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."
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