metamorphotic | you've got to carry your heart like a torch in the night.

Well, she looks like this ... [nick looks up at duke, expression set in an exaggerated scowl.] And she doesn't know how to talk 'cept in these weird growly noises. But the good thing is, she's pretty easy to get rid of. Just give her a couple cups of really good coffee as tribute and she'll be on her way.

[it's not her currently disheveled state that makes nick feel like she isn't pretty - it's a lifetime of critically low self-esteem, built and encouraged mainly by her mother. nick still has to fight the impulse to protest to duke that she isn't pretty, that he hasn't seen the real nick yet, the real monster she is on the inside ...

she doesn't want to have this debate again. for once, she doesn't want to chase off someone she's allowed to come in close.]

Nah, not 'til tonight. Gotta work at six, but that's a ways off, and I don't got far to go. Do you?

Scary. [He chuckles, pressing a kiss to her forehead.] And now I know the Coffee Monster's weakness, thank you.

[Not that he anticipates monstrosity from Nick. Moodiness, maybe. Some loud arguments at the worst, unpleasant but hardly notable. Monsters are real, he's met them, and Nick doesn't seem at all like a monster. He wouldn't still be here if she did.]

I don't have to be anywhere till three. Are you hungry at all?

Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want you to get sneak attacked or anything.

[she laughs quietly and leans up to gently kiss the front of his shoulder, then rolls back flat onto the pillow, unable to take her eyes off him. this all feels so good, she’s hesitant to break it off so soon.]

If you’re ready to get up ... yeah, I guess I could eat. There’s a Spenny’s that’s usually a few blocks away.

I appreciate the concern.

[He doesn't want to break it off either. He'd rather stay close to her, and the trek to a teleporting Spenny's, whatever that was, didn't seem like a good way to achieve that.]

Would you rather stay here? I could order something. What do you like?

I like you.

[oops, there she goes getting feelings all over the place. she's not typically been this free with voicing her feelings when it wasn't hate or anger, but with duke, it feels right to do so. safe, like everything else about being with him. she laughs at herself, grin wide, only a little embarrassed as she rubs her hand over her face.]

Not that I'm a cannibal or anything. That's how y'get wendigos, and trust me, I've hit my lifetime limit on dealing with them. [yes, that's right, she's fought wendigos before. long story.] It's OK, y'don't have to do that. I ain't picky, I think I've still got stuff for eggs and toast in the kitchen. Kinda boring, I know, but the coffee makes up for it.

I thought you might when you let me take you out. Wanna know something?[He smiles and leans in to whisper in her ear.] I like you too. [He finishes that up with a hair-ruffle and a laugh, because dammit, she's cute, and she's easy to relax around. So easy even the next topic's weirdness doesn't faze him.]

That's how they say you get wendigos, at least. But thank you for not eating me, and noted. No human meat today. [He pauses. That sounded creepier than he meant it to.] I swear I don't eat people either. I'm thinking breakfast burritos?

[this might the first time nick's ever had her hair ruffled, wow. luckily, she's cool with it, laughing loudly and pushing herself up from the bed to chase after duke with a pair of fond kisses, one along his cheekbone, the other placed at his mouth.]

Breakfast burritos sound perfect. But, uh - no human meat ever. 'Cause seriously, that's how you get wendigos. We had an outbreak of 'em back in Hadriel - some dumb asshole put human meat in the food supply. I was vegetarian for a while after that. [she shakes her head.] Not fun.

[Well, she looks cute with her hair ruffled. If she protests, Duke will playfully counter her point. He chuckles too, kissing back when her lips are near his.]

Breakfast burritos it is. And no, no human meat. Sorry, dumb joke. Human meat's not really something you figure you'll ever have to deal with.

...I can't blame you for going vegetarian.

Edited 2020-01-14 11:53 (UTC)

It’s OK. I survived. [she shrugs.] I think everyone quit eating meat after that, just to be safe. It was one of the first things people told the newbies, too.

[she sits up fully, blindly finger-combing her hair so it’s not sticking up as much.]

