Nick Miller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
turtleface) wrote2013-02-13 05:22 pm
turtleface) wrote2013-02-13 05:22 pm
(no subject)
Nick Miller was never good with being cornered.
Almost everyone outside chanting knew that about him. Jess, by now, knew that about him. And yet there he was, with everyone insisting on him doing something that he really did not want to do, for reasons he had no inclination to think hard about. Thinking too deeply about things, after all, was also firmly in the things he avoided at all costs. Keep it simple. Old Nick liked it that way, and the coat could really only pull him so far away from that.
The coat was amazing, but not that amazing.
"Okay, let's just do this already. Just kiss me," Jess said, now getting a lot more demanding and impatient. It was the kind of tone that made him want to shrink away from this even more.
"No, I'm not going to kiss you," he insisted. Stand his ground, that's something Trench-coat Nick would do. He liked that. Now if he could just ignore the twisting in his stomach that came with the idea of their first kiss being forced and awkward, he'd be set here.
"Kiss me!" she shot back, and he was all too familiar with the look he was receiving. It was a look she only got when she wasn't going to stop pushing, and she had to. She absolutely had to.
"Jess, stop," he said, and it came out more pleading than he meant it to. How weird it all felt was enough to mess with him, and he didn't like it. In fact, it was the kind of thing he would've retreated from a long time ago, except he was stuck here and she was not budging even an inch.
"God, Miller, just kiss me already!"
She wasn't going to stop. It was as infuriating as it was serving a reminder of exactly why he was so against this. With all of his usual available options to escape the situation, it was really only a matter of time before he did something incredibly stupid. He didn't actually consciously think about what that might be until it slipped out of his mouth.
"No, not like this."
It took him a beat or two to realize that a, he had been thinking that at all (and he had been, apparently, the phrase repeating over and over in the back of his head, just quiet enough for him to completely ignore it) and b, he had said it out loud. Actually, b wasn't even a thing until he realized the 'I am going to be a pain in your ass' look was gone and replaced by something else.
Something more terrifying. Something that showed she had rewound what he had just said and was digesting it and probably making it into something that it wasn't. Or was. He didn't know, and he sure as hell didn't want to know. He cleared his throat, but the lump that was quickly forming in his throat wouldn't go away.
"Th - that -" he stammered, feeling the panic start setting in. No, he was not having this conversation here or ever and wow, when did it get so suffocatingly warm around them?
"What? What does that mean?" she prompted. Of course she wasn't going to let it go. He had no idea why he'd briefly hoped she'd just drop it.
"No, I didn't -" he continued, trying desperately to come up with something on the fly to explain himself. It wasn't helping she was still giving him the look and he wished she'd stop. It also wasn't helping the alcohol he'd drank was more than enough to make him fuzzy-headed to begin with. "- That - nothing! I just, I didn't mean it like - I just, we can't like that because, that's not - do you know like - It's very like, you don't, that's not what I..."
Digging himself into a deeper hole. Every word he was saying was making it worst. Every word he was saying made him realize everything he was saying was complete bullshit, and that only served to freak him out more. Outside, he could hear the faint chanting continue, and it was in that moment he saw only one option in front of him.
Literally in front of him. The door was shut tight, sure, but the window? No one could stop him from going out the window. It was insane, he knew it was insane, but there was only two options and one of them was something he refused to think about. There was only so far you could push him before he snapped, and there was definite snapping going on.
"If you'll excuse me," he said, brushing past her with the stride of a man on a crazy, crazy mission. He could heard Jess protesting behind him, and he could even hear himself replying, though all he could focus on at that point was freedom. If freedom meant a window ledge, so be it. Putting aside the melon head version of himself, he got to work without a second thought.
"Okay, this makes sense," he said more to himself than anyone else, and he swore he almost laughed as he unlatched the window and started to step outside. It would totally be fine, absolutely fine, even as he had to unsteadily lean over to fit out through it and step out onto the ledge.
He was completely fine.
It was exactly what he needed, air. Beautiful, wonderful air, which he really hadn't been getting a few seconds ago.
The good feeling lasted all of maybe five seconds, with everything that had been causing him stress far away. Then he looked down, and remembered just how high a couple stories up actually was. Pretty high, terrifyingly high, as it turned out. His legs felt like jelly for a whole new reason as he turned around and pressed his body against the glass instead. shuffling along the edge toward the other window.
"Help! Help me!" he yelled as loud as humanly possible as he kept shuffling over. The chanting came to a quick halt. He couldn't really see inside, so he kept yelling, "I made a very bad mistake! Somebody open this window!"
