#chatzy: animal crackers and pbr

[bountybossier]

animal crackers & pbr | mercy & nicodemus

Setting: A week or so after Mercy got her sight back. Summary: After she breaks into his home, Mercy and Nicodemus crack open a couple cold ones and have a much needed chat. Warnings: Brief death and emotional abuse mention. With: @cryxmercy

From a distance, the sounds of someone rummaging through the fridge weren’t all that strange. The dim yellow light illuminating the otherwise dark kitchen. Bottles clinking, cartons being shuffled around, plastic crinkling. The occasional mutterings about the variety of choices- or lack there of - for a late night snack. The fact that it was also well past midnight wasn’t even all that strange. What was strange was that the person doing the digging didn’t live there. Nor had she ever met the home’s occupants. Other than that one time. At the lake. Which hadn’t gone so great. Considering she’d died. Sort of. It was… complicated. To say the least.

But… she wasn’t dead. And now that her vision had finally returned, Mercy wanted to make sure the man that thought she was - the same man that thought he’d been the one to murder her, by proxy of being mind-controlled by a demon squid… - knew otherwise. So Mercy had tracked down one Nicodemus Bossier, followed him a time or two to find out where he lived - in a house under someone else’s name - and when the time was right, she let herself in (see: picked his locks) and made herself a snack while she waited on the hunter to realize she was there. Shouldn’t be long now, Mercy thought as she snagged two bottles of beer and set them on the counter next to an open bag of animal crackers she’d snagged from the cabinet (which she’d also gone through).

Hopping up on the counter herself, she popped the top off the bottles, set one aside for Nic - who would probably need a drink before this was all said and done - and took a long pull off her own. Legs swinging idly, she snagged an animal cracker - a lion - bit it’s head off, and chewed thoughtfully while she waited.

A pair of earbuds and an old music player called a Zune had become a cherished item lately for Nicodemus. Or maybe, as he checked the device, it was a Zune. Who fucking cared. After the unfortunate bullshittery at the lake, he listened to every sound and beat with an intensity not felt before. He had to snort. There wasn’t fuck all underneath his floorboards but it had crossed his mind once or twice to check it regardless. With a crackle of Creedence Clearwater Revival through his headphones, he set to work. He hadn’t reached for a knife. Instead, a small paintbrush as he squinted through a magnifying glass to paint a seal the right grey and black. As the song ended and before it transitioned to a new one, he paused. It wasn’t quite a ruckus that he heard through the seconds of silence but it was enough to stop him. It was work to slow his breath, his heartbeat, and listen.

Plastic rumpling, a bottle or two opening. The faint smell of beer. Last he checked, it wasn’t like Skylar to rifle through the beer he bought. He set the brush down and that time, he did reach for the knife. Took it in hand as he stood up and went to his bedroom door. Dundee stirred from beneath the table. When Nicodemus opened the door and passed through, the dog followed with. Fearless fuckin’ hunter already, he thought. Without hesitation, he went to the kitchen.

There was a goddamn ghost on his counter and she had opened his beer. Helped herself to his animal crackers while she was at it. Mercy looked better than he last saw her. In that she wasn’t dead in the lake with a fucking squid corpse behind her. He paused at the threshold between the living room and the kitchen.

“Weird fuckin’ way to haunt somebody,” Nicodemus said gruffly, voice held together on an edge. He glanced between her and the beer on the counter. If she had come to kill him, he hoped to hell it wasn’t with a goddamn PBR. “So, d’you phase through the front door or what?”

Mercy was reaching for another animal cracker - a bear this time - when Nic finally appeared in the doorway. She waited on him to say something, knowing that he was going to need time to process what she was about to tell him. The poor guy already had that deer in headlights look. If the person driving the car attached to those headlights was supposed to be dead. And it had been you (the aforementioned deer) that had done the killing.

In the past, Mercy had often taken a perverse sort of pleasure in situations like this. Scoping out her ‘murderer’ and scaring the shit out of them before getting some well-earned revenge. But this wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t the deers fault. It was the fucking squid-demon that had it’s psychic fuck-all tentacles all up close and personal with the deer’s brainstem. So. Mercy used one finger to slowly push the second bottle a bit further down the counter - a cold, frosty peace offering - before taking a long pull from her own. “I wasn’t jokin’ when I said you couldn’t kill me.”

She scraped her hair back from her face and shrugged - “Nah. I just picked your locks.” - before patting the countertop. “Have a seat, Nicky. We need to talk.”

