WHO: Nicole Bardera & Martin Boot
WHAT: They talk following his parents' funeral
WHEN: October '78
WHERE: His place
This whole idea of caring about Martin Boot was disconcerting, Nicole had decided.
Not in the way that it was hard for her to care about a person, but in the way that it was hard for her to be caring about, of all people, someone that she had spent the last several years of her life convincing herself she didn't give a shit about, someone that she had been sure that she half the time couldn't stand--that was disconcerting.
There had been several hours after their confrontation at the pitch in which she had gone home, curled up in bed, and waited for the fury at herself for what had just happened to set in. But what was even further disconcerting than her caring about Martin was that she wasn't furious about it. That she hadn't yet stopped caring like she had thought--almost hoped, because she had to be going insane otherwise, Merlin. If anything, her caring had grown in intensity the days leading up to the funeral, and inexplicably furthermore in the hours following.
She hadn't been able to talk to him there, except a short 'hello' and 'I'm sorry for your loss', but she also might have been avoiding him just a little. It was even worse than before now, the way he looked so miserable, and it was infinitely worse for her to watch. She'd left early, citing some bland excuse or another.
But after she had gone home, Nick had quickly begun to regret her decision to not talk to him more than she had. She had taken off her mourning black, sat down with a book, tried to get comfortable and take her mind off of it... she couldn't. Every other thought was of him--how was he doing, what was he doing, where was he; it had gotten very quickly to the point of being overwhemling worry that she just couldn't push aside. About seven minutes after she'd put her book down, she'd been up and dressed and had Apparated outside the door to his flat, already having knocked twice. She had no idea if he'd even be there, but it seemed the best place to look.
Martin had been to funerals before. He had seen families collapse, spent and weeping against one another as flowers were dropped onto caskets sinking slowly beneath the earth, watched the faces, gaunt and ghost-like follow its descent until the first handful of dirt was tossed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All that rubbish. But this was different. This wasn't the burial of a distant relative that he had barely known, as the others had been. No. These were his parents. And these were his siblings standing next to him, Noel in between Noah and her husband (stupid git, what a way to finally meet him), sobbing... Noah looking distant and haunted but ultimately broken... and then there was Martin. Martin who had no fucking idea how to arrange a funeral but had somehow managed on his own because afterall, he owed his parents that much and wasn't he the man of the family now? He was the big brother.
So as the coffins were lowered into the earth and the finality of it all hit him hard enough to knock the wind out of him, Martin didn't let it show. He stood there, his squared jaw set, lips pressed into a grim thin line, nodding to those who'd come to comfort him, muttering barely audible words of thanks, inviting friends and family back to his place because that was just what you did, wasn't it? You gathered. You talked. You ate. You drank.You took comfort with those who had loved the Boots as well.
He'd hired caterers to modestly supply food and drink to his apartment, and some time later the large, lavish living area was haunted with individuals all dressed in depressing black garb. Going through the motions. And Martin was among them. Nursing a glass of firewhiskey, he weaved through the crowd, shaking hands, occassionally even bringing himself to laugh at a particular memory, but it sounded hollow to his own ears. His team mates had been there, of course, but Nick had backed out early (he didn't blame her, he supposed...) and even his own brother had bailed after the burial. He continued drinking right up until the last person had left and even after, and now, a few hours later after it had all happened, he was seated in his favorite arm chair, firewhiskey loosely clutched in numb fingers. The glass had seen an uncountable amount of refills by that time. His hair was disheveled, swept low over his glazed, unfocused eyes as they stared, his black collared shirt unbuttoned from his throat, his jacket crumpled by his bare feet.
The knock on the door made him look up, a brow quirking as he regarded the thin blonde figure standing in the threshold. "Thought you'd bailed," he muttered, his voice thick with drink. But he obviously wasn't unhappy to see her.
"Not much a person for crowds," she supplied halfheartedly, although they both knew that wasn't the reason she'd left. Her thought was nowhere near her words anyway, and the way her eyes took him in, up and down and with obvious worry, she was finally certain that she had real reason for her concern. He looked bloody awful, all messed up and dazed and very, very drunk. It was painful to look at him like this, it really was, but she knew that the last thing she was going to do was leave him here to drown his sorrows alone. "Figured I could do better to just see you later."
