Nick Iacoletti (cookedbooks) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-03-31 11:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, nick |
Who: Adam and Nick
When: Saturday, October 14th, afternoon
Where: Castle View Apartments
Status: Complete
Talking to Rylee had been a start, but talking to Carson directly was still something Adam wanted and felt like he needed to do even if he felt at a loss on how best to approach it. Rylee had mentioned Carson might have been mistaken, but if there were any chance at all, was it worth the risk? Adam didn’t think so. He had tried to express as much to Rylee already to feel her out on it. It hadn’t gone particularly well.
If he did nothing and the next full moon brought something disastrous for Carson, Rylee, or some innocent bystander, he’d never be able to live with himself. Inaction didn’t sit well with him, even if at the same time he was at somewhat of a loss as to what to do. He was basically butting into Carson’s life at this point since it was by chance he had been on shift at the ED that night. Carson would have every right to tell him to fuck off, but Adam would cross that bridge if it came to it.
Maybe it would amount to nothing and he would just end up seeming like a paranoid weirdo, but that still felt like a best case scenario. He found some reassurance in how quickly Nick had confirmed that werewolves were real. Also that he was willing to talk about it and provide sources to cite. Adam had spent the morning going for a run, then making a pizza from scratch after he had showered as a way to kill time and give his brain something else to focus on until Nick was finished with writing and on his way over.
Nick wasn’t really one for charity when it came to his work. He’d had a lot of people over the years try to pump him for information, some of them insane and just desperate to have their crackpot theories confirmed, some of them actually on to something. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to share intel, he was a writer at his core, that was what he did, but he wasn’t into being used for free. And since he’d accepted his additional employment, he was under some contractual obligations to keep his trap shut about certain things.
Adam’s request though ... that felt different. If there was a werewolf around Point Pleasant, there were a lot of people in a lot of danger. Especially if it was biting folks and spreading the curse. Adam knowing somebody had been bitten, and having the access to warn the poor guy before he slaughtered his family or whatever ... the lives were worth the intervention. So after he’d put in his morning hours and then gathered up some carefully redacted copies of files and photos as proof, he headed over to the nurse’s apartment.
Nick knocked on the door and ran a hand through his hair, belatedly hoping this wasn’t some flirtatious ploy. He could handle himself if so, but it would kind of be a disappointment.
For better or worse, Adam lacked the kind of cunning to be effectively deceptive. Sure, he was good at hiding things by omission--he could steer himself away from admitting things to himself much less anyone else--, but beyond that he was somewhat hopeless. Maybe if he had more guile he would have handled talking to Rylee better. Probably not, though.
Despite expecting Nick, Adam jumped at the knock. He had been in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen while the pizza cooled a little. Drying his hands on a towel, he tossed it on the counter and went to open the door. "Hey, thanks for coming over. Come in," Adam said, stepping aside to let Nick inside. "I didn't really think I'd need to hit you up quite so soon, but then the full moon happened." He headed from the entryway back toward his kitchen, leaving Nick to follow him. "I made pizza, if you want any. It's mostly a lot of cheese and sausage, with some pepper," he added.
“Hey,” Nick greeted as Adam opened the door. He walked into the apartment and let Adam shut the door behind him, then followed along as they moved into the kitchen. “Yeah, they tend to do that,” he said with a faint chuckle about the full moon. Every month, right on schedule. Nick had only ever personally been in an area with a werewolf once that he knew of ... and he kind of hoped Adam was wrong about this. It wasn’t a pretty life for anybody who had the curse, but forewarned was forearmed, and maybe they could save some lives here. Nick found a spot to set his file folders down on the counter so they were out of the way, his stomach rumbling. Food first. “Smells fuckin’ amazing,” he told Adam with a lopsided grin. “So yes please. And tell me about what happened.”
