the_last_resort | Time travel and lousy life choices

"Yeah. Seems like he has a whole bucket of problems that he still needs to deal with." He couldn't even claim to be the pot in the situation. Niko had been working hard on saving himself- he at least hadn't killed anyone. Fights, yes, but this had been the longest he had gone without putting a bullet in someone's skull, and he hoped he was happily done with that business.

But Niles was a junky, and someone that obviously craved some support. It certainly took the edge off knowing him because he knew any kindness would be valued, but it seemed like a long time before it would not be needed in excess.

"Eventually I think he'll be alright."

"I hope so. The place where he came from—" She shook her head. "Bloody awful. And he, of course, was being wasted out where he was. There ought to be others we can fetch from that zone as well. I think he'll do all right as an agent, in any event. He's got the right sort of charm."

This was simply a straightforward assessment of Niles's skills, to her mind.

Niko barked a laugh at that, not even attempting to hide it. Because it didn't just sound like someone assessing skills- no one hardly ever noticed "charm" in a person unless they had either noticed it romantically or noticed it resentfully.

Oh he was sure that a few children could be charming in their own way, but grown men? Not unless the lady was charmed by them.

"You have a type, don't you?" He snorted, though he didn't know actually how right he was. "Just ah... I suspect he's got a lot of adjusting to do yet."

She looked at him with an expression on her face that was something halfway between a frown and a laugh.

"Are you trying to warn me off him?" she said. "Because it's not like that at all. Charm and charisma is practically in the job description. And I do not have a type."

She was ruefully aware, nevertheless, that she almost certainly sounded like she was protesting too much; that she did think Niles was an attractive man; and finally that Niko, hilariously enough, was right. She was almost impressed that he'd noticed after such a relatively brief acquaintance.

"A little, yeah." He spread out his hands. "Look, I ah, I knew this woman once, who very terrible about her choices in men. I mean, She dated me and thought I was the most sweet man in the universe, one that the world did completely wrong.

"That is most of her boyfriends. I got so she would tell me about an ex, and the first thing I would ask is, 'What did he do?' She met them as a lawyer, meant to make the world a better place in her career, and instead she is in love with saving us bad symptoms of it."

"Or maybe you don't like well-spoken sad men who smile a lot." He did notice those similarities between Niles and Belloq, and the way he said it along with the tense roll of his shoulder showed he was still a little unsettled. "In any case, he has good personality but is still a symptom of a bad world."

Edited 2015-03-01 18:58 (UTC)

Una just couldn't be annoyed with Niko, because, well—he had a point. She snorted, amused, and proceeded to light a cigarette, offering one to Niko.

"My men are charming, dangerous, or doomed—or some combination of the above," she admitted with a self-deprecating shrug. "Another way of putting what you said, I suppose. Arguably my women are much nicer and I really ought to stick to them, but the heart wants what it wants, I suppose." She drew on the smoke, inhaling it in the French style. "My friend Lobkowitz—" and here she laughed a little, because well-spoken sad men who smile a lot described him nearly exactly, and they had been lovers, "—he would say that it's inherently feminine, to want to save everything. The world, a class, a single hapless man—all of it. We all have a mother within us." She made a waving-away gesture with her hand. "He's an old-fashioned man, is Lobkowtiz."

Edited 2015-03-01 22:29 (UTC)

"Personally, I do not think it's a mother. I think it's a way of life that many women, I guess human women mostly, are taught." He actually looked a little sad, thinking of what his own mother had put up with. "My mother is a product of the old world, and she had a man that treated her ill, that beat her children. She was a good person, she never raised a violent hand towards anyone, but her love did nothing to change him even if she felt she was obligated to stay.

"When a woman and a man are both fucked up and just friends together, trying to be normal? That is a good life. When one is fixing the other? Being hero? That doesn't go very well. Maybe with other ladies you let yourself just be fucked up." Because, as stoic as Una seemed, she also seemed like a woman prone to mistakes and mistakes were awful things that could haunt for decades upon decades.

Though he tried to shake heavy thoughts of his mother. "Now, my aunt? Amazing person. Strong woman who would kick my shitty uncle out on his ass whenever he was shitty. She couldn't make him be a good person but she gave her all to make sure her children were safe." Including him. She had been an inspiration- sadly probably also one for many of the mistakes he had made.

"She couldn't leave him, because she was a good Catholic, but her babies? Always first priority."

"She sounds like a remarkable woman " Una said, sincerely. "And you're right, of course; it's society that persuades women that we ought to behave in a certain way, particularly towards men. Even I find it hard to get over that conditioning. As you have correctly guessed. And I suppose you might say that my friend Catherine and I allow ourselves to be fucked up around one another more than we do anyone else." A small half-grin. "Are you sure we haven't met before? Not the last time I was here; I mean before that. Because you seem to know me awfully well."

She was teasing, but for her, there was always the possibility that there might be something to that after all, and she wasn't guaranteed to remember every acquaintance she made, or every persona she adopted.

