Uncomfortable Conversation Topics Who: Nic and Skylar Where: The Greenhouse When: Early Evening
When the lights went out, Nic began working his way around town, helping anyone who needed it in any way he could. Some needed wood for their fireplace, which he assisted in until he could no longer find dry wood. Then he began to worry about leaky roofs and one person in particular came to mind. Not only had Skylar’s roof been leaking, but he wanted to make sure the greenhouse was holding up under the downpour. By the time Nic got there, he was soaked, but at least this time it was for good reason. He headed into the greenhouse first, calling Skylar’s name as his eyes searched the main room.
Skylar was dripping wet, down to just his boots, boxers, and a t-shirt that was sticking to him. He’d been asleep, but then his roof was leaking in the slight bit of rain so he’d had the brilliant idea to fix it. That wasn’t exactly his strong suit, but whatever he’d tacked onto his roof did the job. Only while up there he’d been caught in a downpour, which was why most of his clothes had been left in a wet heap in his house. Like Nic, his concerns had turned to the greenhouse, which was holding up far better than his cottage pre-repairs would have, rain clattering down as he checked for leaks and adjusted any rain buckets. It was good for catching extra water for his plants and shockingly enough, still warm inside despite the temperature of the rain. Of course, that was the point of a greenhouse, so if that part had failed him, his plants would have been goners.
Hearing his name he answered first. “‘Lo?” His eyes scanned the room, squinting in the dark to determine the source of the voice.
“It’s Nic!” he called out, turning his flashlight on and shining it in the direction of the voice that was likely Skylar’s. He didn’t see him immediately, but when he did he lowered the light enough so that Skylar wasn’t looking right back into the light. “How’s it holding up?” he asked as he got closer. It was warmer inside than outside, which was a good sign. Nic wasn’t sure he was up for repairing a glass house in the rain, even if that’s what he’d come to check on in the first place.
Skylar turned around towards the voice, only catching the beam of light at first before Nic came into focus. He didn't have a flashlight, but he didn't really need one either. He knew every inch of the greenhouse. "Not bad. It'll be damp in here for days, but that's not new."
“How’s your house?” Nic asked as he shined the light up towards the roof, checking to make sure nothing had broken. It was a sturdy building, but if a branch fell from an outside tree, then it was possible one of the panes could break. He didn’t want to expect the worse, but he didn’t want to overlook something either.
Skylar grinned a little. “I fixed it.”
“Really?” Nic asked, smiling back at him. “So do you need any help here? Or can you just invite me in for a drink before I head on my way?”
Skylar considered the question then pointed towards Nic. “Drink. Definitely. That’s why I’m so wet. Because I was fixing the roof.” He nodded over his shoulder then started towards the back of the greenhouse and door near his house.
“I was worried I’d get here and find your house flooded in,” Nic laughed, following Skylar back to his house. “I think after this everyone needs to stock up on firewood, just in case. And make sure their roofs are patched up.”
The other man glanced back at Nic before opening the door to his house and shaking out his hair. It was getting colder, so maybe Nic was somewhat right on that one. “Well I think I fixed it. See? Not flooded.” He waved Nic and pointed towards the fridge. “Get yourself a drink and I’ll find you a towel.”
“I’ve gotta stop showing up at your house soaking wet and stealing your beer,” Nic grinned, going straight for the fridge. Skylar was right. The roof was fixed. No more buckets collecting water. “Promise not to crash in your bed this time, though.” He had a... a Micah that might get jealous.
Skylar was running a towel through his hair and holding one out to Nic. “No? Bummer.” He was mostly teasing, and it glinted in his eyes before he ran the towel over his face. “How’d the date with the Doc go?”
“Not that you’re not great to cuddle with, but I don’t think he’d like it,” Nic said, setting two beers on the counter before taking a towel from Skylar. “I’d say it went pretty well. He won another date with me at the auction. I’m trying not to freak out about the whole town knowing and focusing on the fact that I like him. I didn’t want anyone else to win.”
