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Fr Dominic Windsor, SJ ([info]loveinheaven) wrote in [info]praeter,
@ 2009-03-03 21:57:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Who: Dominic Windsor and Agatha Lawson
Where: Hollow Creek, ND.
When: 23 September
Rating: R for language and imagery.
Status: Ongoing
Summary: Nick can't handle the weirdness after the incident with him and Tony in the park, so he does the least sensible thing he's ever done--he throws some stuff in a bag and drives to see Aggie in Hollow Creek.



Nick almost always thought things through. He was a clean, logical person, rational to the last. He made plans, lists, schedules. He liked his life in order. He liked it to make sense.

But it had stopped making sense that day on the hike, and it kept not making sense over and over again. He was losing his mind, or turning into something he didn't recognise. Perhaps both. And the way he felt like he was going to kill Tony in the park earlier in the week had just confirmed it. He was changing. And he was terrified.

So after a day or so of flat-out hiding from Tony--very mature, he told himself scathingly--Nick threw some things in a bag, went out to his car, threw the bag in the back, turned the radio up and drove east. It made no sense. It was absolutely the most random, ridiculous thing he'd ever done in his life. He was driving out to nowhere. He didn't even know where he was going. He just drove.

For a while, he was aimless, just driving wherever the roads led him, stopping for gas when he needed it, eating in a few random places, and he slept in the backseat of his car at a truckstop at night. His phone was constantly buzzing with Tony's messages, and he just ignored them. Why did Tony care? Why did Tony want him back? Didn't he understand? He was turning into something monstrous. Who wanted to be around a monster?

On Wednesday morning, as he washed his face in a rest stop bathroom, staring at the weird tint to his eyes, almost golden if he moved his head the wrong way, he began to realise where he was. He was getting near the Dakotas. Aggie lived there. Maybe he could see her. Wish her a happy belated birthday. Just...see someone who he hadn't tried to assault bodily, and maybe talk for a bit and...try not to feel like a madman for a little while. Nick needed that. So he checked a map, looked up directions to her house on his phone, and drove.

It was late afternoon when he arrived in Hollow Creek, creeping through the town to find himself at Aggie's door. She didn't know he was coming. He should've called, should've planned. He looked like hell and felt like it, too. But he needed someone. And she was the person he was going to.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 11:04 am UTC (link)
It used to be that Agatha went directly to the shop after school and studied in the office. That she'd started to go directly home was to the credit of her grandfather's budding trust in her, despite the fact that she was only avoiding Jimmy (or worse, Jimmy and Kate together).

Agatha stood at the door and stared at the exhausted, unwashed person at her door step. It took her moments to recognize him as the boy she'd met ages ago as kids or even from his facespace photos. "...Nick?"

He looked like he needed a hug. She frowned, obviously shocked to see him arrive unannounced at her doorstep from four large states over.

"Are you okay?" She opened the door a little wider to let him in.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 11:11 am UTC (link)
"Yes. No. I don't know," Nick answered honestly, rubbing his face. He felt awful, honestly. Jittery and achy, like he was on some kind of adrenaline high that had turned sour. Something like that.

He stepped inside, though, the door swinging closed behind him, and he was altogether too self-conscious about how he hadn't showered, how the shirt he was wearing was ostensibly clean, but he surely wasn't, how he had to have smelled, all of it. He wondered if Aggie thought he was crazy, too. He felt crazy. "I'm sorry, I just...I had to get out of Portland, I had to, and I don't know, I didn't really realise I was going to end up here, but I just needed...someone I could trust," he tried to explain. "If...if it's a problem, I can go, I didn't mean to just show up, I just..."

He sounded crazy, too. God help him, he was going to become one of those homeless men on the street in rags, babbling about the end of the world and the madness they had known. He probably sounded like one now.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 11:31 am UTC (link)
Agatha wasn't very good with words. Usually when she spoke Agatha had a way of making things worse. There were plenty of things she wanted to say, to do, but she refrained. Instead, her hand slipped gently over his shoulder and she led him into the house, sitting him down at the kitchen table. She poured him a glass of milk and sliced him a piece of her absolutely massive (what remained of it) birthday cake.

Normally her cakes didn't make it this long because Henry took slices of it to the shop every day until it was gone. This year's cake was a Black Forrest variety with a layer of cheese cake, cherry pie filling and topped with chocolate cake. Due to her hatred of frosting, once the cake was sliced Agatha, out of habit, garnished the top of it with a cherry.

She sat down next to Nick.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 11:39 am UTC (link)
"Thanks," he said softly, just looking at the cake for a moment, lips silently in the familiar Latin, Latin he loved and used more than the oldest priest he'd ever had as a boy. Benedicite. Benedic, Domine... That was all that would come, and he let it go. God either understood or he didn't, at this point. There was only so much he could do, and in some part of his soul, he'd been feeling like an abandoned child for two months now. Not a lost lamb. That comparison just felt obscene. He was no lamb. He didn't know what he was, but he was not a lamb. Not anymore.