“Apparent-fuckin-ly,” Nicodemus muttered. “What, only the good die young?” Even though she didn’t move to attack him or recreate Squid Night in the recently mopped kitchen, the apprehension didn’t waver. Funny how that went when someone broke into your house. The hunter had to stop and wonder just how pissed Death was getting. What with it being treated like a pitstop. A place to grab an energy bar and a shit drink before they got back on life’s highway. Except the snack of choice this time was animal crackers and beer. He wouldn’t argue.

The beer made its way into his hand.

“Nic works just fine,” he said as he leaned against the countertop. Close but not too close. “And yeah, reckon we do. Considerin’ I killed you an’ all. Or didn’t, I suppose.” His brow furrowed. Not that he was disappointed that she hadn’t died. That was the furthest thing he felt. He had met many creatures, beasts, over the years. Even undead. But last he checked, Mercy had been very much alive. “The hell’s that about?”

Mercy gave a rueful laugh around a sip of her beer. “Guess so. We’re both still here ain’t we?” If that were true, then that made Mercy the Samuel L. Jackson of White Crest: one bad motherfucker. Nic too, considering he had to be pushing forty. An age that many a hunter never saw. But Mercy didn’t worry how Death felt about the quick-stops she’d made over the years. They were old friends, the Fury and the Reaper. But damn if Mercy didn’t get tired sometimes. And this time in particular had taken it’s toll.

So she waited, lowering her bottle to roll it slowly between her hands as Nic took up his own. She made no move towards him, no move at all really, other than to look at him as he spoke. “I know what killed me, Nic. And it wasn’t you.” Mercy didn’t bother to say what it had been. That would’ve been insulting. Nic knew. How could he not? She’d already noticed the faded mark on the back of his hand. A mark that looked like just another old scar. And maybe it was. But Mercy didn’t believe in coincidence. Not in this instance. In this one, Nic knew because it had happened to him before. At least that was her assumption.

The question that followed was a given. And although Mercy had - strangely enough - been asked the same question - or variations of it - several times over the last few weeks, every person that had asked was different, and therefore required a different response. So she took a moment to consider things before speaking. The beer bottle started it’s slow roll between her hands again, a focal point while she explained.

“When I said you couldn’t kill me, that wasn’t me giving you shit, Nic. It was the truth. You can’t kill me.” Mercy shook her head. “No one can.” It was her turn to frown now, as the weight of all her years seemed to press down all at once. And it was a long moment before Mercy spoke again.

“Do you know what a Fury is?”

Nicodemus snorted and glanced away. Shook his head and squinted some. “Shit, got me on that one,” he said with a shrug as he turned the opened beer in his hands. As much shit had been happening, he hadn’t looked towards a bottle as much. He supposed he was too busy having friends all of a sudden. Yet another thing for him to wrap his head around. His. Not some fucking squids. He glanced at Mercy and then tilted his bottle toward her. “To still bein’ here, huh?”

It surprised him, really, how quick people were to tell him that what happened hadn’t been his fault. He was coming around to that idea. Raised on the idea of purging demons for a righteous cause, he had to laugh. Why wouldn’t Nicodemus get his brain hijacked by some sea demon squid? But hearing it from Mercy was different. It wasn’t a form of absolution but he wondered if maybe his head wouldn’t be as heavy when he finally went to sleep. “Yeah, still shitty all the same,” he grunted out. He took a harsh pull of his beer. “Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

He didn’t know Mercy much but he could tell. The hunt or battle weary had that look to them that he understood. “No one, huh?” He doubted that for some reason. Everybody and everything died. Saints and sinners alike. The hunter glanced over at her, his face pensive.

“Nah,” Nicodemus answered with a shake of his head. “Not really. Ain’t exactly my department. Just that they’re hard to kill.” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Apparently.”

Mercy glanced down at her own bottle as Nic looked away. The glass was cool beneath her fingers, slick with tiny beads of condensation. A tiny smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. “I still say fuck Billy Joel for makin’ that phrase popular. ‘Specially since it’s pretty much a song about wantin’ to bang his high-school crush.” She took a long pull of her beer. Unlike Nic, Mercy had been doing a fair bit of drinking lately. And had no plans to stop. Similarly, however, Mercy found herself with a few extra people on her side. Friends. People that actually gave a shit about what happened to her. Funny old world, ain’t it? Mercy thought to herself.

