Who: Nic & Vex Where: The Castell House When: Evening, Wednesday, 12/20 Status: Complete
Vex supposed he could let Lem return the car keys to Nic, they spent a lot of time together and he was pretty much her boyfriend now, though Vex wouldn't dare mention that to Lem. Who knew how she felt about those kinds of labels. He decided against it, preferring to do it in person. Their mission was as much of a success as he could have hoped for on the first day. They had followed a lady for a while until they found out where she lived and he'd texted Jane that information. It might just be a receptionist but it was a start. He had a few pictures on file now of the building and people coming and going but it had been pretty quiet today. Possibly because of the upcoming holidays. Maybe even evil mega corporations took a break for Christmas.
He ate a little and then headed out into the cold again, popping a lollipop in his mouth as he jogged up to the Castell house and knocked. It was interesting seeing the Zinneman house down the road, the repairs on the old house were coming along nicely but he never noticed anyone there. A thought for another day, he had completely different things to think about tonight.
The week before Christmas always seemed to spin out of control and this year was no different. Zania had been attacked by rats on Sunday. She'd kicked him out of the house on Tuesday night. And she had a party planned for Thursday. It didn't matter that Nic had no plans whatsoever--his sister's crazy seemed to seep into his life. He supposed that was what he got for living with her, but he also thought that would always be the case, no matter where he lived. Today would have been a down day if his sister wasn't in party planning mode, but since she was, Nic was busy attempting a practice round on the decorations. They relied heavily on his glamour magic, but he couldn't do the whole house until the winter solstice, not without exhausting himself. So instead he worked piece by piece, refining the details so that he'd be ready to put it all up when the time came.
They weren't expecting any visitors, but with Lem living next door he was getting used to people dropping by. He liked that bit, how close she was, but also liked how they still had their own space. He expected to see her at the door, there to return his car keys, so he was surprised when it turned out to be Vex. "Hey," he said as he opened the door. "All done?" He wasn't totally sure he understood what they were up to, but so long as they weren't committing some kind of a crime, he was fine with them borrowing his car if they needed it.
"All done," Vex murmured, handing over the keys and peering over Nic's shoulder into the house. "I think it's time we looped you in. You wanna be looped, kid?" He knew Lem hadn't told Nic since he didn't seem to know what the car thing was about but that was okay, they were amassing an army of sorts and their two friendly neighborhood witches were about to get enlisted. "Crazy shit's afoot, might be better off not knowing but I don't see you as the type who likes not knowing." He narrowed one eye and grinned at Nic around his lollipop.
Kid. There were few people that could call him that without it feeling condescending, but coming from Vex it felt more like a term of familiarity. And he supposed he was a kid in Vex’s eyes, even at his age. “Loop me,” Nic laughed lightly, taking the keys from Vex and taking a step back so he could step inside the house. He didn’t mind the cold, but if he stood there too long with the door open Zania was likely to start yelling at him for letting all the heat out. “I’m pretty well versed in crazy and I’d rather know upfront than have it blindside me later, you know?”
Vex stepped inside and took one look at the glamour work Nic had been doing, humming with appreciation. Christmas was just around the corner and he'd never been one for that holiday but they were still attending Zania's Christmas party because they'd been invited and they actually liked the Castell siblings. There'd probably be cookies too and Vex was a fan of sweet stuff. "Your sister busy? You should both know what's what, or you can tell her all about it later. I'm not fussed." He kicked off his boots because wading in when there was sludge on the ground wasn't overly polite and they weren't having this chat in the hallway.
"She's kinda got her hands full at the moment," Nic said, glancing towards the kitchen. She'd been in there earlier, finishing up the gingerbread house, but he hadn't heard a peep from her lately, which might mean she'd gone down to the basement or up to her room. Regardless, she'd been running around all evening and didn't need any more crazy piled on her until after her party. "Why don't you just tell me and I can fill her in later," he suggested, waiting till Vex had finished kicking off his boots before leading him into the living room. "Have a seat," he nodded towards the sofa and armchair. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"If you got anything with a kick, I'll take it," Vex said as he sauntered toward the sofa and flopped down a bit dramatically, sprawling until he was comfortable. No boots meant he could put his feet up and so he did, curled up comfortably like an overgrown, skinny cat. "If not then whatever, juice, soda, water." He was fine with speaking one on one, it was probably easier anyway. He sometimes found it hard to talk to more than one person, unsure who to keep looking at. It had been easy with Jane since Neil was such a wallflower and Lem had been standing behind him but it would be different with Zania and Nic.
