Nina Clarke: ᴍᴀʏᴏʀ, ᴀᴜsᴛɪɴ ᴛx & sʜʏ ʙʟᴏʙ (commonlaw) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-02-27 19:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [01] january, calvin davidson, nina clarke |
We go together or we don't go down at all
Who: Nina Clarke and Cal Davidson.
When: January 6 & 7, 2019.
Where: Cal's apartment, then outside the Capitol building.
What: Finally on the same side, Nina and Cal grapple with the new world order twice over.
JANUARY 6, 2019. 7PM. When he opened the door for Nina, the first thing that struck her was that he looked like a ball of barely-compressed energy, a restless dog with cabin fever, something desperate in his eyes. “Hey,” he said. Cal had been girding himself for this, just in case—these days, somehow, conversations with Nina Clarke always took a turn he didn’t expect and left them both staggered. This time, he was prepared: a bottle of whiskey sat on the table. “Long time no see, stranger.” "You, too." Things between them had improved immeasurably since that night after Adelaide had been broken out, but Nina was sure they'd never go back to how things used to be. There'd been too much left unsaid. Still, she leaned in to kiss his cheek as she walked past. "Are you intending to have quite a wild night, Mr. Davidson?" she asked lightly, her voice half-teasing, half-eager to drink. “With the right company, maybe. Though I’m not yours, as we established long ago,” he said. Jokes still came so easily to him—simple and instinctive, inhale deep, then exhale more bullshit—but that strain in Cal’s smile clean gave him away. "Established and accepted, though it never seems to stop you from trying." Harsh on paper, light in tone; she returned the smile easily, though she wouldn't have denied its own falseness if he'd chosen to call her out on it. Cal shut the door after Nina, pausing slightly, and was that him double-checking the lock? “Wish I could say we just have a nice night of catchup ahead of us and I can tell you all about my new years’ spent on the farm, but considering recent events…” Cal’s mouth twitched. He couldn’t even really pretend to be unaffected; he wore his heart on his sleeve with his friends, and right now, he was climbing the walls. Nina sighed, shaking her head as she took a seat at the table. She made short work of opening the bottle and pouring them both a drink, her eyes steady on Cal's all the while. "It never lets up around here, does it?" Frankly, Nina didn't even know where to begin. Isaac was a mess, and she wasn't doing any better herself. “Never. What do you know about it?” He was blunt this time, sitting down beside her and his fingers fluttering at the edge of his glass as she filled it. “What the fuck were their reasons for putting her back in, this time?” "I don't know, and it's driving me absolutely insane." Isaac had managed to witness the tail end of the arrest, but documentation and details were hard to come by -- even in a department that was intended to register all of that. Nina drained the glass without hesitation. "She didn't do anything wrong. I'd know if she had." The noise in the back of Cal’s throat was like a dissatisfied grunt, as he chewed that over. He’d come back to this city and it had almost—almost—seemed sane. For a handful of days. And then the machinery started moving again, grinding his loved ones between its teeth. “And you’d think,” he said, voicing her exact thoughts, “that your department would be the ones to know.” "You'd think," she agreed. Whiskey filled her glass once more before she pushed her chair forward, closer to Cal. Her voice lowered. "Which leads me to think, if you'll forgive the conspiracy theory a moment, that it's not my department." Cal’s voice echoed hers, dropping into a furtive tone that he’d never have thought himself capable of. He’d always trusted in the establishment. That’s what he did. But… “Patrolmen?” It was a barest whisper. “Some fucking personal vendetta, you think?” "Exactly. I mean, it sounds utterly paranoid to say it out loud, but." She shook her head. "What else am I supposed to think? It's a message to me, or to Isaac, or to Demi herself… probably some combination of the three." “No offense, but from what all I know ‘bout you and Demi, it could be either,” Cal said dryly. No resistance followed his statement from her; she knew all too well how fair a dig it was. But then there was something else… The whiskey helped. This time, it wasn’t just a coping mechanism (he’d seen that heavy-lidded look in Nate’s eyes too often back when he lived