a_littlefaith | (no subject)

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nate

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Lately things are a little more weird than Beth really wants to dwell on for long.

The thing is, she can't not dwell on it. It's like it's the only thing she's able to think about when she lays down at night and closes her eyes and tries to get to sleep. The worst part about it all is that she feels so selfish, because the person she would talk to about it usually, the person she would trust most to help her has so much of his own going on right now that she doesn't want to bother him with it. Kili is newly married and he's only just lost his brother, which is awful. So deeply awful. Beth feels for him and tries to be there for him as best she can, which means not burdening him with any of the stuff going on in her head right now.

Because the thing is, she can't really keep lying to herself and pretending she doesn't have more than just friendly feelings for Curtis. Which in itself fills her with guilt, like she's doing something wrong. Daryl was gone and now he's back and there's a part of her that thinks it's expected they'll eventually get back together, but she thinks about it and it makes her chest tight in a way that all but steals her ability to breathe.

She loves him, but he isn't the same person. He's not the man she was engaged to.

But she can't stop the guilt. It's so damn confusing and complicated. Half the time she feels like she's going to throw up and she doesn't know who to talk to.

Which is probably why Nate is going to regret agreeing to meet her for coffee today. She needs to tell someone, she needs someone else to hear everything she's feeling and thinking, and normally that would be Kili, but she just can't do that to him right now. He needs to mourn and to heal, not carry her burdens, too. So she's waiting for Nate at the coffee shop she likes best, nervously twisting her fingers and glancing up every so often, hoping he'll be here soon.

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It's not that a request for coffee is odd from Beth. Nate's actually quite pleased that she seems to put up with him enough to want to hang out with him at all. But she'd sounded a little off on the phone, a little nervous about something, and that has his curiosity piqued. He's familiar with the coffee shop she's asked him to meet at, but of course he's having one of those mornings where everything that can go wrong does, and by the time he manages to walk in the door he's at least ten minutes late.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologises as he slides into the seat across from her. "One of those days, apparently. The universe hates me, as usual."

By the time he looks up he can see that she's twisting her fingers and looking like she's fit to burst, and Nate grins at her. "You look like you're gonna explode, what's going on?"

"The universe might hate you, but I sure don't," she says sweetly as he slides into the seat and she gives him a smile. Maybe she's still nervous and maybe he can see it, but it's a nice reminder, seeing Nate, that there are other things in the world for her to think about. Even if this all blows up in her face, even if Daryl never wants to speak to her again, even if somehow she screws things up and runs Curtis off, too, there are still people who'll want to see her.

"I'm not gonna explode," she says, laughing. If she's held onto it this long, she can hold on a little more. "D'you wanna order some coffee first or do you just want me to spill my guts?"

She thinks they should get coffee first. A little burst of energy might make the whole thing a lot easier on her end and maybe Nate's, too, since he basically has to just sit through some emotional outbursts over the next little while.

That's the nicest thing anyone's said to Nate in a while, which is saying something. Coop had threatened to chop him up and turn him into kindling or something to that affect last they spoke, so Nate's glad he at least has one friend who isn't a complete asshole.

"Maybe coffee first," he says, flagging down a waiter. She hasn't denied the fact that she has some kind of news that she's waiting to tell him, so maybe coffee is a good idea. He'd prefer it with a little something extra in it, really, but he doubts they'd take kindly to it. He orders for both of them before he turns back to her.

"I can hardly take the suspense now," he jokes. There's definitely something going on, he can only hope it's not another djinn or something else fucking ridiculous.

"Y'know you're probably gonna regret sayin' that because it's nothin' all that exciting," she says with a laugh and she knows already this was a good idea. Nate might not think so once she's started talking, because she realizes in a lot of ways her problems aren't really all that terrible, but he's making her laugh and putting her at ease and it's exactly what she thinks she's been needing.

"It's just... okay, so you know the whole story with Daryl," she starts. "How he was here and we were gonna get married, then he disappeared and now we're most definitely not gettin' married. That's all weird and complicated enough, because I know I still love him, but the Daryl who's here isn't the one I love and I think about tryin' to get back there and it makes me feel... lost."

That's the best word for it, she thinks. It just makes her feel like she's floating free, untethered, and not in a good way.

"And the thing is, I've got this friend," she continues, glancing up at Nate, trying to judge his reaction. "And even before, I sorta had a crush on him, but before I figured it was harmless."

