What Comes Before

[Oriena]

Oriena raised a brow in consideration of that answer and all it implied, but said nothing. Perhaps the vodka failed to take the edge off, but she rather fancied chasing some oblivion right now, so she kept on drinking it. Rafael had a look like pity on his face, or worse yet, concern. It worked a perfect charm on Kallisti’s clients, but she was less enamoured of being the recipient herself.

“Are you in trouble, Oriena?” The hand not holding Nox’s rubbed at his own neck, over and over those thick scars. She gave him a dour look, but presently it shuttered itself up into a less affected smirk, one that challenged the necessity of that question and brushed it coyly off. She wasn’t here to bleed her heart. Carmen instilled some grandeur of family at the club, but Ori would burn the place to the ground if it suited her. Rafael was foolish to care, but maybe it was only debt. She’d saved his life, she supposed. After a fashion anyway, the night she called in a favour of Ilya and his girls. That particular kindness was still making her bleed its repayment.

She toyed with the neck of the vodka bottle. Truthfully she’d expected Nox to put up more of a resistance to spilling out his secrets, and she’d been prepared to cross lines to get what she wanted from him. It was worth remembering that Rafael apparently made him more palatable company.

“Making your own deals with devils, I take it,” she said. A tilt of her chin indicated the arm. “You definitely couldn’t afford tech like that the last time I saw you.” She didn’t ask what the fuck had happened to the arm he’d also had the last time she saw him, and he was quite right to assume she didn’t care. “So who am I looking for?”

[Nox]

Raffe spoke twice now and Oriena ignored him. It was starting to irk Nox. "That's twice you've ignored Raffe. I'm getting the feeling you don't want to answer his questions." Nox sighed. He didn't have any leverage and he didn't really care either way about what Oriena would do with the information. "If I cared what you did with the information I was offering you I'd probably make a bigger deal of it. But I don't care if you hunt the man down and hill him. He has tried to kill The Ascendancy twice, he would kill Aria or myself if he had the chance knowing that we had the chance once upon a time to take down the most powerful man in the world." Among other things he'd kill Nox for. "I didn't make a deal with the Ascendancy so much as agree to work for him, as if you care anyway."

Nox nodded upstairs. "I have a copy of of the files upstairs. The man's name in Armande Nicodemus. He is the former head of the National Historical Society of the Vatican, former Regus of the Atharim. And formerly dead. The information confirms he's alive, and his last locations and the people he was with when he disappeared. And I'm making no deal with you for the information Oriena. I have no need of it. And the man dead suits me just fine." The darkness dwelled on the thrill of the possible hunt. But Nox pushed it away. He didn't want the Regus -- he didn't care about him.

[Oriena]

She rolled her eyes. “Look at you being all chivalrous. So fucking touchy.”

Nox liked the sound of his own voice, and Oriena let him talk; just picked out the things she needed from the rest of the verbal shit. The name imparted twisted somewhere deep, and maybe her expression flickered with it, but if so the emotion wasn’t hers.

“I’ll wait here while you go and get it, then,” she said. Nox stressed the magnanimity of his offering the information for free, but it wasn’t the way this worked. For a moment her stormy gaze contemplated him, like the coin tossed random in her head as to whether she saw co-conspirator or victim. Then her attention turned to Rafael, and she finally addressed him. “And since your boyfriend is so keen for us to talk, you can keep me company in the meantime.”

[Nox]

Nox was begining to wonder if their proprietor was every a nice person. She was grumpy when they first met but she only seemed to get worse. And leaving Raffe with her felt wrong. But he looked at the man sitting next to him. He knew Oriena. He knew her better, he didn't need Nox's protection. But there was a stab of guilt -- what ifs playing through his head.

But Nox wasn't going to be able to protect Raffe from anything -- he didn't need it. Nor did he particularly want it. Nox had gotten the feeling but he still couldn't help himself. With a reluctant sigh, Nox squeezed Raffe's hand and stood up. "Won't take long."

