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| Dissolved Girl; 5/24 - late night-(Little Kitty, Nezhno) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 12 2015, 06:43 PM (341 Views) | |
| Gentle | Mar 31 2015, 09:36 PM Post #16 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Kitty said she was fine, and that she’d had someone check her. Which was sort of uncomfortably close to the not very believable-sounding claims she’d been making back in the Morgue about what she would do later, if they just let her have her way, but this time Nezhno actually did believe her, for all the reasons he hadn’t exactly back then. She sounded like she meant it, mostly - and he wasn’t sure she was really in the right frame of mind for just acting like she did right at this particular minute. So… it was probably just vomiting, then. “Yeah, probably," she agreed, albeit with a tone that kind of ended up reminding Nezhno that that probably hadn’t been the very most tactful thing he could have said just then. Or anywhere close to it, in fact. Both for drawing attention to the fact that she’d been vomiting, and calling it ‘only’ vomiting, neither of those things could possibly be the kind of thing anyone at all wanted to hear at a time like this. She kind of looked like she might be grimacing now. He was probably making all of this worse, wasn’t he? “Actually, it's probably those...five? I think it was five - extra large beers that I had.” “Oh.” Nezhno felt his mouth hanging open, possibly waiting for something to come and replace his tongue with one belonging to someone who could actually think on their feet in a conversation (or technically in this case their knees, but that was beside the point). Five beers. Extra large beers. Maybe that wouldn’t be much, for someone like Rogue, or Blink and the New Zealander she’d been drinking with at that party last night, but Kitty wasn’t really that much larger than Jubes, and she’d been claiming she was getting drunk after just a few sips of hers. “Yeah. That probably would do it, I guess,” Nezhno continued, when that new, more eloquent tongue failed to happen. Oh. Gods. Had he just said something that made it sound like he thought she was an idiot for drinking beer? Because he definitely hadn’t meant that. He should try to… fix that. “Um,” Nezhno added, a little hurriedly. “Go ahead of vomiting in the causal chain, I mean.” Not that explaining that probably made him sound any less awkward, or Kitty feel any better right now. He just… wasn’t very good at this, was he? But he tried one last time all the same, offering up another observation that had sounded logical in his head, then turned out more like an awkward android person than a friend when he heard it again with his ears. Vomiting wouldn’t work as a survival tool if it made you like yourself. That’s what he’d said. He’d just said that. Gods. He’d just said that out loud, to Kitty Pryde, after she’d had to go through it, and now she was looking awfully serious, like she was concentrating. Most likely trying to decide whether she’d be safe to make a run from it, to get away from the weird, awkward person who was rambling about the fitness value of visceral feedback while she was miserable. Except then she smiled. Only a little, measured on any scale but ironic, and she wasn’t actually looking at him when she did it, but under the circumstances, it was enough to unwind at least one or two of the knots Nezhno had been tying into his mind. "Probably not," she conceded, with a lift of her shoulders. "It's definitely working.” Maybe that hadn’t really been a good smile after all. Nodding seriously, Nezhno worked on remembering how to hold his tongue this time (it wasn’t like he hadn’t had practice), and not saying anything else that was pointless geeky or awkward or made her feel any worse about herself, since that was the last thing he’d ever want to do for Kitty. Instead he rubbed the back of her shoulder gently, feeling her tense and swallow again before she added, “Not exactly the greatest time for a surprise first hand demonstration of biological survival mechanisms, either.” No, Nezhno supposed, but only to himself, on the inside of his head. No, he supposed it probably wasn’t. Not when it got her stuck here, with someone who she almost certainly wouldn’t have ever come to if she hadn’t been pretty obviously too drunk to think clearly, who had only misunderstood, and made things awkward, then made things even more awkward every time he opened his mouth. It was still Kitty Pryde though. She was Kitty Pryde, and she was on the floor of his bathroom, and she was miserable, and he couldn’t let that be true and not try to do whatever he could about it. “It’s okay,” Nezhno said again, then wondered as he did whether that was the kind of thing anyone who was feeling as bad as he imagined Kitty had to be right now could believe at all. “It really is,” he added, with a little more earnest emphasis. This was so far away from the worst thing either of them had been through, and… actually, maybe he wouldn’t say that part out loud, because this time when he ran it through his head before it went to his tongue, it already sounded like it couldn’t possibly be something that would work. “Do you want to stick by the bowl just in case,” Nezhno said instead, reaching past Kitty to flush the toilet bowl, so that if she was determined to only look that way instead of at him, at least she could look at something fresher, “or do you want to try lying down on the floor for a little while? Um. If that might help.” He wasn’t exactly an expert on what helped when you were so drunk you wanted to throw up. In fact he really didn’t know anything about it. But maybe it wasn’t actually that different. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Apr 1 2015, 04:53 PM Post #17 |
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Unphased
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Was there any chance, any chance at all, that if she closed her eyes and maybe passed out, she'd wake up and this would all have been some weird, traumatic nightmare? Was there any chance at all that she could make that happen and not be sitting here, in Nezh's bathroom, with her head fuzzy and words not working the way they should and the most horrible taste in her mouth ever, being an idiot? Any chance? Even a little one? No, probably not, Kitty decided, as she assured him that she'd actually had that smack on the head checked out, so yeah. Just the vomiting. Or just the five or...maybe six?...extra large beers she'd had, which had caused the vomiting. “Oh.” Nezh was gaping at her (couldn't really blame him for that) and her face was turning red again, she could feel it, and why, exactly, hadn't she phased outta here yet? Just to save them both the embarrassment and the awkward and...god. How could he not think she was a completely idiot. “Yeah. That probably would do it, I guess,” he added and she started to nod before she could stop herself and that was a really bad idea. Another minor fight with her head and her stomach while she pondered puking her guts up as natures way to both keep her from killing herself with beer while at the same time making sure she knew that death by beer might actually be better than this. God, it'd at least be a ton less embarrassing and she still couldn't look at Nezh as she smiled (well, it was kinda a smile, sorta) a little wryly and confirmed that biology was doing its job. The puking while feeling like a moron was working. Which...yeah, probably not the best answer, either. She was just doing everything wrong. Every single thing, whether she wanted to or not, and she couldn't even look him in the face to try to explain that to Nezh. Or figure out how to explain it in any way that would probably make her look like more of an idiot. Instead, she was feeling too hot again and her stomach was doing things she really, really didn't want it to and all she managed to get out was that this was a crappy time for surprise demonstrations of biological survival tools. Because, yeah, he hadn't figured that out yet. God. Stupid. Drunk and stupid and...still feeling too warm and too queasy. Nezh was rubbing her shoulder despite, well, everything and that didn't help the tight feeling in her throat and chest at all. Part of her wanted to just lean over against him and close her eyes because...something told her if she could that might make this all easier to deal with somehow. Not really an option, since he'd probably sprint back outta the bathroom if she did and she wouldn't blame him for that, either. He'd thought he was dreaming. She really should've figured that out, shouldn't she? “It’s okay,” Nezhno said again, and she nodded a little, still without managing to look at him, and was sorry for it a second later, but at least the mind over stomach exercise was working. Enough to keep her from throwing up again. Uggh. She hated that. So much. “It really is,” he added and she managed...something that at least tried to be an actual smile, even if it didn't make it. And even if she wasn't so sure about that. But he was really nice, even if she'd practically assaulted him in his own room, while he was asleep, and she could still appreciate that. And be grateful for it, despite being sure she'd made a really big mess of everything. She should be kinda used to that by now, huh? "Thanks," Kitty managed to tell him that much, at least, and do it sincerely before giving really serious consideration to the floor. And just flopping over on it and giving that passing