Broderick Best (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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adventureic2024-04-23 07:22 pm
abracadavers) wrote in adventureic2024-04-23 07:22 pm
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WHO: Nazikeda and Broderick
WHEN: Tuesday, April 23, night
WHERE: Broderick’s apartment
WHAT:Parents are gone Keda visits Broderick and the kittens
WARNINGS: None, some swearing, talk of murder
In the time since arriving at the Society, the time around the full moon has settled into something of a routine. Nazikeda tilts her chin up for a kiss, ushers Briar out of their apartment, and then spends her evening indulging in whatever idle nonsense strikes her fancy in loungewear that doesn't strictly belong to her.
Which is not to imply that there is anything wrong with the routine as it has been established. It is well and fine and wearing itself into something comfortable. But it is just a bit lonely. And, perhaps more importantly, it goes against the currently established need to maintain some level of mutually-assured safety measures.
So showing up at Broderick’s door is really only using good sense and sound judgment.
“Keda,” the wizard doesn’t sound surprised, and his smile suggests he was even waiting for her. He also seems a little distracted though and when a plaintive meow, pathetic and arch cries from just behind the man, he nearly brains himself on the door trying to see why.
“God damnit,” he curses, waving Keda in even as he presses at the tender spot at the side of his head. “I hope you don’t mind, we’re still figuring out what to do with them.”
There's barely enough time for Nazikeda to hiss in sympathy before the pitiful little noise from inside the apartment has her own lips turning down into a frown of commiseration. "Oh, zavallı bebeğim," she says in a sweet, soft voice most often reserved for very young children and other small things as she steps forward and peers around him and into the clearly occupied space. "What has happened?"
Her head tips back in his direction, not lacking in empathy but certainly pairing it with amusement. "You are all right too, yes? Nothing damaged?"
He waves her off.
“I’m fine,” he dismisses with his most popular catch phrase these days. “They just like to start screaming if they don’t have my attention at all times.” His exasperation is fond, but she can sense the futility behind it all. “I’m still not convinced they’re not Scantelbury’s spies, but they are cute.”
He gestures for her to make herself at home on the couch beside the pile of them. “Briar head off okay?”
Nazikeda purses her lips, clicks her tongue at him as she makes her way to the couch. Fine is a filler word. An easy patch with variable definitions. One can almost always say that they are fine even when they have trouble with saying certain things.
"If you are going to recruit spies, this is certainly the way to go. Cute, just a little bit helpless, capable of great destruction." She folds her legs underneath herself, already reaching forward with her index and middle fingers politely crooked in offering. Her eyes crinkle at the corners.
"Briar is very eager for his playdate, I think. He likes getting to actually run instead of being cooped up."
Broderick couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter at her words and the mental image they inspired. “I’m not allowed to make anymore dog jokes,” he laments and brings over two glasses of wine, the bottle tucked underneath his arm in an awkward and overconfident move considering the balancing act he was doing while kittens were underfoot.
Broderick thinks he’s doing a good job of keeping a calm veneer, like he isn’t itching to reach out somehow to Byron, as much as he trusts his younger brother to keep himself safe.
The breadth of her smile widens, twitches itself up into something crooked and bright. "It is not a dog joke if you never use the word dog." Nazikeda ticks up a finger and then twitches the whole of them for the assembled kittens to bat at. "Then it is merely a dog insinuation and that would never hold up in a court of law."
She straightens herself just enough to receive her glass. "Thank you," she says. "I would ask if your apartment had been feeling quiet, but I do not imagine you have had very much quiet or absence of company as of late."
“It’s how I prefer things actually,” he admits as he takes a seat on the opposite end of the couch, the little furr balls between them. “Well, perhaps not this noisy, but I grew up with a lot of siblings and as focused as I can get with my work, I like having people – others,” he apologizes to the black cat pawing at his thigh, “around. And with my powers, I’m never alone to begin with. It would feel strange to have complete quiet.”
He meets her gaze then. “How are you. Really.”