Is it weird that wendigos ain’t even the scariest thing I’ve seen?

Edited 2020-01-15 18:33 (UTC)

You did. And, by the way? Cool of you to tell the newbies. That doesn't happen where I'm from.

[He reaches for his phone and starts looking for delivery, answering her question casually.] Nah. Wendigos aren't that bad. [Not the one he'd met, at least. She'd been better than the human she wanted to eat.] Sounds like Hadriel had a lot worse.

What are your feelings on bacon?

[that earns duke a raised eyebrow.]

You got packs of wendigos runnin’ around up in Maine that newcomers need to warned about?

[sounds kinda silly, but duke also doesn’t sound like he’s joking.]

Hadriel had a so-called god named Fear who got powered up by scaring people. He was the one behind the wendigos, obviously, but he’d also do shit like bury people alive for a few days. Creep.

[she sighs and flops backward onto the bed, hands folded neatly over her stomach, head turned toward duke.]

My feelings on bacon are it’s delicious and more is better. I ain’t a vegetarian anymore, y’know. [she grins.]

I don't know about packs. There's just one, I think, and she hasn't bothered people in awhile. [He didn't know what had happened to Amelia after the Rev tried to kill her. Audrey and Nathan must have brought her somewhere safe, and at the time, they did not trust him.]

Yeah, a god of fear would do it. I'd say the wendigos aren't standing up to being buried alive. [Had that happened to her? He's curious but possible trauma wasn't pillow talk.]

Bacon it is, then. [He adds it to the order and places it, checking the delivery time before tossing the phone away and turning back to her.] It'll be here in about an hour. We're not getting up yet, are we?

[nick shifts onto her side, head propped up in her open hand, elbow resting in the pillow. she gives duke a deeply appraising look-over, checking for any telltale signs that he's joking with her about the wendigo. results? inconclusive.]

Wasn't planning on it. So it looks like we got ourselves an hour to kill. [she grins cheekily at him, then flips right back to the previous topic:] Are you shittin' me about the wendigo?

[Duke turns on his side to face Nick, and there's nothing but sincerity on his face. She'd been forthcoming about her past, weird as it was. While he wasn't going to spill everything about his, he could at least let her know why it wasn't that weird to him.]

No. I don't know if she stuck around, honestly. She got a serial killer for takeout and then disappeared. Stuff like that happens a lot where I'm from.

Huh.

[her face scrunches up as she tries to reconcile the idea of a wendigo being anything other than completely terrifying with her own experiences.]

Well, note to self, if I ever get back, stay the hell outta Maine, I guess.

[she chuckles quietly, content to switch focus away from cannibal creatures. after all, there are no wendigos here at the moment.]

So ... y’got any ideas ‘bout what we should do for the next hour?

Definitely stay out of Maine. [Not because of the wendigos, but if believing the woods around Haven were overrun with them would keep Nick away on the chance she got home, everything will have worked out. Nick doesn't need to get mixed up in Haven stuff.

Not worth thinking about right now, though. Now there's a more interesting subject at hand and he raises an eyebrow, the playful flirt from their date again.]

Good question. What do you want to do?

[ah yes, this is much more fun than talking about wendigos. nick grins slyly and slowly leans in toward duke.]

I’m pretty open to suggestions. But I guess we could always start with ...

[she leans in the rest of the way to meet his mouth with her own in a slow, lingering kiss, palm resting gently at the side of his neck.]

[Yeah, he lucked out. Duke smiles into the kiss for a second before returning it, taking it slowly and sliding his hand to her waist.]

I think that's a pretty good plan. You sure we can get this done in an hour?

I dunno. Do you?

[she smiles, plants a shorter kiss at his mouth, then rolls flat onto her back while gently tugging duke to follow her direction.]

Wasn’t runnin’ a stopwatch last time, so I can’t really judge. And this is way too good to rush through.

[slowly, almost teasingly, she traces fingertips down his neck and across his collarbone.]

Don’tcha think?

