Layla & Nico - Bonding over dead animals

[x-staffofone.livejournal.com]

If you look closely you can see them doing power training too!

The squirrel was definitely dead. It was dead and it looked like Nico was making sure it was really, really dead. Which was fine because that was like the point, right? But it was just there all keeled over on the tree stump. Layla was pretty sure it was supposed to bother her more than this but all she could think was At least he gets to keep his little rodenty head when Nico kills him. It was obviously her turn to do something but even the energy channeling stuff Amanda and Nico had been working on her with didn't seem to be helping. Except for when it maybe did... "I brought a kid back to life," the blonde said suddenly, fixing her gaze on the dead furry thing.

Yes, it was most certainly dead. And Nico had liked how it had felt; she didn't have the chance to kill things too often, as little as they were. She had no intention to make it a thing though, because the last thing she needed was an addiction. It had been a thing of skill to force the little animal into something Nico thought was cardiac arrest due to lack of sufficient energy for its heart to beat, or for its lungs to breathe...she wasn't sure, but it didn't look like she had degraded it. As she wasn't paying too much attention to Layla at that given moment, Nico nodded absently before her brain could process the whole deal.

"...wait, what?"

"You know when Mister Haller and Vibra-Socket and people like decided 'field trip to this fair thingum!' that landed me in medlab again?" Layla spoke without looking at Nico, without so much as a real intonation in her voice. She was trying to stay detached about it all. But the implications...if she could raise people from the dead? "There was this kid. I think he got like electrocuted by this guy who'd flipped out with this electricity-lightning bolt power. And I...raised him from the dead. And you know, that energy stuff? It like made sense. Only it doesn't now." Layla growled in the dead squirrel's direction. "But yeah. I guess...I guess it's not just animals I can do?"

Nico was the older here, and she had kind of, in a very indirect and completely odd way, gotten Layla under her wing...thing, whatever old farts liked to call the fact they took care of others. And well, it wasn't as if she were the only one looking after the girl, but she was the youngest. That was cool, and kind of complicated things at the same time. "So you mean to say, and by this I would prefer a yes or a no, if you don't mind, that there is a guy who was dead, alive, walking around? Or he sort of...died again or something?" She said electrocuted. How bad could you look after that? Well, it depends, said a little voice on her head; yeah, you could look normal, or roasted.

Sighing, she turned towards the dead squirrel. "The thing with mutant powers, and this is just my theory, is that half the time they actually do what we want them to do. Thing is, we are so scared we don't really want them to do anything. And once they do...well, in some cases it's like forcing a faulty water hose open; you can get a crapton more water than you intended." Was she even making sense over there? "Uh, just focus on doing your thing without thinking on what's going to happen next. No need to focus on the moral implications of rodent resuscitation."

"Am I gonna have to think of moral implications when it's not just a rodent? I...didn't think of that." Why didn't she think of that? Obviously there were weird traditions and superstitions dealing with dead stuff, right? Layla tried not to focus on that now but it was like all she could think about. "But I'm not like hurting things so why would there be like icky moral stuff going on?" She was careful to not say it wasn't like she was killing things since, well, Nico did. "And yeah. Well, I think he is? He had this really gross burn on his back, I think. But yeah I think he's like walking around and shit. All...alive. I should ask Mister Haller. He said he was gonna go look for him after and I never found out if he like found the kid or whatever. But he was like ten and he was just suddenly dead, you know? How'm I supposed to just let him stay dead?"

Layla closed her eyes, trying to actually find and feel her own energy. That was the point, right? How was she supposed to just push something out at a dead thing if she couldn't even find the thing she was pushing? Major fail, Layla. "I didn't think it would work. Well, I dunno. There wasn't like a thinking thing in general. Maybe it was a water hose fluke, y'know?"

Nico tilted her head to a side. How do you let somebody die? She knew she could, if she really wanted, go looking for ways to bring her parents back; heck, if she really wanted, she could use the Staff of One to- Ah, I wasn't going to think of that ever again-. "I honestly don'y know, girl. I'm sorry to say but that's like, the opposite of what I have to deal with? All I can say on the matter is that whatever you do, be sure not to do it because it's what's expected out of you; do it because you fucking want to, and believe in it." God, she was getting old.

