Nate Kelly (somedaymaybe) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-04-26 23:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, nate |
Who: Nate and Jack
When: Thursday, October 19, morning
Where: Dragonfly
Status: Complete
Nate went in early Thursday morning, unlocking Dragonfly hours before it was set to open. It was the easiest place to meet Jack and they could talk in private without him having to invite a semi-stranger to his home. Yes, they’d chatted at the bar here and there, but this was hedging towards a part of himself that he usually kept private. If he found himself in a position where he had to give away the magic, then he didn’t want to also feel like he was giving away his home. He had the salve his mother had made and it had done the trick nicely on his own hand. It was almost completely healed, which was a little bit deceiving. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have left it at that. But he knew there was a curse to go with it and that was going to be the hard part to explain to Jack. Maybe he’d believe him, but there was a high chance he wouldn’t.
Jack had agreed to meet Nate at the proposed time. It wasn’t as if he were doing anything and he really wanted to get his wound healed. His aunt was cleaning it twice a day, sometimes more for him, but nothing they did healed it. He was afraid he’d end up have to have his leg removed if it got any worse.
He jumped in his pick up truck thirty minutes before time to meet. Of course, his truck wouldn’t start, damn the luck. He had to beg his neighbor for a jump to get it started. On the way to the bar, he ended up with a flat. He grumbled about his luck and tried to send a text to Nate, which wouldn’t go through. He changed his tire and then carried on. Then he was pulled over. A tail light was out, he recieved a ticket. He didn’t know what was going on, but today was definitely not the day.
When he finally made it to the bar, he parked and started inside. The moment he crossed the threshold he tripped and pretty much face planted into the floor. He rolled over to his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Nate, bro, please tell me you’re serving drinks right now because I have the shittiest of luck today.”
There was something about watching Jack fall on his face that made it click for Nate. He’d been doing that alot lately himself. Running into things or tripping over them. It made him wonder if they were dealing with a gravity curse, which was especially frustrating as an air witch. Gravity was something he normally had perfect control over. It made him want to drill Jack with questions, but he needed to work his way into it or he’d sound crazy.
“Free drinks for you, since you made it here in one piece,” Nate said, walking over to Jack and offering him a hand. He pulled him to his feet, then gestured towards the bar. “What’s your poison? You’ll need a drink for this anyways.” He could always wait till they were ready to break the curse to tell him, but it would be so much easier if they were both brainstorming about solutions.
“Almost didn’t,” Jack grumbled, taking Nate’s hand and letting him pull him to his feet. “Whiskey. Anything you got,” he said and made his way to the bar. He sighed in relief as he made it to the bar stool and sat down. “I’ve had the worst kind of luck lately,” he said. “My truck wouldn’t start to get here so I had to find a neighbor to jump it off, then on the way I got flat…” he shook his head. “Bad day. Just a really bad day. So all the whiskey,” he chuckled.
“Has it been like that since I saw you last?” Nate asked, making his way around the bar to get Jack a pour of one of his nicer whiskeys. It wasn’t just falling then. It was bad luck all around. Nate thought back on the other things that had been happening to him, things that seemed small and stupid, but had frustrated the hell out of him--the light bulb shattering, sending glass everywhere; his heater going out; a rock hitting his windshield. He hadn’t put it all together until now, when Jack was talking about how bad things were going for him. “‘Cause things have pretty much sucked for me.”
“Off and on,” Jack nodded. He didn’t mention that it had started off slowly but gotten progressively worse. He was just having a bad run. That was all. “Not sure that has anything to do with anything, though,” he shrugged. When Nate mentioned things had sucked for him, too, his eyebrow rose. “What do you mean?”
