(no subject)

[casperkim]

Who: Nia Papadakis & Casper Kim
When: July 25th, Night
Where: A beach in Los Angeles
What: Nia and Casper spend some time talking and drinking on the beach.
Warnings: Swearing. Obviously.

The day had started on the beach and now, after an afternoon walking around Los Angeles and an evening of loud and raucous music (some of which had been supplied by his temporary band, Bad Rabbit) in a smoky club, the day is ending on the beach. It’s mostly deserted by this hour, just empty sand and dark, rolling water and the heat of the day gradually fading into a comfortably warm summer night. This might be Casper’s favorite time to be out here and he drops down to sit on the sand beside Nia with a small smirk that’s dangerously close to an actual smile. One that says see, I told you it was worth coming back here.

He sets the small cooler he brought between them and reclines back until he’s resting on his elbows. His dark eyes linger on the water for a long moment; this environment is about as far from the ominous woods and the claustrophobic mine that had so marred the end of their junior year as it’s possible to get. Even more than usual, it relaxes him. He wonders if the same is true for Nia.

Instead of asking, he says, “Not bad, right?”

“I’m going to live here,” she responds definitively, as though 'here’ is the spot she’s sitting at that moment, knees drawn up, toes in the sand, the rest of her wrapped tight in her gauzy, colorful shawl. The beach is still so warm beneath her feet. It’s amazing. She’ll find a cardboard box or something; finally realize her true calling as a human hermit crab.

It’s enough to make her forget...or at least not think too hard about everything that’s happened in the last few weeks.

Nia flips the top of the cooler open and peeks inside. “How do you stand it?” She glances up at Casper, grinning, squinting one eye shut in teasing scrutiny. “All this sunshine. The ocean air. The sound of the waves. Totally not your style.”

Casper snorts and tosses back his head dismissively and looks at Nia. "And just what is my style?" he asks dryly, plucking a shandy out of the cooler without really looking at it. He knows she's just prodding him for the sake of prodding him, but he's still curious to hear this.

Nia digs into the cooler and grabs a bottle for herself, twisting the cap off with effort, and then immediately hissing and shaking her hand out. She glances at Casper, tilting the neck of it in his direction before raising it to her lips for a drink. “Not a twist off,” she informs him, of the bottle.

And after she’s had a sip, she bobs her head from side to side thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” Nia begins, in that light, cautious way she does when she’s about to say something obnoxious; eyebrows up, corners of her mouth twitching. “The venue, for one. That was more right. The dark. The loud music. The--” she pantomimes playing drums very aggressively, adding her own sound effects.

“This,” she gestures around her. “Is more...me.” Nia seems very smug at having made this observation.

Amusement flickers briefly across Casper's face and, in an act of solidarity, he twists the cap off of his not-a-twist-off bottle too. But he refuses to acknowledge any pain it might've caused biting into his palm. Then he shakes his head and takes a drink and retorts without any actual heat, "Fuck you. People can be more than one thing. I like the club. But I like being out here too. I've always liked being out here. Why do you think I'm always complaining about the lake?" He tips the bottle toward the ocean and the waves rolling in and out along the warm sand. This is why.

Then he smirks in Nia's direction. "You're just a tourist."

Nia starts to laugh. It comes out as a snort, at first, not derisive, but definitely amused. “Casper, I could be rich if I just printed the shit you say on tee shirts and sold them for thirty bucks a pop.” That’s her back up plan after graduation, now.

Still snickering about it, she shakes her head. Then, a bit more seriously, Nia admits, “This is way better than the lake.” She presses her cheek against her shoulder and glowers up at Casper over her glasses. “I can’t believe you don’t think I’d make a natural beach bum, though.”

Casper rolls his eyes but he likes this plan considerably more than the crime novel plan or opera plan so he doesn't complain. He'd never realized he was so quotable. "Knock yourself out," he returns dryly and takes another drink. The glower doesn't seem to impact him much. Or at all. He shrugs. "Do you want to be a beach bum?"

“Or a kept woman,” she jokes, staring up at the sky, shooting for wistful – she’s grinning way too much for wistful. “Or a retired pop star. I’m going to skip all the touring and go straight to living off my riches as a member of the leisure class.” Nia punctuates this declaration with a long drink and an even longer silence.