[Who can resist that? Never one to turn down a beautiful woman, Duke follows Nick's lead and rolls with her, ending up above her and braced on his elbow when the kiss ends.]

No, I don't want to rush.

[For a moment he just looks down at her, taking her in. Her eyes are clear, sky-blue and sharp. A tuft of her hair is standing up Bart Simpson-style. And under her red lipstick her smiling lips are full and rosy. He smiles.]

I want this to last.

Me too.

[and maybe it would, if nick's conscience didn't pick this exact moment to rear its ugly head. she has no business having a good time with this amazing guy until he knows the danger he's in - especially with her. smile now vanished, nick sighs and rubs a hand down her face.]

Ah, shit. You're probably not gonna feel that way in a sec here.

[she pushes herself up on her elbows and reaches over to the nightstand for her phone. with a few taps, the device starts playing a song - not so loud that the music will drown out their conversation entirely, but loud enough to obfuscate what she needs to say.

nick falls back onto the bed and stares up at duke, expression equally as serious as it had been playful just moments before.]

This place ain't safe. There's a lot the welcome wagon didn't mention.

[It had been going so well, which is why Duke's brow furrows when Nick drops her smile. Well, crap. Either he'd fucked up, or this is when she shows she's crazy. And not in the free-spirited-musician-who-would-scare-off-a-boring-guy way, in the "Marry me or we're going to be eaten by lobster men" way. She had a freaking soundtrack to cultivate the mood and everything.]

Yeah?

[Frowning, he sits up. That's not enough to worry him yet, he's lived in a lot of dangerous places. He'll only be worried if she says something like "I'm actually a succubus." Not outside of the realm of possibility for his hook-ups, unfortunately.]

Like what?

[she follows suit in sitting up - leans in a little so she can lower her voice but duke can still hear what she has to say.]

Y’know that story you got told when you woke up here? About that plague that wiped out everyone, how you’re here ‘cause you got picked to help, just let the machines study you for a year and then you get to go home? [she shakes her head, mouth pursed tightly.] All bullshit. I mean, the plague is real, that part’s true. And we are bein’ studied - but not for the reason they said. And no one ever leaves. Not to get sent back home, anyway.

[she drops her gaze to the bed, fidgeting with a piece of the bedsheets pinched between a finger and thumb. she knows how difficult this is to hear, but she wants duke to know now so he can be prepared.]

The machines kill you after they’re done studying you. They make a perfect copy of you, only it’s a robot, and they don’t need the original version. Oh, and everyone’s got these chips in their heads, for tracking and controlling everyone. Try to take it out and you’ll die.

[nick drops the piece of fabric in her hand and smoothes it out across the mattress, then looks up at duke again.]

They’re always watching, always listening. There’s bugs and cameras everywhere - if you’re gonna talk about stuff like this, you gotta put some noise on in the background. I just - I wanted you to know. I really do like you, even if you don’t like me anymore, and I don’t wanna see you get killed ‘cause you didn’t know the whole story.

[Okay, not the kind of crazy Duke was expecting. For a split second he's not sure whether to be relieved or not. He rubs the sleep away from his eyes while he considers this fount of new information. And he's annoyed, not because he disbelieves her (although it's a lot to take in), but because there's a catch, of course there's a catch, and it's a damn weird catch. Killer robots is about the only type of weirdness he has no experience with.]

"Why not aliens." [He murmurs it under his breath, quoting himself. Why not a killer robot hell-bent on replacing everyone? There's still the possibility that she's lying, of course, but it's such a bizarre story it sets off his "crazy enough to be true" meter, like the high-tech equivalent of Jeanine's cake Trouble.]

Okay. First question: how do you know all this?

[ah, yeah. this is the worse part. nick inhales a deep, steadying breath as she prepares to confess.]

There’s this group fighting back - not really doing a great job, and they’re real dumbasses half of the time, but ... at least they’re trying to save people. I work with them. We’re called the Heart.

[and she rolls her eyes. she won’t deny it’s a bit trite.]

I’m not in charge of anything - I just do some of the heavy hitting when I’m told to.

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