Scum & Villainy // Nev & Tonic

Nev walks into Tonic's room and stops, amused. "With all these pillows and no furniture, I feel like I'm back at the temple. Of course, they'd have to be rocks, not pillows, but it's basically the same thing." They hold out the bottle in their hand. "Here. The finest Nightfall Starberry hooch. Guaranteed to put hair on your feet or at least make me more comfortable."

After Tonic takes the bottle, Nev drops easily into a seated sprawl across a couple of cushions. "How do you want to do this? I'd request no fingernail removal or eye gouging, but if that's your thing, we can negotiate..." they pause, waiting to see how their joke is received.

Unfortunately for Nev, the stitch's expression in regards to fingernails and eye-gouging is a smile that goes up just a little too quickly.

Nev clears their throat and continues quickly, "Right. Uh, what about a game? We take turns asking questions, At any time, one of us can refuse to answer, but that ends the game. We could request a different question, say, two times? but if the questioner refuses to ask a different one, that ends the game.

"Lies end the game immediately. I can tell if you lie, and I suspect you're pretty good at telling when someone isn't telling the truth, too. For what it's worth, I promise to answer your questions fully and truthfully, unless the answers would reveal secrets not mine to share. What do you think?"

While Nev is explaining, Tonic gathers a couple of mismatched drinking glasses from somewhere in the exposed wall and clears a small area on the floor with his bare foot. Nev can see his prosthetic, dull black and jointed in a single line across the toes. He folds the leg under him when he finally takes a seat, setting the glasses and bottle down in the open space between them, and wedging more pillows behind himself to form a comfortable place to recline.

"Well, normally I'd say that you have terrible taste in games. That sounds more like a mutual interrogation than anything fun."

However, he settles back with a crooked smile, regarding his guest with curiosity.

"But I can be bribed, and you've brought a very strong alcohol--so sure, I'll play. Guests get to go first."

Nev smiles in return, pours a drink into a translucent, shallow glass that is almost a small bowl, and takes a sip, carefully maintaining their cool, amused expression with effort.

When they're sure their voice will be steady, Nev says, "Sorry. I was trying to figure out how to make this feel safe for everyone, to start. We can see how it goes." Another sip.

After a brief moment staring contemplatively into their glass, they ask, “Why do you want to know everyone’s secrets?”

They look up from the shimmery orange surface of their drink at Tonic’s face. Not disgusted, not curious or intrigued by the scars, nor gazing with pity or lust on the unmarred parts, just open. Listening.

Edited 2019-12-03 19:00 (UTC)

Tonic isn’t in a hurry to pour himself a drink. He’ll probably get around to it, but for right now, he shifts to gazing at nothing in the vague direction of the floor between them.

His mood comes through with surprising clarity. Neutral, calm, vaguely amused. He makes a curious sound, but answers a beat later without the slightest hesitation.

“Because it makes me feel important.” Honest.

“And if I can figure it out everyone else’s problems, I won’t be surprised when they finally come knocking at our door.” Honest again. And then he laughs, immediately changing his mind about pouring himself a drink.

“Just don’t tell, or I’ll have to kill you.” Lying. Mostly. “It will ruin my mystique.” Truth. Mostly.

“Now, is that the only thing you’d planned on asking me? That’s my question.”

He’s listening too, just differently.

Nev sets their drink down and flops backward onto more cushions, staring at the ceiling.

“No.” They pause, for longer than strictly necessary, and then continue, juvenile amusement coloring their words for just a moment. “I actually had thre- no, four...ish? in mind, but I always enjoy hearing people’s stories, so I could keep doing this as long as it’s fun or interesting for both of us.”

Nev’s hand reaches unerringly for their drink, neatly wedged between cushions. They raise the drink and start to bring it toward their head, while still lying on their back.

Tonic sees Nev’s hand pause and then hears grumbling, and Nev pops easily back up into a seated position, drink held almost casually, but without spilling a drop, despite the shallow glass. Nev tosses back a healthy swallow and winces.

“Why ‘Tonic’?”

Oh, good. Tonic really doesn't know where he stands with Nev, despite them insisting that they're an open book. With an answer like that, at least assume that this game isn't some petty ploy they'll bow out of the moment they get what they want.

It could turn into a fun game after all.

Tonic watches them flop around, watches their drink. Takes a sip in response, though he makes a face that suggests he wasn't quite ready for whatever burning taste it leaves in his mouth.

"Ah, good question." He clears his throat with a short laugh, "A friend of mine called me that. I specialized in making tinctures and other little bottled remedies for things. I think that impressed him. Mister Tonic was the bit."

Truthful, again. "And I liked it better than my old one, so I kept it."

He'll go back to reclining. He takes another sip (in case the flavor has somehow improved between tastes), and then asks.

"So, like I was asking before--why'd you decide to leave your temple?"

