Noa Bellamy (sharpthings) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2017-04-21 12:34:00 |
|
|||
Hard to imagine that a year ago they were still living in the unknown that was Austin. The city today seemed so different to Noa. Different in a good way. She thought she would always have that pang for the Dog Park, but even that was barely anything but an afterthought. It was strange, but not as bad as she thought. “Hey honey,” Noa greeted, letting Demi in, ushering Duke out of the way before he displayed any bad manners. “It’s been awhile.” She couldn’t even say how long, exactly. She’d stop tracking the days between when she saw people. Some days it still felt incredibly strange to Demi that she was being ushered into a home instead of Noa’s old familiar trailer. Regardless of the strange pang she felt sometimes when she was reminded just how things had changed, it was always overshadowed by the joy she felt in her life now. She had so much more now than she had had back then. “Hey you,” Demi greeted Noa back, smiling brightly as she stepped into the house, Hobbes sneaking in behind her and excited to catch up with Duke, no doubt. “It has been, if I’m being honest it’s probably been too long since we did this,” she added while she stepped in to give Noa a quick squeeze. “I think Duke and Hobbes would agree.” Demi finished, smiling softly as the two dogs sniffed at each other before bounding off to chase around Noa’s house no doubt. With a smile still on her face, Demi asked, “So where do we start?” She felt like they had a century of things to catch up on. “I don’t even know,” Noa admitted, walking them through to the living room, and out to the enclosed patio, where she sat and stretched her legs out along the wooden bench. The positive and negative of so much time out of each other’s company meant they had more to talk about than the weather, or the dumb things the Dogs were doing. “How’s The Bar?” she asked, her eyes crinkling at the corners like she knew how silly the question was. She would have heard if things weren’t going well with Demi’s business, she suspected. But it was easier to ask than go back and forth on where to begin. “Seems like it keeps you busy.” “It does,” Demi answered with a nod as she settled herself into one of the deck chairs. “Being the only bar in the city helps with that some, though,” she admitted with a faint laugh. Still, they had never suffered in terms of patrons at The Bar -- a fact Demi was thankful for. “I’m not complaining about that, for the record, I’d be happy if we remained the only bar for a good long time.” Though her time would soon be split with teaching and the expanding family she and Isaac had planned, the Bar was a source of pride for her -- after all she was its manager and it hadn’t tanked. After a beat she turned Noa’s question around on her. “How is Rendition?” Demi knew once they covered work, they could delve into more personal topics -- or at least she hoped they could. She felt as if she knew very little of what Noa had going on in her life of late and she wondered if that was because of the other woman’s tendency towards keeping her personal life close to her chest, or if it had more to do with how little a chance they had to catch up over the last handful of months. “Business keeps coming, so we’re good.” It was nice to have an expanded client list, beyond the Hellhounds. “I haven’t inked a wolf in awhile,” she added with a laugh, only just realizing how much that had become part of the routine in the Dog Park, and how she didn’t miss it. “I could stop by and get some new ink,” Demi teased with a glint in her eye, making Noa laugh. “All those years in the Dog Park and I never did get myself an inked wolf.” There wasn’t even a hint of seriousness in her tone. “It’s been real nice to stretch my legs, so to speak.” Noa thought that she and Sasha had found a good balance between their different skills. “In a few months it’ll have been a year since I opened.” Demi grinned. “I bet it has been, your talents were always wasted on simply inking wolf after wolf.” Those wolf tattoos were phenomenal, but with proof on her very skin of the things Noa could do that weren’t fanged and ferocious, Demi felt like she had enough evidence to say what she had said. “I can’t believe a year has gone by, it both seems like everything is so far in the past, but also like they just happened yesterday…” “Some things, yeah,” Noa agreed. “But I’m happy some have faded like bad dreams.” A year ago she would have felt like she was betraying people by saying that, but not now. Bad experiences deserved to be named for what they were. Shaking herself mentally, she smirked to lighten the mood, tapping her foot against Demi’s calf. “So am I,” Demi murmured with a nod of agreement. Her life had gone down a different path than expected, but she found it was one she preferred in many ways -- it just took her awhile to fully realize that. Sitting with Demi now wasn’t like sitting, cramped in her old Airstream. It was better. Her home was a tangible reminder that life had changed. Nine months ago it might have felt painful, but now it was freeing. “I suppose I never thought I’d get to a point where I could look back and recognize the negatives,” she admitted, using a small shrug to punctuate. Demi let Noa’s words sink in for a moment and then replied, “I never thought I’d be able to do that either.” She paused. “I never thought I would want to, really. But, now that I can, I’m thankful that those negative things aren’t in my life anymore.” She twisted a piece of loose hair around her finger while she thought on that further, surprised that her words didn’t come with a pang of guilt anymore. “Identifying