Molly Toombs
On Thursday, Nate had been released from
the hospital with both eyes intact. He was still recovering, still
weak and tired. As she had done last time, Molly helped to get him
home. She didn't hang around long after getting him through the door.
He clearly just wanted to rest and settle in and just be, so she'd left
him to it.
The next day she'd called to check on him. He was
fine, she let him be again. On Saturday, though, he'd received a text
message from the night nurse:
I'm bringing Lucy back. She's clearly over Flo anyways.
She'd
arrive at whatever time Nate agreed to, and deposit Lucy on the floor
so she could take off and relish at the fact that she was home again as
well. Perhaps she assaulted Nate. Maybe she crammed herself under a
sofa or bed or behind a computer to make a statement about being upset
that she was extracted from home for a second time. Following that,
there was a period of hanging out-- maybe thirty minutes or so worth of
time spent before someone decided they had to go to the grocery store.
This
explains why they are where they are now: Molly walking alongside
Nate, who was encouraged to push the cart because it would give him
something to lean on. For how uncomfortable and exhausted Nate no doubt
looked, Molly seemed precisely the opposite: standing straight, skin
light colored but flush with health none the less, red hair in a high
ponytail and dressed in her black peacoat and a pair of dark washed
jeans and sneakers.
"...So anyways," Molly was picking up from
where a story she'd been telling about an uncomfortable couple that
she'd discovered entangled with one another on the trauma bay bed the
other night. Her job was a delightful one. "How's Officer Carole
Klein, huh? She was visiting you an awful lot in the hospital."
Already, her smile was starting to cheshire a little. It was fun to
prod friends about budding romances.
Nathan Marszalek
Let's just get this out of the way: Nate looks like shit.
He
isn't normally a blossoming picture of health but now that there is
some comparison between his normal breed of pale and this
I-just-spent-a-month-in-the-hospital pallor he's been dragging around
all day we can safely call this look of his 'shit.' While he has been
showering regularly his hair is an overgrown mess and he's swearing
schlub clothes. Motorcycle boots because it's below freezing outside and
jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt. He's breathing heavy for the effort of
being upright and mobile after so long lain on his ass and he has the
sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
Nate is not a 16-year-old girl.
He is not self-conscious about the scars on his forearms. But they are
nasty. Each arm required about 40 stitches to close and they're deep. He
wouldn't have bled out from the lacerations but the doctors were so
distracted by his eye nobody bothered to ask him how the cuts happened
when supposedly the guy was raking at him with his fingers. The stitches
came out just before he left the hospital and the wounds are now closed
and mostly healed but still.
With aviator sunglasses on most of
Nate's expression is obscured. They wander through the aisles to
retrieve things normal people have in their refrigerators so Nate won't
have to keep scaring delivery drivers and takeout counter girls. Milk
and cereal and frozen shit you can heat up in the microwave.
How's Officer Carole Klein?
Nate
pretends to be absorbed in reading the nutrition information on a box
of chicken nuggets. They may or may not be shaped like dinosaurs.
"Was she?" he asks in a deadpan before throwing the box into the cart and clapping the freezer door shut. "I didn't notice."
Molly Toombs
Molly
was a nurse, not a nutritionalist. She eyeballed his choices of dry
cereal and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets judgingly at first, but after
about two aisles worth of this trend in choices she simply tucked her
hands into her coat and chose not to care. He'd managed to survive well
enough that he pulled through two live-threateningly traumatic events,
so she wasn't going to start scolding his food choices. Clearly it was
working for him somehow.
"Well, considering she apparently only
just met you, I figured you would have noticed." They turned a corner,
and she cut a glance over to Nate as he had to stand more upright so he
could twist the cart 'round the tight corner. He looked utterly pitiful
in that moment, for how miserable he seemed. She figured she'd offer
to help tame his hair some later, if he'd wanted. It was getting almost
comical.
Sympathetically, she reached over and rubbed his back
both briskly and lightly. The gesture was affectionate. She felt for
him.
"She's nice, is all I'm saying. And clearly into you. I don't know what you did right, but you did."
