Moonlight Nocturne

She smiles shakily back, lip quivering as she lets the stake go and takes the shirt. "... I'm okay."

"Do you know what it is? Is it going to come back? It didn't turn into ashes but... but..." Swallowing hard. "I know real monsters aren't like on TV. I know."

And now she's starting to cry; quiet, hiccuping sobs, as she sits down hard. "Is he really dead?"

 

Nick gently pats her shoulder. "...no. There's a lot of weird, dangerous stuff in the world. I'm not sure what it is."

He sits down on the ground across from her. "...and... I think so. It seems pretty dead to me."

 

She's still crying, trying to get enough control over herself to speak. "T-then... Then..."

Scrubbing at her hands, sniffling. She would wipe her nose, but her sleeves are speckled with blood. Everything is.

"... I guess we should go before someone catches us. ... Do you know somewhere to clean up?"

If she tries to go home like this, she'll get blood everywhere. There's no way she can hide that, not with Mom sleeping in the next room.

She'll try a shaky smile again, trying to steel herself. "I'm Elena. I'm looking for my brother."

 

"...yeah. I... think it should be okay to leave it here. I'll text my brother in law and see if he can pull some strings or something." He pulls out his phone, pauses, then sidles over so Elena can see him typing an address and a short message.

Hey Gabriel. Uh. Bit of a problem. I went out and ended up hunting. There's a body, but there's a girl who needs a hand. Could you or Nattie swing by and figure out what to do with the... I think it's a vampire? Maybe. It has big nasty teeth and it smells bad.

He hits send, then looks at her. "So. Uh. I'll understand if you don't want to trust anyone right now, but I live about twenty minutes from here. Ten if you're okay with piggyback riding over the rooftops."

 

She smiles shyly at the consideration, watching curiously. He's treating her... maybe not like an adult, but like someone who can make decisions, who deserves to know what's going on. That endears him to her immediately.

To be honest, he reminds her a little of her brother and his friends. He looks about the same age. But where Peter was brittle and scared and tried to keep her away from any secrets... Nick believes she can handle it.

So maybe he really will help. He's not ... creepy, the way the monster was.

She hesitates at his offer, then put away her knife, wincing at the not-blood that she can't get off yet. "... Piggyback riding is okay. You saved me. You didn't have to."

... to be honest, it sounds like fun. But she's sure not going to admit that. Especially when she feels so brittle and shaky, like she could cry again at any minute.

 

He holds out his hand, touching her hand before she can fold the knife. "Hey, let me try to wipe that off. Don't want it rusting, right? ...or you can wipe it on my jeans yourself, I guess."

 

She startles at the touch, before offering it uncertainly. It feels naked to be without it, but she hasn't been able to get it clean. "... thanks."

She's ... decided to trust Nick. Mostly.

 

He offers a quick smile, then carefully tries to use the hem of his jeans to wipe the blood off. It takes a minute, but it comes clean, and he carefully offers it to her, hilt facing her.

 

She blinks at that, frowning, until she grasps the logic in a flash and smiles brightly. She likes that he's not brandishing a knife in her direction. That he thinks she'd mind, and feel threatened by it.

"... I guess we should go now. Before someone comes."

 

He grins hugely back.

"As long as you're ready." He shifts position, balancing on his heels and staying crouched. "Climb up and I'll take us up the wall. Just hold on really tight, okay? We're going to be moving quick and high up. It can be pretty scary if you're not used to it, but if you get on a high building it can be pretty, too."

 

"I'm not scared of heights," she says, but without the irritation she would usually put into that statement. She climbs up onto him with some semblance of grace, clinging on tight. "... It sounds awesome. Will you teach me, later?"

Sure, she'd climbed around her own roof, and she'd climbed into all kinds of places at school and around town, while sneaking around. But that was never more than a floor or two off the ground. It was useful, but it wasn't really exciting, after the first few times she'd sneaked out her window. She'd never gone running across the roofs; she'd thought people only did that in Peter's comics.

 

"...heck yeah. I've been doing this since I was fourteen. Gotta be careful at first, though..." He climbs the wall carefully, choosing caution over trying to run up it with Elena on his back. "I managed to break my arm the first time I missed a jump."

He reaches the edge of the rooftop, pulling them up, then laughs. "...alright, hold on."

He rolls his shoulders, makes sure he has his balance, compensating for Elena's weight, and then he's off, running full tilt.

Ten seconds pass, and they're weightless, thirty feet above an alleyway, come down hard on the next rooftop and continue to move forwards - Nick knows these rooftops well.

 

She grins with excitement, laughing wildly as she hangs on tight. This is awesome. Awesome like she thought things would be, when she started sneaking out and following her brother around. When she thought he was having fun without her, not fighting monsters and running scared.

 

They slip from the rooftops after a good ten minutes, spend a few jogging down into a nice neighborhood. Nick slows as they reach a large house, with a strange, spiraled metal 'tree' with climbing vines wrapped around it in the front yard. "Here we are!" He turns his head, smiling, as he digs in his pockets and pulls out his keys. "I live with my big sister and her husband, have since I was sixteen. It's pretty cool."

 

"Are your parents--" Elena clamps her lips shut, belatedly. You don't ask about other people's parents. It's rude. Especially because she's really tired of telling everyone she meets that her dad is dead, even though she doesn't really remember him.