Skylar listened to that, pushing himself up to sit on the counter, not worried that his clothes were sticking to him. “So...things went really well...” he ventured. Then he bit his lip, making a face. “Why are you so worried about that?” he asked, opening his beer.
“I just do,” Nic said, opening his beer and taking a sip as he leaned back against the opposite counter, facing Skylar. “Not as much when I’m with him. Then it’s easier not to. But when he’s not around, I start to worry. I hear some of the guys whispering, then they shut up when I come near. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“You’re worried about them whispering?” Skylar said. “You are paranoid. Did you tell Doc Dreamy or whatever? What did he think?”
“His name’s Micah,” Nic smiled, “And no, though he does know I wasn’t really ‘out’ before the auction. We talked about that a little. I don’t want him to think I don’t want to be with him because that’s not it at all. I’m just self conscious.”
Skylar took a swig of his beer and shrugged. “I like Doc Dreamy,” he said with a little smirk. He listened to Nic and frowned. “I still think you should talk to him. Those are some serious issues.”
Nic was quiet as he took another swig of beer. The hard part was figuring out when to talk to Micah, when he might be in a mood to have that conversation. Sometimes he was the most convincing man alive, while others Nic thought Micah was maybe as insecure as he was. “I know. But do you really bring up the serious issues when you’re only a week into a relationship?”
“You’re asking the wrong dude. I don’t do serious issues. I don’t do relationships either so I’m useless for advice, but...” Skylar thought about it as he took another sip of his beer. “If you’re going to try, then you’re gonna have to be out right? So...Might be a good idea.”
“I happily accepted a date with a guy in front of half the town,” Nic snorted. “I’m pretty sure I’m out at this point.” Which was only frustrating if things didn’t work out with Micah and Nic wanted to date a girl, but he wasn’t going to worry about that at the moment. “But yeah, I know. We’ll talk about it. Why don’t you tell me how your date went?”
“So stop stressing about it. It’s over. Done with. It’ll be fine.” Nic would land on his feet. Skylar was sure of that. “When are you seeing him again?” At mention of Skylar’s date, he frowned confused for a moment before it sunk it. “Oh! Clementine. That was cool. Very cool friend date. We had a picnic.” And by the end of it he’d hooked her up with some pot, but that probably wasn’t the part Nic cared about.
“Tonight,” Nic said, a grin slipping onto his face. If Micah could get away, tonight. It was something to look forward to, but he knew the weather might interfere. “I don’t think I’ve met her yet. Wait-- I haven’t met her, but my cousin is living with her!” Yes, that was why he knew the name. Zania had mentioned it when she was moving out. “Nice girl, then?”
“Okay, do I want to know what that smile means?” Skylar asked, with a furrowed brow. He supposed it was good things, but it was also sort of a lot of wattage for just seeing the guy. Apparently it was a big deal. “Yeah? Cool. She is. Friendly and such. She likes plants which is cool. Wants to work at the greenhouse maybe.”
“Probably not,” Nic snickered. “I caught up with him at the hospital this morning and he got pulled away. He promised to make it up to me.” Apparently Nic was going to tell him anyways. It was vague enough. “Hey, never hurts to make a new friend. I thought you had someone helping you out at the greenhouse though.”
Skylar raised an eyebrow at that half a comment about what had gone down, but didn’t ask more. He didn’t need to know. “I did, but she fucked off and didn’t come to work the other day. Which is weird because you know, I saw her at the festival, watched the movie with her. I dunno.” He shrugged one shoulder, trying not to worry about the girl. She was a teenager. Teenagers fucked off occasionally without warning. He’d done close to the same thing himself.
“That’s weird,” Nic frowned. “Not that I was all that responsible as a teenager, but most of the kids that made it this far seem to be at least a little.” They’d survived and tended to know what it took to keep surviving. “Well, if she’s decided to go and do something else, at least you’ve found yourself a new helper.”
Skylar shrugged. “I was flakey as a teen. I’m still flakey. I completely forgot Clementine and I were having a date and then she was here and honestly had a hard time remember who she was. So yeah, whatever. She’ll wander back probably.”
