lazyandincompetent | (no subject)

(no subject)

Nathan has decided this place isn't half bad.

Exhibit A: His flat. No more crashing in the community centre, curled up in a shitty sleeping bag on the cold floor. Instead he's got a bed. In an actual bedroom. And it isn't just a mattress on the floor either, he's got a proper bedframe and a headboard and even a little bedside table where he throws his cigarettes and his weed and his lighter after a long day. There's a living room with a proper couch, a kitchen, and his bathroom doesn't have a single stall door in the whole thing. If he wants a shower, he can draw a curtain. True privacy.

Exhibit B: Weed is legal. Weed is legal. He's cheerily smoking a pre-rolled joint now, right out in the middle of the sidewalk where anyone can see, and no one is going to stop him or try to arrest him. Not for this, anyway, and Nathan takes a nice, big hit, then lets out a contented sigh. He's spent the better part of the last week and a bit mostly stoned, as soon as he rounded the corner from his flat during an exploration day just after his arrival and found a dispensary just staring at him. He wonders if he can work there. Talk about a dream job.

Exhibit C: Everyone is pretty friendly, including a very pretty woman in his building. She looks kind of old timey, with long pale hair and a proper high necked nightgown, but Nathan can dig it. They haven't really talked any, but he can see it in her eyes. She's interested.

There are probably other exhibits, other things that make this place better than Wertham, and maybe Nathan misses Kelly, maybe he even misses Simon a little, but this is still better. A flat and weed. That's all he needs. The money helps, too, although he's blown most of this month's cash on said weed and a lot of food and also a really nice record player and a pair of expensive wireless (wireless!) headphones for his new phone, which holds way more music than his iPod ever did.

He's got those headphones on now as he walks, smoking his joint, listening to Soundgarden as loud as he possibly can, when he's stopped by someone. A young guy waves at him, trying to get his attention, and Nathan pauses his music, then pulls down his headphones.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Do you know where High Gate Terrace is?" the guy asks. "I'm supposed to meet someone there."

"Nah, sorry, mate," Nathan answers, then gestures with one hand, indicating the city at large. "I just got here. New to this whole thing. I don't even know where I live half the time."

"No," the guy mutters. "No, this isn't right. I have to be there."

"You're not about to have a mental breakdown are you?" Nathan asks, only partly wary. The rest of him is downright interested. "Just snap and go completely fucking mad? 'Cause that'd be fun to watch."

[Nathan is talking to a ghost, but doesn't know it, because he doesn't know he has that ability yet. :D]

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"Consider yourself lucky," Nathan says honestly, then leans close to the guy. "Are you dead, mate? Are you a fuckin' ghost?"

The guy just disappears, which tells Nathan pretty much everything he needs to know, he figures, and he sighs, rolling his eyes skyward again. Not that he believes in god, he's pretty sure that whole thing is a load of bullshit, too, but he's not sure who else to blame for the magical lightning that struck him, made him immortal, and also made him see ghosts, apparently.

"Well, that's new," he says to Marianne. "And a power I could do without. I wonder if I can get a refund on that one."

Nathan had mentioned how he'd ended up in a coffin before, and Marianne shrugs. She's not got any powers to speak of, have she? She's always felt completely unremarkable.

"Maybe. Don't know who you'd talk to, though. You know - whether they've got an email address or anything."

"Yeah, what would their address be? Giant lightning storm at hotmail?" he asks, then shrugs, because it doesn't matter. Maybe if he gives away one, he'll have to give away both, and he definitely wants to keep the immortality. He can see how that one would be useful.

Seeing ghosts might be D-list power bullshit, but immortality is definitely on the A-list.

"Hi," he says, as if finally realizing he ought to actually greet her. He holds the joint out. "Want some? This shit is legal here."

"Hi." Marianne considers the offer for a moment. It's been a while since she smoked anything, and she knows that Sam probably wouldn't approve, but that doesn't mean that she has to tell him. After a second, she reaches out and takes the joint from Nathan, flashing him a grin. "Thanks," she says, and slips it between her lips.

God, she's pretty. Like, proper pretty, too, like Ruth had been, but not secretly old. At least, he hopes not secretly old. That would be just his luck, wouldn't it, to meet a properly pretty girl and have her be an old woman again.

"He disappeared," he tells her. "The dead guy. Just so you know he's not lurking around here being a pervert or anything like that."

"Thank God for that," says Marianne, holding the smoke for a moment before she turns her head and lets it go in a long, pale plume. She takes another quick hit before she offers the joint back to Nathan. "How are you settling in, anyway?"

"Weed is legal, I have a flat instead of squatting in the community centre, this place gives me money," he says, listing off all the things about Darrow he likes as he takes the joint back.

"Everyone is really pretty," he adds. "Much prettier than Wertham. And there's a guy who looks like me. Old, though. Long hair, a goatee."

"Klaus," says Marianne, a flicker of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "We met. Under the mistletoe around Christmas, up at Kagura." She nods, though, brushing her fringe out of her eyes - she needs a haircut. "It's not so bad, once you're used to it."

"So you've made out with old-me," he accuses. "That's naughty. Now you know what it's like to kiss me with wrinkles, but I don't know what it's like to kiss you with wrinkles."

