Bulgarian Charm

“What’s winter like?” Her curiosity got the best of her before she could think og something better. “Snow is my favorite.” The explanation was weak but she smiled the same, “If you ever need a tour guide. Let me know. Not that I can go or anything. Just. I’ve got a brother who loves going.” She left out the part where they took a yearly trip as siblings. “Or if you ever find yourself in Dingle go to Dick Mack’s for a drink. Tell them you were sent by a Gallagher your first drink will be on the house.” It was a bitter sweet feeling. She smiled thinking of how funny that would be but her chest ached. “Oh please.” Rai rolled her eyes dramatically. “The only movie these people would watch is Love Me Tender. Maybe Blue Hawaii.”

“It depends. Sometimes it’s mild and sometimes it was bitterly cold thanks to the wind and frost coming in from Russia. Usually falls to about minus two or three degrees celsius” he replied, thinking about his homeland “It’s pretty great, with the snow follows ice and there was always this massive ice rink and markets they had in the winter every year where I lived, that was a lot of fun” Nathan nodded “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever get the chance to go. Wait, Dingle? Is that a place?” he asked curiously, never hearing of it before “That’s a fair point. Those two are up there with Harum Scarum” he grinned

“You’ll have to tell me about Bulgaria. I’ll tell you about Ireland.” Her accent slipped in with the name of her home. Railene was ready to whip out her next sassy remark about why she didn’t have friends but his comment stopped her. Her mouth hung open for a moment as she stared at him. “Because people around here don’t say things like that.”

“Sure, what would you like to know about it?” he asked “I’ve never been to Ireland. It was always somewhere I wanted to visit” he confessed to her. Nathan let out a laugh at her expression “Why? Do they think Harum Scarum is the best when we all know it’s the worst” he joked. The waitress arrived with his meal and placed it down on the table as he gave her a thank you. “Harum Scarum was terrible, just terrible” 

“It’s-” Rai stopped thinking about the burning sensation under her skin. She’d have to go for a full blown lie, she needed some piece of the truth to make  it any sort of believable. “I-uhm-I,” Swear words ran through her mind as she stammered. “It’s not Boston.” That was a truth she could settle on, she wasn’t trying to bring anymore attention to herself then the kind she could control. “Ah yes, I’ll run off to my big plans in a town where I don’t know anyone.” Rai stopped and held a finger up to her lips, “Do you hear that? My collection of Elvis movies is calling. Unless of course I’m making you uncomfortable and in that case Jailhouse Rock awaits for real.”

He sensed that the conversation was making her uncomfortable and Nathan made an attempt to steer it away from that road “I get it.” he nodded and avoided prying “This place isn’t Bulgaria for me. I still feel like I haven’t settled in here” Bulgaria was where he hailed from and was moved out to the town by request of the FBI to be one of the guards. Bulgaria was home and at times he felt as trapped here as the residents of the town. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you had any or not. Have you not spoken to anyone yet?” he asked wondering why someone like Railene who seemed so social wouldn’t have friends around town “No you’re not making me uncomfortable and you’re welcome to stay as long as you please...and for the record King Creole is the best Elvis movie” he said giving a soft smile.

“One should always take time to properly sit and look around a place” they gave him a smile. Their foot moved then, scooting back the chair across from them from the table. “Sit” they gestured to it, before taking a sip of their drink.

“That’s true” he nodded in agreement. Nathan looked at the chair and hesitated for a moment before sitting down. He might have been off duty but he still didn’t want to cause any issue but on the other hand he deemed it as harmless and he didn’t want to be rude. “Thank you. So what’s brought you here this evening?”

Caleb nodded. “Yeah, not sure if they’ll ever take me off it, to be honest. At this point, though, I’m afraid of fucking up my sleep schedule even more if I’m suddenly moved to a daytime shift.” He shook his head, pretty sure his night shift made it easier for him to see Noah, though the near-constant exhaustion wasn’t fun. He tilted his head, nodding at Nathan. “Now that the lockdown has been lifted, I guess you’ve been getting a lot of pass requests, huh? Anyone you think we need to look out for?”

