How's my Karma?

Who: Ash and Nic
Where: Ash's garage
When: After school

Yeah, Nic was excited. In any other circumstances, she'd be pissed. This was, after all, her first Devil's night where she'd be unable to raise some hell, but she'd do what she could with it. And she'd spent all day dealing with the empty-headed idiots at school basically playing 'Who Has the Sluttiest Costume Idea' for most of school. But school was over, her first day of kickboxing had left Nic with a satisfying burn in her limbs, and today? She was hopefully going to start work at Ash's. Her mother had said she'd spoken to the man, and that if he tried anything inappropriate, whether it was flirting or trying to stiff her on pay, she would personally shoot the man.

Nic didn't think that was going to be a problem, though. She liked the impression she'd gotten from the rough-cut man who swore and smoked as much if not more than her. Plus, even if he'd been a total asshole, the chance to work on cars and get paid for it was just too good to pass up. So she'd trudged through town to the address on his card, a fairly unimpressive little shop, but Nic hadn't been disappointed. An auto shop was about the inside, after all. Stepping inside, Nic lingered long enough to let her eyes adjust to the change in lighting as she called out. "Uh, hello? Ash?"

Ash was still feeling out of sorts. He swung between depressed and terribly fidgety, wanting to pack up a bag and fire up his bike and ditch town in any direction to try and find her. He wasn't the type of man who had contacts in the underworld. He knew a lot of people, but the nature of his duty left him being such a free agent ... he didn't know where to even begin looking for Eury. Which cycled back into that helpless and useless feeling. He was in no shape to go, anyway, still healing from his night killing werewolves.

He'd honestly almost forgotten that the girl Nic was due in to start today, despite talking to her mother at one point and assuring the woman that he would pay her a fair wage and that he could really honestly use the help, and wasn't just in it to get in her pants. Not in so many words, but hopefully she got the jist. His head lifted from a rather massive tool chest as the voice came through the shop. He'd been going without the usual blaring music today, and it was probably a good thing. Wrench in one hand, he headed over to where she could see him, unmindful of the exposed bandages on his arms. "Nic, hey, afternoon. Come on in," he said.

Starting to notice such details more and more all the time since the werewolf attacks, Nic caught sight of the bandages on Ash's arms but tamped down her curiosity. Maybe it was nothing, maybe just an accident around the shop. Even if it was more, she couldn't just blurt out her questions. Shirking her backpack and dropping it near a wall, Nic started over to meet Ash halfway. "Hey," she said in kind, grinning a little uncertainly, "You in the middle of something?" If he was, she wanted to dive right in with him and show what she could do. But there was probably paperwork she needed to fill out first, so she'd need to tamp down her enthusiasm until he gave her freedom to let it loose.

He'd actually been kind of vaguely riffling through his tools, but he couldn't really tell her that. He didn't want to look like a scattered bastard on her first day, so, ever quick on his feet, Ash had a better answer for her. "I was about to pop that bitch open right there, and change the belts out," he said, gesturing to one of the two cars that occupied both his bays. It was an older Buick model, that had definitely seen better days, and had come in for a tune-up. "You wanna give it a go? Tell me which ones really need changing?" he offered, giving her a little smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Challenging me, fucker? Nic thought with a smirk, nodding to Ash's request and moving for the car. She tugged off her sweatshirt, in anticipation, knowing how quickly this sort of work built up a sweat, then leaned into the car to pop the hood release. Nic moved around to tug the hood up, scowling only moments after she'd gotten it into place. "Okay, did someone take a shit in here and mold it into the shape of an engine?" she asked rhetorically. Nic already saw a few things beyond the belts, but that wasn't what she'd been asked. She leaned in for a better look, muttering to herself the whole time she was inside and coming up with a scowl. "Okay, only one of the belts is good and properly fucked? One looks pretty good, like someone had enough cash to replace it and nothing else. The rest? Well, you could leave 'em and get a repeat customer in a month, tops."

Ash had given a bark of a laugh at her comment, as he'd had much the same thought himself when he'd first looked into the engine compartment. He abandoned his tool-shifting and crossed his arms over his thick chest, leaning against the bench that ran along the back wall of the shop and upnodding a bit at her deductions. "True, but I don't do business that way for two reasons. One, it pisses people off and you get a bad rep. Two, if you're gonna tear the bitch down to change shit out? You don't want to do it more than you absolutely have to. So change one, change 'em all, that's what I say," he said, tone more just informative than lecturing. He knew some mechanics had different philosophies, but if she was going to work in his place, she'd have to follow his. "Or all of them that're even mildly shitty, at least. See anything else?" Because yeah, there ws plenty to see.

