Nelson hobbled towards the museum on his hands and knees and sat near the stairs, off to the side of the building to hide himself in the little darkness there. He pulled his hat down near his eyes and waited, again... wondering if he shoulda brought his dead rat with him. Not much point loitering outside an Elysium if there was no one to watch go in and out.
Someone came out. Nelson saw someone dressed in a big plastic rain poncho sit down on the steps right outside the exit. With its huge hood shadowing her features in the already shadowy night, he could make nothing out. He clasped a claw against his crooked grin to halt a cough before it got noisy. He didn't want to startle the person on the stairs. He listened to the voices he heard -- the man's was familiar, it was Hanson Blake, the Prince of Dallas...
"... tower? I think you should have something as well," Blake said to his female companion.
"Yes! I mean..." The female seemed to blush in the darkness. "If you like, sure."
The Prince took her arm and whisked her down to the car, glancing a few times into the rear-view mirror. Nelson watched as Blake smiled to the woman with him, who responded in like fashion. Nelson thought he saw them holding hands. Finally the two of them drove off. During this time the person in the plastic poncho didn't move. Finally, once the car had disappeared around a turn and its sound was no longer in earshot, he returned to watching the person in the poncho.
Mabel pretended she didn't notice them, so hard she saw nothing else. She sat completely still on the steps, an unprepossessing lump of plastic poncho. The world started to come back when the car was gone. In rebellion, she slammed her fist into the step as hard as she could. That made the world go away again, for a moment. She put her hand to her mouth, licking blood off the scrape.
Nelson jerked upright, wondering what that was about. "Ouchie," he said to Mabel.
Startled, she hid her hand in the depths of the poncho. "What. Go away," she said, twin motives of retreat and curiosity warring to stalemate.
"Go where? I'm not doin' nothin'." Nelson grinned under the shadow of his cap. Mabel shrugged under her enveloping poncho and didn't reply. Nelson said, "I like to sit here if you don't mind. I gots no where to go."
"Fine, sit here. I have no reason to stay anyway." Mabel stood. Using her ability of Obfuscate, she vanished from the view of anyone who hadn't been looking directly at her. She strode away, Nelson following, keeping her in view so she couldn't vanish from him, too.
Nelson was getting left behind. He stopped in the middle of a deserted street and yelled at her. "You like to run away from everything. Tsk, tsk. You'd better tie your shoes first!"
Mabel turned around and stared at Nelson. The other Nosferatu had a lot of nerve, she thought. "Stop following me. What makes you think I'm running away? From what, you?"
"I did stop! Are ya blind when you run, lady? I guess you run from me, but I did you no harm. I just wanna talk. Phooey!" He shrugged and slumped in place.
Mabel just looked at him in the middle of the street. This was nowhere to have a conversation, and it looked like it was going to be one no matter whether she wanted it to be or not. "Okay, follow me, then. Can't imagine why you want to talk to me though."
Nelson snorkled a chuckle and hobbled on his feet, looking oddly like a penguin. His pace was a tad slow, his legs too short to let him speed up. He followed behind Mabel as she led him through a maze of alleyways. "I like talkin' to mystery girls. Got a problem with that?"
"No." She singlemindedly continued to the place she had in mind.
"Good! That's one way to start a good conversation." Nelson rubbed his claw-like hands together under his jacket.
Finally reaching her destination, a relatively private and clean nook off a little-traveled alleyway behind a row of storage sheds for the nearby apartment complex, Mabel sat on the curb, once again a shapeless lump under her poncho. The deeper shadows here revealed even less of her than had been the case on the steps by the museum Elysium. "Okay. Talk here," she told Nelson.
"My name's Nelson. What's yer name, mystery lady?" He sat across the way from her, crossing his short legs in front of him. His hands pulled his flannel jacket tight around his bumpy body.
"I won't be much of a mystery if I tell you my name," Mabel said.
"Yes! I still can't see you, so you're still a mystery," Nelson said.
"My name's Hideously Ugly and Disgusting Monster, but you can call me Gross for short," Mabel said.
Nelson blinked at the little figure in the poncho. His gloved hand popped out of his jacket to show Mabel something gross. The glove was torn and looked as if all his fingers were pushed into only three of the glove's fingers. Mabel looked at it, then looked away. Nelson said, "This is more gross than poncho! You are pretty compared to me."
Mabel said, "Don't think you can get me out of my poncho to show you."
Nelson cackled and coughed into his hand. "Maybe we can play show and tell!"
"Just because I'm ugly and hideous doesn't mean I want to look at ugly and hideous you. No offense," Mabel said.
Nelson bounced up on his tush in glee. "You agree then! I'm hideous. You are not even close."
"You aren't ingratiating yourself by contradicting me," Mabel told him. Nelson shrugged and stopped bouncing. His hand reached up and tipped his hat back down to cover his forehead. She continued, "I don't care what I look like to you. Why should I? Look at you. To a real person I look hideous, that's all that matters."
"A real person? Care to describe that? They are painted! They are ignorant! They are nothing but dolls!" Nelson was nearly shouting.
"It must make you feel better to think stuff like that. Good for you then. Are you done talking to me yet?" Mabel asked.
