Noriko & Nathan, Backdated to 29/03/2013

[om_revenant]

Two lousy math students stay behind the rest of the class to try and get their homework done together, but that turns out to be a lost cause. Nathan ends up saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to his favorite 'Electric Blueberry Tart', and it turns out they have more than they want to admit in common when it comes to Anders.

Nathan frowned at his worksheet, not for the first time. "When exactly do they think we're ever going to need trigonometry to get by in the day-to-day? Never has there been a time once where I've said to myself, 'oh, self, if only I knew how to tell the height of that flagpole given the length of a shadow'. Not once! It's fine and good for the speccys who want to build shit, but all I'm seeing for the likes of you and me is the waste of time that we could be wasting all on our own," he grumbled conversationally, roughly scrubbing a patch of his paper with an irritable erasing before peering over at Noriko's answers. They might as well, seeing as they were the only ones left behind from the class, even their teacher gone off after a few half-effectual pointers. "What've you got for this one?"

It was the silence, more than the words, that drew Noriko's attention after a few seconds. Nathan had been talking pretty much non-stop since the teacher had left. She, for her part, had barely been listening, and chewing on the end of her pen, and not thinking about trig at all. "What? Oh." She frowned down at her notepad. "A whole lot of nothing. I don't know."

"Fat lot of good you are for a study partner," Nathan sighed, dropping his pencil to the paper in resignation and squeezing up a tight fistful of his dark curls for a tug. "Who am I supposed to copy from now?"

"Someone who doesn't suck as much as we do?" Noriko offered, logically, she thought. She hooked her foot around the leg of the chair at the desk beside hers and tugged it closer, then shifted sideways into her chair to rest her feet on the other chair, looking despondently at the exercice on the paper.

"If we had one of them to cheat off of in the first place, we'd be out of here already and getting better marks, wouldn't we?" Nathan eased his hand in his hair to give it a conciliatory fluff, looking over at her and her furniture arranging, listening to the heavy quiet from her side and thinking she certainly hadn't had her usual amount of sass lately. Hazardous as her hot little temper might prove to his health with all the threats of punching, he found he rather liked her sass. "What's eating you anyway, tart? You're turning into a real downer. The whole upside of being shit in your studies is that you're supposed to have more fun than the overachievers."

"Don't call me that," Noriko told him with a look that was as flat as her tone of voice, then looked back at the trig. She really, spectacularly didn't feel like thinking about trig right now. "Why are we still here, anyway?" she asked after a few more seconds, and sat up to gather her stuff and get to her feet. "I'm out of here." Staring at the exercise wasn't going to help.

"Because the only thing worse than having to take maths that we'll never use again is having to take them more than once?" But Nathan definitely wasn't going to sit here and not-complete his homework alone. He shoved the paper into his textbook, sticking the pencil and calculator inside the cover, obviously not caring much how things bent up as a result. "I didn't think you minded the name so much. Not that I've ever really let that stop me from using one before," he admitted. "Did you have an off sweet? Does it turn out that you're allergic to berries? Or does this have to do with your general sourness and grumping about that you've been doing? Look, if you're on the rag, we'll just get you some chocolate and a romcom, courtesy of Dr. Nathan." See? He could be nice!

"Just fucking shut up, Nathan," Noriko snapped, eyes flashing as she frowned at him. "I don't mind the full nickname that doesn't make me sound like a ho. Okay?" Seriously. She needed a pill badly, and she wasn't sure she needed one for the power-managing reason, but she didn't want to peer at that too closely. She just wanted a freaking pill, and that meant getting the hell out.

Nathan hoisted quizzical eyebrows at her, and was, believe it or not, stunned into a moment of silence, using the time to look at her more directly. "I never thought you were - now, I'd be full well supportive if you wanted to live a slutty lifestyle, but..." She was almost shivering with anger, or something like it, and he had no idea where it'd come from. This wasn't at all like her saying she'd hit him, though he'd rather it was. "You're really upset," he marveled more quietly.

