the broken window and the pretty blue sky

[hearnospeakno]

This is a medical emergency. I need alcohol. I will pay you back.

This is what you may find held up to you on Nick Andros' palm, if you seem like the kind of person who might buy a guy a beer on credit. If you're not, or he just hasn't gotten around to you yet, Nick is the skinny guy hassling people in the Smoking Room.

It's been one of those days.

Nick doesn't like this. He's paid his own way for years, and he's been buying his own drinks since he was first able to bluff his way into a bar. But he's not going to steal, and he hasn't carried cash since--he doesn't even remember when he stopped thinking about having money in his pocket. It's been a while.

If this is whatever comes next, Nick has some pointed questions to ask whoever runs the place about why he gets a room free, but not a drink. (Nick's experience with hotels doesn't extend to the kind with minibars, so he didn't think about going up there first. He's honestly not thinking much.)

He's not begging. He's done that before, and it left a sharp, slippery taste in his mouth like sweaty pennies. Whatever is going on, wherever this is, Nick is asking for a loan, not a handout. It might be a stupid thing to be hanging onto, but under the circumstances--

Under the circumstances, Nick just wants a break. Five minutes to sit, drink a beer, and try to reconcile this bustling, beautiful place with what came before.

(He indulges in enough bitterness to think that isn't very fucking likely, but hey. He can dream.)

Comments

[digyourman]

Considering the long and perilous trajectory of Larry's life, he could acknowledge that it was somewhat strange how little time he spent in the hotel's bar. He hadn't given up drinking by any means, but he'd not made much in the way of friends yet, and the idea of sitting there alone in the dim felt distinctly wrong. Blasphemous, even.

More often than not, when he wanted a drink in this place, he paid for a bottle of beer and carried it somewhere else, usually outside. Drinking alone purportedly being a bad idea, he didn't know if that was actually a better situation for his mental health, he just knew he liked the breeze on his face.

When he stepped toward the bar today, the plan hadn't altered any— That was, until he found himself met with an imploringly outstretched palm, the scrawl across it recognizable despite the imperfect canvas.

The words swam across his vision and then blurred through a veil of saline, because he knew, god he knew

(hoped, prayed)

the face beyond beyond would belong to someone he never thought he'd ever see again, although now, after everything, he didn't know why he'd assume that.

Breath caught tight in his throat, Larry briefly swayed in place, and the slender volume of Browning poems he had pilfered from the library slid from his fingers to the polished wood floor.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick bends to pick up the books, because what else would he do? He straightens up with them clutched in one arm and--after only a moment, not of hesitation but of concern, of making sure that he's doing the right thing--reaches out with his ink-etched palm to squeeze Larry's shoulder.

This is where he hopes and prays he's hallucinating, because if he's here and so is Larry, that means--

Does he know enough to guess what it means, really? Things stopped making sense that way last summer, and of all the unlikely angels, Larry may top the list. Maybe he just wants it not to mean what it probably does. There's only so much he thinks he's able to take.

He doesn't have his notebook (because it burned, didn't it, he lost it in the fire) and he only has so much skin, and what would he write anyway? He could smile; except he can't, not now.

Nick keeps squeezing Larry's shoulder, his own breath hitching unheard and silent in the back of his throat. He wasn't going to cry. He's still not going to cry--the word shellshock comes to mind, even though he doesn't want it to.

I'm sorry might as well be written on his face, because that's who Nick is, always. Even now.

[digyourman]

Larry took a moment to exhale, sudden and shuddering, and then reached to pull Nick into a full embrace, both arms wrapped tight around his skinny body, poetry book wedged in between them. Eyes squeezed shut, Larry held on as if for dear life.

It had been his fault, hadn't it? He'd known, him and Frannie, they'd sat there and read the vitriol spewed across the pages of that ledger, and they ought to have expected it, somehow, they ought to have known. Nick had been meant to go to Las Vegas, not Larry, and Jesus, even now knowing what end would have awaited him there was little relief when held against the fact that Larry could have prevented that fucking bomb if he'd just be a little bit less wrapped up in his own problems.

A couple of hot tears slid over Larry's cheeks and splashed down onto the back of Nick's shirt, but he forced himself back after that, gulped down a fortifying breath and hastily wiped at his eyes before nodding toward the bar.

"Come on," he said, leading the way, and immediately ordered two glasses of scotch. Beer was not going to cut it anymore.

Leaning up over the bar, he found lime wedges and maraschino cherries stowed beneath but nothing like writing paper. He grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins instead, and pushed them Nick's way as he settled back onto his stool.

[hearnospeakno]

The breath Nick lets out against Larry's shirt is a mixture of a shocked oof and the ragged leading edge of what could have been a scream. His hand on Larry's shoulder ends up clutching at his back.

When Nick hides his face with closed eyes, the world stops, more or less. He can feel the thud of Larry's heart against his cheek, smell soap and something richer, earthier, pick out warm wetness spattering his shoulders like an uncertain summer shower. Everything outside of that doesn't matter.