Looking at the squirrel still being dead, Nico wondered if there was any real way to control a power you didn't feel working until it did; she had been lucky, in a way, because of her energy sensitivity, so she wasn't blind to what her power could affect, but Layla had no idea of what that meant. Not concretely at least. "As I said, you probably really wanted to bring the kid back; human will is a pretty interesting thing. I would offer to try some magic to make you want to do it, but that's the kind of thing I would have to check over with Amanda first. Spellcrafting can be a bitch." Poking the squirrel a couple of times, Nico sat on the ground. "Oh, I know. Why don't you think about something that causes you strong feelings? Like getting a shot or the prospect of giving a speech. God knows that's one of the reasons I can't commit to a serious relationship nowadays." Layla wasn't the only that could play at sounding detached.

Layla opened her eyes, brow furrowing, and looked over at Nico. "You can't commit because of giving a speech? What?" Anything useful she was going to try went right out the figurative window because she could not, for the life of her, figure out how giving a speech made you a commitmentphobe. And then Layla thought of Sarah and how she was totally so obviously not a commitmentphobe anymore. Because, yeah... OKay she had been though and then she was all exhausted and Sarah used the G word and...and that was like it. But so not the point here!

"What? No! What is going between those ears of yours..." And she poked Layla for greater effect. Provided the girl had leveled with her, because Nico wasn't standing just yet. "Feelings, Layla. If I get anxious, I might start draining things without noticing. Same if I get, err, excited. I don't think I need to further explain myself on that topic." Because she had already decided that 'I kill people with sex' was a line never to be uttered. "Do you have the hots for somebody right now? That could work as a trigger." Nico actually knew she had, but it was sort of unfair in some level to tell Layla without being told by her first. It made sense in her mind, at least. But honestly, would it work? Nico had no idea.

"Is like fuzzy feelings what I should be channeling for a dead thing?" She had no idea. "God, this is so fucked up. I am never this person I was thinking of them while molesting dead rodent. 'Cause, wow, way to never get anything ever again. Ever." She shuddered a little, but it was mostly for effect and not due to real ickiness. Layla's lack of gross out factor for dead things was slightly concerning but hey, better than screaming like a girl over it, right? With a deep breath, Layla closed her eyes and tried to think of Sarah. Of that night in the fort when Layla had kissed her for the first time. Or the way her eyes looked when they were really close. She felt the way her stomach sort of did cartwheels over Sarah and Layla reached out to touch a finger to the squirrel.

The squirrel died a little more.

"Well it was worth trying. Also yeah, I should be able to control it with time, but I'm basically ruining my chances of having any for the next couple of years. Hopefully. I can always be a bitter bitch about it though, so not everything is lost." Nico gave a stronger poke to the rodent's head, making sure it was still pretty inanimate before sighing. "Well, it's not going to go anywhere right now. I bet you need to rest some more after raising the kid. Or maybe the fuzzy feelings were a wrong move. Next time I'll try to scare you to death, maybe something will happen?" Nico always had the best ideas.

Layla laughed. "Dude, thanks, yeah, let's like totally give me a heart attack and see if I can bring myself back to life!" She eyeballed the squirrel. Stupid squirrel. "Maybe I should try someone I really don't like? Nah, it'll get like deader or something. I'm usually like emo when shit comes back to life. If you tell me to think about the kittens that die when people masturbate that is so not gonna work." The blonde's eyes shifted from side to side. "But how awesome but fucked up would it be for you to totally fuck with someone by hiding out and killing their kitten when they jerk off? Someone you like really don't like, obviously." Soooo wrong. And so amazingly funny anyway. "Or sometimes if I'm pissed off. I dunno, maybe being pissed at people will work but like I don't get pissed off that much. Where's that creepy Wade dude when I need him to be an asshat?"

"That's a theory I don't even want to think about. I can't kill myself with my powers." A beat. "Okay, I haven't tried, but when I freak out and everything around me degrades, I don't, so I suppose I'm immune to it. Chances are you can't do it to yourself. I mean it's not like it's on the whole time. I was thinking on something less scary though. You know, I could make a scary face while you hold a dead pigeon or whatever, see if it flies." Her chasing Layla around the mansion while she held a dead animal would be...interesting.