Adam hadn't been in a place before with any kind of werewolf activity, just people being weird when it came to the full moon. Or if there had been any werewolves running around, he hadn't been aware of it. "Thanks," he said reflexively, smiling back at Nick, though it was fleeting as he switched to explaining, taking out a couple plates and a cutter to start slicing the pizza. "This guy came in while I was working the ED on Thursday. Said he'd been bitten by some kind of huge dog or wolf. While I was cleaning his wound I overheard him say to someone else that it was up on its hind legs." He put a few slices of pizza onto the plates for each of them and offered one to Nick, gesturing to the table in the dining area adjacent to the kitchen. "Feel free to have a seat. Do you want anything to drink?"
Nick accepted the plate with a murmured thanks of his own, then went and sat down where Adam gestured to. He had a good looking little place here. “Got a beer or something? If not, water’s fine,” he answered. Beer and pizza just seemed to go together, and he realized belatedly he should’ve offered to bring some. Oh well, next time. He was rusty at visiting people when he didn’t have an agenda already in mind for the encounter. This could turn into something work-related, it sounded like, but for the moment he was just doing Adam a solid. The bitten guy could’ve been completely full of shit, after all. “Well that sounds fishy as fuck,” he said lightly. “Was that all you heard?” He’d been looking into the news around the full moon and there had been all kinds of animal attacks, so it was entirely possible.
"I've got beer," Adam said, moving to the fridge to pull out a couple bottles of whatever IPA he had last bought. Apparently it was Space Dust. He popped the caps off both, holding them by the neck in one hand and picking up his own plate and joining Nick. He set his plate down opposite Nick, then offered him one of the bottles before sitting down. "He said it came over a fence to attack him and that it was huge. The way his leg was fucked up supports the large canine of some sort part, at least. Dude seemed terrified and convinced it wasn't a normal dog." Adam paused to eat a bite of pizza, then added, "I ended up talking to his cousin the other day for a bit and she said he had a low-grade fever, but I couldn't figure out how to suss out flu-like symptoms beyond that." There was more to mention about his conversation with Rylee, but he would get into that next.
“Thanks man,” Nick said again as he accepted the bottle. Pizza and beer was kind of a treat, he usually tried to eat better most of the time, but goddamn all those carbs tasted good. He took a bite of food while Adam talked, listening thoughtfully. “They’re far more aggressive than any normal dog or wolf. Wolves tend to try to avoid people, unless they’re starving to death. And even if it was ... you said he said it was huge, right? I read in last month’s paper that there was a death in town, an animal mauling. And a cow got eviscerated and put on the church’s lawn. Even a pack of wolves wouldn’t move prey that big from where they killed it, not all in one piece. So I’m inclined to believe him.” He tipped his beer up for a swallow.
Many of Adam's eating habits were all over the place, the commonality being a tendency to cook whatever it was, since it was one of his primary methods for decompressing, especially when he could combine it with his almost compulsive need to feed guests in his home. Pizza making tended to be a win-win on the fronts of 'time consuming enough to distract but not madden' and 'getting to eat pizza', even if it weren't the healthiest meal. "There was a definite emphasis on huge and that it was coming at him pretty hard," Adam said. "So, check on both counts." He drank some of his beer and sighed as Nick mentioned the animal attacks as further supporting evidence. "I'm inclined to believe him, too. But when I was talking to his cousin, I tried to see where she stood on it, and she's definitely in the 'supernatural monsters don't exist' camp. They seem to be close and she might think I'm crazy now, but I also don't feel like I can sit around, hoping that he doesn't turn into a cursed killing machine the next time the full moon comes around."
Nick pursed his lips and nodded as Adam told him about the cousin. It wasn’t surprising, most people had their heads in the sand when it came to the supernatural, even in a town like this. Sometimes especially in a town like this. If everything he suspected about Point Pleasant was true, or at least close to it, it would drive anyone who wasn’t open-minded to it mad. This was one of those places that just drew in darkness, like a magnet. “Better safe than sorry, no matter what she thinks,” he said. “There might not actually be much you can do, but if he’d still convinced of what he saw, he might listen and take some precautions.” That was really the best they could hope for. Even if someone believed in the things that went bump in the night, some of them refused to believe that they were now one of those things. Until the evidence was impossible to ignore, that was. Nick munched down another few bites of pizza and wiped his fingers off before he pushed the folder he’d brought over to Adam. It was full of copies of several case study reports with the identifying information blacked out, official papers describing the affliction and photographs of people morphing into hulking beasts. He’d redacted anything that could link it all back to him or the people he worked for, so Nick had deemed it worth the risk. If it saved lives, it was the right thing to do. “Show him these. If he’s a skeptic he might just say they’re fake, but ask him if that looks like what bit him.”
