Nix’s history. (Since Frank has been pestering me to write it!)
Be aware that this contains scenes and language of an adult nature. I hope that it will give everyone an insight into her nature and explain why she is how she is.
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[b:e60ee1bcba]12th January 1996 – [i:e60ee1bcba]London[/i:e60ee1bcba][/b:e60ee1bcba]

A pale sunlight flooded through the grimy windows of the single bedroom flat.
Phoebe woke rubbing her dark eyes in an attempt to rid her head of the grogginess. Sitting up in the bed she sighed and attempted to wake the man sleeping peacefully next to her.
“Joe,” she whispered in his ear.
He stirred as Phoebe stroked his ruffled blonde hair smooth. His skin glowed slightly as his smooth full lips twisted into a small smile. He opened his eyes, the deep green drawing her in mirroring the action of his arms encircling her.
“Happy Birthday Phe,” he said drawing her in for a kiss.
She snorted derisively, and struggled out of his arms. Throwing herself out of the bed, she shot him a hurt glare then stormed into the tiny shower room, slamming the door behind her.
A timid knock came from the door.
She turned the shower on to full and glared at the mucky glossed door.
“Come on Phe!”
Stepping into the shower, she sighed and rested her head on the cold tiles the sharp contrast of the water running through her hair and running down her back.
“Phe… come on, it’s your 16th birthday. I’ve got you something…”
“Leave me alone Joe,” she shouted over the roar of the shower.
The door opened slowly and Joe’s sinewy frame stepped into the room. She sighed again and turned her back on him, unwilling to face the reality of her situation.
“Phoebe,” he said buttoning up his jeans. “Don’t do this to me girl. Look if you don’t come out I’ll go in there to talk to you.”
“Piss off Joe.”
Joe drew back the shower curtain and stepped into the shower. Leaning close to her, he whispered in her ear. “Look, I know you don’t want to, but I think you should make up with your parents.”
Phoebe’s dark eyes flared with rage as she glared fiercely at Joe. “Unless you’ve forgotten Joe, they are the ones that threw ME out!”
“But they’re your parents Phe,” Joe said, his green eyes reflecting the shadow over Phoebe’s. “You can’t keep running forever.”
“AND, they threw me out because of you!” she continued like she hadn’t heard him. “Now you have the audacity to stand here and tell me to go back to them? Gimmie a break.”
Joe had been everything Mr and Mrs Richardson IV disapproved of.
She remembered vividly…

