3784/Things Humans Like

Things Humans Like
Date of Scene:	12 October 2020
Location:	Nessa's Apartment, NYC
Synopsis:	Levian visits Nessa and brings her things humans are supposed to like. They talk about how complicated humans are.
Cast of Characters:	Nessa Donovan, Levian

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Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa's never really lived a lush lifestyle. On a diner salary, she lives pretty frugally. The money is really spent on location--it's a decent neighborhood where your plants won't get stolen off your porch /every/ weekend. A residence converted into two aparment units, the stairs leading up to Nessa's apartment are on the side and not exactly on the front. So, all things considered, no one's likely to show up at her door unless they're intentionally going there.

Levian has posed:
Once again, Levian is a hunter and a tracker with exceptional senses, so once he got Nessa's scent to where he place was, he was able to plan out his grand, like, friendship/apology/whatever exactly it is he's supposed to be doing.

He's pretty sure he should be apologizing for //something//, but he's also pretty sure they agreed on the altruistic demon pact known as //friendship//.

Her door is knocked on, and he presses the circle that he's learned is a bell.

It's been a bit since Nessa's seen him, so maybe he was out of her life forever!

But no, he's standing out there with a large box of pizza, a pair of red high heels just kind of sitting on the box, and on his back is a large fishing net with a bottle of water and a bag of assorted Halloween chocolate in it, while in his other hand is a large bag of ice.

The perfect crime, or plan.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Door? Why's someone at the door?

Nessa's suspicious. She doesn't have a lot of visitors in the first place, and those she expects to come by usually text first. She briefly looks at her phone for a message, but not finding one she sets her book down. Heading towards the door, she grabs the pair of gloves she keeps near there and tugs them on before opening the door to the apartment.

She should have checked the door before opening it. As Nessa stands in the doorway, she blinks a few times. "... dare I ask what you're doing here?"

Levian has posed:
"You said we could be friends if I helped. I know the word now." Levian holds the pizza out to her. "I got you a pizza, and shoes, and chocolate. And I got you this ice and a bug net so that we can net flicks and chill. Though it sounds like a strange activity and I don't really understand it."

"Oh... and I apologize for being strange before. I may have a job now." And, there's all the updates, all at once.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
There's a blank stare for a moment or two from Nessa before she actually laughs. "Oh /god/, what have they been teaching you? And who on earth /hired/ you?" The blonde waves it off for a moment, clearing her throat a bit. "Sorry, sorry, I'm being rude. You did help, yes. And I did promise you books. Not sure if those shoes will fit, though." The heels are eyed carefully before she steps out of the way of the apartment to give him the chance to enter.

Looks like he's not outright rejected from hanging out, at the moment. She does, on the other hand, look a touch cautious. Hard not to be jumpy lately.

Levian has posed:
Levian steps inside as he carefully tries to keep everything balanced. He's a little bit above the level of human conditioning, but not //that// far.

"I've met lots of people. Goths, vegans, an explorer, a woman who punched me several feet to the ground." he explains, heading up to her apartment proper before he lays the pizza onto a table, and then sits the bug net down on it too. It's brand new, of course.

The ice is held out to her. "Here's the ice. I'm not sure what we're supposed to chill. Also, I'm probably going to get a job at SHIELD. I met a woman named Daisy, she's very nice. She gave me a phone after I cast a spell to get their attention."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"You're joining SHIELD?" Nessa looks a little... surprised, to say the least. The bag of ice is held carefully, and she moves to the fridge to just shove it into the freezer. Nothing really needed to chill here. "For the record, 'Netflix and Chill' has nothing to do with bug nets or ice and it's probably best to forget that anyone ever suggested that to you."

The world is a safer place without a demon knowing the true meaning of the cursed term. "Well, I mean, SHIELD is a pretty good place all things considered. I've worked with them in the past. Agent May is probably one of /the/ most compentent people I know on the face of the planet." She moves to flop on the couch, giving Levian the opportunity to sit down, though she gives him a wide berth. "So I guess you've been learning a lot?"

Levian has posed:
"Yes. I know that your language is called English. Human languages, I think I know them all, but I don't know what they're called, I only know how to speak them. I mostly learned them from listening to damned souls talk. You hear a lot of those." Levian starts to walk to the couch, looking cautious himself. Unlike when she first met him, he seems to meet her eyes a few times to gauge her personal space, then takes a seat next to her without getting too close.