Larry's not the only one dragging a hand against his face afterwards, even though Nick doesn't know why he bothers. It's not as if it'll wipe off the bright, desperate look he knows he must be wearing, the one that has him following Larry like a lost puppy to the bar.

He doesn't write anything, not right away. He stacks Larry's books up with almost farcical carefulness instead, like it's vitally important that they're squared away before the scotch gets here. Nick's not much of a drinker, as a rule, so when he tips back his glass when it comes it burns all the way down and makes him grimace.

Then he remembers to clink his glass against Larry's, with a little rueful look. He picks up his pen and presses it against one of the napkins, but it takes a while before he manages: Anyone else?

Nick can guess what happened to him, going by the look on Larry's face, and so he can guess what happened to Larry, too.

[digyourman]

There wasn't any resentment for the question being asked, because there wasn't any other conceivable question to lead with. Still, those two words, stark against the pale and flimsy paper of the napkin, felt as if they were dropped suddenly and solidly upon Larry's shoulders. It took him a moment to nod in the affirmative.

"Nobody else here, though," he clarified, and then went on, each name weighing him down a little more. "Susan, with you. Ralph and Glen with me. We were in Vegas. Stu maybe, too, I don't know." He desperately hoped that wasn't the case, despite the staggering odds against it. If anyone could beat those odds, it had to be Stu.

Gaze still fixed on Nick's question, it occurred to Larry that he finally had a definitive answer as to whether or not this place was heaven, because no heaven he'd ever heard of would keep a man deaf and dumb. What the hell that made the place instead, he couldn't begin to fathom. A way station, maybe. Someplace between life and death where martyrs mingled with fictions.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick thinks, in a rush of dizzying horror-tinged relief, that there should be a saying about not counting your dead friends before they're cold. Grief hits him next, as deeply physical as a sucker-shot to the gut, and he slumps over the bartop with his nails digging into the palms of his hands, blinking desperately. He needs his eyes clear.

But God, these people were his friends. They were as close to family as he'd gotten in years. He can't get his head around it. He doesn't want to get his head around it, not here, in this crowded space full of people he doesn't recognize.

He unknots his hand enough to get pen to napkin, but he doesn't know what to write. There really aren't words, are there?

What happened? He scrawls, finally. When he looks at Larry again his face is set in a terrible, thin-lipped kind of calm, like it's taking everything Nick has just not to come apart.

[digyourman]

This wasn't the place to be having this sort of conversation. The two of them had already been crying, and the way this new question punched Larry in the gut told him he would probably be setting his masculinity aside again sooner rather than later. Nick looked all tied up, in that strained place between anger and sorrow, and Larry figured he probably should have just taken them upstairs in the first place.

"We should go someplace private," he answered, and slung back the remainder of his scotch before letting the empty glass drop solidly back onto the bar top. "I've got a room."

In the lobby, he had the presence of mind to pop into the shop and buy a little spiral-bound notebook, which he passed off to Nick on the way to the elevator. Better than half the hotel seeing one side of their conversation because they used the stationery provided in the rooms.

The door to Larry's guest room was innocuous enough, giving no indicator that the space beyond was a near-perfect replica of the living room from his and Lucy's home in Boulder. Even its scent evoked the original, a mixture of freshly mown grass, cool air, and the distant aroma of dish-washing liquid. Larry had been sleeping on the sofa, and he now wadded up the linens and pushed them aside.

He sat, drew a breath, slid his hands over his thighs.

"Mother Abigail came back."

[freezedout]

Isaac's sight is pretty good. He doesn't mean to brag, but it's not like it's his own talent that he's so proud of. It's because of the werewolf senses that came to him with the bite that he can read the letters on the man's palm, even with some of the movement. It's too bad that he can't really do anything about it, though. Isaac offers a rueful smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "They won't serve me," he admits. "So, I'm pretty sure you're out of luck if I'm buying."

[hearnospeakno]

Nick's mouth quirks into--not a smile, but it's an acknowledgment. He shrugs back, holding his palms out at his side. Such is life, apparently even in possibly imaginary or non-existent bars.

He pulls the Bic out of his jeans pocket and motions as if writing, then raises his eyebrows questioningly at Isaac.

[freezedout]

"Oh," Isaac says, though there's still some confusion rife on his face as he searches for something to write with, not exactly sure what he's doing yet, but if he's going to kick around a bar where he can't even be served, he might as well go along with whatever this is. He leans his torso against the bar and snags a pen from the bartender with an easy smile, grabbing a napkin and writing HI on it with a ? following it.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick takes another napkin with a short shake of his head:

I'm Nick. You can talk. I lipread.

He turns the napkin over after he thinks Isaac has had a chance to read it, sliding up onto a bar stool: I don't like writing on napkins.

Holding it up, Nick demonstrates the damage even the soft pen tip has done, then grabs another napkin: Haven't looked for notepaper yet. Where are we?

It's not the question he wants answered the most, but Nick is realistic about how well he might be able to handle the other ones. (He keeps straining for sound, any sound, like that would prove something.)

