[THREAD] Thursday, December 19, 2013 WHO: Luxanna Crownguard & Nikolai Mason WHEN: Thursday, December 19, 2013; before he heads home WHERE: Luxanna’s apartment WHAT: Breaking bad news to Lux about her roommate RATING: Low, I’d guess STATUS: Incomplete/Closed
More than anything Nikolai wanted to go home and collapse into bed next to Asher. Physically exhausting days were easier to handle than emotionally taxing ones for the telepath. This one counted as emotionally taxing. Losing a student, his own student, was hard enough, but watching it happen, hearing it happen with such clarity, made it that much more difficult to stomach. His psychometry had always been a blessing and a curse in almost equal parts, more a blessing these days than not. During his youth, he despised it more than his telepathy, always nauseated by the unexpected images and sounds assaulting his brain, coming from god-only-knows when, but it had since become invaluable, solving mysteries and replaying events otherwise uncapturable. Here it had led them exactly where they needed to go, making a time-consuming search into something much
He had no idea how close the two girls were as roommates. Knowing Luxanna as he did, his guess would be “not very.” The girl had always kept to herself, to put it mildly, and didn’t let people closer than arms’ length. Up until recently, anyway. (She was making improvements that he was irrationally, overly proud of, but that was a discussion for another day.) He imagined her roommate had gotten similar treatment. Even if this happened to be the case, she deserved to know before the general population; Luxanna finding out by some mass email seemed unfair and impersonal.
Rubbing his face for what seemed like the millionth time today, Nikolai steeled his nerves and climbed the stairs in the student dorm building. This wasn’t news he delivered often and he found himself hoping that he had the tact and sensitivity to do so. In a moment of selfishness, he felt relieved that he wasn’t the one breaking the news to Lenore. After climbing the flights of stairs, he walked down the hall, eyes skimming over the room numbers before he found hers.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on her door twice, then paused and went on to add, “Luxanna. It’s Mr. Mason.”