It'd been hard, fitting into Skin. Nattie didn't think she'd ever manage it. Therapy sessions did nothing. Especially when Skin started picking up on their feeling of looking down on an intresting specimen. It had made her feel like that mouldy surprise you find inside some forgotten container. Emotions for her had never fitted into a single word. She'd never been in love, but she had felt like she'd die if she didn't see him within the hour, that she was a full balloon and he had a pin that gave him the power to deflate her. And he had. He'd deflated her balloon because he'd wanted to inflate some other girl.
Probably someone a tad more normal then Nattie and Skin. Everyone had to admit that Skin was pretty. Even if not in that edgy way that was so popular these days. See, the naturally blonde hair pulled into a complex knot could be translated into the fact that she was a bimbo and most likely not that intelligent. Her soft brown eyes meant she was naive, gullible, and that she'd let you fuck her if you told her you loved her. The cute nose meant she'd had surgery and the petal lips meant she was asking for it. The nicely curved body and the way she dressed meant she deserved it if she got more then what she'd asked for.
Nattie was none of this. Inside, in her mind she still felt like the awkward coltish girl who'd run away when a boy told her he'd liked her because it made her feel like she was drowning in cotton candy. Who distracted herself from what Skin was doing by drinking too much, by struggling to pick out symbolic details from her favorite paintings and by trying to remember the exact plot and it's unfoldings of the movie she'd seen last month.
Her and Skin where joined, the same mind, shared thoughts and different. It was a relationship that was blurred and convex. Where some distinctions and walls where erected, such as the fact that Skin usually had complete control over what the body did, Nattie thought alot of her own thoughts. Very rarely did Skin's soft as silk voice interrupt her meanderings. Which left her suspicious that Skin housed another brain somewhere in her body from which she operated. Because it made no sense that Nattie couldn't comandeer her own body, couldn't force herself to go home. Which led her to the only logical conclusion. She'd been invaded and conquered. It was not her body anymore. She was simply allowed an odd existance. This much she was granted probably because Skin couldn't be bothered with mantaining a beating heart or lungfuls of air.
Nattie wanted so much to leave Faded, but Skin felt like more drinking, finding someone to toy with. Not that Nattie was aware of this plan, only that no matter how hard she slammed her will around 'her' body wouldn't budge.
This all wasn't to say that some traces of who Nattie had been didn't leave their scar on Skin. For instance, Skin had scrabbly knees because Nattie used to hike. Her shoulders are hunched as if she feared approach even though her eyes where beckoning, and her foot tapped the air (her legs are crossed, she is well tall enough to reach the ground). But not even this clash of signals seemed to deter many, even if their intrest is piqued only because they have an unerring sense for the basketcase.
The tapping of her foot is something people consider annoying. Especially as it's hitting up agaisnt the front of the bar, making a rythmic noise. Someone near her asks her to stop, but she ignores them. Nattie is hardly aware she's doing anything.

Brody Donovan sat a few seats down the bar, feeling adventurous for once. Yeah, he was actually out somewhere, somewhere that wasn't a vacant beach or his job. With people. Something that was a concern, but Brody had gotten rid of all the bacteria in his system about an hour before. He was feeling great, and could afford to be a little risky.

A little risky. Not 'normal'. Brody couldn't ever really be normal. But today, he could at least go out. So what if he had to wear jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt and his jacket equipped with antibacterials and baby wipes? At least he wasn't on the verge of getting sick. And at least he wasn't trapped in his tiny plastic-coated apartment that reeked of Lysol.

And he could enjoy being out in a club, as long as he wasn't in the thick of the crowd. But from here, he had a reasonably good view of the band playing, the crowd thrashing. He'd wiped down the bar in front of him with a baby wipe, so he could drum his fingers on its polished surface as he waited for his drink.

Brody leaned back in his seat as someone came uncomfortably close to him. Okay, maybe he was already having second thoughts about this. It'd be much more hygienic to just go out and buy a bottle of vodka and drink it by himself - if he couldn't stand his apartment, he could go drink it on the beach or something. And who knew when he'd find something else to infect?

But no. He was going to be out here and he was going to be social and he was going to like it, damn it. As soon as he got good and drunk, at least. Where the hell was his drink?

His drink, had in fact arrived infront of Nattie. She stared at it in perplexion for a moment. Her brain was already slightly buzzed.

Looking down the bar she spotted the somewhat oddly dressed man who was the only other person sitting at the bar, or in fact, anywhere near it. Besides the bartender of course, who seemed to be on his first day.
Or he just didn't give a shit.

She picked up the glass that had been wrongfully delivered to her in one hand, and her own drink in the other and approached him. Setting his infront of him and plopping down on the stool beside him, Nattie looked him over. Cute, but it was slightly odd he was wearing a jacket, and she could've sworn he'd wiped down the bar before touching it. Maybe he had OCD or something.

"Aren't you hot?" She asked, resting her elbows on the gleaming bartop. Approaching strangers had never been a problem for Skin, and she'd be quite content to make herself known to every last person in this club, but Nattie in her annoyingly distant seat can only start thinking about the opening scene in 'The Others'.

He blinked, startled, at the sound of her voice. Realizing that she was pretty close to him, even though there were plenty of other seats at the bar, he slid away, just a bit. Of course, there wasn't really anywhere he could go. "What? Oh," he said, as his brain took its own sweet time processing what she had said. "Hot? Not really. I'm not exactly planning on dancing, so I can afford to wear long sleeves." Though the jacket may be a bit much. But it was kind of his security blanket, it had all his essentials. With a mental shrug, he slipped it off, letting it drop to the floor in front of the stool.

"So, at the risk of sounding totally cliched, do you come here often?" Brody asked, suddenly glad he was here. At least he was talking to someone that wasn't himself for once. "And, more importantly, do you know how to get any kind of decent service around here? I ordered a drink a while ago, and last time I checked -" he paused "- yup, still painfully sober."