Well he didn't really know how long the transfer would take. When he made the copy for the Ascendancy he'd started the transfer and walked away from the computer to do more important things. Now he had to wait.

Nox took the back stairs two at a time. He wasn't in a rush -- yes he was. He lied to himself. There was nothing to worry about, yet everything horrible coursed through his mind. Nox waited for the tell tale signs of a female channeling as he sat down at the computer and pulled out another stick to save the information to, including the software required to view the files Sage had gathered. He enjoyed Aurora's work enough that he made stand alone versions of the information in a holographic view easy to view, sort and move things around for the users best experience. But it was still the information that Oriena was looking for.

The information moved from slowly from the computer to the stick and Nox rocked impatiently back and forth in the chair hoping to high fucking hells that Raffe would be alright with their boss.

[Oriena]

Her eyes trailed up alongside Nox as he stood. Slowly. A smirk hovered for the uncertainty he showed at leaving her alone with Rafael, a flash of dark challenge in her expression for the hesitancy in his. The moment she heard the thud of his feet against the stairs, she laughed, running her finger idle around the lip of the bottle.

“You’re winding him up on purpose,” Rafael said. His arms were folded now, and he rested back in his seat. The golden curls on his head were tousled like he’d run a frustrated hand through them, and a frown tugged his lips, but there was still that concern pushing his brows together.

Ori tipped her shoulder into a negligent shrug. “He makes it too easy.”

Rafael sighed, and glanced at the stairs.

She suspected he would try to coddle the feelings from her now, and she didn’t want to hear it. So she didn’t give him the chance. Oriena swiveled around in her seat, set the vodka bottle aside, and folded her arms on the table. Dark hair curled down her shoulders like smoke. The look she gave him was a lascivious tease, but if it was a flirtation, it was belied by the thing she said next. “The last time I saw Kasun, Ilya had him. He fought in the ring. A crooked cop called Sarkozy nearly killed him.”

Rafael blinked, surprised. But so far as Oriena was concerned, a favour deserved a favour. At least when it suited her. And there was a reason she imparted the information to Rafael, and not to Nox.

“He’s bad news, you know. The Syndicate want him dead. Yun Kao herself. Among others, I’m sure.”

[Nox]

Nox couldn't will the thing to load faster. He moved from rocking in the seat to pacing his small room. It was only a few steps one way, then turn and the other way. He stopped at one end to rub at the arm and realized he could take it off. The pressure released and the arm came away and Nox felt the relief of not wearing it. Maybe he'd get used to it. Maybe he wouldn't but he wouldn't know until he tried. He rubbed at the fully healed stump in amazement. He set the arm on top of his bags. He'd have to start locking the door at night. Something like that could easily draw a burglar or two. Not that he thought that anyone at Kallisti would rob him, but not everyone was so who they claimed to be, himself included.

The laptop finally dinged the conclusion of the transfer and Nox snatch out the drive and headed down stairs -- locking his door behind him. His keep tucked into his jeans pocket. Something he had never bothered carrying before.

Downstairs Oriena and Raffe were talking and Nox hated to interrupt but his gut was in knots. Nox walked out and placed the drive on the table while returning to his chair so as not to offend Oriena anymore than necessary. "All the information I have on who has the tablet and order the Ijiraq to kill the Ascendancy."

[Raffe]

Sometimes dealing with Oriena was like dealing with arsenic. The more you tried to handle her, the deeper the poison sank. But sometimes she also protested too voraciously as to the empty cavity in her chest, like she wanted the recoil. Ilya’s girls ruined his voice with their healing, but without them he knew he’d have died. Oriena called in that favour. She didn’t have to. Asked if she ever would, he was sure she’d shrug the question off, or sneer at the suggestion she gave a shit. But when it came to it, when it really came to it, she made the choice that meant he was even sitting here now.

Maybe he was a fool. Plenty of people told him that too. Too trusting. Too eager to see the best in people -- to find it even when it didn’t exist. And maybe they were right, but Raffe preferred living that way.