It was late. She had arrived home past her curfew again.
The door at the side of the manor house had once been the discrete servants entrance. Phoebe slid the large original key into lock, turning it as quietly as possible as not to alert the watchful butler and security guard. The crumbling wood creaked as she edged the door open and slid into the shadowy cold corridor. Her fingers light, she closed the door and began to creep towards the stone stairs that led to the third floor, where her enormous room was located.
A blinding light stopped her. Before her eyes stood her mother and father both wearing night garments and stern faces.
“Where have you been?” came her father’s thundering voice.
Phoebe sighed, rolled her eyes and placed a hand on her hips.
“Out,” she said slowly, exaggerating the word in a sarcastic tone.
“Who with?”
“Whats it gotta do with you?” she replied wrinkling her nose.
“Who with?” he said, his expression as dark as his hair, a family trait.
Phoebe shivered slightly under his glower.
“You really wanna know?” she said taking a cigarette packet out of her pocket.
“Who-?” her father repeated taking as step forward.
Her mother stopped him.
“Peter please,” she said, her small weak voice cutting him off as she placed a hand on his chest. Turning to Phoebe, she gestured feebly at her clothes. “Go and get changed, I can’t bear to see you like that. Then come down to the drawing room where we can talk sensibly.”
Phoebe looked down at her clothes and glared at her mother. What was wrong with what she was wearing? Short black skirt, black slash neck top, knee high boots. She’d seen worse.
Peter sighed heavily. “Very well, do as she says.”
Phoebe considered briefly whether to extend her defiance further but she was unwilling to enrage her father while she was unprepared. Shooting a dirty look at her father, she ran up the stairs towards her room.
***
The ‘Drawing Room’ a regal green, mahogany dado rail, large comfortable chairs in front of an open fire at which her mother and father now sat and Phoebe now stood.
“Who were you with?” her father asked rubbing his for head with his gnarled fingers.
“If you really wanna know,” Phoebe started, shoving her hands in her jeans pockets, “I was with Joe.”
Her mother looked up at Phoebe, shocked. “Not Joseph Pearson?”
Phoebe nodded and cocked her head to one side. “Yeah,” she said grinning. “Joe Pearson.”
“Oh dear lord!” her mother said fanning her thin face with a hand.
“Phoebe-Nicole Richardson,” her father boomed, “that boy is a disgrace.”
Phoebe shrugged. “I love him.”
“He’s too old for you,” her mother said from the chair.
“I’ll be sixteen in four months,” Phoebe spat in response.
Her father rose from his seat to tower above Phoebe. “His parents banished them from their household because he stole from them!”
“So what?”
“I refuse to let you see him,” he said waving a dismissing hand. “I will not have my daughter associated with, with, rats the like of him.”
Phoebe flared with anger, “You can’t do that,” she spat.
“He takes drugs,” her mother said, emphasising the word.
Phoebe grinned slyly at her mother, “So do I.”
Her mother’s face paled. Her father’s face swelled until his cheeks were purple with rage. “As long as you live under my roof, you shall NOT mix the likes of Joseph Pearson. You will NOT dress like a whore and you will never [i:e60ee1bcba]ever[/i:e60ee1bcba] take drugs,” his face was so close to hers that she felt the spittle on her cheek. “Do you understand?”
Phoebe slowly wiped her cheek and nodded. “Oh I understand all right.”
She looked at her mother clutching her hand to her mouth her knuckles white.
“I’m leaving.”
Phoebe turned and fled the room, sprinting to her room. Hastily she stuffed clothes and identification items into a small bag. Grabbing the bag of clothes, she took one last look around the room and left.

”But you can talk them around now,” Joe said, wrapping his arm around her. “I’m sure they are missing you.”
Phoebe crumbled into his arms and began to sob, her warm tears mingling with the hot water of the shower.
“I can’t do it Joe,” she said between tears. “I can’t go back to that pompous bastard. I was like a figurine to him. There to be shown off, nothing more. ”
Joe nodded and held her close and nodded.
“Can’t you even go to say goodbye?”
Phoebe looked up at his face. “Goodbye?”
Joe grinned, “That’s what I got for your birthday Phe. I got us two tickets to America. We fly tonight.”
“America?”
“Yeah…” he said moving a lock of her wet raven hair out of her eye.
“We can start a life together. I know a couple of guys that can help us get started there.”
Phoebe smiled broadly and laughed, her anguish over her parents forgotten, and kissed him ardently.
“Hey,” he said withdrawing from her passionate hold. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to do.”
She nodded smiling as she turned the handle to the shower.
“Ah Phe?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time we have a fight,” he paused and glanced down at his trousers, “can you not make me go in the shower with my jeans on?”

((ok, not the best of my posts, but its late and I'm getting tired 03:49am
((oh and this will continue until she was embraced - THEN its a whole other story that I will bore you with in the future.

::looks around:: is it normal that I find it totally hot that half the post involves a naked chick in the shower?


