps.
"I can tell you this: I was
impressed that you seemed to know I wasn't out on a leisurely drive,"
raising his eyebrows finally, as if to indicate his surprise. "I'm
usually very good at working even the most suspicious of persons,"
putting the car into park.
"And I can tell you this: I was looking
for something-" a pause. A heartbeat he doesn't have, but she's there
and so it serves as an accurate measure.
"Someone to drink," he
corrects. He does not reach over to grab her. He does not lock eyes with
her and command her to sit still.
"At least now you know where you stand with me. I hope you have a good evening," he finishes.
Molly Toombs
The
options delivered were answered with a nod of her head, and a comment
as well. The voice that carried her clarification, or her thoughts on
what advice he had to give, was a lower tone than what she'd used
previously. It was probably how she would mutter to herself, except
that she was speaking clearly and they were in the front seat of a car
together so of course he would hear her.
"That's more or less why I keep getting in the car."
Then,
with a bit of a sigh, she leans forward so that she may sweep her bangs
back while putting her hat back on. They were pulled up to the curb
just a few blocks from her apartment-- the same place that he'd dropped
her a few months ago. This didn't assure her as much as she'd hoped
that he didn't know where she actually lived, though. Flood had been
playing this game for quite a while longer than she had.
What he
tells her next has Molly going still and looking very seriously across
the center of the car at him. She didn't go stiff or look as though she
was going to try to escape, though. She was simply still, watching,
waiting for his next move. Molly was already very aware that if he
didn't want her to go then she would go nowhere. He didn't grab her or
lock eyes to control her, because he didn't need to.
The answer
that he gets isn't fear, but instead it's a huffed out chuckle and a
shake of her head. "I had figured as much." He'd wished her a good
evening, so she opened the door of the car.
"I already knew where I
stood with you, though, Flood. To that degree, at least. You've so
much as told me I'm more useful to you this way than that." She's good
about getting out of the car without compromising her modesty, and once
out on the curb Molly turned around to look into the car. Leaned down
again, same as she had before, but now with one arm holding her sweater
up to her stomach and her other hand on the car door.
"Goodnight, Flood. Happy hunting."
And unless otherwise stopped (doubtful she is), Molly closed the door and began walking.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Normal People Problems - 3.22.2014 [Nate, phonecall]
Nathan Marszalek
Other than a seething sense of injustice Nathan left nothing behind in his wake after leaving the warmth of his bed to drive Molly across town so she wouldn't have to call a cab in the rain. He hadn't even scuffed mud on her hardwood floor or smoked a cigarette out the window. It was almost as if she had teleported from the Sinclair station to her bed.
He is huddled in a doorway smoking a cigarette and ignoring the wet when he calls Molly around noon. That's an appropriate time to make sure someone's hungover ass isn't paying alms to the porcelain god.
Molly Toombs
Molly woke this morning at 9:23 am because Florence was whining and crying and scratching at the door of her crate. She needed to go out to the bathroom. Molly's head was spinning and her stomach was twisted and sour, but the near whole glass of water that she drank immediately before going to sleep had helped. She'd fallen asleep on top of the comforter of her bed without washing her hair or face. Sometime before passing out she'd hidden the business cards and matchbook. She would rediscover them in back of her pantie drawer two days from now but that would be another time.
She woke up and put a hat and hoodie on and took Florence outside. Then she came back in and brewed very strong coffee and showered. The coffee went in a thermos, and she took Florence for a walk through the brisk wet cold of the day, hoping it would slap the hangover right out of her. It didn't do the trick entirely, but it did help. She was feeling far less queasy by the time she'd gotten back to her apartment.
She didn't call Nate, though around 11:00 am she did stare at her phone while sitting in her living room half-watching the news. She was upset and uncertain of his maneuver the night before. She wanted to trust him, but the night where she was drunkenly vulnerable enough to start spilling information he betrayed that trust by trying to steal it away for his own devices.
When he called around noon, the phone was answered with a surly: "Hello. I survived to see the light of day."
Nathan Marszalek
He hears the surliness. That's his first clue that she not only retained the fact that he'd tried to pocket her business cards but hadn't forgiven him.
"So I see," he says. "You, uh..." Drag. "You pissed at me--" Exhale. "--or can we talk for a minute?"
Molly Toombs
"The two are not mutually exclusive."
She paused to take a sip of her second cup of coffee, a little burnt from being left in the pot on the burner but it still served its purpose. She was sitting in her living room at this point with her legs curled up on the couch. Florence was in the space created between her calves and her hip and rear, snoozing with her chin on Molly's ankle.
"Are we talking about the shenanigans you pulled? Or are you gonna tell me that we don't get to on account of your being a pal and bailing my idiot ass out last night?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Wow," he says.
So that's how this is going to go.
She can hear him taking another longer drag and blowing it out and keeping on sighing long after the smoke is gone from his lungs. Wind blows past the microphone and he has to turn his back to keep the conversation intelligible. Not like he said anything in that period of time but the wind and the sighing stop after that.
"I figured I owed you an explanation. So, yeah. We're talking about the shenanigans."
Molly Toombs
"Awesome. Let me start, 'cause I'm still kicking this headache and I thought about it while I was walking Florence this morning anyways."
Yep. That's precisely how this was going to go. Sorry, Nate.
"I don't know what you were planning to do with any of that information. I'd say I don't want to know, but I care so I'll just suffice to say that we'll get to that later. That's an entirely different thing. Right now I'm just upset that you tried to take my shit."
Nathan Marszalek
Part of the problem with arguing with Nate is his voice only really has two settings. It's either a monotone or he's yelling. Molly hasn't ever heard him yell. She has heard his words start to flow into each other as he fought off a panic born of thinking he was going to turn into a vampire having been bitten by one.
He sounds even more depressed on the phone than he does in person.
"Yeah. You should be upset. That was shitty of me."
Molly Toombs
"So then why the hell did you do it?"
He sounds depressed and pitiful, but Molly doesn't relent. He was resoundingly in the dog house, and as far as she was concerned he could come back out when this was over. As was the case with many things for her lately, she would only accept payment in the form of information.
In this case, an explanation was specifically what she wanted.
Nathan Marszalek
Oh good. They're going to talk about feelings. That went so well the last time she started haranguing him about something involving supernatural phenomena. Last time he'd tried to haul her off towards the restrooms in a King Soopers and everyone around them had thought they were about to become witnesses to a domestic incident.
Nate isn't the one losing his temper this time.
"I didn't want you calling any of them," he says. "Especially not after you told me Kragen wanted to recruit you to be the medic for his little terrorist operation."
Molly Toombs
"I'm keeping that information on hand in case shit hits the fan, Nate. I've heard that things are getting... tense, I suppose. Something's supposedly brewing. I want to have these... contacts in place in case I need to reach out to someone for some goddamn protection."
Nathan Marszalek
"I guess I just don't understand what kind of protection you could need if you aren't one of them. Y'know? The rest of the world doesn't walk around hiring out bodyguards just in case war breaks out between the Sharks and the Jets again. They don't even know they exist."
Molly Toombs
"Nate."
Her tone is flat. Impatience that has been wrung dry and then chilled with ice. She sipped her coffee again, then set the mug on the end table beside her couch so she could reach down to scratch at Florence's floppy ears.
"The reason I have all of those business cards is because those folks have taken some interest in me in one way or another. That's because they know that I know they exist, man. The reason the entire fucking world doesn't know they exist is because they like to keep that shit quiet.
"Do you think they're going to just let me fall off the radar?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Maybe if you'd stop talking to them, they would."
Molly Toombs
"Well it's a little fucking late for that, isn't it? Why the hell do you think I drank myself into a four hour headache and drunken phone-a-friend last night? I know I brought this down on my head, but now I'm here and I need to deal with that."
She just wasn't sure how yet.
Nathan Marszalek
"That's what I was thinking at four o'clock this morning when I realized how deep you'd gotten in and I didn't have an answer for you right that second. I thought if I took those fucking cards with me--"
A distant voice. Nate mumbles something that sounds like heymanhowsitgoin and then clears his throat.
"Still there?" Duh, Nate. "Look, I wasn't trying to..." Scoff. "I don't know what I was trying to do. Keep you out of more trouble. You're my friend, Molly, and I love you, and I don't wanna see something bad happen to you. Especially with that Kragen guy. He's seriously... I can't believe he gave you another card, what is his problem?"
Molly Toombs
The use of 'I love you' served the purpose of softening Molly up, apparently. She was quiet for a minute after he'd finished by asking what Kragen's problem was, and when she finally spoke again there was a heavy sigh that served as a preamble.
"I'm worried about what you would have done with them. Like, that you would have gone and tried to track some of these people down. Some of these people I know very little about, Nate, and it scares me what they'd do to you, and how easily they'd do it, when you went sniffing around after them. And then they'd come after me because apparently they have these ways to figure out who you know."
Flood had done so, after all. But she didn't need to say so. He knew that already.
"I think that at some point one of these people is going to decide that it's no longer safe to just let me wander around knowing the things that I do, the names and faces and details and all of that. I think they're going to do something about it, and at that point I'll need something that can keep me safe from that. I'm pretty sure that another vampire's pretty much the only thing that can keep me safe from one. That or.... I don't know, a wizard or something maybe."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate had told her he loved her as casual as he would have stated it was raining outside. Nothing invested in it like she thought she saw in him at the supermarket after he'd gotten out of the hospital but it sure takes the wind out of her sails with a quickness.
"You know any wizards?" he asks.
Molly Toombs
"Well, I knew of one."
At first she sounds optimistic, like this might be a cool or positive thing to talk about instead. But the tone and content crash together in a heap when she continues.
"But he's dead now. Plus he was killing people and chopping them up to turn them into furniture and use their blood for magic rites and--..." She cuts off here because of a small, muffled and held back choking noise. It's hard to tell if she's gagging at the visual memory of what she witnessed or suddenly swallowing an unexpected sob that she'd tamped down with a quickness.
Nathan Marszalek
Whatever Nate's face does in response to that revelation she cannot see it and he does not give it voice. Just takes a killing drag off his cigarette and blows the breath back out. Crushes the butt beneath his heel.
"I'm never bitching about ghosts again."
Molly Toombs
"I just don't get why all of it is so bad."
She wasn't crying, and her voice wasn't husky with held back tears either. But she did sound so utterly lost-- again, that word. Lost and defeated.
"It's all blood magic and curses and sick bonds and just fucking bad. Where is all of the stuff that's supposed to balance it?"
Then, as though realizing that she was asking questions without answers and just making it worse for herself, plus dragging Nate down along with her, she made a noise as though clearing her throat and muttered some 'ahgoddamnit' that was muffled by what sounded like the palm of her own hand. She was probably scrubbing her face.
"Look. I'm sorry. I don't mean to dump on you, but before long these walls are gonna fall on me if I just keep up like this."
Nathan Marszalek
"So just walk away."
He's not walking anywhere. It's windy and he wants to finish his conversation before he goes back inside. A siren wails past in the distance. His job consists of writing up the awful things that humans do to each other. Reading police reports and attending autopsies and attending trials where victims' widows break down sobbing during their testimony.
Standing down here talking to his distraught friend is a better use of his time.
"Moll, it doesn't sound like there are any plus sides to this shit. It's all bad to me. Like a curse or something. Maybe that's the point. Otherwise people would hear 'immortality' and 'superhuman strength' and 'getting to stay up all night' and sign themselves up. You know? At least you're not like Flood, or--" Shit, does she know about Lux? "--or Kragen, or Doctor Whatever-His-Name-Is. You know? Once you're turned, or... bound, or whatever you want to call it, that's it. I can't turn my shit off either. If I could stop hearing dead people all the time, I would in a heartbeat. It's bullshit. You have a choice, man. And if you want to dump on me, I'm here for you. But I really think you should just walk away."
Molly Toombs
"Nate, I'm not gonna just walk away."
She sounded sad still, but this wasn't an upbeat conversation in any way at all. Nate knew last night that he didn't have an answer to make this all better. But it didn't stop him from hanging out downstairs, probably outside of a work building or scene or something like that, talking to her and checking in on her anyways.
"I can't just pretend that it doesn't exist. I already know too much." She was repeating that last night. It must be some kind of mantra. "I mean, I don't wanna just divorce myself from everything. Then I'd have to walk away from you, too. You're wrapped up in this about as deep as I am, let's face it."
Beat.
"Besides, if I walk away I'll give Them my back. That's a good way to die."
Nathan Marszalek
"How am I as wrapped up in this as you are?"
Molly Toombs
"Well you managed to place yourself resoundingly enough on Flood's shit list that he felt the need to intimidate me about it that one time."
Pause.
"....But I guess I'm still probably in way deeper regardless."
Nathan Marszalek
"Yeah, you know, sorry some lunatic attacked me and I started trying to figure out who the hell it was so I could see if there was any sense trying to involve the police. That wasn't my fucking fault."
Molly Toombs
"Jesus Christ, Nate, I'm not blaming you for shit. I'm just saying how deep you're in. Deep enough to be on a shit list. I mean, at least I'm managing to stay in good graces. Or, at least I'm pretty sure I am."
