bittersweet first impressions [c]

Dusk’s shyness only made Nico giggle more. She was pulling her finger back for a second poke when he swatted it away and grabbed her wrist. Stunned, she could only blink at his hand on her person, unused to anyone putting hands on her. Carefully and curiously studying the art of his fingers banded around her tiny wrist, her ears were more focused on his words than before, though her mind was far from it. When she snapped back to reality, he was dragging her down the road and her eyes were on the stars as her heels skimmed against the asphalt.

“Bodies in your freezer…?” she mused aloud after a stretch of silence, then tilted her head backwards to stare at the young man pulling her along. “But…why would you do that? You’d have no room for ice cream…You see? That is a strange thing to say!”

Transgression forgotten, she was laughing again. Her new companion was funny! By the time he let her go again, she was on her feet and skipping along at his side. Literally—skipping. Locking her hands behind her back, she maneuvered in front of him and proceeded to skip backwards down the street. Her candy rattled loosely in her pockets, disguising the pills in her bag just as they had always done, but her feet made little sound on the pavement, as if she were more floating than actually touching the ground. With her hair flopping into her eyes, she puffed an occasional breath up at her bangs, but kept her gaze trained on Dusk with a soft, unassuming smile.

“You’re kinda grumpy, you know that? Why don’t you smile? I bet you smiled when you were a kid. What happened?”

Lots of things can steal a child’s smile, a small voice reminded her at the back of her mind, memories of a child who used to really smile instead of fake it flickering somewhere beyond the field of her vision.

“Define “crap”,” Nico circumvented with a grin. “I like sweets. Is that a crime?”

A soft rattle in a pocket of her bag reminded her that sugar was not the only thing she ate, but her dietary, ah, supplements were a secret Dusk did not need to know about. She supposed that if he wanted to know, no, she didn’t eat only sugar. Fruits and grains and dairy products were also an important part of a balanced meal, and according to Niels, she could wolf down a steak with the best of the males in the barracks—but who would carry a steak around in their pocket…? With a small huff, she shook her head quickly to clear it of distractions and focused on the ebony haired man before—behind, rather—her. He was interesting, and she wanted to know more about him.

“They help me stay awake. Say, though, that reminds me, what are—oh…”

By the time Nico had managed to bring her attention back to her current situation, it seemed that something had stolen Dusk away from it. His eyes had that glassy look that Niels said hers sometimes got, and she knew from experience that wherever he was, it was not a good place. The thought made her ache inside, and she fell into a soft hush; as if on cue, the cat ears atop her hood drooped in their flopping.

“Yeah, but…if you smile, then the neurons connected to the muscles fire in your brain and resemble the patterns your brain registers when you’re smiling because you’re happy, so if you smile more, you feel happier more because your brain thinks its smiling because it’s happy. So…you should smile more!”

His call of “almost there” had her turning her head to look where he had been pseudo leading her throughout the duration of their walk. Chewing gum and walking at the same time, she nearly fell flat on her face, but with grace and balance becoming of a ballerina, she managed to cartwheel into a standing position. Of course, the action might just have flashed a pair of pink and white lace panties in the direction of the present male company, but she seemed not to have noticed. Rather, her gaze was drawn up to the beautiful architecture of the structure to which she had been led. Even in the dim lighting and dilapidated condition of the building, she could see intensely detailed craftsmanship worked into the very bones of the ancient creature. Cracks snaked like vines up the old columns, and overhead, she could see the sinister silhouettes of gargoyles leering down at her, but there was a certain charm to the place. She liked it.

Something stirred in Nico when Dusk leaned over her to adjust the ears on her head. It made her stomach twitch strangely, and she fought not to pull away. The gesture itself was sweet, but very few people got this close to her without her initiating the contact, les the nature of the interaction change. All was well and fine for her to ignore the existence of personal space, but she was baffled when the gesture was reciprocated, or else overtaken by another entity. Moreover, Dusk didn’t seem to like her getting close, but he still grabbed her wrist to pull her around.

He really is strange, she thought. But the good kind of strange. Not the bodies in his freezer strange.

The notion would have made her giggle again if it wasn’t followed by the sensation of a hand gripped tightly around her wrist and a ringing in her ears au grâce to Dusk’s loud scolding. Not so much offended as bewildered, Nico only blinked at his outburst and followed along as he began to drag. She didn’t bother to argue—didn’t have an argument against a complaint she didn’t understand—nor to struggle. After seeing her show off in that alley, she had no qualms about his mistaking her lack of resistance for anything other than just that; not that she’d have cared either way. It was better, for everyone involved, if she stayed under the radar.

“Where do you sleep?” she began to inquire, only to note that he was already halfway up the stairs without her. “Ah! Wait for me!”

Scrambling to catch up, she bounced up the stairs in his wake with ease. The railing swayed dubiously when she touched it, and a few of the boards had a bit too much give in them, but the scaffolding held as she scampered up to the next landing. His silhouette was marching determinedly down the hall ahead of her, leaving her pressing her stride to not to have to run after his long legged form. A bright smile lit up her face while she trailed along, fascinated by the decaying interior of the structure and all of the secrets the musty carpets and oxidizing metals held. She was lifting her head to ask how old it all was, nearly running into an opening door in the process, when said door slammed in her face and left her stranded and alone in the middle of the hall.

Oh.

“…well that was rude…”

My name is Nico, she wanted to say—N I C O—but she didn’t. Losing her name took her back to a time when she was a rank, a number in the lines, made her think of the names she never knew carved on headstones she erected. It made her think of how she could have been one of those nameless names, how the girl Nicole Pérrit was just a mask she wore over a face she didn’t have. She wanted to remind him of her name, but she didn’t because it wasn’t quite her anymore and it would only bring trouble.