With a gesture at the world around them, he asks, "What's to get used to? This place is pretty sweet. Except for the ghosts, I guess, that's a bit of a downer, isn't it?"

Marianne's dark eyebrow quirks at 'naughty', but she doesn't comment on it. She does roll one shoulder in a shrug.

"I can't help that I haven't got wrinkles yet, can I?" she says. "And I don't have anyone who looks like me, so you're not even going to be able to make it happen. "I guess it must be," she says.

She guesses that Nathan hasn't heard about all of the weird awfulness than Darrow can throw at them sometimes. Marianne isn't about the be the one to tell himm, either. From what he's said, it feels like his life is complicated enough.

Nathan considers suggesting they make out just to see if he compares to Klaus, then realizes that's probably too forward for a properly pretty girl like Marianne. Also he's not sure he wants to know how he compares to someone ten years older than he is.

Klaus might have wrinkles, but he's also got ten years of experience Nathan hasn't had yet.

"So where are you going then?" he asks. "Just loitering like a filthy slacker like me?"

"Had a meeting at the university this morning, but I'm on my way home now," saysMarianne, adjusting the way that the strap of her bag sits against her shoulder. "I was thinking about getting some lunch but, honestly, I don't know what I want."

"Indian," he says. "No, wait... Thai."

Proper pretty and proper smart, too, going to the university. Nathan isn't going to be doing that any time soon. Or ever, really. That just isn't the sort of thing guys like him do. He'd never really thought of himself as stupid, he's actually regularly been told he's too smart for his own good, but he's not smart like that. Not school smart.

Not that he wants to dwell on it.

"You want company?" he asks. "I'm just stoned enough that I'm getting hungry."

"Indian does sound good," says Marianne. She's not stoned, but the hits on the joint have sharpened her appetite a little bit. It actually feels good to be hungry for a change. "Sure. Please. I'd like that." She smiles. "There's a good place not far from here."

"See, this is why I need to make more friends here," he says. He's never been great at it, making friends, because most of the time people don't like him all that much. Which he's never understood. Nathan thinks he's a great guy to have around.

"People who have been here longer know all the good places to go and get food," he continues. "Or where they sell the cheapest drinks. Where the best clubs are."

"Yeah, I don't know anything about clubs, really," says Marianne, shaking her head. "There's this one bar that I like, but I wouldn't call it cheap. I'm good on cafes and restaurants, though. That's really more my scene." Which isn't wholly true. Marianne still loves dancing.

The longer he spends with Marianne, the more Nathan is aware she's one of those girls who's clearly too good for him. Most of them are, even if he'd never admit it. It's just that she's pretty and smart and she doesn't go to clubs.

Except she doesn't seem uptight like what's her name, that one whose power made everyone so fucking boring.

"Guess I'm a bit more of a fuck up than you," he says and he's mostly light hearted about it. He's got years yet before he wants to get his shit together.

"I don't know about that," says Marianne, glancing across at him as they walk, side by side. "Maybe I'm just better at covering than you are?"

"Well, you don't see ghosts, so chalk that up as one point in your favour," Nathan answers. "And you got to kiss old-me, which I have to assume is at least half as good as kissing me-me, so points there, too."

He's being a shit at the moment, but then he shrugs. "A meeting at the university sounds important."

"Well, I've got nothing to compare it to, have I?" says Marianne, arching one dark eyebrow and glancing at him again, only this time with a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "But it was a pretty good kiss, so. There's that." She shakes her head. "Not important, really. I'm starting my PhD in the autumn, so I was just getting my metaphorical ducks in a row, you know?"

"We should probably give you something to compare it to," Nathan suggests, then pauses. "Not after Indian food, though, that just seems dangerous."

The rest just kind of baffles Nathan. In a good way, he thinks, because he's a glutton for punishment and apparently he's developing a thing for girls who are way smarter than he is. The sort who could make him feel like shit about himself. God, he hopes she makes him feel like shit about himself.

"Your bloody PhD isn't important?" he asks, incredulous. "I barely got out of secondary school."

"It's important, obviously," says Marianne, a faint flush of colour touching her cheekbones. "Just...I guess it's just something that's happening to me." She laughs at the rest of it, though, still blushing. "Yeah, definitely not after Indian food."

"How does a PhD just happen to someone?" he asks, genuinely curious. "That seems like the sorta thing you've got try at, you know? Like, go to school and apply to programs and all that."

Of course, he doesn't have the slightest idea about it honestly. It's never appealed to him. Most of the time Nathan knows he's lucky to have gotten through school at all.

"I suppose I just don't know what I'm supposed to do if I don't do it," she says, with a little shrug. "I finished my degree, and I don't actually want to be a practising lawyer, but I'd like to...I love it, you know? Learning things." She blushes. "Fuck, that sounds so fucking stupid."

It's not for Nathan, but he doesn't think it sounds stupid. It sounds the opposite of stupid, really. Smart. Like, really smart. Too smart to be hanging around some asshole who had just been serving under an asbo in London only a couple weeks ago.

"Wait, so you've got a law degree?" he asks. "Does that mean if I get arrested, you ought to be my first call?"