Nathan Marszalek
"Yeah and other than that incident, I haven't had any other problems with those assholes. You told me to stop digging and I stopped digging. Now all I have to worry about is dying in car crashes or getting torn up by possessed people."
You know. Normal people problems.
"So when I say maybe you should stop trying to make alliances or stay in the good graces of other lunatics or whatever, maybe I know what I'm talking about a little."
Molly Toombs
"Yeah.... Maybe...."
At first it sounds like she's conceding. In truth, she's sitting with an elbow on the arm of the couch so that she could support her head by cupping her forehead in the curve of her hand between forefinger and thumb. She was doing a damn fine job of keeping it out of her voice, but tears were pricking her eyes and a well of helplessness felt like it was trying to open in her chest. She had stopped petting Flo to hold her phone to her ear with her free hands.
But then she followed up with a shake of her head and another sip of her coffee before continuing.
"But I need to find one more thing out, at least. And I think I need to talk to Flood about it."
God damnit, Molly.
Nathan Marszalek
He doesn't raise his voice. The opposite happens: his affect goes completely flat.
It's almost like Flood is the same beast who attacked him in the park and never suffered any repercussions and both Molly and Lux think he's such a swell guy oh Nate don't be so melodramatic it was just a Kiss.
"What do you need to find out."
Molly Toombs
"Reflections. Specifically, where they go when they go away." She swallowed a burnt gulp of warm coffee, and when she spoke next there was a minor sense of urgency to her voice. Her tone had shifted to suggest that she was quickly becoming finished with this phone call. Perhaps closing up to protect more secrets-- like that she was in deep enough to know that Ghouls were a thing and how they became a thing, for example.
"I need to find out for... a friend. I've read stuff about it being related to your soul or spirit or some essence like that, but... Well, it's all very vague. I need more of the facts."
Nathan Marszalek
He hears her closing off. She can hear the same thing happening now.
It doesn't take much for Nate to decide he's done talking to a person. Clamming up or withholding information from him is the quickest way to do it. He's done it before and he doesn't have any qualms about doing it again.
"And you can't ask me to help you with this why?"
Molly Toombs
"Have you ever lost your reflection?"
The question hangs on its own.
Nathan Marszalek
"Has--?"
Nope. He's done.
"Molly," he says, "you can ask me now, and I'll do everything I can to help. We can figure this out together and without getting mixed up in whatever your 'friend' got mixed up in. But if you tell me you'd rather go to Flood I will hang up right now and not answer the phone the next time you call me at three o'clock in the morning. This is bullshit."
Molly Toombs
"I'm not saying I'd rather--... It's just I'm pretty sure he'll actually know more, and..."
There's a sound of frustration. She's not sure how she wound up under the hot light when he was the one in trouble at the beginning of this phone call.
"Fuck. Fine. Jesus, Nate, I'm just trying to--. Ugh! Nevermind, Christ, I'll read a book about it and just fucking.... Go about my day. Or something."
She's not apologizing. She won't. He tried to steal her contacts, after all.
Nathan Marszalek
Well that escalated quickly.
She can't hear him breathing heavy for how upset that exchange just made him but she knows he does have to be breathing heavy. Silence descends upon the conversation. In that silence she can hear him pulling himself together. Composing his thoughts maybe.
After no more than five seconds he finally says:
"Thank you."
Molly Toombs
It did escalate quickly. She didn't like being put up against a wall, and that's how she felt figuratively speaking here. She still wanted to be able to pull information from Flood because she knew how easy it was to do-- a lot of what she knew came from him. He seemed to have developed some kind of apathy toward the way things are supposed to be, and was happy enough to tell her all she wanted to know and more. This was why she was confident he would be a good source to ask about why his reflection had gone away-- maybe she could glean something that she could use to help poor Jacky, sad Jacky, sweet Jacky find his reflection once again.
In that time of quiet Molly listened to Nate breathe and waited for him to say something. She was just hoping harder than she thought she would that he wouldn't simply hang up. She'd just defaulted to him when put under the thumb to pick between him and Flood after all.
"Yeah." Her answer was quiet, deflated. "Thank you too." Then: "I'll see you around, then."
Nathan Marszalek
For a few seconds it sounds as if he is going to hang up. But that thank you of his held more pain in it than one would have thought it would considering he was the one laying down ultimatums that came out of nowhere.
He never talks about the people he's lost. Never talks about whether he feels survivor's guilt. He came back from Afghanistan and had to go to counseling because that's protocol these days but he didn't have any symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Still doesn't.
He doesn't relive the things that have fucked him up over there but it's not the things that happened over there that fucked him up. He sat paralyzed and drowning in his own blood with Shannon's dead body within arm's reach of him for twenty minutes. Carole knows what's wrong with his back but isn't talking to him right now because she thinks he's got something wrong with his head too. Some sort of personality disorder or maybe he's schizophrenic. Losing Molly wouldn't do him any favors right now.
Selfish prick.
"Alright," he says. "Lay off the sauce."
Click.
Other than a seething sense of injustice Nathan left nothing behind in his wake after leaving the warmth of his bed to drive Molly across town so she wouldn't have to call a cab in the rain. He hadn't even scuffed mud on her hardwood floor or smoked a cigarette out the window. It was almost as if she had teleported from the Sinclair station to her bed.
He is huddled in a doorway smoking a cigarette and ignoring the wet when he calls Molly around noon. That's an appropriate time to make sure someone's hungover ass isn't paying alms to the porcelain god.
Molly Toombs
Molly woke this morning at 9:23 am because Florence was whining and crying and scratching at the door of her crate. She needed to go out to the bathroom. Molly's head was spinning and her stomach was twisted and sour, but the near whole glass of water that she drank immediately before going to sleep had helped. She'd fallen asleep on top of the comforter of her bed without washing her hair or face. Sometime before passing out she'd hidden the business cards and matchbook. She would rediscover them in back of her pantie drawer two days from now but that would be another time.
She woke up and put a hat and hoodie on and took Florence outside. Then she came back in and brewed very strong coffee and showered. The coffee went in a thermos, and she took Florence for a walk through the brisk wet cold of the day, hoping it would slap the hangover right out of her. It didn't do the trick entirely, but it did help. She was feeling far less queasy by the time she'd gotten back to her apartment.
She didn't call Nate, though around 11:00 am she did stare at her phone while sitting in her living room half-watching the news. She was upset and uncertain of his maneuver the night before. She wanted to trust him, but the night where she was drunkenly vulnerable enough to start spilling information he betrayed that trust by trying to steal it away for his own devices.
When he called around noon, the phone was answered with a surly: "Hello. I survived to see the light of day."
Nathan Marszalek
He hears the surliness. That's his first clue that she not only retained the fact that he'd tried to pocket her business cards but hadn't forgiven him.
"So I see," he says. "You, uh..." Drag. "You pissed at me--" Exhale. "--or can we talk for a minute?"
Molly Toombs
"The two are not mutually exclusive."
She paused to take a sip of her second cup of coffee, a little burnt from being left in the pot on the burner but it still served its purpose. She was sitting in her living room at this point with her legs curled up on the couch. Florence was in the space created between her calves and her hip and rear, snoozing with her chin on Molly's ankle.
"Are we talking about the shenanigans you pulled? Or are you gonna tell me that we don't get to on account of your being a pal and bailing my idiot ass out last night?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Wow," he says.
So that's how this is going to go.
She can hear him taking another longer drag and blowing it out and keeping on sighing long after the smoke is gone from his lungs. Wind blows past the microphone and he has to turn his back to keep the conversation intelligible. Not like he said anything in that period of time but the wind and the sighing stop after that.
"I figured I owed you an explanation. So, yeah. We're talking about the shenanigans."
Molly Toombs
"Awesome. Let me start, 'cause I'm still kicking this headache and I thought about it while I was walking Florence this morning anyways."
Yep. That's precisely how this was going to go. Sorry, Nate.
"I don't know what you were planning to do with any of that information. I'd say I don't want to know, but I care so I'll just suffice to say that we'll get to that later. That's an entirely different thing. Right now I'm just upset that you tried to take my shit."
Nathan Marszalek
Part of the problem with arguing with Nate is his voice only really has two settings. It's either a monotone or he's yelling. Molly hasn't ever heard him yell. She has heard his words start to flow into each other as he fought off a panic born of thinking he was going to turn into a vampire having been bitten by one.
He sounds even more depressed on the phone than he does in person.
"Yeah. You should be upset. That was shitty of me."
Molly Toombs
"So then why the hell did you do it?"
He sounds depressed and pitiful, but Molly doesn't relent. He was resoundingly in the dog house, and as far as she was concerned he could come back out when this was over. As was the case with many things for her lately, she would only accept payment in the form of information.
In this case, an explanation was specifically what she wanted.
Nathan Marszalek
Oh good. They're going to talk about feelings. That went so well the last time she started haranguing him about something involving supernatural phenomena. Last time he'd tried to haul her off towards the restrooms in a King Soopers and everyone around them had thought they were about to become witnesses to a domestic incident.
Nate isn't the one losing his temper this time.
"I didn't want you calling any of them," he says. "Especially not after you told me Kragen wanted to recruit you to be the medic for his little terrorist operation."
Molly Toombs
"I'm keeping that information on hand in case shit hits the fan, Nate. I've heard that things are getting... tense, I suppose. Something's supposedly brewing. I want to have these... contacts in place in case I need to reach out to someone for some goddamn protection."
Nathan Marszalek
"I guess I just don't understand what kind of protection you could need if you aren't one of them. Y'know? The rest of the world doesn't walk around hiring out bodyguards just in case war breaks out between the Sharks and the Jets again. They don't even know they exist."
Molly Toombs
"Nate."
Her tone is flat. Impatience that has been wrung dry and then chilled with ice. She sipped her coffee again, then set the mug on the end table beside her couch so she could reach down to scratch at Florence's floppy ears.
"The reason I have all of those business cards is because those folks have taken some interest in me in one way or another. That's because they know that I know they exist, man. The reason the entire fucking world doesn't know they exist is because they like to keep that shit quiet.
"Do you think they're going to just let me fall off the radar?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Maybe if you'd stop talking to them, they would."
Molly Toombs
"Well it's a little fucking late for that, isn't it? Why the hell do you think I drank myself into a four hour headache and drunken phone-a-friend last night? I know I brought this down on my head, but now I'm here and I need to deal with that."
She just wasn't sure how yet.
Nathan Marszalek
"That's what I was thinking at four o'clock this morning when I realized how deep you'd gotten in and I didn't have an answer for you right that second. I thought if I took those fucking cards with me--"
A distant voice. Nate mumbles something that sounds like heymanhowsitgoin and then clears his throat.
"Still there?" Duh, Nate. "Look, I wasn't trying to..." Scoff. "I don't know what I was trying to do. Keep you out of more trouble. You're my friend, Molly, and I love you, and I don't wanna see something bad happen to you. Especially with that Kragen guy. He's seriously... I can't believe he gave you another card, what is his problem?"
Molly Toombs
The use of 'I love you' served the purpose of softening Molly up, apparently. She was quiet for a minute after he'd finished by asking what Kragen's problem was, and when she finally spoke again there was a heavy sigh that served as a preamble.
"I'm worried about what you would have done with them. Like, that you would have gone and tried to track some of these people down. Some of these people I know very little about, Nate, and it scares me what they'd do to you, and how easily they'd do it, when you went sniffing around after them. And then they'd come after me because apparently they have these ways to figure out who you know."
Flood had done so, after all. But she didn't need to say so. He knew that already.
"I think that at some point one of these people is going to decide that it's no longer safe to just let me wander around knowing the things that I do, the names and faces and details and all of that. I think they're going to do something about it, and at that point I'll need something that can keep me safe from that. I'm pretty sure that another vampire's pretty much the only thing that can keep me safe from one. That or.... I don't know, a wizard or something maybe."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate had told her he loved her as casual as he would have stated it was raining outside. Nothing invested in it like she thought she saw in him at the supermarket after he'd gotten out of the hospital but it sure takes the wind out of her sails with a quickness.
"You know any wizards?" he asks.
Molly Toombs
"Well, I knew of one."
At first she sounds optimistic, like this might be a cool or positive thing to talk about instead. But the tone and content crash together in a heap when she continues.
"But he's dead now. Plus he was killing people and chopping them up to turn them into furniture and use their blood for magic rites and--..." She cuts off here because of a small, muffled and held back choking noise. It's hard to tell if she's gagging at the visual memory of what she witnessed or suddenly swallowing an unexpected sob that she'd tamped down with a quickness.
Nathan Marszalek
Whatever Nate's face does in response to that revelation she cannot see it and he does not give it voice. Just takes a killing drag off his cigarette and blows the breath back out. Crushes the butt beneath his heel.
"I'm never bitching about ghosts again."
Molly Toombs
"I just don't get why all of it is so bad."
She wasn't crying, and her voice wasn't husky with held back tears either. But she did sound so utterly lost-- again, that word. Lost and defeated.
"It's all blood magic and curses and sick bonds and just fucking bad. Where is all of the stuff that's supposed to balance it?"
Then, as though realizing that she was asking questions without answers and just making it worse for herself, plus dragging Nate down along with her, she made a noise as though clearing her throat and muttered some 'ahgoddamnit' that was muffled by what sounded like the palm of her own hand. She was probably scrubbing her face.