Nic was drinking whiskey, so that's what he poured Vex, just a little something to take the edge off. He wasn't entirely sure where this conversation was going to go, but it kind of sounded like he might need it. "So what's up?" he asked, offering Vex his glass before taking a seat in the chair next to the sofa. "Lem said you needed to borrow the car for a covert operation, but I wasn't really sure what that meant." Maybe he should have asked for more information, since it was his license plate that would've been noted by the police, but he recalled that Vex has once been a cop and doubted they would have put him in that kind of situation. Of course, if they'd gone and robbed a bank with his car, he was going to be pissed.
In all honesty, Lem might say something like that and just mean a trip to the store. She and Vex could be a little extra at times, it just so happened that this time it was for real. "Let's start way way back," he murmured after sipping his whiskey and then dulling the flavor again by reintroducing the lollipop to his mouth. "Not a long story but it started forever ago. When I was a tiny little brat, someone kidnapped me and kept me away for a year. I'm one of those kids who went missing and came back without any recollection of what happened. Now, fast forward to about sixteen years later and I go fucking insane, like lock him up and give him a lot of drugs kinda insane. Seeing things that aren't there kinda crazy. Wasn't until I met Lem that I knew I wasn't just crazy, the shit I was seeing was really happening somewhere else, like a live feed in my brain." He slipped the lollipop back out of his mouth and sniffed the whiskey before taking another sip. It was good whiskey, though it tasted really weird mixed with the artificial strawberry flavor.
Nic sobered as Vex began to talk, suddenly glad that he had a drink in his hand. Pieces of a puzzle began popping into place, but he still couldn’t tell what it was all about. There was just something bigger going on around him, involving people that he kept coming into contact with. It made him glad that Vex decided to fill him in, since there was a chance that it was all related. Or maybe it wasn’t. He hated that he had no idea. “I know someone who went missing as a kid. He’s one of the ones that’s been having shared dreams with me. I don’t think he has visions though.” If he did, Neil had been seriously tight lipped about it. “Did you ever remember what happened in that year you were gone?”
"Neil, yeah," Vex said with a little nod. "I met him. I don't remember anything but for a few years now I've been seeing the others, people I think might be connected to it all one way or another. I don't know how yet but it's all coming together. There's Jane and Neil, we've already met up and talked about it, there's another guy in town who said he'd come over but I might have to track him down again. There's people I see sometimes and I don't know what it means, if they were taken too or if they work for the place or if they're connected to me in other ways. That's what we're working on now. We're trying to find a way in, Jane's going to bump into some of the people who work there, that way she can poke around their dreams." He sipped his whiskey again, appreciating the smooth burn. "I'm not looking to get you and your sister into trouble but you're the sort of people who wouldn't sit idly by so you need to know what's going down."
"Wait, what place?" Nic said, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean by 'run into someone who works there'? Works where?" He'd thought he was following until that part came up and now he wasn't sure what they were talking about. Had the kidnappers been part of some kind of ring? And what kind of kidnapper kept kids for a year and then released them? The lack of memory thing was especially disconcerting. It was something he knew could be done with magic, even if he'd never done it himself. Purposefully erasing someone's memories, for any reason, felt too much like a violation of their being. It made his skin crawl just thinking about it.
It took Vex a moment to figure out why Nic was confused and he snapped his fingers when it clicked in place. "Oh yeah! We know who was behind it, we just don't know if they still are. American Institution of Research, it burned down some time ago but they're rebuilding so we're spying on them, trying to figure out what they're up to. See, Jane and her buddy escaped in the fire so nobody took their memories away." Maybe he should have let Lem do the talking, he tended to ramble and assume people could read his thoughts sometimes. Clarification wasn't always Vex's friend.
“So this institute was kidnapping kids and what? Experimenting on them?” Nic asked, guessing that much if their memories had been wiped. He’d just been a kid when the fire happened, but he remembered it. It’d been all anyone talked about for a few weeks. As a teenager, it was a place to poke around, a skeleton of a building scorched to death. He hadn’t heard that anyone was rebuilding it, but he hadn’t really been paying attention either. “Who’s Jane’s friend? I’m kind of wonder if everyone involved has some kind of thing. Like you have your visions and she has her dreams.” But then what the hell did Neil have? Nothing that Nic had picked up on, that was for sure.