"Oh, everything about you is exciting," Nate jokes, but he's only half kidding. Maybe not exciting but definitely interesting, and he likes hearing Beth talk about things. She'd helped him to no end when he first got to this city so the least he can do to repay it is sit in a coffee shop and listen to her.

Nate nods as she explains Daryl. He only met the man once and he'd been a gruff sort, not at all the kind of man Nate would picture Beth with, but love is a funny thing. He knows things aren't the same for them anymore, knows that has caused Beth some good deal amount of grief but this is the most she's really spoken about it. He doesn't interrupt, takes a sip of his coffee when it arrives and lets her continue.

And then she mentions the friend and Nate can't help the grin spreading across his face. "Are you coming to me for love advice?" he asks incredulously, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. She's serious about this or she wouldn't have asked him here, but he can't help but find it funny. "My wife is somewhere in Yemen using her wedding ring for convenience, but sure." He's not the person to ask for this, but maybe she just wants someone to listen, rather than give advice, which he can do. "Who's the friend, huh? Do I need to get my shotgun out?"

Edited 2016-12-01 23:02 (UTC)

That makes Beth a little sad, thinking of Nate's wife somewhere in a far off country only wearing her wedding ring because it's convenient. He doesn't talk about her much, but he says those few words and Beth can tell immediately how much he loves her. Maybe if she were here in Darrow things would be different, but maybe not. Given everything that's going on with her, she knows well enough how just being here doesn't always fix things. Sometimes it even makes it all more difficult.

She pauses, taking a sip of her coffee, then laughs a little. It's sort of funny, given everything she's been through, that she might need some paternal male figure to protect her, but it's also deeply comforting, because it's something Hershel would have said. She's pretty sure Nate would tell her she's crazy, but she feels safe with him. Beth doesn't need anyone to protect her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still like the feeling of it.

"I don't think so," she says, smiling. "His name's Curtis, he's... he's great. So much better than he ever lets himself believe. I've known him practically as long as I've been here and he's just always there for me. Always. I just need someone else to know, someone outside my head."

Nate doesn't know when it happened, when he started collecting all these pseudo children, but apparently that's what's happening now. He never really thought of Beth in any kind of paternal way before and she certainly doesn't need him for that most of the time, but something about this conversation is steering that way and it makes him smile. She doesn't need his protection or his permission or even really his advice, but it's nice that she's telling him this anyway.

Elena would laugh for hours if he told her anyone was coming to him for advice on anything at all, and she'd certainly get a kick out of the way he's become something of a parent or mentor for Lila.

"Curtis, Curtis," he mutters, turning it over in his head to see if he recognises the name. Not someone he's met before, he's sure of it. He makes a mental note to seek him out and make sure he's worth her time. The things Beth is saying about him are very sweet and Nate trusts her judgement but he's still going to make sure. "Well, I'm happy for you, if he's as perfect as you say." He's teasing her a little, but he doesn't think she'll mind. "When do I get to meet him?"

"Jeez," she says and then laughs again. "It's not like we're dating or anything, that's... that's sort of the whole thing. I just..." She trails off for a second and shrugs, her smile suddenly gone. Communicating this is so hard and she doesn't even know how to put the level of guilt she feels into words that might actually make some kind of sense.

"Because there's still Daryl," she says. "And I feel like... like I'm doin' somethin' wrong maybe. Or like I owe him some kind of explanation, because he's got feelings for me, I can tell, but I can't just do it all over again, I can't start over when I've already got all these memories. I dunno if I'm supposed to say that or if it's none of his business. Can I just do whatever the hell I want or should I be talkin' to him about all of it?"

She shakes her head then and says, "I'm sorry. I don't expect you to have answers, it's just... all these questions keep poundin' at my head, y'know?"

For a moment there's laughing and teasing and then her face falls, and Nate starts to piece together what she's actually here to talk about. The thing with Curtis is cute and maybe they aren't dating yet, as she says, but he has good reason to believe there's only one thing stopping it. It's not a situation he's ever been in himself; hell, Darrow being what it is, he doesn't think many people at all would have been, but he does have his opinions.

"You're not doing anything wrong," he says for starters, because he knows that much for sure. If Nate's learned anything over the years it's that you have to look out for your own back first. He's sure Daryl is a great guy and he knows Beth loves him but he also knows that he's not what she needs, not anymore. Maybe it's presumptuous and not his place but he thinks she's got her head screwed on better than most with what she's saying.