"Look. I'm sorry. I don't mean to dump on you, but before long these walls are gonna fall on me if I just keep up like this."
Nathan Marszalek
"So just walk away."
He's not walking anywhere. It's windy and he wants to finish his conversation before he goes back inside. A siren wails past in the distance. His job consists of writing up the awful things that humans do to each other. Reading police reports and attending autopsies and attending trials where victims' widows break down sobbing during their testimony.
Standing down here talking to his distraught friend is a better use of his time.
"Moll, it doesn't sound like there are any plus sides to this shit. It's all bad to me. Like a curse or something. Maybe that's the point. Otherwise people would hear 'immortality' and 'superhuman strength' and 'getting to stay up all night' and sign themselves up. You know? At least you're not like Flood, or--" Shit, does she know about Lux? "--or Kragen, or Doctor Whatever-His-Name-Is. You know? Once you're turned, or... bound, or whatever you want to call it, that's it. I can't turn my shit off either. If I could stop hearing dead people all the time, I would in a heartbeat. It's bullshit. You have a choice, man. And if you want to dump on me, I'm here for you. But I really think you should just walk away."
Molly Toombs
"Nate, I'm not gonna just walk away."
She sounded sad still, but this wasn't an upbeat conversation in any way at all. Nate knew last night that he didn't have an answer to make this all better. But it didn't stop him from hanging out downstairs, probably outside of a work building or scene or something like that, talking to her and checking in on her anyways.
"I can't just pretend that it doesn't exist. I already know too much." She was repeating that last night. It must be some kind of mantra. "I mean, I don't wanna just divorce myself from everything. Then I'd have to walk away from you, too. You're wrapped up in this about as deep as I am, let's face it."
Beat.
"Besides, if I walk away I'll give Them my back. That's a good way to die."
Nathan Marszalek
"How am I as wrapped up in this as you are?"
Molly Toombs
"Well you managed to place yourself resoundingly enough on Flood's shit list that he felt the need to intimidate me about it that one time."
Pause.
"....But I guess I'm still probably in way deeper regardless."
Nathan Marszalek
"Yeah, you know, sorry some lunatic attacked me and I started trying to figure out who the hell it was so I could see if there was any sense trying to involve the police. That wasn't my fucking fault."
Molly Toombs
"Jesus Christ, Nate, I'm not blaming you for shit. I'm just saying how deep you're in. Deep enough to be on a shit list. I mean, at least I'm managing to stay in good graces. Or, at least I'm pretty sure I am."
Nathan Marszalek
"Yeah and other than that incident, I haven't had any other problems with those assholes. You told me to stop digging and I stopped digging. Now all I have to worry about is dying in car crashes or getting torn up by possessed people."
You know. Normal people problems.
"So when I say maybe you should stop trying to make alliances or stay in the good graces of other lunatics or whatever, maybe I know what I'm talking about a little."
Molly Toombs
"Yeah.... Maybe...."
At first it sounds like she's conceding. In truth, she's sitting with an elbow on the arm of the couch so that she could support her head by cupping her forehead in the curve of her hand between forefinger and thumb. She was doing a damn fine job of keeping it out of her voice, but tears were pricking her eyes and a well of helplessness felt like it was trying to open in her chest. She had stopped petting Flo to hold her phone to her ear with her free hands.
But then she followed up with a shake of her head and another sip of her coffee before continuing.
"But I need to find one more thing out, at least. And I think I need to talk to Flood about it."
God damnit, Molly.
Nathan Marszalek
He doesn't raise his voice. The opposite happens: his affect goes completely flat.
It's almost like Flood is the same beast who attacked him in the park and never suffered any repercussions and both Molly and Lux think he's such a swell guy oh Nate don't be so melodramatic it was just a Kiss.
"What do you need to find out."
Molly Toombs
"Reflections. Specifically, where they go when they go away." She swallowed a burnt gulp of warm coffee, and when she spoke next there was a minor sense of urgency to her voice. Her tone had shifted to suggest that she was quickly becoming finished with this phone call. Perhaps closing up to protect more secrets-- like that she was in deep enough to know that Ghouls were a thing and how they became a thing, for example.
"I need to find out for... a friend. I've read stuff about it being related to your soul or spirit or some essence like that, but... Well, it's all very vague. I need more of the facts."
Nathan Marszalek
He hears her closing off. She can hear the same thing happening now.
It doesn't take much for Nate to decide he's done talking to a person. Clamming up or withholding information from him is the quickest way to do it. He's done it before and he doesn't have any qualms about doing it again.
"And you can't ask me to help you with this why?"
Molly Toombs
"Have you ever lost your reflection?"
The question hangs on its own.
Nathan Marszalek
"Has--?"
Nope. He's done.
"Molly," he says, "you can ask me now, and I'll do everything I can to help. We can figure this out together and without getting mixed up in whatever your 'friend' got mixed up in. But if you tell me you'd rather go to Flood I will hang up right now and not answer the phone the next time you call me at three o'clock in the morning. This is bullshit."
Molly Toombs
"I'm not saying I'd rather--... It's just I'm pretty sure he'll actually know more, and..."
There's a sound of frustration. She's not sure how she wound up under the hot light when he was the one in trouble at the beginning of this phone call.
"Fuck. Fine. Jesus, Nate, I'm just trying to--. Ugh! Nevermind, Christ, I'll read a book about it and just fucking.... Go about my day. Or something."
She's not apologizing. She won't. He tried to steal her contacts, after all.
Nathan Marszalek
Well that escalated quickly.
She can't hear him breathing heavy for how upset that exchange just made him but she knows he does have to be breathing heavy. Silence descends upon the conversation. In that silence she can hear him pulling himself together. Composing his thoughts maybe.
After no more than five seconds he finally says:
"Thank you."
Molly Toombs
It did escalate quickly. She didn't like being put up against a wall, and that's how she felt figuratively speaking here. She still wanted to be able to pull information from Flood because she knew how easy it was to do-- a lot of what she knew came from him. He seemed to have developed some kind of apathy toward the way things are supposed to be, and was happy enough to tell her all she wanted to know and more. This was why she was confident he would be a good source to ask about why his reflection had gone away-- maybe she could glean something that she could use to help poor Jacky, sad Jacky, sweet Jacky find his reflection once again.
In that time of quiet Molly listened to Nate breathe and waited for him to say something. She was just hoping harder than she thought she would that he wouldn't simply hang up. She'd just defaulted to him when put under the thumb to pick between him and Flood after all.
"Yeah." Her answer was quiet, deflated. "Thank you too." Then: "I'll see you around, then."
Nathan Marszalek
For a few seconds it sounds as if he is going to hang up. But that thank you of his held more pain in it than one would have thought it would considering he was the one laying down ultimatums that came out of nowhere.
He never talks about the people he's lost. Never talks about whether he feels survivor's guilt. He came back from Afghanistan and had to go to counseling because that's protocol these days but he didn't have any symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Still doesn't.
He doesn't relive the things that have fucked him up over there but it's not the things that happened over there that fucked him up. He sat paralyzed and drowning in his own blood with Shannon's dead body within arm's reach of him for twenty minutes. Carole knows what's wrong with his back but isn't talking to him right now because she thinks he's got something wrong with his head too. Some sort of personality disorder or maybe he's schizophrenic. Losing Molly wouldn't do him any favors right now.
Selfish prick.
"Alright," he says. "Lay off the sauce."
Click.
I Do Stupid Shit Sometimes - 3.22.2014 [Nate]
Molly Toombs
Three in the morning isn't an hour when any human should be out and about, not if they know what's good for them. Especially not if they actually know better, like Molly Toombs did.
And yet, it's less than ten minutes from striking three on the clock when Nate's phone starts going off-- ringing, buzzing, whatever it's set to do. He's getting a phone call, and the display will tell him that it's from the red-haired nurse that got lumped into his life by way of chance and shared weirdness.
When he answers, on whatever ring that may be, he can immediately tell that Molly sounds to be two things: cold and drunk.
"Nate before you even start, I just wanna know if you can give this sloppy bitch a mercy ride home."
Nathan Marszalek
This is one of the nights when he wasn't already awake because of something else trying to get his attention so it takes several rings before his phone awakens him. Like most adults he's figured out that there is a block feature on his phone. The only calls that come through between midnight and nine o'clock in the morning are Dire Fucking Emergencies.
Turns out she's just drunk. But Nate is still drawing a breath to ask if she's alright when she's responding.
"Have I told you how much you suck recently?" he asks in a smoker's croak she's never heard because Molly has never heard his I-was-asleep-five-seconds-ago voice. Rustle, rustle. Click. "I hope you're not too drunk to ride bitch on a motorcycle because that's--" Cough, cough, cough. "--what's happening. Where the fuck are you?"
Molly Toombs
Where was she.
There was a pause as Molly looked around. She had been walking along the sidewalk of a street that housed closed businesses like car washes and small auto dealerships and real estate offices. The buildings were all short and dusty and sun bleached looking-- the neighborhood was older and the city didn't care to beautify it.
Rain was starting up in spurts here and there, and the wind was kicking up as well. It just stopped raining about two minutes ago and that time there was slush mixed in. The weather forecast told her that it might snow, but she thought she would be indoors, in vehicles, or at home all night long. She brought a coat along, sure, but that didn't protect her bare legs from the chill. The wind kept whipping the bottom of her knee-length dress and poking needles of cold and wet at her shins, but there was a gas station two more blocks ahead that she had resolved to warm up in while waiting.
As she passed a street sign, she gave him coordinates. He had to wait a dozen seconds or so to get that information, but the time was filled with the sound of walking and muttered "Hang on"s.
"I'll be at the Sinclair that's about two blocks north.
"And I'm sorry! Just... It's fucking cold and it keeps raining and I'm further from home than I thought I was." To be fair, based on where she told him she was her apartments were on the complete opposite side of the downtown district.
"That's a hell of a hack, Marszalek, can you breathe?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Mind your own goddamn business."
It's said with some fondness and serves as a prefix for the click of the lighter that gets his first cigarette going as he stumbles around his apartment half in the dark trying to get dressed enough that he won't freeze on the ride over.
"I'll be there in like fifteen minutes. Stay inside so you don't get hypothermia or whatever."
Molly Toombs
"Fine. I'm just saying, if you can't breathe I don't know how you're driving a motorcycle. Though if the helmet has a face mask I suppose that'll--...." She trailed off, mostly because she'd started getting quieter as though talking for herself rather than for Nate anymore, and that's the point at which he'd told her how long he would be getting to her.
"Alright alright. Nate, thank you. I'll see you soon."
And she hung up the phone at that point. She was drunk, obviously, to the point that her cadence and speech were impacted, but at least she could remember graciousness.
By the time Nate pulls up to the gas station that Molly told him she'd be at, she's already been there for about ten minutes. Through the glass store front he can see Molly standing with her hair and shoulders splattered wet from the sporatic rains. She's holding a coffee cup and standing at the register with one hand holding the counter, probably to support her balance and prevent herself from wobbling or looking too drunk (which she seems to be doing with some amount of success). She's wearing a simple black coat that's better suited for spring temperatures than for freezing rain and snow, and this is overtop a green dress with a loose and angled hem whose length floated between an inch or two above the knee and an inch or two below due to the cut. She looks like she'd probably been out on a date, or something like that.
When Molly sees Nate's motorcycle outside, she smiles politely at the man behind the counter (a burnout looking man with long dishwater-blond hair and a bad mustache) and pointed and probably said something about how that was her ride.
She had to correct her path only a little bit when she left the counter to walk to the doors, but tries to do so subtly. It's obvious where the gas station attendant is looking as she leaves.
Nathan Marszalek
Nate does not look like the sort of person who would ride a motorcycle. He doesn't brag about it when he's out in public and he doesn't itch to get into fights. He's not well into middle age and trying to do something that will get his blood pumping again. Although he does know how to drive a car it doesn't take someone like Molly much effort to figure out why the man might not feel particularly safe in a car.
He pulls up outside the Sinclair a little over ten minutes after concluding the conversation and idles with the stand on while he waits for her to mosey on out here. His hair is much shorter than it ever has been when he removes his helmet. Not sheep-shearer short but short enough that his curls don't go flying everywhere when he removes the thing.
His scars are healing but they're never going to go away completely. The one on the left side of his face is more prominent in artificial light like the neons in front of the Sinclair station. When Molly toddles her way towards him he snorts and holds out his hand for the coffee.
"Oh is that for me?" he asks. "You're so sweet."
Molly Toombs
Now that she wasn't shivering and cold, Molly appeared not to be anywhere close to hypothermia at all when she pushed the glass door open and stepped through. Nate pulled his helmet off and Molly looked at his new haircut for a second before lifting her free hand and sweeping it through the air just overtop of her own hair. She then grinned, but didn't say anything more. All she wanted to do was point out the obvious-- nobody actually had to say anything outloud about haircuts.
She'd approached the side of the bike to join him, but frowned when he stuck his hand out for the coffee, instinctively defensive of it. A half of a second or so passed before she realized that she absolutely did owe him coffee and more, and that played obviously across her freckled and blush-flushed face as well. She did steal a last sip for herself before giving it up and focusing on the saddlebags instead.