"More fucked up than awesome, I think. I mean maybe if you want to seriously screw with somebody's brain, like seriously. Pissed off? Well, I can't really say Wade has bothered me...yet. He's weird and stuff, I'll give you that much. And no I'm not taking sides." She paused for a moment. "Too bad I can't be horrible to you anymore. Once you meet Nice Nico you can't hate the Nico. Otherwise I would try, trust me."

"I think if you try to make a scary face I'm just gonna end up laughing." Layla flopped down on the ground, then reached up and plucked the squirrel off his stump to take him with her. Why, yes, she was holding a dead thing in her lap, was that weird? "Wade's just, I dunno. He like wants me to tip toe around Matt because he's a blind orphan or some shit. So he takes it upon himself to get all 'defender of the Matt' on me on the journals because, dude, being like a thirty year old dude fucking scolding some teenager you don't teach, don't actually know and don't have anything to do with isn't totally weird and like creepy, right? If he wants to be Matt's like replacement daddy he should just fucking man up and adopt him. If he doesn't then he should back the fuck off because I don't treat Matt any different from anyone else. Only Matt is a whiny, moody little bitch sometimes because he thinks he's like Superman even though he's blind and doesn't give a shit whether or not something is even safe to do. But no one is gonna cut Matt any slack outside of here so why the fuck should I tip toe around like he's fucking breakable? And what right does some random fucking dude who lives here and like sponges off the Professor and like hangs out with teenagers like some super creepy molester or something have to try to tell me I'm being fucked up just because he wants to step in to play hero or whatever."

The more she talked about it and vented the more obviously annoyed Layla got. Annoyance began to turn to something sounding a lot like anger as she went on. She could even feel the way her face got hot like it always did when she got pissed about something. What she wasn't paying attention to, though, was the small twitches of movement in the squirrel's limbs.

Nico was going to tell Layla that her scary faces were nothing to laugh at when she began to talk. And you know, talk and talk. She was no expert but she could tell Layla was slow to trust people; how she, who had the sensitivity of an average Linkin Park song -that is to say, none- most of the time had somewhat befriended her remained a mystery. She supposed it was the age, and the fact they were both...somehow broken, but still, Nico didn't know if she had it in her to get so worked up about somebody being overprotective. Perhaps it was that Layla didn't want to see how Matt became spoiled and therefore weak- she could see the reasoning there; perhaps she wanted to be spoiled too? It was impossible for Nico to tell at the moment.

She couldn't even say her part because she noticed how the squirrel had started to twitch. "Girl, you mad," she said as she waved a hand. "I don't mean to disagree but Everyone here is damaged one way or another. That he has some sort of bizarre hero complex...well, adults can be terrible listeners." She didn't want to fuel Layla's anger, but she didn't want her to stop doing whatever she was doing. "Okay, try to bring that squirrel back now."

"I'm not mad." Her tone disagreed. "He's just a fucking ass." She grumbled a bit about timing and things, but she also closed her eyes and tried to sense something or other. Not finding anything only added frustrating to her simmering anger. She settled for imagining hitting things. If she could just ball it all up and shove the stupid little squirrel into a brick wall... "Ow!" Layla snatched her hand back and shook it. "That little bastard bit me!" Then she realized it wasn't in her lap anymore and she looked up at Nico with wide eyes.

Nico blinked back at the undead squirrel. "Hey," she muttered as she looked up at Layla for a second. "Wanna see a scary face?" Since the other girl had done her part, Nico was up for dusting. She usually tried to keep the creepiness level down, or dust things without being seen directly by Layla, but now she just went all out. Nico's eyes darkened completely, cracks surrounding them in every direction, as well as something that looked like fog, yet it was completely black oozed slowly from the cracks. Her face seemed more marked somehow, a crack going down her left cheek as her teeth had became oddly pointy, and apparently sharp.

Before the squirrel had a chance to do anything in its second unexpected life, Nico pulled the energy from it, almost avidly. There wasn't much, and so she made short work of it...and then some. Fur, muscles and bones eroded in front of her, and half a minute or so later there was a literal pile of dust where a zombie squirrel had stood before. "Oh, crap", muttered Nico as she raised a hand -that had a strange claw-like vibe going on, although it looked normal- over her face as she looked away. "Now we need a new squirrel."

