abalone, agate, moss agate
abalone: what kind of situations compromise my muse emotionally
any situation that threatens the safety of his daughter, his sister or his ex-wife, in that order. he doesn’t have a lot of trauma to rock him, but any present threat to those compromises him and he loses himself, a bit.
also, he hates bullies. they drive him nuts and he will threaten them. it doesn’t matter that he’s a grown ass man. he will show a 17 year old punk his gun if it stops them from picking on a kid. he wouldn’t shoot, but he wouldn’t be above kicking their shit if they provoke him.
agate: how my muse calms down
there are two ways nick calms down, and it really depends on why he needs to be calmed.
if he’s emotionally compromised — after a particularly disturbing mission, par example, he’ll pick isla up, regardless of where she is ( unless it’s like, the middle of the night or something ), and go take her out for ice cream and watch a mindless kid’s movie with her, because he just needs to know something’s real and that isla’s safe.
if he’s pumped with adrenaline but alright mentally — he’ll have one too many drinks and go to the range and shoot until it closes and his shoulders ache from recoil. his aim goes downhill after a while and a few more drinks, but it’s a release that he needs.
moss agate: if my muse has a high or low opinion of themself
both? on an intellectual level, he knows he’s pretty ace. he has a fantastic job he loves, that happens to be really fucking impressive, and he’s smart, going to a world-renowned university for a very difficult program, graduating with honours, speaking a high number of languages with fluency. his house cost a million pounds, he has his daughter, who happens to be an actual angel, a lovely and smart little girl. he knows he’s impressive.
that doesn’t stop him from feeling like shit, though. childhood bullying sticks with you, and it hasn’t left nick, leaving him feeling insecure about things as little as the slight accent that remains from his childhood, and until his last year of university he’d still email his professors and confess that english wasn’t his first language so his proficiency may be limited ( it really wasn’t ). even after two years, he beats himself up over astrid leaving him and his inability to find anyone else, and has a lot of anxiety over whether he’ll mess up raising isla, whether or not he’ll screw up.