Her hand's aren't very stable, and she takes pauses here or there when she looks at the latches/zippers/whatever and works to open the things.
"Yeah, yeah, well, always thinking of you. You've got a helmet in here right?"
Nathan Marszalek
Between the blush and the last sip Nate just laughs and swipes his hand at the space between them like to dispel the notion that he expected anything out of her. His ball-busting is a hard thing to discern because of the deadpan monotone he tends to speak in.
"I don't want your backwash-y coffee," he says.
With that he kills the engine and slings himself off the bike. Some stiffness in his lower back that steals the grace out of the motion but Nate isn't a graceful creature anyway. The bike sits quiet and ticking as he rummages through the saddlebag to get his extra helmet.
"Can you make it on this thing or do you need help?"
And then:
"Where we going, anyway, Your Highness? Your place?"
Molly Toombs
"Well I don't know how I'm supposed to hold it when we're going anyways," Molly looked back at the cup of coffee left in her hand and frowned at it as though it was suddenly more of a hindrance than she wanted. Still, she continues to sip at it thoughtlessly even after stepping out of the way and letting Nate handle the saddlebags instead.
He asked if she would need help getting on the bike and she looked at it analytically. You'd think that she was studying a physics problem rather than a simple question of logistics, but hey-- she did smell like a whole lot of scotch.
Another sip of the coffee or two, a final offer to Nate of the Are you sure? variety, and then the coffee is simply gotten rid of. There was no managing it while trying to balance on a motorcycle. As she'd turned away to toddle back to the garbage can before making her way back (on black patent leather heels, of course), she answered: "Well, I don't need help getting on. Maybe just not having it fall over while doing it."
As for where they were going, she just nodded to confirm that home was where she wished to be shuttled, and reached out for the extra helmet.
Nathan Marszalek
If she's going to toss the coffee anyway Nate is going to take it when she offers it to him. He pulls off the plastic cap and tosses it before taking a surreptitious swallow to gauge how warm it is. He flinches at the amount of sugar she's put into it before taking five big gulps and then tossing the cup into the trash.
Back to getting Molly on the bike:
"It's not gonna fall over. You're not really dressed for this, though."
She's seen him pulverized by a rollover collision and shoved a tube down his throat so she could breathe for him and Nate wants to worry about whether she's going to flash someone straddling a motorcycle.
"Okay, whatever, just like, sit on the back seat and put your hand on my shoulder. Okay. I'm holding onto it. It's not gonna fall over. Keep your right foot on the ground and move your left leg over. Alright. Good. Now all you gotta do is not fall off for a few seconds."
He hands her the smaller of the two helmets and makes sure she can balance herself on the seat before he takes his hands off the machine to sling his own leg over. It's harder with her on the bike already but he's not going to improve his range of motion if nothing isn't ever hard. Once he's seated he turns back towards her and says:
"I swear to god if you fall off--"
Molly Toombs
She'd said she didn't need the help climbing on to the bike, but he offers it and walks her through what to do to avoid falling while trying to mount the mechanical beast. Help offered, tonight at least, is help accepted, so she steadies herself with his shoulder and somehow managed to swing her leg over the bike without telling the world what she was wearing under her skirt.
Once on the motorcycle, she got her hair pushed back out of her face (as well as she could manage anyways) and put the helmet on. She somehow managed to stay up on the bike without falling off of it or making Nate's process getting on in front of her any more difficult either. She had to grasp the seat both behind her and in front of her, but everything turned out okay.
When he'd turned his head to look back at her, he'd find Molly was busily tucking the edges of her skirt up under her legs and rear. She held his upper arm for balance, but when that was all said and done she looked back up at him and flashed a thumbs up. She didn't look nervous about falling off, but it looks like adjusting to the extra weight the helmet added to her head was taking enough focus as it stands. She sounds pretty casual when she says:
"If I fall off then I wreck a limb or two and the rest of my month. Or I just don't get the rest of my month." She shrugged dismissively and located his belt loops at either hip so she could tuck fingers through them. Someone taught her how to be a good motorcycle passenger-- probably an ex-boyfriend or something.
"Lessgo."
Nathan Marszalek
He hasn't had a passenger in a long time but Nate doesn't struggle with the extra weight. As ungainly and easily bruised as he is the man is stronger than he looks and his leg takes on the task of balancing the bike while he starts up the engine and removes the kickstand easily. Just before they take off he checks to make sure her helmet is on securely and puts on his own.
It's not a long trip across downtown when one isn't on foot. Traffic this time of night is nearly nonexistent and though Nate adheres to the law and doesn't drive reckless like men his age tend to do he does zip around corners and through yellow lights because no one else is on the road.
This might be the most confident she's ever seen him. The bike has to lean heavy to get around a couple of corners but Nate handles it.
Whenever he comes to visit her he parks the bike in a garage and walks the rest of the way. This is just a drop-off though so when they reach the front of the Brookstone building Nate doesn't duck into the garage. He pulls up to the curb and idles there a moment before killing the engine. He doesn't put down the kickstand though. Like he doesn't think she's going to invite him up.
If she knew to grab his hips instead of his waist Molly knows to dismount on the left side of the bike.
Molly Toombs
It's been a while since Nate's had a passenger, and it's been probably longer since Molly has been one herself, but after a block and a half she remembers the balance much like riding a bicycle-- it gets built into your muscle memory and comes back with a quickness.
After the second corner, though, Molly muttered, "Oh Jesus," quietly into her helmet and scooted herself nearer to Nate. Corner three and she's resting her helmet between his shoulders. If he asks if she's alright at any point, she'll report that she has not yet vomited into her helmet thank you very much. If he doesn't, she will still have managed not to puke by grace of stilling the heavy helmet against Nate's back.
When they came to a stop in front of her building and he cut the engine on the bike, Molly once again relied on Nate's gangly but solid frame to steady herself as she climbed off appropriately on the left side of the bike. Once dismounted, Molly shook and smoothed the skirt of her dress back out and circled her way around the front of the bike to find the curb. Of course, she stumbled (but recovered quick and easy, thank you very much) when she stepped up onto the sidewalk. Despite that, she managed to stand steadily when she turned to address her friend and hand him the helmet back.
"I owe you. Not like a ride or anything, on account of not having a car, but you know what I mean. A favor." She stopped long enough to get frustrated at a lock of still-damp hair that was stuck glued across her jaw and chin, then sighed and continued. "I don't think I can keep other friends anymore, so it's good that you answer your phone at least."
That sounded like something only an inebriated person would say out of nowhere.
Nathan Marszalek
"Of course I answer my phone. The fucking thing was ringing when I was trying to sleep."
Mild like all his admonitions are but even drunk as she is or maybe especially drunk as she is Molly can read the warmth and the care in his voice. His eyes are a dark brown that mostly look tired. She has seen them drugged and scared and bewildered. Rarely has she seen them look warm.
If he didn't care about her he wouldn't have come out at three in the morning. Wouldn't have answered his phone. Would have figured whatever it was she could leave a voicemail if it was important.
It hurts him to hear that the only reason they're friends is because she needs him to be an anchor of normalcy in a sea of supernatural occurrences but that's the sort of thing you'd have to really dig to see in a person. More than six months have passed since the coffee date that turned into a confessional.
One day he's going to be able to look back on that day and not wonder what would have happened if he had lied about the epidemic of dapper night-stalking men plaguing this city. If Shannon wouldn't have crashed the car or if Molly wouldn't have continued on her quest to find things out. But today is not that day.
"You don't owe me anything, alright?" A beat. A frown. "Did something happen that you need to tell me about, or...?"
Molly Toombs
Molly figures the thing tying them together is their shared pentient for the abnormal and supernatural both. She would still share items about her life outside of that with him, though. He knew she was from Florence, Oregon. He knew she had teenage brothers back on the coast, and that she played sports in high school (she's probably been accused of being a jock at least once by now).
Admittedly, she did call him because of the iron center of their friendship, though. That much was true. But she was getting to that.
For now she just scrubbed a hand over her face and finally knocked that bit of hair loose off her chin.
"Just that I told Devin--" who's Devin? she hasn't mentioned that man before "--that I'm afraid to go home alone and then bailed when I woke up on his couch. Might have said something about 'They' in the mix, too, so now he probably thinks that I'm in trouble with some bad men--" well, Molly, let's consider that for a second "--and he's probably going to go and pull Michael into this--" okay, Michael he knew. Michael Brandt was a police officer for Denver PD. Carole knew him too.
"--and then I'll have to find a way to talk it off because I can't hold my fucking scotch well enough to not spill my guts to my college friends about how I'm pretty sure I'm going to die every time I go into my bedroom alone at night."
By now she looks close to tears, and she's leaned down to precariously pull her heels off her feet. At least when she's standing flat-footed on the ground she'll be less wobbly.
Nathan Marszalek
Ah, shit. That answers whether she can walk up into her apartment alone or not. Good job trying so hard not to be That Guy that you become another sort of That Guy, Marszalek.
Once he sees the threat of tears looming in her eyes Nate puts down the kickstand and gets off the bike too fast. He tamps down but does not totally swallow the grunt that the fast movement irks out of him. His back doesn't seize up though. He gets up onto the curb and pockets his keys and puts an arm around her to help her towards the front door.
"Wait until we're inside," he says. "The sidewalk's gross."
Molly Toombs
Molly Toombs is drunk, but she's proud. She refuses to be Drunk Girl Crying On The Steps, and she's aware that she's rapidly on her way to becoming precisely that. So while Nate is ah shiting silently to himself and putting the kickstand down on his bike, Molly is already steeling herself and sucking in a deep breath through her nostrils and telling herself to pull it together.
All the same, when Nate gets off his bike and puts an arm about her shoulders to try and guide her to the door, Molly has still managed to get one of her shoes off and is working on the other. He says to wait, and she frowns but accepts the arm around her and leans on his side just long enough for her to pull the first shoe back on. The sidewalk is gross, he'd reminded her, and she knew he was right.
He only gets her so far as the front stoop to the building's door before she stops and shakes her head and looks back. "No, don't just leave your bike there, it'll get knocked over by some asshole. Anyway, I just need to get the fuck over it and go upstairs anyways. I can't just... stay afraid. That's stupid."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate has never been so drunk that he's started blurting out his feelings or couldn't stand up straight but he has been around people who have been that drunk before. Big Marines and other reporters. He knows enough to think before he opens his mouth and try to be inoffensive and make it seem as if the suggestions he's making are things the person would have thought of themselves.
There's no reasoning or intelligent discourse with a drunk person. Even Nate knows this.
"Yeah, I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of. If you can make it upstairs I won't leave my bike there. But I'm going to call you in the morning."
Molly Toombs
It isn't often that Molly gets drunk enough that she's not conducting herself with nearly so much dignity as she prefers to. Tonight was the night she and her old college friends (now a lawyer and a police officer, respectively) had agreed to get together and go to the bar together on. Michael Brandt hadn't stuck around for very long, his wife was well worth coming home to. She'd got to shooting the breeze with Devin Loercher, and the more that she realized she couldn't actually talk to him about anything that was happening in her life (she now even had to lie about the nice man that she was seeing of whom she didn't have any pictures so stop fucking bothering me about it), the more she drank.
That's how she ended up letting slip, when asked how she was getting home, that she would take the longest way possible because maybe she wouldn't have to be home alone at night if it was dawn by the time she got back.
Real fucking smooth, Moll. Now look at you.
Reassured by Nate's logic and promise not to just abandon his nice motorcycle, Molly nodded and retrieved the keys from her coat pocket before letting them into the building.
The shoes absolutely come off when they hit the stairwell, but with the help of the railing Molly makes her way up the stairs without tripping or weaving or giving any signs that she may go tumbling back. While she went, though, she explained in a voice that was surprisingly quiet and contained for a drunk woman (probably on account of overcompensating for trying not to sound like a loud drunk woman):
"Well, of course there's something to be afraid of. Any of the number of business cards on my desk could be there waiting for me any night that I get home. But, I mean, what can I do about it, right? So why should I keep losing sleep and saying stupid shit over it?"
Nathan Marszalek
Outside on the sidewalk Nate hadn't given any indication that he had no fucking clue who Devin is. Context is an easy thing for him to keep track of and he'd gleaned from her also mentioning Michael who he's probably heard Carole mention that these were buddies of hers. Didn't know anything else about Devin but it sounds like she started drinking and then passed the point of a gentle pleasant buzz and ran straight through the wall.
Nate casts a look back over his shoulder not to make sure no one is going to mess with his bike but to make sure no one is coming up behind them. In they go and at the stairs Nate takes a deep breath like to ready his lungs for the hike and keeps a hand floated at the small of her back in case she trips.
It isn't until halfway to the third landing that Nate starts to breathe heavy. That's another thing that might have changed if it weren't for all the goddamn vampires. He would have kept wearing nicotine patches so he didn't smell like an ashtray around the nurse he was trying to impress.
The nurse he was trying to impress who has business cards coming out her ears.
"I dunno, man," he says. Cough, cough. "I don't take business cards from weirdos who don't have pulses. That seems to be working okay."
