femmejosephine | Just a Beer [Cole]

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cole

Just a Beer [Cole]

Most of the time, the shifts at Bondurant's were fine. Today, though, it seemed like everyone was trying to annoy her. People insisted they hadn't ordered what they had (or had ordered what they hadn't), the other servers didn't finish their sidework, and she'd even spilled a cup of coffee. Fortunately, she hadn't actually spilled it on anyone, but she'd still had to clean it up and get another cup for the customer.

When she got home and checked her phone to be sure she wasn't being called back for a double, she saw Cole's voicemail again. He'd left it awhile ago, but they hadn't managed to find a time that worked for both of them. Part of it was being busy on both their parts. Part of it was, honestly, concern on her part that if they went for a beer, they wouldn't have anything to talk about. They didn't come from the same worlds in so many ways. Today, though, she thought it might be a good idea not to have a beer alone, and it was definitely a beer kind of day, so she called him and arranged to meet at a place she was starting to think of as her local.

She'd taken a shower to get rid of the coffee and grease smell, then changed into a nice jumper and what the shops called skinny jeans. She looked good but not stunning, mostly because she wasn't sure whether this was a date or just a beer between friends. After a lot of consideration, she left her gun at home, which was a huge leap for her in a lot of ways. She did have her knife in her boot as usual, but that was just prudence.

She got there ahead of him and settled at a table. If he didn't show, she'd just have a beer.

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Cole is excited, and nervous, to spend time with Nikita like this. It's been a long time since he's been out with anyone other than Trish or Zeke, and since Zeke is his best friend, he doesn't think that counts.

He'd tried to at least dress halfway decent. Nikita has pretty much only seen him in work clothes . . . almost ever, Cole realizes. So he's wearing a pair of clean black jeans — nothing snug or skinny, but not baggy, either. Relaxed, or something. He's paired it with a blue button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows and showing off his few tattoos.

When he sees Nikita at the table, he smiles and heads over. "Hey," he says. "I'd say 'you made it', but you totally beat me here. Sorry. Got into a scrape on my way home from work, had to was my work pants." He looks fine, and he's not limping, so he hopes she doesn't think he's lying. He can't help how fast he heals.

"Don't worry about it," Nikita excused him easily and with a smile. He looked nice. The blue shirt emphasized his eyes, and she was glad to see that they'd ended up with about the same level of clothing. A little better than scruffy but not really fancy. He didn't look injured, either, but that didn't mean anything. For all she knew there was a giant bandage underneath his jeans or something.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he assures. "I feel kinda stupid, running late over a pair of pants, but they're the only work pants I own right now so I had to get 'em clean." He's really bad about shopping, as if Nikita hadn't already figured that out.

"Anyway, I heal fast," he adds. "Did you order anything yet?"

She had multiple pairs of white tops and black bottoms for Bondurant's, but she also had a job that was more likely to involve messy situations. Some of her tables were impressively good at spilling things on themselves and everything else. Honestly, though, it was still better than working for Section. How many gorgeous dresses had she worn just once because she'd gotten blood or dirt on them? Or torn them somehow? Fortunately that came out of Madeline's budget, not her own, but it was still a shame. The tactical jacket she'd brought to Darrow still had a gash in the sleeve from a bullet, which was why she didn't wear it very often. Too bad, too. It was a good jacket.

"You know, there's these things called stores," she replied too-solemnly, which was one of the surest indications she was teasing. "I hear they sell multiple pairs of pants. And I haven't ordered. I only got here a few minutes before you did."

Cole laughs. "Yeah, hey, thanks for that," he says, waving her off. Maybe she's right. Maybe it's time for him to buy extra work clothes.

"Alright, you good if I start off with a bourbon?" He doesn't want her thinking he's going to try to get her drunk; after his bourbon he'll switch to beer and take it easy from there.

"Sounds good," Nikita agreed. Bourbon wasn't her personal drink of choice, but it wasn't as bad as some other options. Bauer, god, that man had liked the worst wines. And she'd had to pretend to like them, or at least tolerate them.

"This place has nice appetizers. You wanna share a plate of something?"

"Yeah sure," he agrees easily. He grabs a little appetizer menu and sets it between them so they can read it together. "What're you, uh, y'know, in the mood for?" He's not a picky eater, probably thanks to being best friends with Zeke.