GREAT post, btw, kick

((Excellent opener Kick :)

[b:b1f328041e] Saturday 16th March 1996 – [i:b1f328041e] New York [/i:b1f328041e][/b:b1f328041e]


The apartment was on the top floor, naturally. Phoebe gazed down to the street far below, her hands gripping the balcony railing painfully as the wind swept through her hair. She watched the bright mesmerising lights tear along the road, the fast rhythm in stark contrast to the soulful composition that drifted from the apartment into the cool night air.
She felt his body press up against hers. Felt his hand slide around from her waist to hold her securely in his grasp. Felt his gentle fingers brush away the hair from her neck. Felt his chin rest on her shoulder. Felt the cold iron of the handrail press painfully into her palms as her grip tightened.
“Come back inside Phe,” Joe whispered into her ear. “You’ll like them once you get to know them.”
Phoebe closed her eyes and swallowed hard.
“C’mon,” he said, wrapping a hand around hers. He gently prised her grip from the railing and led her back into the apartment through the simple balcony doors.

The three people sat on the sofa’s stopped talking to look at her, their callous eyes betraying their smiling faces.
“Nice of you to join us,” the black man muttered, grinning. He lounged on the large three-seater, one foot on the glass coffee table looking at her. He was dressed in shapeless jeans that hung low on his waist and a distasteful basketball shirt that buried his massive muscular frame.
His arms bulged as he threw back the contents of the beer bottle in his hand.
Phoebe searched for the black man’s name but it had escaped her, being intimidated by his size when they had been introduced.
“Just needed some air is all,” she replied with a shrug, sinking into a chair.
Joe had told her these were important people. They would help us, he’d said.
Joe laughed as he opened to door to the fridge, and pulled out three bottles of beer.
“Oh, don’t mind her Kel,” he said, “she doesn’t like being so high up. ‘Fraid of heights.”
Kelvin. That was his name.
The other man sitting next to Kelvin smiled.
“Survival instincts,” he said. “Its useful.”
He called himself ‘Jonesy’. Why? She didn’t know. Didn’t care to ask. Every time he spoke, Phoebe shivered slightly. His voice was aloof and formal. Without feeling. He was the dominating force in the strange group. He was good looking in a noble kind of way. He had a strong jaw, and foreboding eyes that were shadowed with dark eyebrows. In stark contrast to his companions, his attire was a well-cut, simple, black suit. He’d refused a drink. Beer was too crude for his tastes, and Joe had nothing else.
Joe snorted slightly, handing Phoebe a bottle. “Survival or not,” he said sitting next to the woman that sat on the sofa opposite Phoebe, “It’s fucking stupid.”
Phoebe sighed slightly and took a swig from the bottle.
Joe draped an arm around the blonde woman and pushed the bottle into her hand.
“Now, ah, [b:b1f328041e]you[/b:b1f328041e] wouldn’t do any as stupid as being afraid heights.”
Phoebe focused on the woman. She was pretty enough. Dull blonde hair covered with a black bandana. She too wore loose jeans and a skin-tight black top. She looked harsh, rough around the edges and young. She had a teardrop tattoo at the corner of an eye. She was one of millions, slim and blonde. Yet Phoebe felt a twinge of jealousy in the pit of her stomach. The woman had shining, deep sapphire eyes. Great pools of intrigue that enticed you into their depths yet were cold and hard. The woman’s name was apt.
‘Blue Eyes’.
She turned her gaze onto Joe, her eyes drawing him in. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Whatever.”
Joe self-consciously ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “So ah, what you want then?”
“You said, you wanted work,” Kelvin said grinning at the exchange between “Blue Eyes” and Joe. “We got some shit we want you to do. Some shit you need to fetch, s’all.”
“Oh yeah?” Joe said, leaning forward.
“Yeah. Look man, this shit is dangerous. Pull out now cos if we tell ya then you bail on us, or disappear then…” Kelvin shrugged.
“Then what?”
“I’ll hunt you down, squeeze and put a fucking hole in you.”
Joe swallowed, visibly unnerved by the threat.
“Yeah well I ain’t going alone am I?”
“No, one of my guys is going along with you,” Kelvin said, smiling again.
Phoebe looked at Jonesy, raising an eyebrow slightly.
“I will not be accompanying you on the journey,” Jonesy said, crossing his legs and sitting back in his seat. “As Kelvin said, it will be one of his… ah friends.”
“So you going to do this shit J?” Kelvin asked Joe.
Joe shrugged, “Alright.”
Kelvin smirked and stood. “’k man, I’ll give you the shit. Don’t need bore the girls with this shit.” He nodded towards the balcony.
Joe rose and nodded to Phoebe. “If you can do anything right, look after Jonesy and ‘Blue Eyes’ eh chick?”
Phoebe looked at Joe, desperate for him to change his mind and not to leave her alone with the two strange people. Finally, seeing his disgust for her surface to his eyes, she nodded and looked down.
Joe and Kelvin walked out to the balcony, closing the doors behind them.
He’d done that a lot since they’d arrived in New York. Oh at first it was great. New York city was a bustling place, with much to see. They’d been to many different nightclubs, bars and restaurants. Yet the money started running out. NYC was a bustling city. It was also an expensive city. Joe had started to get moody and irritable. Not wanting to go out partying, not wanting to take her to new places, not wanting to show her how much he loved her. She’d sometimes wake during the night to find Joe was gone, his side of the bed cold from his absence. There had been one time when he didn’t come back until noon during the day. All he’d said he was tired and went straight to bed.