The yelling that replaced the chanting was enough of an indication he got their attention. He had no idea who swung the window open, but he didn't care. What he cared about was getting inside, and he unsteadily shuffled (which, for the record? A whole lot harder when he was only in his socks) close enough to grasp the edge, pulling himself inside. He only opened his eyes when his feet were firmly on the not-ledge ground.
Except when he opened his eyes, everyone was gone.
And the apartment was gone, because the room he was in was definitely not anything in their apartment.
And it was suddenly really, really dark.
And there was something rubbing against his legs.
That last one was the first thing that snapped him out of his shock. His reaction was immediately to jump away, which only served to make him stumble into something and fall backwards, landing hard on his ass. He heard something scamper away from him as he looked around, trying to spot anything familiar. Even in the dark, he could tell he wasn't going to be successful in that.
Did he somehow enter a neighbor's place? No, that was stupid. Did he finally get thrown off the deep end and was hallucinating? It was worrying how possible that might be, given the circumstances.
"Hello?" he finally called out, trying not to sound freaked out. He absolutely sounded freaked out.
Almost everyone outside chanting knew that about him. Jess, by now, knew that about him. And yet there he was, with everyone insisting on him doing something that he really did not want to do, for reasons he had no inclination to think hard about. Thinking too deeply about things, after all, was also firmly in the things he avoided at all costs. Keep it simple. Old Nick liked it that way, and the coat could really only pull him so far away from that.
The coat was amazing, but not that amazing.
"Okay, let's just do this already. Just kiss me," Jess said, now getting a lot more demanding and impatient. It was the kind of tone that made him want to shrink away from this even more.
"No, I'm not going to kiss you," he insisted. Stand his ground, that's something Trench-coat Nick would do. He liked that. Now if he could just ignore the twisting in his stomach that came with the idea of their first kiss being forced and awkward, he'd be set here.
"Kiss me!" she shot back, and he was all too familiar with the look he was receiving. It was a look she only got when she wasn't going to stop pushing, and she had to. She absolutely had to.
"Jess, stop," he said, and it came out more pleading than he meant it to. How weird it all felt was enough to mess with him, and he didn't like it. In fact, it was the kind of thing he would've retreated from a long time ago, except he was stuck here and she was not budging even an inch.
"God, Miller, just kiss me already!"
She wasn't going to stop. It was as infuriating as it was serving a reminder of exactly why he was so against this. With all of his usual available options to escape the situation, it was really only a matter of time before he did something incredibly stupid. He didn't actually consciously think about what that might be until it slipped out of his mouth.
"No, not like this."
It took him a beat or two to realize that a, he had been thinking that at all (and he had been, apparently, the phrase repeating over and over in the back of his head, just quiet enough for him to completely ignore it) and b, he had said it out loud. Actually, b wasn't even a thing until he realized the 'I am going to be a pain in your ass' look was gone and replaced by something else.
Something more terrifying. Something that showed she had rewound what he had just said and was digesting it and probably making it into something that it wasn't. Or was. He didn't know, and he sure as hell didn't want to know. He cleared his throat, but the lump that was quickly forming in his throat wouldn't go away.
"Th - that -" he stammered, feeling the panic start setting in. No, he was not having this conversation here or ever and wow, when did it get so suffocatingly warm around them?
"What? What does that mean?" she prompted. Of course she wasn't going to let it go. He had no idea why he'd briefly hoped she'd just drop it.
"No, I didn't -" he continued, trying desperately to come up with something on the fly to explain himself. It wasn't helping she was still giving him the look and he wished she'd stop. It also wasn't helping the alcohol he'd drank was more than enough to make him fuzzy-headed to begin with. "- That - nothing! I just, I didn't mean it like - I just, we can't like that because, that's not - do you know like - It's very like, you don't, that's not what I..."
Digging himself into a deeper hole. Every word he was saying was making it worst. Every word he was saying made him realize everything he was saying was complete bullshit, and that only served to freak him out more. Outside, he could hear the faint chanting continue, and it was in that moment he saw only one option in front of him.
Literally in front of him. The door was shut tight, sure, but the window? No one could stop him from going out the window. It was insane, he knew it was insane, but there was only two options and one of them was something he refused to think about. There was only so far you could push him before he snapped, and there was definite snapping going on.