"Is it always talking?" Nazikeda sets her glass down so that the hand not occupied with scritching underneath one of the kitten’s chins can rise to cup the air around her ear, twisting vaguely around the absence of sound in her own mind. "Or is it sometimes just a feeling?"
“Both,” he answers easily, but his expression presses for an answer to his question.
She holds his gaze, steady for a moment before she ticks one shoulder upward. "Fine," she says, just because she can get away with it, because it's the sort of word that accommodates. Then she sighs, a quick little huff of air. "I feel as though we are sitting in a cage that has its door open and waiting for someone to slam it closed on us."
“A cage,” Broderick’s mouth tightens, tilts downward in both agreement and consideration. The kitten playing with his jeans has moved on to the cuff of his (Bracken’s) shirt. “An apt description, given we’re part of his latest collection. I have wondered why they’ve allowed us to continue on as we have. Yana has to know we suspect her – all of this, by now. Cadmus is an idiot who is probably still doodling about Baudelaire in his burn book so, no shock he hasn’t become suspicious yet.” Broderick rolls his eyes and lifts the kitten to rest in his lap.
There’s pure confidence in his tone when he says: “It’s going to be fine. They’re not going to get so much of a chance to close any cage doors on us.”
The corners of her lips turn upward again at the image of their boss drawing hearts and crossbones around images of his ex-whatever-precisely. The idea isn’t even particularly farfetched, is the thing. "You would be surprised how easy it is to get caught in a trap." She curls her fingers into a claw, brings it down with a breath of laughter as one of the kittens rolls onto its back and kicks out at the palm of her hand. "It happens to mice all of the time."
"And it is not that I doubt you. Or that I doubt that things will turn out well enough." It’s factual. Most everything that Nazikeda says is, by nature. "It is merely that one does not need to be particularly clever with cages. One just needs the means to acquire good bait."
Broderick’s brow furrows as he watches her steadily, her words a grim reminder that as idiotic as Scantlebury may be, he’d gotten them here in the first place with shiny promises and tailored bait that took its most enticing shape for each of them. The suggestion that there could be further subterfuge even as the game was coming to its dramatic conclusion, was sobering.
“We’ll just need to be careful not to provide them with that then,” Broderick reasons carefully, wondering now if that was supposed to be what his father’s disappearance was. Doubtful, but that didn’t mean something more nefarious wasn’t being played out beneath their assumptions.
“Did you and Briar consider leaving? It would be safer.”
"The trouble is, we are already inside. The trap was baited and we have taken it." It isn’t her favorite fact, even if she can’t protest the results. "Now it is just springs and hinges and -" Nazikeda shakes her head, metaphor getting away from her a bit, continuing on a bit more straightforwardly. "Now we do not leave because the things we care about are here. And because one wishes to be better than the things that would leave them."
His question makes her wrinkle her nose.
"Briar asked if I would like to, yes." She leans forward to snag her glass back from the tabletop. "And while a part of me would like to, I would also very much not like myself if I did." She spins the stem of it in her fingers. "And I know that he has no intention of leaving. Nor do you."
“No,” the wizard agrees without hesitation, the topic and conviction of his tone at odds with the gentle way he cradles the near sleeping kitten in his lap. He gives a brief ghost of a smile; they’ve all come to care too much for one another to abandon eachother to a questionable fate now. Beyond that, for Broderick, it’s also a matter of principle. These assholes weren’t going to get away with the pain and suffering they caused just to amuse themselves, and they certainly weren’t going to make his brother into a trophy.
Beatrice’s comments about the necessity of murder are always present (much to his distaste) in his mind. “Have you killed anyone before,” he asks after a long moment, carefully, a question born out of genuine curiosity despite it’s blunt nature.
It is a bit of the trouble now, isn’t it? They are all the mice and they are all the bait. It doesn’t matter much exactly whose tail is caught when all of the others won't leave until they can get it free. It is nice though, the reassurance. The very near certainty of it. It is still a cage, yes. But it’s a cage with good and clever company.