Molly, you gossip.
Nathan Marszalek
"What can I say."
The
hand to his back seems to brace him. Starved for physical affection as
he is he doesn't mistake it as anything other than a comradely show of
support. Christ, he'd just barely gotten done with the physical therapy
he had to do after the car crash. Now it's like he has to start from
scratch.
He isn't complaining. That just makes it worse. If Nate
were a complainer he wouldn't hold himself so stiff and breathe so hard
doing something as normal and necessary as steering a grocery cart.
There are a lot of people in here. Hyperactive housewives and crying children. But he's placid in the midst of them.
"I must look really good covered in blood." A beat. "Oh, shit, popsicles."
Molly Toombs
"I suppose so."
Molly
agreed with him. She wasn't near so placid or exhausted as he was.
She'd slept well the night before (even though her sleep had been
plagued by weirdly compelling dreams about the man she'd been dating
lately) and was pleased to get Nate out and moving around, even if only a
little, just to get him started again.
He declared Popsicles, ho!
in his own tired way, and Molly looked forward, then grinned and nodded
and peered at the selections that she could spy from up ahead.
"Remember being a kid on the 4th of July and how badass the
red-white-and-blue ones were? Shame it's..." At this she stretched her
arm further out the sleeve of her coat and bent her elbow so she could
make a dramatic show of checking a watch that she was not wearing.
"February."
But she's eyeballing the selection none the less. She kept ice cream at home regardless of the season. Who was she to judge?
"Hey.
Whatever happened to that guy you were reaching out to about that thing
that you do that other people do not?" They were alone in the aisle,
but if he were touchy enough on the subject (she was still gauging that a
little) he may still reprimand her. Either way, the question was out
there.
Nathan Marszalek
Nate almost laughs. There -
look. The corners of his lips tighten up and when he exhales hard this
time it isn't because his back hurts. It's because he genuinely found
Molly's show amusing.
"February can blow me," he says and leans heavy on the cart while they hunt for the yellow box with the patriotic popsicles.
Which brings them to the matter of the blogger.
If
Molly has engaged in any sort of Internet stalking whatsoever she would
have had no trouble finding out that Nate runs his own blog when he
isn't busy being hospitalized. That it's a collection of photoessays
that stretch back to 2012. He does not appear in any of them except as a
narrative presence and the photographs are all of veterans dealing with
mental illness, homelessness, drug addiction.
Scattered around is
the occasional story of a veteran who isn't floundering. Who retired
rather than being discharged and was spending time with his grandkids or
left the service because she'd done his time and was ready to go back
to civilian life. Most of them aren't like that though.
Paranormal
blogging is a whole other fucking ballgame. He doesn't know this Gregg
guy and he doesn't know how much he'd like to investigate this thing.
But Nate has been a medium longer than he has been a veteran.
The
last entry on his blog was a memorial essay about a Vietnam veteran
named Raniero "Randy" Rodriguez, about whom several essays were written,
and a photographer named Shannon Everett. Both of them died in October
of 2013. He didn't write the essay until December.
Anyway:
"I'm
working on setting up a meeting with him. Don't know what my angle's
gonna be, though. Like 'Hey man what's up I totally hear dead people,
your blog really sp--' Oh, hey. Found 'em."
The red-white-and-blue bastards. Into the cart they go.
Molly Toombs
"That sounds like everyone's anthem." February Can Blow Me, she meant, of course.
Her
hands retreated into her coat pockets again, and they made their way up
the aisle at their own leisurely pace (because neither of them had
anything happening today, besides Molly going back home to Florence).
When he answered, explaining he's still trying to set up a meeting and
didn't quite know how to go into it, Molly shrugged her shoulders and
offered what helpful advice she thought she had.