out and trying to pretend this had never happened a try after all. Except she should really get outta his room and let him go back to bed, instead of feel like he needed to babysit her. “Do you want to stick by the bowl just in case,” Nezhno said as he reached over to flush the toilet. She wanted to say no, that she'd just go, but she wasn't sure she could even move enough to...move, yet, without starting the bad and disgusting stuff all over again. This was it, she officially hated beer, “or do you want to try lying down on the floor for a little while? Um. If that might help.” God, he was too nice. Way too nice. Definitely nicer than she deserved after all this crap. "Yeah, I think-" she started, then waited to see if she was gonna need to do more than just stick by the bowl as her stomach did another, queasy spin. But it stopped there, at least for now. "I think, yeah, I should probably stay close for now. Lying down would be good." Really good, the teenager decided as she proceeded to do that, knowing this was probably the stupidest looking thing ever and not eve caring, because the tile was cool and that helped a little. And she could kinda close her eyes and... Have an excuse for still not being able to look at Nezhno. Even when she told him, "I really am sorry." Could she say that enough? Or feel bad enough about it? Yeah, probably not, but she was trying all the same. "For invading your room and..." climbing in bed with you and...not knowing you thought you were just dreaming when I probably should've, "all...this," the brunette finished instead, cracking one eye open and looking at his knee. Or part of his leg. Something like that. It was a start. "I swear I don't usually do stuff like this." Or, well, she didn't do stuff like this when she was drunk, at least, but no way was she saying that. It wouldn't do anything at all to make him think she wasn't an idiot. |
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| Gentle | Apr 6 2015, 11:02 PM Post #18 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Alright. A nod. A nod was probably a good sign. Even if it was only a small one. But he’d told Kitty that it was okay, and she had nodded, and Nezhno wanted to think that maybe that was something like a contract between them that could mean that it was. It really was, though. He added that, with more emphasis this time, because it had only been a small nod that she’d given him, one that said she might not really believe him. She really needed to believe him. It was okay. It was okay, and it would be okay. They’d both been through a lot worse than things she’d started to regret the moment she started coming back to her senses. He wasn’t sure if she really believed it the second time after, but she did manage another almost smile, that maybe still didn’t quite end up directed at him, but mostly got close. “Thanks,” she said. That sounded like something she did mean, even if it was probably the wrong word. She didn’t need to thank him for being useless and completely lacking in any guess at knowing what to do. Maybe he should try again at that, though. Being useful, or at least having some kind of conversation that was about something more useful than trying to tell her things that it seemed like she probably didn’t really believe. He could flush the toilet for her, at least. That might be marginally useful in improving the quality of her surroundings, especially since she pretty clearly wanted to be looking there, or on the floor, or at anywhere that wasn’t him right now. Sticking by the toilet bowl could still be something that she might want to do, too. Just in case. Or… um… lying down on the floor? Before the camp, where that was one of the less good ideas you could imagine, especially in the latrine blocks, that was something he remembered doing when he was sick. It might help the same way when you were drunk, though his experience of that wasn’t exactly very extensive. Or even existent. She didn’t turn it down out of hand immediately, at least. “Yeah, I think-" she started then stopped, even more abruptly, eyeing the bowl with a look that explained the reason for the pause quite adequately. But she began again, without needing to throw up. “I think, yeah, I should probably stay close for now. Lying down would be good.” Nezhno nodded silently, and moved back away again, giving her the space she needed to lie down. He took up a space a little way away, where he wouldn’t be crowding her, but wouldn’t be too far, if she did need him. Not that there was anywhere very far in the confines of this efficiently-sized Helicarrier bathroom, in point of fact, so the Wakandan mostly just shifted till his back bumped up against the cabinet that housed the sink, and then sat there, watching Kitty stretch out on her back and close her eyes a little gingerly. “I really am sorry.” Nezhno frowned slightly, which wasn’t the most polite response he ought have come up with to an apology, although that probably didn’t matter quite so much given that she still wasn’t actually looking at him, so wouldn’t be able to see it. “You don’t need-“ he tried to say, but quietly, and not quite fast enough, because she was already continuing anyway. “For invading your room and…” she didn’t even say the rest out loud. That was probably how embarrassed she was about it, and how much she regretted it, and… well, how could he possibly blame her for that? Really. “all…this,” the brunette finished instead, turning her head and looking roughly in the vicinity of his knee. “No, you-“ Nezhno tried again, but this time he couldn’t even find the way toward the next word - any next word - that he might have liked to put there. He hesitated, frowning at himself, and then Kitty was speaking again. “I swear I don't usually do stuff like this.” Not knowing what to say to that, Nezhno nodded a little dumbly. “It’s okay,” he repeated. Not very inspired, perhaps, and it was the thing he really did want her to know right now. It was okay. He wouldn’t take it the wrong way, or… think any differently about her. Ever. That was true too, but not something he could say to Kitty Pryde. “You don’t…” he tried to say instead, but didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “I’m…” Or that one. “I don’t know,” Nezhno admitted quietly, wishing very sincerely that he was someone else. Someone who was capable of real sentences, for starters. “Did…” he tried one more time, but when that didn’t do any better, he gave up again, closing his mouth and focusing on trying not to be too obvious about watching her. If he didn’t say anything at all, he couldn’t say the wrong thing. Right? |
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| Kitty Pryde | Apr 7 2015, 09:06 PM Post #19 |
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Unphased
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Uggh. God. Make it stop. Her stupid. All the stupid awkward that she'd dropped into Nezh's room like some kind of hydrogen bomb of embarrassment and... and...awkward. God, she officially hated beer. Beer and puking and the things she'd done before the puking to cause all the flood of awkward and not being able to look at anything but Nezh's knee or elbow, now. Because she'd phased into his room, in the middle of the night, and crawled into bed with him. And... God. No matter how nice Nezh was (and he was incredibly, amazingly nice; this, right now, was absolute proof of that if there was any kinda doubt at all), he had to think she was an idiot crazy person, at best. Probably someone he should avoid like the plague by moving to another continent at worst. Or just someone he never wanted to speak to or see again as soon as he could get her out of his room. Definitely someone he'd never want as a friend, forget anything else and maybe- Maybe that might actually be the worst. She'd probably ruined a perfectly good, new friendship over a few beers and not having the guts to go confront her (soon to be ex-) boyfriend. So, yeah, now they were in the bathroom and she couldn't even look at Nezh and he was being way too nice, despite obviously not knowing what the hell to do about her and now her throat was closing up again at the same time her stomach was trying to go back into revolt and her head might explode and she couldn't even phase and run. Not just because she had no idea how that'd work, but suspected it'd be bad, but because it was Nezh. And she couldn't just run. Not like that. Not without at least trying to pull some kinda adequate apology outta her too fuzzy, too drunk and stupid brain. It wasn't going that great so far. Lying down, though, and staying close to the toilet, those were both probably good ideas. Kitty did that while Nezh nodded and moved back as far as he could. She couldn't blame him for that, either. Right now, she'd like to get as far from her as she could, too. Better. Lying down was better. The tiles were cool. They smelled like some kind of floor cleaner. Probably whatever SHIELD used and she stretched out carefully onto her back, closing her eyes. And told Nezh again that she was sorry. As apologies went, it still sucked. “You don’t need-“ he tried to say, but quietly, and no. She did need, so Kitty plowed on ahead. Sorry for invading his room in the middle of the night. And for...all this. Everything she'd done that had officially taken first place on the list of 'really stupid things Kitty's done so far'. Still sorta looking at his knee, because she couldn't convince herself to look at his face and whatever she'd see there. “No, you-“ Nezhno tried again, but even he couldn't find anything to finish that with. Yeah. Didn't blame him for that, either. Nice could only go so far in letting you try to be reassuring before you hit some kinda immovable wall. The only thing she could say after that was...lame. 