Nazikeda weighs the question for a moment, gives the seriousness of it the consideration that it is due. "No," she replies and, as it seems a pointed inquiry, she qualifies it with: "I have, however, ruined a man's life quite thoroughly. And, while I do not think that what remained of it after I left was either long or prosperous, I did not kill him myself. Nor did I particularly want to."
Well that was intriguing, and the height of Broderick’s eyebrows informs Keda of that. Momentarily diverted from his line of questioning, he says: “can I ask what he did?”
Nazikeda snorts, fingers to her forehead and sound caught somewhere amused and self-recriminating. It isn't her usual reaction to the topic, but, well - the current situation does make the whole thing seem rather ridiculous. There are only so many times a person can do the same thing before it is at least a bit their own fault, yes? "Kept me in a well-appointed cage for several decades."
What the fuck? “What the fuck,” the eyebrows that had nearly disappeared into his hairline only moments ago drop heavily over his eyes, his expression growing more outraged with each passing second. “You two and the casual way you–” he stops himself, the reference to Briar’s flippant admittance to being shot had no place here right now. “That’s horrific,” he finishes firmly. “I’m sorry that anyone would do that to you, that you had to suffer through that for decades.”
The laugh is louder this time, startled out of her in much the same way that her laughter startles one of the kittens awake. She murmurs a quick and quiet apology in the direction of her own lap before she holds her hand up to soothe his anger. "It was a very long time ago. There is no one left to be vexed with." Hasn’t been for quite some time, at that. "It is only to say that I am rather well-acquainted with how easy it is to be kept. I would not want it for you."
Well wasn’t that a heartbreaking statement that Broderick does his best to not let show on his face. The incense at the injustice that happened to her is harder to hide, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for Broderick, that’s just how his face looks.
“It won’t. It won’t be for anyone, and if it’s necessary to ensure that with violence,” Broderick doesn’t shrug, but from his expression it’s like the gesture happens anyway. “I don’t take that lightly,” he adds, troubled by what his perceived acceptance might suggest. He knows how he comes off and despite appearances, he does not believe that death or violence is always the answer. But he’s also prepared to do what needs to be done if necessary, as he’s sure most others at the Society are.
He has a unique relationship with death, one he doesn’t think anyone who doesn’t also have it setting the rhythm of their pulse would really understand. He’d be the first to admit that it colours some of his perspectives.
The laughter dies just as quickly as it came, the slight hysterics of it gentling itself into something softer and more fond. Her feet tuck up and underneath her, careful not to disturb the balls of fluff resting between them. "Thank you." she says. "It is not that I do not appreciate your anger, it is that I have lived very well since then. I do not regret where I am now." Literally or figuratively. Things are, for the most part, rather good.
Broderick can't help but smile at hearing that.
Nazikeda listens quietly as he continues, regarding him with very little in the way of disapproval. She may not have killed a man, no. But she did very little to prevent it happening in the wake of her absence. "And I do not think you take it lightly at all." Broderick doesn’t seem the sort to take very many things lightly. "Given how often you hear directly from the other end of it." Her head tips, a teetering back and forth of consideration. "I would trust your judgment."
Broderick is young compared to all of these Society members, lacking life experience by decades and centuries in most cases. The overconfidence and stubbornness only gets him so far, but he’s honoured by her trust just the same. He’ll endeavour to earn it.
“Well this has been a suitably grim conversation,” he smiles at her, a soft chuckle escaping as he turns back to the kitten in his lap. “You know my favourite topic is a coup, but perhaps we need a little levity. Tell me something embarrassing about Briar.”
Her shoulders wriggle just a bit, settling back against the cushions as she smiles back at him. "I do not think a little board with red string would be quite as compelling in our current situation, no." And the assembled passel of kittens would very likely be something of a hindrance to successful construction.
"The trouble with Briar is that he is not embarrassed, even when he very well should be." Her teeth tug at her lower lip for a moment before she brightens, leans quickly forward. "This is not embarrassing at all, but he did have a rather massive crush on a boy back home when he was a teenager. He still gets a little bit flustered when he talks about it."
