DBY Bill, Nic
The morning after the party.He hadn't drunk, smoked, snorted, or otherwise ingested anything last night -- unlike most everyone else -- that could possibly still be lingering in his system, making him feel this good. In fact, there is every reason in the world not to feel this good, considering that he now has to move, his flat is the equivalent of
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He probably shouldn't have driven, though. Would've been very bad news if he'd been stopped. He doesn't even know what a blood test might've shown.
The netting gets caught in the handbrake when he yanks it out through the driver's door, and it takes a while to untangles the mesh from the handle. It has a bamboo frame, much like a mosquito net with two frames, and they're awkward to manuever around all the junk on the passenger side of the car.
Nic considers draping the white material over head and making 'wooooo' noises, but he vaguely recalls that he promised himself to be very sensible around Bill.
At least for a little while.
Bill is leaning back in his chair and flexing out his fingers when Nic walks in, and he's also looking extremely pleased with himself; something Nic hasn't seen, a kind of calm and secret smile that he's absolutely positive (useless at people-reading though he is) that Bill would hate anyone to see.
He coughs.
"Greetings, comrade."
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He doesn't though. Nic looks reasonably chipper -- though he's wearing something weird, jeans with strips of what looks like black electrical tape all over them and a shirt that looks to be made out of something similar to the netting on the contraption he's carrying -- bright-eyed and smiling, and Bill feels no real need to antagonize him this morning. No real need to antagonize anyone, actually. He takes another look at the thing Nic is holding; it looks unweildy more than complicated, and he wonders how big it will be when it's set up. Big enough for both moths, once the Luna... er... hatches? Is that the right word? Emerges? Un-cocoons? Whatever.
But that's another reason to figure out where he's going to be living. He doesn't like the idea of leaving the moth in the jar much longer. Surely that isn't good for it, being confined like that.
He stands up and shoves some files to one side so Nic can put the stick-net thing down.
"Show me how to set it up?"
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"It's my own invention," Nic nods, "and improving suggestions are always welcome. I'm a biologist, not an engineer." As if to prove his point, Nic tangles the netting around his foot when he drops the base circle to the floor, and has to hop around to shake himself free. He doesn't look at Bill, because he just knows there's some sort of smirk there.
"So," he says when he's finally got a handle on the net, and can pull the top circle up, "did you have a good time last night? I sort of lost track of you after a while."
He doesn't say after the stonking good blow, because, well, it's unnecessary. But it's not entirely true, because even though Bill had been only peripherally available to Nic's consciousness, he'd been like an eye-twitch presence in the room, and Nic hardly ever admitted anyone else into his mental space when he was fucking.
Bill doesn't reply immediatedly, so Nic holds the net up. There is a bamboo circle over which a cylinder of fine white netting is draped, terminating on the floor with another bamboo round. Near the base there is a hole, with another flap of netting to prevent escape from the inside. The whole contraption stand about two metres tall and a metre wide, and there is a long loop with a hook in the centre of the top circle.
"You attach it to the ceiling, here," Nic says, jiggling the hook, "and it should all just fall into place. I've got some plants and stuff in the car for the cocoon to attach onto, but you can grab them later."
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There, in the corner near the copier, there's even a hook already in the ceiling. Remnants of someone's attempt to decorate with plants, no doubt. He stands up and measures Nic's contraption with his eyes, and then looks at the hook again. He shrugs off his jacket and rolls his sleeves up quickly. With a quick glance at Nic -- who is being suspiciously quiet and well-behaved -- he moves over to the corner and shoves the copier a foot to the right, freeing up the corner space.
This will work. Yeah. And the moth (and cocoon) are currently residing under his desk, as he hadn't wanted to leave him in the car, hadn't known if the heat would hurt him, so yeah. This would work.
"Gimme the thing, Nicky," he says, gesturing absently behind him while he snags a footstool with his foot and drags it over. "You think Johnny will care if I keep them here, at least for a few days?"
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Nicky is surprising, from Bill.
He beams.
"They'll probably have a starring role in whatever he's doing next," Nic hauls the netting up, "but as long as you don't mind you bugs on film, I'm sure Johnny will love them -- are you alright, mate, do you want me to get up there? I think I'm probably taller than you."
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Nic takes a couple of steps closer and holds the netting up so Bill can get a good grip on it. "Hold the bottom so it doesn't swing. Yeah, thanks."
Between the two of them, they get the framework sorted and the ring at the top onto the hook, and the habitat falls naturally into place, longer than it is wide (Bill thinks it would be pretty easy to widen it, though, as the netting it's made from is naturally stretchy). "You said you had something for the cocoon to attach to?" Bill asks, and steps down from the stool. "What about the Atlas? What kinds of plants should I put in there? What does he need to eat?"
He bends and retrieves the moth jar from under his desk, and then turns to look at Nic because he hasn't answered any of Bill's questions, and one thing about Nic you can count on is him running at the mouth.
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"All that shit is on that sheet, in the bag." He snaps his fingers into pointers, aims down at the bag on the ground. "Down there. But I'll bring the plants in, yeah, if you can rustle up some OJ or something, 'cos I've got a big thirsty coming on."
Bill looks at him with a death glare.