It was Layla's turn to sit there and blink. And stare. There was a lot of staring. "Uh, your face is oozing black shit dude." Hell, Layla was still trying to comprehend the whole thing where she had totally brought the squirrel back to life but then it was all bam super creepy Nico, Mistress of the Dark! "Dude, maybe you can't hate Nico after meeting Nice Nico but you can probably give people some fucking nightmares by oozing from the face with your like vampire death teeth!" Her hands were flailing around as she spoke, gesticulating wildly. "Which is awesome but totally fucking creepy. And why the fuck did it bite me? Do I have rabies now?"

Once that Nico turned around again, her face was back to normal. She had been training with her power, seeing how far it could go. That wasn't the furthest, but Nico had no intention to see where was the point where she turned into an energy sucking mindless beast, no way. "I'm pretty sure that was dark energy overflowing." It was something Arcana could do to, she knew that much. And given their common link with whatever the First was...yeah. "All I hope is that I don't end with completely fucked up expression lines. Also the teeth thing? Odd as hell." She smiled as she spoke though. "But the most important thing is, you managed to bring the thing back! I guess when you got all worked up you sorta stopped caring about whether you could bring it back or not, and whatever happens when you use your power well...happened. It...depends? I don't know if it had rabies or not, but I guess it just reacted like any animal that was killed and then suddenly it was alive again. I mean, what other explanation is there?"

"That it's rabid," Layla deadpanned. "I'm gonna have to go back and have like the super scary, evil redheaded doctor chick test me for rabies or something now. So should've thought about that part of the touching plan, dude. And actually, I kinda wanted to shove it into a wall. Maybe it found out what I wanted to do and got pissed off so it came back to life and bit me out of spite. I'm not as mad now, though. But that's probably...whaddya call it? Psychosummatit or something. Anyway, where it's all in your head. Why're the death teeth all odd?"

"Well, that's what the little critters do anyway, right? I bet it was scared, or surprised, or both. Or, you know, zombie-like." Zombies liked to bite stuff right? "Uh, we should get you checked then. God knows what sort of undead shit you can get these days." But before she stood, Nico scuttled a bit closer towards Layla and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, if you are planning to lose your shit about what happened to the kid, call me, alright? So you can at least lose your shit around somebody who knows how this is. It's a really lame thing to offer, but you do what you can." She squeezed the girl's shoulder a bit more before standing, arms high up as she stretched for a moment.

"Qualify 'lose my shit'?" A corner of her mouth quirked up in something resembling an attempt at a smile. "I mean, it's just...it was a person. Like an actual dead person. And I don't even know how long it took but it happened. It worked. And if it worked on him it could work on other people. I mean, I went from the worst mutation ever being Queen of the Walking Roadkill to having people would totally kill for. I can't like put brains back in someone's head. But if I could just...bring people back?" Layla chewed on her lip, trying to avoid thinking about the obvious and trying to will Nico to avoid it as well. "That's like...whoa. Bad ass."

"That moment when you start to insult yourself in your head? Losing your shit in every sense of the word." Nico was silent for a moment. "I want you to think about it, alright? About what it means to bring someone back. Most people don't stop to truly think about what it means. And maybe you can do that? But you need to understand, being able to do something doesn't mean you can or should do it. Maybe not never but...most of the times you shouldn't." Sighing, Nico tried to change the sudden serious expression that crossed her face. "Ah jeez, you are gonna make me feel old."

"I don't even have to try to make you feel old. You're just like default old on the inside and shit," Layla pointed out with a tone that suggested this fact was a known quantity. "I'm...not sure I get what you mean about really understanding. Like, are you getting all religious on me? Because...I'm not really religious. I respect other people's right to believe in God or Satan or angels or Vishnu or whatever. But that shit really ain't for me, you know? And like I'm not sure what makes it like right or not right if you're not all religious and shit."

The goth groaned as she passed a hand over her face. "You are not helping, kiddo." Seriously, not cool Layla; she wasn't even twenty yet! "And I don't mean religions. I was raised Catholic, but after all that has happened? It's God and me, and nobody else. I think they call themselves deists. Whatever." She wasn't going to get all religious on Layla, altar girl or not. "I think you will find your answer when the situation presents itself. For now, don't take your power too seriously, alright?"