A softer expression replaced her smirk as Nic held his bottle out, and Mercy clinked their bottles together. “To still bein’ here.”

Nic might’ve done bad things in his life, just like Mercy certainly had, but that didn’t make him a truly bad person. Just as being a hunter didn’t make what had happened his fault. Mercy knew that. Even if she didn’t know Nic that well - or at all really - she’d seen the look in his eyes that night, before she’d gone under. She had felt the cold, clinical way he’d taken hold of her, not even flinching when she’d struck him repeatedly. She’d been the one that tore bloody half-moons into the skin of his arms as she tried to use what remained of her waning power to make him let go. She’d been the one that had seen the flicker of recognition, of terror, in his otherwise emotionless expression, just before the world went dark.

So, yes, Mercy would make it right. As best she could. No matter what anyone else thought.

She nodded at the apology, appreciating it regardless of the fact that she didn’t blame him. “Thank you.” The words were soft and sincere, with a small hint at the fact that Mercy wasn’t used to hearing such things often. But speaking of apologies: “I’m sorry for… tryin’ to break your jaw. And your ribs. And your arm.”

Mercy shook her head slowly, inhaling a long, slow breath and letting it out just as slowly. “No one,” she said, her tone unintentionally weary. “Not yet at least.” Though Nic (brainwashed Nic, that is) had come closer than anyone. But Mercy didn’t feel that was necessary to mention.

Nic’s comment on what he knew of Furies earned him a small huff of laughter. “Apparently,” she agreed. Another moment of silence followed, her laughter fading away as her frown returned. The mostly empty bottle rolled between her hands again. “But you’re not wrong. We can’t be killed.” Other than cutting off her head, or wasting away from a lack of feeding properly, but that wasn’t necessary information at the moment. “Cut my throat, I’ll heal while you watch. Manage to break one of my bones, a minute or two is all I need. Shoot me in the head, my body’ll push the bullet back out and I’ll wake up pissed off but good as new.” She glanced at him. “Perks of being immortal I guess.”

It surprised Nicodemus how...well Mercy seemed to be taking what happened. In a selfish, gut deep way, he supposed he needed that. Absolution wasn’t something he would ever ask for. If it happened, it happened. If it didn’t, he would die one day and it would be all the same anyway. The dirt and mud didn’t care for such things. “You a Billy Joel historian?” He snorted out a laugh and shook his head. Seconds ticked by on the clock over the stove and his shoulders eased.

He nodded at her as their bottles clinked and he took a slow sip. For someone he had tried to kill, Mercy was alright. Even if she had broken into his house and into his animal crackers. Compared to the last time they met, it wasn’t so bad. Or even out of place. Without much thought, Nicodemus relaxed some. Allowed the heavy, leaden weight of his bones finally settle rather than hold it up as he had been. A breath tinged with booze left him as he shifted and brought himself to sit up on the counter a little ways from her.

“I guess we sorta broke even on that one, huh?” Nicodemus crossed his ankles as he held the bottle slightly over his lap. It would be a waste of time to tell her that there was no apology necessary. They could say it and be done with it, move on to something else. It didn’t do well to linger and be haunted by things that weren’t there anymore. “All good here. We made it out alright in the end. River current goes on and shit.”

As he emptied his bottle, he set it beside him and folded his arms as he listened. How long she had been around, he couldn’t know, but he doubted that weariness changed over the decades. Centuries. Whatever it was. He could hear it, see it, as he glanced over at her. It was a slow process, but he was getting there. Suddenly able to look at her without the memory of water. It helped that she was alive, he thought with a grimace. He listened intently, forehead slightly creased as he processed.

“Well, for starters, I ain’t gonna cut your throat,” Nicodemus said with a long sigh. “Just had the floors waxed.” It wasn’t much of a smile but it was something that he offered her way. He shook his head and dipped it to look down at said floor. “God, I’m only fuckin’ forty, forty-one now. And I feel old as shit but then you’re over here…” He trailed off and picked his head up again. “How do you do it? Get by with this whole not dyin’ thing?”

It wasn’t the ‘dying’ - or the act of being ‘killed’ - that had truly affected Mercy. It sucked, sure. How could it not? What had truly affected her was the after. The cold, dark, lonely, terrifying limbo she’d been stuck in. For what seemed like an eternity. A place she’d never been before. Not in 1200 years. A place she never wanted to return to. “Among other things,” Mercy smirked lazily at the Billy Joel comment.