"Daisy said that the point of SHIELD is to protect the world, and keep it peaceful, and to have a family." He looks over at her, keeping his third eye closed for now. "I want to help, because there's a lot of things on Earth. The only thing I'm really afraid of is Lucifer and that angel woman, but there's a lot more things for humans to be afraid of. I do exorcisms a lot, to eat the demons, and it saves the human's soul. I don't want humans to just be prey to things."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
He's learning, which seems to bode well with interacting with Nessa. She doesn't seem quite as hostile as she did the last time they'd interacted. "I'd say SHIELD does a pretty good job of protecting the world, yeah. They're good people. If that's what you want to do, that's a good direction for you to go... if they'll have you. It's kind of a lot of work, from what I can tell."

There's a hint of amsuement from the ice mage at the mention of who he's afraid of. The mention of not wanting human to be prey, though, is a bit of a sobering thought. Especially considering the fact she was almost easy pickings for an ice wolf thanks to Loki. "No, I don't want humans to just be prey either. There are a lot of good people. Though, I can't fault you for being afraid of Lucifer or Sera, they're both pretty strong."

Levian has posed:
"I'm entirely helpless to Lucifer. If he decided to tell me to do something, I'd have to obey. If he sent me back to Hell, there's nothing I could do about it. He could snap his fingers and I wouldn't exist anymore. And... he's very bright, when I look at him with my third eye. The light is just... very, very bright..." Levian frowns a bit, staring down at his legs. One of his hands is shaking a bit. "Sorry. I should stop thinking about it.

He looks over at her, and finally says, "Your body language is different from most humans. Your face doesn't seem as afraid, but you're avoiding me."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Lucifer's kind of like a blanket of stars," Nessa muses. "Bright is certainly one way of putting it." She's not sure he's something she really knows how to describe either. "I'm not afraid of him, but I can see why people would be. Why some of them /should/ be." She's lost in thought for just a moment until he mentions her avoiding him.

She shifts her weight on the couch a bit, clearing her throat. "Well, I'm used to a lot of weird stuff. Magic and whatnot. I've run into demons before. I'm just not exactly fond of fire. You sort of represent a lot of things that are dangerous so it's a big hard to just ignore that." She pauses. "Also, I avoid pretty much everyone, so don't take that part /too/ personally."

Levian has posed:
"I'm not on fire right now." Levian holds his hand out to her, though doesn't actively try to touch her, he simply offers it. "This is the form I use to interact with fleshy people, even in Hell. It both is and isn't a true representation of what I am, at the same time kind of. But I wouldn't burn you. It would have to be a conscious effort, like choosing to punch someone."

"My body usually stays at the same temperature, for other people's safety. If I were trying to hurt you, I wouldn't have brought the net and the ice." he explains, nodding to his hand. "I have a, what's the word... scientific level of control over my body heat."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"I don't touch people. Demon or fleshy. It's sort of a me thing. I just don't," Nessa frowns at the hand held in her direction. "So, you can take that back now." She clears her throat, then looks at the pizza. "I appreciate the fact that you can control your body heat and whatnot, but I'm not exactly /most people/ and so the whole touching thing is a thing I just don't do."

There's a pause.

"Lucifer's the exception though."

Levian has posed:
"Why is Lucifer the exception?" Levian asks, tilting his head. He gives it a lot of long thought as he takes his hand back, then holds his finger up. "You're his wife. I understand now. That's why you don't touch people."

He reaches over to the pizza box and flips it open. It's a plain pepperoni pizza. "I'm still not sure what pizza is, but it smells good."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
It's certainly a good thing that Nessa wasn't drinking anything because the words that Levian just uttered would have prompted her to spittake. She blinks at him in disbelief for a moment before she shakes her head. "... wife? That's a /hell/ of a conclusion to jump to. No pun intended." There's a tiny bit of amusement at the suggestion, though. "Pretty sure Lucifer's not the marrying type. I just don't touch people because I'm afraid of hurting them."

She shrugs a shoulder. "I unintentionally hurt people that touch me, sometimes, but Lucifer's safe to. I can't hurt him, so he's the only one I touch." It seems a logical enough explanation, she feels. She eyes the pizza. "Help yourself. It's a pretty popular human food, I'd say. Everyone eats it."

Levian has posed:
Levian reaches over to poke at the crust, seemingly trying to make sense of it. He looks back at her, then at the pizza, then pulls at the slice when he notices a seam, and suddenly starts rolling the entire slide up with the crust before he picks it up and shows it to her. "Like this?"

He's just kind of guessing.

"You hurt people when you touch them?" he asks while staring down at his free hand. "That's actually why I use this form, in case I need to make non-violent contact. Though in Hell that usually means I might have to shake hands. On Earth it's because people touch each other non-violently a lot, though I don't really understand it."