"If you'll excuse me," he said, brushing past her with the stride of a man on a crazy, crazy mission. He could heard Jess protesting behind him, and he could even hear himself replying, though all he could focus on at that point was freedom. If freedom meant a window ledge, so be it. Putting aside the melon head version of himself, he got to work without a second thought.
"Okay, this makes sense," he said more to himself than anyone else, and he swore he almost laughed as he unlatched the window and started to step outside. It would totally be fine, absolutely fine, even as he had to unsteadily lean over to fit out through it and step out onto the ledge.
He was completely fine.
It was exactly what he needed, air. Beautiful, wonderful air, which he really hadn't been getting a few seconds ago.
The good feeling lasted all of maybe five seconds, with everything that had been causing him stress far away. Then he looked down, and remembered just how high a couple stories up actually was. Pretty high, terrifyingly high, as it turned out. His legs felt like jelly for a whole new reason as he turned around and pressed his body against the glass instead. shuffling along the edge toward the other window.
"Help! Help me!" he yelled as loud as humanly possible as he kept shuffling over. The chanting came to a quick halt. He couldn't really see inside, so he kept yelling, "I made a very bad mistake! Somebody open this window!"
The yelling that replaced the chanting was enough of an indication he got their attention. He had no idea who swung the window open, but he didn't care. What he cared about was getting inside, and he unsteadily shuffled (which, for the record? A whole lot harder when he was only in his socks) close enough to grasp the edge, pulling himself inside. He only opened his eyes when his feet were firmly on the not-ledge ground.
Except when he opened his eyes, everyone was gone.
And the apartment was gone, because the room he was in was definitely not anything in their apartment.
And it was suddenly really, really dark.
And there was something rubbing against his legs.
That last one was the first thing that snapped him out of his shock. His reaction was immediately to jump away, which only served to make him stumble into something and fall backwards, landing hard on his ass. He heard something scamper away from him as he looked around, trying to spot anything familiar. Even in the dark, he could tell he wasn't going to be successful in that.
Did he somehow enter a neighbor's place? No, that was stupid. Did he finally get thrown off the deep end and was hallucinating? It was worrying how possible that might be, given the circumstances.
"Hello?" he finally called out, trying not to sound freaked out. He absolutely sounded freaked out.
no subject
For a magical city that may as well be Narnia or Oz, it really sucks.
Except Oz had evil flying monkeys, so at least this place has that going for it.
Now, at least, she's trying to sleep. Except there's a kitty butt in her face, and another one is yowling at the window because apparently admitting that she's lonely to a fortune teller means she wants to turn into a crazy cat lady. One adorable cat when she arrived home-- Catrick Swayzee, who only wants to dance-- quickly turned into ten, then fifteen, and before Jess knew it, there were twenty-five taking up residence in her apartment, and she can't get rid of them no matter what she does.
She's been Big'd. Jess has totally been Big'd.
She finally gives up and is about to turn on all the lights and start threatening all the cats with a broom again when there's a sound from the other room that sounds an awful lot like an actual voice. And unless Lady Kittyface Daintypaws has learned human speech, then there's someone in her apartment.
For a second, she debates calling the cops, until she realizes her phone's on the counter in the kitchen, having been abandoned there earlier after one of the cats decided that the counter belonged to him and she wasn't allowed anywhere near it.
This is her life now.
It takes her a few moments to get psyched up for it, and to forget the fact that she might end up shot or robbed or with cat scratch fever in the process-- is that even a thing?-- but eventually she hops out of bed in her matching pajama set and goes into the den gung-ho and ready to take no prisoners.
She can do this. She's tough. She knows no fear. She's like Rambo. She's Jessbo.
"Hey! Whoever you are, this is my apartment, and you're trespassing! I'm armed!" Jess shouts, clearing her throat when her voice quivers a little bit. She turns on the light, taking a giant step backwards as she brandishes the broom like a giant wooden sword.
"...Nick?"
no subject
He was just about to stand up and try to find a way to just leave when he heard a rush of footsteps followed by the room suddenly lighting up. He'd been in the dark long enough that the sudden, abrupt shift was actually blinding, and all he could really see was someone was definitely there and they definitely had something aimed at his head.
"Woah, woah, woah, no! I'm not a burglar, I'm not a burglar! Please don't kill me!" he exclaimed, his arms flying up to protect his head on instinct. It took him a moment to realize his head wasn't getting bashed in, and then another to recognize he both knew the screeching, panicked voice and the voice said his name.