[freezedout]

Okay, so Isaac kind of feels a little bit like an idiot right now, but he can roll with that. He's pretty sure that he should start wearing a sign that has the basics of this place on it, but maybe that's his own fault for sticking around and being available to answer these kinds of questions. "It's a hotel, I don't know where, but if you go outside, you get a pretty good view of space," Isaac says, keeping mindful to face Nick. "I'm Isaac," he introduces himself. "From Beacon Hills. Which we're nowhere near, unless you find a lucky door."

[hearnospeakno]

In turn, Nick feels a bit like an ass. It's not this kid's fault that he couldn't intuit Nick's writing preferences. At least he gave enough of a damn to try to help; a lot of people would walk away, awkwardly, in Nick's experience. Not bad people, necessarily. Just people who couldn't make an effort.

Space hotel. Nick looks resigned, but not incredulous. It's not a bad way of describing it, after all. OK. I'm from Boulder, CO. Thanks.

He taps the napkins and shrugs, bending over to write more: Better than miming.

[weighted_reality]

Arthur's always been good at keeping his own council, but it's hard not to shove a hand in his pocket and grip his totem when he sees his face on another boy. It's like staring his teenage years in the face and investigating ever darker, twisting tunnels, though he can't say he ever spent much time communicating by signs. Too much army efficiency for that.

"Are you old enough to be asking for that kind of favor?"

[hearnospeakno]

Nick has heard that people's voices sound different to themselves than they do to other people. Who knows what it speaks to about him that the startling thing isn't seeing his older reflection, but seeing that reflection move his mouth to speak; he has a sudden, easily suppressed impulse to press his hand flat against the other man's throat, not to harm or silence, but to feel.

Instead, he flips his hand over and writes on the back: 22. Would show ID, but must have left wallet in other life.

[weighted_reality]

Arthur tries not to snort at that, but it's hard. All the same, he nods and raises his eyebrows, nodding toward the bar. "What'll it be?"

[hearnospeakno]

Beer. Whatever's cheap. Nick tilts his head, studying this self-who-is-not. By rights, he should be suspicious. Things that aren't what they look like are dangerous, especially these days.

On the other hand, he's offering a drink, and he doesn't seem off. Nick thinks he would be able to tell. (Would he?)

I look good in that. He tips his chin at Arthur's ensemble.

[weighted_reality]

"Tailoring," Arthur explains. "And posture." It's all about posture. It's how he sells himself as a man of given means, rather than criminally self-made ones.

Her orders an ale and a dark beer, setting them down. Whichever one his doppelganger ignores, he'll take.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick's mouth twists up in a near-smile, because tailoring is not a word that he feels applies to him. He has good posture, or at least he thinks so, but the closest he comes to tailoring is stitching up the tears in his shirts when he wears them thin.

He takes the ale, since it's closest to what he thinks of as 'a beer', and raises his glass to Arthur. Then he sets it down and taps the I will pay you back on his palm.

No charity, he explains on a napkin.

[malachai]

Nick looked over from his seat at the bar and snorted a laugh. "I'd help you if I could, man, but I've lived the last two years in a place that didn't use money, so I'm tapped out."

He frowned, though, when he made the connection between the pad and the guy. He turned more towards him and signed. You deaf?

[hearnospeakno]

At some point in Boulder Nick had realized that sign language was functionally dead. He could sign some, but not enough, and even if he could who would he teach? Who would care anymore? So he let it go, because there were a thousand bigger things to worry about, and he's always been good at that. Letting go.

So it shouldn't be a big thing, watching someone's fingers flicker meaning, but it grabs Nick's heart in loose fingers and then squeezes.

Yes, he signs back, after a moment spent remembering how.

[malachai]

Nick nodded, but had to wonder about the pause and the emotion coming off of him. It was negative enough to have the demon stirring and prodding him to make it worse, or to dig into the guy's mind and find out why. He ignored that voice to focus on the guy.

Not the worst thing, but a pain when no one else speaks your language he nodded. Lydia and Daphne had both said similar things. Lipread, too? Or just sign?

[hearnospeakno]

Slow, Nick tells him, and then shakes his head in frustration--self-directed, because he has no idea what this guy is telling him. He can pick out a few words, but he's worse at this than lipreading.

He rips a napkin off the bar with more force than is, strictly speaking, necessary, and scrawls: Nick. Haven't signed in a long time. I read lips. I

He proffers the guy the unfinished note, shaking his head again, and whatever complex mixture of shame and loss he feels is going to have to sit unexamined.

[malachai]

Nick looked up at him and frowned, the demon automatically suspicious and desperate to look into his mind. Clinging to the human in him, he turned to face the guy and spoke very carefully. "How do you know my name?"

[hearnospeakno]

Nick looks puzzled, then pulls the note back with a nod of comprehension. He taps the name Nick, then his own chest.

Hope people can tell us apart, he writes, with a rather wry twist of his mouth. This Nick looks like--well, not someone to fuck with, for one thing, and then there's that tattoo.