“Oh does he,” the delight is as clear in his voice as it is in the curve of his growing smile. Broderick’s not sure he’s ever actually seen Briar really flustered, that he can be is all the motivation the medium needs for future conversations. “That’s sweet. When I imagine Briar blushing and staring longingly out windows does he have a mullet? I need the full picture.”
Nazikeda lifts a set of fingers to shade the breadth of her own grin, but her eyes are bright with mirth. "Briar does not have many photographs from back then, so I cannot confirm nor deny the mullet. You may give your imagination creative license." It wouldn’t be terribly out of place, either. "I do know that his handsome young man left for college shortly after their affair. So there was more than ample opportunity for longing stares and dramatic sighing."
“Definitely with a mullet,” Broderick decides and wonders if Bracken can confirm it for him in great detail. Christ, did Bracken have a mullet at any point? “He seems to perfect the longing stares and dramatic sighing for you,” he adds, knowing that this isn’t exactly a fair representation of how the werewolf is, but it’s close enough.
"It feels authentic." Nazikeda nods in easy agreement. "For either of them, honestly. Mullet, excessive amounts of plaid, variety of cowboy hats." She shakes her head, flutters her fingers in vague demonstration before running the tip of her nail up and along the ridge of one of the kitten’s spines. "Do you know just how many kinds of cowboy hats there are?"
Too many. The answer is too many kinds.
The description of Briar’s regard gives her pause, however, makes her shoulders shake. "Hardly. Unless the dramatics involved in the sighing are driven, at least in part, by exasperation."
“That’s love,” Broderick asserts confidently, like he’s an authority on the manner and exact display. His attention has been drawn back to the kitten, now gnawing at his thumb ineffectually but with great determination. Victor Hugo would.
Nazikeda hums her agreement - there’s very little to protest, even if she wished to - her cheek resting against the back of the couch and gaze warm. "It is all about the argument," she asserts. "Observation has led to the conclusion that Hemmings rather conclusively enjoy name-calling and pigtail-pulling."
Broderick realizes then what he may have accidentally implied about…well. “Oh, that’s –” he hisses suddenly, two small puncture marks swelling with tiny bubbles of blood. Victor Hugo showed no remorse as he flips onto his back to show his belly.
“They’re children, is what you mean,” like Broderick himself didn’t crave or deal exclusively in name-calling and arguments. Debates.
The implication is dropped just as easily as it came - there are, after all, some seeds that need time to themselves after planting. And as much as Nazikeda herself enjoys a good argument, she also enjoys being vague and troublesome just as much. She busies herself with a showy little gasp, leaning forward to extend her own claws over Mr. Hugo’s exposed belly with a scolding, "Little troublemaker."
She glances up at Broderick with an impish twist to her mouth. "Now I cannot quite say that myself. But it would not go misplaced."
“Which means yes,” Broderick translates, the pinched and startled look on his face from before sliding comfortably into an amused smile.
“I’m glad that this would-be fucked up cage of horrors brought us together,” he says suddenly, directly, as Broderick often did, dropping intensely sincere comments like bombs.
The abrupt shift in subject makes her blink (just once, very quickly) before she nods her head in the most solemn manner one can while their fingers are besieged by tiny teeth and even tinier claws. "If one must be subjected to horrors, it is much nicer with good company."
“Ah damnit,” Broderick huffs and shifts forward. “Hold that thought and exact phrasing, I haven't even opened the bottle of wine and that's the perfect cheers. Unhand me beast,” he orders at a haughty whisper, pressing a kiss to the black kitten’s head as he moves him carefully out of the way to uncork the bottle and act a proper host.
“This household is a shambles,” he apologizes.
Face pulled into something skeptic and charmed, Nazikeda waves off his apology with her free hand before using it to reclaim her own wine glass. She tilts the bowl forward, waiting for the both of them to be filled, before clearing her throat and schooling her expression into something better befitting a formal toast.