Just ignore the fact that the young man possesses psychic abilities. He sure as hell did for the first 25 years of his life.
Molly Toombs
If vampires weren't a part of the picture, things in general would likely have gone incredibly differently. Their 'second date', if you will, their coffee together, would not have crashed and burned when Molly brought up vampires somehow and slammed Nate's mental state into memory of his assault in the park and the very scary, scarily real things that he knew of. Talk about a joy kill. On account of that, further dates didn't happen. Instead they conspired about vampires, played games of distrust, and were harrassed by ghosts.
Therefore, Nate didn't continue wearing nicotine patches to lessen his smoking and smell nicer. Which meant he was wheezing by the third flight of stairs. Molly, on the other hand, despite the curvy padding to her frame, was a healthy woman. She went jogging, she exercised accordingly, and she took this flight of stairs every day. Even drunk and swerving, but kept in line by the railing and Nate both, she reached the fourth floor and her door without trouble.
Locating her apartment key, however, was another story.
She found it sooner than later, though, and unlocked the place. It was dark and quiet and still. Florence was already asleep in her crate behind the closed door of Molly's bedroom. As she let them inside, turning on only the kitchen light for now, she complained in that still mercifully controlled volume that she'd discovered in the stairwell.
"Well I'm worried what happens if I turn them down. I don't want to start a chase, and I don't want to insult them, you know? Then they become less invested in my well-being, right? Less interested to see what happens to me. Then they instead focus on the negative side of how much I know."
Keys were placed on the counter, not tossed noisily. She very quickly found her way to a bar stool, so that she could put her arms and head both down on the island counter. Her head wasn't buried, her face not hidden. It was aimed toward the door, and she closed her eyes and explained further:
"What makes it better is how many of them know how much I know. Like, everyone knows how much I know."
Nathan Marszalek
While Molly sits herself down at the counter her lanky motorcycle-riding scarred-up former-Marine buddy clomps down the hallway. At first she might think he might just have to take a piss. It's cold outside and damp and he'd been woken up after being asleep for who even knows how long.
Then he clicks on the overhead light in another room.
"Oh, shit," he says in a whisper. "Sorry, Florence. Go back to sleep."
The light clicks back off and he clomps back out into the kitchen before moving over to the sink where he knows the glasses are lingering around somewhere. Apparently he's going to get her a glass of water and a couple of aspirin before she goes to bed.
"Well good news is nothing's hiding in the bedroom. Uh... bad news is I don't really know what to tell you. It's gonna be okay--" This, quick, like he can already sense another wave of emotionality. "--I'm gonna help you. We just can't do anything about it right this second."
He sets two pills and a big tumbler of water down in front of her and goes to rake his hand through hair that isn't there anymore. Ends up just smoothing down what's left like to play that off. Sigh.
"How many business cards are we talking, here?"
Molly Toombs
Nate's been over often enough that he knows the layout of the apartment and where things are. He's seen her bedroom for certain by now, he's probably just never really been in it. Just glimpsed through an open door, and it looks like a normal goddamn bedroom. The only difference about it now is that there's a crate near the door and a puppy that's asleep in a bed on a pile of blankets within it. The dog squinted at Nate, displeased when the lights came on, but seemed content to quietly go back to sleep when he left. This breed was known for having a more reserved personality anyways, which suited Molly just fine.
Molly turned her head to look at the water and asprin, then gave Nate a grateful expression before knocking back the asprin and a third of the glass of water at the same time. He may have anticipated a wave of watery eyes and warbling words when he confessed that he had no solution, but that didn't come. Instead she looked tired-- her stubborn effort to avoid being the drunk girl crying had just left her looking worn. The kind of drunk now that rather than nearly crying might be nearly passing out.
But, when asked how many business cards, she tells him to 'hold on' and vanishes into her dark bedroom. She was able to navigate through there without shining light in Florence's big brown eyes a second time.
Nate by now knew he was welcome to her space, for the most part. He could probably grab a beverage or start a pot of coffee without feeling too much like he was overstepping his boundaries while waiting for Molly to come back, because she was in there for about three minutes.
When she returned, emerging around the corner of the living room, she was no longer in the jacket and dress that she had been wearing out. Her make-up and hair hadn't been taken care of yet, but now she was instead dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a black T-shirt to go along with them. When she reached the kitchen island, she dropped a small pile of business cards down in front of him.
There were five business cards, plus a matchbook.
Molly Toombs
She sounded sad when she also confessed:
"Plus another that I don't have a card for."
Nathan Marszalek
[perc + emp: i just want to see how good nate is at other people's feelz]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
There's something about alcohol that lifts the veil of people's emotions. It makes them easier to read-- perhaps because they're just left being more honest in general anyways, without the capacity to appropriately lie to themselves or anyone else.
Molly doesn't look like she's going to cry again (but the scotch makes there a forever 50/50 chance that it may happen spontaneously anyways), but she does look oppressively...
lost.
It's easy, in this moment, to understand why she keeps digging deeper for more and more information. It's because she had wanted this big wide open frontieer, to break free from the monotony of her day-to-day drag, but now that she was there she had no clue where she could go next. There were no street signs here. So she clambored for information and connections, so she could better understand this scary new world, and from there better understand how to live in it.
Nathan Marszalek
Without the fanfare that had preceded his swiping up Kragen Kingsmith's card all those months ago Nate eyes the small pile of names and then picks them up. He thumbs through them only paying scant attention to the names and numbers. If he intends to go through later and investigate all of the names and businesses on the cards he isn't going to let on that that's his intention when Molly is looking as if she's going to fall asleep sitting up.
But he's still holding onto them when he steps back from the counter to lean against the sink.
That sadness doesn't sneak past him. In fact it makes the reporter suspicious. Stood in the light of her kitchen he looks - well. She's drunk. Whatever fondness she has for a friend blots out specifics of physical appearance. If he doesn't look like a smeared impression of a person she just knows it's Nate standing in front of her.
"What's his name?" he asks. Flips to the matchbook. All casual like they're just talking about office gossip.
Molly Toombs
The business cards will later probably be hidden. Tonight may be his only chance to thumb through them and take the information for himself, because when Molly was sober and realized how much information she had just slapped on the counter for the supernatural investigator (whether he liked it or not, let's face it, this was the gumshoe position he was being slid into gradually but surely). She would find a place to hide them tomorrow.
For now, though, Nate would find the cards in varying styles, but most of them are very simple in their title and content. They all had phone numbers, that's for certain. They were as follows:
Flood. Kragen Kingsmith (but he already knew that one). Bertram Kohl. Kali. Arthur Lightner.
Plus one matchbook from a bar called "The International Cocktail Lounge".
He inquired about who the last person was, and Molly groaned and slid back into a sitting position at the kitchen island, on one of the bar stools. She put her elbows on the counter now and rested her face in her hands, scrubbing and smearing the make-up on her eyes. "The good doctor Jacobs."
This is Nate's lucky night. Molly's like information on tap and the faucet just broke.
Nathan Marszalek
Nate's jaw doesn't drop but that does take him by surprise. It isn't the scrubbing and the smearing so much as the fact that she's been bitching about this Jacobs guy since he showed up a few weeks ago.
"Wait... Docteur De Rêve is a vampire?"
The cards don't go into his pocket or someplace else that Molly can't see them. Once he's glimpsed the name of the cocktail bar and frowned at the memory of having been in there once before he puts them back into a neat stack and sets them aside.
"How...?"
Molly Toombs
"He's not."
She waved her hand dismissively. It had flakes of mascara and smokey gray eyeshadow on the index knuckle's side.
"He's a Ghoul. It's different. They're still human, but not really anymore either. Because of vampires."
Her fingers found their way into her red hair, which had hairspray and such in it earlier but now that was all crisp and flattened out because of the rain and pseudo-snow she was walking through earlier. Still, she scrubbed at her scalp and tossed her hair about and sighed. "They're just everywhere. Everywhere. Every place that I turn there's something new to keep on my toes about."
Nathan Marszalek
At the dismissive hand wave the reporter frowns and braces his hands on the counter on either side of him. It helps him stretch his back without drawing attention to what he's doing.
"They've always been there, you're just getting paranoid because you know about them now. Back up: what the hell is a Ghoul?"
Molly Toombs
Nate tries to be sneaky about stretching his back. This is something that Molly has noticed since not long after they'd started spending time together and become friends. She didn't call him out on it, but she did watch this time around while he not-so-subtly stretched his back out and tried to play it off. She wondered why he felt the need to be so under-the-radar about it, but only briefly, because soon he was asking her what a Ghoul was.
This had Molly looking up at him and blinking blearily. She looked a little confused-- surprised, perhaps.
"What, you don't know?"
Molly, you bitch, just tell the man. She reached for the glass of water on the counter and took another few deep drinks, giving him just enough time to retaliate to her unintentionally, unironically know-it-all observation. "It's a human person that's... got some of a vampire's power because they drink that vampire's blood. They live longer, they're stronger-faster-tougher, all that. But it's really not a good deal because you are, like, irrevocably, terribly in love with that vampire. Sickeningly. It's sad to see, really." She did look genuinely sympathetic when insisting how sad the situation was.
"I mean, there's ways to get around it-- that bond. But I think it's seldom."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate pulls a face that all but says Noooo? Like how the hell would he know what a ghoul is. He didn't even believe vampires existed until she busted that out when they were supposed to be drinking coffee and deciding if they wanted to go home with each other. It took quite a bit of convincing for him to concede that okay maybe they were.
He still can't even explain how ghosts work. Doesn't know how a person becomes a ghost or what exactly keeps ghosts tethered to this plane or where they go when he releases them as he's done in the past. If the ghosts just trust that they're going off into oblivion where nothing hurts or happens because there really is nothing out there or if they're going someplace worse than limbo.
Ignorance hasn't exactly kept him safe but it's sure as shit kept the people around him safe.
When the glass is drained down past the halfway mark Nate abandons his stretching stance and picks it up to refill it.
"That is fucked up," he says. Turns off the faucet and sets the glass back down in front of her. Plants his hands on the island counter now instead of the sink. It's more obvious that he's stretching his back now. "So you don't have a card for the vampire whose blood he's..."
He looks disturbed by the concept of drinking a dead thing's blood. It's written all over his face. He distracts himself by leaning down on one elbow and holding out the other hand to count.
"When we met Kragen he was walking around during the day. Is he a ghoul, too, or is he just weird?"
Molly Toombs
Molly shook her head to confirm what Nate mentioned about her not having a card for the vampire that Dr. Jacobs is tethered to. She chuckled a little, the sound dark and humorless, when she advised: "I wouldn't worry about that, though. It's bound to happen. I mean, the doctor knows that I know what he is. So his... 'associate'--" she sticks with the word that René had used here, "--is bound to be paying me a visit sometime soon. I'm just hoping his entrance isn't so dramatic as others have been."
As for the question about Kragen, Molly nodded.
"Yeah, he's one too. But he's one without a vampire to be bound to. Self made man and all of that."
She chuckled again, but this time the sound was different. It was the kind of laugh that rings of disbelief. It sounds like she's stepping back, looking at the mess she's made, putting her hands on her hips and laughing at it for a lack of anything else to do. Except this is scaled down-- it is still just a drunk little chuckle followed by a drunk little comment.
"And he wants me to join his gang, you know? Be his fucking medic."
She took another drink from the glass of water and sighed.
"This is exhausting. I want to go to bed."
Nathan Marszalek
They could talk about this all goddamn night but the night is almost over. People who have to work early morning shifts are already beginning to crawl out of their beds if they aren't already in their cars and traffic will be picking up with that slogging commute if Nate goes back downstairs and leaves now.
He hasn't taken off his jacket. Just because he got her upstairs doesn't mean he thinks he's staying.
At the thought of Molly going to go work for Kragen as his fucking medic Nate scowls even harder. His expression is an Ugh, no! that he doesn't vocalize because the next thought out of her mouth is that she's exhausted and wants to go to bed.
Deep breath. Get that look off your face. Alright.
"So go to bed," he says.
Molly Toombs
Nate's expression is absolutely correct. Especially since, knowing Molly as he does, there's a scary risk that she may actually investigate the opportunity further. He'd be right to guess that she was still keeping a toe in that particular door. If shit was hitting the fan as heavily as Kragen was trying to predict that it would, she would have to really start worrying about her neck a lot more, and find better ways to protect herself than a still-baby guard dog.
Rather than pressing the matter further, realizing that the time on the clock indicated it was creeping past 4:00am by now, Nate told her to get herself to bed. Molly looked at him almost dolefully for a moment, then nodded and pushed herself off the stool to stand. She kept a hand on the kitchen island for now, though.
"Alright. Let me lock up behind you."
An invitation for him to get the fuck out of her apartment so that she could get to sleep.
"I'll... uh. Call you tomorrow. Or something." The frown she wore indicated that she wasn't sure about what she was doing tomorrow, and didn't have the mental energy to spare to work through the alcohol and figure that mystery out.