Edited (typo) 2015-03-02 02:32 (UTC)

"No, with a face as pretty as yours, I would remember." He said it like simple fact. Because it was true- Una had a pretty face and she probably damn well knew it (just like, to his credit, Niko knew that he had a pretty good body and that was why he covered it up). "It is sad enough that the world has enough things it tries to teach people it is easy to guess how things have gone."

He guessed that, in his own way, he was pretty predictable, too. A child soldier of the Balkan wars said a lot about what he had gone through. Many came out mentally scarred.

"Here, let me show you another good woman." He pulled out his wallet, finding a picture of a red-headed Irish-American woman that looked much like Rita Hayworth and Jayne Mansfield had somehow managed to breed and produce a goddess that dressed like a school teacher. "She was pretty smart." He said. No need to comment on the looks, they were obvious. "She knew when to outright tell a guy he was an idiot, and would accept no less than one to be responsible."

"She sounds like someone I would have liked," Una said, and her tone was gentle. Niko's use of the past tense had not escaped her. And suddenly, as if a cloud had passed across the sun, she felt a flicker of déjà vu. Something like this had happened before, though no clear memory presented itself.

Niko tended to forget when he mentioned Kate, because he tried so very hard not to think about her.

"She was a likable person. But ah... she made a point that we were only friends for a very long time. That is what worked out best for us."

"I don't know. Maybe you should hook up with more ladies. Most of us men are assholes." He knew it. He wouldn't deny it. He definitely could be friends with them, and he didn't mind being one, but he knew what it meant socially.

She laughed. "You're not entirely wrong," she said, "but believe me, men haven't got a monopoly on terrible behaviour." See also: Miss Brunner, Mitzi Beesley. "There are some who'd put me in that category too, I don't doubt."

"True, I've dated a few of those, too." He would have probably been better with booty calls than actual dating, though.

"Everyone does. Of course, when men are awful, they're simply called arseholes. Awful women? Are called crazy." She folded her arms, shook her head. "But what a dull place the world would be if people only did what was good for them."

She wasn't entirely serious.

"Well, one did slice my tires. And sometimes she would take the hood of my car off." He said with sort of a grim tires.

"But that's not entirely true. A lot of my friends called me crazy. Most of them also said I was a nice guy, but they also called me a psycho sooooo...." He made a so so motion with his hand.

"Maybe I got lucky with the unique labels."

Una laughed, and clapped Niko on the shoulder, a comradely gesture.

"You are unique, Niko," she said. "And thanks for your concern. Really. I do appreciate it."

He chuckled at the friendly gesture, and motioned generally around the dig (just because once he got into talking, he was one of those people that spoke with his hands as much as his mouth). "So I got very close to a creeper! Never had a suicidal bush almost get me before."

She laughed. "'Suicidal bush'. You know, if I could understand why a species would evolve specifically to explode, I'd—well, I'd be a scientist other than what I am. How close did you get?"

"I still don't get the praying mantis thing." He shook his head, meaning the tendency for female praying mantises to partake in their mate's head if they were hungry enough.

"I guess it must feel good to do it. I mean, women, you carry these tiny people, whole people inside of you for nine whole months before you shove it out a hole that is really not big enough for it. I don't know why that would have evolved, either. But there it is and it seems to work for its purpose. So maybe one day they'll figure out what fun thing they get from exploding."

Una laughed. "Maybe you're right. They—"

She broke off suddenly. The talk of mantises and of childbirth clicked somewhere in the back of her mind even as she was talking, and she paused there in mid-sentence, and blinked.

Mantises would have been deemed an unfortunate reminder if he knew what she was thinking, but then he saw that look cross her face. He just watched it, briefly, and then dove into his duffel bag for a flask to sip from.

"Sometimes I see soldiers look like that, after they have tried to forget something. And then later it starts poking them in the head because someone reminds them."

It wasn't always bad things, realistically. He knew that. People forgot good things, too. But he was used to it being bad things being pushed under the bed like hidden garbage.

"I know exactly what expression you're talking about," she said. "No, it just dawned on me—what if exploding is how they make more little creepers? That when they do, it spreads their—their seeds, their spores. Which eventually sprout and go on to explode in turn."

"Could be." He observed with a lazy nod. He wasn't that smart, but some things he'd noted, and knew.

"There is little black flammable dirt stuff they leave behind if you kill them before they pop. Acts like gunpowder. Maybe they have spores that are pretty strong like that."

"It's terrifying, how much sense this makes," she said, laughing suddenly. "Dear god, what a world this is. So many new and exciting things to get used to."

"I think I have had too much exciting in my life."

But then he also didn't know the excitement of discovery as well as some other. Excitement for him usually came with doom, and he was cautious of it. Roman, he loved it much more than Niko.

He wondered, briefly, how Linda was taking to it. Boone seemed to simply adapt well. Which brought him to another subject that he'd been very hesitantly considering, but every time he thought too much about it he would get pissed at himself.

"So ah... speaking of bad tastes in partners... say there is someone outside of your usual type that you are sort of like being around. But they are a very good friend. I don't know, does it mean maybe that I'm probably just reading too much into a good friend?"

OOC: For some reason that paragraph starter was down below my text box. I wondered where it had gone.

Edited 2015-03-15 00:50 (UTC)

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Aaaand this is one that I lost

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