"To potential horrors in very good company," she says, tapping the rim against his.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 23, night
WHERE: Broderick’s apartment
WHAT:
WARNINGS: None, some swearing, talk of murder
In the time since arriving at the Society, the time around the full moon has settled into something of a routine. Nazikeda tilts her chin up for a kiss, ushers Briar out of their apartment, and then spends her evening indulging in whatever idle nonsense strikes her fancy in loungewear that doesn't strictly belong to her.
Which is not to imply that there is anything wrong with the routine as it has been established. It is well and fine and wearing itself into something comfortable. But it is just a bit lonely. And, perhaps more importantly, it goes against the currently established need to maintain some level of mutually-assured safety measures.
So showing up at Broderick’s door is really only using good sense and sound judgment.
“Keda,” the wizard doesn’t sound surprised, and his smile suggests he was even waiting for her. He also seems a little distracted though and when a plaintive meow, pathetic and arch cries from just behind the man, he nearly brains himself on the door trying to see why.
“God damnit,” he curses, waving Keda in even as he presses at the tender spot at the side of his head. “I hope you don’t mind, we’re still figuring out what to do with them.”
There's barely enough time for Nazikeda to hiss in sympathy before the pitiful little noise from inside the apartment has her own lips turning down into a frown of commiseration. "Oh, zavallı bebeğim," she says in a sweet, soft voice most often reserved for very young children and other small things as she steps forward and peers around him and into the clearly occupied space. "What has happened?"
Her head tips back in his direction, not lacking in empathy but certainly pairing it with amusement. "You are all right too, yes? Nothing damaged?"
He waves her off.
“I’m fine,” he dismisses with his most popular catch phrase these days. “They just like to start screaming if they don’t have my attention at all times.” His exasperation is fond, but she can sense the futility behind it all. “I’m still not convinced they’re not Scantelbury’s spies, but they are cute.”
He gestures for her to make herself at home on the couch beside the pile of them. “Briar head off okay?”
Nazikeda purses her lips, clicks her tongue at him as she makes her way to the couch. Fine is a filler word. An easy patch with variable definitions. One can almost always say that they are fine even when they have trouble with saying certain things.
"If you are going to recruit spies, this is certainly the way to go. Cute, just a little bit helpless, capable of great destruction." She folds her legs underneath herself, already reaching forward with her index and middle fingers politely crooked in offering. Her eyes crinkle at the corners.
"Briar is very eager for his playdate, I think. He likes getting to actually run instead of being cooped up."
Broderick couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter at her words and the mental image they inspired. “I’m not allowed to make anymore dog jokes,” he laments and brings over two glasses of wine, the bottle tucked underneath his arm in an awkward and overconfident move considering the balancing act he was doing while kittens were underfoot.
Broderick thinks he’s doing a good job of keeping a calm veneer, like he isn’t itching to reach out somehow to Byron, as much as he trusts his younger brother to keep himself safe.
The breadth of her smile widens, twitches itself up into something crooked and bright. "It is not a dog joke if you never use the word dog." Nazikeda ticks up a finger and then twitches the whole of them for the assembled kittens to bat at. "Then it is merely a dog insinuation and that would never hold up in a court of law."
She straightens herself just enough to receive her glass. "Thank you," she says. "I would ask if your apartment had been feeling quiet, but I do not imagine you have had very much quiet or absence of company as of late."
“It’s how I prefer things actually,” he admits as he takes a seat on the opposite end of the couch, the little furr balls between them. “Well, perhaps not this noisy, but I grew up with a lot of siblings and as focused as I can get with my work, I like having people – others,” he apologizes to the black cat pawing at his thigh, “around. And with my powers, I’m never alone to begin with. It would feel strange to have complete quiet.”
He meets her gaze then. “How are you. Really.”
"Is it always talking?" Nazikeda sets her glass down so that the hand not occupied with scritching underneath one of the kitten’s chins can rise to cup the air around her ear, twisting vaguely around the absence of sound in her own mind. "Or is it sometimes just a feeling?"