“It might,” Nate suggested, aware that that would sound crazy to most people. But they’d been attacked by twenty cats, so Jack should at least be aware there were unexplainable things in this world. “Since I’ve been bitten, I have fallen in the shower, tripped at least five times, blew a lightbulb in the kitchen, had a glass shatter in my hand, lock myself out of my car, and my heater’s gone out. Oh, and a rock hit my windshield this morning.” Listing it off like that, he felt like an idiot for not seeing the pattern. It just hadn’t been at all magical in nature. It didn’t feel like magic at play. But then Reagan and Caius had been fighting a curse for years and not known it, so maybe that was normal. “Would you believe me if I told you I thought that was all caused by the cat bite?”
Jack took a sip of his drink, closing his eyes as he felt the warmth of the whiskey touch him. He listened as Nate told him of all the bad luck he’d have and he frowned. Huh. Interesting. Both of them were having a bad run and he wondered what that meant. It was just a coincidence, right? Sure, weird things happened in this town, but he didn’t think it was anything more.
“What?” He laughed and ran a hand over his face. “The cat bite is giving me..us..bad luck? Seriously dude?”
Nate wasn’t surprised by Jack’s skepticism. It sounded crazy. These things didn’t happen. But Nate knew for certain that he was cursed and that seemed like a really perfect fit. Of course being bitten by a black cat on Friday the thirteenth would bring him bad luck. He just had to find a way to reverse it. “Consider it a possibility,” he said, then slid the jar of salve across the bar. “Go ahead and put this on your bite, though. It’ll work wonders.”
“A possibility?” Jack shook his head. Lifting the glass of whiskey, he gulped it down and then set the glass on the bartop. He took the jar that was passed to him and opened it, taking a sniff, he wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t wonderful either. He then was rolling up his pant leg to where he’d been bitten and made a face before looking up at Nate. “Sure hope this works, pretty sure docs want to take my leg soon,” he teased. Except, it wasn’t exactly a tease, either. If his wound didn’t heal and it continued on, gangrene and all that would set in and they would have to take the bottom portion of his leg.
His fingers dipped into the salve and then he rubbed it on the wound, sighing out at the cooling sensation and immediate pain relief. “Nice…” he murmured. “Where’d you get it?”
“Check out my hand if you don’t believe me,” Nate said, holding his hand out across the counter. In the past twenty-four hours, it had gone from an open, weeping wound to scar tissue. He had the feeling that was as good as it would get until they broke the curse, but he’d take it over losing his hand any day. “I know someone who knows something about curses. She made it for me,” he said, not really wanting to say it was his mother. That was weird, even if she was a witch, but she was the most powerful witch he knew. “I think, if we’re certain the bad luck is caused by the bite, she can tell us how to break it.”
Jack checked Nate’s hand out and gave a ‘hmph’ type sound. “Well..we were bit by different cats,” he stated. “What if mine had some disease or something,” he shivered. “How long did it take for this junk to work on yours?” Though, he felt like it was helping already. The pain was minimal now, a dull ache, and it didn’t itch as much either. Leaving his pant leg rolled up, he sat back and looked at Nate.
“Seriously though, curses? You really think we’re cursed? Like...breaking a mirror and get seven years bad luck type of curses?” He really hoped he wasn’t cursed for years, he could barely walk in a straight line now, to have to go on for years he might as well just let the cat bite take him.
“It works pretty quick,” Nate said, sure that Jack would see that for himself. At that time yesterday morning his bite had looked as bad as Jack’s currently did, the wound so bad that it couldn’t possibly have healed that fast without magic. But he couldn’t just tell Jack that. He’d have to see it for himself. He was willing to bed the wound would be closed before Jack even left the bar.
“No, you can’t get cursed from breaking a mirror unless the mirror itself is already cursed,” Nate said, lips ticking up a bit in amusement. “Curses are finicky. Sometimes someone puts one on you. Sometimes it’s an object that’s been cursed and you touch it or use it. And sometimes a parade of black cats show up to cross your path on Friday the Thirteenth. I’m not saying it makes sense, because I’ve never heard of it before, but I’m saying it’s a possibility. And that unless we do something to break the curse, it’ll just keep on charging forward.” And at some point, Nate would fall and break his neck. It wasn’t anything he’d ever been concerned about before, but he’d never fallen so much in his life. If it wasn’t that, it would be a car crash. Or some freak accident a la Final Destination.