Nathan Marszalek
[dex + stealth: *innocent whistling*]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Alertness: What are you up to? -2 for drunk, +2 diff for body cover and distraction]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Nathan Marszalek
[manip + subt: how good at pretending i wasn't just stealing your shit am i?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Intelligence + Subterfuge: -2 for drunnnnk]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nathan Marszalek
That invitation isn't one she needs to hand deliver and wait for an RSVP. As soon as she gets to her feet Nate nods. Sure. Lock up behind him. He's got to be taking a bet with himself as to whether she's going to remember any of this. Figuring that she won't remember any of this or that she's just that drunk that she won't notice if he oh I don't know puts his hand down over the stack of cards he'd left on the counter.
And she catches him.
And he tries to play it off by quick-picking up the matchbook to look at it one more time. Frowns like he just needed to make sure he got the address right. Okay good. He did. He sets the book back down and reaches into his jacket pocket to make sure he's got his keys. All of the cards are where they were a moment ago.
Do not quit your day job Marszalek you are not a good spy.
"Okay," he says like that didn't just happen and hustles over to the door so she can let him out. "Yeah call me tomorrow so I know you didn't turn into a bottle of Scotch in your sleep."
Molly Toombs
Molly watched. Through that whole display, she watched. At first she was headed toward the door, but she noticed his hand making its spider-shape over top of the cards that were left in a pile on the kitchen island's counter. She might be drunk, but Molly was always, always observant. She still noticed.
And somehow, through the mists of inebriation, she noticed that his terrible attempt to play off his attempt to sneak the cards off the counter was terrible. She saw right through it. He may as well have whistled with force casual cheer, slid his hand through his hair, and continued on his way. Instead he pretended to be interested in the matchbook and tossed it back on the counter.
"Are you fucking kidding?"
Nope. Of course she wasn't just going to let that slide. Drunk and exhausted and nearly passing out as she was, with only her hand on the counter keeping her from waving on her feet, she still scowled at his back as he approached the door.
"I mean, really?" Apparently she's just going for guilt.
Nathan Marszalek
If she's going to go for guilt he's going to go for ignorance. Nate barely stops walking long enough that he can turn to face her once he gets to the door. His I don't know what you're talking about face is transparent. He knows exactly what she's talking about.
"Yeah I'm kidding," he says. Starts to unlock the doors so he can let himself out if she's just going to lean against the counter. "Nobody has ever turned into a bottle of Scotch in their sleep."
Molly Toombs
Nate's done this before. He comes from a Jewish family. Just like his mother is no doubt proficient with guilt trips as samurais are their swords, Nate is good at slipping away from it by feigning ignorance. It sometimes lasts long enough to get him out the door.
"Ugh, duh. Jesus, Nate, I was just...,"
She trailed off here, shook her head, and lifted her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose and corners of her eyes.
"Whatever. I'll call you tomorrow."
Nathan Marszalek
He stands still a moment to judge whether tears are imminent before he walks out the door. If he had evaded her wrath long enough to escape he would have to take that chance but the same part of him that had him about to pocket all of her business cards neighbors the part of him that doesn't want to walk out of here knowing she might have started crying the second the door closed.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I do stupid shit sometimes. That's probably why I'm still single." Beat: "Night, Moll."
Molly Toombs
Molly looks upset. Bewildered. There's some betrayed in her eyes, too, which were red from scrubbing at them and for the Scotch and for how late it was-- how much she really should be in bed. But, thankfully, she doesn't appear to be ready to start crying.
She just looks like she's failing to process information appropriately. Doesn't know how to react, so she doesn't. She'll remember things tomorrow, and probably dwell on catching Nate trying to gank her cards while she's drunk and easy to fool in the morning while drinking black coffee and hating her poor decision making.
For now, she just frowned at Nathan while he confessed he was probably single due to the stupid shit he does. He wasn't going to get pity or sympathy from here-- not tonight. He said goodnight, and she huffed and wobble-walked her way on bare feet to the door after him.
"You sure as fuck do. Goodnight, Nate."
Three in the morning isn't an hour when any human should be out and about, not if they know what's good for them. Especially not if they actually know better, like Molly Toombs did.
And yet, it's less than ten minutes from striking three on the clock when Nate's phone starts going off-- ringing, buzzing, whatever it's set to do. He's getting a phone call, and the display will tell him that it's from the red-haired nurse that got lumped into his life by way of chance and shared weirdness.
When he answers, on whatever ring that may be, he can immediately tell that Molly sounds to be two things: cold and drunk.
"Nate before you even start, I just wanna know if you can give this sloppy bitch a mercy ride home."
Nathan Marszalek
This is one of the nights when he wasn't already awake because of something else trying to get his attention so it takes several rings before his phone awakens him. Like most adults he's figured out that there is a block feature on his phone. The only calls that come through between midnight and nine o'clock in the morning are Dire Fucking Emergencies.
Turns out she's just drunk. But Nate is still drawing a breath to ask if she's alright when she's responding.
"Have I told you how much you suck recently?" he asks in a smoker's croak she's never heard because Molly has never heard his I-was-asleep-five-seconds-ago voice. Rustle, rustle. Click. "I hope you're not too drunk to ride bitch on a motorcycle because that's--" Cough, cough, cough. "--what's happening. Where the fuck are you?"
Molly Toombs
Where was she.
There was a pause as Molly looked around. She had been walking along the sidewalk of a street that housed closed businesses like car washes and small auto dealerships and real estate offices. The buildings were all short and dusty and sun bleached looking-- the neighborhood was older and the city didn't care to beautify it.
Rain was starting up in spurts here and there, and the wind was kicking up as well. It just stopped raining about two minutes ago and that time there was slush mixed in. The weather forecast told her that it might snow, but she thought she would be indoors, in vehicles, or at home all night long. She brought a coat along, sure, but that didn't protect her bare legs from the chill. The wind kept whipping the bottom of her knee-length dress and poking needles of cold and wet at her shins, but there was a gas station two more blocks ahead that she had resolved to warm up in while waiting.
As she passed a street sign, she gave him coordinates. He had to wait a dozen seconds or so to get that information, but the time was filled with the sound of walking and muttered "Hang on"s.
"I'll be at the Sinclair that's about two blocks north.
"And I'm sorry! Just... It's fucking cold and it keeps raining and I'm further from home than I thought I was." To be fair, based on where she told him she was her apartments were on the complete opposite side of the downtown district.
"That's a hell of a hack, Marszalek, can you breathe?"
Nathan Marszalek
"Mind your own goddamn business."
It's said with some fondness and serves as a prefix for the click of the lighter that gets his first cigarette going as he stumbles around his apartment half in the dark trying to get dressed enough that he won't freeze on the ride over.
"I'll be there in like fifteen minutes. Stay inside so you don't get hypothermia or whatever."
Molly Toombs
"Fine. I'm just saying, if you can't breathe I don't know how you're driving a motorcycle. Though if the helmet has a face mask I suppose that'll--...." She trailed off, mostly because she'd started getting quieter as though talking for herself rather than for Nate anymore, and that's the point at which he'd told her how long he would be getting to her.
"Alright alright. Nate, thank you. I'll see you soon."
And she hung up the phone at that point. She was drunk, obviously, to the point that her cadence and speech were impacted, but at least she could remember graciousness.
By the time Nate pulls up to the gas station that Molly told him she'd be at, she's already been there for about ten minutes. Through the glass store front he can see Molly standing with her hair and shoulders splattered wet from the sporatic rains. She's holding a coffee cup and standing at the register with one hand holding the counter, probably to support her balance and prevent herself from wobbling or looking too drunk (which she seems to be doing with some amount of success). She's wearing a simple black coat that's better suited for spring temperatures than for freezing rain and snow, and this is overtop a green dress with a loose and angled hem whose length floated between an inch or two above the knee and an inch or two below due to the cut. She looks like she'd probably been out on a date, or something like that.
When Molly sees Nate's motorcycle outside, she smiles politely at the man behind the counter (a burnout looking man with long dishwater-blond hair and a bad mustache) and pointed and probably said something about how that was her ride.
She had to correct her path only a little bit when she left the counter to walk to the doors, but tries to do so subtly. It's obvious where the gas station attendant is looking as she leaves.
Nathan Marszalek
Nate does not look like the sort of person who would ride a motorcycle. He doesn't brag about it when he's out in public and he doesn't itch to get into fights. He's not well into middle age and trying to do something that will get his blood pumping again. Although he does know how to drive a car it doesn't take someone like Molly much effort to figure out why the man might not feel particularly safe in a car.
He pulls up outside the Sinclair a little over ten minutes after concluding the conversation and idles with the stand on while he waits for her to mosey on out here. His hair is much shorter than it ever has been when he removes his helmet. Not sheep-shearer short but short enough that his curls don't go flying everywhere when he removes the thing.
His scars are healing but they're never going to go away completely. The one on the left side of his face is more prominent in artificial light like the neons in front of the Sinclair station. When Molly toddles her way towards him he snorts and holds out his hand for the coffee.
"Oh is that for me?" he asks. "You're so sweet."
Molly Toombs
Now that she wasn't shivering and cold, Molly appeared not to be anywhere close to hypothermia at all when she pushed the glass door open and stepped through. Nate pulled his helmet off and Molly looked at his new haircut for a second before lifting her free hand and sweeping it through the air just overtop of her own hair. She then grinned, but didn't say anything more. All she wanted to do was point out the obvious-- nobody actually had to say anything outloud about haircuts.
She'd approached the side of the bike to join him, but frowned when he stuck his hand out for the coffee, instinctively defensive of it. A half of a second or so passed before she realized that she absolutely did owe him coffee and more, and that played obviously across her freckled and blush-flushed face as well. She did steal a last sip for herself before giving it up and focusing on the saddlebags instead.
Her hand's aren't very stable, and she takes pauses here or there when she looks at the latches/zippers/whatever and works to open the things.
"Yeah, yeah, well, always thinking of you. You've got a helmet in here right?"
Nathan Marszalek
Between the blush and the last sip Nate just laughs and swipes his hand at the space between them like to dispel the notion that he expected anything out of her. His ball-busting is a hard thing to discern because of the deadpan monotone he tends to speak in.
"I don't want your backwash-y coffee," he says.
With that he kills the engine and slings himself off the bike. Some stiffness in his lower back that steals the grace out of the motion but Nate isn't a graceful creature anyway. The bike sits quiet and ticking as he rummages through the saddlebag to get his extra helmet.
"Can you make it on this thing or do you need help?"
And then:
"Where we going, anyway, Your Highness? Your place?"
Molly Toombs
"Well I don't know how I'm supposed to hold it when we're going anyways," Molly looked back at the cup of coffee left in her hand and frowned at it as though it was suddenly more of a hindrance than she wanted. Still, she continues to sip at it thoughtlessly even after stepping out of the way and letting Nate handle the saddlebags instead.
He asked if she would need help getting on the bike and she looked at it analytically. You'd think that she was studying a physics problem rather than a simple question of logistics, but hey-- she did smell like a whole lot of scotch.
Another sip of the coffee or two, a final offer to Nate of the Are you sure? variety, and then the coffee is simply gotten rid of. There was no managing it while trying to balance on a motorcycle. As she'd turned away to toddle back to the garbage can before making her way back (on black patent leather heels, of course), she answered: "Well, I don't need help getting on. Maybe just not having it fall over while doing it."
As for where they were going, she just nodded to confirm that home was where she wished to be shuttled, and reached out for the extra helmet.
Nathan Marszalek
If she's going to toss the coffee anyway Nate is going to take it when she offers it to him. He pulls off the plastic cap and tosses it before taking a surreptitious swallow to gauge how warm it is. He flinches at the amount of sugar she's put into it before taking five big gulps and then tossing the cup into the trash.
Back to getting Molly on the bike:
"It's not gonna fall over. You're not really dressed for this, though."
She's seen him pulverized by a rollover collision and shoved a tube down his throat so she could breathe for him and Nate wants to worry about whether she's going to flash someone straddling a motorcycle.
"Okay, whatever, just like, sit on the back seat and put your hand on my shoulder. Okay. I'm holding onto it. It's not gonna fall over. Keep your right foot on the ground and move your left leg over. Alright. Good. Now all you gotta do is not fall off for a few seconds."
He hands her the smaller of the two helmets and makes sure she can balance herself on the seat before he takes his hands off the machine to sling his own leg over. It's harder with her on the bike already but he's not going to improve his range of motion if nothing isn't ever hard. Once he's seated he turns back towards her and says:
"I swear to god if you fall off--"
Molly Toombs
She'd said she didn't need the help climbing on to the bike, but he offers it and walks her through what to do to avoid falling while trying to mount the mechanical beast. Help offered, tonight at least, is help accepted, so she steadies herself with his shoulder and somehow managed to swing her leg over the bike without telling the world what she was wearing under her skirt.
Once on the motorcycle, she got her hair pushed back out of her face (as well as she could manage anyways) and put the helmet on. She somehow managed to stay up on the bike without falling off of it or making Nate's process getting on in front of her any more difficult either. She had to grasp the seat both behind her and in front of her, but everything turned out okay.