"Well, when I was
asked if I'd seen ghosts before or anything like that, I said that I
did, but downplayed what happened. I mean--..." She paused, glancing
conspiratorially around. There was a couple down at the other end of
the aisle, but the obnoxiously inoffensive music playing over the store
speakers and the ambient chatter of public masked their conversation
pretty well. "...For example, I didn't tell this guy that I had gravity
flipped around on me and nearly fell horizontally across a room, or
that a couch nearly shattered my ribs on its own accord. But I did say
that there was a shadow in the corner of a room and the apartment over
my head was cold and the lights turned off all of a sudden. That kind
of shit's easier to buy into."
Her eyes trailed along after the
popsicles that he'd put in the cart. She thought about it for a second,
then asked: "So when you get to meet with him, what're you gonna do
next?"
Nathan Marszalek
"I hadn't thought that far ahead yet."
Of
course he hasn't. He's also had to worry about whether he still has a
job when he gets out and he's been making a valiant effort to keep up
with his schoolwork but now he has to find time to meet with his advisor
on top of weathering a verbal ass-beating from his editor. He doesn't
have time for this shit.
If this were a graphic novel or a movie
Nate would find a way to support himself capitalizing on this strange
power he's ignored all his life. But it isn't a graphic novel or a
movie. It's life. Nate reaches up to rub his forehead and starts pushing
the cart again.
"Figure out what's going on at the Observatory.
Try and do something about that asshole shade so nobody else gets hurt.
Drink a lot. You know. The usual."
Molly Toombs
He'd
expressed that he hadn't thought that far ahead yet, and Molly rolled
her eyes, but at least it was a moderate roll this time. She's been
known for her exaggerated ones every now and again.
The cart
started moving again, and Molly fell into pace alongside the man who
pushed it. She kept her stride slow enough to match Nate's. She'd look
at the shelves and what they had to display for her as they passed them
by. A dog on some ad for the store reminded Molly of an adventure
she'd had last weekend (it was similar to the one laying beside the
transient she and Jack had found), which in turn reminded her of Jack.
She seemed distracted and didn't hear the first few words that Nate had
said. She had to play catch-up mentally, but figured what he was saying
by the time he was finished.
"Well," she said, "I've bought some
books, but haven't had a chance to really sit down and read them since
getting Florence. I'll sit and crack one open tonight. If you want, I
could lend you one for yourself?" If there's any skepticism on his
face, she'd continue with: "They're not bullshit stories, I don't waste
my time or money on Hollywood nonsense."
And as she hadn't said
anything about his dinosaur chicken nuggets, she didn't say anything
about his intentions to drink a lot. He could manage himself.
Nathan Marszalek
Speaking
of drinking a lot the last stop in any respectable shopping trip is the
beer aisle. This particular beer aisle spans the entire width of the
wall.
Though Molly cannot see his eyes or the muscles around them
she can see exactly what he thinks of the books she might have procured.
A lip-curl is in progress by the time she cuts him off. Like the next
sound out of his throat is going to be an ugh.
"You didn't
happen to find Psychic Phenomena for Assholes, did you?" he asks as he
tries to decide whether he wants a 6-pack of decent beer or a 12-pack of
crappy beer.
Molly Toombs
"Nah. That shit would just rot your brain on misconceptions anyways."
Since
stumbling across the world of the supernatural, where death was a much
blurrier line than she was led to believe, Molly had been on a personal
mission to find truth and see how much else could possibly exist.
Because not only was death and life a more tangled concept than she
knew, but magic existed on top of that. Simple, plain magic. She would
not be embarrassed in front of these beings she was learning about by
bringing forward flimsy mythology that was created by authors and
perpetuated by movie makers.
No, her books were curiosities.
Found in corner shops and under mountains of dust and, more often these
days than before, on the internet-- though she did have an increasingly
stronger fondness for the little book shop that kept bringing her
curious experiences-- first the man who had been following her, she was
pretty sure, and then after that strangeness passed she'd met Jack there
as well. That shop tended to produce some useful books too.
Molly
wasn't helping Nate decide necessarily-- she was planning to buy this
for him anyways and use it as an excuse to drink one or two before
leaving him to rest and see how long it takes Lucy to forgive him. But
she did select a six pack of some decent beer and put it in the cart.
"When you go back to the Observatory, to figure things out and get them fixed, you should let me come with and help."