'I don't usually do stuff like this.' Wasn't that what everybody said when they did something spectacularly dumb? Nezh nodded like he was trying to believe her. Or maybe he actually did, or tried to. That didn't make her feel better, either. “It’s okay,” he repeated and this time she at least managed something closer to a real smile. He deserved at least that, even if she still couldn't look at him. Even if she knew better. She wasn't thirteen anymore and nobody was gonna put this down to her being a cute, headstrong, plucky teenager. Not after everything else she'd managed to screw up. “You don’t…” he tried to say but cut off and tried to restart. “I’m…” Which didn't work any better. “I don’t know,” Nezhno admitted quietly, and there went her eyes, burning again. She blinked it away impatiently and nodded, then wished again she'd remember not to keep doing that. But, yeah, she knew he didn't. Of course he didn't. “Did…” And that didn't work, either. Great. She'd broken Nezh. God was obviously not listening. "It's all right," she told him, managing to actually sound normal. Ish. Didn't feel that way, but it'd do maybe. "I think you're allowed to be sorta speechless when there's a surprise drunk," and stupid and awkward and...other words that didn't work in her head right now, "person lying on your bathroom floor in the middle of the night." She'd get out of his hair as soon as she could. So he wouldn't feel obligated to sit in the bathroom and keep her company or maybe just make sure she didn't hurt herself with the soap or something. By then, she might even manage to actually look at him, instead of a random appendage. |
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| Gentle | Apr 14 2015, 07:53 PM Post #20 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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He wasn’t very good at this. Nezhno wished he was, but every time he tried to open his mouth to say something - whether it was something to try to reassure Kitty that she really didn’t need to apologize, or something to try to lighten the mood, or just something to try to stop the quiet from stretching all the way into every last corner and reflective surface in this bathroom - his tongue had tripped over itself by the time it got to the third word, and on the whole that seemed like something that was pretty clearly indicative of his ability to do this. He also still wasn’t completely sure exactly what this was, and maybe that had something to do with the lack of success in doing it. But on the whole, the Wakandan had a feeling the safer, more conservative conclusion was probably that he just wasn’t good at it, whatever it might be. Kitty Pryde hadn’t said anything to suggest as much, and she had smiled a little, but she hadn’t looked at him either, and something about the way she’d been blinking after he’d kept trying to say something said that… …well, it certainly felt like confirmation that he wasn’t good at doing whatever it was he was trying to do, and since he wasn’t even completely sure what that had been, Nezhno decided to give up on even trying to speak into the quiet of the room, so at least there’d be a decent likelihood that he wouldn’t make it any worse. “It’s all right,” Kitty said then, and even stretched out on her back, on the floor of a bathroom, Nezhno thought she managed to make that sound a lot more convincing than any of his own attempts at assurances had been. It had been quite a low bar, of course, but under the circumstances she was working in, it was definitely something. “I think you're allowed to be sorta speechless when there's a surprise drunk person lying on your bathroom floor in the middle of the night.” In spite of the situation, and also in spite himself Nezhno found that he was smiling, after that. Just a little, but in an (admittedly quite odd) way, that actually did make it seem a little easier than it had five seconds before she’d said it. “I don’t have a lot of experience with things like this,” he admitted, with a shrug of his shoulders that made them touch the back of the cabinet. “I guess I am pretty used to speechless, though.” Not just in this situation. He felt like he spent a lot of the time not knowing what to say. It hadn’t really felt like that with Kitty Pryde for most of this week, but maybe this was just the law of averages catching up with him at possibly the worst time it could have picked to do it. “Sorry,” Nezhno added, thinking about that. This probably wasn’t the time when Kitty Pryde was best equipped to handle him reverting to normal Nezhno Abidemi, and if he’d known what he needed to do to fix that, he would have done it in a heartbeat. Failing that though, “Do you want me to go?” he asked, looking down at her face with not very well-masked concern. “I can… um… get out of your way for a little while,” there, that was the best way of putting the offer that he could come up with at short notice, “if it’ll help you feel better.” More quiet, and less awkward people watching her. Those could be good things, he suspected. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Apr 15 2015, 04:21 PM Post #21 |
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Unphased
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Yep, she'd broken Nezh. Awesome. She was on a real winning streak here. If 'winning' was...this complete mess she'd managed to make of kinda everything. Which, yeah, not so much. Even not thinking at full speed or with all her processors firing, Kitty could still figure that out. It was okay, though. Or, well, it wasn't, but Nezh was okay. It was the middle of the night and she was smashed and she'd invaded his room and done...things that made her want to start blushing in complete mortification all over again. And Ororo or T'Challa or someone was probably going to kill her for this in the morning (which might actually be okay, it'd solve the problem of having to deal with this when she was sober again), but until then, here she was. His surprise late night guest, lying on the bathroom floor while the room did a slow, off and on, up and down carousel spin around her. He was allowed to be speechless. The brunette was pretty sure those were the rules. Or, if they weren't, they really, really should be. Nezh was smiling a little again. Not much, but a little. That was good. He had a really good smile. “I don’t have a lot of experience with things like this,” he admitted, with a shrug of his shoulders that there was barely room for. He had broad shoulders. “I guess I am pretty used to speechless, though.” Except he hadn't been so much. Not since a little at first that first day, in Wakanda in the infirmary. So...great. Yeah. She'd managed to just mangle that all up, too, in all this. Not a surprise, she didn't guess, but she couldn't come up with a way to fix it, either. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't seem to figure out how to start or what to say or-. Heck, she didn't know how to fix one, single thing in the string of 'things Kitty has managed to screw up'. Why would this be different? "Yeah," she agreed quietly and still not drunk enough to not be...completely and totally embarrassed, "I think I might be a little out of my depth here, too." Way, way outta her depth and she'd never liked how that felt. How any of this felt, and now she was sharing that. So everyone could be uncomfortable. That was just awesome, too. “Sorry,” Nezhno added, and she wished he'd stop doing that. None of this was his fault and that he kinda did anyway just made her feel worse and more awkward and...uggh. “Do you want me to go?” he asked, sounding more worried than he should and there was another little stab of guilt. God, now he was going to leave his own bathroom because she'd come in and made an ass of herself? “I can… um… get out of your way for a little while,” or...maybe he just wanted to get the heck away and this was Nezh, so he'd never actually say that. He'd just be as nice as he could possibly be, while he probably wanted to run the other way as fast as he could. Get the heck away from the crazy drunk girl on his floor, “if it’ll help you feel better.” She frowned. Kitty could feel herself frowning but it took her a few seconds to sort out the exact reasons for it. "No," she finally replied, moving her eyes up from his knee to his...midsection or something. Eventually, she was gonna have to get up the guts to look him in the face again, but apparently that time wasn't right now. Small steps, she guessed "I mean, I don't know. It's your bathroom and-" she didn't want him to go .She really didn't, but how selfish and weird would it be to say that after, well, all this? "And you shouldn't have to leave your own bathroom, just because of me. Unless you want to," Kitty heard herself adding and realizing she was getting dangerously close to babbling, but not able to do anything to really stop it. God. "If you do, it's okay. Really. I should be able to get out of your way and off your floor soon." She hoped. Because this was just kinda getting worse now. "And go...well, somewhere else." Not back to her room. Or her and Bobby's room. Or-she'd just figure it out later. "But, otherwise, you...don't need to go," she added or stammered or just randomly spilled words out words in his direction. She didn't want him to go, even if it'd mean less general embarrassment for both of them, but she managed to close her mouth again before any've that could spill out, too. Or who knew what else. God. Stupid. She was stupid and being drunk apparently made her extra stupid. |
