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[fears_nothing]

Niko had always been a morning person, as much as he could be with the sort of nocturnal life he and Cal lived by necessity, and he found yet again that the island accomodated him in that respect. There was no visible danger here, no obvious pitfalls and while Niko didn't entirely trust it, it was nebulous enough that he could forget it for hours

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[beentodamascus]

He snags a moment's peace when he can. This morning, at home, everything's quiet; Harry's settled, Sarah's smiling and, when he left, Coraline was still asleep. He'd put on sneakers and taken tot he beach, not pushing himself too hard. He'd jogged at an easy pace as the sun was coming up.

Part of his job at home had been reading people and the look on the guy's face gives him pause. Adam pauses, blotting sweat from his own face with his t-shirt.

"Everything okay, mate?" he asks.

[fears_nothing]

Niko looked up from the crown in his hands to the man jogging along the beach and imagined that, in this moment at least, he probably looked like a stunned new arrival more than anything else. He nodded once.

"Tripped over something, but I think I'll be fine. The hurricane must have washed it in."

[beentodamascus]

"Must've," says Adam, not buying that for a moment. The guy looks like someone else, someone Adam's seen around, but he knows all about the clone thing, so he doesn't dwell on it; the accents are different, anyway. He wipes one hand on his shorts and offers it.

"Adam Carter."

[fears_nothing]

"Niko," he offered in kind, shaking the other man's hand quickly. He dropped the calabassa for a moment and decided to focus on the pains of introduction instead of other, more pressing matters.

"I was planning on yoga before the tides started washing things in for me to trip over. Seems that's a wash."

[dichotomos]

The beach and I were not on the best terms. Sure, this one was a lot fucking nicer than the last one I'd been on, but apparently giant, ugly-assed monsters occasionally came out of this one, too. I wasn't going to deal with that shit again if I could help it.

Nik, however, being one with the earth and all that zen shit, loved the beach. When I wanted to track him down, there were only so many places he'd be, and that was near the top of the list.

"Hey, there's a Charlie's Angels marathon on in the rec center, I know you have a secret thing for Sabrina," I called as I trudged across the sand, but was drawn up short when I saw what Niko was holding. "Oh, you have got to be fucking shitting me."

[fears_nothing]

"No, no excrement required," Niko said dryly, gingerly holding the crown between two fingers. He didn't think it would work, given there was no ritual and he hadn't spilled blood, but it was a mental aversion as much as a physical one.

"It looks like the tides brought this in along with the driftwood and seaweed. I suppose if you put them all together you'd make a great beauty queen, Cal. I bet you could even get Goodfellow to sing you a song."

[dichotomos]

That Niko was so damned calm about the situation wasn't surprising, but it grated a little, and I scowled at the crown clasped between his fingers. I'd almost lost both him and George over that stupid fucking thing, and I didn't care how irrational it was to hold a grudge against an inanimate object.

"Give it to me," I demanded, hand held out impatiently. There had to be somebody on the island with a kiln or oven hot enough to get rid of it for good. Just looking at the fucking thing made my skin crawl.

[fears_nothing]

Niko frowned for a moment, trying to decide what Cal exactly planned to do with the crown, but handed it over to him anyway. He wasn't particularly enamored of keeping it and seeing as how it almost ended his life...

"There might be a use for it somewhere. What, I can't imagine, since there's no powers here for it to steal."

And Niko wasn't planning on offering himself as a sacrifice either.