Nick has some time to himself, so he was spending the time in his room, on his laptop, thinking over what he wanted to say to George. He hadn’t rejected him – yet, but he knew he had to. Not only did Brandon not trust George or the Technocracy, but Nick honestly didn’t think he could juggle working for them, on top of everything else he had been doing lately. But weren’t they supposed to be the good guys? George had advocated that they were trying to change the world for the better, had made everything sound good, and had supposedly laid all the cards on the table. But had he really?
He’d been casually browsing, but as his thoughts turned to the Technocracy, he fell down rabbit holes of ways that real change could be affected in the world. Change for the better was a good thing, and he didn’t want to be a part of that, but he shouldn’t need the Technocracy to do that, especially when he had access to a Brandon. So he’d started looking into what kinds of things could change the world for the better. There were the obvious things, like tackling climate change and pollution, preventing wildfires and hunger…but gradually, he thought about it more, and decided to center things one area at a time. Wider change could be affected later.
So what programs would have the most impact? More rabbit holes – anything from fighting the opioid epidemic, to backing liberals in elections, to preventing wildfires. There were a few things, though, that captured his eye as things he could bring up as programs to establish or just to donate to. If he established an organization, that would even net some tax write-offs. Nick pulled up a document editor, and wrote down the programs he wanted to support, and why they were important to him.
First, there were supporting arts and music for pre-university schools. Obviously, he was huge into music personally, but he also knew that a great many schools out there tended to favor sports, and he pulled up research to support this fact, as well as research to show how beneficial an education in the arts or in music could be for kids. Hell, who knew, but that it could be a step towards better kids to make a better future.
Idly, he threw in a line about setting up an arrangement with an organization, or setting something up to benefit these kids, to give them studio time to make a real demo for an inexpensive price to them, perhaps in exchange for helping out around the studio and learning about what goes into the process in order to get that discount.
Second, there was helping veterans. Most especially, the homeless ones. It angered him to think that people, who fought for the supposed freedoms of this country, had no recourse of their own to so much as have a roof over their heads. Organizations like Charles’ were limited, and had limited space. It was especially damning for homeless vets who were disabled. He’d seen some of this firsthand when he was in Tennessee doing physical therapy. More research and links to supplement his argument were added to the document as he went.
There was more that could be done, he knew – like child nutrition in schools, or scholarship funds for universities, but he wanted to focus just on those two things for now.
He felt fired up right now, and continued to type in the document that he planned on emailing to Brandon when he was finished, adding:
I’m going to see Smiling Jack as soon as I can, and tell him I will be participating in the duel. I know he meant to save us the trouble, but dammit I trained for this, I’ve been focused on this. It became my problem when I attempted to clean up Sayuri’s mess by talking with Angelina, and I should be the one to take care of it because of this fact. I understand that there could be consequences, but they ‘re my burden to undertake. Besides, being taken out of the duel doesn’t take away from the fact I may owe her a favor.
He sat back and looked things over. It was good enough, and there wasn’t anything Brandon could do to stop him, short of Dominate, and even then it might be iffy, as Nick could always attempt to block its effects. He’d been grumpy about the duel being taken away from him since Smiling Jack announced it anyway. He should have stood up for himself, and told him no, that it wasn’t his problem to deal with. Why hadn’t he? Simple – he didn’t want to make waves. Or was it more that he didn’t want to upset Brandon?
Some of the latter was likely there. It bothered him that he’d been disappointing Brandon lately. He hoped he might see Jack at Vince’s party later, but if he didn’t, he’d seek him out beforehand to express this – the only unknown factor was Jack himself and how he’d react. Possibly Vince too, but he was leaving, and theoretically might not give a damn.
Nick was trying to be more confident in his capabilities, now that he was using magic more. The backlashes sucked, but if he could figure out how to be subtle with his castings, it wasn’t too bad, he’d learned. The easiest thing, potentially, would be to develop and hum a different tone for each sphere of influence he had, or some piece of music that he associated with that. He wasn’t sure if that would work, but it was an idea.
He scanned everything over at this point, making sure he had what he wanted to say in there, and sent it across the wire to Brandon’s email address, for him to look over once he was awake for the evening. Still feeling fired up, he started a new document, one that he may or may not send to anyone.
