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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"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?"

"I've got a degree in History and Politics," says Marianne. "So, yeah, I know about the law, but don't ask me to represent you in court or anything. I just...like knowing how things work. I wanted to get into Human Rights Law in Ireland."

Christ. Way, way too smart to be spending time with Nathan. How did this even happen? Does she know he's a fuck up? Nathan isn't ashamed of being a fuck up, he isn't ashamed of much, really, but most of the time girls like Marianne don't want to be around fuck ups if they can help themselves.

Which she can, honestly. She can just turn around and walk away.

"I was doing community payback," he tells her. "So. That's different."

"Huh," says Marianne, who has honestly never knowingly broken a law in her life - other than smoking weed, taking a few party drugs. She raises a dark eyebrow. "Do I want to know what you did?"

"Just took some pick n mix without paying," Nathan answers. "Dunno what the point of those things even are. Just a little cesspool of disease, aren't they, everyone stickin' their hands in all the time. And at the bowling alley, no less! Anyway, the manager got all pissy with me and then I made fun of his name a little bit."

He pauses, then adds, "And I might've resisted arrest. I tried to climb up where the pins come down from."

Marianne's nose wrinkles at the thought of it; she's never really trusted those sweets for exactly that reason. The idea of Nathan trying to make his escape is hilarious, though, and Marianne snorts, the sound surprisingly explosive. She reflexively covers her mouth.

"Shit. Sorry. I shouldn't laugh."

"I dunno, it's pretty funny," Nathan answers. "Imagine me, tall, beautiful, practically a professional bowler, sliding down the end of the lane, climbing up under where the pins drop down, all the while dodging coppers. It was both a thing of beauty and a comedy of errors."

Then he makes a face. "They got me in the end and I got stuck doing community payback. And then I got hit by lightning. Doesn't seem fair, does it?"

"I have a really strong mental image," she says, and then he mentions lightning and Marianne's dark eyes eyes widen. "Oh, my God. Are you...it didn't kill you, right?"

She knows that not everyone is technically alive when they get to Darrow.

"The lightning?" Nathan asks. "No, just sorta threw us all in the air and then gave us powers. Falling off the roof of the community centre, that killed me, but since I'm immortal now it doesn't matter so much, you know?"

Immortal and seeing ghosts apparently. He doesn't love the second part of that so much.

"I keep forgetting about that part," she admits. They get to the restaurant she'd been thinking of, and she nudges Nathan's ribs with her elbow to steer him inside. "This place makes me feel so...boring sometimes. Mundane, you know?"

"Because you're not immortal?" he asks as they head inside. "If it helps, I didn't do anything to make it happen. It just... happened to me. Not very impressive if you think about it."

Mostly he's just trying to make her feel better. Immortality is pretty much an A list sort of power.

"Not last time I checked, anyway," she says, smiling at the waitress as she ushers them towards a table. "I think immorality is always pretty impressive, Nathan. No matter how it happens, right?"

"Does it help if I tell you most people shit their pants when they die? Imagine coming back to life like that."

Well, fuck. She's not going to want to kiss him now that he's said something like that. What girl wants to kiss a guy who's just told her that he's shit his pants before?

One day, he thinks, he'll learn to think before he speaks. Just not today.

Marianne is in the process of taking off her coat when he says it, and she pauses for a moment. The look on his face is sort of hilarious.

"Is this when I tell you about the time that I peed myself because of a UTI to make you feel better?" She says, arching an eyebrow.