Swallowing her pride, she fingered the hood around her neck and turned away from the door. With a preference for higher vantage points, she shuffled off in search of another staircase. The questionable structural integrity of the hotel did not bother her, but if Dusk preferred she stay here, hen she wondered at the state of the building he had refused her. More than that, however, she wondered at the lack of living people in this place. For all the doors she had passed, she could sense nothing but emptiness behind any of them.

Does he live here all alone? How lonely…

After some time of wandering, she settled for a room on the third floor near to one of the outside walls. Two windows and a balcony, it was chilly inside, but she had a nice view of the night sky and a quick escape if she ever needed it. It was in remarkably good shape, as well, though the wallpaper peeled and the lights flickered. None of the windows were broken, and the queen sized bed had a full set of sheets and pillows strewn all across its spacious mattress. Fully furnished, she could almost imagine the regal affairs that might have taken place between these sheets, behind those dusty red curtains, reflected in those murky mirrors.

She sat down with a thump on the faded champagne comforter, the motion of which released a cloud of dust that made her cough. Wrinkling her nose, she sniffled back a sneeze and looked around the desolate chamber with watering eyes. The floors creaked ominously under her, wind rattling the loosely shuttered windows, and the entire place smelled like water and moss. That alone wouldn’t have bothered her, but as she laid back into her nest of musty pillows, her thoughts kept straying to the way the door slammed in her face and the whole empty feel to the hotel.

Even the building sighs with the wind, she thought with a sigh of her own.

Her mind made up, she rolled across the bed and shuffled through her belongings. At the moment, she had but one pair of pajamas, but they would suffice. Wriggling out of all her layers, she pulled on a pair of soft grey sweatpants and a plain white sweater with a wide neck that liked to rest at the crest of her shoulders. Without her hood and gaudy colors, she looked more her age, and the somber expression on her face kept the miracle afloat for just a little while longer. Before leaving, she grabbed one of the pillows off the bed, then scampered out into the hallway. She made hardly any sound in her bare feet, and was soon standing in front of Dusk’s door, hopping from one leg to the other before she settled down and rapped quietly against the wood.

“Dusk?” she chirped softly. “Are you asleep?”

Such a grouch…, she pouted.

“I’m twenty years old,” she protested, though with the way she whined she wasn’t making a very convincing argument “I haven’t had a bed time in years.”

The last time, to be specific, had been when she was in the military. Even then, that was merely a curfew at which she had to be shut up inside her room with all her neat little toys shut up in their boxes and her tools shut up in their neat little drawers. Just like her. She was nothing more, she thought, than a toy and a tool, and she didn’t even know who or what for or even if she really knew it.

Squirming uncomfortably, she sat down on the floor and hugged the pillow she carried to her chest. Her brows were drawn together in concentration, lips fighting a frown, as she pulled her knees forward to press the plush object into her body. She had used to be so happy…when did everything become something she had to hide—and from herself, most of all? Bedtimes, too…she hardly slept anymore, even when she was tired, so there was that. Why did everything feel so broken when it should have been fine?

Everything is fine, she chastised herself. A-O-Kay perfectly fine. Just want some company, that’s all.

“Can I come in?” she tried instead, attempting a hopeful smile as she pawed lightly at the door.

Seemed like mere months, indeed. That was a past too close to the present for comfort, and Nico pushed it impatiently to the back of her mind, digging her nails into the flesh of the cushion she clutched to her stomach. Instead of letting it catch up like the running beast it was and lay its heavy head over her heart, she placated it with a slight flush in her cheeks. Dusk was right, she supposed—she was a child, but for many reasons this was a god thing, wasn’t it? It meant returning to those days of childhood when the sun shone brighter and smiles were real and it didn’t hurt to think of things that weren’t real like your name or your face anymore. Ugh, this was depressing.

“Duuuuusk…” she whined, and gave another paw at the door. “Please let me in?”

She didn’t want to keep thinking this way. Didn’t want to spend another night alone in a musty room with nothing but the silence and the truth to burn at her skin like a disease the medication would only stave off instead of heal. Didn’t want didn’t want didn’t want…what she wanted was another body to snuggle up to, to let the comfort flow like the ambient warmth between them, no words, no thoughts. That wasn’t an impossible request, was it? Slumping forward, she let her forehead knock against the door and lay crumpled against the wooden paneling with an occasional whimper or utterance of a certain black haired boy’s name in a pleading tone.

Having been leaning face-first on the door, Nico all but fell into the room and onto his shoes when Dusk opened the portal. She sat up immediately, effervescent cerise eyes pricked for attention as they met with hard onyx staring her down from overhead. Already the hopeful smile from before was turning up the petal pink corners of her lips like a flower revived from winter’s thrall; if she had a tail, it probably would have been wagging. In lieu of such an appendage, her head bobbed obediently up and down until it was a miracle that she was able to sit still with her head spinning in the manner that it was.

“I promise!”

Before he had a chance to change his mind, she had squirmed her way past his ankles and into the room. It wasn’t much more decorated than her old room, nor much warmer by any standards, and in fact it was quite a bit dirtier, but she didn’t mind. She felt, instead, far more comfortable; the mountains of empty alcohol containers and the scents of sweat and blood and dirt, while not pleasant, made the place feel lived in. Everything felt warm. Not all too concerned with the room’s aesthetics, she plopped herself down in a mass of sheets and comforters in the corner without ceremony and, still hugging her pillow, looked up at Dusk from beneath her bangs.

“Thank you,” she said in a quiet voice.