fandomtownies | The Devil's Nest, Friday Evening

...

Yeah, Nikolai wasn't going to complain about the music tonight. Or the company, for that matter. After all, he was here to talk to the bartender.

"Hey, Allie. How's my favorite bartender tonight?"

He was leaning forward over the counter and giving her a grin. Because if he was going to swing by Allie's workplace during her shift, of course he was going to lay it on thick.

Allie smiled, hit by a sudden sense memory of speeding along on the back of Nick's bike.

"Bouncer," she corrected. And yes, enjoy the image of the tiny, five foot nothing girl as a bouncer. "The title will change at some point next spring when I finally turn 21. Eric's pretty big on following the local liquor laws."

And at that, Nikolai couldn't help but chuckle.

"Seriously? Is it legal to have minors work security when we're not going to let 'em drink, or is Eric just conveniently ignoring that one?"

"Technically the title is something like I.D. checker or something like that. And it's legal for me to work here. I just can't pour," she shrugged. "I don't care, I get paid the same either way."

"Fair enough," Nick replied. "It's not like you can't handle yourself, anyhow. You drowning in I.D.s to check, or can I interest you in something to drink and some company?"

Something non-alcoholic, obviously.

Allie looked around the bar and grinned. "My arm can be twisted." If twisted meant reaching into the cooler and pulling out a bottle of True Blood. "Tiny get Nick whatever it is he wants to drink and then you can go make goo-goo eyes at the DJ."

Nick snorted and ordered himself a whiskey, passing Tiny a few bills to cover the cost of both.

"So, I don't suppose you've got the time free for another ride any time soon?" He lifted his drink in a quick toast, nodding his head at her. "Since the last one was cut so short, and all."

"I don't know, my schedule is pretty full right now. I might have a hard time fitting you in." In other words, tonight would be a great night for a ride.

"I was afraid you would say that," Nick replied, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. "Figured maybe I could sweeten the deal with a game of tag across Baltimore's rooftops or something. But if you're busy..."

"Huh, there's a sudden opening in my schedule," Allie laughed. "Imagine that."

"Imagine that!" Another mouthful of whiskey, and then Nick laughed and nodded at her. "So, how long before your shift lets out? So I can figure out what time I need to-" go get into his costume "-warm up the bike."

"Well considering this is my first night working in three weeks, I probably shouldn't cut out too early." No need to make the thousand year old vampire boss cranky. "But at the rate things are going, I can be out of here by 11:30. Would that work?"

"Sounds good to me," Nick decided. "Gives the rats a head start before we sweep through and wipe the streets with 'em."

He slid his glass toward Tiny for a refill.

"So," he ventured, looking at her thoughtfully. "What's the story with that cross? I thought they didn't play nicely with vampires."

That sudden screeching sound was the result of Allie's mostly cheerful mood rapidly shifting to something significantly more subdued. Did you hear it Nick?

"The books lie. I don't need an invite. Garlic isn't a thing. I sure as hell don't sparkle, and at least for my kind of vampire, a cross is just a piece of jewelry."

Yeah, that was a screeching halt that was kind of hard to miss. Nick raised his eyebrows a little, holding up his hands slightly in surrender.

"My bad," he said, apologetically. "Really, I should know better by now. Haven't seen you turn into a bat even once since we met, and all."

Never mind that other vampires on the island did.

She couldn't blame him for what she knew was an honestly curious question given the circumstances, so Allie quirked her lips into a half-hearted smile. "You just haven't been around at the right times. The island's sense of humor has had me hanging from tree branches and flapping my wings once or twice."

"Serves me right for not paying better attention, then?" Nick returned her smile with a wry grin of his own. "I suppose I should just count myself lucky the island hasn't decided to give me snakes for hair or something."

Gorgon. It was a thing.

"Bet you made a cute bat, at least."

He was more likely to wind up some sort of snake at an inopportune time.

"Cute and fuzzy, right up until the point I was back to normal shaped and naked in the preserve," she grumbled. "It's a good thing I can move fast."

As she they talked Allie had unconsciously reached for the cross and tugged on it, sliding it back and forth along the chain. Realizing what she was doing, she sighed and forced herself to let it go. "Remember last night when I said things had happened while I was gone?"

So sue him, Nick was picturing Allie naked. Thank you for that mental image, Allie. Thank you.

"Yeah, I remember," he replied. It was hard to miss the way she'd been so quick to change the subject, really. "The cross has something to do with that?"

Allie was not blind. At some there had been some picturing of her own. They could call it a draw.

But there was no picturing at the moment. At least not the happy kind.

"This belonged to Zeke," she explained simply. "He was a friend of mine. And we were going to try for something more. But two weeks ago, he was killed."

"Shit." Nick never knew what the hell to say to things like that. "I'm sorry, Allie. It's no damn wonder you weren't jumping at the bit to talk about it yesterday."