"Happy birthday," he said after a moment, looking up at her. "I'm sorry I missed it. I have a book for you, I didn't bring it, I didn't know...well, I told you that. But still. Happy birthday."

It was awkward, like he was grasping at straws, and finally, he just settled in to eat the cake, trying not to wolf it down like he was starving (which he was). It smelled good, but there was something else in the air, something that made him feel just as unsettled as he could be, anxious and something else, he didn't know what. Maybe it was something in her perfume, did Aggie wear perfume? He didn't know. She had to, though, because Nick was convinced he could smell it. Absolutely convinced. Something high and excitable with something like musk under it. He had no idea what it was, but it had to be perfume.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 11:57 am UTC (link)
"It's okay."

Agatha shrugged. As kids, chatting online or even over the phone, Aggie had always felt at ease around Nick. He was part friend and part counselor. Now that he was here, presently, and they were not kids, that comfortable feeling sort of disappeared. Now when Aggie looked at Nick she saw attractive, older college student who'd driven twenty plus hours to arrive at her doorstep. Agatha immediately decided not to tell Henry.

"Do you want to use the shower?" Not wanting to sound rude she quickly followed that up with, "We could get a bite to eat somewhere. Something not cake."

Agatha decided not to press him on why he was here. She wasn't sure she could really offer anything more than simply being in the same room with him. Support? Sure. Advice? Probably not.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 12:06 pm UTC (link)
That actually made Nick smile, a little thing that cracked the mask of frightened-exhausted-desperate he'd been wearing since that Incident in the Park. (He was racking up Incidents, wasn't he? Not encouraging. He didn't want to be weird or special or anything. He wanted to play baseball, go to school, go to seminary, give his life to something that would make it make sense. Not this. But this was what he had, and how he loathed it.)

"It's okay. I reek, don't I? It's been a...a really lousy couple of days. A shower would help." He looked down at the plate, then back up at her. "But the cake's awesome. I really like Black Forest cake, it's one of my favourites."

He didn't know how to say the idea of going somewhere to get food, get meat sounded fantastic. He didn't know how to say everything tasted pale in comparison to the promise to flesh and blood in his mouth. So he didn't say anything about it at all. But the scent in the air had changed. More anxiety and musk, it was sharper, cleaner. And it was making him respond, too, in weird ways. She'd turned into a pretty girl, hadn't she? The glasses were a little dorky, to be sure, but it was endearing and charming and he found himself wondering about what she thought about him, if she would be interested--

None of that. None of that, he told himself firmly. It wasn't fair. He wasn't a predator. He wasn't.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 12:25 pm UTC (link)
Aggie watched him eat and chewed the inside of her lip. This was Nick for crying out loud. He was going to be a priest. Aggie was not interested in acquiring Jimmy 2.0 in her life. Being unnoticed by one boy was enough, thankyouverymuch.

"I'll go get you some towels."

Agatha politely excused herself from the table and went to set up the shower for him. It was also an excellent opportunity to ensure there was nothing embarrassing lying around in the bathroom. There wasn't. She pulled a couple of clean towels and set them down on the sink.

Reentering the kitchen she pointed back down the hallway. "Umm, it's all set up for you when you're finished. There's no rush," she mumbled.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 12:36 pm UTC (link)
When she left, Nick took the opportunity to eat like a thing possessed, devouring the last of the cake as fast as he could get it into his mouth. It wasn't what he wanted, and even though he loved it, it wasn't enough. It would have to do for now. But he wanted so badly.

Lust was a sin. Gluttony, too. Absolve me, Pater, quia peccavi.

When she came back in the room, he smiled again, reflex. "Thanks. I really appreciate it. I, uh, promise not to go through your medicine cabinet or anything," he said, almost teasing. He was trying to tease, but the ache and the jitters and that hunger, it was all getting to him. He felt like he was a hundred years old. It was not a pleasant feeling. "I'll be right back. You might even like me better when I don't smell gross."

It was another half-hearted attempt to tease, and just like that, he slipped out of the room, heading down the hall to the bathroom, practically following her scent perfume as he went. But as soon as he stepped into the room, closed the door, and started to strip, the sound of running water filling his ears, he pushed it all out of his mind for the pleasure of clean skin and fresh soap, trusting that this most basic of things would make him feel somewhat human again, at least.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 12:44 pm UTC (link)
This was the sort of situation Agatha was pretty sure Kate would be upset about. While Nick was in the shower she cleaned up his plate and went to the phone.