Given that Rylee didn't want anyone to encourage Carson with--what had she called it? his hallucination?--, Adam kind of hoped she wouldn't bring up that they talked, since he couldn't really imagine she would encourage Carson to come talk to him. Going against her wishes of leaving Carson alone felt shitty, even if he didn't know her particularly well, since she seemed like she was just being protective over someone she cared for. But Adam would have to find a way to talk to Carson. "Yeah, that's what I think, too. I feel like the best case scenario would be it's nothing and I just come across as some delusional weirdo and hope they don't report me or whatever," he said, taking another draw on his beer, then also wiped his hands to take a look at what Nick slid to him, taking a cursory look through them. "Thanks for this, man. Are there precautions he could take other than trying to stay way the hell away from people as much as possible the next full moon? Like do tranquilizers or other drugs seem to work?" he asked. If Carson would accept his help, Adam would try to do whatever he could to help him take care until something was confirmed.
Nick gave him a faint grin at his assessment of a best case scenario. If action was taken against people who came across as delusional weirdos, there would’ve been a lot more people in jail and mental health facilities and whatnot. As long as Adam didn’t press the issue too much and start stalking this guy and his cousin, he should be fine. If this guy had been bitten by a werewolf, whatever he went through the next full moon would be convincing enough. They just had to hope he didn’t kill anyone, if he wasn’t going to listen now. “I’ve seen tranqs work,” he said with a nod. “But they’ve gotta be strong, think elephant tranquilizers. Ideally, you want to restrain them too, an iron cage or shackles somewhere isolated, because they can make a fuckton of noise. They’re mindless beasts, so if you take one out in the middle of nowhere before the change and set them loose to roam and hunt in the woods, they won’t go straight back to civilization. You just might not find them again. The human inside just blacks out, they don’t remember anything, and end up waking up naked and bloody and scared wherever the beast was when the sun came up. I would recommend all three, isolation, restraints, and drugs, if you can get your hands on them.”
Moreso, Adam had a vague concern they could report him to the Maine Board of Nursing if so inclined, but even if they did and it resulted in an investigation. That probably wouldn't be too bad, though he only had a vague idea of what the disciplinary process would be. Defending the case of "no, really, suspected werewolf attack victim is a reasonable cause for concern" would take some explaining away, but he'd cross that bridge if he came to it. Ultimately, it was just a job. Other people's lives being potentially endangered was far worse. He ate some more pizza, nodding as Nick offered additional advice.
"There's a lot of woods around," he mused aloud. "Somewhere isolated shouldn't be too much of a problem. Finding where to get the rest of it might make my targeted advertising online interesting for a bit," Adam said, joking. He was taking all of this seriously, but it was a little surreal. He hoped he could make some kind of headway convincing Carson and to get this together, since waking up alone and scared would have the extra complicating factor of the lack of Carson's prosthetic. So, several ways it wasn't ideal. "You've seen a werewolf before yourself?" he asked, circling back to what Nick had mentioned about seeing tranquilizers work. Having access to information didn't necessarily mean the same thing as firsthand contact.