I am fed up with helping Sayuri with her messes. There was the fae kid she obliterated, both the fae self and the real self – and now I and others are locked into a geas with her. A task that may be nigh impossible, one wherein we die if we don’t achieve it. That’s pretty fucked up.
There was the zombie apocalypse job she started. My sister could have nearly been a victim, and I had to help her. It could have been disastrous. All of us could have gotten trapped inside, but thankfully I was able to talk our way out of the building. Technically, the deaths of anyone who died because of that should be on her conscience.
Her casino break-in job, that we ended up having to help her with. Thanks to Liv, she got what she needed so she could get paid – only for that to bite us in the ass here recently because they were nuke plans! Not only did I have to see to making sure the docs got destroyed, but I kept us from getting our asses sprayed with bullets, and saw to it the tracker on the kid was found.
And let us not forget the fact that she was on a diplomatic assignment to the Giovanni, had secured a bargain to not fight, and then went and insulted the woman who turned out to be a high-ranking Giovanni official, and Brandon’s ex-wife. All because the woman spoke of me dismissively, which I didn’t mind – because I know the vampire/ghoul dynamic placement, and she should have to. Min did not help in this instance either, though she wasn’t as bad. They Sayuri goes and frenzies on her! Admittedly, I could barely maintain myself from doing the same. I managed to secure Sayuri from harming Angelina before I lost control, but at least I was able to reign myself in before bringing Sayuri out of her frenzy and letting her out of the barrier.
She should focus less on trying to be right, and more on her place. She’s going to get herself killed if she keeps this up. Examples: wanting to kill werewolves, killing Cyrus immediately (resulting in the Prince dying), killing Big Z immediately (resulting in him being pissed off at us). I wonder at Endrik for letting her get away with it/not punishing her. Doesn’t her behavior reflect on him as her maker or something?
What’s going to be next out of her, I wonder? What if I’m not there to clean up her mess, or keep her from getting her ass killed, like I was when she over did it with the Youngbloods? How’s she going to feel if her actions seriously injure, or worse – get one of us killed? I worry about these things, yet I don’t want to be the one to say anything to her, for fear of her losing control at me. I don’t know that I could react quickly enough to stop her, what with her extra speediness now and all.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what she does, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone here, or fall to me to save her ass. Again.
He could feel himself getting angry now, so he felt like he should redirect his energies elsewhere. He turned to Rick’s comment at dinner the other night, about him marrying either Ryan or Alyssa. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he’d even thought about engagement before, at least when he was with Alyssa – but he’d never gotten around to getting a ring or asking. Asling either of them now might make it seem like he’d never thought about it before Rick said anything, so he was refraining. Though it had got him thinking more about it, which is why he found himself looking over engagement rings for men and women.
He wasn’t entirely sure he should bother – he wasn’t sure how legal it was to have more than one partner after all, and then there was the matter of the open relationship. He wasn’t sure he wanted to close it yet. Then of course if he did get engaged, especially to Alyssa, his mom would be more insistent about when he would be a parent, and though she hadn’t brought it up much yet, he felt it would be tiresome. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to have kids. It wasn’t something he’d ever really sat down and thought about.
Still, he bookmarked a couple of options he thought they might like, to peruse later. Maybe he could get advice from someone he wasn’t super-close to. Maybe Ned’s girlfriend, or maybe better yet, Delinda. But Delinda might say something to Sayuri, so that might be something he didn’t want to do. This was something that he wanted to keep on the down low for now. It was possible, too, he could try and get something custom done.
Maybe the vent letter, and the engagement thing, were something he should talk over with Charles. After all, Charles must have his own observations of dynamics after having observed dinner the other night. For now, though, he saved the document and made sure it was a locked file, then closed his laptop and set it aside.
Sleep was in order, just for a little while, then his usual Chase playtime, workout, pray/meditate, food, shower routine. Tonight, he had to deal with Smiling Jack, and who knew how long that would take. Furthermore, there was Vince’s party, and figuring out how to get his truck back from L.A. Maybe, if he were real lucky, nothing would bite him in the ass tonight. He was tempted to try and peek into the future and see, but that was a guaranteed answer, and also felt like cheating. Why give himself the potential headache? Save time, assume something will come up to bite him in the ass somehow, though hope it doesn’t. Sleep though.