"Isn't the whole point to take it seriously? I bring things back to life by accident all the time. Isn't like the point to stop doing that? Only I can't figure out how to not do it without figuring out how to do it. And doing it is usually super gross and fucked up and involves like blood spewing outta rotted away holes or like disfigured spines and shit. Seriously, animals die in the grossest ways possible, I swear. It's not like it's like a comedy routine or something." Which would have been way better. Why couldn't she just be the mutant who had non-corporeal audience applauding whenever she said something vaguely funny? "So, like, don't they want me to take this shit seriously? 'Cause I can totally ditch out on our training sessions like whoa."

Nico opened her mouth to say something at least three times before she poked Layla in the head. "No, I'm telling you not to take it too seriously. And by that I mean, don't go thinking you must master it so you can bring loved ones to their families, or lovers to their partners. It might look like a life changing ability, but that's the shortest way to go completely nuts." She then placed a hand on her chest, right where the Staff of One tended to come out from. "I can wish for a world without mutants, or even worse, for a world without non mutants. And you know? This fucking staff might have the power to actually pull that one. When I was first learning how to use it I tended to daydream about all the wonderful things it could do, but you know what? You only need so much power to stop thinking like a human being." Nico sincerely hoped that Layla could understand what she was saying. Just because she could bring things back to life it didn't mean she had to go on a holy quest of sorts. It was, Nico thought, a pretty sad power all in all.

"Train to control it, and then decide what you want to do with it."

"Oh, that." Layla frowned a little but didn't look particularly upset. "It's kinda useless if you think about it though. I mean, I can't heal anything. Sure, if some kid's heart stops because he got electrocuted to death and I'm there then I can do something about it. But, like, people don't die like that much, you know? You still need a brain and lungs and a heart for me to even bring something back, right? Like a shot through the head is a no go. Shot through a lung is like, sure, you come back and then you re-die in this awful, probably super painful way, right? Physical damage to the heart? Maybe you come back and then instantly start bleeding out. It's mostly super fucked up. So, you know, no worries. There's probably no real point to it most of the time anyway."

"What if it evolves more? But now you are over thinking it, Layla." So she poked the girl on the forehead again; Nico wasn't that good at this whole mentoring thing yet. "So why don't we focus on something else now? We can hunt another squirrel if you want. Or not. I'm not really a strict teacher."

"I dunno, know any of those energy focus exercise thingums that'll be all 'tap into your inner rage' instead of 'tap into your inner zen'? I mean, I should probably practice the zen thing to make sure shit doesn't randomly get up and walk around anyway. But, you know, practicing the raising and not raising and the stopping raising when it's starting thing would probably be easier than just, like, being calm. Right?" It made sense to Layla anyway. And she was trying to not get poked in the head again.

"They are basically the same." Nico looked down for a moment, a light frown on her face. "Well, no reason to keep hanging out for now then. We should probably train you some more on sensing energy before trying to bring things up without getting you worked up about stuff. I mean you have to have some energy sensibility, right? Just leave it to me to untap your hidden potential." There was no evil laugh, mostly because Nico was half serious about it. Also her evil laugh was totally evil, and Layla had been traumatized enough for one day. Sweeping an arm over the other girl's shoulders, Nico started to walk to the mansion with her. "Oh, right; I think we talked about cookies?"

"You want me to have sense?" Layla blinked at her as if Nico was totally nuts, which she sort of was half the time. It was actually why Layla liked her so much. She let herself be led away, shuffling along next to the other girl. "Cookies I can totally do. Death by chocolate." She grinned, once again thinking herself exceptionally clever for that one. "But I should probably hit up the medlab first. And you can pray with me that it's not the totally evil redhead there but like the sane one who grades my papers. I mean, unless you want some potential rabies in your cookies? I think it'll add a sort of zesty spiciness to 'em. Whaddya think?"

"Whoa whoa there, I said energy sensing. I can't warrant to be a good example for any other sort of sense." Which was okay with her. Common sense was highly overrated nowadays. "Right, undead squirrel bite, let's get you some T-Vaccine first and focus on pastries later. There's a bunch of things you can put in cookies but rabies might just be one of those rare examples of crossing the line."