Munching on some more pizza, Nick chuckled around it. “You should see my fuckin’ search history, man,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I gotta be on like, five or six watchlists. Sometimes I type ‘I’m a writer’ a bunch of times into the search bar for the NSA.” That used to be true, but wasn’t much anymore. Nick had gotten hooked up with a very secure, encrypted connection. There were some things that went above the US government. “I’ve seen recordings of them,” he said, nodding toward the folder Adam was looking through. “And I’m positive that I saw one when I was a teenager, and that it killed my friend. So ... yeah.” He gave Adam a dry smile, then lifted his beer again. That hadn’t been the only time he’d seen a werewolf in real life, but the other times they had been under heavy security, so Nick wasn’t mentioning those. “But I didn’t know shit back then, of course. All this has come from some reliable sources. I know CGI is pretty good nowadays, but I’m pretty convinced what I’ve seen is real.”
Adam laughed. "Yeah, I can only imagine, considering my forays into any paranormal stuff have trended toward being casual, at least the past few years." Since he was sure Nick did far more extensive research. There was more about ghosts Adam had learned to build better mental defenses, but he hadn't found that on the internet, and at times even that felt like a part of his life fully encapsulated in the past. He ate more of his pizza before he absently continued to drink his beer, idly studying one of the pictures in the folder more closely, though he glanced back at Nick, brow furrowing. "That sucks about your friend. I'm sorry," he said, even if that had happened years ago. "Is that what led to you digging into all of this? I believe you." He didn't bother asking Nick about who his sources were, since he willing to take him at his word, since Nick seemed to take all of this seriously based on his writing. "I'm just hoping this'll be enough to at least get this guy to be careful, or let me help him be careful, since I'm sort of butting into his life as a stranger he's met once."
Nick gave an appreciative nod at the condolences -- that kid hadn’t been his very best friend or anything, just one of the group of young idiots Nick hung around with back in those days, but it had still been somewhat traumatic. See a big wolf-monster, flee, accidentally leave a man behind, and said man disappears in the few minutes it took them to go back to look for him. There’d been no trace of him, and now that he had experience, Nick was positive he’d been eaten. It did feel like it had happened a hundred years ago though, so he wasn’t terribly emotional about it. Kind of sickly fascinated, really. Did some unsuspecting cursed sap wake up to obvious, bloody evidence they’d torn someone apart? Nick had to wonder. “That’s what kicked it all off, yup,” he answered Adam’s question with a chuckle. “My whole life’s work. But hey, don’t think of yourself as a nosy stranger. You’re a concerned citizen trying to save lives. That’s what you do anyway as a nurse, right? This is just ... an open minded extension of that.” He gave the guy a smile. Facing down skepticism could be hard, but he understood why Adam had to try.
Even without specific details, the situation of losing a friend, whatever the level of acquaintance, to a terrifying monster seemed like the sort of thing that would be traumatic for anyone. Adam couldn’t help but feel sympathetic, though he didn’t know whoever it was and he had only recently met Nick; it was in his nature. Empathizing too much had always been something he had to be careful of--even as he blocked off as much of whatever extrasensory weirdness he had when he let his guard down--, especially when it came to work and keeping professional boundaries. It didn’t always work and it fed now into his determination to do whatever he could to help Carson however much was in his ability. Besides, helping other people’s problems, whatever they might be, always felt much more manageable than dealing with his own. His lips quirked at Nick’s reframing. “That is a better spin on it,” Adam said with a chuckle. “But, yeah. Saving people’s lives is the goal, though this is somewhere outside the realm of professional responsibility and more of a moral one. Though I guess it is a sort of--curse, right?” That’s what he thought Nick had referred to it as. “A curse that’s like a contagion. I’m guessing there’s no easy way to break the curse?” he added.
From every bit of information Nick had gathered about lycanthropes, it was a curse. A lot of fiction tried to make it lighter, controllable, maybe even romantic, getting in touch with one’s animal side, blah blah. But all he ever saw of the change was intense violence and death. There was nothing human or reasonable in those monsters, not when they were monsters. And each one was damned to become one every month. “It’s been going on for millenia, if there was a way to break it, people would’ve figured it out by now,” he said. “At least by traditional or magical means. Maybe someday modern science will find a cure or something, but right now ... no. It’s something he’ll be stuck with for the rest of his life.” Which, obviously, might be greatly shortened. But Nick had been dark enough, he guessed, no need to rub it in. He finished off the pizza on his plate and tipped his beer up to drain that off too. “I’m not in the habit of doing this, but ... if there’s lives to be saved, it seems worth it. If you want, you can point him in my direction too. Maybe hearing it from two different people will help.”