She called her grandfather and told him she was going to hang out with a friend from church and she wouldn't be home for dinner. It wasn't a complete lie, it just omitted certain facts he would have been keen to know. Agatha could hear the surprise and encouragement in his voice. He forgot to set a curfew. Being a teenager, and having never been out long enough to need a curfew, Agatha decided to interpret that as not having one.

She hung up the phone.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 01:16 pm UTC (link)
It took Nick maybe 15 minutes total to get cleaned up, dried off, and dressed again. His clothes still weren't great, but he smelled much better than before, he had to admit that. He didn't really feel normal (didn't really feel human, but that was a feeling that had been settled in his bones lately, and there wasn't much to be done about it, not really, aside from pray more and ignore it), but he was much closer to fine than he had been before.

His hair still wet, Nick came back out to the kitchen. "Thanks. For all of this. I know it's sort of...actually, it's exceptionally rude and weird and...not like me. But I appreciate it. I really, really do. You're a good friend," he told her softly, his voice much less strained than before. "I promise I won't do this again. The showing up on your doorstep without warning thing, anyway. I'll call, at least, the next time I have some kind of crisis and drive out this way." He managed a little smile at that, the expression wry and gently self-deprecating.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 01:37 pm UTC (link)
"It's fine. I mean, you'd do the same." Agatha shrugged. "There's a pizza place if that sounds good."

If she'd known he was coming Agatha would have had a picnic or some other kind of feast prepared. She would have asked him what his favorite foods were and agonized over the menu. A part of her was sort of glad he'd shown up unexpected. It'd saved her a large chunk of worry.

"There's also a diner. Kinda standard burger fare, if that sounds better. Do you want to take my car or yours?"

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 01:44 pm UTC (link)
"A burger sounds really good right now," Nick told her. Meat, meat, meat, flesh and bones and blood and marrow in his jaws, snapping them to bits and pieces, rend it limb from limb.

His mind was not being helpful. He smiled a little anyway. "The semester at school starts soon, I'll be eating more than my fair share of pizzas when I get back there. It's enough to make a guy never want to see another pepperoni again. Or at least for a week," he said, trying again to joke. He was trying, after all. That had to count for something. He rubbed the back of his neck, bothered that the ache in his bones hadn't gone away with the hot shower. Too much driving, he decided.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 02:04 pm UTC (link)
"The diner is close enough to walk to." she said, suddenly remembering he'd been in a car for the last day or so. By close enough, it was actually a decent walk, but Agatha didn't mind. Godzilla, her dog, began barking and snarling as soon as the two stepped out onto the porch, trapped behind the heavy gate that enclosed the backyard. The redhead frowned but said nothing, leading Nick away from the house.

As they got further Godzilla began whining.

"I've never seen him act like that. Sorry."

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 02:33 pm UTC (link)
When the dog began to bark, Nick felt his ears lay back, and a low noise like a growl building in his own throat. He was being challenged, he was the interloper here, and he could smell aggression and fear in the air. He could take that dog, he could circle it, snap at its hind legs, cripple it, then rip its throat out, then howl, claim this territory for his own, maybe her for his own, too, make her part of his pack, his to take care of, not yours, dog, not yours. Easy, easy, so temptingly easy...

He shook his head when Aggie lead him away from the house, the stink of fear following. "It's fine. I'm not much of a dog person, I guess," he said with a shrug.

Irony. Too bad he didn't know it.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 02:46 pm UTC (link)
Agatha didn't talk much as they walked. She watched the sidewalk under their feet, listen to the changing leaves crunch under their feet, shivered against the short gust of a fall breeze. Not quite jacket weather, but t-shirt weather would be gone soon.

After a couple of blocks walking over sidewalks, unpaved paths, past old pastures and then into the few blocks of city that existed. The diner was on the edge of that, overlooking gnarly old trees that hadn't been demolished in favor of agriculture.

People were going to talk. They were going to ask who Nick was. Not to Agatha directly, of course, and so she did her best to ignore them as they stepped into the diner and took a seat at one of the booths.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 02:56 pm UTC (link)
Nick slid in across from her, looking around the diner curiously, feeling like his nose was twitching with all the scents around him. People and food and cleaning supplies and old grease and dirt tracked in from inside and stale nicotine and the rush of Aggie's scent on top of all of that, more important than all of that, her perfume and a strange sense of embarrassment, awkwardness and...

...he was not smelling all that. He was noticing it all. Not smelling. Definitely not.

"That walk was nice. I'm sure you don't think so, being stuck here, but your town's kind of pretty in the autumn like this," he said, playing with the corner of a paper placemat on the table in front of him, proclaiming businesses and services he'd never heard of. What was deer dressing, anyway? "Not too cold yet, either."

That was the other thing. He was never cold these days. Never. It didn't matter what the weather was like, or if he was standing under an icy shower. He simply wasn't cold. Right now, he was radiating heat like a bonfire. He'd taken his temperature one day, and it had read 106. That wasn't normal, but he didn't have any symptoms of a fever. He'd since convinced himself he'd hallucinated the whole Thermometer Incident.