"Whatever, just don't call me that," Noriko snapped again, and turned to go without looking back at him. Technically, she could have popped a pill then and there, or in the middle of the school hallways, but it still felt like something shameful, something she wasn't supposed to do - all the more so these days, when every other pill she took to feel better in her own skin, rather than to manage the electricity.

So she headed outside, bag slung over her shoulder. A short spot of electricity-fueled speed, and she was a little way off on the grounds, at the edge of small woods. She sat down with her back to a tree, took a pill, and waited for it to take effect, eyes closed, keeping the bottle in her hand just in case she needed a second one to really feel it.

**********

When Noriko wanted to be on her own badly enough to blaze a blue blur in the direction of the treeline, it wasn't as if she could be followed by many people at speed. She had a good forty-five minutes alone, time enough that her drugs were probably well at work and, if Nathan was exceptionally lucky, to unwind a little. He didn't set out for a while, thinking it better at first to leave her be and let her get over it. When he didn't see or hear tell of her coming back in as the sun was setting, he changed his mind after all.

He was pulling his hand with his fags and lighter out of his jacket pocket as he found her, sitting back against a tree, and Nathan stopped a few feet short of the girl. He tapped his cigarette, packing the end, and it was almost to his lips when he paused, looking at Noriko. "Fancy a cigarette?"

Noriko had in fact greatly loosened up by the time she saw the dark figure headed her way, or figured out it was Nathan. She didn't know what he wanted, but she felt less like her skin was on backwards, so that was a plus. She stayed in place, and quiet, as he got within earshot, figuring that he'd be speaking enough for the both of them often enough.

But then he surprised her, by using nothing but three words, and she surprised herself, with the one word she used. "Sure."

She wasn't a smoker, but it wouldn't be her first cigarette, either. One addiction was enough, though, so she'd never taken it up, and wouldn't now, either. But it felt a little like a peace offering, both his offer, and her acceptance. ...it was possibly the drug talking, but whatever, she was still pushing up to her feet to walk the rest of the distance to him.

Nathan stuck the first cigarette between his lips, then gave the pack a bit of a shake, offering her the one with its filter hanging out from the rest. That done, he sparked up the lighter and cupped it against the light wind in her direction. Ladies first.

Noriko stepped close, cupping her hands around his to make a better shelter against the wind, and touched the end of the cigarette to the flame, breathing in deep. It might not be her first cigarette, but she hadn't smoked in long enough that that first hit came out in a short, quiet cough. "Thanks," she added, stepping back to put some distance between them - instinct.

"Just do us all a favour and put that thing out before you go punching anyone," Nathan advised after lighting up. "If you drop it out here and start a forest fire, I'm bound to be the one who'll get blamed for it."

"You already planning on pissing me off enough I'm going to punch you?" Noriko asked, sounding a lot more mellow than just under an hour ago. They were alone out here, after all, so there wasn't much of anybody else she could punch.

"I thought you already were," he confessed. "And if not, it might make you feel better. Just give it time, I'll come up with something and you'll hardly be able to resist."

"I've resisted so far," Noriko pointed out with raised eyebrows. Her first cigarette in months was giving her a light buzz, though, which worked very nicely off of the state of her brain to start with. It seemed like a good idea to sit again, so she did just that, on the spot. There. Looking even less likely to punch anyone, she thought, as she pulled on the smoke again. "You're pretty alright, for an asshole, anyway. What was that shit about your roommate, though?" she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him. She'd never asked. She'd been too wrapped up in her own shit.

Okay, so depending on his answer, she might still punch him.

Well, that wasn't where he'd meant for this conversation to go at all. He didn't realize he'd even frowned behind his cigarette until it was already done.

Then he realized she was still looking at him, waiting for him to say something.

"Let's just say that really wasn't my idea," Nathan told her, moving to the tree she was leaning back against. He sat himself down on the opposite side of it, getting more or less comfortable. "Take it back to the girls' dorms that I'm entirely, ragingly heterosexual, and more than willing to share my penis with the female population."