"Yeah," Vex said with a nod. "They were trying to uh-" he shook his hand next to his head in a theatrical motion. "Scramble something up, trying to make us psychic. Let the duds go. Joke's on them, I wasn't a dud I just blossomed late. Jane has the dreams, I have the visions, this guy Mal- I don't know what the fuck his deal is but I know he was there. Neil doesn't seem to have anything but who knows... Who knows." He remembered Nic had asked about that and grinned again. "Yeah, Neil. You know him, your dream buddy." It was funny because Neil probably wasn't anyone's 'dream buddy' so to speak, wound up tight and unfriendly as he was but they were linked by their dreams.
“See, I wouldn’t have called him her friend,” Nic said with a little laugh. “Maybe they are, but that wasn’t the vibe I got.” He’d seemed nervous about reaching out to Jane regarding their dream problem, not like he was consulting a friend. But maybe that was just Neil. “I didn’t think it worked like that— push a person hard enough and it triggers abilities. I mean, it’s not a foreign concept, but…” Nic paused for a second, staring off into space before taking a sip of his drink. He knew it could happen, but only if the abilities were there to wake up. He couldn’t imagine someone triggering them though. “You think they’ve started doing it again? I know that Lucas girl went missing.”
"That's what we're trying to find out," Vex said, crunching the last of his lollipop between his teeth and dumping the stick on the living room table. "I don't know what they were doing to trigger it, maybe they had chemicals or some voodoo shit, I don't remember my time there. They wiped me clean and we were all pretty damn little when we were taken. But yeah, they might have that Lucas girl, if they're at it again then more kids will go missing."
Normally, Nic wouldn’t go out of his way to help someone he didn’t know at all. Someone he was close to? You bet your ass he’d be there, but a stranger? Nope. There were enough do-gooders in this world that he could count on someone else to step up, rather than stick his own neck out. But that was always the way he felt before he got involved. Before it felt real. Before he knew the people that were getting hurt. Then it was harder to stand by and do nothing, especially when there was weird shit going down. Not everyone was equipped to deal with that kind of thing and it felt irresponsible to turn a blind eye towards it. “So what do you need? Anything we can do to help?” he asked, aware that he might be strolling down that road to hell again, always with the good intentions.
"Nothing you don't wanna do," Vex said, wanting to make that clear. He didn't want to drag them into this mess unless they were rearing to go and he sort of suspected they might be. "That said, nothing yet. We're still investigating, making connections and finding a way in. Might be nothing there, might be a war coming. I just know I was meant to be here to find all these people. There are more of them, I just don't know their names yet." It wasn't the first time he wished he could draw, especially if he could draw a face from memory alone.
“I can’t speak for Zan, but I’m on board,” Nic said. “Just keep us filled in, let us know what comes up.” They’d had a lot on their plate a few weeks ago, but now everything seemed to have settled out. Even the dreams seemed to have gone away, which was fine by him. It was a little weird to have a psychic connection to Carson, Neil, and Jules, but it wasn’t hurting anything. He’d learned to tune them out when he needed to. “Just be careful? I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” More specifically, Lem. Nic would never dare tell her what to do or to stay out of it, but if they were investigating the sort of people that could erase a person’s mind, then he expected Vex to put her safety above his own.
Neither Lem or Vex were very good at careful, they were reckless and stupid sometimes that was just their nature. Still, Vex nodded in agreement, even if it wasn't a promise he could make. Maybe he'd be careful compared to usual but even that was up in the air. "Right now it's all surveilance," he promised. "Nothing we can do but let Jane do the actual snooping around. If you got some protective spells that could come in handy." The twins were good at that stuff, holding back werewolves with enchanted candles? It was fucking genius.
“I can do some protection spells and give you some hex bags,” Nic smiled. “But those only work against supernatural threats. I guess I’m worried about big guys with guns, if that makes sense. I might be wrong, but that’s kind of what I picture when it comes to big corporations.” Nic might be able to handle them himself, but he wasn’t sure how to protect Vex and Lem from a team of armed guards. For the first time ever, he kind of hoped they were dealing with something a little less concrete. “Maybe I can put together a good luck charm. Those help the owner regardless of the threat.”
"Oooh," Vex drawled, liking the sound of that. "A good luck charm sounds like just the ticket. Might help us get something a little extra we might not get otherwise. A little luck is never a bad thing." Yeah, witches were really useful and ending up living right next door to them made Vex think maybe they already had a lot of luck on their side. "We can worry about all that after the party. Want us to bring anything? Booze? Candy?"He was shit at the whole protocol on socially acceptable behavior and party etiquette. Even before he'd become sick he'd been fairly bad at normal human behavior whatever that might be, never sure how to behave in any given circumstances.