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-04 03:50 pm UTC (link)
Agatha shrugged. She didn't see the town as pretty anymore. The waitress stopped by, handing off menus and taking a drink order down on her pad of paper. Agatha ordered a Diet Coke.

"So when does school start for you?"

She knew the menu blindfolded already. Before her friends died, they went to the diner all the time and annoyed the waitresses by ordering cokes and a large order of french fries. It felt more normal being here with him now. Like that part of her life had been temporarily restored.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-04 03:57 pm UTC (link)
Nick ordered a Coke for himself, then shrugged as the waitress wandered away. "Monday," he said. "This was just...sort of my last chance to get out, get away. Tony...Tony's a good friend, my best friend, we've known each other forever, it seems like, but right now..." He made a face, trailing off, and he stared down at the menu. It didn't matter, all he wanted was the beef, but he looked anyway. It was something to look at.

"Right now, things are awkward. And I'm really tired of it," he finished. He didn't know how to explain how Tony had been watching him, at least, whenever they clapped eyes on one another. Like he was going to explode. Or pass out. Or run off.

Well, one out of three...it wasn't betting odds, but Tony had gotten that much right, hadn't he?

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-05 11:43 am UTC (link)
"That's brave, just getting up and leaving like that," she said. Agatha couldn't say running away was a good idea or smart; her own fully intact rational side wouldn't allow her to. But she couldn't help but admire Nick for doing so. Her own fantasies of leaving town were not entirely secret.

The waitress came back and took their order and after not too long of a wait, brought back their food. Aggie had an order of hash browns and taking the ketchup, drew a crisscross pattern of lines over the top of it.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-05 08:43 pm UTC (link)
"It was stupid and crazy. I don't recommend it," Nick replied honestly. "Be smarter than me, Aggie. You can't really run from your problems. Besides, Tony's as annoying over text messages as he can be when he's sitting next to you."

It was a roundabout way of saying he worried about her and wanted good things for her, better things than what he had going on in his life right now. He was protective. He couldn't remember feeling this protective over someone who wasn't Tony or his sister in a while. He had no idea what it meant, or moreover, what to do about it, so he just attacked his burger like it had personally offended him in some way and the only redress was in eating it as fast as humanly possible. His appetite, it was overwhelming today, making him feel crazy. It was a constant, really, this feeling of needing to devour everything in sight, but today, moreso than usual. He didn't know why. Maybe it was the stress. He had to believe it was the stress.

Regardless, the meal passed quietly. He didn't talk much. He was more concerned with eating as fast as humanly possible. When there was nothing left on the plate but a pickle--because those things were inherently suspect, thank you very much--he looked up at Aggie in consideration, his ears pricked forward in friendly curiosity.

(What was it with his ears? It was making him crazy.)

"You never asked. What's wrong, I mean. Everybody's always trying to make me talk, trying to get me to spill what's wrong, but you never asked," he said softly. "I mean, I don't have a good answer, anyway, but...you haven't pushed. Why?"

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[info]ssdd
2009-03-05 10:39 pm UTC (link)
She tried not to notice the way he ate. Hadn't he eaten anything on the road? Aggie kept her eyes on her plate, pushing hash browns around on her fork, leaving it half eaten.

When Nick spoke Agatha shrugged with a frown, unsure if she'd done something wrong by not asking. She tried not to sound defensive. "I guess I thought you'd tell me if you wanted to. I didn't want to pressure you."

A part of Aggie was largely okay with not knowing. Knowing meant she'd need to respond, tell him everything would be okay or give him advice. She was an eighteen year old (and let's face it, a) kid who lived in a small town. Agatha wasn't sure she could say any of those things.

When her own parents took off Agatha never asked why. Nick's sudden and unexpected appearance wasn't any different. Agatha decided not to explain that part of her reasoning, worried it would sound like she didn't care. She did care, she just had her own way of showing it.

When the waitress came by with the ticket, Agatha slapped the table to get to it first. She blushed with embarrassment, pulling out a wad of one's and five's, determined to pay for dinner.

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[info]loveinheaven
2009-03-05 10:49 pm UTC (link)
"No," Nick said, his voice gentle, but commanding at the same time, as if he expected to be obeyed and couldn't fathom a world where it wouldn't be true. He wasn't usually like that. He didn't really want people to jump to do his bidding. He wanted to serve others, not command them. But today...today, he was all over the map.

"No, here, please, let me," he amended, softening. He didn't want to command her. He liked Aggie, there was no reason to tell her what to do. What was wrong with him? "You've dealt with me showing up out of the blue, fed me your birthday cake, and let me use your shower. At least let me buy you dinner. I want to buy you dinner. Please."

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