She never asked where he’d been. She could feel his growing contempt for her. He told her she was useless and should be doing something to get the money. She never replied. She just shrugged and did a line in the bathroom. Anything to distract her from the reality of her life.
“Do you love him?” Jonesy said, breaking Phoebe’s reverie.
“Dunno,” she replied.
“You shouldn’t let him treat you like that.” Phoebe felt Jonesy’s intense eyes focus on her.
“Like what?”
“Like shit.” ‘Blue Eyes’ said, adding her voice to Jonesy’s.
Phoebe shrugged and swigged out of her bottle. “He’s just having a hard time at the moment.”
“A motherfucking juicebag treats her like a pile of shit,” ‘Blue Eyes’ muttered under her breath.
Jonesy nodded. “You deserve better than him.”
“I love him,” Phoebe said defensively.
Jonesy looked at her inquisitively. “But does he love you?”
Phoebe began to answer then paused. The seed of doubt sown in her mind beginning to take root. Did he really love her? She was unsure now.
‘Blue Eyes’ interrupted her thoughts by speaking. “Tell her Jonesy.”
He nodded again and took a small case out of his jacket pocket.
“Joe will be gone for a while. He has to travel far and we could not leave you alone to fend for yourself.”
He opened to case, which turned out to be an exquisite mother-of-pearl card case and placed a small business card on the coffee table.
“While he is away, I would like you to come see me.”
Phoebe picked up the card and looked at the art deco design. It was printed with his name and a telephone number.
“Call me, if you get into any trouble.” Phoebe looked at Jonesy. “It wouldn’t do to have you destitute and alone in this big city,” he finished.
The doors to the balcony slid open and Phoebe tucked the card into a pocket.
Joe appeared pale and drawn, his features sunken with concern.
Kelvin nodded towards Jonesy and ‘Blue Eyes’ and they stood, following his silent request.
“You know what to do Joe,” Kelvin said. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
Joe nodded and opened the door to the apartment.
Jonesy bowed slightly to Phoebe as she stood. “It has been lovely to meet you, my dear. Remember what I said.”
Phoebe smiled warmly, no longer finding his presence daunting.
‘Blue Eyes’ gave a nod and waved to Phoebe. “See ya, chica,” she said, her blue eyes glowing mischievously.
Joe closed the door after the small party left the apartment. He sighed and started towards the bedroom.
“What’s going on Joe,” Phoebe asked him.
Joe didn’t stop. “I’m going to pack,” he said sourly. “I’ll be gone for about a month.”
If he loved her he’d have stopped and told her everything.
He strode through the door and slammed it shut.