“We could all use a little luck,” Nic smiled. Luck wouldn’t keep them out of trouble, but it might help keep them from being caught. It might buy them time when they needed it. It was hard to say where it played in, but he knew it helped roll the dice in your favor. “I’m pretty sure Zan has more sweets than we could eat in a month, so we really don’t need to add to it, but booze is always welcome. It’s not really BYOB, but if you have something specific you like, bring it. We’ll have mulled wine in abundance.” He couldn’t imagine them running out of alcohol either, but if everyone brought a little something, then they might not finish Christmas with an empty bar.
"S'just polite to bring booze," Vex said even though he didn't often care about being polite. He did care with his friends though and the Castells had long since proven to be friends. At the rate things were going they were practically family-- they knew about the dead werewolf, they'd helped them build the cage, they hadn't ratted them off to the police-- they were effin' family now. "It'll be fun to come a party, been years since I went to one." One that wasn't hosted at a psych ward anyway. He'd spent one Christmas there and it had been nice, the staff had gone all out to make it sweet for the people stuck there, but Vex had never been much for Christmas. He was curious to see what kind of people would show up and, if he and Lem didn't like them, they could always scurry back home.
“It’s been years since we threw one, and nothing like this,” Nic smiled. They’d had people over in twos and threes, but this was a full scale party, complete with garish decorations. He was sure that if they’d lived on any other street, the neighbors would complain. Luckily, their neighbors would be in attendance. “I think it’ll be a good time. A really weird group, but that’s kind of who we hang with. So I mean that in the best way possible.” He didn’t think Vex would take offense to being called weird, but he just wanted to be clear about it. Besides, it wasn’t necessarily that the people were weird, but that they were when mixed together. Nic was almost certain that the D’onofrios and the Kellys didn’t hang with the O’Reillys on a regular basis.
'Weird' was a label Vex was intimately familiar with and had been since he was very small. It had gone from insulting to endearing over the years and today he loved and embraced it. In fact, being told he wasn't weird was an insult by now though he didn't really try. He grinned at Nic and nodded. "Looking forward to seeing your other people," he admitted and maybe it would lead to more clues and more connections. He wouldn't put it past the great unknown to keep pushing them into situations where they'd find puzzle pieces they could then try to fit into the big picture. He could almost smell all the potential, new people, new situation. Of course it might just be a nice party but in Vex's experience there was always something bubbling underneath.
“Me too,” Nic smiled. “If it goes well, maybe we’ll start doing it more often. We’ll see.” He knew he could be practically antisocial at times. He didn’t get out near as often as he should. But that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy socializing, especially with his own sort of people. Vex and Lem had long since earned that label and he thought they’d fit right in with the rest. They weren’t anything like the others, but the others weren’t like each other either.
Vex grinned. "Better invite us to all your parties or we'll call the cops with a noise complaint." It was a joke of course, neither he nor Lem gave a shit about noisy parties nor were they likely to call the cops for a damn thing so he was just ribbing Nic, teasing him into an invite. He pushed himself up to his feet and stretched, ready to be getting out of there. He'd spent a long time sitting in the car so he needed to burn off some energy doing something other than sitting.
“You’re already on the list,” Nic grinned. They had no plans for future parties, but he couldn’t imagine not inviting Lem and Vex at this point. They’d become close friends fast and the only reason Nic could see that changing was if something soured between him and Lem. But he didn’t see any reason for that to happen and wasn’t going to worry about it till it did. “Just as long as we get invites to yours. Seems fair.” Vex and Lem didn’t seem like the sort to host organized parties. They were more like the sort that Nic could just drop by and share a bottle of bourbon with and that was just fine with him.
Vex bounced on his feet a couple of times, then shook himself as if to prepare to face the cold again. "You're always welcome at our house, witch, whether there's a party or not." He shot Nic a little grin. "And I'm not just saying that 'cause I might need to borrow your car again." He moved, patting Nic's shoulder as he passed him. "I'll show myself out. Say hi to your sister from me." They looked to be pretty busy and with a big party coming up, Vex wasn't going to be wasting their time for too long.
“Good to know,” Nic said with a little laugh. He'd already figured he was welcome over whenever, but it was nice to hear it from Vex, since most of the time it was Lem he was there to see. He never wanted to step on the other man’s toes, aware that he and Lem had a bond of their own. “I will. And I’ll fill her in on everything. We’ll see you soon.” They still had a lot to prepare in what felt like a very short amount of time, but he was sure it would all come together. Even if it didn’t, what mattered most was the people, not the decorations.