Pouting, Layla batted her eyes at Nico. "But, but, you don't want me to be a ravenous zombie? But that was what I asked Santa for last year!" The whining tone hinted at a tantrum but Layla only stomped her feet for a few steps. "I wanted to be the one who mutates the virus and becomes all bad ass like Milla Jojovich!" A heavy sigh and the blonde hung her head. "Fine, no being a zombie, just making them. But I want you to know this is like a massive sacrifice. Massive. And I'm doing it just for you. But now you owe me Resident Evil marathonage at some point. That is your penance or whatever."

Nico sighed as she actually tried to picture Layla the Ravenous Zombie. "It's not that the looks won't fit you, but you lose cute points in the process. And let me tell you, you want to keep those cute points for later. Also the ability to speak coherently, always a valuable commodity." She supposed there was no need to remind Layla that something of the kind would put her in a world of trouble. "Also didn't she get slashed by that guy who was mutating differently? So she wasn't really bitten. Damn, apparently I have good movie memory." Which might never come in handy. Laughing, Nico's arm around Layla's shoulders wrapped around her neck, pulling her on a soft lock as she kept walking. "Your sacrifice is duly noted, and I would like to watch the movies, sure."

The arm around her neck had Layla's arms flailing, pretending to be choking. Then they hung down limply, shoulders slumping as she pretended to die...while still standing up. And then, like magic, she was alive and trying to gnaw on Nico's arm. After a bit of trying to gnaw on her she gave up because her neck was obviously not long enough and she didn't contort well enough to actually get any fleshy bits so she abandoned her efforts with a sigh. "I don't have many cute points so I should probably hoard those motherfuckers like the get outta jail free cards they are. I need my two hundred dollars when I pass go, you know?"

Loosening her arm a bit, Nico laughed. "See? That's cute. Or maybe my perception of cuteness is screwed up, I don't know. I would give myself more credit if I were you though." She took a moment to see just how much she had really bit on her arm, and when she was sure there hadn't been any fundamental wardrobe damage she kept on talking. "At any rate, you don't want to be rotting all around. That's bad taste, and it comes from the girl who owns jackets dark enough that can be considered a sub space dimension. Now let us pray we run into some charitable soul over the Medlab."

"By 'charitable soul' you mean 'isn't going to torture Layla for hours until she is dead and no longer able to make cookies,' right?" She grinned. "'Cause, you know, you got priorities and I totally respect that. And if I need to get rabies shots that could suck. 'Cause I saw this article once about the series of shots you gotta get if you get bitten by something with rabies and, dude...there was a picture of this like malnourished African kid screaming his fucking head off with tears and snot streaming down his face. That is like a world of 'do not want' right there."

"I really hope you don't have anything because of the dead squirrel. I would have to quickly make a potion or something to purge the virus out of you. I think I've got minor healing potions down, but I haven't tried them on people yet." It was probably a Minoru thing, being able to do magic things, or magic with things, just like her parents had. "It would probably taste like crap. Glowing crap I guess."

"Are you trying to go all Professor Pomfrey on me?" Layla blinked at her. "Not on. Okay, well, magic potion thing probably way better than being stuck with needles for weeks. And this, by the way, is totally why wikipedia is evil. Because you look up something and then you click on something else and something else and then bam!" She clapped her hands together suddenly. "Africans being tortured with rabies shots. The information age is so overrated, dude."

"Professor Pomfrey was totally badass. Also I have no desire to experiment on you. I am going to need to try one sooner or later. But you got a point; last time I clicked my way through it I ended reading about the Great Attractor, which is cool but I think I wanted to read about witch hunts or something." As they neared the mansion, Nico decided to play a bit with Layla, only to see if the girl would admit her thing with Sarah. It was totally not evil on her part. "So, a while ago Sarah and I saw the six Star Wars movies, and now you are going to make me watch Resident Evil. It's like my link to the mansion has turned quite entertainment-oriented as of late, if you don't consider your training."

"My training is totally entertainment." Layla held up her finger which was bleeding a little. "I got bit by an evil, furry thing. How is that not entertainment? And, dude, I call foul big time! How does she make you watch Star Wars but she makes me watch sappy fucking girlie movies? How is that fair? It's like she wants me to be comatose. But you, no, she likes you. You get light saber battles and shit. Well...maybe she doesn't like you." Layla frowned and gave Nico a rather sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "I mean, she made you watch those crappy Episodes One through Three, right?"