It’s a while before she has anything more to say, but when she does speaks, she’s suddenly serious. “After all that shit, I never want to work a day in my life.”

Recognizing the quality of that silence, Casper stays quiet and waits for Nia to finish. To say what she wants or needs to say. Then he frowns and takes a sip of his drink before jamming the bottle into the sand just enough to keep it from tipping over when he abandons it and focuses on the girl. Finally, he says, "Doesn't work that way. No matter how fucked up that...night was."

He doesn't know what else to call it. It hadn't felt like just one night but it had been in reality. And reality is what matters. He tucks a bit of dark hair behind his ear and quietly breathes in the warm night air. The scent of the water makes him feel strangely grounded. "You've been thinking about it?"

“Trying not to,” Nia replies, shooting Casper a smile that’s half a grimace. “Not that I ... I mean, I barely went through it. Not like you and your boys. Not like Sylla.”

The first thing Antonia had seen upon waking up was Sylla covered in bruises. Of course Sybilla Borgin had handled it like a champ, fierce and fearless. But that didn’t make it right. It’s an image that sits jagged and painful in her chest. One that makes the jovial facade start to crumble.

Nia taps her bottle against her chin and stares out at the water. “I hope that Heart does the trick, but if it doesn’t...I’m not going to be the one sleeping, again.”

Casper shakes his head. There's no point in comparing the experiences. Waking up to the realization that the people he cared about were gone and having to search through a nightmarish alternate world to find them hadn't been pleasant. But he knows that being rendered helpless and being taken and sleeping through all that while his friends had struggled is the sort of thing that would haunt him. "Don't," he advises stiffly, "You'll drive yourself crazy dwelling on shit you had no control over. None of us got off easy."

Mention of the Heart makes him pause, though. Both because he doesn't know if it will work and because they haven't discussed that much. The hours spent wandering through the dark mine and discovering the secrets of the forest. The entity that had tried to keep them away. His lips thin. "...Yeah. I hope so too. But all we can do is try to be ready." A dry, unhappy smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Krum thinks we're all fucking mental to go back. Maybe he's right."

“Oh, he’s right,” Nia sighs, a quick huff of air through her nose as she shifts in the sand. Iliya’s leaving them is another barb, one that makes her feel irritated – and guilty for it. “But I’m going to Gooseberry ‘til I’m graduated or they close the school. Spirit shit can eat it.”

She shoves her bottle in the sand and turns to face Casper. There’s a clear challenge in her expression, brow arched. “What about you? Thinking about giving up the ghost – pun very intended – and going to school here in Cali?”

"Fuck no." Casper's answer is immediate and determined for reasons that have nothing to do with Nia's attempt to provoke him. Iliya might be leaving but as long as Ulysses and Cameron and Wilde are still at Gooseberry, he will be too. Besides, he doesn't relish the thought of letting the entities in the forest chase him away either. And he still has a lot to learn from Ms. Lilywhite and Ms. Rhee. And Gooseberry's become far more important to him than he'd want to admit. Like a home. He's not running away. His jaw clenches unconsciously and he pushes back some of his dark hair.

After a long moment, he adds, "Told you I wasn't ready to give up the badge, didn't I?"

Nia smirks giving Casper a knowing nod and then tossing her hair over her shoulder. “That’s what I want to hear.” She leans forward and extending her arm out toward Casper for a fist bump. Hand hanging in the air, she promises, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Just another secret of yours I’ll take to the grave.”

At first, it seems like Casper won't return the gesture at all. But the expression on his face is more bitter resignation and tense discomfort than anything else. He doesn't want her to know the secrets that she knows about him. And he doesn't want to know the secrets that he knows about her. But there's nothing either of them can do about it now. He lifts his hand, curls his fingers into a fist, and bumps her back. "No one would believe you, anyway," he returns and picks up the bottle stuck in the sand. Partially to take a drink. Partially to have an excuse to look away.

He pauses.

"Do you think the others are good at keeping secrets?"

Nia is in the middle of making an exploding noise and popping her fist open, fingers splayed, when Casper poses his question. She hangs, awkwardly, for just a second, before letting her hand drop, expression going a little exhausted; brows up, mouth drawn.