Even so, lowering his arms was done warily, until his sight was actually focused enough that he could see who was standing in front of him. Even then, he couldn't quite believe it. He exhaled the breath he'd been holding, sitting up a little. He was probably dirtying his coat, but standing wasn't an option just yet.
"Jess?" he asked. He sounded baffled at that point, and for good reason. She had apparently, in the time between him leaving out the window and ending up here, changed out of her clothes. In someone else's apartment. Did he black out or something? Because he was running out of plausible explanations. But, more importantly - "You were going to hit me with a broom? What the hell?"
He might've had a minor freak-out for a second there and probably scared her (and everyone else, even though they suddenly weren't around along with their apartment), but he didn't think he deserved that.
no subject
Jess gives it less than five minutes before the floor looked like someone has installed the tackiest moving carpet known to man.
Still, it's someone she knows, and she's been alone in an unfamiliar city for over a week now. And she'd been convinced that Nick was dead: murdered in Edgar's weird murder garage for his eyes, or for her eyes... something having to do with large creepy eyes. Jess knows that Nick is a grump and claims to not be a hugger-- Jess doesn't understand how anyone can just not be a hugger-- but she drops the broom and is about to go in for the hug.
That is, until one of said cats on the floor, Chairman Meow, who's kind of a bitch, looks right at Jess and hisses, and Jess just knows she's going to end up with her face half clawed off if she goes for it.
"Okay! Okay! No hugs!" she says, holding her hands up and taking a step back to where she was before. She looks up at Nick and frowns a little.
"Why are you wearing a ladies coat?"
no subject
He was about to ask more when he noticed there were multiple pairs of beady eyes on him. Looking around now that there was light, he realized only then what must have brushed up against his leg earlier and scared the shit out of him. The sheer amount was enough to distract him from even seeing her about to hug him. He didn't even notice she'd been about to hug him, it was hard not to be distracted.
The one hissing was probably the one he almost stepped on, though.
"Are those - what are - there are cats everywhere," he stated (the very obvious) with a sort of slack-jawed expression. He wasn't going to lie, at that point here was that brief thought in his head that he really went crazy. Or maybe he had fallen and died and this was his hell, stuck with the reason he went out the window in the first place and cats swarming the place.
She didn't make things any clearer by asking something she absolutely knew already. He shot her a weird look as it dawned on him that she wasn't really freaking out at him for what he did either yet. "...Did you hit your head or something?"
no subject
Not the no pants part, obviously. That's largely inappropriate for ages five and under.
Jess crosses her arms and frowns a little more.
"How long have you been here?" she adds, really hoping that it hasn't been a long time, because she'll be really pissed off if he's left her alone through her birthday and Valentine's Day. Not that she wanted Nick Miller to do anything with her or for her for Valentine's Day, but maybe they could have decorated something. Painted hearts and made cookies, instead of what she actually did, which was buy and clean ten litter boxes at four in the morning.
no subject
She was acting weirder than usual. She also very noticeably answered exactly zero of his questions, which okay, he wasn't entirely surprised at, admittedly. It just also didn't change the fact there was a cat attempting to use his leg as a scratching post and he had no idea why it was even there. Nudging it away with his socked foot, he tried not to look really, really frustrated. At least she wasn't bringing up what happened directly before now.
(He still looked really frustrated.)
"Five minutes?" he guessed. He had no idea. He was still wondering if he somehow blacked out and gave her time to amass cats and put on an entirely different outfit. Schmidt was going to have a fit if she tried to bring these into their apartment. "You should know more than me."
no subject
The lack of pants probably wasn't the best idea around all the cats. Not when Jess knew that at least four of them were little jerks.
"And when I say 'here,' I mean this city, not this apartment. Because this isn't Los Angeles. And if that's news to you, then buckle your ears in, Nicholas, because I'm about to take them for a ride. And it's a carnival ride, so it's run by carnies and that means it's super dangerous."
no subject
Considering how downhill things were going at this point, it was a damn blessing.
He was about to point out the other features when she started talking again, and for a long moment he just stared blankly at her. What else could he do, she was talking crazy at this point. Not just crazy for her, but crazy in general. And that's pretty crazy. He was a little worried about her right now.
"Jess, you're not making any sense here," he said at length. And he was thinking that even before she started talking about carnies (who, he agreed, were definitely dangerous, but that was besides the point right now). "At all. What do you mean, we're not in Los Angeles?"