"You've got a date with a real person?" Nelson grinned his wide, toothy grin, showing his pointy teeth with pride. Mabel snorted laughter. "You are in an awful hurry for nothing if you don't," he told her. She shrugged. He said, "Tell you what. I'll leave you alone if you'd tell me your name. I can't call you hideous, or gross... Those words mean far more to me than they mean to you, obviously." He got to his feet, the stubby legs leaning inward on his body making him really short. He leaned his bumpy back against the wall.
"Then make up a name for me if you want. I don't care," Mabel said.
Nelson tapped a finger against his chin. "See, that wouldn't be part of the deal. I guess it'll do then. Okay, I'll call you poncho."
"What deal?" Mabel asked.
"The deal of me leavin' you alone. I guess it was more like a suggestion than a deal, eh?"
"Call it a preference."
"Well, yes, I'd 'prefer' to know your name. You just don't want me to call you up and ask you on a date, I'm guessin'." Nelson cackled faintly.
"If I tell you now, you'll just think you can pester me into anything," Mabel said.
Nelson snickered. "Oh yes. I'll pester you all the time. Pester, pester, pester! And the matter of into anything... well I'd hope it'd be a cute school-girl dress... those are a fancy of mine!" He smirked and wheezed into a gloved hand.
The poncho seemed to shake slightly. "Fine. Here's a deal for you. Stop saying things like that or even implying them, and I'll tell you what my name used to be," Mabel said.
"Look... I ain't out to be a 'pester.' If that was the case I'd just not be talking to you. I've got my manners, poncho. And, I'm sorry if I scared you. I have a bad sense of humor," Nelson said.
Mabel nodded. "My name used to be Mabel. Before."
Nelson blinked a few times and slumped down on his legs to sit on the ground. "Before what? Did you change your name?"
"I don't want that name anymore. I'm not myself anymore," she said.
"I guess I can't argue with you, I never knew ya till now, and you won't let me see why you think you are a monster," Nelson said.
"Thank you," Mabel said.
"You make good company in my opinion," Nelson said.
"You do too when you stop arguing," Mabel said.
Nelson shrugged casually. "A favorite pastime. Debate of the hideous monster within us all! Course with you and me, monster is something of a truer meaning, eh?"
"Yes," Mabel said.
"I bet you are pretty," Nelson said.
"I was," Mabel said. "Very, very pretty."
"Then you still are," Nelson said, grinning smugly.
"No. Stop arguing again," Mabel said.
"I'm not entitled to my opinion?" Nelson asked.
"Just don't tell me if it's about me," Mabel said. She lowered her voice a bit, as it seemed to have been raised without her realizing it, sounding loud in her own ears. "It hurts when you do that, argue with me, tell me I'm pretty now. It hurts!"
Nelson pouted, flumping his arms down to the sides of his body. "I can't say anything 'cause I can't see you. I only imagine what you must look like. And in comparison to me, you must be pretty!"
Mabel shrugged under her poncho. "Fine, keep hurting me. I must deserve it. I will."
"Am I dishonest when I say I'm uglier?" Nelson asked.
"I don't know, I can't look at you. We're both uglier than I can really see," Mabel said.
Nelson didn't seem to understand. "I can show you!" he said.
"I can kill you," Mabel said.
Nelson shrugged. "I'm not allowed to argue, so I guess you can."
"Doesn't mean I should," Mabel added as if Nelson hadn't spoken, "but I can. Same same."
"The intent and the deed are the same," Nelson said.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone, before. I was good." Mabel said as if to herself.
"Killing doesn't hurt, if that is what you mean. When yer dead, yer dead."
"That's why they hurt me instead of killing me, I guess."
Nelson smiled in a crooked fashion, his two front teeth over his bottom lip. "I hurt you now?"
"Yes," Mabel said.
"I'm not arguing! You say I hurt when I argue. I agree with you. You are right!"
"Okay," Mabel said. "It doesn't hurt as much as when you argue. Still hurts though. Everything does. When I can pretend I don't exist, it hurts the least."
"Okay," Nelson echoed. "Everything hurts? Okay, I agree. Can I pretend with you?"
Mabel nodded to him, looking up at him through a redstreaked, distorted face, as he got the first dim glimpse of her countenance, though he still couldn't make much out in the dimness and shadows. "Sure you can. Thank you."
"I did nothing for thanks," Nelson said, blinking his beady eyes.
Mabel grimaced as he started arguing again, making a wordless wincing sound.
"Hey! I have an idea!" Nelson said. "Every time I slip up... you know like say yes when you say no, or whatever. Argue with ya. Hows about you slap me! That will make me remember. I wanna hurt when you do." He nodded eagerly at Mabel.
Mabel frowned. "You don't really want me to do that."
Nelson nodded again. "Yes I do. I want to hurt... like you. Don't you want me to feel hurt?"
"No. I don't want to hurt." Mabel felt strange. The strange feeling frightened her. It wasn't what she was used to. It ... didn't hurt.
"You don't want to hurt. But I hurt you. Won't it be nice to make me regret hurting you? Taking revenge for what I did to you?" Nelson's grin frightened her, too.
"You scare me." She sighed, confused, and pushed it all away. "No. Better for you to just leave me alone and not talk to me." She looked at him again. "Now you're right, I guess. I'm going to run away."
"Okay, pretty Mabel. But lemme do the honors. I hurt you. I leave." Nelson stood on his stubby legs and hobbled away from her, looking over his shoulder every now and then to see her, if he could. He tried to hide his beaming grin with a gloved hand on his toothy mouth.
Mabel quietly watched him go.