the negatives doesn’t lessen the positives though,” Demi smiled softly. “I don’t honestly know where I’d be if I hadn’t found the Dog Park.” Or more accurately the Hellhounds had found her, but she knew Noa would understand what she meant. “I wouldn’t have made it through all I had to make it through without them.” Even if she prided herself on independence, having those people to lean back on, and hold her up when she’d needed it had made all the difference. The dogs ran through the living space, halting their forward motion once they’d reached the patio, before the scurried back out to areas unknown. It made Noa smile at the recollection of how many times Demi’s dog had put Duke through his paces in the dust of the park. “But this is better.” It was better to not have to look over her shoulder all the time, if nothing else. “There are still people with prejudices, but there ain’t anyone on the other side of them, making them worse.” What wasn’t said was how that wouldn’t have been a possibility before. Before the government came back, before Ollinger was dethroned, and before the Hellhounds went straight. “It is better,” Demi agreed with a nod. Austin still had a ways to go before it felt like the city she had moved to all those years ago, but at least it no longer felt like a war zone -- and while it surprised her, she could admit that was a relief in a lot of ways. Austin was slowly turning into a place Demi could feel comfortable raising a family in, which was still a slightly foreign thought, but brought a smile to her lips nonetheless. “You know, JB would’ve given that man of yours a real interrogation, though,” Noa winked, laughing softly. “Especially if he knew that you were working on getting knocked up.” Demi hadn’t said, but it was a calculated risk on Noa’s part to say it. If she was wrong, she was wrong. “How did you know?” Demi asked before she could stop herself, surprise laced through her tone. She had only told one person so far, and she couldn’t imagine Nina had uttered the information to anyone else. “JB was always good at looking out for me,” she added with a fond smile. Noa’s late husband had been somewhat of a big brother to Demi during her time in the Dog Park. “I think he would have liked Isaac, despite the whole lawyer thing.” Noa shrugged. “I guessed.” Some clues were there, if a person looked hard enough. It just happened that she was the type to pick them up. “You give him too much credit though. He might have gotten there after awhile. But it would’ve been like trying to put a cat in a bathtub, in the beginning.” She stretched, and offered a knowing look. “He was always a sucker for kids, though. It would’ve worked itself out.” “Well, I never said he’d like him immediately,” Demi replied with a smirk. “So I wasn’t giving him that much credit.” There was still a pang whenever she thought about Noa’s late husband, especially because she hadn’t been at the Dog Park when they lost him. “You’re right though, it would have worked itself out eventually.” Noa lived with the errant what-ifs that cropped up once in awhile, but the difference was they held very little bearing on her thoughts like they used to. Maybe it was because most of the what-ifs she lived with now were never as positive as the life she was actually living. “I’m happy for you.” Noa reached over and gave Demi’s hand a squeeze. “You deserve that kind of happy, honey.” “Thanks,” Demi beamed, unable to really contain just how happy she was. “You know you deserve this kind of happiness too.” She was prodding a little bit, but only a little. Laughing in a short, surprisingly uncontained burst, Noa let one corner of her mouth pull upwards. “Honey, I’m as happy as I’ve been in a real long time,” she assured. “It might not be your kind of happy, but it’s something. It’s something real good.” So she hadn’t laid it out all out for Demi to know, but Demi had always been smart enough to put the pieces together, once she had enough of them. A laugh bubbled up out of Demi in response. Of course Noa wouldn’t just lay everything out on the table for her, that wasn’t the other woman’s way. Still, it was enough for her to make an educated guess. “So do I get to know who this someone is that’s making you happy?” Demi questioned with a smirk. “Or does that need to remain a mystery?” She had her suspicions, based on who she most often saw Noa with at the bar, but Demi wanted to see if her gut reaction in assuming Noa was with anyone at all was accurate first before she went guessing as to who the person was. “I’m sure you could figure it out,” Noa replied cagily, more for the fun of it than any real desire to dodge Demi’s curiosity. “It’s still new. We’re figuring things out, so don’t you get the idea to play twenty questions with ‘em.” She poked at Demi with her foot, catching her friend’s eye and looking at her seriously. Noa could request it, but whether Demi agreed was another story. Demi always did was she wanted to, in the end. “I’m sure you’re right,” Demi agreed with a smirk, not phased in the least by Noa’s answer. Actually, if she had gotten a straight answer from the other woman she would have been surprised. “I promise I won’t pepper Vic and Marina with twenty questions, at least not until the ‘newness’ has worn off,” she continued, smirk morphing into a bit of a self-satisfied smile, which elicited a small head shake from Noa. There were only two people that were connected to each other that Demi could also see connected to Noa, plus, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the three of them at the Bar more than once. “I’m just real happy that you’re happy,” Demi offered her friend a smile. “You deserve it, sweetheart.” |