“Both,” he answers easily, but his expression presses for an answer to his question.
She holds his gaze, steady for a moment before she ticks one shoulder upward. "Fine," she says, just because she can get away with it, because it's the sort of word that accommodates. Then she sighs, a quick little huff of air. "I feel as though we are sitting in a cage that has its door open and waiting for someone to slam it closed on us."
“A cage,” Broderick’s mouth tightens, tilts downward in both agreement and consideration. The kitten playing with his jeans has moved on to the cuff of his (Bracken’s) shirt. “An apt description, given we’re part of his latest collection. I have wondered why they’ve allowed us to continue on as we have. Yana has to know we suspect her – all of this, by now. Cadmus is an idiot who is probably still doodling about Baudelaire in his burn book so, no shock he hasn’t become suspicious yet.” Broderick rolls his eyes and lifts the kitten to rest in his lap.
There’s pure confidence in his tone when he says: “It’s going to be fine. They’re not going to get so much of a chance to close any cage doors on us.”
The corners of her lips turn upward again at the image of their boss drawing hearts and crossbones around images of his ex-whatever-precisely. The idea isn’t even particularly farfetched, is the thing. "You would be surprised how easy it is to get caught in a trap." She curls her fingers into a claw, brings it down with a breath of laughter as one of the kittens rolls onto its back and kicks out at the palm of her hand. "It happens to mice all of the time."
"And it is not that I doubt you. Or that I doubt that things will turn out well enough." It’s factual. Most everything that Nazikeda says is, by nature. "It is merely that one does not need to be particularly clever with cages. One just needs the means to acquire good bait."
Broderick’s brow furrows as he watches her steadily, her words a grim reminder that as idiotic as Scantlebury may be, he’d gotten them here in the first place with shiny promises and tailored bait that took its most enticing shape for each of them. The suggestion that there could be further subterfuge even as the game was coming to its dramatic conclusion, was sobering.
“We’ll just need to be careful not to provide them with that then,” Broderick reasons carefully, wondering now if that was supposed to be what his father’s disappearance was. Doubtful, but that didn’t mean something more nefarious wasn’t being played out beneath their assumptions.
“Did you and Briar consider leaving? It would be safer.”
"The trouble is, we are already inside. The trap was baited and we have taken it." It isn’t her favorite fact, even if she can’t protest the results. "Now it is just springs and hinges and -" Nazikeda shakes her head, metaphor getting away from her a bit, continuing on a bit more straightforwardly. "Now we do not leave because the things we care about are here. And because one wishes to be better than the things that would leave them."
His question makes her wrinkle her nose.
"Briar asked if I would like to, yes." She leans forward to snag her glass back from the tabletop. "And while a part of me would like to, I would also very much not like myself if I did." She spins the stem of it in her fingers. "And I know that he has no intention of leaving. Nor do you."
“No,” the wizard agrees without hesitation, the topic and conviction of his tone at odds with the gentle way he cradles the near sleeping kitten in his lap. He gives a brief ghost of a smile; they’ve all come to care too much for one another to abandon eachother to a questionable fate now. Beyond that, for Broderick, it’s also a matter of principle. These assholes weren’t going to get away with the pain and suffering they caused just to amuse themselves, and they certainly weren’t going to make his brother into a trophy.
Beatrice’s comments about the necessity of murder are always present (much to his distaste) in his mind. “Have you killed anyone before,” he asks after a long moment, carefully, a question born out of genuine curiosity despite it’s blunt nature.
It is a bit of the trouble now, isn’t it? They are all the mice and they are all the bait. It doesn’t matter much exactly whose tail is caught when all of the others won't leave until they can get it free. It is nice though, the reassurance. The very near certainty of it. It is still a cage, yes. But it’s a cage with good and clever company.
