Nic Castell (bleedingheart) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-01-27 16:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | #june 2018, jules, jules x nic, nic |
Who: Nic and Jules
Where: Jules’s house
When: Sunday afternoon, June 24th
Status: Complete
After talking to Carson, Nic had tried reaching out to Jules through their mental connection and received nothing in return. Not a mental scoff, or even a request that he fuck off. Nothing. For some reason that was more concerning than anything else. Since showing up at her house late at night would be weird, he waited until Sunday afternoon to seek her out, just in case she was the sort to go to church. Hopefully she would be home. He didn’t want to have to resort to magic to seek her out, though he’d do what needed to be done if it came down to it. Nic knocked on the door and waited, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for him being there if her mother happened to answer. Saying he couldn’t reach Jules through their telepathic connection and he was worried about her probably wasn’t going to fly.
Jules was home, though she didn't plan to be much longer. She knew Ethan was at the carnival with Scarlett, which she was mostly fine with, so Jules reached out to a couple of other friends, asking them to hang out. She wanted to get out of the house and have fun. Her body and mind felt restless, eager for stimulation. When Nic knocked on the door, she was heading down the stairs, ready to leave. Slipping her feet into her sandals, Jules tugged open the door, pausing in surprise to see Nic. She really wasn't expecting to see him, despite the mental nagging she had gotten from him earlier.
"Why are you here?" she asked, not sounding angry exactly, because she wasn't even sure she could feel angry right now, even if she wanted to. It was more amusement than anything, a floating indifference to all the bad shit in her life. And Nic was connected to the bad shit.
Nic sighed with relief when Jules answered the door, one big hurdle out of the way, just so he could trip on the next one. Why was he there? Because he and Carson were paranoid, making a mountain out of a mole hill. “Hey. Sorry to bother you. I just… So, Carson was trying to get a hold of you and when he couldn’t, he got worried, and then he got me worried, so we just wanted to make sure, are you okay?” On a creep factor of one to ten, Nic was pretty sure that was an eight-point-five. Had he come last night, it would have been a full nine. Scaling the wall and knocking at her bedroom window would’ve earned him the full ten. But that was okay because he’d rather be a creep and Jules be fine, than stay in his lane only to find out she was in trouble and he’d been too concerned with appearances to find out.
"I'm totally okay," Jules said with a raised brow. She should have felt some guilt for ignoring Carson, since they had been in touch since he left town. Left her, but the guilt was buried by good feelings and things that slithered beneath her skin. No more guilt for Jules. She was going to live her life and do everything everyone seemed to want her to do. "I'm just, you know, enjoying the summer. I don't think we need to be in each other's heads anymore, you know? All of that stuff, it’s over." She definitely didn't need people in her head who had ignored her for the past six months, or people who abandoned her to this cursed fucking town. It wasn't fair that Carson got to leave, got to pretend to be normal while Jules was still in Point Pleasant and would probably never get to leave.
“No, I know,” Nic said automatically because he’d done his best to stay out of everyone’s head, but Jules especially. She didn’t need him in her head and he definitely didn’t need her in his. Maybe he’d been too careful and, as a result, she didn’t think she could trust him or reach out to him if something was wrong. It was such a weird situation and Nic told himself that there were people in her life far better equipped at helping her than he was, but then what if there weren’t? All he knew was that he was unequivocally bad at this. “I guess I just… wanted to check in. In person. Not through some weird connection. I’m glad you’re having a good summer. I hope things have improved some.” Carson had mentioned a breakup with her boyfriend, so he knew they weren’t spectacular, but it had to be better than before. At least it was for him, now that Vex was back, and Lem was feeling a little more like herself.
Jules's brows furrowed. "We haven't talked since Witcham, Nic. You're here because Carson asked you to be. I mean, it's fine, but if you had really wanted to check in, you could've done it after we fucked over all those people." She wasn't exactly being fair, since she hadn't checked in on Nic either. But she had been angry and guilt ridden and she had preferred not speaking to Nic or Neil. Maybe she still was, in a way. She just didn't want to let it control her anymore. "I'm fine, Nic. Looks like you are too. I'm sure Carson's super happy in Virginia and Neil is... well, miserable, because he's Neil." A soft titter escaped her.
It shamed him enough to look down, away from her, and he gave a nod of acceptance. He should have checked on her after what happened on Witcham. He should have done a lot of things. Maybe it was guilt that was making him do them now, too little too late, but there was also genuine worry. She was mixed up with AIR, an organization that he knew to be far more nefarious than they let on, but he doubted she trusted enough to hear him out. “I’m pretty sure miserable is Neil’s norm,” Nic said, lips turning up just a touch before falling away again. “I’m sorry about before. I wasn’t… I wasn’t in a good place, but… that’s not a good excuse. Carson did ask me, but then I got worried too. He said you’re working with AIR?”
