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

[hearnospeakno]

Your own? Nick is more than mildly confused, but in a dull, quiet kind of way. He leans against the bar and pushes his napkin away. He must mean something personal, Nick decides. What else could it mean?

One that'll open tabs, I hope. He shrugs with one shoulder, pressing the tip of his pen into the period at the end of the senctence before sliding it over. Can't believe this guy. Not like I'm going anywhere.

[malachai]

"My own end of days. By all accounts, I will eventually lose every shred of my humanity and bring about the end of human life in my world, possibly others. Nice, huh? And it amazes some people I'm not in any hurry to get back there."

Nick snorted a self-depreciating laugh, then shrugged. "Bar tabs I'm not sure about, though. I'm still trying to figure out how this place works. I've been living on the barter system for the past two years. I had a few jobs, but mostly it was something to do."

[hearnospeakno]

So that's something.

What Nick knows about the dark man down in Vegas isn't much. He's their boogeyman, the sense of something heavy and wrong behind Nick's eyes, an upswell of the worst of the old world.

Nick has spent so much time thinking about him that of course he goes there now. He goes still where he sits, expression shuttering.

Yeah? He writes, slow and deliberate. Too bad.

[malachai]

He nearly staggered backwards at the emotion coming off the guy. Whatever else, this Nick had been through some serious shit and was quite possibly not finished with it yet.

For his own part, Nick shrugged. "My life's been a shitfest pretty much from the moment of my conception. I'm used to it. And I'm not planning on just rolling over and going evil. I'm going to fight the demon with everything I have. If that means anything."

Somehow, he wasn't sure if it did.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick unwinds by degrees, eyes softening. He nods, firmly, and with a certain understanding. (He does want to believe that wherever he is, it's not somewhere with him; he knows what it's like to have a life that's more or less a shitfest.

Besides. How much worse can things get, from a little benefit of the doubt?)

Good luck. He taps the napkin twice, for emphasis. That's all we can do, isn't it? Try.

Sorry. Nick switches to another napkin, self-conscious of the little white drifts forming around him. It's been a rough day.