"It's not wrong and you don't owe him anything. I don't mean that in a bad way," he amends, shaking his head. "I just mean you gotta look out for you. And if making gooey eyes at Curtis is what makes you happy, then that's what you do." It's a serious talk but he can't help fluttering his eyelashes at her stupidly in imitation. No one ever said Nate was good at serious talks.

"Anyway, feel free to completely ignore me, I would." He takes a sip of his coffee and shrugs. "I think you're gonna work it out yourself just fine."

She laughs again when Nate flutters his eyelashes at her and her heart feels like it's swelling just a little, like her chest is full of affection and she's grateful for Nate all over again. If she ever asked him, she's pretty sure he'd say he's not good at stuff like this, but Beth doesn't think that's true at all. Every single time he's been faced with something difficult, every time she's ever needed his help, he's been there for her.

"Why would I ignore you? You're always helpin' me," she says, giving him another small smile. "I just feel like there are all these expectations, like people are just waitin' until we get our stuff figured out and get back together." She pauses for a long moment, looking at her coffee. "I sometimes sort of think even Curtis is waitin' for that. He's never said nothin' to me about what he feels, so maybe I'm totally off base and maybe this crush is completely one-sided, but I really feel like it's not."

And yet she also feels like he won't be the one to ask anything of her. Whether that's because he thinks she's just biding her time before getting back together with Daryl or because he thinks it won't work or some other reason entirely.

"Most people do," he points out with a grin. She probably knows all this stuff already, deep down, so he doesn't think he's entirely helping, but maybe she just needs someone to reassure her. Nate trusts Beth to know her own mind and her own heart and if he's needed to nudge her along in the right direction every now and then he's happy to do it.

In truth, he'd kind of been waiting for her and Daryl to get back together to, but if that's not what she wants then it's not what should happen. "To hell with everyone else," he says, because if there's ever been a motto that Nate lived his life by, it's that. Second only to sic parvas magna. "Maybe you just need to tell Curtis what you want." He bets it's not one sided, not with a sweet girl like Beth, so it just comes down to putting everything on the table.

"Just ask him," he says, taking a sip of his coffee. "Tell him you wanna jump his bones and see what happens."

Even now that's not the language Beth would ever use and she snorts into her coffee, ending up choking on it a little as she laughs. Things are different from how they were a few months ago, she's been having a physical relationship with Chuck off and on when it's convenient for the two of them, and that's definitely not something she ever imagined herself doing, but she still can't use words like jumping his bones in any sort of conversation.

"Maybe I'll start with somethin' a little less aggressive than that," she says, wiping her lips with a napkin. "It's not just... well, not just that. I mean, he's the sort of handsome that makes it kind of hard to look at him sometimes, but it's... it's more."

She doesn't know if she has the right words to explain what it is. Curtis has been important to her for a long time now in a lot of different ways and she's always been aware of a quiet sort of crush she's had on him. For years, though, she'd figured it was only because he's so attractive she'd felt that way, but things have been changing recently. She's changed.

"Oh sure, less aggressive," he agrees, nodding slowly. "How about, 'golly Curtis I sure do wish you'd take me to the county fair and we can hold hands and skip!'" He's kidding, and the fake, completely terrible Southern accent is enough to be sure of that, but Darrow is the kind of ridiculous place where that sort of thing actually happens, so. Maybe Beth and Curtis will go to the next city fair together and be sickeningly cute and Nate could even chaperone. That's probably a terrible idea though.

"You're cute," he laughs when she says the part about how handsome he is. For all that Beth has seen the end of the world and horrors beyond what even Nate can imagine, at the core of it there's still a sweet Southern girl who wants to ask a boy out, and it's nice.

"Nate," she says, but any exasperation in her voice is faked and she laughs again, brushing some of her hair back from her face. It helps a lot, having him tease her like this, because it works as a reminder that things aren't so serious as she's making them seem. Things can be hard, but at the end of the day, she has people who care about her and she cares about them in return. Daryl can still be her family without being the man she's going to marry and if he can't be, if something happens and it just doesn't work that way, she knows she can survive it.

She's known for a long time she can survive just about anything. Any loss, any death, any pain.

"Your accent's not very good, I don't sound like that," she adds a moment later, giving him a gentle kick under the table.