She leaned into him a little to look at the appetizer menu, which was a positive body language signal. She could almost hear Madeline smoothly reminding her of positive and negative signals as well as how to interpret them. Sometimes she wished she didn't automatically think about things like that, but there wasn't much she could do about it now. And at least in this case, she wasn't considering her signals before she gave them. Well, not much, anyway.

"Maybe the nachos?" she suggested after looking over the options. "Probably won't be as messy as the wings."

"Nachos, for sure," Cole agrees. "You like spicy cheese? Please say yes, I might have to walk out right now if you don't." As soon as the words are out, he realizes something horrifying: he's flirting. He'd just flirted. It isn't even good flirting. What the hell.

Nikita chuckled at his threat to leave, which was clearly not really a threat. It was probably an attempt at flirtation, and she meant attempt. It was like Birkoff all over again, although she doubted if either man would appreciate the comparison.

"Fortunately for us both, I do," she replied easily. "Not a huge fan of things that are hot just to be hot, though. It's better if it has some flavor, too."

"Oh, good," he says, feeling a little off balance now that he's actually aware of his shitty attempt at flirting. He clears his throat. "Right, so, nachos. Beer to go with?" Never mind that they were already planning on drinks; he'd like to follow up with a beer. "Maybe some water on the side?"

"Can you have nachos without beer? I don't actually think that's legal," she mused lightly. It was always privately entertaining to make jokes about things being legal when she'd lived outside the law and the world in general for so long.

"And always water. Dehydration is not pretty. You should know that very well, being a messenger and all."

Cole laughs. "Water and I don't actually get along very well," he admits. He'd had to learn how to ramp his own electricity down, just to shower. And even then, he still gets this weird sort of sparky feeling all over his body. "But— I stay safe, I promise." He's not dehydrated, he doesn't think, anyway, and that's what matters.

He flags down someone to take their orders, and lets Nikita order her own drinks but asks for it to be put on his bill.

"If you don't mind," he adds to Nikita as the server walks away.

Cole asking for her drinks to be put on his tab spoke a little more to it being a date than a beer with friends, but then again, maybe he was just an old-fashioned kind of guy. Either way, it didn't bother her as long as he didn't try anything stupid because he thought buying her a drink entitled him to it. And if he did, well, she'd deal with that if it came. She'd be really unhappy about it, but she'd deal with it.

"No, that's fine," she replied. "You mentioned the whole ... zot ... thing when we first met, but I didn't really believe it till you sparked at that clothes rack. Gotta suck sometimes."

"Zot?" he echoes with a little smile. "Yeah, I guess most people don't believe that unless they have a reason to. It's not half-bad, though. I mean, it can be dangerous, but what isn't, these days? I'm as careful as I can be."

She chuckled at his teasing repetition of her term, but it explained it fairly well. He'd known what she meant, anyway. As for dangerous, well, Darrow was a lot dangerous than Section had been, but that was something she just couldn't say. Or wouldn't say, which was the same thing.

"That's probably pretty much all anyone can try for," she agreed, and at that moment their first round of drinks arrived, so she raised hers in a toast.

"To not being dangerous."

He'd never know how funny that was to her.

He smiles, though, and lifts his glass of bourbon. "Here, here!" he says, and clinks their glasses together. He takes a sip. "Alright, lay it on me. All your questions about my powers, I can take it." He's used to it from everyone else. Now that Nikita believes him, he expects it from her, too.

She sipped the bourbon, and it wasn't bad. Still not her favorite, but it had a bit of smokiness that reminded her of one of her missions in an underground salsa club. She'd enjoyed herself as much as she could while waiting for her earbug to tell her when to get to her marks.

"Nah," she declined nicely. "You tell me what you want to tell me when you want to tell me. I'm not much for interrogating people."

Cole grins. "You're the first," he admits. "But, hey, that's cool. I'm just gonna say, right now, don't step in water that I'm standing in." It's his first and foremost fear. He's seriously injured, even killed, people that have done that. Hell, he's hurt himself pretty badly by falling into water before. It's not fun, and he doesn't want to see Nikita get hurt because of him.

She was curious about Cole and his abilities or powers or whatever they were, but she didn't like being interrogated herself (in any sense of the word, including the euphemism), so she didn't interrogate others. It was only fair. She hoped Cole would follow the same principle when it came to asking her questions, and so far he had. It came back to her concerns about what they'd talk about, though.

"So no hot tubs, then?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. It was the most flirtatious thing she'd said to him so far, and she was interested to see how he'd react.

Cole has his bourbon at his lips when she asks, and he sort of chokes on a sip. He lowers his head and glass and coughs into his fist, laughing even as his ears turn pink.