“That’s a fair point actually. The transition between night shift to day shift would be horrible now that I think about it. Everything would seem horrifically bright and noisy to you” Nathan agreed. He nodded in response to the question and took a sip of his tea before replying “Yeah, it seems like everyone is looking for some time out of here. Some for the most ridiculous reasons so they’ve been denied but other than that no, not from the ones that I’ve went through so far but I’ll keep you posted on anyone that raises a red flag”

“I’m certain horrific is more honestly.” She shrugged as she watched for his reaction, he really didn’t know why she was here. How intriguing. Rai looked down for a moment to break the stare. “Girl’s gotta get out every once in a while. Plus I opened so I got off early.”

“Maybe so but I can’t speak for something I don’t have” Okay so it seemed that Railene was not a fan of whatever life she had going on now. “I hope things are well for you since you got here full time” he added genuinely. Nathan hated the idea of someone loathing it. He spent his days trying to make everything as bearable as possible for people. “That’s true. I should probably take a leaf from your book when it comes to that. Well at least you’ve got the night off then. If you’ve got somewhere to be please don’t let me keep you.”

Her smile almost faltered, Rai kept it plastered to her mouth but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe.” She was one of those interesting times and it wasn’t fun. Her smile found her eyes again, “Old man’s got jokes.” She leaned forward on her elbows, “I work at the bar. I see the cadre almost every night but never you. Which meant you either worked the night shift,” She raised both eyebrows, “or that you had a wife and kids to get home to. But the truth makes way more sense.”

“I can. I’ve seen enough things going on here since I’ve been a guard and interesting is the only word I could use. I don’t know if people around town see their gifts as positives or negatives so I’m not going to decide that for them” He felt bad for the people here. Trapped seems like such an extreme word to use but that’s basically what they all were. “Ol’ comedy jester over here” he smiled and ran a hand through his hair “Sorry that your two options were wrong. I’m a day shift guard and I don’t have a wife and kids to get home to, just a health thing that doesn’t allow me to drink” he shrugged “How come you’re not at the bar just now then? Not working tonight?”

“Too many immortals for life to be boring.” She agreed with a bob of her head. It was something she was already nervous about. Immortality wasn’t something she had ever wanted. “Oh! That explains so much.” Railene couldn’t bite back the words as it all clicked into place, she had wondered why she had literally never seen him in town.

“That’s true and when you add people’s gifts into the mix then it proves to make an interesting time” Part of him did curiously wonder when she had become immortal but it wasn’t his business to pry “It does?” he asked raising an eyebrow “It explains what? Other than me probably looking like an old man or a buzzkill by not drinking” 

“I guess I’m hoping this town never stops surprising me like that.” Rai’s smirk turned full blown grin as she spoke, “The rest of your cadre is down at the bar. Not your scene?”

“I doubt a town like this will ever stop surprising us all” he added. The supernatural element alone would keep everyone on their toes but the town was dramatic regardless of that “No not really. I don’t mind going to the bar but I don’t drink so it sometimes seems a bit pointless of me being there”

Caleb pulled the chair out to take a seat. “Uh, yeah I was just grabbing some dinner, too,” he lied as smoothly as he could with a nod, scratching the back of his neck absently before picking up the menu. “They still have you on day pass duty, right? How’s that going?” Sometimes he thought he wouldn’t mind doing the paperwork instead of his nightly rounds throughout the town. Nathan wasn’t an enforcer, which made him a lot more likable.

“Fair enough” he asked since he never checked the rota “Yeah I do that on the side of doing the rounds during the day, but the schedule is due to switch up again. It’s alright, it’s a bit of a pain when you finish the paperwork for the passes and then head out on rounds only to return to more stacks of paperwork but I don’t mind it. I get the best of both compared to some of the other guards” he shrugged. Nathan never had to use force since he never encountered trouble. The residents didn’t mind having a chat with him and he held quite the talent of being able to calm people down quickly before anything escalated; and when it came to the paperwork that was easy enough to get through “Are you still on the night shift just now?” 