Without invitation (she figured she wouldn't get one, he didn't look like he was too ready to play the polite host), Nick walked past him into the apartment, closing the door behind her quietly. The place still showed all the remains of the reception that had taken place a couple of hours before, but it still didn't look as messy as he did. "How much have you had to drink?" she asked as calmly as she could, turning back to him.
He made a grunting noise in his throat and raised his glass to take another inebriating swig, no longer even feeling its burn. He was numb. Mission accomplished. He watched her over the rim of the glass as she entered the apartment, his lips twisting into a crooked smile that would have been typical of him had his eyes not been so... so hollow. "Enough," he said coyly. "Though I'm pretty sure I can remember why I'm drinking. So... not enough."
He struggled to sit upright in his chair, leaning one elbow on his knee as he upended the firewhiskey and finished it off; no sooner had the last drop dissapeared than he was twisting about to look for the bottle, blinking up at her like a child that'd misplaced its shoe. That is, until he remembered that he had put it down on the small table positioned directly next to his seat, and he reached out and held it up for her victoriously. "C'mon Nicky. Let's do a round."
For a moment, she thought of keeping the roll of her eyes to herself... But then again, he was so drunk he probably wasn't going to even notice, so she obliged herself and did it anyway. That had deserved it, she thought, as she reached out and grabbed the bottle in his hand, finding it amazingly easy to remove, even with him in his inebriated state. Merlin's hairy left---maybe she really didn't want a flat answer on how much he'd had to drink.
Nicole sat down on the couch opposite his chair and placed the bottle in her lap, both hands firmly around its neck as if anticipating an attempt to steal it back. "Okay, the 'Nicky' I might be able to forgive you for because you're obviously past your last inkling of judgement, but the round is definitely not happening--not with this bottle, and not with any other. I'm cutting you off."
His reaction time was so off that it was small wonder that she was able to steal the bottle so easily... by the time his fumbling fingers had made a grab to bring it back into his possession, she was already taking her seat just across from him, rolling her eyes and telling him something about cutting out. No. Cutting on? Off. Cutting off. She was cutting him off. He frowned at her and leaned towards her until he was dangerously close to teetering off the edge of the chair, trying his best to look stern but of course failing miserably.
"You... are in MY house. And the house rules... are... that I get to drink as much as I fucking want. I buried my parents today." He said this very matter-of-factly, though the resulting pang in his chest caused him to instinctively raise his glass to his mouth again, having forgotten that it was empty. His puzzled expression gave way to one of displeasure as he turned to eye the bottle in her hands. "So give it, Nicky."
"No, let me correct you," she said, mimicking him by leaning forward, but doing a much better job of looking stern. "Drunken fools can't be trusted to make up house rules, and as I am the only other person in the house, you relinquish house rule control to me by default for the time being. My house rules say that Martin Jack Boot is going to stop drinking before he gets alcohol poisoning or hurts himself in some other manner, get in the shower and run cold water over himself or else allow me to throw a bucket of it at him (your choice), and stop calling me by that cutesy nickname before I decide that I'm so annoyed that I don't care how drunk he is and punch him like I want to, for above stated reason, and for his recklessness in getting this pissed."
Nicole finished her sentence very matter-of-factly and sat back up straight, crossing her legs one over another. It wasn't as if he could really do anything about her taking charge with the state he was in, so she wasn't concerned with any anger he might display. Whatever it took to get him to stop drinking was fine by her.
He did not understand a single. Fucking. Word. His brows slowly drew down, eyes narrowed as he incredulously listened to her prattle on and on, using words that were far beyond his level of understanding in his current state. He waited until she leaned back in her seat, meeting her smug expression with a scowl... and then, like a child throwing a fit, he slammed his hand down on the arm of his chair and shouted, "But it's MY house!"
He went to stand, intent on pouncing on her and retrieving the bottle and drowning himself in the little liquor that remained simply to spite her. Only he'd barely shot to his feet an instant before he folded to the ground with a terrific thud. Stunned silence ensued before he rolled himself onto his back, his face scrunched as breathless laughter bubbled in his chest and burst hysterically from his throat. Gods, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been this bonked. Hell, he couldn't even remember his name right now. But he did remember a graveyard and crying and his parents' caskets dissapearing under a mound of dark earth. This was enough to still his manic laughter and, as he looked up at her from where he was lying at her feet, he mumbled again, quietly, "...I buried my parents today." It was almost as though he was seeking her confirmation in this. He groaned and hoisted himself into a seated position, wincing as his bruised ribs screamed in protest.