"Did you lose a bet?" Noriko asked, frowning and still unsure whether she ought to punch him or not. If he'd posted those pictures of his roommate for a laugh, she might yet have to. She just. Really didn't want to get up again, right then.

"Only if we're talking some kind of karma," Nathan muttered, tapping his ash at his feet.

"You're not helping me figure out if I should punch you," Noriko stated bluntly. There was something about the way he was speaking that was so unlike him. Something reluctant. Nathan was never reluctant to talk.

"How about no?" He sucked a fresh drag, and huffed it right back out. "Some people are so fucking sensitive, you know? You make one smart remark and they blow it way out of proportion."

"Full picture, any time?" Noriko wryly requested. Even stoned, the wryness was never very far. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I prefer your usual talkative self. I actually have more of an idea what he's talking about. Most of the time." Sometimes she just couldn't follow him, but she wondered if anybody could.

Nathan half-turned, giving her shoulder a dirty look. "That Kiwi used his power and got into my head to make me think I was in love with Barry, okay?" He turned back, shifting uncomfortably against the tree trunk. "But I'm not, the whole thing was bullshit. There, big reveal! Are you happy now?"

Noriko was on her feet in front of Nathan before she even realized she'd let the electricity out for a push of superspeed, and the blue arcs of lightening died down as she glared at Nathan, for all that the anger was not directed at him. At all. Whatso-fucking-ever. "He did what?"

He...blinked wide at her, actually dropping the cigarette dangling precariously from the edges of his lips. Then he cursed, grabbing to catch it where it fell into some loose folds at the bottom of his t-shirt. Knowing someone could move in bursts of lightning speed and having them do it right on top of you without warning were two different beasts entirely.

"Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" Nathan shook out a spot on his palm where he'd burned himself a little on the cherry, but then he righted the cigarette and lifted to directly back to his lips again. "...I said some things about his photos he didn't like hearing, and he skull-fucked me so I went love-crazy for my painfully shy, awkward flatmate." He wasn't looking at Noriko anymore. His shoes had become terribly interesting in the last few seconds, that was all. "Because that was fair for all parties involved. I think he needs serious psychiatric evaluation - and that's coming from me!"

"I am going to fucking kill him," Noriko stated, not exactly sounding - or looking - like she was joking. She wasn't actually serious about killing him, but she knew one thing. If she saw the guy right then, she'd probably hurt him badly. Worse than what he'd gotten the first time around. It was both very appealing and way too scary, so she stayed rooted to the spot before raising a slightly trembling hand to take another drag off of her cigarette.

She wasn't looking at Nathan either.

"Well, that's..." The jitter of her hand as Noriko lifted her cigarette caught his eye, and he broke the non-looking arrangement in spite of himself. "Sweet, in a bloody murder sort of a way? I didn't know you cared enough for a body count." Nathan was starting to think that maybe she cared for reasons not to do with him. "...I'm not really a big-picture thinker. Did I miss something with you?"

From one fucked up freak to another, and because she didn't think Nathan would pity her, Noriko unclenched her jaw enough to answer, "He made me make out with him at the Valentine's Day party." She blinked back tears, looking down at the ground and hoping that Nathan hadn't seen them, and took another vengeful drag off of her cigarette. God, her high was all but gone. Now all she could think about was that evening, and how natural it had felt to let go and have fun in a way she never let herself do. Punching him until he wasn't moving anymore sounded like a plan.

"...That fucking twatmonger." But it all made some kind of sense, now. Maybe Nathan had seen what looked like tears wanting to happen in Noriko's eyes, but he also knew by now that she was one of those girls who always felt like she had to be tough, when things went to shit especially. And considering what she had to be all out of sorts about... He'd burned his way through the first fag already, and he crushed the rest out on a rock beside him, but as he stood to join her with his own restless unease he was fishing for another.