Nathan Marszalek
Well
if Molly is going to buy decent beer Nate is going to fall back on what
he knows and buy a 12-pack of Budweiser. It's a time-honored American
tradition. At least she didn't know him when he was still in the service
and thought it was fine to buy 30-racks of Coors Light and call it a
day.
This must be part of his self-imposed recovery plan. Nate
lets go of the cart so he will have to bend his knees and transfer the
12-pack of bottles to the bottom of the cart without hurting himself. He
breathes heavy and ends up crouched down holding onto the cart for
longer than an otherwise healthy 26-year-old man ought to.
Maybe
it has less to do with the strain of lifting a case of beer and more to
do with the fact that Molly is once again offering to follow him into a
dangerous situation.
"And do what," he asks, "be bait? They don't fuck with me the way they fuck with other people, Moll, it's too dangerous."
Lower your fucking voice, Nate.
Molly Toombs
The fact that Nate's voice had gotten
loud didn't make Molly flinch back or look threatened. She was an
average sized woman, not especially strong and she wasn't a fighter
either. Nate, on the other hand, was a Marine and stood six foot tall.
Were it not for the fact that he was still quite weak from his body
trying to quit on him for the second time in recent memory, Molly should
reasonably be worried about him raising her voice at her. She isn't,
though. Probably wouldn't be if he were in perfect health, either. He
didn't seem the hitting type.
Plus, he was pitiful. Needing to
rest before getting back up from a crouch. The only thing she had to
worry about was the public around them. On the other end of the aisle
someone heard the word 'fuck' repeated loudly, and now that
thirty-something woman was watching them with a crease of concern and
warning both to her brow.
Molly scowled down at Nate and stiffly
jammed her hands in her pockets. She didn't pull to help him back up to
his feet, but let him manage that on his own. Her body language did
suggest that she was ready to move on and get out of the store, though.
"Precisely
why you shouldn't be rolling through that shitstorm on your own." Her
tone was sharp, but her volume was low. She would have been a good
disciplinarian. "You're, what, twenty-five? Twenty-six? And only now
you're actually looking into what goes on with you? At least I know something
about what we're going into." If she wore horn-rimmed glasses, now
would be the time for her to push them up the bridge of her nose.
"You'll need the help, just take it."
Nathan Marszalek
They
both know what would happen if Molly attempted to get him to his feet
after an outburst like that. He is not a violent man. But even ending up
in the job that he had ended up in in the service Nate still had to go
through Marine Corps basic training like everybody else did. He at one
point in time met the physical requirements set forth by the Department
of Defense and knew how to fire a weapon and fight hand-to-hand with
another person. Even if he never hit another person or fired his weapon
it's ingrained in him.
If it weren't for the number of times he's
wound up in the hospital in the last year they might have called him
back up. Just because his discharge was approved doesn't mean they can't
use him. The man has no history of utilization of outpatient counseling
services and could still pass a fitness exam if he had to.
With
his mild temperament and chronic sleep deprivation he isn't normally a
threat even being as big as he is. The raising of his voice grabs
people's attention though. He gets to his feet without much fanfare.
Molly's tone is sharp when he stands to face her.
"You don't know
shit about what we're going into," he says, "and you don't know shit
about my life. Alright? Just fucking drop it, you're not going."
The
cart is heavier now but Nate doesn't move any slower than he had
earlier when he starts to maneuver it towards the cash registers now.
Molly Toombs
The
woman was openly watching them now, and while Nate stood up and
positioned himself back behind the cart Molly's eyes flicked briefly
from him to this woman, with her expensive looking heels and coat and
her dry brown hair up with hairspray. She and Molly made momentary eye
contact, and the nurse raised her eyebrows in a moment of reflexive
surprise to find that she was being watched combined with a challenge to
the woman: Go on, say something about our dysfunction.
But she
says nothing, and the woman settles for a huff of judging disapproval
before going back to her shopping. Molly's attention returned to Nate.
"Riddle me this, then."