Martin's falling to the floor threw Nick to her feet and the bottle onto the couch nearly simultaneous with the resulting sound. She was standing just next to him, in the silence fearing that he'd knocked himself out or something of the like, when she was halted by his loud, almost crazed laughter. He had gone mad, he really had to have gone mad and she was frozen in the inability of knowing what to do. For fuck's sake, she didn't know how to rightly deal with his sober brooding a few days before, much less this.
Of course, she hadn't really even had time to full form her complete helplessness when he stopped. Just... stopped. And he sat up, and he was--
"Martin..." she murmured quietly. Forgetting all her confusion on the matter, she went off the first instinct that hit her and dropped to her knees beside him, enveloping him in a tight embrace. One hand went up to flatten his messy blonde curls down and she pulled him closer to her.
He grinned half-heartedly as she dropped quite suddenly down to the floor with him, not really expecting to be drawn into her arms, his face promptly buried against her shoulder. He inhaled deeply, the scent of her serving to ground him to the situation at hand; he all but melted against her, one arm poised so that his hand could awkwardly clutch at the fingers that were smoothing down the tangles of his hair. When he finally gathered the strength to lift his head (Merlin, but it felt heavy...), he pulled away and noisily wiped the back of his hand across his nose, snuffling against his sleeve as he stumbled and swayed his way to a standing position, leaning heavily against the wall and looking for all the world like he was about to just melt down the side of it into a great puddle. But he didn't. Nope.
Instead, he turned and threw his whole weight into a graceless swing of his arm, the force of which sent it wrist-deep into the wall. "Fuck!" The word roared from his mouth, filling the large apartment with noise only to be followed by a quiet, barely audible mumble of the same word, his forehead thudding forward against the now-damaged surface. "...Fuck..."
His hand, when he removed it, was scratched quite a bit, but otherwise seemed unharmed.
He turned to look at her, very nearly pouting as he cradled his bleeding digits against his arm. "Yea, you don't need to say it. I'm a fucking idiot."
And THAT was when he melted down the wall.
For all his drunkness and the situation at hand, Nick couldn't say that she had exactly been anticipating him to put a hole in his own wall. She couldn't help jumping back a couple inches at the sudden violence of it all, and unlike before made no move quite yet to get up and help him. She watched from her previous place on the living room floor as he held his wounded hand to him and then addressed her about what he figured she was thinking.
Except he had it wrong--there was no way that she could even begin to think of calling him names after something like that.
Nicole still didn't advance towards Martin again until a few moments after he had been sitting against the wall and she was at least somewhat certain that he wasn't going to get up and pull another stunt. She crawled over towards her teammate, but did not hug him this time. She merely sat next to him, back to the wall, and took a deep breath and closed her eyes to try and compose the mess of thoughts that refused to untangle themselves.
It was turning out to be quite a day.
When she opened her eyes again, she felt no more enlightened and still completely useless to the man beside her, but unwilling to give up trying with him. "You know.... I'm here, for... whatever," she said, a little awkwardly. "I'm not going to leave, even if you tell me to. And... I don't think you're an idiot, so just--stop it."
He rolled his head to the side, watching her as she meditated, or... whatever it was she was doing with her eyes closed and the silence and stuff. He scrunched his face up , one eye screwing shut as he struggled to keep her in focus and not become some shifty blob thing. "...Why're you bein' so nice to me lately...?"
It had been something he'd been wondering since their little sexual escapade in the locker room the other night. "You do think I'm an idiot... I am an idiot." He grumbled something inaudibly under his breath and stretched his legs out on front of him, pausing a moment to acknowlege the irony that the only person who'd come to check on him was the woman who hated everything he stood for, everything he was. Or everything he appeared to be, anyway.