It was a fuck it all kind of night and Railene was embracing it. She watched his movement and decided it was a good enough invitation. Silently she weaved through tables and slid in across from him. “I didn’t know any of the guards knew how to relax.” The teasing tone in her voice evident.

Nathan watched as she decided to come over and join him. “You learn something new everyday I guess. We don’t get much relaxation time but it’s there.” he smiled “Normally I would head home after a shift but I’m exhausted and I don’t feel like cooking tonight” 

Noah had asked Caleb not to come by Whitmore’s because of Tala, but he’d looked at the schedule and saw that she wasn’t working so he decided to stop by and surprise him. He knew he wasn’t being the greatest of … whatever they were (the fact that he didn’t know what to call them proved that). He wanted to do better.

But then he came into the restaurant and saw Nathan. Slipping his gift for Noah into his pocket, he approached the table with a small smile. Nathan was one of the good ones, he knew that, but he couldn’t risk anyone finding out about Noah.

“Hey, Holm,” he said, rapping his knuckles absently against the table in greeting. “You here alone tonight?”

“Caleb, hey” he greeted the other guard. Nathan hadn’t a bad word to say about Caleb over the time he had known him. He gestured to the empty seat offering it to his colleague to save him from standing. “Yeah, I just finished up a shift at the border and some of that paperwork that was pilling up so I decided to come get some dinner here before heading back home for the night.” he explained before he finished his drink “You meeting someone? Or are you just out for some food too?”

Railene was people watching at Whitmore’s, something  she did when she missed Boston. It was easily one of the busiest places in town. The steakhouse almost held the same vibe as a city. Rai missed the constant chatter of her home, cars, music, baseball fans, sirens…It was eerie how quiet it was out here even with her heightened senses. But not Whitmore’s. It was always had some noise, kind of like the bar. It kept her mind busy. 

She watched the guard walk in. She remembered him from when she was human and just here to visit her brother. She had wondered if he still worked here. The way the air changed a bit around the staff was apparent but Railene almost missed it as she watched him order. A  smirk crossed her face from her spot against the as she met his eyes as he looked around.

It felt like it was the first time he was looking at the place, actually looking at it all. He was taking in the decor, the bustling noise of people nattering away to each other, cutlery on dishes; it seemed like he was in a haze before now. Whitmore’s reminded him of a place back in the city he grew up in. Same vibe, same kind of decor. 

Nathan felt out of place being here. He was hyperaware that people knew a guard had walked in and the sounds of laughing and talking had dropped a few volume levels as well as pairs of eyes taking turns to glance at him. Looking up from his drink he’d spotted the familiar red head across the bar. A smirk of his own appeared and Nathan gave a nod of acknowledgement and a small wave as a hello and took a sip of his drink. Railene. He recognised her from visitation days previously but thanks to all the paperwork he was doing recently he was also aware that she was a full time resident of the town now. 

He decided to head for some dinner at Whitmore’s Steakhouse and a bit of down time before he had to return to the Border Guard Quarters. A table was cleared for him as soon as he’d walked in the door - something that happened often wherever he went and he annoyingly put this down to people wanting to keep the border guards sweet in case they needed day passes. Nathan ordered and got a drink while he was waiting and looked around the busy restaurant to pass the time. 

Okay, Ivy was doing way better than most around town but that was just because of her nature. Being the hybrid that she is was never easy, she never fully grasped how to manage emotions since everything she felt seemed to be much of the opposite of everyone else. Ivy thrived off situations like the murder that occurred. The chaos, the wide spread panic that swallowed everyone whole, but she was also aware that that made her look out of place and that marked her high up on the suspect list - if not the top spot. But she was sick of defending herself against people. A lot of people around town assumed that she had done it or had some part in it thanks to her sudden mood change 

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t fucking do it, alright?!” she shouted in frustration “If I wanted to murder someone I can assure you I’d never make it that obvious let alone be caught!”