Leaning back in to confirm her first glance before speaking again, Nic scowled a little. Some people got upset over mistreated pets, Nic got that way when someone didn't care for their car. She didn't have one yet, so it really hit a nerve to see anyone else taking theirs for granted. "Well, the bolts on the filter cover are fucking stripped," she said at last, turning her head to look his way, "So that nasty bastard probably needs changing, for one. Plugs look okay but not great, and..." she trailed off long enough to yank the oil stick free and scowl, "That's where someone took that shit I mentioned. Oil needs a changing. I think I'd even feel good about guessing that the transmission needs a flush too." She stepped back after that, huffing a little and looking to Ash expectantly, wondering how she'd done.

He'd already given the car a good once-over, so he knew what was wrong with it. And she had a pretty good eye. With a small grin, Ash nodded at everything she said. It was all true. But that wasn't all. He pushed off of the bench and came forward, looking down at the engine himself. "Good start. But here, feel this?" He bent slightly and reached down into the engine compartment to feel around for something deep. Then withdrew his tatted and bandaged arm and motioned for her to do the same. "Off to the left," he instructed, wiping his fingers off on his jeans. "Taste it, just a little."

Biting back the smartass comment that sprang to her lips (this was her boss now, after all), Nic did as Ash instructed. She stretched and snaked an arm down into the engine where he had, already thinking that she could guess what the problem was. Nic felt for the hoses inside the engine first, fingers running along the tubing and finding nothing. Scowling a little, she reached farther and nodded as her fingers found faint dampness. "Fuck, the radiator?" she muttered, withdrawing her arm and dabbing a finger against her tongue, blinking a little. "They don't let us taste coolant in class," she observed wryly, wiping the rest on her jeans, "I can guess why. The dudes in that class would probably try pouring it on their lunch."

"They don't?" he said before he could think that that actually made sense for high school kids. Ash shook his head. "Y'don't learn shit until you get really into it, nose, tongue, and all. Fucking idiots," he said, though his tone was good-natured enough. "Yup, it's the radiator. Fucker's been held together with dirt and Lucas for years, probably, old girl's just had enough. See how just a goddamn squeak in a belt can start to rack up once you open the bitch up?" He gave her a quick grin and stepped back from the car. "Owner's got a rental for a few more days, figure you and me both can knock the sucker out in two at most. You up to get started?" She looked it, which was good. He didn't want to bother with paperwork or any of that bullshit at the moment. Besides, if she turned out to be a moron -- which he was doubting -- he'd just have to tear it all up anyway.

"Mind if I have a smoke before we start playing with flammable liquids?" Nic asked, smirking as Ash went off on how easily a car could fall apart, "After that, yeah, let's do this. I always feel better when I'm elbow-deep in an engine." She was more than game, really. Nic was excited, this was a real car, not the junkers they kept in the auto shop for students to work on. Well, it was still pretty junky, actually. But if she and Ash did things right, it wouldn't drive like it. "What happened?" she asked, moving for her backpack to get her smokes and tapping her arm where Ash had bandages. "You lose a fight with a weed whipper?"

Though he had no problems chainsmoking while he was head-first into an engine, it probably wasn't a habit he should encourage in an employee. A teenage female employee, most definitely. with a protective mom. He tapped another smoke out of his pack himself, taking up a lean again to light it up. He arched an eyebrow at her slightly and glanced down at his arms. Yeah, sweetheart, a big fuzzy one. "You could say that, I guess," he said around his cigarette, one eye squinted against the smoke as he looked at her. Wondering just how sharp she was about this kind of shit. "Rough weekend. You should see the other guy." He offered a grin along with the cliche.

Rough weekend. Those two words were enough to freeze Nic up as she went to light her own cigarette, a line of distress forming on her brow for a moment. "Yeah, it was rough for everyone from what I hear," she muttered, putting flame to her cigarette. "I'll do a fucking backflip when there's not group hugs going on at school any more. The other guy, huh?" Nic asked, looking Ash's way and just wondering. If anyone she'd met fit the mental image of what a monster hunter should look like? It was the foul-mouthed, tattooed mechanic standing in front of her. "Was he a 'rabid bear', by chance?" she asked, putting in the finger quotes.

The finger quotes were interesting. At least she didn't buy into the spoon-fed bullshit. He took another drag off of his cigarette and exhaled fully before he answered. "I dunno shit about rabid bears -- thank the gods -- but there sure were some werewolves running around that had somebody piss in their Cheerios," he said, eyes on her carefully even if his words were flippant. Now either came the exchange of In The Know Club cards, or the Wtf You're Crazy look and the walkout. Countdown in three ... two ...