Their bottles clinked in the mostly silent kitchen, and for a moment afterwards they both fell silent. It would be hard for most people to understand how Mercy could be so… forgiving… of what Nic had done. But Mercy knew evil. She had looked it in the eye, felt it’s hot, stinking breath on her neck… smelled the rot and ruin of creatures without either soul or conscience, that didn’t care for anyone or anything; creatures whose only desire was to hurt, devour or destroy. So no. Nic wasn’t evil.

A small laugh worked it’s way past the lip of Mercy’s bottle as she took a drink. “Guess we did.” She turned her head to look him over, her eyes moving from his face to the rest of him and back. “Good.” She gave him a small nod. “And yes. It does.” Life went on too, whether they were ready or not.

He was quiet while Mercy explained as best she could. She didn’t rush. She didn’t push or prod. She didn’t ask if he wanted to hear more. Or less. She just said what needed saying, and then waited. It took time to process, she knew, even for someone like Nic who knew about supernaturals. Furies weren’t exactly a dime a dozen. His comment earned a snort and a similar smile shot his way. “Yeah, you’d never get that stain up. And then to carry an ass-kicking on top of it?” Mercy tutted and shook her head. “Not worth it.”

The next thing he asked was far more difficult to answer. Even if she’d done so a thousand times. It never got easier. Mercy’s beer bottle started its slow roll between her hands again. “The long answer is a story in itself. And I’ll tell you sometime, if you want.” Mercy paused, and her smile turned softer while her cheeks tinged slightly pink. “But the short answer?” She glanced at him, her expression completely serious even as she wondered if he’d laugh at her answer. Not that Mercy cared. It was the truth, after all. The only truth that mattered. The only truth that had ever mattered.

“Love.”

Some things stained more than blood. Nicodemus understood that and as he listened to Mercy, completely still save for the occasional nod or pull of his beer, he had a feeling she might as well. The hunter didn’t linger on the strangeness of what it meant to come to understanding with someone he had tried to kill. Because in truth, a truth he had come to accept slowly, was that it had not been him. It was a haunting he had allowed to go on for long enough. It wasn’t the water he would wallow in any further.

“Wouldn’t mind hearin’ that story one day.”

He never once anticipated that he would share stories of all things but he didn’t mind it. He reckoned her story was a bloody one and between the both of them, Nicodemus figured they might be able to do without blood for a little. For a sunset at least. Let the sky bleed for a bit. Have its turn. A dry smile followed after the thought like a lazy dog and went down just as easily. Her short answer prompted his brows to raise. Then furrow. Love? The word rolled around in his head as he shifted on the counter. Something akin to discomfort stretched its fingers over his shoulders. It occurred to him, in that single moment, how little that word ever occurred to him. It had occurred to him. Quietly. Recently, at that. He half-expected his head to start aching the way it always did but it didn’t.

Nicodemus had gotten as far as he had without such a thing. Farther than most hunters he had come and gone by. Outlived. Sometimes, he wondered if the absence of such a thing was what had dragged it out for him. Life.

“Huh,” was his response. He shook his head, relaxed the crease of his brow as he looked at Mercy. “Didn’t expect that one. How do you figure with that?”

It was a strange sensation to feel empathy towards someone who had tried - and technically succeeded - to kill you. Even more strange to feel a camaraderie of sorts. But as strange scenarios went, Mercy would rather be here, sitting on Nic’s counter, drinking his beer and biting the heads off his animal crackers, than a thousand other places she’d found herself over the centuries. She had an inkling that Nic might just feel the same way. That he understood what it meant to never truly leave something behind, no matter how far or fast you ran from it. Because some stains were too deep to ever fade completely. You learned to live with them. To cover them up, hide them away, as Mercy had tried to do. But every now and then, those stains seeped through even the strongest camouflage, and you were forced to look at them regardless of if you wanted to or not.

“Alright then.” They would make time at some point, and Mercy would tell him her story.

Part of her wondered about his own story. About the people and places that existed in his past, and what all he’d seen in his lifetime - short as it was compared to her own -  but now wasn’t the time to ask. Maybe later, once everything wasn’t so fresh on both their minds. They were both silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. What would it be like, Mercy wondered (not for the first time in her long life), to stop fighting? To stop chasing monsters, real or otherwise. What would it be like to finally find peace? To let the sky bleed for just a little while, as Nic wondered. Arthur had made it sound so easy when he’d told her maybe it was time to lay down her sword… to take off her armor and simply be Freyja again. But… who was Mercy without those things? It was a question she hadn’t been able to answer. Not yet anyway. But she was trying.