Despite knowing that this was a bad setting, Nick felt her defensiveness flare up again at his question, throwing back up walls that, try as she might, she couldn't quite strike back down. The last thing she wanted to do was snap at him when he was like this, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
Her shoulders tensed and she stood up very suddenly, glaring back down at him over her shoulder. "How about before I tell you that, you tell me why you kissed me back at the pitch in the middle of an argument--or why you fucked me in the middle of the locker room? Explain that to me, explain what the fuck is going on between us and I'd be happy to hear it, because I don't have a bloody idea what's happening and I'm just trying my fucking best with you, alright?"
He flinched when she catapulted to her feet, peering up at her with a mildly concerned expression that deepened into fullblown bewilderment (and perhaps a bit of shame) as she lashed out at him with questions concerning their tryst. At first all he could manage was a dumb "huh?", though he quickly shook his head, combing his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck as he struggled to form an articulate response.
"I... I just... I wanted you to stop yelling at me."
Even as wasted as he was, he knew that that answer was only going to get him in more trouble and he scrambled to rectify it, sitting up straighter against the wall and looking at her in earnest. "Not like that! It's just..." Merlin, why was she asking him this now>!? "I needed someone. And you were there and you were angry and I was angry and... you, you're very cute when you're angry, by the way... and we were fighting and then I was so mad I wanted to hit you but I couldn't so I kissed you. And then I wanted more of it because you made me stop thinking, you made it not suck so fucking bad to be me and I felt alright, I felt good. You made me feel good, like maybe things weren't gonna be shitty forever. Ok?!" He wasn't making a lot of sense, and he slouched back against the wall, deflated with the effort of producing so many words at once.
She wasn't sure whether she wanted to smack him or hug him.
One half of his speech led her to believe that all he had been doing was using her, but then he went on about how she made him feel good and--ugh, what the fuck, this was so screwed up, they had to be the most screwed up... whatever they were... in history.
Nicole turned her back to Martin and ran her hands through her hair, feeling as if she were drowning in the frustration of it all. She just--it had almost been okay before, when she had been able to put aside these questions for the time being and just, like he said, go with it. He hadn't seemed concerned with the whys, so it was easy to avoid them and just try and work with these inexplicable emotions they'd found. But now he was asking about the whys, which brought this miniscule illusion of something resembling normal crashing to the ground at her feet, and she had an even more foggy idea of how to deal with that effectively than she did how to deal with an emotional, drunken Martin.
There was a long lapse of tense silence that fell over the apartment as she tried to grope for her composure. Retriving only a tiny bit of it (but better than none at all), her voice was very barely controlled when she spoke again. "You're drunk, you've got no idea what you're saying," she told him. "Go to bed and sober up. We'll talk in the morning."
Martin was an emotional person. Not emotional in the sense that he cried a lot or anything... he just tended to express whatever it was that he was feeling. Wore his heart on his sleeve, if you will. That was probably the biggest difference between him and his brother. Well, that and their levels of intellect. That was a given though.
His face fell as he stared at her back, her harsh words causing him to clamber to his feet stubbornly and glare at her. "I know what I'm sayin'!" he snapped, clearly offended. "I'm drunk and stupid but I'm not some kind of... of..." he waved his wounded hand around to substitute whatever word it was that was currently eluding him, "...whatever."
He pressed his shoulder into the wall and rested his cheek against it, staring at her back for what felt like a long time.
"...why'd you let me kiss you, anyways?" She certainly hadn't been complaining when she was up against the lockers, either.
"I... don't know," she answered honestly, turning her eyes down to her feet. Or at least semi-honestly. It wasn't quite true that she didn't know why she'd let him, because she did--she liked him, even if she hadn't realized it until he had actually grabbed her and shown her himself. What she didn't know was why she liked him, although she did know why it was so hard to admit it. She could say she cared (at least when she wasn't busy being so defensive), but like was in a whole different realm entirely. A friend could care, but if you liked, there was obviously something more to it, and something more had always been difficult to open herself up to.
Unlike Martin, she didn't just go and tell people what she was feeling. Growing up around a bunch of boys that were constantly competing to look stronger and tougher than one another, it was something she had sort of adopted along the way. You just didn't sit down and talk about or physically display your innermost thoughts... When she had cried for him, it had been the first time in longer than she could remember that she'd shown an emotion like that--more than twenty years, she was sure.
Swallowing that l-word, she answered him awkwardly. Genuinely, but awkwardly. "I wanted to, I guess. It... felt nice."