She was needling Nox because she didn’t want to talk about what was really going on. He thought she was suffering, and most likely that was an ailment down to her own shit choices, but whatever was going on behind that mask of a gaze she was unlikely to confide. Whether she deserved it or not was immaterial, at least to Raffe. He still didn’t enjoy seeing it.

So when he ran a frustrated hand over his head it was more because he felt useless than because her point blank ignoring his questions rankled. He didn’t understand half of what was going on, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to either. After Nox went to get the information she asked for, he opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. He weathered her with folded arms and quiet patience as she toyed, but still felt surprise break his expression for what she said. It was a distraction, he was fairly sure, but it pressed on a wound.

He nodded, but his gaze dipped.

The warning that followed he took with stoicism. Maybe because it didn’t surprise him that Nox had more enemies than just the Atharim. He wasn’t sure if Oriena was just trying to get under his skin and sow doubt, or if she meant the concern genuinely. Probably the former, but he was never quite sure. Or just didn’t want to be sure that she could really be so cruel.

Nox’s footsteps thundered down the stairs soon after. He slid a drive across the table and sat back down in his seat. Raffe tried to catch his eye, at least to impart a reassuring smile, but there was a faint line of worry between his brows too. Oriena picked it up, and did not much contemplate it before shifting to pocket it. In fact she seemed done with them, like she no longer really saw them at all. She stood. No thanks or acknowledgement. Though she paused before she left.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, sweetheart,” she said to Nox. There wasn’t even spite in the way she said it; if anything, Raffe thought she only sounded tired. It sent a chill through him. “People like you and me, we aren’t built for the long haul. You’ll fuck it up. Probably won’t even mean to, but you will.” She shrugged, wrapped her hand around the neck of the bottle. Then she glanced at Raffe, and left.

[Nox]

Oriena left without a thank you departing her truths which the sound of fireworks punctuated in Nox's pocket. Nox sighed. "She's not wrong. But she's lying to herself if she thinks I don't know it." He pulled out his wallet, though it was more a fumble for it as he had to reach across his body to find it in the opposite pocket from his good hand where he'd apparently placed it when he was done with it before.

The message from Jay sat on the front of the screen and he tapped it quickly opening up his log of messages.

This one read. Got time for a card game? I’ll shuffle for you.

Nox set it down between himself and Raffe the message still on display along with the log. Their last exchange had been short and it had been after he and Raffe had kissed in the hospital. Most of them were worry stupid things meant to entice a reply. Nox had been worried about him. He was alive and well, and that's what mattered and they had a lot to talk about. But Jay was not like an ex. He was a friend with whom Nox shared an intimate encounter before. And if it weren't for Raffe sitting next to him right now, Nox wouldn't have hesitated in replying with his own response.

With a slow nod to the message sitting between them, Nox spoke in a hushed whisper, "Do I?" He hoped Raffe would look and even scroll up to see their exchanges in the past. No secrets he told himself. Jay was not a dirty little secret. But Raffe was more than just a friend. And the thought of hurting Raffe torn Nox apart. Even if it was because he was an idiot.

[Raffe]

He looked at the message on the screen between them, though he already knew who it was from on account of the fireworks. He hadn’t much lingered on it at the hospital, but Nox’s reaction later told him that he and Jay had either been something once, or they still were. Raffe wasn’t particularly given to jealousy, and he was inclined to stay friends with his own ex-lovers, so that aspect didn’t bother him. What he wasn’t sure of was whether Nox didn’t trust himself, if he was asking permission, or if the question was in simple courtesy to Raffe’s feelings.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Though his relationship with Nox had delved to unexpected intimacy, Raffe had been wary of putting a label on it. He knew his own feelings, and he would give Nox the space to work out the same. In fact Raffe was likely to let things run their course even if he ended up getting hurt as a result, and he already knew Nox had the ability to do that on account of how the thought of his loss made his chest ache already.