Miserable was definitely Neil's norm and obviously everyone knew it. Folding her arms across her chest, she studied Nic, a barely concealed smile on her lips. "You don't have to say you're sorry. Like I said, it's over now and it's not like we were all friends or anything. I never told Carson I was working with AIR. I told him I found some people who were helping me, and that's all it is." God, did everyone have to know her business now? Why was Carson telling Nic this stuff? And maybe she had told Carson about AIR, but she couldn't remember every detail of that conversation. She and Jasper had just broken up and Carson was leaving town and shit was hard. "I don't want a lecture, Nic. I'm safe. No kidnapping, no experiments or whatever else you've been told that they do. They've done more for me than anyone else in this town."
It was the sort of conversation that grated on Nic, a perfect reminder of why they weren’t friends. Amusingly enough, she reminded him of his sister. It made him want to argue with her, poke holes in her point of view and see how well it held up when all the information was on the table. But that would be foolish on his part. She didn’t trust him and he knew better than to trust her if she was working with AIR. Or whomever. Maybe there was another organization in the area that did similar work and Carson had been wrong, or he’d drawn the wrong conclusions. Nic hated second guessing himself. “It was just a question. I’m not here to lecture you,” he said, hands up in mimed self defense. “I’m glad they’ve been able to help you. What you can do is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Just be careful? You know what they say—with great power comes great responsibility.”
Jules arched a brow curiously. Who said that? She had never heard it before. But Nic was older than her so it was probably and old phrase or whatever. "I'm being careful," she said, ignoring the way something small slithered beneath her skin at the nape of her neck. Ignoring how she felt high in such a low key way that seemed to smooth out all of the bad feelings that wanted to surface. It wasn't hurting anyone, and she knew that's what everyone worried about. Jules swallowing the town in badness. "You should be careful too," Jules said after a moment of thought. "People aren't always what they seem, even the people you think you know. We did a really terrible thing... and the people we did it to are back and I doubt they've forgotten. So, yeah, be careful."
“Yeah, I know. I don’t trust a lot of people,” Nic said, the slight playfulness that came with quoting something from a comic book shuttering closed at what sounded like a thinly veiled threat. It put a spotlight on how little they knew about each other, her thinking she would even need to tell him that. As if he wasn’t familiar with the concept of retribution and revenge. He tried to keep subtle tabs on all the ones they’d sent over to that place, but it was hard. The wards could only provide so much protection. He sighed and shook his head, ready to leave when movement beneath her skin caught his eye. Nic frowned. “Did you—did something just—do you feel that? Beneath your skin?” He watched it ripple beneath her neck, then again across her cheek. There was no way he was hallucinating that.
Jules didn't feel threatening herself and she certainly wasn't threatening Nic. But she knew who he hung around and considering what she knew now, Jules figured she was doing him a favor by warning him. Jules was thankful he was leaving though, because she had things to do and she didn't think they had much more to talk about. He could go back to Carson and tell him that Jules was fine and that would be that. When he noticed what was going on beneath her skin, Jules lifted her hand to her neck, then her cheek, aware of what he was talking about. The feel of it was so subtle that sometimes she barely noticed when it was happening, even if she could see it in the mirror. It wasn't frequent, but it would figure that Nic would see it while he was there. How was she supposed to explain that without him jumping to stupid conclusions? "It's fine. It's nothing," Jules said sharply, stepping backward into her house to grip the door frame. "Thanks for stopping by. You can tell Carson I'm okay."
“That’s not nothing, Jules,” Nic said, his eyes widening as he shook his head. Nothing normal did what he’d just seen. There were bugs that could burrow under the skin, but none moved that fast. It made his skin crawl and he resisted the urge to run his hands over his own neck, just to ensure nothing was there. “Please. Tell me what’s going on. Or tell someone. Tell Carson. Just—that’s not okay.” It was frustrating to know that she wasn’t going to listen to a word he said, but if he could just get her to reach out to someone else, maybe they could talk some reason to her. No, they weren’t friends, but he couldn’t just ignore something like that, even if she wanted him to.
"Nic! I'm fine." She wasn't going to tell Carson a thing. There was nothing to tell and she knew Nic wouldn't understand it if there was. The places she and Ethan found together belonged to them and no one else. If she started telling people that they were opening doorways on their own, they would all start acting the way Greg did and Jules was not in the mood to deal with more Gregs. Anger was shoving its way through the haze of happy sensations and that was upsetting her more than anything else. "Go home," she demanded, "and leave me alone, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she shut the door in his face, hoping he would listen and just leave.
“Fuck,” Nic snapped as she shut the door in his face. Fuck Jules and fuck Carson for bringing this to his attention. And fuck himself for caring. Because he couldn’t just ignore something like that. She had things moving beneath her fucking skin and that was all kinds of not okay and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Anger was rolling off him in waves strong enough to frost over his windows when he stomped back to his car and he slammed the car door, needing a second to rein it back in. He would call Carson. Maybe he’d be able to talk some sense into her. Without any other connection to Jules, it felt like his only option.