Nic took that to mean Skylar wasn’t overly interested in Clementine, even if they’d had a decent time on their date. Despite his issues, Nic was the sort who enjoyed being in a relationship. He liked being that close to a person. And he wasn’t flakey. They were so very different. “How do you forget you’ve got a date with a girl?” he asked with a little laugh. “Not interested at all?”
“No! I mean, it wasn’t like that. Just friendly stuff, but she’s adorable. And interesting. Just...I dunno. I forget shit. I forgot Doc Dreamy’s name. I think I talk to myself.” Actually he was more on the side of ‘sure that he talked to himself’, but he didn’t want to readily admit that in case he didn’t.
“Why do you think you forget them?” Nic asked as he sipped on his beer. Skylar had listened to him often enough. Now it was his turn to ask a few questions.
Skylar laughed into his beer. “Probably because I’m a pothead?” he suggested with a giggle. After a moment he got control of himself and shrugged. “I dunno. Just not great with it.”
“You’re not always high,” Nic laughed with him. “Unless you are. Are you now?” Some people, he supposed, were just forgetful. Skylar was apparently one of them. “Is it just little things? Or things you don’t care a lot about?”
“Well no, not now, but there’ve been times...” Skylar had had his moments that was for sure. “Just things. Names, dates. But I remember stories. And the routine type things I do.” The rest was just more work.
“I think things will always slip your mind when you’re high,” Nic said. “I guess I’m bad with names too, depending on when I meet someone or how many people are around at the time. I’m better one on one. You remember me, right?” he asked, lightly teasing.
“Well yeah, that’s the point right?” Skylar asked before making a face. “Of course I do. It’s Joann right?” he teased back.
“I think I would have killed my parents if they’d named me Joann,” he grinned. “Not that Nicodemus isn’t enough to be stuck with. My family had a thing for weird names.”
“Oh my god that’s your full name? That’s so ridiculously long! How do you learn to spell that as a kid? My name was too long and weird with the K and the Y.” Skylar giggled to himself.
“I didn’t tell you?” Nic laughed. “Yeah, it’s Nicodemus Athan Castalia. There’s a good reason I go by Nic. Skylar seems easy by comparison, though you could’ve made it even shorter and just gone with Sky.”
“That’s way too many letters,” Skylar said shaking his head. “Some people call me that. Jay used to call me Ace, but I never figured that out. But it stuck.”
“Ace,” Nic said, as if trying it out. “I like that. Wonder how he came up with it. Who was Jay?” Some people were just good at coming up with nicknames, he supposed.
“Probably something to do with using me to sell more drugs in his shop,” Skylar said with a chuckle. “He was a guy I worked with. The one I was with after the zombies came.” Which was an obviously heavy subject with the way that Skylar’s tone changed.
“Oh,” Nic said softly, catching the change in tone. He knew what that meant, especially since Jay wasn’t there now. They’d all lost someone, many someones. Some of them were harder to lose than others. “Is he the guy you told me about?” Skylar had never given the guy a name, but he knew there was a guy who’d hit on him and it hadn’t gone well. Not at all.
“Huh?” Skylar thought about that. Had he told Nic. “Probably. If I was talking about someone it was likely him.” Especially with Nic being into dudes, but Skylar enjoyed forgetting about Jay, even if Jay hadn’t managed to be completely forgotten yet.
“I didn’t know you worked with him,” Nic said. “You only mentioned one guy, so I was just guessing. How long did you know him?” From what he could tell, they’d been close, and Nic would stop asking questions soon, but he wanted to know if Skylar was willing to talk.
Skylar looked at his beer instead of Nic. "Couple years. Not long after I got to LA, then up hunting, he bit it." Which might have been Skylar's fault. "You know my mom used to joke that I was name Skylar because I was conceived in a Buick Skylark?" It was a topic change, back to their previous topic and away from Jay, only Skylar didn't fully realize he was doing it. The Buick thing popped into his head and he went with it, not picking up on the defense mechanism kicking in.