He leaned his arms on the table, quiet a moment. Raffe wasn’t ever likely to be possessive; it wasn’t in his nature. But it was not apathy, nor even insecurity: it was trust. Whatever his faults, Nox proved an astounding capacity for honesty -- it was part of the attraction, how startling it could be in its vulnerability. How often it left Raffe speechless. In Nox’s expression now he saw an uncertainty he was beginning to recognise, and it made him want to lean in and kiss it into reassurance. Which probably wasn’t the right answer right now. Or yet, anyway.

His knee brushed against Nox’s under the table.

“Forget what she said,” he said. And meant it. Not because it wasn’t a possibility, but because he was in this despite it. Nox was worth the risk. “So I guess now is when I ask who Jay exactly is, so you can stop looking so worried about it.”

[Nox]

It's hard to forget what she said, especially when he believed it. But Nox told himself this was different than when he was with Elyse. Nox understood so much more about himself since then -- since he first met Jay. "Jay is just a friend, but he's so much more than that." Nox said answering the question bluntly and with a shy smile.

He put his hand on Raffe's knee and leanend back dragging his hand higher up his tigh but only because he couldn't reach the knee anymore from the position in the chair. It was a comfort. "Jay is the reason my girlfriend at the time left me. He's the reason I'm okay with who I am now, with the memories that rushed into my head after too many drinks."

Nox leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling of the back rooms. Noticing the beams and the lights and the cobwebs, thinking someone should dust a little better. "I met Jay at a Methos concert. The memories sitting in the seats with Sage and Cruz started coming back then. Memories of things I had repressed long before the plane crash took the rest from me. I had flashes of a guy at a concert. Of memories and feelings that I hadn't remembered since that night. I won't bore you with the details of my father's abuse at that time, but it was enough to convince me I was straight and that I did not like men, or boys at the time." Nox chuckled to himself.

"As with all my fucking adventures in this city, a monster was there. Several actually if you want to include the Atharim who killed two kids who could do what we do. But in the darkness, it decided to take advantage of the girl it had found to prey on. Jay was sitting next to me. Sage had purloined a few tickets for the Legionnaires as well and Jay was the only one to take up the offer. But he saw my readiness for a fight, and when I went to take out the monster he helped. We almost got caught by the police, we saved the girl, we killed the monster and I invited him home. It was a celebratory drink. Memories and drinks didn't go well. And I slept with him while my girlfriend was asleep upstairs in the room we shared at Dorian's."

"We haven't seen each other since that night. But it was enough to create a sort of friendship based on understanding the type of person we are." Nox sat forward. "Jay is a soldier, a good man, but he doesn't always do things the way he's supposed to. We bonded over the commonality of our lives but yet so drastically different. Other than Aria, he's the first real connection to the person I want to be. But he's not the one. He's got nothing on you. Nothing on the way I feel about you. Never in my life have I wanted to protect someone so much, but not from the evils from the world but from the evils I bring with me." Nox's words tumbled out and tears slide down his cheek though he didn't want them to. "I'm terrified of what that means. I'm being torn apart inside by so many different forces that it's hard to know which way to go. Jay is my friend. I like him. You are my, for lack of a better word, everything. And I know it sounds cheesy and that it's way too soon. Family was all I had. And now it's gone. I'm latching on to what I can to get some semblance of my life back. And I'm sorry if that's too much for you."

Nox growled and sat forward pressing his elbows into his thighs and pushing his hand into his eyes. "And then there's that fucking darkness inside. I don't know which way it'll turn me. One minute I'm happy, the next I'm starving, or ready to fuck anything that moves. The horde has only two modes -- feed or procreate. Which isn't a problem if I'm with you." Nox grinned at Raffe, looking at him from under the fallen hair and his eyes. "But with Jay... that's going to hurt you. I want to say I have control. That I'm trust worthy. I really don't want to be the guy I was before with you. But I'm afraid of what I might do."

Nox sighed. "I know I ramble when I'm anxious." Nox smiles softly, an echo of prior conversations.