Nazikeda weighs the question for a moment, gives the seriousness of it the consideration that it is due. "No," she replies and, as it seems a pointed inquiry, she qualifies it with: "I have, however, ruined a man's life quite thoroughly. And, while I do not think that what remained of it after I left was either long or prosperous, I did not kill him myself. Nor did I particularly want to."
Well that was intriguing, and the height of Broderick’s eyebrows informs Keda of that. Momentarily diverted from his line of questioning, he says: “can I ask what he did?”
Nazikeda snorts, fingers to her forehead and sound caught somewhere amused and self-recriminating. It isn't her usual reaction to the topic, but, well - the current situation does make the whole thing seem rather ridiculous. There are only so many times a person can do the same thing before it is at least a bit their own fault, yes? "Kept me in a well-appointed cage for several decades."
What the fuck? “What the fuck,” the eyebrows that had nearly disappeared into his hairline only moments ago drop heavily over his eyes, his expression growing more outraged with each passing second. “You two and the casual way you–” he stops himself, the reference to Briar’s flippant admittance to being shot had no place here right now. “That’s horrific,” he finishes firmly. “I’m sorry that anyone would do that to you, that you had to suffer through that for decades.”
The laugh is louder this time, startled out of her in much the same way that her laughter startles one of the kittens awake. She murmurs a quick and quiet apology in the direction of her own lap before she holds her hand up to soothe his anger. "It was a very long time ago. There is no one left to be vexed with." Hasn’t been for quite some time, at that. "It is only to say that I am rather well-acquainted with how easy it is to be kept. I would not want it for you."
Well wasn’t that a heartbreaking statement that Broderick does his best to not let show on his face. The incense at the injustice that happened to her is harder to hide, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for Broderick, that’s just how his face looks.
“It won’t. It won’t be for anyone, and if it’s necessary to ensure that with violence,” Broderick doesn’t shrug, but from his expression it’s like the gesture happens anyway. “I don’t take that lightly,” he adds, troubled by what his perceived acceptance might suggest. He knows how he comes off and despite appearances, he does not believe that death or violence is always the answer. But he’s also prepared to do what needs to be done if necessary, as he’s sure most others at the Society are.
He has a unique relationship with death, one he doesn’t think anyone who doesn’t also have it setting the rhythm of their pulse would really understand. He’d be the first to admit that it colours some of his perspectives.
The laughter dies just as quickly as it came, the slight hysterics of it gentling itself into something softer and more fond. Her feet tuck up and underneath her, careful not to disturb the balls of fluff resting between them. "Thank you." she says. "It is not that I do not appreciate your anger, it is that I have lived very well since then. I do not regret where I am now." Literally or figuratively. Things are, for the most part, rather good.
Broderick can't help but smile at hearing that.
Nazikeda listens quietly as he continues, regarding him with very little in the way of disapproval. She may not have killed a man, no. But she did very little to prevent it happening in the wake of her absence. "And I do not think you take it lightly at all." Broderick doesn’t seem the sort to take very many things lightly. "Given how often you hear directly from the other end of it." Her head tips, a teetering back and forth of consideration. "I would trust your judgment."
Broderick is young compared to all of these Society members, lacking life experience by decades and centuries in most cases. The overconfidence and stubbornness only gets him so far, but he’s honoured by her trust just the same. He’ll endeavour to earn it.
“Well this has been a suitably grim conversation,” he smiles at her, a soft chuckle escaping as he turns back to the kitten in his lap. “You know my favourite topic is a coup, but perhaps we need a little levity. Tell me something embarrassing about Briar.”
Her shoulders wriggle just a bit, settling back against the cushions as she smiles back at him. "I do not think a little board with red string would be quite as compelling in our current situation, no." And the assembled passel of kittens would very likely be something of a hindrance to successful construction.
"The trouble with Briar is that he is not embarrassed, even when he very well should be." Her teeth tug at her lower lip for a moment before she brightens, leans quickly forward. "This is not embarrassing at all, but he did have a rather massive crush on a boy back home when he was a teenager. He still gets a little bit flustered when he talks about it."