"My accent is spot on-- ow," he argues, wincing dramatically when she kicks him under the table. "You sound exactly like that. You're basically Scarlett," he tells her, pointing his finger. Nate has never seen Gone with the Wind but he knows the voice, and more than that he knows it will rile Beth to hear him say it.

The distraction technique seems to be working, in any case. Her problems are that of a young girl and it's not like Nate is discounting the seriousness of them, but he does think she deserves to loosen up a little. Daryl will survive, Beth will survive, Curtis will probably be very happy and they'll all move on once the initial drama is done with. They've all seen and done harder things than this. He knows it's worrying her but he also thinks it doesn't need to, so the more he can make her laugh and forget about it, the better.

"This city actually has goddamn county fairs, so you and Curtis can be the perfect little Southern pair."

"From Gone with the Wind?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. Beth has never seen it, but she likes to think she's significantly tougher than the idea she has in her head of Scarlett and the Southern Belle stereotype. Or, even worse, the one that makes her want to punch people in the mouth, the Georgia Peach stereotype. Even just thinking it makes her want to shudder with disgust.

That's not what Nate is saying, though, she knows he's only teasing her, trying to get her mind off things and it works for a moment or two, then moves back in the direction it's been straying for months now.

"He's not Southern, he lived on a train," she says with a laugh. "I don't think he lived too south before that either, he doesn't sound like he's from Georgia or anywhere like that. I should ask him. All I really know about's the train."

Nate has bad memories regarding trains. Trains are bad, awful things that get blown up or crash or fall apart and leave you hanging for dear life from a goddamn mountain. Trains are apparently things you get shot on and left for dead, and that's not an experience Nate ever really wants to relive.

"Trains suck," he says emphatically, nodding his head. He doesn't know if Curtis's train holds the same shitty memories, but the fact that he apparently lived on one sounds shitty enough. "What d'you mean he lived on a train?"

He didn't expect that Curtis was Southern, but now he's curious about exactly who he is and where he's from.

She's got a pretty good feeling Curtis would agree with Nate's assessment of trains and she hesitates before continuing, but only for a moment. Explaining to Nate about the train isn't giving away any sort of personal information Curtis has trusted her with. There are things he's done on the train, things she knows he feels guilty about and she won't share those with anyone. He had said those things to her with the expectation of confidence and Beth isn't the sort to betray something like that.

"His world sorta ended, too," she explains. "He was... a teenager, I think, when it happened. The whole world froze, went into an ice age, but there was this guy who'd built a train that could be run continuously on a track that connected the whole world and I guess a bunch of people boarded it before it got too cold to survive and they were just livin' on the train as it ran on the track over and over and over again."

She frowns a little and says, "It wasn't a good place to live. I know he was tryin' to change things."

Maybe that's what they've bonded over, he thinks, the whole world ending thing. It's not something he can exactly relate to but he thinks he's come pretty close. If it weren't for his actions (and also probably, definitely because of some of them) Nate's world would probably have gone much the same way. More than once he's found himself trying to avert an apocalypse of some kind, which he thinks is totally unfair and he deserves a pay rise. If he were getting paid, that is.

"That sounds so boring," Nate says, unable to stop himself before he says it. But a train that just goes around and around in an arctic wasteland for eternity? Fuck that. "When you said lived on a train I didn't think you mean like, lived on a train, jesus."

There's a risk now that Curtis is a really dull guy. Nate hopes he's not, for Beth's sake, but how interesting could a guy who's spent his entire life on a train be? What is there to do, besides stare at your own hands and dream about not being on a goddamn train? "Does he have like... hobbies?" Nate asks, cringing.

"I guess when your options are the train or freezing to death, the train becomes a little less boring," she points out with a laugh, although he's not entirely wrong. Or maybe he wouldn't be wrong if Beth didn't get the sense the train had been pretty horribly split up into different classes with the people at the front getting everything and people at the back getting nothing. It sounds like it had been hard and she knows what that's like.

Hard means hobbies sort of fall by the wayside. Hard means survival becomes the only thing you really think about.

"He's been here for years, Nate, I think he's had the chance to move beyond just thinkin' about what it was like livin' on a train. He's got a whole life here. He works at Semele's."

And she realizes the second she says it, she probably shouldn't have. Nate's going to go there, he's going to scope him out, and she's just relieved for a second she hasn't said anything more identifying about Curtis. Nate will still find him, she's got no doubt of that, but she doesn't need to make it easier on him.

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