When he'd turned his head to look back at her, he'd find Molly was busily tucking the edges of her skirt up under her legs and rear. She held his upper arm for balance, but when that was all said and done she looked back up at him and flashed a thumbs up. She didn't look nervous about falling off, but it looks like adjusting to the extra weight the helmet added to her head was taking enough focus as it stands. She sounds pretty casual when she says:
"If I fall off then I wreck a limb or two and the rest of my month. Or I just don't get the rest of my month." She shrugged dismissively and located his belt loops at either hip so she could tuck fingers through them. Someone taught her how to be a good motorcycle passenger-- probably an ex-boyfriend or something.
"Lessgo."
Nathan Marszalek
He hasn't had a passenger in a long time but Nate doesn't struggle with the extra weight. As ungainly and easily bruised as he is the man is stronger than he looks and his leg takes on the task of balancing the bike while he starts up the engine and removes the kickstand easily. Just before they take off he checks to make sure her helmet is on securely and puts on his own.
It's not a long trip across downtown when one isn't on foot. Traffic this time of night is nearly nonexistent and though Nate adheres to the law and doesn't drive reckless like men his age tend to do he does zip around corners and through yellow lights because no one else is on the road.
This might be the most confident she's ever seen him. The bike has to lean heavy to get around a couple of corners but Nate handles it.
Whenever he comes to visit her he parks the bike in a garage and walks the rest of the way. This is just a drop-off though so when they reach the front of the Brookstone building Nate doesn't duck into the garage. He pulls up to the curb and idles there a moment before killing the engine. He doesn't put down the kickstand though. Like he doesn't think she's going to invite him up.
If she knew to grab his hips instead of his waist Molly knows to dismount on the left side of the bike.
Molly Toombs
It's been a while since Nate's had a passenger, and it's been probably longer since Molly has been one herself, but after a block and a half she remembers the balance much like riding a bicycle-- it gets built into your muscle memory and comes back with a quickness.
After the second corner, though, Molly muttered, "Oh Jesus," quietly into her helmet and scooted herself nearer to Nate. Corner three and she's resting her helmet between his shoulders. If he asks if she's alright at any point, she'll report that she has not yet vomited into her helmet thank you very much. If he doesn't, she will still have managed not to puke by grace of stilling the heavy helmet against Nate's back.
When they came to a stop in front of her building and he cut the engine on the bike, Molly once again relied on Nate's gangly but solid frame to steady herself as she climbed off appropriately on the left side of the bike. Once dismounted, Molly shook and smoothed the skirt of her dress back out and circled her way around the front of the bike to find the curb. Of course, she stumbled (but recovered quick and easy, thank you very much) when she stepped up onto the sidewalk. Despite that, she managed to stand steadily when she turned to address her friend and hand him the helmet back.
"I owe you. Not like a ride or anything, on account of not having a car, but you know what I mean. A favor." She stopped long enough to get frustrated at a lock of still-damp hair that was stuck glued across her jaw and chin, then sighed and continued. "I don't think I can keep other friends anymore, so it's good that you answer your phone at least."
That sounded like something only an inebriated person would say out of nowhere.
Nathan Marszalek
"Of course I answer my phone. The fucking thing was ringing when I was trying to sleep."
Mild like all his admonitions are but even drunk as she is or maybe especially drunk as she is Molly can read the warmth and the care in his voice. His eyes are a dark brown that mostly look tired. She has seen them drugged and scared and bewildered. Rarely has she seen them look warm.
If he didn't care about her he wouldn't have come out at three in the morning. Wouldn't have answered his phone. Would have figured whatever it was she could leave a voicemail if it was important.
It hurts him to hear that the only reason they're friends is because she needs him to be an anchor of normalcy in a sea of supernatural occurrences but that's the sort of thing you'd have to really dig to see in a person. More than six months have passed since the coffee date that turned into a confessional.
One day he's going to be able to look back on that day and not wonder what would have happened if he had lied about the epidemic of dapper night-stalking men plaguing this city. If Shannon wouldn't have crashed the car or if Molly wouldn't have continued on her quest to find things out. But today is not that day.
"You don't owe me anything, alright?" A beat. A frown. "Did something happen that you need to tell me about, or...?"
Molly Toombs
Molly figures the thing tying them together is their shared pentient for the abnormal and supernatural both. She would still share items about her life outside of that with him, though. He knew she was from Florence, Oregon. He knew she had teenage brothers back on the coast, and that she played sports in high school (she's probably been accused of being a jock at least once by now).
Admittedly, she did call him because of the iron center of their friendship, though. That much was true. But she was getting to that.
For now she just scrubbed a hand over her face and finally knocked that bit of hair loose off her chin.
"Just that I told Devin--" who's Devin? she hasn't mentioned that man before "--that I'm afraid to go home alone and then bailed when I woke up on his couch. Might have said something about 'They' in the mix, too, so now he probably thinks that I'm in trouble with some bad men--" well, Molly, let's consider that for a second "--and he's probably going to go and pull Michael into this--" okay, Michael he knew. Michael Brandt was a police officer for Denver PD. Carole knew him too.
"--and then I'll have to find a way to talk it off because I can't hold my fucking scotch well enough to not spill my guts to my college friends about how I'm pretty sure I'm going to die every time I go into my bedroom alone at night."
By now she looks close to tears, and she's leaned down to precariously pull her heels off her feet. At least when she's standing flat-footed on the ground she'll be less wobbly.
Nathan Marszalek
Ah, shit. That answers whether she can walk up into her apartment alone or not. Good job trying so hard not to be That Guy that you become another sort of That Guy, Marszalek.
Once he sees the threat of tears looming in her eyes Nate puts down the kickstand and gets off the bike too fast. He tamps down but does not totally swallow the grunt that the fast movement irks out of him. His back doesn't seize up though. He gets up onto the curb and pockets his keys and puts an arm around her to help her towards the front door.
"Wait until we're inside," he says. "The sidewalk's gross."
Molly Toombs
Molly Toombs is drunk, but she's proud. She refuses to be Drunk Girl Crying On The Steps, and she's aware that she's rapidly on her way to becoming precisely that. So while Nate is ah shiting silently to himself and putting the kickstand down on his bike, Molly is already steeling herself and sucking in a deep breath through her nostrils and telling herself to pull it together.
All the same, when Nate gets off his bike and puts an arm about her shoulders to try and guide her to the door, Molly has still managed to get one of her shoes off and is working on the other. He says to wait, and she frowns but accepts the arm around her and leans on his side just long enough for her to pull the first shoe back on. The sidewalk is gross, he'd reminded her, and she knew he was right.
He only gets her so far as the front stoop to the building's door before she stops and shakes her head and looks back. "No, don't just leave your bike there, it'll get knocked over by some asshole. Anyway, I just need to get the fuck over it and go upstairs anyways. I can't just... stay afraid. That's stupid."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate has never been so drunk that he's started blurting out his feelings or couldn't stand up straight but he has been around people who have been that drunk before. Big Marines and other reporters. He knows enough to think before he opens his mouth and try to be inoffensive and make it seem as if the suggestions he's making are things the person would have thought of themselves.
There's no reasoning or intelligent discourse with a drunk person. Even Nate knows this.
"Yeah, I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of. If you can make it upstairs I won't leave my bike there. But I'm going to call you in the morning."
Molly Toombs
It isn't often that Molly gets drunk enough that she's not conducting herself with nearly so much dignity as she prefers to. Tonight was the night she and her old college friends (now a lawyer and a police officer, respectively) had agreed to get together and go to the bar together on. Michael Brandt hadn't stuck around for very long, his wife was well worth coming home to. She'd got to shooting the breeze with Devin Loercher, and the more that she realized she couldn't actually talk to him about anything that was happening in her life (she now even had to lie about the nice man that she was seeing of whom she didn't have any pictures so stop fucking bothering me about it), the more she drank.
That's how she ended up letting slip, when asked how she was getting home, that she would take the longest way possible because maybe she wouldn't have to be home alone at night if it was dawn by the time she got back.
Real fucking smooth, Moll. Now look at you.
Reassured by Nate's logic and promise not to just abandon his nice motorcycle, Molly nodded and retrieved the keys from her coat pocket before letting them into the building.
The shoes absolutely come off when they hit the stairwell, but with the help of the railing Molly makes her way up the stairs without tripping or weaving or giving any signs that she may go tumbling back. While she went, though, she explained in a voice that was surprisingly quiet and contained for a drunk woman (probably on account of overcompensating for trying not to sound like a loud drunk woman):
"Well, of course there's something to be afraid of. Any of the number of business cards on my desk could be there waiting for me any night that I get home. But, I mean, what can I do about it, right? So why should I keep losing sleep and saying stupid shit over it?"
Nathan Marszalek
Outside on the sidewalk Nate hadn't given any indication that he had no fucking clue who Devin is. Context is an easy thing for him to keep track of and he'd gleaned from her also mentioning Michael who he's probably heard Carole mention that these were buddies of hers. Didn't know anything else about Devin but it sounds like she started drinking and then passed the point of a gentle pleasant buzz and ran straight through the wall.
Nate casts a look back over his shoulder not to make sure no one is going to mess with his bike but to make sure no one is coming up behind them. In they go and at the stairs Nate takes a deep breath like to ready his lungs for the hike and keeps a hand floated at the small of her back in case she trips.
It isn't until halfway to the third landing that Nate starts to breathe heavy. That's another thing that might have changed if it weren't for all the goddamn vampires. He would have kept wearing nicotine patches so he didn't smell like an ashtray around the nurse he was trying to impress.
The nurse he was trying to impress who has business cards coming out her ears.
"I dunno, man," he says. Cough, cough. "I don't take business cards from weirdos who don't have pulses. That seems to be working okay."
Just ignore the fact that the young man possesses psychic abilities. He sure as hell did for the first 25 years of his life.
Molly Toombs
If vampires weren't a part of the picture, things in general would likely have gone incredibly differently. Their 'second date', if you will, their coffee together, would not have crashed and burned when Molly brought up vampires somehow and slammed Nate's mental state into memory of his assault in the park and the very scary, scarily real things that he knew of. Talk about a joy kill. On account of that, further dates didn't happen. Instead they conspired about vampires, played games of distrust, and were harrassed by ghosts.
Therefore, Nate didn't continue wearing nicotine patches to lessen his smoking and smell nicer. Which meant he was wheezing by the third flight of stairs. Molly, on the other hand, despite the curvy padding to her frame, was a healthy woman. She went jogging, she exercised accordingly, and she took this flight of stairs every day. Even drunk and swerving, but kept in line by the railing and Nate both, she reached the fourth floor and her door without trouble.
Locating her apartment key, however, was another story.
She found it sooner than later, though, and unlocked the place. It was dark and quiet and still. Florence was already asleep in her crate behind the closed door of Molly's bedroom. As she let them inside, turning on only the kitchen light for now, she complained in that still mercifully controlled volume that she'd discovered in the stairwell.
"Well I'm worried what happens if I turn them down. I don't want to start a chase, and I don't want to insult them, you know? Then they become less invested in my well-being, right? Less interested to see what happens to me. Then they instead focus on the negative side of how much I know."
Keys were placed on the counter, not tossed noisily. She very quickly found her way to a bar stool, so that she could put her arms and head both down on the island counter. Her head wasn't buried, her face not hidden. It was aimed toward the door, and she closed her eyes and explained further:
"What makes it better is how many of them know how much I know. Like, everyone knows how much I know."
Nathan Marszalek
While Molly sits herself down at the counter her lanky motorcycle-riding scarred-up former-Marine buddy clomps down the hallway. At first she might think he might just have to take a piss. It's cold outside and damp and he'd been woken up after being asleep for who even knows how long.
Then he clicks on the overhead light in another room.
"Oh, shit," he says in a whisper. "Sorry, Florence. Go back to sleep."
The light clicks back off and he clomps back out into the kitchen before moving over to the sink where he knows the glasses are lingering around somewhere. Apparently he's going to get her a glass of water and a couple of aspirin before she goes to bed.
"Well good news is nothing's hiding in the bedroom. Uh... bad news is I don't really know what to tell you. It's gonna be okay--" This, quick, like he can already sense another wave of emotionality. "--I'm gonna help you. We just can't do anything about it right this second."
He sets two pills and a big tumbler of water down in front of her and goes to rake his hand through hair that isn't there anymore. Ends up just smoothing down what's left like to play that off. Sigh.
"How many business cards are we talking, here?"
Molly Toombs
Nate's been over often enough that he knows the layout of the apartment and where things are. He's seen her bedroom for certain by now, he's probably just never really been in it. Just glimpsed through an open door, and it looks like a normal goddamn bedroom. The only difference about it now is that there's a crate near the door and a puppy that's asleep in a bed on a pile of blankets within it. The dog squinted at Nate, displeased when the lights came on, but seemed content to quietly go back to sleep when he left. This breed was known for having a more reserved personality anyways, which suited Molly just fine.
Molly turned her head to look at the water and asprin, then gave Nate a grateful expression before knocking back the asprin and a third of the glass of water at the same time. He may have anticipated a wave of watery eyes and warbling words when he confessed that he had no solution, but that didn't come. Instead she looked tired-- her stubborn effort to avoid being the drunk girl crying had just left her looking worn. The kind of drunk now that rather than nearly crying might be nearly passing out.
But, when asked how many business cards, she tells him to 'hold on' and vanishes into her dark bedroom. She was able to navigate through there without shining light in Florence's big brown eyes a second time.