He stares at his hand again, then to her's. "So if you touch me I'll die or something?"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"I mean, I'm not sure there's a /wrong/ way to eat a pizza, but it's traditionally held from the crust and eaten from the other end. But really, props for being creative there." Nessa's gloved hand snatches up a piece before she glances in his direction. "I mean, maybe you'd get hurt. It's just more of a safety precaution. I've hurt people unintentionally by them touching me before. Usually it's more unexpected touch that does it, so I make sure not to be touching people most of the time."

She holds up her free hand, still gloved. "See, safely tucked away."

Levian has posed:
"If you made my hand explode or something, I could just grow it back." Levian assures as he begins to bite his rolled up pizza, then suddenly stares down at it in shock. "This flavor is like ten Baconators..."

But, looking back over at her, he curiously stares. "I don't really understand the purpose of non-violent touch, but if you ever feel like it, I want to try." He doesn't seem to push, he instead focuses on chomping his pizza very quickly as he rather violently rips bread from bread with his sharp teeth.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"No," Nessa replies, firmly. "That's not a thing I do." There's a bit of a frown there, the pizza slice in her hand mostly ignored. "Non-violent touch is..." She presses her lips together in a firm line. "You probably don't really understand affection or comfort in a real way without it. It's used for all kinds of things. I think comfort's the real important one, though. Feeling /safe/."

She stares at the pizza slice in her hand before taking a bite, chewing it before speaking up again. "Anyway, I'm fine with it just being Lucifer. Safer for everyone."

Levian has posed:
"On Earth, there's new feelings, things that I couldn't feel in Hell. I didn't have infernal words for them. Things like feeling 'peaceful', when I was on the roof with the symbiote, staring at the stars with my third eye." Levian reaches down to touch the pit of his stomach, closing his eyes.

"I have a theory, that I can feel everything humans do, but I just couldn't in Hell. Or maybe demons simply don't let each other." He stares at her, finishing his slice fairly quickly. "I've never felt safe before. I don't really know what that feels like."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
There's a bit of a thought before Nessa answers, chewing on a bite of pizza. "I'm sure you're capable of it. It seems reasonable to be, but I imagine hell is probably an environment that fosters something really different. I grew up most of my life /not/ touching people, but wanting to. So in a way I sort of learned to understand to appreciate things that come naturally to others. Comfort, safety... those things are very much related to touch."

She glances in his direction. "So, maybe you haven't felt it, but imagine if you were in a situation where you felt nothing bad was going to happen to you. You didn't have to worry about someone attacking you or trying to kill you or whatever, because someone or something was keeping you from harm. That's safety."

Levian has posed:
"That's why I like to be around you, those feelings." Levian admits, pulling the bag of assorted Halloween chocolate from the bug net to hand it over to her. "I don't know how these work."

Either way, he continues. "When I came out of Hell, it was the night I saw you. I saw you with my third eye. You were bright in a way that made my soul feel new things, like... it woke me up, like a seed."

"So..." He stares at the bag of Halloween candy, avoiding her eyes now. "I keep wanting to be around you, to see if the weird seed inside of me grows."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa looks sharply in his direction. "So, first we're going to teach you that when you say things like that you sound really creepy. Okay? Okay. I understand you're only speaking from what experiences and understanding you have but it seriously sounds awful if you have no context at all."

She takes a piece of chocolate from the bag, unwrapping it carefully... she's pretty decent at doing it while her hands are gloved, too. It's a well-used skill. "I don't know what you mean by bright, though. I'm a mage with some skill, but I'm not really some kind of weird unexplanable magic force like some people we know."

Levian has posed:
"It's not that, necessarily... Okay, this will sound strange, I'm trying to translate to English." Levian starts to motion his hands around, to help him describe. "You've seen those flying things, the colorful Earth birds and insects? And Earth flowers? And then you stand next to real water, the kind that humans drink, and you can smell the whole ocean, and the sun is warm on your face and stuff. Those things aren't like feeling a god, it's just... a lot of strange, good feelings that I've liked."

Then, looking over at her, he opens his third eye, though it is obscure by his bangs, he points at it. "When I look at you, with all my eyes, it feels like seeing and feeling all those things at once. It's weird, right?"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"I'm a fan of trying to use more words to describe something until you figure out what exactly you want to say. Kind of like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing if it sticks." Nessa pauses. "... don't try the spaghetti thing, it won't make sense. It's phrasing. It's related to actually cooking, so don't do it." After all, she's fairly certain he'd throw spaghetti at the wall if she didn't explain.

"So what you're saying is you feel alive, Levian?" There's a tone of amusement. "Sometimes things happen to make you very aware of the things around you. Things you like, things that make you peaceful or content, things that remind you that you're alive and that things can be okay." She grins. "I gotta say, though, you thinking I help with that is a /bizarre/ thought."