Noriko watched Nathan warily when he pushed to his feet; she couldn't not, right then, especially not when she felt so vulnerable. Of course, in her case, feeling vulnerable meant looking everything but, or doing her best to, anyway. "Is that actually a word? It sounds like it suits him, anyway." She wasn't sure if it existed - she was pretty sure she'd never heard it before - but it did sound like the asshole. "So how are you back to normal?" It had taken her way longer than it had Nathan to recover. Maybe she was just more susceptible than he was, but the thought made her sick.

"Of course it's a word. I just said it, didn't I? And if it isn't, it should be." Nathan had wondered if he was supposed to offer her a hug or something - he didn't really know how to get on with girls properly - but if how she looked at every little move he made with caution was any way to tell, he'd better keep to himself if he didn't want to spook her off again. "I wasn't exactly subtle in my affections, when I had got like that over Barry, in case you hadn't noticed," he said it lightly enough. They both knew she had, what with the comment she'd made on his journal posting, and it made his gut churn to think about again. "Barry had enough of that and he put it together what'd happened. He made the twatmonger undo some of his mess." Not that it could all be undone so easily.

"What did he have on him?" Noriko asked with a frown. From the looks of him, she didn't think that Barry - or Simon, or whatever he was called on any given day - had threatened bodily harm on the bastard. And as far as she knew, not even violence had really managed to make the guy feel any kind of sorry about what he'd done to her and Jeanne-Marie. Fucking asshole. She took one last drag on the cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and put it out under the sole of her sneaker (which was looking a lot worse for the wear, now that she was regularly practicing her superspeed).

"Threatened to tell him off to the headmasters, or something?" Nathan's forehead scrunched thoughtfully over a beat, as he started up the next cigarette burning. He hadn't thought about it any farther than that. But now that Noriko mentioned it, if Anders had been going around the whole school doing similar bullshite, he might not've much cared if Simon had done. "I don't know what else," he admitted, putting his lighter away again.

Noriko shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans, scowling angrily. "The headmasters won't do shit, anyway."

"What's the deal with that, letting us more or less run wild all over the place? We're going to kill one another sooner or later." Some more literally than others. "I might've stabbed his hand with a fork in the canteen, though," he mentioned offhand. "If I'd known all this at the time, I could've got the other one for you while I was at it."

It was the offhand way he said it that made it much easier to accept than say, Jean-Paul's rage over what had happened. Her lips even quirked up into a hint of a wry smile. "Yeah, well. You ever do it again, make sure I'm around to see it?"

"I think it might even be infected," he smiled pleasantly back.

"Good one," Noriko stated after a couple seconds, with genuine admiration. It was probably done with much quicker than she had been with Anders, but the after-effect sounded very satisfying.

His draw from the filter of his cigarette was smoother now when he looked at her, easier breathing than it'd been before. "Nori," he tried for a moment, not even sure where he was going with it. Something about it having been more worthwhile a stabbing if Anders had screwed her up, too, maybe. Or something else, about how it wasn't her fault, or she shouldn't think that was how anybody saw her, or they could both be equally messed up... But that was all wrong.

"You want to walk back? I'll put on some of those frosted blueberry Poptarts for supper," Nathan offered instead, inclining his head in the direction of the school and raising his eyebrows at her.

Noriko's eyes flashed dangerously again when Nathan called her that, because he just didn't, and if he was about to go soft on her... But then she'd eased up when he went on speaking, lifting her chin slightly. "You know me. I never turn down food."

"It's one of your best qualities," he agreed, starting them back out to the paths that would lead them to the school again.

Comments

[om_justice]

So, I love this log. Deeply. <3

[om_revenant]

First I read this comment in my email... Then I hoped it was this icon... And then IT WAS. <3

[om_upstart]

Shinobi is torn between wanting to quietly murder Nathan for being a better confidant than he is and wanting to noisily murder Anders for causing this whole mess in the first place. But. As long as Noriko has someone to talk to.

[om_revenant]

Shinobi, you realize it's easier for Noriko to talk about this stuff with Nathan because she cares what you think of her way more than she does about what Nathan thinks of her, right? :P Plz to be directing all murderings to Anders.

Also, I need a Shinobi/Nathan log, yessssss.