“Alright…” Jack furrowed his brows. “How do you know so much about curses?” He asked and grabbed the bottle of whiskey and poured another glass. “I mean, this shit shouldn’t be real..but this town…” he shook his head and took a drink. “And if that is what this is, I need it gone soon. This shit is not cool.”
“Um… I’ve lived in Point Pleasant my whole life?” Nate said, giving Jack a lopsided smile. He knew that didn’t explain everything, but Jack was right in thinking it had something to do with this town. There were witches everywhere, but Point Pleasant seemed like a beacon for the weird. “I’ve done some research on this kind of thing, but it’s the first time I’ve ever had one applied to me. I’m gonna need to do a little work to figure out how to get rid of it, but yeah, the goal would be as soon as possible.”
Jack laughed and nodded his head. “Touche.” This town was nothing but trouble half the time. So much happened here. Weird shit. Why not curses? He sighed and tossed back his drink. “I’m going to leave it to you, then, to figure out this shit,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I know nothing about anything like this, never had anything like this happen to me or anyone I know. But if you think you’ve got some sort of heads up or lead or something, then by all means cure the two of us from this curse, because it sucks hell.”
Nate’s lips twitched up to an amused smile, appreciating the vote of confidence from someone who barely knew him. Sure, they talked whenever Jack was in the bar, but this was a different level of knowledge for sure. And he’d probably get to know him even better if they had to do some curse breaking, but he’d have to wait and see. “Thanks,” he smiled. “I’m gonna do what I can. This isn’t something either of us wants to try and live with long term. Or even short term. I’m hoping to be rid of it by next week, so I’ll let you know as soon as I find out more.” Even though it was early, he poured himself a drink. “How’s your leg doing?”
Jack hoped that whatever Nate was doing to break this ‘curse’ that he did it quickly. He couldn’t walk around the rest of his life tripping over his own feet and breaking things. He looked down at his leg when he was asked and both his eyebrows shot up. He sat forward and bent over to look, his fingers probing around the now healing would.
“Mother fucker…” he breathed out. “It’s healing. Finally. Thank fucks!” He looked up at Nate and grinned. “Tell whoever made this shit that I am eternally grateful! And thank you, to you, too!”
Nate grinned, pleased that Jack’s wound was healing, even if it didn’t break the curse. He knew how big a relief that had to be, having experienced it himself. Hopefully breaking the curse would be just as easy, though he somehow doubted it. It wasn’t a man-made curse. A simple counter-spell wouldn’t be enough. This was the kind of thing that required a specific spell to be completed and his own knowledge wasn’t enough to tell him what. Veronica would likely know though. And if she didn’t, she had the contacts to find out. “Welcome,” he smiled. “Try to be careful until I figure out what to do about the curse, okay? I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.”
Jack looked at his watch and groaned. He was going to be in trouble, he was late to family night with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. “I better go,” he pushed down his pant leg and stood up. “My family is having family night, which means food and board games,” he chuckled. “If I don’t show up, my aunt will track me down herself and drag me,” he gave a lopsided grin. “Thanks for the whiskey and the cream for the wound,” he motioned towards his leg. “Let me know how when you do how we are going to break this bad luck curse of ours.” He’d freak out later when the word ‘curse’ actually sunk in, probably when he was home alone and had nothing else to do but think about it.
“Go. Hang out with your family. Nothing’s going to change today, so just… I dunno. Good luck,” Nate said with a little laugh. He’d give Jack a call just as soon as he knew what to do. As far as curses went, it could be worse. They weren’t dying. And he didn’t think they were destined to die. But bad luck came in all sorts of flavors and he didn’t really want to find out how dark it could get. They needed to fix this, and they needed to fix it soon.