Levian has posed:
"I don't know, I think I feel alive. I have a lot of organs. I recently learned that humans name them all instead of just the main ones." Levian pats his stomach a few times, but then reaches over very carefully, waiting for her to remove her hand before he moves to take a piece of chocolate.

"But... I followed you before, when we met the second time, because you kept flashing in my head. Like, images. I thought if I saw you it'd answer something, but mostly I just feel the same feeling inside once I'm around you again." He stares at a piece of chocolate, but doesn't unwrap it yet, he sniffs it a little. "When you said that touching might hurt me, I mostly thought, and I know this sounds strange, but I thought that even if my hand shrinks or if it melts into an acidic slime, I just wanted to see what other feelings you'd give me."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa levels her gaze on Levian. "I'm not going to dissolve you, I just injure some people who have touched me unexpectedly. I don't think you'd have as much of an issue due to being able to regulate temperature, but there's a chance I might freeze someone. As in like ice." She gestures towards the freezer vaguely before popping the chocolate into her mouth.

"I might not hurt you, but regardless of that, I just don't touch people. Safer for them, safer for me, and honestly... it's not been so bad after having met Lucifer. It's better having him around." She crinkles up the wrapper. "Either way, I'm not touching you and I'm not entirely sure what range of human emotions you're hoping I'll help you understand."

Levian has posed:
"I don't really know what the range is. I'm just doing everything without a plan." Levian finally starts to nibble at the chocolate, before entirely devouring it not unlike a dog with a treat who doesn't savor.

"I don't really know what I need or want, so I'm just doing things and seeing what happens. I touched one person, my witch friend. I wasn't really thinking about it, it was strange." He pats the back of the couch, then leans his head on it. "I did this to her shoulder. She was sad, and I told her a sad story about Hell, and then it just happened, the shoulder thing. It was nice but I didn't really understand it."

"Humans are very complicated, and if my emotions are similar to humans, then I guess I'm very complicated too." He doesn't move his head from the couch, as it's actually quite comfortable. "I'm not sure that I trust humans with every emotion. I don't know. I know that certain people wouldn't hurt me, but I'm afraid of what it feels like to feel everything, but also curious at the same time. If I unlock things I can't put back in, what if I start crying or something?"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Humans /are/ complicated, you've got that right. I don't think we understand each other, or ourselves, half as well as we might like to." Nessa grabs another piece of chocolate, though she glances in his direction. "Emotions are a scary thing, I can tell you that for sure. It's... not exactly something that you can just stuff back in." She grins. "Crying's not so bad, really, sometimes you feel better after. But the emotions don't just go back. Sometimes you have to take a risk to feel things. The good emotions are worth it, though."

She fiddles with the wrapper. "Sometimes it's easier to not feel things, to not let emotions rule you or control you. Sometimes it's important to control them. But it doesn't feel great and deep down you'd always sort of wonder what it would be like if you did let things go a little." She pops the chocolate in her mouth. "Anyway, I'm just rambling here."

Levian has posed:
"For the entire time I've been gone, I thought you'd be the answer to everything eventually. Like everything would make sense once we became friends." Levian reaches for another piece of chocolate, once again waiting for her hand to come out first.

"It feels good to be here, and talk, but there's something missing in me." He reaches up to touch his stomach, then his chest. "It's like, I want to feel full, but I don't. Do you ever feel that?"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Okay, you are putting way too much stock in me solving your problems," Nessa offers in his direction. "Friendship doesn't solve everyone's problems. Sometimes it makes people feel better, but I think you're gonna have to look inward and not outword for whatever emotions and answers you need to find." She gives him a small nod. "Talking's fine, though. That's what friendship is good for. Conversations."

His mention of something missing gets a bit of an eyebrow. "I mean, there are times I've felt empty and alone, if that's what you're getting at. I'm not entirely sure what you mean there, though."

Levian has posed:
"I don't know, but the longer I'm on Earth, the more things I learn. I was mostly reacting on instinct, but it's not like other kinds of instinct, like hunting." Levian looks around her living room, curious now about what exactly she has in it, though he doesn't stand. "Well, maybe when I join SHIELD I'll have new experiences that will help me figure everything out."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Well, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of things to learn just from hanging around here. On Earth, I mean, not literally here. I don't mind you now, just don't expect to be in my apartment /all/ the time." Nessa sounds amused. "Maybe SHIELD will help you, but I don't know that you'll figure everything out. That's something that takes a long time... I don't think /anyone's/ got things all figured out."

She tosses another piece of chocolate in her mouth. "I'll get you those books I promised. If you can't find what you need by just observing, I'm sure I have a few things to help you study human behavior." That and there's a few she plans on ordering--giving Levian self-help books almost seems like entertainment in and of itself. There would be time for that later.