There's
a smugness to her voice, combined with an edging kind of impatience--
like she's starting calm, pretending to be the straight man, but
actually she's building up to her attack. She always did look like she
fought dirty. That came with the known fact that she had no patience
for bullshit and faced it with flat-faced refusal. Hands still in her
pockets, she turned to find stride beside Nate as they found the front
of the store and made their way to the registers.
"What do you do
when this thing whips you across a room and breaks your leg? Or when it
gets you locked into a room? Or when it gets in your goddamn head--"
this was hissed in a lower voice, but stressed like she was proving a
point on how significant that possibility was. "--and directs you away
where you don't come back? You're a magnet for the restless and their tragedies. You need someone looking out for you. Like a tether."
Or a sidekick.
Nathan Marszalek
They're in public and she's not letting up.
Nate
looks around before abandoning the cart behind a display of beer cases.
He takes her by the arm and leads her off towards the restrooms. If she
doesn't come with him he isn't in any condition to force her but it's
clear he doesn't want to have this conversation where everybody en route
to the registers is going to hear them.
Either way:
"Yeah, and you know what?"
People
use the word 'pluck' to describe an asset that reporters have.
Admittedly the sort of reporting Nate does is mostly observing the
aftermath and badgering law enforcement and then typing up an account of
what happened and where an investigation is going. He isn't exactly
blowing doors open on trade conspiracies or exposing state department
fuck-ups.
Doesn't mean he's a doormat or a pushover. Just means it
takes a lot to get him lathered up. A throbbing headache and persistent
queasiness a month after being attacked by a possessed man and three
months after a car crash that killed his best friend and left a
preexisting injury exacerbated seems to be Nate's threshold.
They
can't make proper eye contact when he's wearing his sunglasses but Molly
knows if he takes them off she's going to have a good view of his
blood-red left eye the entire time.
"The only times I've ever seen
anybody whipped across the room, or had doors lock on me, or had the
goddamn thing take over somebody else's body, someone else was there. They don't pull that shit when I'm alone, Toombs, why isn't that sinking in?"
Molly Toombs
The
moment she was grabbed by the arm Molly anchored her feet to the ground
and leaned her weight back. She didn't jerk her arm out of his grasp,
though the impulse was certainly there, but she didn't just let him drag
her away like a disobediant child either. Once he lets go of her,
though, she is willing to walk with him back to the bathrooms. By this
time her hands have come out of her pockets and she's twisting a ring
worn on her marriage finger (chasing off unwanted advances and
simultaneously giving the wrong impression about herself and Nate in
this specific scenario).
She stands with her back near the wall,
with a water fountain by her left hip. Nate was in front of her, near
enough to keep his voice down, to keep their conversation private. He
wasn't quite looming over her, but their size difference was more
notable now than usual. She was scowling defensively at first, but when
Nate had finished asking why she didn't understand she snapped at him.
"Because those things happened to me
when I was alone! There's no guarantee that those things can't or
won't happen if no one's with you! There's no science to it, it's not a
fucking rule like that.
"I'm worried about you, why isn't that sinking in? Jesus Christ, you make it sound like I'm trying to shoehorn my way in on this for... what? The fucking fun of it?"
Nathan Marszalek
He
has no idea what he ought to be doing with his hands right now and he
doesn't slouch. Even without spending the first half of his adult life
in the military if Nate slouches it hurts his lower back. Standing up
straight is just something he does. Between his posture and the thick
soles on his boots Nate is a full head taller than the nurse.
So
he keeps his arms at his sides. More than once the fingers splay and the
palms turn out like he's silently asking her what the fuck she's
talking about but then she says she's worried about him. That makes him
breathe out hard and jam his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt.
Dark-pink still-healing scar tissue screaming out from his pale
forearms.
"Oh, what, now you're gonna get pissed off because I'm
worried about you?" A beat. "You know, you wouldn't even know about this
whole I-hear-dead-people thing if it weren't for the fact that my
dumb-ass friend couldn't drive on the fucking highway to save her
fucking life. I'm--"
There it is. Nate slams on the brakes a
second too late and then takes a deep fast breath. Glances away quick
like to make sure he's still got a clear escape path.