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| Gentle | Apr 19 2015, 04:52 PM Post #22 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Speechless was something Nezhno was used to. It might not have been something that he’d actually been all too often this week with Kitty Pryde, but it was something that, as a general rule, he’d gotten used to being a long time ago. Although familiarity with the state wasn’t helping it feel any less awkward right now, which he might have liked to think it would. And it didn’t really look like admitting it had made Kitty Pryde feel any easier about the fact it was happening, or about anything about this situation, so there wasn’t even that. “Yeah,” she agreed quietly sounding an awful lot more uncertain than he could remember her seeming all week. Smaller too, like she was trying to take up less space than she did. “I think I might be a little out of my depth here, too.” Almost idly, Nezhno found himself thinking of Terry then, and wondering if the American boy would have been relieved if he knew that there were things that could make Kitty Pryde feel out of her depth. Not that it mattered, because he wouldn’t tell Terry, or anyone, what had happened here, because he couldn’t imagine that Kitty would want anyone to know, unless she chose to tell them herself, but when he thought about it, he couldn’t actually imagine that Trauma would be relieved, whatever he might have said in the morgue. Not with Kitty looking as unhappy as she did right now, lying back against the cold floor of a functional bathroom. Nezhno couldn’t escape the feeling that he’d had something to do with making her look that unhappy, too. Maybe not the first part in it (that probably have to go to the beer, or to whatever had made her want to drink that beer), but still… he hadn’t done any of this right, had he? He certainly hadn’t been able to do anything that could make it better, the way he wanted to be able to do for Kitty Pryde, so he apologized. Again. It didn’t seem like that made anything better either, but it felt like something he needed to do, and… well… …maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Maybe he should just ask her what she wanted right now. Starting with whether she’d like him to go. He could give her some privacy, if that would make her feel better, so at least she wouldn’t have to deal with being watched by a uselessly verbally inept person while she was fighting with her own body’s reaction to the alcohol. She started frowning, though. That wasn’t anything he’d expected, though that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t something that someone with more skills with people might have known would happened. “No,” she finally replied just as Nezhno had nearly got to the point of opening his mouth to ask something else. She was looking up slightly more - not a big amount upward, like the amount it would have taken to actually look at him, but more so than she had been before. “I mean, I don't know. It's your bathroom and-“ she stopped abruptly, like she’d been about to say something other than what she continued with a moment later, “And you shouldn't have to leave your own bathroom, just because of me. Unless you want to.” Nezhno blinked, swallowing a sudden lump of what really felt like it might be pure congealed embarrassment that had lodged somewhere in his throat. “I don’t-“ he tried to start, but too slow and too hesitantly to keep the sentence going when Kitty started speaking quickly again. “If you do, it's okay. Really. I should be able to get out of your way and off your floor soon.” She really thought he was someone who’d grudge her being on his floor when she was this unhappy? Not to mention physically ill? “…I mean, I will,” Nezhno tried to continue in a quiet murmur, brows creasing slightly into a troubled frown, “I can. It’s no trouble. Its less trouble.” That was just logic, wasn’t it? It was almost certainly far easier for him to move right now than it was for her, so if she needed privacy, it made sense for him to be the one who’d move to do that. “And go...well, somewhere else,” Kitty continued as he was saying that though, and maybe he should have waited for her to finish her thought, because none of this seemed to be getting any better, even if they were both talking. Even more awkwardly, in fact, if that was possible, and now he’d apparently given her the impression that not only was he someone that cared more about his bathroom than whether she was alright, but that he wanted her to leave when she had nowhere else she could think of to go. He really, really wasn’t good at this, was he? “You…” Nezhno heard himself saying again, though, trying to get words out there that would stop her thinking that, but not knowing what on earth the right ones could possibly be, “-um… you d-“ “But, otherwise, you...don't need to go," she added, sounding a little like she might also be having to hurry the words out to make sure they got there. It was enough to make Nezhno pause, and give up on trying to race his own out (it was clearly not a race he was going to win here). He made himself take a breath, and try to make sure he’d thought about what she’d just said before he said anything else. What had she said? That she didn’t need him to go. And since he didn’t want to go, and leave her lying miserably on the floor of a strange bathroom, probably still feeling sicker than she was letting on, unless that was what she wanted him to do, the next step was actually simple. “Okay. I won’t then,” Nezhno said. That was the simple part. The next felt like it got complicated again, as soon as he tried to work out how to say it, to try to tell her that he didn’t want her to feel like he wanted her out of his way. “You don’t… need…” he began, haltingly, not particularly happy with the way the words he’d been about to say sounded even in his head. So he switched them out at the last moment, hurriedly switching to, “It’s fine if you have to stick with the floor. For as long as you need.” She really didn’t need to feel like she needed to try to rush to do that before she was ready to. That was the thing that mattered, really. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Apr 20 2015, 03:02 PM Post #23 |
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Unphased
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Awkward. Tons and tons and tons of awkward. She could feel it. Kitty was positive she could actually feel the awkward she'd made as Nezh tried to wedge in an, [“I don’t-“ that didn't go any farther because she was definitely babbling. And she couldn't seem to stop since, god, he was willing to flee his own room in the middle of the night to get away from the idiot, weird drunk girl that was sprawled out in his bathroom. That's how bad this was. That was the barometer of bad that she had dumped into this. Not that she blamed him, but him leaving seemed wrong on a lot of levels. One's the petite brunette couldn't exactly explain right now, but she still knew it wasn't right, no matter how many beers were sloshing around in her brain (it had to be in her brain now, she was absolutely positive there wasn't any left in her stomach). He shouldn't have to do that (but she didn't blame him for wanting to; who wouldn't want to right now, including her?) and, well, she didn't want him to, but it was hard to tell him that. He was Nezh and he was really, really nice and he'd probably think he should stay even if he didn't want to. So...maybe give her a few minutes and she'd...figure out how to get out of his way. And off his floor and... Uggh. Was she even making any sense at all now? No, no, Kitty decided in her brain that had apparently replaced it's cerebral fluid with beer. She was making zero sense. None. “…I mean, I will,” Nezhno tried to continue in a quiet murmur, and confused. That was her fault, too, because she definitely wasn't making sense, “I can. It’s no trouble. Its less trouble.” Yeah, see. Nice. Nezh was too nice but she'd made this mess and she should be the one to go...well, somewhere else. She hadn't figured out exactly where that would be yet, but that didn't seem nearly as important as making Nezh know that he didn't have to leave his own room, or his own bathroom, just because she was busy being an idiot at him. “You…” Nezhno said again, or tried to but they were both kinda talking at the same time or...something and there was, yeah, babbling. From her. That wouldn't stop, even if she was positive now she wasn't really making sense, “-um… you d-“ he tried again to her not sense making but... Uggh, she didn't want him to stay if he didn't want to, but that wouldn't just come out. Because she didn't want him to go either, except he probably wanted to. But if for some reason he actually didn't and wasn't just being nice to the crazy girl on his floor then...he...didn't need to? Or...have to? Or...god, she was talking to his chest, or his abdomen and the bathroom kinda lurched again so she was trying to just...get things out there. Uggh. Kitty. Stop. Just. Stop. Stop now. “Okay. I won’t then,” Nezhno said and he sounded like he meant it, but did he really? Or was that just him being nice, still? Her beer brain wasn't letting her figure that out like she needed to so the brunette