“I hope so,” Cheeks puffed, Nia grabs her bottle and shakes her head, unsure or maybe trying not to think about it. When she exhales, it’s a long, slow rush of air. Only after she’s had a drink does she elaborate. “I trust Ferdie. The soph—juniors? They’re that class so, I don’t know...I’d like to think they wouldn’t?”

Casper knows that wasn't a pleasant question but there's no point in avoiding it just because of that. Not asking it won't change anything. Still, the look on Nia's face makes him regret the decision momentarily. He drinks again, then shakes his head, not quite taking her meaning. "That class?"

“You know, like...” Nia actually isn’t sure how to describe it, and she tilts her head to the side, squinting out at the dark water. She raises her free hand and twists it back and forth as she speaks. “Collectively, the embodiment of a Kidz Bop album? Incapable of committing evil? Just kind of...trustworthy? Even Evercreech seems like a good guy, and he was a little shit his freshman year.”

She taps her fingers against her bottle. The tink tink tink of her nails becoming a song improvised against the beat of the waves. “I’m just saying, it could’ve been a worse group to hear that I’m—about our insecurities.” She glances at Casper, nodding for emphasis. “Are you cool with it? I mean, all things considered.”

This earns a quiet, brusque laugh from Casper but he shakes his head. "None of them are as innocent as all that. It's not all hand-holding and Kumbaya over there no matter how some of them act. They aren't kids, Nia. And I don't trust them any more than I trust anyone else I barely know."

He drains the beer to the bottom and, while he wants to pitch it out into the dark as hard as he can, he lies back on the sand instead and hooks his other arm behind his head. "...Of course I'm not fucking cool with it. But it doesn't matter because it's done. I won't say anything because I should never've heard any of that. I'll hope for the same but I won't expect it." Despite what he says, the possibility sits like a stone in his stomach.

Nia presses her knuckles to her lips to push back against a laugh. It makes her look a little like she has the hiccups. “You seriously always sound like an auror who’s five days from retirement. You’re going to be nothing but grizzled growling by the time you’re twenty-five.”

She rotates in the sand, facing Casper, crossing her legs and draping her arms over the cooler. “Don’t be too worried about secrets getting out. It’s not like you or I were the only ones caught with our pants down...That’s the magic of mutually assured destruction: peace and protection through fear of retaliation.” Nia takes another drink and then rests her chin in the palm of her hand. “Still, it’s really fucking embarrassing.”

This barely avoided laugh is met with a mild glare from Casper but that's his only retaliation before he exhales a sigh. Grizzled and growling might be simpler than talking, honestly. Maybe he'll aim for twenty. Still. Nia's not wrong. He lifts his empty bottle in a sarcastic toast. "To mutually assured destruction, then."

Then he lowers his hand and looks up at Nia. "...Yeah. It is. Even knowing everybody's got shit like that, it is.”

“Prost,” she responds in toast, smirking around the mouth of the bottle.

Just like the thing in the cave said, Nia can’t take this seriously. It hits her that maybe she should, and, naturally she responds by getting frustrated with herself. Clearing her throat, she collapses a bit more, crossing her arms over the cooler and resting her head on her wrists. “Leave it to the Ebonhides to have the anger management issues.”

"Geonbae," Casper responds dryly, using one of the handful of Korean words he actually knows before jamming the empty bottle back down in the sand again. Then he goes quiet because he doesn't know what to say. Nia already knows it all. She already knows that he hates that part of himself that gets so angry, that part of him that wants to lash out whenever he feels anything he can't deal with, and the volatility he's never been able to control just...distract. She already knows that he doesn't know how to change or be better and that he doesn't think he ever could without pretending the world is something it isn't. That it's confusing. That it feels inevitable. That being worse someday sometimes feels inevitable too.

His features tighten and he returns, more sharply than intended, "We've got reason to be angry. Especially after last year." He stops himself and gives his head a small shake, trying not to dwell on thoughts of the Micah-thing in the cave and everything it had said. But saying it's done is easier than actually letting it go. “...And what the fuck are we supposed to do about it anyway?”

While he’s speaking, Nia bobs her head back and forth; an acknowledgment of everything Casper is saying. Once he’s done, she responds, quick as a whip snap and dry as the desert, “Ask to get resorted into Ribbonfin.”