That was about the answer that Adam expected. Though it still sucked. "That's what I figured, but wanted to confirm. I won't hold my breath too much, then, if it's been around that long," he said. It surprised him, sort of, that it hadn't become a more prevalent thing--though it sounded like that was for the best. The comment about magical means was another thing he hadn't given much specific time to before, but why wouldn't that also be a thing? Not that he would really know how to go about finding a witch or whoever. He finished drinking his beer. "I appreciate your help, man. I didn't really expect I would be asking you for a favor this quick, but necessity compels." Now he would just need to figure out how to spring the news on Carson. Straightforwardly felt ambush-y, but would there be any use in trying to build up to it? Adam'd have to see how it went, whenever he was able to see Carson again. "I'll also keep that in mind, depending on how things go when I talk to this guy. Do you want anymore pizza or beer?" Adam asked, when he noticed Nick finished eating.
Nick considered having another beer at least, but he didn’t want to linger too long and be one of Those Guests who never knew when to leave. There were other people in town he could call on if he got too bored, and there was always work to do. A report would be expected of him about this, so he might as well start taking down notes. “Nah I think I’m good, gotta watch the girlish figure and all,” he told Adam with an easy smile. “It was fuckin’ delicious though, you missed your calling as a pizza chef.” Nick picked up his plate and the empty bottle and got up to escort both into their proper places in the kitchen. He shouldn’t leave a mess. “But no problem, I’m happy to be in a position to help. Best of luck with it all,” Nick added over his shoulder. “I hope he listens to reason. Crazy-sounding reason, but reason nonetheless.” Nick knew it might take the guy actually killing someone for him to come around, but there was only so much you could do in these situations.
Adam tended toward being as polite as possible when it came to having guests, though it was out of enjoyment from being around people rather than out of any sense of obligation. He laughed from Nick’s comment. “Yeah, it’d be a real shame to start letting yourself go,” he said lightly, smiling back and accepting the compliment. “Thanks. Who knows, maybe if I were a pizza chef I’d spend my free time nursing.” Adam would have cleared the table, though he appreciated Nick cleaning up after himself. He got up to deal with his own empty plate and bottle. “I hope so, too, but I’ll have to find out either way and then plan accordingly from there.” Wiping his hands on a kitchen towel, he leaned against the counter, since he could wait to do the dishes once Nick left. “I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.”
Nick nodded, chuckling over the nursing-as-a-hobby suggestion. If Adam was as good at nursing as he was pizza, the people at the hospital were well cared for. “Yeah, let me know,” he said, giving Adam a smile. “And let me know if you need any backup.” If worst came to worst, he could flag the guy for pickup once he found out who he was. Nick didn’t particularly want to do that, he knew by now that lycanthropes were just people in terrible situations, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. If this guy couldn’t or wouldn’t contain himself, especially once another full moon rolled by, Nick would make sure he was neutralized. He glanced around the kitchen, then started ambling toward the door. “I’ll get outta your way, but I’ll catch you later, yeah?”
"I definitely will, if it seems like it's necessary," Adam said. He didn't think it would be given Rylee's concern that this all was some kind of hallucination that Carson believed in, but who could say for sure. Facing the reality and potential magnitude of it might be something else entirely. However it went, Adam felt like he would need to exhaust whatever options available to keep Carson and anyone else safe. Adam smiled at Nick. "Yeah, see you later, dude. Thanks again for everything. Let's get a beer sometime when I don't have to ask you for an emergency favor," he said, seeing Nick out before going about cleaning up his kitchen, already a bit restless now that he had more to think about. Adam'd have to get out of the house later, since the whole conversation would have to wait until he could figure out how to find a time to talk to Carson without coming across as a total stalker, hopefully sooner than later.