"Uh, no," he says with a huff as he catches his breath. "No, definitely no, uh, no hot tubs. Not unless you want the night to end with a bang."

She felt a little bad about doing that to Cole, since she had almost known that was how he'd react. Only a little though. His ears even turned pink. She hadn't seen anyone's ears turn pink since she'd flirted with Birkoff.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that when you were about to take a sip," she apologized. "You remind me of a friend from before. He would have reacted exactly that way. Actually, I'm pretty sure he did."

Cole laughs and coughs out a little, then clears his throat. "Shit, bourbon burns when you breathe it in." He grins, though. If he reminds her of a friend, maybe that means he's slowly getting through her defenses.

He hadn't even known he'd been trying, Cole realizes. He swallows and takes another sip.

"You don't talk much about before coming here," he says. "No pressure, y'know, it's your business, but. I dunno. It makes you . . . unique among all the new Darrowites." Darrowians. Darrowers. Whatever.

She'd known this question or one like it was coming, but he'd given her an out from answering it at the same time he asked it. More than one out, actually, and she appreciated that.

"There's not much to say about it," she shrugged. It wasn't exactly a lie, because there wasn't much she could say about it, and the things she could say, people didn't usually want to hear. All the same, she found herself choosing her words more carefully than she might have with someone else. No one liked being lied to. She knew that very well from her time in Section, and she didn't want to do that to Cole.

Of course, being concerned that she didn't lie to Cole meant that she might care about him, and that was a scary thought. It wasn't safe to care about anyone. Someone always got hurt, maybe even killed. It was how her life had always been.

"I didn't save the world or anything. Can't shoot lightning out of my toes, either."

"Eh, it's not always all it's cracked up to be," he assures. He wonders, idly, if he'll ever get Nikita to open up to him, even a little. He wonders if she'll ever trust him enough for that.

He tips his head a little, then says, "Did coming here at least change things for the better for you? It did, me." He tries to keep it to a simple 'yes' or 'no,' and if she flat out tells him she doesn't want to answer, he won't push (but he might assume that means 'yes'). Cole definitely hopes that Nikita never feels pushed into opening up with him.

Cole was learning or maybe he was just lucky, because yes or no questions were harder to answer without outright lying about the answer. Some of them she'd still lie about if she had to, but she was going to try to avoid them without seeming completely shady.

"It did, yeah," she replied. "I'm sure there are people who are looking for ways out of here, but I'm not one of them."

She said it calmly and wasn't surprised that he felt the same. Wasn't he dead in his world? Really dead, not just officially dead like she was. So he definitely wouldn't want to go back to that. And she didn't want to go back to Section, or even the life before Section.

He nods, though, and smiles. "I'm glad, then," he says. "That it's better for you, and that you're not looking for a way out." He doesn't add 'anymore', because he'd definitely gotten the sense from her that she was always looking for the exit when they first met. Like Nix, kind of, never comfortable in one spot for very long.

Cole can't help but wonder what type of Conduit Nikita might be, if she were from his world.

She'd been looking for a way out at first, but only because she couldn't believe this was true. She still thought she might wake up and be back there, stuck in Medical, tubes running into her body and monitors beeping constantly. She thought it less and less often though.

"You ever dream you're back where you were?" she asked, and paused to smile at the waiter as he put the nachos down between them. They looked good, piled high with lots of toppings.

"You're convinced you're there again and then poof, you wake up and you're still here?"

By asking those questions, she was tacitly admitting that she had those same feelings and dreams, and that was alright. She thought Cole might be able to relate.

"Yeah," he admits. He grabs a nacho and looks down at it thoughtfully. He rolls it in his fingers, keeping the melty cheese in one spot. "It's always different, though. Sometimes, I'm fucking up. Sometimes, I'm watching someone I care about die. Sometimes I'm trying to replay things in my head, figure out what I could've done differently." But he always wakes up here, again, and the story is still the same.

That was pretty close to what she tended to dream about. Sometimes it was Section related and sometimes it wasn't. She'd never had really terrible nightmares, not like Michael did, but they'd been unpleasant sometimes. They were actually getting better in Darrow, though, which she thought was probably due to not being under Section's thumb anymore.

She dug a chip under the toppings to get a good pile of them on it, then popped it in her mouth. Once she was done chewing, she spoke.

"Yeah, I get that. I could do without the instant replay most of the time, but I don't seem to get much choice about it. On the other hand, at least it's just a replay, and hopefully it'll stay that way."