Nic struggled to keep her expression even, fighting to hold back surprise as Ash confirmed her thoughts. He was a hunter of some kind, or at least someone who knew about the werewolves and had done something about it. "Okay, how many people in this town knew about this shit?" she asked in a tight voice, "And why the fuck did I find out late?" She sounded frustrated, but her expression was one of relief. Every person she could turn to for learning or help was a private blessing for Nic to discover, and that list had just grown bigger by one. "Seriously! I felt like I was going out of my damn mind, man! One of those fucking things tried to eat me, and everyone I've talked to has been like 'oh, you didn't know?'. God."

Even though being eaten by a werewolf was serious business, Ash had to laugh at her tirade. Honestly, teenage girl rants were hilarious sometimes. He waved an apologetic hand and sniggered as he took another puff off of his smoke. "Better late than not at all, I reckon, right?" he said, looking over at her, eyes still amused. "Don't feel bad, though. At least about me. I've got a lotta years on you, and I didn't start out this fugly. Learning hurts sometimes." He dropped her a little wink with that, smirking as he flicked his ashes off to one side. Really, it kind of relaxed him to know. He wasn't about to bust his wings out for her or anything, but at least the fact that she was clued in meant he had to do much less dancing around shit. He was never good at that. "Anything you need to know, though ..." he offered, looking at her again.

The offer was one Nic always liked to hear, and she nodded affirmatively. "I'm probably going to pick your brain to the bone," she warned, "You know cars and shit that shouldn't exist outside of horror movies." Learning hurts. She could think of other examples she'd seen of that in both Drea and Caleb, probably Nate as well. They were all her age, so how much had Ash dealt with by now? "I've got some books? They have some starter details, but I know I'm gonna have questions. And you're probably cheaper than that book store, too," she teased with a faint smirk. "Shit, I could get paid while I ask, couldn't I?" Nic wondered aloud, grinding her smoke out on the sole of a shoe and heading back over to where Ash stood by the car.

Ash chuckled and finished off his own smoke, stubbing it out on a coke can and dropping it down inside. "Believe me, word of mouth is faster, and I can get to the important shit quicker. You don't need to know the history of the vampire clans, you just need to know which ones will want to rip your face off and which are tolerable," he said. He motioned for her to stay back for a second as he moved and hit the lever to lift the Buick up off of the dirty shop floor. They had work to do that would require the thing up on a rack. "What do you know about self-defense, first of all?" he asked, looking over at her with a quirked eyebrow. She looked and talked tough, but that didn't always mean shit, he knew as well as anybody. And if he was going to teach her anything, how to survive was top of the list.

"I had my first kickboxing class yesterday," Nic volunteered, grinning a little and speaking up over the sound of the lift raising the car. "Got myself a good knife, too. I'm gonna figure out how to use it eventually. And it still sounds weird to me, but a few people have told me it's a good idea? So I'm looking into witchcraft? White magic." It definitely sounded ridiculous to her, but hey, it was supposed to. Nic hadn't even been a part of this strange new world for two weeks yet, she had to expect that it would still seem unreal or absurd at times. "But if you think you can help me get my shit together faster, I won't say no to the help. I think Master Kak would be floored if I came into class all ahead of the curve and shit, maybe he'd let me skip up into the advanced lessons."

He nodded at the white magic bit. It wasn't something he could do, but he'd known plenty of people that it had come in handy for. "I can teach you some hand to hand, and how to use that knife," he told her, expression serious. He meant that. Then smirked just faintly. "Long as you don't mind wrestling around with an old dirty mechanic," he added, and managed largely not to feel like a lech about it. In the past few minutes, she'd become something of a responsibility, and that ruled out anything of any other kind. "I can teach you to use a gun too, if you want to learn. Mine have saved my life more times than I can count. I know you're too young to carry legally, but ... there comes a point pretty early on when 'fuck the law' is a good mantra." He walked under the car and looked up as it reached it's height and stopped.

Following Ash under the car, Nic looked at him instead of the steel above them for a long moment. It'd probably be a good idea to try and learn how to use her blade from two sources, so long as the lessons didn't conflict too heavily. "Yeah, if you're serious? I'll try to learn." She still had her self-doubts about how effective or useful she could be, but Nic was determined to try. This was a purpose, where before she'd only ever had vague ideas of her future. And maybe it'd be a shorter future on this path, but she was driven towards it. "I already know how to use a rifle, my mom hunts. But... wait." She stopped, eyes turned upwards as a grimace etched across her lips. "Is that muffler held on with fucking picture wire?"