She idly watched Nic’s reaction to her one word answer. The way his brow rose in surprise and then fell back down as that surprise turned to something else. Something that made him shift slightly before he looked at her again.

Mercy grinned. “Does anyone?” But it softened after a moment, and she looked away, back to studying the bottle in her hands. “When I was human, I fell in love with my best friend. It was… complicated, but long story short, it turned out that he was like me: immortal. But not a Fury. He’d been born that way, whereas I’d chosen it. And as much as I despise the thought of our lives being planned out by Fate or… something else… how could that not be something that was meant to happen?”  

She was quiet for a moment. “About 70 odd years ago, Tolkien wrote: ‘I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.’ I remember reading that for the first time and thinking… that’s it.” The bottle spun slowly between her fingers. “That’s exactly what I’ve felt for almost 1200 years.”

Mercy wasn’t sure if that answered Nic’s question or not, but it was the best she had. Even if the words didn’t belong to her.

“So yeah. Love.” Mercy smiled, one side of her mouth lifting slightly. “Just don’t tell anyone, hm? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Nicodemus had never bothered to put much weight into notions of love. He had gotten as far as he had without it. Had cast it aside when he learned that love was shaped like a fist or the sharp-lined words of some distant god. And often the word was violence. It confused him when he slipped away at night, not yet thirteen, to watch television through the closest neighbor’s window a couple miles away. A family sat around a TV with their microwaved dinners while a group of kids went to look for some treasure in an abandoned pirate ship. It seemed to have been a favorite of theirs. A ritual of some kind. Different from the way he and his grandfather sharpened knives in silence. Tended to blood. But they had looked happy. The brother and sister play fought but made sure to check on one another to the tune of laughter when it was all said and done. They laughed the same as they helped each other through homework. The husband had his arm slung loosely across his wife’s hips as they watched, smiles in place. That, to him, had been what love was supposed to be. Confused and full of questions, he had gone back home. The morning had seen the floorboards of his room screwed in tighter. The next time he saw that family, the movie had changed and the wife was solemn. The kids even more so.

It took him a few years to understand what a smile was. A real one, not the kind of twist his face took when he got stressed. It was something Nicodemus had been doing a lot more of lately. Around Rio. Blanche. Skylar. Alain and Kaden, even, when the day’s hunt was behind them. Adam too. Around Erin and like that, the thought of her, of them, had the corners of his mouth lifting by a fraction. Softly. He didn’t fight against it. As Mercy spoke of fate, he remained quiet. Fate would have seen him back in Louisiana, faceless and soulless, if it had its ways. He supposed it might thread through others differently. A puff of air left his nose at the mention of Tolkien.

“‘Spose some writers get things right every once in awhile,” Nicodemus said with a slight tilt of his head. “That was one of the, uh, first things I read when I left home and could get my hands on my own readin’. Didn’t know much about it, thought it looked like somethin’ interesting.” He offered the information freely as he adjusted himself again. “Never thought much of that whole love thing. Thought it was bullshit. The kinda thing bought and paid for, blood or otherwise.” His tone was neutral as he spoke. He quickly downed his beer and cleared his throat. Thought of quiet Sunday mornings and more than one chair at the table being filled.

“Don’t suppose that’s the case much anymore.”

His smile, small and faint, tried to match Mercy’s.

“Right, your reputation,” Nicodemus said with a rough and quiet laugh. “Sure, your secret’s safe with me. I’ll take it to the grave.”

“Spose they do.” Her smile remained, small but genuine, as Nic gave her a small fact about himself. And Mercy tucked it away, knowing he didn’t have to tell her anything about himself personally, but pleased that he had. 

What followed wasn’t nearly as pleasant to think about, but Mercy suspected Nic had far more memories of this type than the former. Gods knew she did. She hummed quietly. “There’s another name for that,” Mercy said, her tone somber. “And it ain’t love.” Though it seemed that Nic knew that just as well as Mercy did. And for that, she felt grateful. Because somewhere along the way, the world (or someone in it more likely) had chosen to be kind to him. Maybe not for long, and maybe not recently, but it had happened. 

So Mercy’s faint smile returned, and her own quiet laughter joined Nic’s. And for just a little while, all was well.