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She nodded at his remark, though she paused for a moment, breaking it with a shaky smile and said, “What’s a pitching machine?” While it was mostly intended as a (feeble) joke, she realized that she didn’t now at all what a pitching machine was in the least. Humans and their weird mechanical objects. Nikita had been wondering if Endymion, the medic who, fortunately, had managed to arrive on their doorstep during this small epidemic, had found anything that combated the strange illness, and it seemed that he had. Along with Ahren’s kid… whoever he or she was. She nodded, murmuring, “That’s good.” Good news, wow. They hadn’t had much of that in the past few weeks. A spot of sunshine in the midst of a great storm, and at least it cheered her spirits just a little bit.
Nikita paused in the camp, not exactly sure where to go. As far as she was concerned, she was nearly (if not just) as ill as those who were confined, and she wasn’t sure if she should just shut herself up somewhere and wait for whatever outcome. But she had never really been one that loved making decisions, so she pondered it for a moment more while staring intently at the ground. Then she raised her gaze to Laurel, trying to make it seem questioning.
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_____“Why it's… a machine, that pitches,” he said, swinging his gaze and general direction back to face her with a wiry grin. “Supposedly it shoots out things about the size of an apple if you give it one, but they're all dead for some reason or another. Machines, man's things, you know.” He shrugged, not really having the faintest clue what they were beyond that. Of all the things he had ever tangled with, it had not been one of those, though he had seen it. And what a funny contraption it was. But on the other hand, the fact that folks were getting better instilled some hope into him too. “But if I had to say anything about what time you decided to get sick, it's a good time. They've probably just about got a cure.”
_____That was what he hoped, anyway. Laurel hadn't thought about what it would mean if they didn't have a cure, though part of him had made an easy end of the line resolve to pack up and go if things came out that bad. If they all got sick and died and he wasn't out of his mind or sick, he'd be gone, simple as that. It seemed like since they had set their foot in the place, Murphy's Law became the normal thing that made sense. Anything that could go wrong, simply did. He regarded her gaze for a moment, catching the prompt that was there. “You want a drink? I reckon if I'm going to keep an eye on you, we may as well enjoy part of it.” It wasn't like there was anywhere to put her that she wouldn't do harm to herself or someone else. Knife or not, they had teeth and claws.
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She returned his grin, amused at his response. Giving him the appropriate ‘no, shit’ look, she decided to not nag him about the description and nodded instead. She of course hadn’t seen one… or maybe she had, but she hadn’t really known what the hell it had been. The only machines that had ever interested her were those that could be taken apart and salvaged for what little value they still had. No matter, though. It was indeed good news to hear that, perhaps, they had a little hope to look forward to. A possible cure… that sounded a little too good to be true at the moment. “If they really found it, that’s some stroke of awesome luck,” Nikita murmured, smiling lightly. Yes, she’d have to search out either Endymion or this mysterious ‘Ahren’s kid’ sooner or later to see if she could try some of this miracle cure.
Nikita forced herself not to think about the negative, trying a little bit of optimism for once. She managed, but just barely. He caught her searching gaze nonetheless, and promptly chose the one that she probably could have guessed out of him. She considered it for a bit, thinking that, if she was going to get better, why not. And if she wasn’t, why not as well. No one lives forever. “Yeah, I’ll take one,” she responded, not really caring what he managed to dig up from what they had salvaged from the city. She lingered for a moment before wandering to where the burned-out bonfire had been, sitting down a few yards from the rain-washed remains.
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_____They went their separate ways then, at least for the moment. It was the perfect time for him to stash her knife both in a place she couldn't get it or at least find it. He figured that he may as well because he had done the same thing with Ahren, but Ahren had found it eventually. But now he didn't seem like the crazy man who had turned up on his doorstep some time ago. Once it had been tucked away safely and somewhere dry, he retrieved the bottles and joined her at the doused remains of the camp fire and handed her one. Predictable of him, but it was a well-known comfort that worked when he needed it to.
_____“Now if you go crazy again, I can just hit you over the head,” he chuckled, pulling the lid from the bottle, “unless you club me first.” But of course, there was a question of what exactly he was going to do lingering around. Keeping an eye on her was great and all, but he had never done very well at running marathons of no sleep. But tying her up was out of the question, at least in his mind, so that didn't really leave him with any or many options. The fact that they didn't really have anything on hand to tie anyone up equally out ruled the things that he didn't want to do.
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I didn't really know what to do here. ._.
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She accepted the bottle, glaring at the cork for a moment and suddenly feeling as though she was only half of her usual self without her trusty blade at her side. Eventually she just forsook the ease of her usual way of opening the bottle and wrenched the top off without much of a second thought. She flickered a half-hearted smile at him at his attempted jest, though it was mostly without mirth. Nikita then took a drink, feeling only a little bit more content as the warmth spread through her and softened the coarse edges of her everyday life nowadays. She longed to recline and try to catch some sleep — for she felt so tired all the time — but she was absolutely petrified of waking up and having a mind in a different time or a different set. No, she would have to stay awake. Even if that would mean Laurel having to do so as well.