“Oh does he,” the delight is as clear in his voice as it is in the curve of his growing smile. Broderick’s not sure he’s ever actually seen Briar really flustered, that he can be is all the motivation the medium needs for future conversations. “That’s sweet. When I imagine Briar blushing and staring longingly out windows does he have a mullet? I need the full picture.”
Nazikeda lifts a set of fingers to shade the breadth of her own grin, but her eyes are bright with mirth. "Briar does not have many photographs from back then, so I cannot confirm nor deny the mullet. You may give your imagination creative license." It wouldn’t be terribly out of place, either. "I do know that his handsome young man left for college shortly after their affair. So there was more than ample opportunity for longing stares and dramatic sighing."
“Definitely with a mullet,” Broderick decides and wonders if Bracken can confirm it for him in great detail. Christ, did Bracken have a mullet at any point? “He seems to perfect the longing stares and dramatic sighing for you,” he adds, knowing that this isn’t exactly a fair representation of how the werewolf is, but it’s close enough.
"It feels authentic." Nazikeda nods in easy agreement. "For either of them, honestly. Mullet, excessive amounts of plaid, variety of cowboy hats." She shakes her head, flutters her fingers in vague demonstration before running the tip of her nail up and along the ridge of one of the kitten’s spines. "Do you know just how many kinds of cowboy hats there are?"
Too many. The answer is too many kinds.
The description of Briar’s regard gives her pause, however, makes her shoulders shake. "Hardly. Unless the dramatics involved in the sighing are driven, at least in part, by exasperation."
“That’s love,” Broderick asserts confidently, like he’s an authority on the manner and exact display. His attention has been drawn back to the kitten, now gnawing at his thumb ineffectually but with great determination. Victor Hugo would.
Nazikeda hums her agreement - there’s very little to protest, even if she wished to - her cheek resting against the back of the couch and gaze warm. "It is all about the argument," she asserts. "Observation has led to the conclusion that Hemmings rather conclusively enjoy name-calling and pigtail-pulling."
Broderick realizes then what he may have accidentally implied about…well. “Oh, that’s –” he hisses suddenly, two small puncture marks swelling with tiny bubbles of blood. Victor Hugo showed no remorse as he flips onto his back to show his belly.
“They’re children, is what you mean,” like Broderick himself didn’t crave or deal exclusively in name-calling and arguments. Debates.
The implication is dropped just as easily as it came - there are, after all, some seeds that need time to themselves after planting. And as much as Nazikeda herself enjoys a good argument, she also enjoys being vague and troublesome just as much. She busies herself with a showy little gasp, leaning forward to extend her own claws over Mr. Hugo’s exposed belly with a scolding, "Little troublemaker."
She glances up at Broderick with an impish twist to her mouth. "Now I cannot quite say that myself. But it would not go misplaced."
“Which means yes,” Broderick translates, the pinched and startled look on his face from before sliding comfortably into an amused smile.
“I’m glad that this would-be fucked up cage of horrors brought us together,” he says suddenly, directly, as Broderick often did, dropping intensely sincere comments like bombs.
The abrupt shift in subject makes her blink (just once, very quickly) before she nods her head in the most solemn manner one can while their fingers are besieged by tiny teeth and even tinier claws. "If one must be subjected to horrors, it is much nicer with good company."
“Ah damnit,” Broderick huffs and shifts forward. “Hold that thought and exact phrasing, I haven't even opened the bottle of wine and that's the perfect cheers. Unhand me beast,” he orders at a haughty whisper, pressing a kiss to the black kitten’s head as he moves him carefully out of the way to uncork the bottle and act a proper host.
“This household is a shambles,” he apologizes.
Face pulled into something skeptic and charmed, Nazikeda waves off his apology with her free hand before using it to reclaim her own wine glass. She tilts the bowl forward, waiting for the both of them to be filled, before clearing her throat and schooling her expression into something better befitting a formal toast.
"To potential horrors in very good company," she says, tapping the rim against his.
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