“Seriously?” Nic asked, grinning back at Skylar. He picked up on the topic change, but went with it, aware at how uncomfortable Skylar was with talking about Jay. He knew he’d feel the same way when discussing Cade and Dixen. It was impossible for him not to, knowing he was responsible for their deaths. “I guess you’re lucky she went with Skylar instead of Buick then.”
“I’m hoping she was full of it,” Skylar said shaking his head. “Because really? How do you live that down? And why were my parents having sex in the back of a car?” Though they had been young when his mom had gotten pregnant, so it wasn’t completely ridiculous. And a fun family joke of sorts.
"We'll, if you've never had sex in the back if a car, you've probably missed your chance," Nic snickered. "I think the ambulance is one of the only ones in the dome and I'd prefer you didn't." It would also take finding Skylar a girl and Nic didn't know any to suggest.
Skylar laughed a little. “I lived in that busted up truck out there,” he said nodding in the general direction of the relic that he’d lived out of for years was parked in his yard. He didn’t use it much anymore, but he had. “Trust me. I know. It’s just...it’s my parents.” He made a face when shook his head. “Why can’t I in the back of the ambulance? Or is that being saved for Doc Dreamy? That’s like right out of a soap opera.”
“Yeah, I don’t like to think about my parents like that,” Nic said, making a face similar to Skylar’s. He was pretty sure nobody did and he was glad to put those thoughts aside to answer the next question. “Because it’s my ambulance and it hasn’t been christened,” he laughed. “If anyone’s having sex in the back of it, it’s me.” Not that that sounded comfortable at all.
“Fine. After you finish. You’re welcome to the truck bed whenever you want. It’s actually kinda nice under the stars.” Skylar raised one eyebrow. “So you are having sex with Doc Dreamy?”
“Thanks,” Nic laughed, doubting he’d ever need to borrow Skylar’s truck bed for such a purpose. His face began to turn red as he took another sip of beer, stalling. “Depends on how you define it. We’re doing something, but not... everything.”
Skylar made a face. “You sound like a teenager. That means ‘no’.”
“Okay, no, we’re not,” Nic said, growing more uncomfortable with this conversation. “We’ve talked about it, so maybe, but no, not yet.” He didn’t know how to explain to Skylar why this was difficult for him. Straight guys always wanted sex with girls, but for Nic... he wasn’t confident he’d like it the same way. And what if he didn’t? Would that hurt Micah’s feelings? It felt complicated.
Skylar’s head tilted to the side. “Your face is doing this thing, where you’re thinking about something you’re not saying.”
“When did you become a mind reader?” Nic asked, narrowing his eyes before giving in to the question. “There are some things I haven’t done with a guy and I don’t know if I’ll like it or not. And if I don’t, I don’t want him to take it personally, but it seems hard not to, you know? He knows, at least. We talked about it a little.”
“You’re not a very good liar,” Skylar said. “And usually you talk too much.” Not really, but Nic didn’t usually hold back. “Okay so...I don’t know anything about it, but why would people do it if it wasn’t worth doing?”
“I know I’m not,” Nic sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it without getting really technical. Do I really talk too much?”
“No, you just talk. If you’re comfortable with it you don’t hold back. I only get short answers when you’re uncomfortable.” Skylar looked at Nic, considering the next part before going to get another beer. “Who the hell else are you going to talk to about it? Get technical or whatever.”
“Okay,” Nic said, chewing on his lip for a second before spitting it out. “I just don’t know if I’ll be comfortable enough to enjoy either end of that kind of sex. On one side, it just sounds painful, though I understand that if that was always the case then no one would do it. And on the other, I guess... I haven’t even done that with a girl. So maybe it’s a fear of the unknown. It has less to do with my sexuality and more to do with me acting like a teenage girl who’s afraid she won’t enjoy sex at all.”
Skylar thought about it, relieved that Nic had thrown in that bit about girls so he didn’t shut down completely. He didn’t have anything against it, but it was hard for him to think about because he didn’t want that and it didn’t sound good to him, but thinking about it with a girl, that he could track better. “I’ve never done it with a girl either, because they usually like you to stick around to get there, or they’re crazy.” He tapped the new beer bottle against his lip, trying to think of what to say. “Most teenaged girls don’t enjoy sex. Because they’re having sex with teenaged dudes. It’s like two minutes of nothing.” He took a swig of his beer. “Though it’s not like Doc Dreamy is some kind of teenaged guy.”
“Would you want to do it with a girl?” Nic asked. “And your answer brings me back around to the other part, where they’re crazy if they want it. I know there’s some anatomical differences that should be taken into account, but a big part of me feels the same way. I’ve pretty much always said hell no. But I know people wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t something to it, and you’re right, Micah’s not a teenage guy. He knows what he’s doing. So it’s really just... me.”
Skylar thought about it and shrugged. “Maybe yeah. And by crazy I mean...you had the girl during the zombie thing. I was seeing who was around and interested and some of ‘um...were a little too loose.” And too willing to give everything away. “Just you? You make it sound worse when you say it like that. You’re just anxious. Ask him if you still have to do it if you hate it.”
“Um, Cade would’ve slapped me if I’d asked about trying that,” Nic said with a little laugh. She’d been a good girl, definitely, but she had spunk. “Dixen pretty much dared me to try it, but I wasn’t interested.” Nic wasn’t even sure if he’d been serious. It was mostly just a ploy to get Nic worked up. “But with Micah... I’d consider it. And when we kind of talked about it, he said if I’m not into it, then that’s fine, too.”
“The doc doesn’t sound much like Dixen or Cade,” Skylar said with a shrug. The guy actually sounded pretty damn understanding. “Then consider it, don’t freak out because you want to consider it. I think that’s normal.”
“No, he’s not like them at all,” Nic agreed. He’d cared for them both, but they’d all been so young, and he’d been so foolish. He wanted to do things right with Micah, but he rarely knew what he was doing at all. “I think too much, don’t I?” he asked. “Everything’s easier when I just go with it, but then I sit back and worry if I made the right decision.”
Skylar let out a sigh. “You might be somewhere beyond thinking too much. And into like...I don’t know whatever comes next.” He watched his friend for a long moment then leaned forward on the counter, best he could without falling over. “Got an idea for you. I say, you just go with it. Do all the things you want to and know how to do with Doc Dreamy and then if it comes to the sex thing, maybe you’ll find you really want it. Then you christen the damn ambulance.”
Nic smiled and took a sip of beer, legs crossed out in front of him. It sounded so easy coming from Skylar. He wanted to argue that it wasn’t that easy, but he knew it probably was. He just needed to relax a little. Had he always been this uptight? “That sounds like a fairly decent plan,” he agreed. “I guess worrying about something before I get there isn’t really going to help much. Where did you learn all this great knowledge? Or does it just come with being so chill all the time?”
“It comes with spending too much time in a truck by yourself for miles and miles. You just think about shit all the time, then get stoned and do it again.” Skylar shrugged. “It’s knowledge you got too. You just forgot about it.”
Maybe it was something that came with being stoned, Nic thought. That was the only time he was even near as relaxed as Skylar seemed to be sober. “I’ll work on remembering then,” he said, finishing off his beer. A glance out the window reminded him of the time, of the raging storm and the people who might need firewood or other supplies. “I should probably get going. Is there anything you need? Firewood or candles?”
Skylar nodded. “You should.” At Nic’s question he looked around and shrugged again. “Nah. I’m good. If I get cold, I’ll sleep in the greenhouse.” It wouldn’t be the first time. “Have fun with Doc Dreamy.”
“Thanks,” Nic smiled. He hoped to catch Micah later that evening, but with the weather the way it was, he wasn’t quite as sure that was going to happen. It depended on the traffic at the hospital, he supposed. “See you later. Stay warm!” That was his biggest concern for the people in this town, that they weren’t prepared to handle the weather change. It wasn’t exactly something he needed to tend to as a paramedic, but he might as well help out there, since it wasn’t in anyone’s job description.