"It's okay, you didn't know." Allie looked down, studying her hands. "I'm trying not to think about it too much. Which is going about as well as can be expected."

"I was going to ask how you were holding up," Nick admitted, "but that kind of speaks for itself. You know my offer stands, any time you need a distraction. A motorbike, some poetic justice in the streets of Baltimore... tag. One of these days, I am going to catch you, you know."

"You keep telling yourself that," she told him, this time with something that looked like the beginnings of a real, if tiny smile. "And you can try tonight, since I'd like to take you up on that offer." Face it Nick, there were going to be lots of nights she was going to be taking him up on that offer.

Such hardship. Night after night alone with a hot vampire, getting a literal high on life and raising hell in the streets before riding off into the night on a motorbike. How was he ever to cope?

"What can I say? I dream big. Maybe we'll find out what tier I need to hit before I can keep up, hm?"

Practice probably. Lots of it.

"I fear for the bad guys of Baltimore." No, she really didn't.

Allie picked up the bottle of True Blood she'd be neglecting due to angst and took a drink, weighing the right words in her head.

"You know, I almost didn't come back."

"Yeah?" Well. That was a loaded sentence, right there. "There are a few ways I can interpret that, you know." He frowned a little. "By choice, or by circumstance?"

Like, was something holding her down, or had she just about given up on returning to the island?

"By choice. A good choice, believe it or not." She took another drink before beginning to pick at the paper of the label. "Zeke and I met the first time before I'd even come to Fandom. He didn't know what I was at first and when he did find out, it wasn't pretty." To put it mildly...

"But things happened." Hopefully Nick was realizing by now that that was Allie's shorthand for the shit hit the fan and people started dying. "And we had to work together. One of the last things I did before I got here was to get him and some of his family to safety."

Edited 2014-04-26 03:53 (UTC)

Nick gave the faintest of smiles at that. Yeah, things happened a lot for people like them, didn't they?

"And it went from there? Sorry it didn't work out, then."

You know, because it was hard to make it work out with an actual corpse, and all. Funny how that worked.

"No, when I left him, I thought that was it. He was safe and he'd go on and live his life in a place where a vampire didn't belong." she explained. "Going back this time, I never expected to see him. But he'd come looking for me. He wanted us to try."

"I needed convincing. Real life isn't like those stupid books, you know?" Allie made a face, realizing that yes in fact this did sound like the plot of a paranormal romance, except she wasn't getting the happy ending.

"But then he got kidnapped, tortured and killed by a psycho vampire that's got a grudge with me."

Yeah, the story was almost cute, real 'Beauty and the Beast,' right up to that last bit. Nick frowned again.

"Get a chance to take the asshole down for that, at least?"

She'd taken his eye and taken his arm, but sadly never managed a killing blow. "No. And he's on the move towards a human settlement. If he can't be stopped before he gets there, it's going to get ugly."

Of course that begged the question of why Allie was here, screwing around and not going after the scary vampire. "I would have stayed and helped go after him, but Kaidan got caught in the crossfire when Sarren got Zeke. I had to make the choice of what was more important. Revenge, or getting my friend the help he needed."

Nikolai hissed between his teeth at that. Not just because of the loss of a chance at revenge, but because now civilians were at risk, too.

... Thought the vigilante urban cowboy who wore a leather duster and a pair of goggles while he punched muggers in the life energy with his eyes.

"Tough call," he replied. "There anything else standing between him and the settlement, at least?"

"Kanin and Jackal are after them. Kanin's the vampire that turned me when I was dying. He turned Jackal as well, years ago. They're both incredibly strong," she said. "But I don't know if they're strong enough. Not against a mad man."

Nick nodded faintly.

"And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the reason you're not there right now helping is because you're cut off again."

Allie tipped her bottle at Nick. "Got it in one. An unknown biological contaminant has caused this destination to be closed to the portal transit system for an undetermined time. We're sorry for any inconvenience," she recited. "That would be the plague Sarren started. One we found the cure for. But I can't convince the Portalocity people of that."

It had been an eventful trip.

"Of course not," Nick sighed. "I've never travelled Portalocity, but the impression I keep getting is that it takes them months to start to clue into anything."

See? He paid attention to the important stuff.

"You ever want a hand trying to talk sense into 'em, I have boundless patience. And zip ties."

Well... he had zip ties, anyway.

"Tempting. But I keep reminding myself that they warned me it was going to happen," Allie admitted. "And I came through anyway. So I can't make threats and flash fangs when they're just doing their job."

"Fair enough," Nikolai replied, shaking his head. "Talk about shit timing, though. Anything else I can do? Or are we going to settle for a long bike ride and battling some decidedly less horrifying criminal activity for the time being?"

That seemed to be pretty much all they could do, with the portals closed off.

"You have the best ideas." She was slowly become resigned to being stuck on the island. Having friends that were willing to listen and provide distractions helped.

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The Devil's Nest, Friday Evening

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The VIP Area

The Dance Floor & Lounge

OOC