here), but a way to loosen himself up, say the things that he wanted to say to someone other than Willa. So Cal swallowed another mouthful, and felt the liquid warming his insides, levelled another careful look at his friend, and said, “Isaac? He’s the deputy commissioner. What, you think he might’ve actually done somethin’ to get on their bad side?” It wasn't the question Nina'd expected him to ask. And the conversation she'd had with Isaac just the day before was replaying in her mind, too: I messaged Addie. I’m out of tricks to pull. But that shift in attitude had come after Demi's arrest; it couldn't have been the catalyst for it. Unless they'd known, somehow? "From what I understand, they've been looking to get her back in for a long while." She paused, wondering just how much Cal knew about Demi's house arrest, before she added, "They tried, once and Isaac managed to talk them out of it. My best guess is they're tired of anyone, even him, interfering with what they want." “Well, then they’re a bunch of fucks,” Cal said firmly, sourly. It was ineloquent, hardly clever or witty, but it was all he could think of to say; the remark brought a brief smile to Nina's face before she suppressed it. “There’s better targets they could set their sights on. I mean, Thanksgiving? Taking her in over wanting to go to a Thanksgiving dinner at LBJ? Ridiculous.” It was a surprisingly vehement denouncement of their system, after so many years of obedience—but the alcohol was taking hold, and that low-throbbing anger of his was resting on his tongue, in his teeth. "Colluding with known wanted is cause for detainment, questioning, or even worse these days." Nina reached for her glass and drained the rest, studying Cal before deciding to go all in. What other option did she have? "Olinger's not hauled me on the same charges because I'm better use to him outside of La Quinta." “Do you really think he would? Put you in, I mean, if you weren’t useful?” Cal leveled a more assessing look at her. He couldn’t imagine Nina inside the prison; it was a picture that didn’t fit, not lining up at the edges. "Yes." Her mind helpfully presented a flash of Olinger's satisfied smile, bestowed upon her from where the two of them sat in the kitchens like two college kids orchestrating a clandestine meeting in the cafeteria. She barely managed to suppress a shiver of disgust. "I have absolutely no doubt, considering the fact that he told me as much last November." “What?” This was news to Cal, and another blow to the already-shaky foundation of his trust in their administration nowadays. His voice was sharp, this revelation cutting through his booze-laced haze. “He said what?” Nina shook her head, wondering for the upteenth time when this had become her life. When had she become so jaded about the fact that her life was at stake simply because she'd tried to do the right thing? "He knows I've been in touch with the Hellhounds, but he's willing to overlook it as long as I do what I'm told." “Well then.” Cal let that process. He hadn’t put it past their mayor to use any card at his disposal like that, but it still rankled, that feeling of his friend being pinned on a hook and wriggling. After a beat, he leaned forward and refilled Nina’s glass. “Think you need it.” "Me, too." She pushed the glass forward, clinking it against his. What else was there to do just then, when at any moment Olinger could snap his fingers and change everything, but take solace in the few pleasures that were still to be had? "Here's to the world after the end, huh?" JANUARY 7. 3:17PM. Not again. That was Cal’s main thought that afternoon, as the fear clawed up his throat and he stood on the front steps of the Capitol building, disheveled and instinctively shrugging into his battered jacket to cover up his skin. He squinted down the street, looking at the plumes of smoke still rising from La Quinta. Jabbed another few buttons on his phone, but there still wasn’t a response from the person he wanted to hear from. The streets of Austin weren’t exactly as busy as they once were, but there were still more people streaming back and forth than usual: some civilians scurrying back indoors to relative safety, plus some patrolmen and APD flowing back out towards the source of the explosion. When he spotted a familiar face exiting the doors, however, Cal immediately strode over and caught her arm, his jaw tight. “Nina. You fucking know anything about this?” Uncharitable to ask her that, maybe. But his blood was hot with adrenaline and he wasn’t quite thinking