He looked up where she was, his thought stopped by the question. And then he cracked up laughing. He just had to, because goddamn. It was picture wire. It took him a good minute to get over the stab of amusement. The timing was just too good. "Completely serious," he said between breathy chuckles after a moment, wiping at one eye with the back of his wrist. He reached up to jiggle the muffler just a little, to see how well it was held together. And found that it wasn't very. Which just amused him further. "I've made it this long, I'd say I probably have some to contribute."

"How long have you been doing this? Not cars, but... um... hunting? You hunt, right?" she asked, glancing back down to Ash from the car. There was a chance he didn't, that he was just someone who knew and did what he could to help. But if he was as knowledgable as he claimed? Well, there'd have to be some intent to fight with training like that. And some definite experience, if he'd tangled with a werewolf and come out with just those bandages on his limbs.

Ash looked at her with a small smile toying with his lips. "You want the truth?" he asked, and it was an honest question. She already felt out of the loop with not knowing about werewolves and magic and such ... how would she deal with angels? Most people had their own connotations that they didn't always want wrecked. And he definitely wrecked a lot of them, just by existing.

"Yeah," Nic assured him, nodding a little nervously. It had to be something strange if he had to ask that. Maybe he was one of the bizarre things she'd read about, an elemental or psychic vampire. "If I don't like the answer? Well, I'm closer to the lift controls than you, and no one'll notice more damage to the underside of this heap." She needed the humor to alleviate some of her own panic, because seriously, every discovery was stranger than the last. Magic, werewolves, werecoyotes, it was hard to try and guess what'd trump that.

He gave her a smile that was oddly kind and gentle, aware of what she was doing. Poor girl, she had to feel completely overwhelmed. He almost didn't want to tell her, just wave a hand and say yeah, he was a hunter, and that was all. But starting off this kind of exchange with lies wasn't the best course of action, he didn't think. "I'm an angel," he told her, meeting her eyes and keeping them. "Of karma, specifically. And I've been doing this -- not cars, but the other shit -- for coming up on ... two hundred years? Two-fifty? I dunno, I lose track most of the time." He more or less expected disbelief; it was kind of hard for mortals to swallow, and if her mind needed to not believe it, he'd give her that.

"And I look good in a bikini," Nic went along, clearly not buying that. Sure, she'd read that angels and demons did exist, but it was harder to believe she'd shared a smoke with one. "I didn't think Christianity really had concepts like karma specifically. More just 'you go to heaven, you go to hell'," she tried to explain, shaking her head a little. Really, if he knew about all the weird shit? Maybe he was an angel. But Nic wanted more than a 'maybe'. "Prove it," she insisted simply.

"It's got nothin' to do with Christianity," he told her with a patient head-shake. There were those preconceptions again. "I've never met God, don't even really think the fucker exists. At least not in the way that people think. I'd jump off a bridge before I sat around on a cloud and played a trumpet, believe you me. We're just another race of thing, with our own duties. Like dog breeds." And she wanted proof. Which was understandable. It only sucked that he couldn't really give it to her visually. She likely wasn't equipped to see his wings. But she'd be able to feel them. He held up a finger and took a step or two away from her, so she wouldn't think he was trying anything. Ash tugged his t-shirt over his head from the back, revealing more bandages and many more tattoos. Back to her, he rolled his shoulderblades and pushed his wings out, giving a little shudder of relief. They fluttered, unseen by the other person in the room, and settled. Well, as much as the lame one could settle. He looked halfway over his shoulder and upnodded. "Just touch anywhere near my back," he told her. "Swear, nothin' freaky, just give it a go."

Older guy or no, that kind of quantity of tattoos and scars was just... Yum. But he was talking, explaining things to her. She needed to listen. "Well now I feel better about deciding religion's a waste of my time," she joked, heading over at a wary pace. Hadn't they intended to work on this car? That had been pushed far to the side as Nic stepped to the edge of realization yet again, moving up on Ash's back. She reached out hesitantly, and when her hand bumped into something invisible that fluttered at her touch, Nic jumped back with her hands pulled tight against her chest. "Holy shit!" she blurted in shock, gaping at Ash's back. "Holy... was that a fucking wing?" She would've sworn that she had, in fact, felt something suspiciously like feathers.

He grinned at the opposite wall and at least managed not to laugh. The shocks, they just kept on coming, didn't they? "Yes, it was," he told her, twisting to look at her a bit better. He didn't turn around though, having a feeling that she would come back for more. Just to prove to herself she wasn't crazy. "Only people with special shit -- or other angels -- can see them, but they're there, real as gangbusters. I'd give you a whole Blue Angels show, but the right one's gimpy." He lifted that shoulder once or twice, and stretched the wing out a bit with a small wince. "Don't do much flyin' anymore."