She glanced around overly obviously.

"I just jinxed myself, didn't I?"

Edited 2015-02-27 01:20 (UTC)

Cole laughs. "God, I hope not," he says. "There's plenty I don't want to relive. Just the replay is good for me, too." He smiles and scoops up another nacho, then chases it with his drink. This is nice. No pressure, no obligation. They're just here.

"I could even do without that sometimes," she chuckled. "Not that I get much choice since I haven't figured out how to tell my brain what to dream."

But he probably didn't want to hear about that. He probably didn't want to hear about any of it. It wasn't that she thought herself that uninteresting. It was more that, if anything, it was too interesting. It was too weird. People who heard about her life before Section either pitied her or wondered if she was making it all up for attention. And of course, no one heard about her life in Section, but they'd definitely think she was making it up.

"But you don't want to hear about that. Nothing more boring than someone else talking about their dreams, right? So tell me your favorite color. Or movie. Or song. Or something."

Cole chuckles. He can't help but feel like maybe she's keeping herself closed off from him, not opening up as much as she could. Which is fine, really, but. He does want to get to know her.

"I'm not sure I have a favorite color," he admits. But he's happy to tell her about the other stuff, just for the sake of talking to her.

Nikita tsk'ed obviously and teasingly. She was enjoying herself, which she probably shouldn't have been so startled about. Every time she'd talked to Cole, even if it was just a quick hi or conversation in the laundry room, she enjoyed talking to him. She still was, though.

"No favorite color?" she repeated, smiling impishly at him before she popped another chip in her mouth and swallowed it. "I'm not sure if that's legal here. You might have to think one up, just in case."

He grins. "What are you, the color police?" he asks with a laugh. "Okay, okay, I'll work on it. Blue, off the top of my head, I guess." Which he realizes is kind of a cop-out color. Everyone says blue, he's pretty sure.

That was almost worse than no favorite color, and she rolled her eyes.

"Really? Blue? Everyone picks blue," she laughed. "Fine then. Movie, song, video game, thing to do when you have a free afternoon?"

He laughs. "I'll think about it!" he assures. "I like westerns, actually," he adds. "Probably doesn't seem like I would, to look at me. I dunno, I like how the good guy always wins and gets the girl." He's not much of a gamer, though, and especially since getting his powers, touching things is . . . risky.

And she'd learned something new: Cole was a least a bit of a romantic. It was a telling thing to like watching the good guys winning and getting the girls. She didn't believe that the good guys did win in real life and she was actually a little unsure about whether there were any good guys at all, but it was nice to see them in movies. It was nice to pretend that they did exist. She'd agree with that.

"You ever seen The Princess Bride? It's a fantasy more than a Western, but the good guy does win and he gets the girl. And it's funny. A lot of westerns aren't funny."

She'd watched it once with Carla at Carla's insistence. It had come out when Nikita'd been ten or something, but she hadn't seen it. Carla had been utterly aghast and had insisted that they had to sit down and watch it that next weekend. So they had.

"No, I don't think I've ever heard of it," he says with a frown. "You think I'd like it?" He wants to ask if she'd watch it with him, but he wonders if that would put pressure on her somehow.

"I think you might. And if you don't, you can make fun of my terrible taste in films," she pointed out. She was nearly certain he wasn't going to ask if she'd want to watch it with him, which in one way she liked. Cole was always really laid-back and no-pressure, although he did seem to like to spend time with her. She wasn't sure yet whether it was in a friendship way or more than that, and she wasn't sure he was sure either!

For now, what she needed and wanted was an actual friend in Darrow, someone she was almost definitely convinced wasn't going to stab her in the back either literally or figuratively. Anything more than that needed to grow out of that friendship. And maybe she could take a leap of faith now and then.

"Maybe we could watch it together. If you're interested, I mean," she said casually, and sipped her drink.

She hoped her leap of faith didn't land on any spikes.

Edited 2015-03-13 23:02 (UTC)

Cole considers, then nods. "Yeah, I'll give it a shot," he agrees. "And I will hold you to that whole 'make fun of your taste in movies' thing," he adds, pointing at her like it's a promise.

Nikita gave him the happy smile that had, in more than one case, caused someone to drop things, stop speaking, or otherwise show signs of being very startled. She'd hoped he'd say that, and he had.

"I wouldn't expect anything else," she agreed solemnly once she'd stopped smiling.

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Just a Beer [Cole]

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