Nate by now knew he was welcome to her space, for the most part. He could probably grab a beverage or start a pot of coffee without feeling too much like he was overstepping his boundaries while waiting for Molly to come back, because she was in there for about three minutes.
When she returned, emerging around the corner of the living room, she was no longer in the jacket and dress that she had been wearing out. Her make-up and hair hadn't been taken care of yet, but now she was instead dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a black T-shirt to go along with them. When she reached the kitchen island, she dropped a small pile of business cards down in front of him.
There were five business cards, plus a matchbook.
Molly Toombs
She sounded sad when she also confessed:
"Plus another that I don't have a card for."
Nathan Marszalek
[perc + emp: i just want to see how good nate is at other people's feelz]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
There's something about alcohol that lifts the veil of people's emotions. It makes them easier to read-- perhaps because they're just left being more honest in general anyways, without the capacity to appropriately lie to themselves or anyone else.
Molly doesn't look like she's going to cry again (but the scotch makes there a forever 50/50 chance that it may happen spontaneously anyways), but she does look oppressively...
lost.
It's easy, in this moment, to understand why she keeps digging deeper for more and more information. It's because she had wanted this big wide open frontieer, to break free from the monotony of her day-to-day drag, but now that she was there she had no clue where she could go next. There were no street signs here. So she clambored for information and connections, so she could better understand this scary new world, and from there better understand how to live in it.
Nathan Marszalek
Without the fanfare that had preceded his swiping up Kragen Kingsmith's card all those months ago Nate eyes the small pile of names and then picks them up. He thumbs through them only paying scant attention to the names and numbers. If he intends to go through later and investigate all of the names and businesses on the cards he isn't going to let on that that's his intention when Molly is looking as if she's going to fall asleep sitting up.
But he's still holding onto them when he steps back from the counter to lean against the sink.
That sadness doesn't sneak past him. In fact it makes the reporter suspicious. Stood in the light of her kitchen he looks - well. She's drunk. Whatever fondness she has for a friend blots out specifics of physical appearance. If he doesn't look like a smeared impression of a person she just knows it's Nate standing in front of her.
"What's his name?" he asks. Flips to the matchbook. All casual like they're just talking about office gossip.
Molly Toombs
The business cards will later probably be hidden. Tonight may be his only chance to thumb through them and take the information for himself, because when Molly was sober and realized how much information she had just slapped on the counter for the supernatural investigator (whether he liked it or not, let's face it, this was the gumshoe position he was being slid into gradually but surely). She would find a place to hide them tomorrow.
For now, though, Nate would find the cards in varying styles, but most of them are very simple in their title and content. They all had phone numbers, that's for certain. They were as follows:
Flood. Kragen Kingsmith (but he already knew that one). Bertram Kohl. Kali. Arthur Lightner.
Plus one matchbook from a bar called "The International Cocktail Lounge".
He inquired about who the last person was, and Molly groaned and slid back into a sitting position at the kitchen island, on one of the bar stools. She put her elbows on the counter now and rested her face in her hands, scrubbing and smearing the make-up on her eyes. "The good doctor Jacobs."
This is Nate's lucky night. Molly's like information on tap and the faucet just broke.
Nathan Marszalek
Nate's jaw doesn't drop but that does take him by surprise. It isn't the scrubbing and the smearing so much as the fact that she's been bitching about this Jacobs guy since he showed up a few weeks ago.
"Wait... Docteur De Rêve is a vampire?"
The cards don't go into his pocket or someplace else that Molly can't see them. Once he's glimpsed the name of the cocktail bar and frowned at the memory of having been in there once before he puts them back into a neat stack and sets them aside.
"How...?"
Molly Toombs
"He's not."
She waved her hand dismissively. It had flakes of mascara and smokey gray eyeshadow on the index knuckle's side.
"He's a Ghoul. It's different. They're still human, but not really anymore either. Because of vampires."
Her fingers found their way into her red hair, which had hairspray and such in it earlier but now that was all crisp and flattened out because of the rain and pseudo-snow she was walking through earlier. Still, she scrubbed at her scalp and tossed her hair about and sighed. "They're just everywhere. Everywhere. Every place that I turn there's something new to keep on my toes about."
Nathan Marszalek
At the dismissive hand wave the reporter frowns and braces his hands on the counter on either side of him. It helps him stretch his back without drawing attention to what he's doing.
"They've always been there, you're just getting paranoid because you know about them now. Back up: what the hell is a Ghoul?"
Molly Toombs
Nate tries to be sneaky about stretching his back. This is something that Molly has noticed since not long after they'd started spending time together and become friends. She didn't call him out on it, but she did watch this time around while he not-so-subtly stretched his back out and tried to play it off. She wondered why he felt the need to be so under-the-radar about it, but only briefly, because soon he was asking her what a Ghoul was.
This had Molly looking up at him and blinking blearily. She looked a little confused-- surprised, perhaps.
"What, you don't know?"
Molly, you bitch, just tell the man. She reached for the glass of water on the counter and took another few deep drinks, giving him just enough time to retaliate to her unintentionally, unironically know-it-all observation. "It's a human person that's... got some of a vampire's power because they drink that vampire's blood. They live longer, they're stronger-faster-tougher, all that. But it's really not a good deal because you are, like, irrevocably, terribly in love with that vampire. Sickeningly. It's sad to see, really." She did look genuinely sympathetic when insisting how sad the situation was.
"I mean, there's ways to get around it-- that bond. But I think it's seldom."
Nathan Marszalek
Nate pulls a face that all but says Noooo? Like how the hell would he know what a ghoul is. He didn't even believe vampires existed until she busted that out when they were supposed to be drinking coffee and deciding if they wanted to go home with each other. It took quite a bit of convincing for him to concede that okay maybe they were.
He still can't even explain how ghosts work. Doesn't know how a person becomes a ghost or what exactly keeps ghosts tethered to this plane or where they go when he releases them as he's done in the past. If the ghosts just trust that they're going off into oblivion where nothing hurts or happens because there really is nothing out there or if they're going someplace worse than limbo.
Ignorance hasn't exactly kept him safe but it's sure as shit kept the people around him safe.
When the glass is drained down past the halfway mark Nate abandons his stretching stance and picks it up to refill it.
"That is fucked up," he says. Turns off the faucet and sets the glass back down in front of her. Plants his hands on the island counter now instead of the sink. It's more obvious that he's stretching his back now. "So you don't have a card for the vampire whose blood he's..."
He looks disturbed by the concept of drinking a dead thing's blood. It's written all over his face. He distracts himself by leaning down on one elbow and holding out the other hand to count.
"When we met Kragen he was walking around during the day. Is he a ghoul, too, or is he just weird?"
Molly Toombs
Molly shook her head to confirm what Nate mentioned about her not having a card for the vampire that Dr. Jacobs is tethered to. She chuckled a little, the sound dark and humorless, when she advised: "I wouldn't worry about that, though. It's bound to happen. I mean, the doctor knows that I know what he is. So his... 'associate'--" she sticks with the word that René had used here, "--is bound to be paying me a visit sometime soon. I'm just hoping his entrance isn't so dramatic as others have been."
As for the question about Kragen, Molly nodded.
"Yeah, he's one too. But he's one without a vampire to be bound to. Self made man and all of that."
She chuckled again, but this time the sound was different. It was the kind of laugh that rings of disbelief. It sounds like she's stepping back, looking at the mess she's made, putting her hands on her hips and laughing at it for a lack of anything else to do. Except this is scaled down-- it is still just a drunk little chuckle followed by a drunk little comment.
"And he wants me to join his gang, you know? Be his fucking medic."
She took another drink from the glass of water and sighed.
"This is exhausting. I want to go to bed."
Nathan Marszalek
They could talk about this all goddamn night but the night is almost over. People who have to work early morning shifts are already beginning to crawl out of their beds if they aren't already in their cars and traffic will be picking up with that slogging commute if Nate goes back downstairs and leaves now.
He hasn't taken off his jacket. Just because he got her upstairs doesn't mean he thinks he's staying.
At the thought of Molly going to go work for Kragen as his fucking medic Nate scowls even harder. His expression is an Ugh, no! that he doesn't vocalize because the next thought out of her mouth is that she's exhausted and wants to go to bed.
Deep breath. Get that look off your face. Alright.
"So go to bed," he says.
Molly Toombs
Nate's expression is absolutely correct. Especially since, knowing Molly as he does, there's a scary risk that she may actually investigate the opportunity further. He'd be right to guess that she was still keeping a toe in that particular door. If shit was hitting the fan as heavily as Kragen was trying to predict that it would, she would have to really start worrying about her neck a lot more, and find better ways to protect herself than a still-baby guard dog.
Rather than pressing the matter further, realizing that the time on the clock indicated it was creeping past 4:00am by now, Nate told her to get herself to bed. Molly looked at him almost dolefully for a moment, then nodded and pushed herself off the stool to stand. She kept a hand on the kitchen island for now, though.
"Alright. Let me lock up behind you."
An invitation for him to get the fuck out of her apartment so that she could get to sleep.
"I'll... uh. Call you tomorrow. Or something." The frown she wore indicated that she wasn't sure about what she was doing tomorrow, and didn't have the mental energy to spare to work through the alcohol and figure that mystery out.
Nathan Marszalek
[dex + stealth: *innocent whistling*]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Alertness: What are you up to? -2 for drunk, +2 diff for body cover and distraction]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Nathan Marszalek
[manip + subt: how good at pretending i wasn't just stealing your shit am i?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Intelligence + Subterfuge: -2 for drunnnnk]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nathan Marszalek
That invitation isn't one she needs to hand deliver and wait for an RSVP. As soon as she gets to her feet Nate nods. Sure. Lock up behind him. He's got to be taking a bet with himself as to whether she's going to remember any of this. Figuring that she won't remember any of this or that she's just that drunk that she won't notice if he oh I don't know puts his hand down over the stack of cards he'd left on the counter.
And she catches him.
And he tries to play it off by quick-picking up the matchbook to look at it one more time. Frowns like he just needed to make sure he got the address right. Okay good. He did. He sets the book back down and reaches into his jacket pocket to make sure he's got his keys. All of the cards are where they were a moment ago.
Do not quit your day job Marszalek you are not a good spy.
"Okay," he says like that didn't just happen and hustles over to the door so she can let him out. "Yeah call me tomorrow so I know you didn't turn into a bottle of Scotch in your sleep."
Molly Toombs
Molly watched. Through that whole display, she watched. At first she was headed toward the door, but she noticed his hand making its spider-shape over top of the cards that were left in a pile on the kitchen island's counter. She might be drunk, but Molly was always, always observant. She still noticed.
And somehow, through the mists of inebriation, she noticed that his terrible attempt to play off his attempt to sneak the cards off the counter was terrible. She saw right through it. He may as well have whistled with force casual cheer, slid his hand through his hair, and continued on his way. Instead he pretended to be interested in the matchbook and tossed it back on the counter.
"Are you fucking kidding?"
Nope. Of course she wasn't just going to let that slide. Drunk and exhausted and nearly passing out as she was, with only her hand on the counter keeping her from waving on her feet, she still scowled at his back as he approached the door.
"I mean, really?" Apparently she's just going for guilt.
Nathan Marszalek
If she's going to go for guilt he's going to go for ignorance. Nate barely stops walking long enough that he can turn to face her once he gets to the door. His I don't know what you're talking about face is transparent. He knows exactly what she's talking about.
"Yeah I'm kidding," he says. Starts to unlock the doors so he can let himself out if she's just going to lean against the counter. "Nobody has ever turned into a bottle of Scotch in their sleep."
Molly Toombs
Nate's done this before. He comes from a Jewish family. Just like his mother is no doubt proficient with guilt trips as samurais are their swords, Nate is good at slipping away from it by feigning ignorance. It sometimes lasts long enough to get him out the door.
"Ugh, duh. Jesus, Nate, I was just...,"
She trailed off here, shook her head, and lifted her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose and corners of her eyes.
"Whatever. I'll call you tomorrow."
Nathan Marszalek
He stands still a moment to judge whether tears are imminent before he walks out the door. If he had evaded her wrath long enough to escape he would have to take that chance but the same part of him that had him about to pocket all of her business cards neighbors the part of him that doesn't want to walk out of here knowing she might have started crying the second the door closed.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I do stupid shit sometimes. That's probably why I'm still single." Beat: "Night, Moll."
Molly Toombs
Molly looks upset. Bewildered. There's some betrayed in her eyes, too, which were red from scrubbing at them and for the Scotch and for how late it was-- how much she really should be in bed. But, thankfully, she doesn't appear to be ready to start crying.
She just looks like she's failing to process information appropriately. Doesn't know how to react, so she doesn't. She'll remember things tomorrow, and probably dwell on catching Nate trying to gank her cards while she's drunk and easy to fool in the morning while drinking black coffee and hating her poor decision making.
For now, she just frowned at Nathan while he confessed he was probably single due to the stupid shit he does. He wasn't going to get pity or sympathy from here-- not tonight. He said goodnight, and she huffed and wobble-walked her way on bare feet to the door after him.
"You sure as fuck do. Goodnight, Nate."
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