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The Magic Box, Friday Morning

Norman... couldn't bring himself to go back to his room after his time spent at the trooper station yesterday. He could still here Amaya's enraged snarling, the dull thud of body against bars, echoing in his ears. And sure, things were fixed now, but that didn't mean he hadn't messed up.

Didn't mean he hadn't had a hand in people getting hurt. Badly.

And so he'd avoided the dorms. Went back to the Magic Box and kind of barricaded himself in the back room, where he sat himself down on the floor with the dog(s) and mulled over what to do next.

He wanted to go home. Needed to stay and make amends. Kind of wanted to just fade away like Aggie had done, years ago now. Couldn't really do any of that, could he? So for now, he was just hugging a dog and sitting in the quiet, alone. Mostly alone. There were always the ghosts, but for once, not even they knew what to say.

[OOC: Magic Box door is locked, post is open. ETA: That Nina stopped by is for broadcast, contents of conversation NFB, please.]

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It was probably better for both Norman and Prompto that she'd been running a few personal errands across the multiverse the last few days and had only gotten back to the island and caught up on radio this morning. Because Nina's reaction to radio had been bad enough.

So, before she'd even got to her dorm room to clean up, and drop her things off, she'd gone to find one of them. Sure, the front door had been locked but a) she worked here and had a key and b) it wouldn't have stopped her in the first place.

She crossed the quiet front to leaned against the locked backdoor.

"So the rules, like, don't apply to you?" Nina wondered aloud, her hands gripped tight around her bookbelt. Her knuckles were white. "Like, we had an agreement that magical workings had to be cleared with both of us and you're the one who acted all high and mighty about the misuse of magic."

Norman buried his face in the fur of the pup's shoulder. Yeah, he'd been kind of waiting for this one.

"Yeah," he said, sounding tired, "I guess the rules don't apply to me, Nina."

He sent a text to Courtney, which basically just said, There were vampires. Tell mom that if dad thinks I can handle everything weird, then.

Seriously, you save the town from zombies just once...

The nice thing about dealing with Norman first was that Nina had the time to think about what she was going to do about Prompto. Nina loved Prompto a hell of a lot more than she… well… tolerated Norman.

"It sounds like it worked out for you," she said, her voice clipped. "People will probably forgive you, because no one you murdered stayed dead."

Norman said nothing. Just sat on the other side of the door, looking quietly at the dog.

No one you murdered.

He couldn't even argue that. Hell, he couldn't argue that nobody had even died. They might as well have.

He considered the back room of the shop for a long moment. And then, having no other way out, he stood, made his way to the door, and opened it. He looked at Nina in silence for a moment, trying to keep his chin up because god knew he wasn't going to let himself have a nice, self-indulgent cry right there in front of her.

No. You don't get forgiven for stuff like this. Maybe other people would. He wouldn't. And he had to actually live with himself.

She'd moved away from the door, once she'd heard him getting up. That gave her more than enough time to be facing him with furious blue eyes. Her voice, especially when he wasn't in the same room as her, she could control. But her eyes, face-to-face with him, were bright with rage and hate.

It took everything she had not to hit him, right then and there.

"You're the worst type of person."

"You're not wrong," Norman replied, just... standing there. "Go on and have a turn."

He wouldn't stop her. Wouldn't have fought back if she'd taken a swing. He knew what he'd done better than she had. Knew that even his texts to his sister begging to find a way for him to come home weren't going to do him any good.

Maybe he'd see if the sheriff was back at the station. Maybe he'd be more upset about what he'd done than Rosa had been yesterday.

Nina was smaller than he was. Norman wasn't big for a guy, but he had a few years on her and Nina's frame was slender. She had to look up at him, to glare at him.

That absolutely, positively, did nothing to stop her from dropping her bookbelt and slamming him up against the door frame, lifting him off his feet. She was far stronger than she looked, had to be to fight as well as she did the way she did.

"Would it make you feel better if I did?" she asked, her voice pinched. "Would you like that? Would it make you realize how lucky you are, that no one died for good? Would you realize how stupid, thoughtless, and careless you were in taking down a barrier without first looking to see what was behind it? IF YOU CAN RIG A WAY TO BREAK A BARRIER THEN YOU COULD HAVE FOUND A WAY TO LOOK THROUGH IT FIRST!"

Norman... let her. Let her pin him there, the breath coming out of him, his teeth grit as he held back tears.

Stupid, selfish, self-indulgent tears.

"It's not about me feeling better," he said, a little breathlessly. "I don't get to feel better about this. I know how lucky people are to still be alive. I know."

"You're the one that talks to the dead," Nina said, making no move to let him go or set him down. "And you didn't even think that maybe, just maybe, what you were doing could wind up hurting people?"

Norman still wasn't struggling.

"The barrier came from death," he murmured. "It was sudden and wrong and designed to keep us from leaving, and it wanted us to stay locked in. At the time, that's all I could see."

Nina leaned her weight into him harder.

"So you didn't try to see more?"

The worst part was, she got the urge. A barrier tossed up around her would be so very, very tempting to just bash at until it was torn down. And, if it was just her that was trapped in a barrier, she probably would do just what he had done, what Prompto had done.

But not when it could possibly endanger an entire town. Maybe it was her training. When it came to defending things like places, countries, homes, Nina was never that reckless.

Norman... couldn't reply, to that. More breath left him as she pushed against him, and suddenly, pulling a breath back in again was so much more difficult than it normally was. There were ghosts around him who cried out in protest, and he ignored them. Let her crush his breath away, closing his eyes and leaning his head back and struggling only for breath.

He wasn't sure what he would have said in reply, anyway.

She wasn't wrong.

She wasn't wrong.

Nina shifted, abruptly, changing her grip on him, before she turned and flung him over the counter, towards the door. She was careful not to throw him into the door, because she didn't want to have to heal any serious injuries that might cause.

But bruising him up a bit? Good. Good.

Then she put her hands on her hips.

"Get out of here," she said coldly. "Magic is all fun and games until it's not and you know too much and too little at the same time to be trusted in here with judgment that bad."

Could she kick him out of the shop? She was doing it anyway.

"And don't come back here unless you're determined to take your actions seriously or I really will kill you." She… probably… well, no, she might actually. Right now, she might. "If you're just going to run away and feel sorry for yourself, don't ever come back here."

Norman stumbled, fell. Took a long moment just gasping for air before he squared his shoulders and picked himself up again.

He didn't want to run away. Had actually tried to turn himself in, only to be told he hadn't committed any sort of crime.

It was damn hard to be held accountable for one's actions here, when the only person who seemed to care about holding him accountable was...

Well...

There wasn't any dignity in the way he limped toward the door. He did pause in the doorway and wait for her to leave too, though. Wasn't going to budge another inch further until she did. If the door was being closed, it was being locked behind him. This was still his shop, whether Nina figured he deserved it or not, and she didn't get to chase him out while sitting pretty within it.

He… he did realize that she had a key, right? Like, she had a job here.

Whatever, Norman.

Nina picked up her bookbelt and checked on the puppy(ies)—yes, they had food and water, so Norman hadn't failed at that.

Then she swept past him, making sure to hip check him on the way out.

Norman just sighed as he bounced against the doorframe, watching her go.

Yeah. He realized she worked here. He'd hired her.

... Sort of.

But you don't just assault your manager and then get to stick around for your shift, right? He was... pretty sure that was how it went.

Locking up behind himself, he lifted his phone again and sent another text to his sister.

Never mind. I'm just being Abnorman again. Don't tell mom, she'd freak out. I'll deal.

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The Magic Box, Friday Morning

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