"Come on, man, dehydration. Puhleeze. Anyhow, some bastard seems to have cleaned out the fridge and the cupboards and I dunno where anything is now. I suspect that might've been someone in this room, and I'm pretty fucking sure it ain't the moths doing housework."
"Got something to show you, too," Nic hollers as he trots out to his car.
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Well, when he'd been too busy to chat.
The memory of that is sufficient to distract him totally for several seconds (it's funny, isn't it, that the only way Bill knows to shut Nic up is to strip him down and toss him into bed with Bill's girlfriend -- and even then, it's only partially successful, as Nic still talks, he just doesn't babble), and when he glances up again Nic is disappearing out the front door.
Right, he thinks, and shakes his head. Orange juice.
"For the record," he mutters on his way to the break room, "I didn't actually clean it out. Cleaning it out implies throwing things away. I only rearranged it."
Then he shuts up, because he never talks to himself (well, not often anyway), and he doesn't plan on starting now.
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It's hard balancing Selma's box and the big fern, but he manages.
"Righto then," Nic passes the two little creepers to Bill so he can juggle and set stuff down, "Pop all of these but the one with the stake in the net."
Selma's box he carefully places on Bill's desk, where there is a pint mug full of juice sitting, drops of condensation forming already because it's so cold.
"Cheers!" Nic says. "To Lepidoptera."
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He's aware of Nic at his elbow as he gently shakes the jar, urging the Atlas out.
It takes around a minute for it to decide to venture outside the confines of the jar, but eventually it does, and flutters immediately onto a green, heart shaped leaf, which looks a little damp, as though with dew. He wonders if this plant had come from Nic's butterfly room, and what temperature he kept it at.
The moth beats it's wings gently, but doesn't actually take flight when Bill carefully withdraws his hand. "That's a big fucking moth," Bill says admiringly, and smiles.
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He nods, and maybe the movement alerts the atlas, because it begins to flit, no doubt looking for a dim corner of foliage to lurk in. "I shoudl show you my photos," Nic says absently, watching the moth, scratching at stubble with the edge of the glass, "I just went to Belize. Big fucking bugs everywhere."
"Speaking of which," he jerks his head to the desk, "I brought in my favourite big fucking bug for you to meet."
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Oh, shite, he thinks. "Your favorite? Selma the tarantula?"
He glances at the box Nic had placed on his desk, and takes a step back. "Seriously?" He resists the urge to drop to one knee and grope for the gun in the holster around his ankle.
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He's disappointed, though, and purses his lips. "You don't wanna see? She's very well behaved, and you don't have to come near. I can stand over the other side of the room."
He shakes his head. "She'll be so disappointed."
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He has the sneaking suspicion that the spider -- bloody tarantula, even, aren't they fucking poisonous? -- in that box will be just as happy to stay in it as Bill would be for her to stay in it, but that's not really the point.
The point is, Nic would be disappointed, even though he's being quite reasonable about it (for Nic), and after he'd gone to all the trouble to bring it (her?) here to show Bill (and brought things for Bill's moth, which Bill genuinely does like), it seems crappy in the extreme not to look at it.
It's just a bug for God's sake. He's a hundred times it's size.
Although...
"Does it... she jump?" he asks, because it seems like a fairly pertinent question.
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He picks up the box and deliberately walks across the room, away from Bill, and perches on the sofa. "She's most likely still groggy, anyhow. She doesn't much like cars." He lifts the lid a little bit, and sure enough, she is still in the corner, sitting fatly on the cake wrapper.
"Anyway," he winks, "tarantulas like to go up and down, not side to side. So she'll probably look at you and think you're too short to be interesting climbing."
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He realizes he prattling to combat nerves -- it's something he had done a lot as a child, and hadn't really done in years -- and makes himself stop.
That, he thinks, is a bloody huge spider.
It isn't exactly that Bill is afraid of spiders. He's not; not quite anyway. Rather, that he's deeply unsettled by them. Partly, it's exactly what Nic had said. They move too quickly, they are too startling, and Bill doesn't care for being startled. But it's also that they're just... alien, bizarre looking. Not like dogs or cats (or any kind of mammal, actually), which Bill knows and understands, can read to some extent, though not as easily as most people.
But Nic is looking down into the box with an expression of unmistakable fondness. Fondness for a hairy lump with far too many legs, two of which -- the front two -- are sort of twitching, or waving around a little, like the thing (she, Selma, whatever) is twiddling it's... er, legs. Just bored and waiting for some unsuspecting person to get close enough to jump on their head.
Bill arches an eyebrow at it, and it occurs to him that if Selma does try to jump on his head, he might just judo-chop her after all. He tucks his hands into his pockets, just in case.
The likelihood of surviving a tarantula on his head seems higher than the likelihood of surviving Keira, if he ends up killing Nic's pet and then has to beat Nic up to keep him off of Bill.
"She's... furry," he observes, and leans in just a little closer.
She doesn't look like many spiders Bill has seen. She's generally spider shaped, of course, but seems a lot... He doesn't know. Less freaky, maybe. Bigger definitely. Less spindly and less like the baby aliens that had come out of that guy's chest in that movie in the 80's.
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