kinda...nodded. Slowly. Because she was probably farther from the toilet bowl than she should be and the beer sloshing against her brain made things bad. “You don’t… need…” he began, haltingly, and she figured the rest of that was probably 'to keep babbling at me like a lunatic', so he didn't really need to finish. “It’s fine if you have to stick with the floor. For as long as you need.” He was being too nice to her. He shouldn't have to be nice to her, after all...this. Where was the Logan? He should be here. He wouldn't be nice to her. "Okay," Kitty said and made sure it was just that and not another barrage of babbling. "Good. Thanks," she added a second or two later, figuring twos more words were safe enough and she really really should thank him. "I don't-" 'want to be this person right now' she started to say after that, but then actually managed to stop herself. Since that sounded weird even to her. "It's cool down here," the teenager said instead, turning her head so that her cheek was against the cool tile of the floor. Then she frowned again. It was hot in here. Had it been that hot in here before? "I didn't mean to-" 'molest you'? Could she say that? "grope you," she decided instead, not sure if that sounded worse or better. Or if it still counted as an apology if she actually kinda had meant to? "Before," Kitty clarified, because...what? He might've forgot? God. "That was...probably kinda rude." Oh god. Yeah, okay, she didn't need to talk. She probably never, ever needed to talk again if that was the stuff coming outta her mouth now. |
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| Gentle | Apr 22 2015, 09:43 PM Post #24 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Okay. He wouldn’t then. Leave, that was. Kitty nodded (slowly, but it was a nod), which helped to confirm Nezhno’s supposition that that had been the right decision to have made and said aloud, but unfortunately didn’t help any more than his own brain was with the next step of what else to say. She didn’t need to… think she had to leave for his sake. Or feel like she couldn’t stay here on the floor of the bathroom (which was barely his at all, really, anyway). She could do that if she it’d help. For as long as she wanted. “Okay,” Kitty said sounding a little deliberate in the way she said the word. Maybe lying back on the floor wasn’t doing quite as good a job at controlling her stomach as they might have wanted. “Good. Thanks," she added a second or two later, which really wasn’t necessary, but by this point Nezhno was just aware enough of how everything else had gone so far to be unsure of whether trying to tell her that right now wasn’t going to make everything even more awkward. He decided not to, but couldn’t decide whether to say anything in acknowledgement of the very unnecessary thanks, dithering so long about that that Kitty had spoken again before he’d come down on one side or the other of the decision. “I don’t-“ she said, then stopped again, thinking better of whatever it was that she’d been about to say. “It’s cool down here," the teenager said instead, probably about the floor she was turning her head against. Unless there was something far warmer going on on the upper levels of the Helicarrier, but she didn’t say anything about that, so on balance, observing her as closely as he was, Nezhno felt relatively comfortable ascribing that comment to the floor. It wasn’t anywhere near as easy with her next comment. “I didn't mean to-“ she declared, after undergoing a somewhat abrupt shift into a frown that had Nezhno leaning forward ever-so-slightly out of concern. At least until the pause ended, and she finished off that sentence with, “grope you.” “Oh,” the Wakandan answered, knowing (intellectually, at least), that he shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that. It was only what he’d expected, after all. What he’d known, from the moment he knew it hadn’t been a dream. It didn’t really help to tell himself that, but he thought that if he kept telling himself, maybe it would. “Before,” Kitty clarified, as though he could possibly have got confused , or forgotten what had happened. Which probably illustrated better than anything else could have, just how true her previous statement had been. She hadn’t meant to. She’d probably just… lost her balance, and fallen that way that his subconscious had interpreted like it had, without ever meaning anything close to that. “Yeah,” Nezhno agreed, to make sure that she knew he understood exactly what she meant. She was Kitty Pryde, after all. He’d known it was just a dream. “That was...probably kinda rude.” That was too much though. Nezhno shook his head quickly. “No,” he said. “I should have…” but he faltered there, not being able to think of any way to finish that sentence that would make any of this any better. Stopped sooner, the very first instant he’d begun to realize it hadn’t just been another dream he’d been imagining? That didn’t feel like the right thing to say. “I know,” he said instead, with a little more sincere emphasis. Not that that seemed to be enough after it was out there in the air, hanging between them. “Knew,” he corrected, only to shake his head again, “Know.” He did know, was the point. “We can forget about it,” the Wakandan continued hurriedly, painfully aware that he wasn’t doing a good job of finding words to explain what he was actually trying to say, “I… know you didn’t mean to.” He’d always known. She was Kitty Pryde, and he was… him. He didn’t want her to have to think she’d ever, even unintentionally, given him any idea other than that about any of this, on top of everything else she was having to deal with now. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Apr 23 2015, 08:57 PM Post #25 |
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Unphased
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Uggh. She was sorry. For groping him. Or that she hadn't meant to grope him. She'd just said that. The words had actually come out of her mouth. That wasn't her imagination or some kind of beer induced hallucination, she had actually said those words. Out loud. To Nezh. And they weren't even true, exactly. She hadn't meant to...do that when he thought he was dreaming and didn't know it was real and, god. She should've known he wasn't actually awake. Of course she should've known that, but she'd drank way too much beer and she hadn't and- “Oh,” the Wakandan answered and she didn't know what that meant. Oh. Just oh, so maybe he was, what? Confused? Didn't wanna talk about it? Didn't know what she was talking about? So she should clarify? Maybe? Before. She'd meant before. Before she'd started throwing up in his bathroom and was lying on his floor now being sick and too confusing and really, really stupid. “Yeah,” Nezhno agreed, so he did understand that part, she guessed. Something in that word, though, wasn't right. Or didn't sound right, exactly, to her. Or something. Maybe her brain was soaking in too much beer to figure it out but, well, okay. Yeah, it had probably been kinda rude, hadn't it? Wandering into his room, drunk, and then groping him while he thought he was having some crazy dream. Because up until that point, she'd at least managed to make him believe she was a fairly competent, sane person who didn't go around doing things like this. And she wasn't. Or, well, not exactly like this. This was hitting new heights even for some of the crazier stuff she'd done when she was fourteen years old or so and she'd nearly married a Morlock then, so it was a pretty high bar to clear. And not in a really long time, but she wasn't this person. Or she didn't want to be this person. The one that kept doing everything wrong, no matter how much she tried not to. The one who did things like this to a guy she really liked and was just getting to know and now she was lying on his bathroom tile and throwing up in his toilet and making him not have a clue what to say to her. Who the heck would know what to do with something like this? “No,” Nezh tried again, giving his head a quick shake that made her almost dizzy just watching it, “I should have…” called someone to come get her the heck out of his room, Kitty guessed might be what he'd meant to say. But he didn't seem like he knew how to finish that any more than she knew how to finish most of her own sentences right now. This was just...a mess. A great big mess and he was being really nice about it and it made her want to cry on his bathroom floor. “I know,” he said instead, with a little more sincere emphasis, then added, “Knew,” instead, but then shook his head one more time, “Know.” So he...knew that it was rude and she was a crazy person but...yeah, he was nice and he was trying to make her feel better about it. Or maybe just trying to make the awkward and confused attempts at explanations and apologies stop. And not telling her how much it had really freaked him out because no way would he have ever thought of her that way, would he? At least he wasn't telling her that outright and she appreciated it. It wasn't like she had any dignity left at this point, but she'd rather not going into negative dignity numbers if she could help it. "Yeah," Kitty answered quietly. Nope, still couldn't actually look him in the eyes. Her eyes wouldn't go there at all, no matter how much she tried to make them. "I-" she sorta stuttered again, but at least she managed to stop it there and go with a simple, "Thanks." “We can forget about it,” the Wakandan continued hurriedly, and, god. She'd kinda like that but she didn't think it was going to happen. Even with more beer. Except something in her chest felt like it dropped down into her stomach and balled up into a hard lump when he said that. It shouldn't, though. Just proof of what she already knew, right? “I… know you didn’t mean to.” She managed another nod again. And get out a soft, "Yeah," of agreement, which...wasn't really a great way to answer. At all. So, okay, trying again. He deserved that much, at least. "I mean...okay. That'd be okay. If you want." He did want. It was right there, screaming from all the massive awkward in the room. Which she wasn't helping. At all. Because everything just came out weird and wrong. Sooooo...maybe, moving on or something. Anything. "Maybe I can convince the people down in the lounge with the bar to go along with that, too," she added with a wry half-smile. That she directed toward his chin. It was kinda progress or something. "I think I hugely, massively overshared all over the place. And one of them was a Logan." Probably not a massively better topic but...yeah. Beer soaked brain and awkward and still not trusting herself to make a run for it. And, gee, she'd thought the day couldn't suck more, but she'd always been kind of an overachiever. |