The sculpture is interesting. Maybe his sister is an artist. Or maybe it's some kind of anti-monster talisman. This neighborhood is a lot nicer than her own working-class area, but Elena doesn't trust nice, tidy things. They don't seem quite real, the way that knives and monsters and shadows do.

"... Do they kill monsters too? Or do they just get rid of the dead ones?"

Maybe his parents were killed by monsters. Or maybe they disappeared. Now she really feels guilty about asking.

 

He "Uh. I was in Foster Care since I was small," he shrugs. "Dad was kind of a roamer - Nattie's his first kid, and he tries to stay around and say hi to all of us, but... it's kind of complicated? My mom put me up for adoption, and it was actually just by luck I found Nattie." He beams, then winks and sticks out his tongue as he pushes the door open. "Technically she's my adopted mom, but... it's weird to call her that."

The interior is tastefully decorated, all hardwood, with clean wooden walls and a small table in an alcove and a coat rack next to it... and a little shoe rack next to the door stuffed to the brim with tasteful shoes. "She's actually the one who took me hunting the first time. She and Gabe met that way, and started dating, and... well. They're married. Haha."

He toes off his shoes, then taps her toes. "It okay if I pull these off? Gabe doesn't like it when I trail messes over the floor. Something about expensive carpet-"

There's a click of nails across the hardwood, and a large, canid head pokes around the corner. Nick hesitates, then sighs. "Miri? Hey, what are you doing up? Go sleep. Shoo." The large, wolfish dog yawns wide and pads into the entryway with a distinct air of 'I don't have to listen to you', and approaches to sniff at his jeans, giving a dismayed little 'whuff' at the smell and pinning its' ears back. "Come on, Miri, be good. Go to bed."

 

"... Sorry." It seems like the right thing to say. Probably. He doesn't seem that bothered by talking about his family, but... it's rude.

She nods, lifting a foot obediently. They're just gym shoes; the only other shoes that fit are her dress shoes, and those are not practical for a night out sneaking. And now she's going to have to wear stinking, grimy shoes to school tomorrow. She makes a dismayed face at them, sighing miserably. How's she going to hide this from Mom?

The dog startles her, and she dodges backward into the door, grabbing for her knife. It's big, and close, and she's not used to dogs. One bit her when she was little, and she's always been scared of them. Even if she weren't already on edge, after the vampire monster thing.

She presses backward into the door, brandishing her knife. "... she's... yours?"

It probably was a good thing that Nick didn't hug her when she cried. She's very attached to that knife.

 

"Don't worry about it," he laughs, dropping her shoes next to his own. "Want to throw your shoes in the wash, too?"

The dog cocks her head, whuffing quietly, like it's laughing, and Nick throws it a dirty look. "Miri, be nice."He crouches down, holding his arms out. "C'mere girl."

The wolf-dog grumbles, then pads forwards, bumping her head against his chest and accepting an affectionate hug and ruffle of fur, along with some rough tousling of her ears. "It's okay, Elena, she's friendly. She just doesn't like to be good and go to bedwhen she's supposed to, huh?" He kisses the top of her head, and the wolf makes a plaintive little grumble, which just makes him laugh. "You can pet her, it's okay, I promise."

 

She nods, smiling tentatively. "... Thanks. Mom would be... pretty mad."

Elena shakes her head sharply, lowering the knife. Her hand is shaking. "... it's okay. It's. It's okay."

Her fur looks really soft and nice, but... she's a big dog, and that still makes Elena nervous.

"... she'll get all gross if I pet her. My hands still have blood on them."

That's totally the reason. Totally not just an excuse. But she'll put the knife away, watching the dog nervously. "Are you sure she's friendly?"

 

"
No worries," he grins. "Nattie made me start doing my own laundry the first time I came home with grass stains all over, so I've learned some tricks on how to get bad stains out...."

He ruffles Miri's fur again, standing up with one last ruffle of her ears. "Yeah, she's a bit grouchy sometimes, but she's a big softy. Isn't that right, girl?"

Miri looks up at him for a moment, then whuffs, tosses her head, and sinks to the floor, lying down flat and looking at Elena before giving a single slow wag of her tail and moving one paw forwards. "Okay. If you want to pet her after you're cleaned up, that's okay, too. She won't bite."

Nick runs his hands through his hair. "Uuuhm. Most of the clothes we've got are going to be a bit big on you, but I think I can get you a belt to hold them up?"

He pads down the hall Miri came through, rummaging through a closet that looks like it's stuffed with cheap spare clothes, emerging with a pair of skinny jeans and a t-shirt that look like they were made for a fifteen year old boy. "We were planning to donate some of these to goodwill, but some of our siblings have been popping up, so..." He grabs a braided belt, squinting at it, then adds some thick wool socks. "Okay, so... Bathroom's this way."

He waits for her in the hall, smiling. "I'll put these on the counter, and you can shove everything else outside whenever, or leave it in the hamper? There's a lock on the door, and the key's on the inside - really cool old house - and you can use whatever you want to clean up. I'm... probably gonna go make a snack while you get cleaned up? Leftovers and hot cocoa are kind of the best thing after a bad night. Is that okay?"