He shuffled a lot, but he didn't go off the building and into another city. Sure, he still had no idea where he was, but that didn't mean he was going to believe he was somewhere completely different. Actually, right now he was starting to wonder if maybe he was dreaming or something - again, not really out of the realm of insane possibilities.
no subject
She gestures to all the cats in the room with a dramatic flourish, not unlike something a magician's assistant might do. The cats, of course, don't take much notice, and continue to investigate Nick as best they can.
And besides the not leaving and the hypothetical vampires, there's also a fortune teller machine that Jess suspects is kind of a jerk.
"And yes, I have seen the pockets. They're perfect for hiding tampons in, in case of emergency."
no subject
That panic that sort of subsided from the shock of ending up in this place was quickly coming back.
"Okay, let's say I believe you. You're acting like you've been here for a while. I just saw you," he said, eyeing one of the closer cats. He was pretty sure it was planning something and he didn't like it. "I mean, I'm talking not even five minutes ago."
It was dangerous bringing that up, but at least he had the time while his life flashed before his eyes on that ledge to come up with a plausible response to what he said. Even her crazy explanation wasn't adding up, and that was a problem.
no subject
"And I sound like I've been here for a while because I have been here a while, Nick," she says, and it sinks in again for her, just how lonely she's been, stuck in Darrow all by herself. Even moving from Portland to Los Angeles, there was Cece. This time, there was nobody at all.
"I've been here over a week. By myself. And I thought you were dead."
no subject
Though, speaking of time -
"Wait, what?" he asked, raising a brow. He could say what the last thing he remembered, but he wasn't an idiot. Instead, he tried to pry without looking interested, which probably just made him look even more suspicious. "Jess, what exactly is the last thing you remember?"
no subject
Well, except for Twenty-four and Twenty-five, who hadn't gotten named until Jess had gotten tired of coming up with them.
"And the last time I saw you, we were in Edgar's weird murder garage and I think he was about to kill you. Or his mom was about to kill you. Or possibly, there was going to be some kind of weird tag-team murder scenario going on... either way, it wasn't pretty. I got pepper sprayed, and suddenly I was here."
no subject
At least not in a week.
But that discussion would have to wait a second. He had thought she was being weirdly calm about what happened, and suddenly he was beginning to see why. It made no sense, since she definitely just didn't disappear after that, but it did explain things. "You're being serious with me right now. That's the last thing you remember?"
no subject
For a while, they'd been kind of adorable. Jess had taken at least a dozen pictures of each of them on her cell phone while she was naming them and coming up with cat backstories. But that was before they'd started pooping.
Poop changes a lot of things. Like adorableness.
"And yes, I'm being serious with you right now. Why? Should it not be the last thing I remember? Because I definitely don't remember your girl coat."
no subject
"Will you stop calling it that?" he asked with an irritated sigh. "It's just weird. That happened already. We got out and it turned out he wasn't crazy, just really weird. And that also wasn't his mother, by the way."
He made a face bringing that up.
"And you were there after all that," he continued. "So I have no idea how you could be here and there at the same time."
The idea of two of her existing, for the record? A little terrifying.
no subject
No one should ever be named Bruce.
"And no, I wasn't there. I was here. It's weird and I don't really know how it works, but I've been stuck here ever since the murder garage. There's something weird about the way time works here, which isn't something I ever thought I'd get to say. For the record, it's not as cool as I thought it'd be."
no subject
What couldn't wait was what she was saying, and unsurprisingly it still didn't make any sense. But he could keep arguing with her or he could just go along with it, and he was to the point where he was tired enough to just go with it. That he still had a bit of an alcoholic haze going from their game of True American also didn't help him want to keep arguing. Also, he was pretty sure the more he heard, the more he was going to get dangerously close to starting to really freak out.
He'd probably do that later, anyway.
"I'm not going to understand any of this, so I am going to stop asking questions. Wait, except one. What now? I don't even have pants," he stated the obvious, motioning to himself. Of all the problems he imagined having that night, the fact he was almost naked hadn't been one of them.
no subject
Unless he was with a lady when he'd ended up in Darrow.
"You weren't... before you got here, you weren't with a..." Jess stops, really not wanting to imagine it or even ask, "I mean, there's an underwear buffer between your little Nick and your lady coat, right?" She points in the vague direction of what she's talking about, hoping she doesn't have to elaborate more.
no subject
"We were all playing a slightly altered game of True American. And then I ended up here," he continued, shrugging to show just how not a big deal it was. Because it wasn't. He said something stupid and hey, now he had a chance for her to never know about it. "Surrounded by your cats."
no subject
"You played True American without me! Not cool, Nick!"
no subject