"...alright, it has been pretty funny so far." Nico snorted a bit. "Well she was talking about it, and then I was talking about it, and then we both wanted to see them. I'm sure as hell I wouldn't have shared my mind about sappy girly movies. But you know, I think that's a privilege she's giving to you. I'm sure I wouldn't see that kind of stuff with anybody I didn't have absolute trust." And maybe not even then, but if she was in the mood...well, that was contradictory. "But she likes me alright? Sarah's a good kid, all wide eyes and amazed at the world. It's kinda nice to befriend people like that. And I like the six Episodes, fight me." She would put her on a lock if she tried anything funny.

"Yeah, she's sort of got that wide eyed thing going on. She's sort of..." Layla frowned, "is it bad to say naive? Like people always make it sound like a really bad thing but she kinda is. But not in a bad way. In like a she still thinks the world is a pretty decent place because she hasn't been repeatedly fucked over kind of way. She's...optimistic." Layla poked Nico in the side. "I could totally take you but if I break you then English will be all with the accent and the scolding and I'm not recovered enough for that. And I am so telling Sarah you like girlie movies and totally want to watch them with her so you can both get all weepy and blubber over them together. And then I will be off the hook for some of them! This is totally a winning strategy here."

"It's not a bad thing. I mean, she's not naive to the point where it's ridiculous...but she kinda makes you want to try to be more decent for the sake of not tarnishing her view of the world, I guess. You gotta protect people like that." They were the ones that would pick the rest of the world and build a new one, or so Nico hoped. "I'm only enduring sappy movies if I get properly bribed to, or if I'm trying to get something. Seeing as how I don't have anything to get you have to buy me. Lucky you, I can set my price on consumables." They walked for a bit more in silence. "But in all honesty...you wouldn't want to spend less time with her right?"

Layla's eyes slipped from side to side. Dodge, answer or lie? It didn't seem worth lying to Nico about her girlfriend even if she was sort of on the downlow about it. Okay, on the downlow but not like hiding it all the time. It's just that she had basically been in eat, sleep and shower mode for a while so there wasn't much time for it to get out. And the attention...Layla did not want the attention. "I wouldn't spend less time with her. She'd ditch other people," she finally replied with smug confidence and the smirk to match. "Because I am that awesome. No one would give up hanging out with me."

That was the point Nico was looking for. There was no real point on pushing more; she supposed that since it was about other girl, and not a boy, Layla would probably try to keep it under the radar for as long as possible. In her position, Nico assumed she would do the same. Strangely enough, she was confident the girl would tell her when she felt ready, unless she happened to find out in some completely awful way, which she hoped it wasn't the case. "Well it is working with me, so I can't argue that. Okay, Medlab, here we go. Just don't be scared, alright? I believe doctors can smell that, and purposely subject you to a world of hurt for SCIENCE. Also you can't lose face with people in general."

"Is she gonna try to take my face off if she smells fear?" Layla gave Nico big, scared eyes and pouted. "I like my face. It's mine. I wanna keep it! Stupid Doc McCoy ditching us for his sick kid and shit. Who said he was allowed to play daddy? He left me with a crazy person. Crazy! She's gonna stab me with things!" she declared dramatically and scooted behind Nico as if to hide. They were nearly the same height and both fairly scrawny so it nearly worked, too. Or so Layla thought.

Maybe if Layla didn't move much behind her, yes; it did help Nico's skirt was wide and actually made her look less skinny than she actually was. It was also rather hard to see what was going on behind her when she was a pretty good looking goth, if she could say so herself. "Now now, I'll hold your hand and get you a lollipop if you behave, alright?" It probably would have had a better impact if it hadn't been said as she tried to get a hold of Layla by the shoulders and haul her inside, by her side, and not behind her. All in all she ended up entering first.

Once they were inside Layla peered over Nico's shoulder. When she saw no one her head popped out over the other girl's shoulder and Layla looked at her from all of a few inches away. "You promise to get me a lollipop?"

Nico turned around, eyeing her with a raised eyebrow, hand on her waist. "I never joke about sweets."

Grinning, Layla took Nico's hand and then loudly called, "Doctor Lady! I have rabies!"