For the first time ever, Nic agreed with her guidance counselor from school. 'You need to reevaluate your life'. Christ did she ever. Working for an angel, fighting werewolves, learning magic... she needed to find some way to shed as much of her old perspective as she could, because at this rate? The shock alone was going to kill her. But Ash was right, Nic did want another feel. She moved in again, stretching her arm from farther away and letting it brush across what felt like an expanse of feathers. "Just... holy balls, dude. You have wings." There she was, stating the obvious. "The right one doesn't work at all?" That had to suck. She wanted to say that it must've been like having a dick and no balls, but that was the humor reflex trying to cover for her shock, and it'd probably touch a nerve.

Ash held still and let her feel as much as she wanted to. It was hard to imagine what it must be like not being able to see them, but he had to think it was weird. "I do have wings, yes," he said with an amused grin, confirming the obvious. "It kind of works? Just not very well or for very long. Enough to get me out of a tight spot now and then, maybe, but it's unreliable. Had a nasty tangle with a demon and it just never healed right. I fuckin' miss it, let me tell you." And he didn't mind telling her that. "If somebody said 'give up beer and you get your wing back', I'd really have to think about it. Now fucking, on the other hand, no contest, but flying's almost as good." He could joke around about it, no problem. He couldn't go through his life easily offended.

"Hell, I think I might go for flying," Nic told him with a laugh that covered the faint flush in her cheeks. She wasn't a bashful girl by any stretch of the word, but sex? Well, having not had any yet, it still made Nic just the slightest bit squirmy. Thankfully, Ash had said plenty she could focus on instead of that little bit. "I, um, I read a little about demons? It's basically true that you and them are just enemies, right? Demons are out looking to cause trouble, some of you deal with them?" Because even if Christianity didn't have it all correct, there were still correlaries between the religion and what Nic was learning. It was, she supposed, the same as how the movies and stories about werewolves or vampires had it roughly half-right; bits of truth got swirled in with a lot of fiction.

He wasn't looking at her anyway, so he missed the blush in the first place, but just the fact that she would take flying over sex said 'virgin' to him. Or at least she only had bad experiences under her belt. Either one, and he had sympathy for her. But he wasn't going to come right out and say it, especially since the moved on herself. Once she seemed done with feeling on his wings, he pulled them in again and pulled his shirt back down over his head as he turned around, giving peeks of even more ink and scars. He was nodding as he did so, fishing in his pocket for another cigarette to puff on. "More or less," he said with a smoky exhale. "They're the bad side of shit, we're the good. That's true enough. They're about mayhem, pain, suffering, death, that kind of thing. There's plenty of types of 'em, and they all have different agendas, so to speak. Same with angels, only more toward the good. Me? As Karma, I keep the balance. I can see who's got bad karma on their heads, who needs to run into a little accident to balance the scales. Other angels ... would probably not like me much for that," he said with a chuckle and a grin.

Nic was torn in some sense. On the one side, hearing that the universe really could be focused down to a good side and a bad one was comforting. On the other? It sounded too simple. Nic had a feeling that Ash was simplifying for her sake, but she couldn't blame him. It wasn't like she could learn all the nuances of the world in one day, really. "So... how's my karma?" she asked with a faint smirk. Nic was a bitch, she knew it, but really she kept to little things. "Am I going to have to track down some winged dudes and help them work you over with socks full of change?"

Ash gave her a laugh for that one, as he could definitely see her wielding a change-sock, and probably doing it well. The girl had some sturdy-looking shoulders on her. "Your karma's clean enough for me to let you work at my place," he told her honestly, still grinning. "Nobody's pure white, but you don't have anything major on you that I can see. So good job." He reached out and gave her a friendly clap on the shoulder. "If you start to go downhill, though, you're gonna start smashin' your fingers more around here." His eyes glinted with mirth, but he was really only half-joking.

There was really only the joke there, as far as Nic saw. She was too new to things to imagine ending up in a spot where Ash would have reason to come for her, after all. Even if she knew things could get dark out there? Nic just wasn't really open tothe idea that she'd be taking that darkness onto herself. But then, she didn't get the entire karma concept either, beyond the extremes of it, so maybe she'd have to have him clarify more in time. "C'mon," she told him, nodding up at the car on the lift, "Give me a chance to smash them a little on my own so I can guess what 'more' is going to be. And for you to actually have some results for all that fat cash you're paying me." Nic grinned wide at Ash, still brimming over with questions but working to regulate them for now. She couldn't learn it all in a day, so there was no harm in occupying her hands instead of her mind.