"No. You're not coming. End of story."
Molly Toombs
[What's Your Malfunction?: Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 5) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
"We're not talking about you being worried about me, damnit, I could give a shit less, we're--"
They
were arguing at the same time, Molly trying to jam a word in edgewise
when he accused her of being mad at him for worrying. This resulted in
her not entirely hearing what he was saying or catching the correct
tones in his voice when he said it. Something about how if Shannon
hadn't crashed her car before they went quiet simultaneously. Molly
stopped to hear what Nate was about to say, and Nate stopped to prevent
his hand of cards from spilling face-up on the table.
For a moment
they're quiet-- Nate's looking away and Molly's looking at his face
like she's trying to figure him out. When he gave her the 'end of
story' line, she blinked and the light of realization shone from her
eyes. She wore the clear expression of an 'Aha, that makes sense'
moment, and quickly that switched into something conflicted and
uncomfortable.
But this is Molly Toombs. If she ever followed orders, it had to be grudgingly.
"'End
of story', huh? Like you say those words and that's the notary stamp
on the topic?" She was frowning again, but standing differently now.
Her arms crossed self-consciously over her chest and her shoulders were
pulled more inward. It was her turn to glance back to where they left
the cart.
"It'll be the end of your story-- an abrupt one that
pisses the audience off, too-- if something happens to you and no one's
there."
Nathan Marszalek
[perc + empathy: oh you wanna roll dice, huh? -2 dice because OW.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Nothing's wrong I'm not the weird one here: Manipulation 2 + Subterfuge 2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Nathan Marszalek
Nate nods a yep, that sounds about right
nod to whether those three words out of his mouth are a notary stamp.
As far as she can tell he has no idea what's gone through her head and
he can't make anything of her posture shift other than she's lost the
argument and Molly Toombs hates losing arguments.
Tough shit.
"Alright,
Toombs," he says with a scoff. He steps away from the water fountain
he's been eclipsing with his form this entire time and starts the slow
trek back to the cart. "Good thing I met you. I really don't know how I
survived the last quarter-century without your boundless fuckin'
optimism."
Molly Toombs
Like that, the discussion
is deemed to be over. Nate stood straight and tall despite an old back
injury and the recent abuse his body has had to endure as well, scoffed
at the sound of defeat in his companion's voice, then started the
clearly tiring trek back to where he'd left the cart tucked behind a
display of stacked beer cases.
Molly did hate to lose arguments,
but that wasn't why she was sulking now. She trailed along after Nate
with that frown lingering on her face and her arms still crossed over
her chest. There was no comeback for his quip about how helpful her
optimism actually was, just the surly silence to replace it.
Well,
let's give Molly credit. She wasn't actually sulking, and if Nate were
to glance back and take a moment he'd notice that for himself. She
looked like she was worried and thoughtful. There was a certain way
that her forehead tried to crease when she was making hard decisions--
her co-workers were more familiar with this than her friends and
acquaintances, but it wasn't difficult to interpret to begin with.
When
they reach the cart, she yanks it loose from where it was parked before
turning it back over to Nate. For the past ten seconds she's seemed on
the verge of saying something but never actually following through.
Nathan Marszalek
She
reaches the cart before he does and Nate at least lets her wrestle it
back into line with the path they need to take to the registers. It is
going to take both of them to walk this crap the six blocks back to his
apartment. If she decides to leave him here Nate can always call a cab.
They aren't in the middle of nowhere. But he hasn't gotten the
impressive that she does intend to leave him here. So he takes the cart
from her and gets in line.
Other than an offhand remark about
something he reads on the front page of an end-cap tabloid there's
nothing else to say just now. They're hemmed in by other people
shuffling through the line. He puts in coat back on so they can abandon
the cart at the end of this. When it's their turn to talk to the cashier
Nate displays some ability to be charming when he wants to be.
Apologizes to the girl and tells her he's not trying to be a douchebag.