Guilt set in pretty readily, though it wasn’t anything she could help. Laurel was probably saving a few others’ skins by keeping an eye on her, though she hated being a burden in any fashion. She had gotten very used to making herself useful during her life, and feeling like such a drain was absolutely appalling for her. A look of slight disgust crossed her face as she took a second grateful drink, though it only remained for a fleeting moment. Nikita wanted to give Laurel one of those ‘what now’ looks, but couldn’t bring herself to do that. So she sat, shoulders hunched, over her bottle while seeming to find the smoldering remains of the campfire extremely interesting. And also trying not to feel like no one regarded her as a ticking time bomb.
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_____It was probably bad class to rag on such a thing like it was nothing. Truthfully, months if not years from that very moment in time it would be that, absolutely nothing. A rough patch in the road that had been the story of their lives. He could have sat there and tried to reason with himself that it wasn't something to joke about, but he did it anyway. He tried to light the mirth that had been there when they had turned up, but it seemed like every attempt to light it was like trying to set water on fire. So it drove him onto another topic, speaking his thoughts aloud and wondering if it was the right direction to go in.
_____“Maybe when all of this is over with, we should pack up and go somewhere else,” he murmured, letting his eyes rest more on the charred remains of the fire. Laurel didn't debate his words either, choosing to include both of them rather than just himself or her alone. The fact that sickness had came and struck hard and fast wasn't anything new in the way of the world, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. He had done enough wandering around to know what a bad taste usually meant, but at the same time he wasn't sure that he wanted to turn around and go back the way he had come.
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Nikita was half-way through a draught of the liquor when he spoke, and the words almost made her choke. She hurriedly swallowed the fiery liquid in a gulp, blinking to regain her focus of vision and turned her olive-green gaze to the other coyote. She hadn’t really thought of leaving — her being ill, and everyone else being so had distracted her of this, though they just might have a cure now — but, since he presented it to plainly, there was no avoiding it. Before any of her personal opinions on the topic, however, she had to say, “Whatever you chose to do, I’ll follow that,” before continuing on. “I can’t guess your reasons for thinking about leaving, but… personally, I’d rather stick around a little longer. This place isn’t bad, and if the sickness is cleared up by that cure you mentioned, things’ll be golden. Having the same roof over your head and knowing where your meals are coming from is a pretty good thing. At least, I think so.” She looked at him pointedly. “Unless you have any other reasons for wanting to go.”
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*totally finally figured out how to reply, dies*
[html] “No, no… I just thought maybe that's what you would want to do. I mean, with the sickness and all, it'd be enough to make anyone want to leave.” It did surprise him that she wanted to stay, but what she said made sense too. Where she had once poked a little fun at the fact that they were settling somewhere again, it had become a bit more apparent to him that he wasn't the only who thought maybe things weren't so bad. “And even if wanted to leave, we'd probably have to do it soon. It's getting colder and I'm pretty sure that snow's probably piled up the way that we've been. I don't know much about these kind of places, but the further north you go, the more snow there is.” And the last thing any intelligent traveller would do, especially one that didn't have to run for his or her life would be to have to trek through one or two feet of snow.
If they had gotten sick just from food or water or something in the air so easily now, who knew what kind of ailments would plague them if they tried to march through that. They have been furry on the outside, but even the cold got to them after a while. “In any case, some of the others are starting to build up stuff and if we're going to stay, may as well wait until spring comes with better weather. I sure as hell don't want to go out wandering in a blizzard,”[/html]
[html] She shrugged with a nonchalant air at his comments; the sickness itself had never forced a thought of leaving upon her, she realized as he brought it up. It was strange, of course – usually most would try to get away from places that did them wrong, but Nikita had always been an exception to that. She had stayed in the city for so long until she was practically at her breaking point… and she hadn’t really seemed to realize what it was doing to her. Now, however, she must have obtained a high level of tolerance for staying in a place without caring for the down-sides. This could quite be a weakness rather than a boon, however.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she said distantly, her olive green eyes hazy. They sharpened after a moment, focusing on him once more. She wasn’t sure what to do now; conversation was beginning to wear thin on the attention span she still had left after her little hallucination incident, and she couldn’t really ponder a polite way of ending it. Plus, she wasn’t sure if she was free to go off on her own just yet. So, in the end, as always, she would much rather leave the decision to him. “I’m tired.” She stared at him, expectantly. It was more of a hidden question of whether or not she should get going back to her own little lean-to or whether she should stay where he could make sure she wouldn’t sneak off and stop seeing the past during the present again. [/html]
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