straight and past experiences were looming in the forefront of his mind. She wrenched her arm free of his grasp but made no move to walk away. Twin expressions bloomed on their faces, both of them struggling with the horror of what had happened. There was a storm inside her, threatening to wreck her before she even knew it'd landed. "No, I didn't know anything about this." There was a moment of silence as she attempted to catch her breath from the shock. Nina lowered her voice, aware of how exposed they were -- really, they were fortunate that at least one of them could keep their head in a situation like this -- and whispered, "I was in there when it happened. Last time -- I'd been warned. But I swear to God, Cal, I didn't know a damned thing." “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. Fine.” Cal glanced around them, taking in the identities of anyone hurrying past them. The logos and insignias stitched into their uniforms. No one from his own department. He wanted to see them, right about now. “Think it’s a jailbreak? Got to be a fucking jailbreak.” All of Cal’s thoughts were scattered like loose change; he could barely hang onto them, but he couldn’t stop looking at that plume of smoke. Nina knew damned well that it was. She'd helped Scherbatsky escape, after all, warning or advanced notice or not. "It has to be," she said quickly, though the speed at which she pivoted the subject felt even faster. "And if it is, we have no way of knowing who's getting out." Her hand was already reaching for her phone, unlocking the screen and scanning her contact list for Gemma's number. He watched her do it, and then instinctively checked his own phone. Still no word from Karen. “You know anyone who was over there?” he asked. "Brown was over there. From my department -- if you know him." She tapped on Gemma's number, set her phone to speaker, and started to lead Cal away from the broken building. "I should text him," she continued, making absolutely no move to do so as her call went unanswered and her phone returned to its home screen. Why isn't she picking up? She tapped on the number again. Sometimes Gemma didn't hear the phone go off the first time, after all. This wasn't unusual. Cal tried not to look as if he was listening in on that empty ringing tone and unanswered call. Nina’s nerves were fraying, and that made his worse too; normally she was his anchor and lodestone, the calm center of the Capitol. “Fuck texting,” Cal announced, shoving his phone back into his own pocket. Neither of them were getting anywhere with that. “The panic’s died down a bit, and I haven’t heard a gunshot for a while, though I’ve got my sidearm just in case. Let’s head over and see if we can help ‘em out. They probably need assistance going through the rubble, from the sounds of that explosion.” It was action. It was something to do, at least, rather than sitting here twiddling their thumbs and feeling useless and helpless and worried. It was also the last place Nina wanted to be, but she knew Cal was right; she'd go crazy if she simply returned to the Capitol, left to her own devices and worry. And with Gemma's whereabouts unknown, she didn't know what else she'd do just then. So she followed him back towards the prison, her mind skipping and whirling through memories: walking Cal to his self-imposed quarantine, visiting James prior to his first stint in solitary, barely escaping the explosion's aftermath thanks to that thug of an Enforcer. "Who are you trying to text?" she asked, breaking the relative quiet. Snippets of muffled noise and chaos filtered in intermittently between her words. “Kay. Karen.” His hand floated near his gun, resting neatly on the holster; for a fleeting moment, Cal couldn’t shake the feeling of being a gunslinger in some old Western. Life drew in tight around him, surreal and unreal. “We check in with each other whenever shit goes down. Hazards of the job, you know? It’s a constant worry, so she’s usually really fast at answering—both of us are—but she ain’t responding this time. It’s probably nothing, but.” Nina could read the man’s unease in exactly how light and easy Cal sounded. Yes, he needed something to do, too. So although his words set off more warning sirens in her heard, she nodded as she let Cal lead them closer to La Quinta, her arm looping through his instinctively. "Nothing," she echoed, aiming for agreement and landing on discomfort. There was nothing insincere about the grateful look she shot him, though. "And once we're done, I'll bet we'll hear back." |