That
makes the girl laugh. She launches into a spiel about her friend who
works overnight shifts and is always wearing sunglasses even when it's
dark out. She must read 'overnight shift' in his pallor and his groggy
voice. They have five plastic bags and a 12-pack of beer to lug back to
the apartment. Nate doesn't fight Molly for distribution of goods. The
cart goes back where it belongs.
Whether she's leaving him to get
home by himself or they're just getting their bearings before heading
out into the cold Nate says:
"Look. I appreciate everything you've
been doing for me lately. I don't want you walking out of here thinking
I don't. If I need help with the wacky shit, I'll ask for it. Alright?
Just let me figure out if I do on my own first. That's all I'm asking."
Molly Toombs
Molly's
silence wasn't a cold shoulder, nor was it searing. It came across as
beaten back but not beaten down. She was relenting from the fight, but
only for the moment. They hadn't been friends for an especially long
time, but already Nate had a pretty good idea that Molly wasn't one to
abandon ideas or efforts easily. She may concede the fight to him
today, but in the next week or two he could bet that she would be trying
to gain some ground on the front of the supernatural.
To Nate, excursions and mysteries were to be survived. To Molly, they were puzzles to be solved and conquests to be had.
She
was quiet in line, smiled politely but briefly at the girl at the
register, and took up all bags but one and left Nate to handle his
12-pack of beer as well. She had no plans to abandon him to walk back
home with all of these groceries, he was correct about that assumption.
By the time they were outside again Molly had pulled a winter headband
from her pocket to cover her ears up again, and it was as she was
adjusting this that Nate spoke up-- broke the quiet and tried to clear
the air.
Molly just looked at him for a second, frowning light and
subtle, then adjusted her hold on the bags to start them walking toward
the door. Once they were outside, walking the sidewalk past the row of
vending machines in front of a long, blank brick wall that was the
store front, she finally answered. She seemed to have been stewing on
what to say.
"Fine, then. You go ahead and get all of this sort
out, then call me and let me know what the big truth at the middle is.
Why vampires are real and ghosts are so violent and blood wizards murder
people in rented out business space. I'll just..." She paused to
shake her head and lift an arm to touch at the tip of her nose with the
sleeve of her coat. The cold outside made noses run instantly.
"Keep hanging out at home and hope nothing happens to me ever."
Nathan Marszalek
"You wanna trade problems?"
It's
a mild question. The bitter envy of someone whose childhood was a
misery because of something he could not control or tell anyone about.
Might have mentioned something once to a teacher and been hauled in for a
psych evaluation. She doesn't know much about his parents or his
family. Doesn't know what he hears or when. She knows he looks like hell
on a good day and sleeps light even when he's drugged to the gills with
medication meant to help him relax the weekend before the knife might
take his eye.
Nate carries the 12-pack under one arm and the bag with Molly's 6-pack in the other hand.
"Because
I hang out at home and have to listen to dead people yammering at me
while I'm trying to do my fucking laundry." Cold air and tramping
through snow are a challenge for heavy smokers. Nate coughs hard into
his shoulder. "You're not missing anything, man. Seriously."
Molly Toombs
"No, what I'm missing out on is--"
Molly
was primed to argue. She might have cut it out in the store where
people were watching, would intervene and ask them to leave if they got
too loud or involved in the fight, but here while they were walking away
from people, turning away from the store to follow the sidewalk that
would take them back to the place where Nate lived, Molly didn't worry
about eavesdroppers.
But, even so, she cut herself off. Not
because she worried someone would overhear what she'd say next, but
perhaps because she decided it didn't matter. The fight was futile and
she was tired of it. Aggravated with Nate's stubborn insistence that he
tackle this problem alone, and conflicted with what she'd thought she
gleaned from him after he'd taken her aside to scold about being worried
for her and declare that she wasn't coming with and that was that.
Were
this anybody else she'd ignore the niggling in her mind and wait a few
days for it to go away. Most things passed with time and distance. But
Nate was different-- important for his gift with the dead and valuable
for his mutual knowledge of things humans simply weren't supposed to
know. She hated to think of walking through the dark of the world that
revealed itself alone. Nate was a guideline between outposts in a
blizzard, a lighthouse on the rocky coast. She was afraid that she'd be
swept away without him to ground her.