And then, immediately exasperated with herself, she shifts and runs a hand over her hair. With a puff of air, she pushes herself back up, like straightening her posture will help her approach this more seriously. It’s pretty recognizable as one of her prefectly ticks. “We can keep each other in check, right? Teamwork.”

Casper snorts, recognizing this for the flippant comment it absolutely is and rolling his eyes, "Yeah. That's done a lot of fucking good for Rosy."

When Nia offers a real answer, though, it renders him momentarily silent and his dark, serious eyes slowly return to her. While he'd always tried to manage the worst of his temper and his negative feelings by himself, things had changed last year. Because things had gotten especially bad last year. He hadn't wanted to let it happen but he'd ended up relying on Leo and Rafael a lot. And it had actually helped. Finally, he says, "...You're serious?"

Antonia’s gaze drifts up, like she’s considering, or rethinking, her words. The city’s lights may be behind them, but it’s still bright enough that the stars are nearly invisible. Nothing like the sky over Gooseberry. She misses school.

“I mean, yeah,” she says, after a time, attention finally returning to Casper. Nia wriggles in the sand. The topic is obviously uncomfortable for her. “We got called out for, basically, the same things, right? Kind of. So – eh,” she shrugs. “Maybe managing our shit will go better if we back each other up.”

The uncertainty in that long pause isn't lost on Casper and, by the time Nia looks back, he's anticipating an awkward joke in place of a blatant no. That doesn't happen. But it doesn't actually need to. Finally, he sits up again and opens the cooler. He pulls two more bottles out and offers one to her and shakes his head, "Don't tell me what you think I want to hear, Nia. We can both manage our shit just fine. You don’t need me looking over your shoulder. I don't need you looking over mine. And...I know it's not the same."

Nia accepts the bottle, but gnaws on the inside of her cheek, mouth tugging to one side. “Seriously?” She asks, a little testy.

“Maybe,” she snorts, jaw setting while she considers what she’s about to say. Gesturing broadly with both hands, out at the ocean, her expression draws into a scowl. “Maybe I’d like some help from someone I know is going through the same shit as me.” There’s a pause. Just a beat, before Nia turns back to Casper and adds sharply, “Neither one of us needs help. But it’ll make life easier.”

This silences Casper. As little as he and Nia have talked about what happened at the end of the year, they've talked about the other shit they've gone through even less. The experiences that, in a lot of ways, make them the same. "That's not what I meant," he returns after a noticeable pause, his expression tight and his lips twisted into a frown, "Just...that you're getting the shit end of this deal. Remember Webb?"

There doesn't seem to be any need to elaborate. When his mother's health had taken that first significant turn for the worse, he'd handled it poorly and ended up losing his temper. And he'd taken it out on Solomon Webb in the worst possible way. He's promised himself that he'll never let it get like that again but he can't imagine that Nia ever would've in the first place. He opens the bottle he's still holding.

“Yeah, I remember,” she concedes with a sigh. A moment passes, Nia turning her unopened bottle in her hands, looking down at the sand and trying not to think too hard about the rougher patches of the last year. After a few seconds, she levels her gaze at Casper once again.

“You wouldn’t let that happen again, though.” She says, flat but confident. And then she holds her bottle out to Casper expectantly – she’s not going to hurt her hand trying to open one of these, again.

Casper takes the bottle without argument, forces it open, and holds it out to Nia. There’s a bottle opener on his keys but a sore hand is just about the last thing on his mind right now. "No," he agrees, tone both determined and ashamed as he thinks about the incident, "I won't let that happen again. And if you still want to do this..." He nods slowly and tucks a bit of hair behind his ear. "Yeah. I'll have your back. Help you blow off steam. All that shit."

After a pause, he lifts his bottle into the space between them. "Cheers?"

Nia grins at Casper, squinting and biting down on her tongue, looking self-satisfied and a little silly. Eventually, she laughs, mostly to herself, shaking her head. “You know what would be great?” She asks, clinking her bottle against his. “A kickboxing club.”

Only after she’s taken a drink does she add, “Cheers.”

Despite everything, Nia's expression of light-hearted smugness coaxes a small smirk out of Casper. It might even be another smile. He rolls his eyes and takes a drink. "Bring it up with Thorn. Maybe you'll get lucky."