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| Gentle | Apr 30 2015, 10:28 PM Post #26 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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No, Kitty hadn’t been rude at all. Nezhno knew that. He wished he knew other things though, like how to find the words to say something to make sure Kitty knew that, because she didn’t really look like she did right now. It wasn’t her fault though, really. He should have… he should have at least known what to say about what he should have done, but that didn’t work. He knew, though. Had known. Knew. “Yeah,” Kitty answered quietly. It didn’t make it any better. Worse, in fact, especially seeing that she couldn’t even look at him now. Still couldn’t. He’d wanted to say something that would make it better, and he hadn’t managed it at all. “I-“ she sorta stuttered again, then, “Thanks.” Nezhno looked away himself, feeling the quick stab of something even more awkward somewhere in his stomach. That didn’t feel anything like what ought to be happening now. He hadn’t done anything that Kitty Pryde should be thanking him for. The opposite, in fact. He wanted to say that, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t see it working out. So instead Nezhno said the only thing he could think to say to plug the gap in the conversation as the prospect of another awkward silence starting to yawn below them. They could forget about it. That was probably all Kitty wanted to do right now, wasn’t it? Forget that something she hadn’t meant (she’d said she didn’t mean it) had become something so awkward and uncomfortable and probably really unpleasant for her, because he’d been asleep, and not thinking. They could forget about it - or she could, and he could try - because he… well, he did know she hadn’t meant to. Kitty was silent after that, but she nodded. Then there was a small, quiet “Yeah,” of agreement, from where she was on the floor. Something in her voice made Nezhno worry that maybe she was feeling nauseous again. It was… it wasn’t right - but she didn’t get up toward the toilet, or even move very much, except to speak again. “I mean...okay. That'd be okay. If you want.” “Okay,” said Nezhno, because this really didn’t seem like the time to tell her that it probably wasn’t actually going to be what he’d be able to do, and was still less what he wanted. What had happened - that had been what he’d wanted. More than he even wanted to have to admit to himself. He just… hadn’t wanted it to be like this. If this was the way that Kitty Pryde was there like it had been in his dreams - only when she didn’t mean to, and was so drunk she had to vomit - no. Maybe it actually would be better if he could forget it. Or maybe he should at least try. Try harder, that was. For her sake. “Maybe I can convince the people down in the lounge with the bar to go along with that, too," she added with a wry half-smile, surprising Nezhno a little. But she’d lifted her eyes a little - not quite really looking at him yet, but it was closer. So maybe the forgetting was working better for her than it was for him, which Nezhno was glad for, except that as her eyes got closer to his, he started to feel even more strange for looking at her. The wall, or the door of the shower, just above her head, that was probably safer. That made it a little easier to stop and work on really listening to what she was saying, and he did want to be able to at least do that for her. “I think I hugely, massively overshared all over the place. And one of them was a Logan,” she said, sounding a little like she might be more like herself again. More evidence that forgetting was probably the right thing, and the good thing. At least for her. “You did?” Nezhno asked, schooling himself to look back at her properly, like someone who had let it go and forgotten about would have been able to do without difficulty, brows creasing as he tried to imagine Kitty Pryde and talking to a bar full of people, one of whom was a Wolverine, presumably the one from the other universe. “Um,” was all he could find to say, because the mental picture didn’t really form. Kitty had been close to the Logan in this world though, hadn’t she? Maybe that was some of it, and it would help for her to be able to talk about it? “What did he do?” Nezhno asked, partly to try to let her know it was okay to talk about it, if she wanted to, and partly out of a certain amount of curiosity he couldn’t really assuage, after trying to picture Kitty Pryde ‘oversharing’ to a Wolverine.The closest he could get was imagining Veil if she’d ever cornered the Maker’s friend Mimic, only he had a feeling that couldn’t have been how it was. |
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| Kitty Pryde | May 2 2015, 10:07 PM Post #27 |
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Unphased
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Yeah. Of course. Of course he'd want to forget. Guess knowing that would at least keep her from embarrassing herself again (if she could ever figure out how to go back to looking him in the face, anyway). Later. When she couldn't blame it on being drunk. Nezh had thought it was a dream and that's the only reason he'd gone along with it and knowing that, and thinking about that, and what she'd done and how she'd touched him, and kissed him, made her face want to start heating up all over again and that urge to phase and run was coming back pretty strong. Great. “Okay,” said Nezhno, and there was the definite confirmation of him wanting to forget. So they'd just...forget. All of this. It'd be better that way, right? Not easy. Even with only half or less of her brain working, Kitty knew that. It wasn't gonna be easy at all to forget any of...that. Before. In the long run, it would be easier and better. If she told herself that enough, it might even sound true and it just might work. Maybe. If it could make any of this better or at least less awkward and awful and...other words like that that the beer had soaked out of her brain, it'd probably be worth it. Heck, maybe she could convince the people down in the lounge to forget tonight, too. God, and yeah, she'd announced that out loud, hadn't she? While looking at Nezh's chest or chin or something. Some part of him that still wasn't his face, since she couldn't manage that yet. And how lame did he have to think that was? No wonder he looked kinda surprised (from what she could see, anyway, so she was guessing a little) and still she wasn't shutting up. Instead, she was blurting out how she'd overshared in a massive, embarrassing way (though still less embarrassing than this) to Luke Cage's wife. And a Logan. Uggh. “You did?” Nezhno asked, and, yeah, she was having a little trouble believing that right now, too. “Um,” he added, which kinda summed it up and had her expression going a little sideways. Still trying not to move her head too much, though, in case the room started doing the tilt-a-whirl thing again. "That's kinda how I'm feeling about it right now, too." And the look that'd been on Jessica Cage's face when she'd started, which should've been a clue but Kitty had all the evidence in the world right now that she'd totally failed at buying a clue tonight in every single way. “What did he do?” Nezhno asked probably just being nice again, since she couldn't imagine why he'd actually want to hear that. Then again, it was better than thinking about the things she was supposed to be forgetting. And actually lower on the scale of 'awkward', so...why not? How much worse could it get? "He...did what Logan always did," Kitty answered, brows drawing together and realizing that wasn't much of an answer at all, since Nezh probably hadn't ever met Logan. It was true, but not helpful. Turning her head so a little more of her cheek was against the cool tile, she let out a slow breath. "He tried to be sensible," the brunette teenager added, expression shifting to something that probably said how annoying that was. And if it didn't, it definitely should've. "And he did that thing where he tried to tell me things I already know, then reminded me that I already knew them. He always thinks he knows everything." Which, no, that wasn't right, was it? "He always thought he knew everything," she corrected, because Logan was dead and that guy wasn't him. He wasn't the right Logan. "But he didn't, because he thought he'd always be the one that was left and he was wrong. He's gone, and I'm still here. So he didn't know everything. Or maybe anything." And...she was just rambling again. At Nezh. In the bathroom. And she was never gonna be able to look at him again, she knew it. God. |