Nev sees Tonic relax a little and starts, a little guiltily. They gulp down the rest of their drink, cough a little, and then reach for the bottle to refill their glass, clearly buying a little time to think about how to answer.

"I'll answer that, but if you can be patient, I'll give you a couple for free. They're all related, anyway.

"Until I was an adult, I lived in a place with absolutely zero secrets. Everyone knew -- and constantly poked their noses into -- everyone else's business. That was obnoxious -- even as they professed that 'everyone needs to find their own Path,' they were telling you how you were doing it wrong.

"For the last twenty or so years, I've been mostly on my own. It's hard to know who to trust, and I've learned that letting people make their own assumptions about me lets me use those assumptions to my advantage. I feel like this --" they wave around at the bulkheads "is a good place for me to be for a while and I've already trusted everyone here to watch my back more than once, but...habits." They raise an eyebrow questioningly and let their hand fall.

Nev turns to stare casually at the vent near the ceiling covered by a hatch that appears to latch from both sides and grins. "I know about discarding names that no longer fit. If you haven't heard already, I was named Benevolence. The temple named everyone who entered with a virtue that person needed to practice most. Since I was found as an infant, they guessed, but maybe better than any of us knew..."

Snort. Drink.

"Maybe not. Anyway, I left because I felt that with a few notable exceptions, the place was filled with a bunch of holier-than-thou hypocrites paying lip service to ideals they never understood because they hadn't actually lived outside enough or because they did and were running from responsibility."

Drink.

"I wasn't kicked out, or banned, or anything seedy like that. Many of them felt it was the right thing for me to do. I'd either go out and find a better Path for myself and help some other people along the way, or I'd come back with my tail between my legs. Most of the rest of them were just happy to see me go.

"Since then, I've been traveling. Meeting people. Helping when I can, but mostly just living my life and seeking out mysteries and new experiences wherever I can. Someday, I'll get in a ship and just go. As far as I can, as fast as I can, and see what's on the far side of the stars."

Nev looks up, and clears their throat loudly, obviously embarrassed. "That's about the most I've talked about myself at once in at least a decade." They knock back the rest of their drink in one go and reach for the bottle again.

They start to say something, and then stop, clearly reconsidering. "Who are you most worried for on this bucket? Not worried about, mind you, worried for?"

Edited 2019-12-03 22:08 (UTC)

He continues to watch, expression left somewhere neutral as he becomes so focused in the careful absorption of every word that he forgets that it's kind of creepy to stare at people.

By the time Nev finally finishes their story, he's got the fingers of his good hand pressed against his mouth in very deep thought, eyes narrowed while he continues to look at the person in front of him as if puzzling through a deep, multi-layered and particularly evasive riddle.

Just when it starts to get awkward... His demeanor suddenly brightens, a synapse firing at the back of all of his other thoughts.

"Oh, it's the second syllable, I get it. That's good." He lifts his glass, chuckling into his drink. "That's fun."

After another sip, he sets his glass down beside him, clearly not out to win any drinking contests.

"You're welcome to move the floor around, by the way. I don't care. Make yourself at home." He gestures in a shooing motion, as if he expects them to do it, before leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling.

"Anyway... I'll have to think, for that one..."

For whatever it's worth, he's still being honest.

Nev smiles at him. "Thank you. I'm pretty comfortable right now." Indeed, they have settled back, semi-reclining, on a nest of pillows they've made.

"Go ahead and ask a question, if you'd like. You can owe me that answer whenever you have it."

Nev looks deep into Tonic's eyes. "I trust you." A wide grin slides onto their face.

Edited 2019-12-04 02:34 (UTC)

He looks down in time to catch that look, the open grin, the clear and sickening honesty. It makes him smile, and then it makes him laugh as though this was some kind of a joke, and then it makes him laugh as though it was deeply, genuinely funny.

Soon he's leaning forward, clutching his side through a fit of giggles, and finally pressing his palm against his bad eye as he takes a moment to catch his breath.

"Oh..." He smiles, the expression pulling at the normally neutral side of his face, "Foolish. You really shouldn't."

Honest. Kind of. Complicated.

Nev's grin disappears, and they look back at Tonic, completely serious for a moment. "Oh. I know."

Nev pauses, thinking, and then their mouth twists slowly into an ironic smile and then broadens back into the same, open grin. "...but then, if you think about it, that's the real trick, isn't it?"

Edited 2019-12-04 04:04 (UTC)

He wipes something away from his eye (honestly... hard to tell if he laughed to hard he made himself cry, or if his bad eye just sort of... does that, under structural duress...) and shakes his head at Nev, still fighting the edges of a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah. I practically gave Gabe a speech about it the other day, you don't have to tell me..."

It's hard to tell if he's annoyed or charmed. There's a good chance that it's a little of both. He waves his hand again, attempting to regain his composure.