So, with a breath and a
sniff against the cold and a rolling 'here we go' in her shoulders,
Molly looked quickly to Nate at her side and raised her eyebrows
significantly when she told him: "Nate... You know you're important to
me. I'm worried about you. But... Well, I don't know that I want...
I mean."
Jesus Christ, Molly, spit it out.
"It isn't like this is love. It's not like that."
Nathan Marszalek
Between
concentrating on not misplacing a step and breathing adequately enough
to compensate for his heart's beating hard and fast Nate isn't giving a
significant portion of his attention to the conversation. That doesn't
mean he isn't listening. But he's listening while trying to get home in
one piece.
If he isn't going to quit smoking he at least needs to
start seriously entertaining the idea of going to the gym a couple times
a week.
Molly glances over at him and he glances back at her and
then she makes her way through what sounds like a practiced speech. It
has nothing to do with the problem they've been arguing about.
When he laughs it's a confused sound. She cannot detect any guardedness or hurt in his tone when he speaks.
"The fuck're you talking about?" he asks.
Molly Toombs
The
laugh caught Molly off guard. This shows by how she looks surprised
when he does it. The question that followed had her blinking like a
deer caught in the headlights. She didn't stop walking, though, but
kept on moving through all of this. Her pace was naturally faster than
what they were moving at now, but she slowed to allow for Nate's needs.
She didn't want to wait for him at the end of every block (that was a
dick move anyways) and she wasn't going to push him to hurry. Though
she herself didn't have a problem keeping her breathing under control or
carrying the bags, she was also much healthier than Nate was even in
the broader scope of things outside of his current injury.
There
was no answer for him, not at first. But soon a bloom of bright and
apparent blush started on her cheeks and tried to spread to the rest of
her face as well. She ducked her chin and looked quickly forward. If
she could quicken her pace without the aforementioned problem of being a
dick being in the equation, she would have.
Instead, she settled for a quick:
"Nothing. Nevermind. My mistake."
Nathan Marszalek
"Toombs..."
He
still doesn't have any idea what just happened or where that
pronouncement came from but it seems to strike him as somewhat funny.
Not that he has found a lot funny in the last several months. But not
much point exists to being friends with someone if you can't rib them
when they try to have a deep and meaningful conversation about feelings
with you. Especially when they come out of nowhere and have no basis in
reality.
Maybe he just thinks he can rip on her without
consequence because she knows if she hits him and he bonks his head on
something it could kill him in his current state.
"I know I look
beyond sexy in a hospital gown, but you really gotta keep it together if
you're gonna come visit me the next time. I can't have you falling in
love with me. Alright? I just don't dig you that way."
Molly Toombs
The
blushing doesn't come back under control quickly, but at least the
comment that he made and the fact that he preceded it by calling her by
her last name-- a more comradely thing than romantic, and a good place
to start-- had relaxed her nerves and sense of defensiveness both. The
embarrassment was quick enough to fade. She was enough of an adult to
have learned by now that dwelling on embarrassment didn't help anything,
it was better to just laugh it off. Nate left her the opening to laugh,
and she chose to take it, but to smirk her humor instead.
"Oh
don't get too full of yourself. I thought you were getting the hots for
me, and I didn't want to hurt your feelings letting you down. Besides,
I'm kind of seeing someone right now anyway."
And that was the
gateway into their next topic of conversation-- Jacky. Which is to say
Molly told Nate about her couple of dates with the guy in summary and
Nate was good to listen and focus on breathing and walking and carrying
all at once. She wouldn't show any pictures (because she didn't have
any and didn't have him on Facebook either), but she sounded enamored
with the man.
Enough that she'd talk on this subject, and back
onto Carole again, and from there to more mundane things (like the Super
Bowl tomorrow and what they would each be doing for it). The fight was
left in the grocery store, and by the time Molly left Nate to himself
at home things felt back to normal.
Or, as normal as either of them can chance, at least.
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