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| Gentle | Sep 3 2016, 05:22 AM Post #28 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Yeah, they were still here. Apparently embarrassment really wasn’t a sufficient universal force to make two people spontaneously disappear through the floor, even when one of them actually could really do that most of the time, if she wanted to. Only she’d said that she didn’t, and with what she was saying now about people at a bar that she’d been ‘oversharing’ to, maybe that did actually add a little extra sense to why Kitty Pryde wanted to stay here. It was a place which was quite definitively lacking any of ‘them’. Whoever they might have been, aside from a Logan, and Nezhno thought he might almost know nearly enough now to guess a little about how that was significant to the girl stretched out beside him in the small confines of the bathroom. Maybe kind of, at least. She’d really done that? It… was hard to picture, even when he tried, and words were harder than that to find to follow up with it. Kitty Pryde made a face, after that. “That’s kinda how I'm feeling about it right now, too,” she said, which probably meant that the almost grimace-like expression she was wearing was currently maybe more about embarrassment, and less about nausea. Probably no need to be tensing in case he needed to move out of her way, or help her get back to the toilet bowl, then. Okay. Okay. If it wasn’t nausea, and it was about other people, who since they were definitely not here right now, then Nezhno was pretty sure it came under one of the categories of things that might feel better if you talked about them, instead of holding them in. Like… emotional nausea, maybe. Indra would have probably have called it that, and like he’d said, and they’d said about him saying, talking was better, wasn’t it? At least if it wasn’t talking about the Thing just before that Kitty hadn’t Meant To Do. Not that. But this. “What did he do?” Nezhno asked. There was a pause, before she answered, where the Wakandan wondered if he’d overstepped the line, or if maybe the line that they’d got to over the last few days had been redrawn with beer and awkwardness too, or if.. but then Kitty Pryde drew her brows together a little, and spoke. “He…did what Logan always did," [she] answered, then paused, and turned her head further to the side, head to the floor, face turned aside, and breathed out. “He tried to be sensible,” the brunette teenager added, and between her expression and that stress on what Nezhno was mostly used to thinking of as a generally innocuous word, the sin committed was actually surprisingly more clear than you might have thought. He had known Gloria and Julian for a while now, after all. “And he did that thing where he tried to tell me things I already know, then reminded me that I already knew them. He always thinks he knows everything.” Nezhno kind of nodded then, even though he was fairly sure Kitty Pryde wasn’t really looking at him. It felt like the right thing to do though, just as not actually speaking words also felt right just now, and not just because he didn’t know what to say about that as an observation about anyone, let alone a Wolverine. Who… um… “He always thought he knew everything," she corrected another mini-breath later, stressing the past imperfect and pressing immediately onward. "But he didn't, because he thought he'd always be the one that was left and he was wrong. He's gone, and I'm still here. So he didn't know everything. Or maybe anything.” It was the tone in her voice, rather than Kitty’s words themselves - which were tumbling out at a rate that wasn’t exactly fast, but was still faster than Nezhno was sure he was parsing at full comprehension - that gave the tattooed teenager the clue toward understanding there. With a slight hesitation, driven by a mental debate about whether or not the lines might have been redrawn in a way that meant that he really shouldn’t even touch Kitty Pryde at all anymore, and resolved at a compromise that said that probably - maybe - just as much as they had on the first day was - might be - okay, Nezhno shifted slightly against the sink housing, moving so he could his inch his hand over toward the general vicinity of the prone brunette’s fingers. A little at a time till his knuckles were kinda just touching hers. Contact, but hopefully easy enough to withdraw from without being completely awkward, if she wanted to not have that. “Um…” he said quietly, because sometimes he didn’t think he could start his vocal cords without saying that. “I definitely don’t know a lot.” Especially not about things like this, but knowing things didn’t sound like a trait Kitty was very positive about right now, so it also probably was a good one to disavow as much as he could. “But,” Nezhno continued, picking his words carefully, “Umm. I’ll try not to be sensible at you, at least.” He’d said that earnestly, but all the same, “::Promise.::” he added, in Wakandan, because in English the word didn’t feel like quite enough. Sensible wasn’t what she wanted, and though sensible was generally where he felt most comfortable, what Nezhno thought he’d gleaned from what Kitty Pryde had (and hadn’t) said this was about people - about people who meant something to you - and he was pretty uncomfortably aware that sensible wasn’t a comfortable fit in those situations. Kind of the same way he wasn’t, actually. But it was Kitty Pryde, and the way she was stretched out there, and the way she’d sounded… he couldn’t not try to do… well, something for her. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like,” he said. Doubles of people who meant something to you. Who were here, when the Person wasn’t. Had he said the exact same thing to her last night about this, at the party, maybe? But they’d ended up talking about other things then, and… well, though Nezhno wasn’t sure how to start it again, he did at least remember something else she’d said, even if not last night. “But it… well, it sucks, and it isn’t fair. Like you said in the Palace,” he added, speaking softly, nudging her fingers with his own just a little, instead of squeezing them. On the first day they’d met. And it had actually sounded pretty sensible to him at the time, but maybe she wouldn’t hold that against him. Or against herself, rather. Unless she wanted to. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Sep 3 2016, 09:15 PM Post #29 |
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Unphased
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Score one more on her growing list of 'things Shadowcat can really screw up like it's her job'. Tonight, she was really racking up the points. Now, with Nezh. And all this. Before this with Mrs. Luke Cage and a Logan. Not her Logan. Hers was gone and had been gone for years, but this one was like him in some ways. A lot like him. Thinking he knows everything, knew everything. One of those. Her head was too busy sloshing and trying to keep up with the way the room kept trying to move when she wasn't paying attention to figure out for sure which one've those was right. Tenses were hard, but the floor was still cool, at least. And she was babbling at Nezh again. Maybe...maybe that would somehow help with the forgetting. Babbling some probably weird stream of consciousness into the not-going-away awkward about her massive overshare and how Logan, all the Logan's, always thought they were right. Always thought they knew everything. Tried to tell her things she knew already, then remind her that she knew them and- Nezh was nodding along, Kitty thought, but she could be completely positive since she still hadn't managed to get her eyes any higher than his neck/chin - somewhere in there. But Logan? The Logan, any Logan, maybe didn't really know anything, no matter what he thought. He always thought he'd be the one left behind. The one left when everybody else was gone but he'd been wrong. He was gone and she was still here, where she had to deal with random other Logans randomly showing up when she didn't want them. Maybe that was too much. Or, yeah, it was too much. More than Nezhno would want to know or care about, but it came not so much tumbling as tripping out anyway. Then he was quite and Kitty forced herself to cut off all the word overflow and concentrate on the floor and her stomach and...forgetting. Forgetting all the stupid, stupid crap she'd done tonight that, yeah, probably ruined...things. However nice Nezh was (and he was seriously way too nice about all this, but thinking about that kinda made her want to throw up some more), something had changed. Even with her head full of slow, cottony thoughts and still kinda wanting to throw up on the tile floor (or maybe because of that?) she noticed it. Notice him...moving around? Maybe he'd changed his mind and decide to get away while the getting was good after all? Kitty kinda wanted to ask, and didn't want to ask, and was still trying to figure that out when something brushed against her hand. “Um…” he said quietly, as she tried to very carefully tilt her head to see what that was at her hand. Yeah, still sounded about right. “I definitely don’t know a lot.” So that made two of them. What were you supposed to do with other dimensional doubles of people who'd died on you? Or of, god, yourself? "Me either. Pretty sure the beer ate at least half my IQ points," she muttered, and possibly whatever common sense she'd had left, managing to get her chin tilted down without too much protest from her head and stomach. “But,” Nezhno continued, picking his words carefully, “Umm. I’ll try not to be sensible at you, at least.” He’d said that earnestly, and one side of her mouth went a little sideways, “::Promise.::” he added, in Wakandan as she realized the thing barely touching her hand was his hand. That lump was back in her throat but the brunette swallowed it back down again determinedly. Carefully, she shifted her hand closer to his and kinda hooked her fingers around his just a little. God, why did she always have to make such a mess of everything? Nice. He was still being way too nice to her. ::Thank you,:: she replied with a half smile, since that was the only thing she thought she could get out that, well, wouldn't go right back to making things worse again. Even if she didn't have a clue what'd happen if both of them totally stopped being sensible. ::I still miss him. Logan,:: Kitty confessed, also in Wakandan because it felt somehow easier, better, to say it that way. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like,” he said, and it sounded familiar. Like he'd said it before. Last night, maybe? When they'd been talking at the strip club? Her brain just gurgled and refused to spit the info out, though. Stupid, beer-logged brain. But she thought if anyone could who hadn't had to deal with unexpected duplicates of people they cared about, it was probably Nezh. “But it… well, it sucks, and it isn’t fair. Like you said in the Palace,” he added, speaking softly, nudging her fingers with his own just a little, and she curled her own a little more around his. Probably shouldn't, especially after all...this. Drunken room invasion. Groping. (God, she really had said that out loud. To Nezh.) Throwing up. Stupidity. Lots of stupidity. But she did anyway, because it was kinda nice to think maybe they could forget and somehow stop the awkward. Eventually. Maybe? "Yeah," Kitty agreed with a kinda sigh and then sorta tried to shift a little onto her side. Without her brain or stomach really noticing she was trying to move. The better to lay her cheek against the floor and look at...Nezh's chin. Yeah. "It does. Suck. Even if he's exactly like the Logan I knew, he's still not the same. Which...probably doesn't make a lot of sense, huh?" Or maybe to Nezhno it would, somehow? Kitty managed to get her eyes up to his mouth before they sorta shifted over toward his ear instead. That was...uggh, she didn't know what that was. Awkward. Yeah. |
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| Gentle | Sep 4 2016, 07:13 AM Post #30 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Well, um, okay. He didn’t know a lot, at all. He could say that to Kitty Pryde, and right at the moment, maybe that was actually a thing she wanted. It wasn’t the wrong thing, at least, or probably not horribly wrong, since it didn’t seem to make anything worse. Though that was grading on a curve right now, given that she was lying on her back kind of stretched out as much as anyone could in the space provided by this bathroom-of-sorts. She hadn’t pulled her hand away from his though, and she was muttering something that mostly sounded like she was agreeing, even if it also seemed to be about beer stealing her IQ, which was probably a far more valid reason to not know what to say than any of Nezhno’s own right now. She hadn’t pulled her hand back though. Feeling a little encouraged by this - at least enough to not try to swallow his own tongue so he wouldn’t have to speak again and screw anything more up, the Wakandan continued. He didn’t know a lot, but he thought from what little he had picked up from what she’d said so far, that he’d identified one thing that he could say. He could at least not be sensible at her. And he could promise it, too. Not in English, but in a language where promises still felt like they meant something more. And… she shifted her hand. A sinking feeling had started closing, coldly, somewhere in the general vicinity of his kidneys, and he couldn’t bring himself to look down and see it, so it took a moment before Nezhno realized that the movement hadn’t actually been to pull away from him. From him and from what sounded like a stupid stupid thing to have said the moment he heard his own voice in his ears. No. It wasn’t actually that, was it? That was… surprising, but that was definitely still her hand, next to his. Closer, actually, like she’d curled her fingers around his a little. It was probably some kind of reflex, maybe from the beer. But that was okay, too. If it helped. ::Thank you,:: she replied in Wakandan too, sounding maybe a little happier than she had just before, or maybe that was just less embarrassed, but that would be a good thing too. So maybe he hadn’t completely messed that up, Nezhno thought, and that seemed to help his kidneys, or his liver, or whatever that cold feeling had been. A little, anyway. He’d just leave his fingers there, then. ::I still miss him. Logan,:: Nezhno flicked his eyes - well, not exactly toward the brunette girl on the floor beside him, truth be told, or not exactly to her face, but they did at least skim in that general direction for a moment, as he listened, and tried to think about how he could respond to that in a way it deserved. In Wakandan, the words weren’t quite the same as in English, in a way he’d never really thought he could be capable of explaining properly, even to the rest of the Dance. But… well, but it sounded like Kitty Pryde understood that, the way she’d used them. And what could he say to that? Only the honest truth, unfortunately, and back in English, because that actually did feel about right for the inadequacy of only being able to say that he couldn’t imagine what it would be like. To have a double of someone who you knew, who was gone, suddenly walk into your life. He’d never imagined that happening. He still couldn’t, really. Except just enough to think that… well, actually, the words that Kitty herself had used were possibly the ones that might fit here. The ones she’d used in the Palace, the very first day they’d met. Not very long ago, even if it had started to feel like it really, really was. It sucked, and it wasn’t fair. “Yeah,” Kitty agreed with a kinda sigh moving a little more while Nezhno froze where he was, too unsure of what she might want him to do to even offer to try to help her, let alone actually do it, like someone better, and smarter, and more equipped for this would probably have done. She’d kind of tugged on his fingers a little, hadn’t she? That might have been asking for help, or it might just have been a muscle twitch (that could be a side effect of the beer, possibly). He shifted his own a little more, so there was a little more room for her fingers to slide around his larger ones, but though that didn’t feel like it was enough, or like it was right, it was what he managed. But even without help, Kitty managed to get herself onto one side, so that she was closer to facing the direction of the toilet bowl than the ceiling. Or to his direction, but that was probably more coincidence that he was on that side of things too. She was looking at him now. Or at least… nearly. “It does. Suck. Even if he's exactly like the Logan I knew, he's still not the same. Which… probably doesn't make a lot of sense, huh?” Nezhno paused for a second or so before answering that. Whether or not Kitty Pryde really had had some fraction of her IQ points dissolved in beer, he was pretty sure she had plenty to spare, and he wanted to take the time to think about what she said - all of what she’d been saying, really - before he tried to respond. “I don’t know,” he said finally, which wasn’t really a great testament to his ability to think about this. “I think maybe I could see why that would suck more. Than if he wasn’t exactly the same, I mean. Um.” Gods, he really didn’t know what he was saying at all, did he? Even without beer. Temporarily embarrassed out of any more words, Nezhno fixed his gaze squarely on the wall opposite him, and tried to think about how to find a way to put words to an idea that was more of a vague feeling than an actual thought. “If it was… Indra,” he started again, squeezing Kitty’s fingers slightly without thinking about it, “or… my mother,” he added, part of his brain starting up in the back of his head to wonder again if it probably wasn’t a little weird that that had mostly been an afterthought, but trying to shove that away, because it was only getting him further from a point he’d only barely got a toehold on. “If it were me,” because that was the real point, wasn’t it? The vinyl tile-like pattern on the wall seemed to agree with him, and that was all Nezhno felt ready to risk looking at still, so he continued, “I think I might want them to be different. A little different, anyway. I think it would probably be easier that way. To. Um. Keep my head straight about them. Maybe.” He did manage to move his eyes away from the wall finally then, glancing back toward Kitty and kinda screwing his mouth up apologetically. Not helpful, probably. But definitely not sensible either, so maybe at the very least, he’d at least managed to keep his promise to her. |
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3:32 AM Jul 11