"And I'm not worried for anybody. You can all take care of yourselves." Tonic finally looks around for his glass again, honest in so far as he understands what was being asked of him. "I don't think I've ever been asked that before in my life."

Before drinking, he points down at Nev with his glass in his hand: "Can you even get drunk?"

Edited 2019-12-04 05:06 (UTC)

"I'm assuming that's just curiosity and not a capital-Q Question, but yes. I am, in fact," Nev gestures expansively at their reclined form, "drunk as a skunk, whatever that actually means. Schnockered, blotto, forbled beyond hope."

Despite their extensive proclamations, it's doubtful that anyone other than someone with Tonic's trained eye (or perhaps Ash's combat-experienced one) would notice much difference in Nev's movements, which are perhaps slightly less precise and more theatrical than usual. The amount of training and muscle control this betrays is impressive.

"Ask something else."

"Hah, then you are a good actor," he says, shrugging in his amusement before finally downing the equivalent of a large shot. He chokes down the aftertaste, wincing, "Your talents were being wasted, I'm sure."

He gets settled again. Stretches his good leg and his not-leg out to the side.

"I want to know who you're the most worried for."

"Rue." No hesitation. "Everyone else has obvious secrets, skeletons, shenanigans." (Definitely drunk.) "From everything I've figured out, she's a literal kid with nothing to hide. BUT she also has past lives. I worry that there's something none of us know about. I should ask Ash if they know more, now that we've come to something of an understanding."

Nev starts to ask another question. Pauses again. "Fine. Here's mine. What are the things you are worried I might ask about that you would prefer not to discuss? I'm enjoying this and I'd rather not waste either of our time or sour the mood. I also realize that answering this might be almost as bad, so if you want, I'll change my question without it counting against anything."

He listens to their answer, now genuinely curious to hear if there had been something he was missing. He nods quietly along as Nev explains, making a small noise of agreement that they should go and talk to Ash. Then comes Nev's question.

"Hm, that's very sweet of you..." A genuine statement, though he says it with such dry inflection that it's hard to take at face value. He takes a moment to think, looking over at nothing in particular, clicking his tongue once he decides.

"There's only one thing I won't discuss with you, and I can't tell you what that is. If you manage to find it, I'll just tell you that I can't tell you."

There, simple. He steeples his fingers together.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Favorite... Color? Is that something people DO?" Nev takes a drink and doesn't even change expression. "This tastes really good. That's... probably a bad sign."

"We always wore pretty neutral colors," they smirk and wave down at their black and grey outfit like a deep hole against Tonic's riotous decor, "and we were supposed to minimize distractions, so I've never had a favorite color. I just love seeing different colors and combinations wherever they appear, naturally, or not. Don't know if that's a fair answer or not, so I might owe you one.

"Hmm. What food have I probably never had that you think I should definitely try next time we're on Warren?"

"Ugh, you people--" He waves a hand in the air, gesturing to the nebulous entirety of the ship with a frown, "--You don't owe me one, but you and Athri have something in common."

He's partly kidding. It wasn't a terrible answer. He just can't understand having good taste in clothing but no profound opinions on color.

"For food..." It seems a silly question (because his question about color was so much more important), but he gives it a moment of thought, rifling through memories of the various spots he's stopped to eat at on Warren. "There's a food stand about... A ten minute walk away from the docking stations, that's got something called a Cluster Roll. It's got shredded moon-fish, mint, some... rice paper, I don't remember," he waves it off with a gesture, "And the best breaded coating I have ever eaten. Perfect size, too."

Now, since they’ve been asking such mundane questions... He has to swing in the other direction. “What’s your biggest fear?”

Edited 2019-12-05 14:48 (UTC)

No hesitation. "Running out of options and having to go back to the temple, forever." Nev grins. "No fair! I've wanted to ask that a couple of times now, but I stopped myself. Now I need to come up with a better one. Hmm."

They stop talking abruptly and close their eyes. Just when Tonic starts to wonder if Nev has passed out, they ask, without opening their eyes, "What is the answer to the question I haven't asked yet that you wish I would?"

Edited 2019-12-05 18:11 (UTC)

Knowing he's gone and stolen their question gets a hearty cackle out of him. That, and their actual answer. The phrasing is kind of cute, though he ultimately understands the sentiment behind it.

... He does start to wonder if maybe he should get up and find a blanket for them or something, but they eventually speak again, and ask a very intriguing question. Tonic hums in acknowledgement and says nothing for a moment, thinking.

When he finally answers, he picks his words with a little more care than usual: "The freedom to enjoy living."

He lets it hang in the air for a moment, taking quiet joy in even having heard it said, before he continues.

"You told me before that you were trying to deepen your understanding of the Way, or something to that effect. What have you learned since you found this crew?"

Scum & Villainy // Nev & Tonic

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject