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

[weighted_reality]

"I don't doubt it," Arthur replies, not that he's too worried about it. Clearly, he's still trapped in some kind of fucked up dream. Maybe there's something Freudian about this.

[hearnospeakno]

For Nick's part, he actually thinks this is something dream-like too. He sips his beer and rolls it over his tongue. It somehow manages to taste like money. But it also tastes like beer, which is the main thing.

After another sip, he lifts his eyebrows questioningly and taps his throat, then points at Arthur.

[weighted_reality]

Arthur raises his eyebrows, then shrugs. "I can't say what the difference is, why I can and you don't." There's a lot of things that maybe should have done that to him, a lot of things he'd seen in his time with the military and in the dream field.

[hearnospeakno]

Born this way. Nick touches his left ear, to underscore his point. Not sure what you're supposed to be. The ghost of future past?

Something about that strikes him funny, and the corner of his mouth twitches up. Is this what I get? Or are you something else? Just curious.

[weighted_reality]

"I wish I knew," Arthur admits, running a thumb over the circumference of his glass. "I'm not sure that I'm not dreaming. But I don't think I was ever deaf. Were you ever military?"

[hearnospeakno]

Nick grins at that. Not happily, no, but it's an expression bigger than the slightly out of it daze he's been in.

Think they'd take me, Sarge? The name seems right. Not completely right, there's more to this guy, but it's something about his straight back and tightly controlled hair. I hope we're dreaming. I've got things to do.

[weighted_reality]

Arthur sharpens, really returns to his old jarhead days for a moment. "I'll ask at recruitment."

[hearnospeakno]

Nick's smile finally rises to his eyes as he shakes his head emphatically: I'd be a shit soldier. I don't listen to a word people say.

[weighted_reality]

He nods, smiling. "I was good at pretending to follow orders." And he was good at setting rules for himself and standing by them, unlike some people in his life.

[hearnospeakno]

I wasn't good at giving them. His smile fades by degrees as he twirls his pen between his fingers. My name is Nick Andros. Boulder, CO. You?

[weighted_reality]

"Arthur and I...travel a lot. It's hard to say where I'm from," he admits.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick tilts his head the other way, amusement obvious as he scratches: Drifter?

[weighted_reality]

"Business travels, more than anything." It's one way of putting what he does. It's business all right. Arthur just hopes Nick doesn't ask how legal it is.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick doesn't ask. It does occur to him, but he knows better, and besides. All kinds of legal business makes a guy travel, right?

Mostly, though, he doesn't ask because it's none of his concern.

Me too. He shrugs. Until the world ended.

[weighted_reality]

"Metaphorically or literally?" Or subconsciously? Arthur still hasn't entirely let go of the idea that Nick is some kind of projection.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick gives Arthur a strange look, now, which is slightly comic under the circumstances.

Literally. Then he frowns, and scratches that out. Not for all of us.

[weighted_reality]

"Sounds like a hell of a day," Arthur deadpans. "Or a lifetime, I guess."

[hearnospeakno]

Couple of days. Small town. It was worse everywhere else. Nick frowns, leaning over his paper.

Tell me about you.

[weighted_reality]

Arthur shrugs, releasing his posture as he decides who he's going to be. "Grew up in Chicago, joined the military. Left the military. Got a different job that put me on a plane to LA."

[hearnospeakno]

Nick covers his mouth and the smile there, before he writes:

Chi-town?? Really.

[weighted_reality]

"What? I don't strike you as a Chicago kind of guy?" Arthur asks, knowing full well that it's true. He's carefully erased anything colloquial about himself. It makes it easier to blend and adapt.