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Nico grunted as the stubborn bolt refused to come off. The van was in dire need of an oil change and instead of spending the money to take it to a shop, Nero had asked if she would do it. She should have said no .
Scratch that. She should have said, Fuck you .
Was this all she was good for? Being everyone’s pet mechanic? That’s all anybody asked of her; do this, fix that, why isn’t this working?
Would it kill any of ‘em to show a little appreciation now and then?
The bolt gave way so suddenly that she dropped her wrench right on her face knocking her glasses off. She almost screamed, but just barely managed to let out a loud, closed-mouth groan instead.
Well, that hurt like a bitch.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. She inspected her glasses after picking them up, relieved they were unbroken, then set about finding the renegade bolt. She finally located it after what felt like a long-ass fifteen minutes, as it had been hidden under her toolbox where it had rolled way farther than it should have. With all the bolts holding it in place now off, she pulled the bottom panel off the van, and began the process of removing the filter and draining the old oil out when she heard the garage door open suddenly, startling her. She jerked, spilling oil on her shirt and she held her tongue from cursing, not knowing who was at the door since she couldn’t see them from her spot under the van. Nero would give her hell if she swore in front of one of the boys.
Fuck, now what?
“Hey, Nico! We gotta job! When’s the van gonna be ready?”
She gritted her teeth. Five minutes...he couldn’t have come five minutes earlier before she actually started draining the oil out? She wouldn’t have been pissed if she’d just had to slap the bottom panel back on. Well, okay maybe that was a lie. She still would have been pissed, mostly because of that stupid bolt.
It was probably a good thing he was too late, though. She didn’t want to be driving it down the road to who knows where and have it run out of oil. She was not in the mood to fix the problems that would cause.
“You’re too late! Already got the oil drainin’ so this piece of shit ain’t going anywhere for another half hour!” She couldn’t hide the irritation in her tone, but Nero seemed to be ignoring it.
“Make it twenty minutes. We got an emergency situation.” His tone was serious and demanding and that was the last straw for her. She wheeled herself out from under the van and looked up to glare at him.
“You want this done fast then come do it yourself! I’m gonna do it right, so that when we’re driving down the road, the damn engine don’t seize up, stall the van, and force us to build a fucking new one!” She was yelling now, but Nero had dealt with her so long now he wasn’t fazed much.
“Geez, who pissed in your cereal this morning?” All he got in response was more glaring. “Whatever. Just do what you can so we can get going.”
He turned to go back into the house to get ready when he barely heard her mutter something about ‘ungrateful, demanding people’ over the sound of her wheeling herself back under the van. He frowned at that. He’d known her long enough now to realize what was bothering her, but they didn’t have time. He’d have to deal with it later.
Nico felt she deserved a pat on the back, but she figured the only one who’d give her that was her own self. She’d got the oil change finished in just under twenty minutes; a record for her with this hunk of junk. It was a good thing she’d gotten it done, too. There was no way the van would have made it this far out to the middle of nowhere with what little was left in it. It was burning oil off like there was no tomorrow and she groaned at the thought of having to figure out why.
“Yet another shitty-ass problem I’m gonna get stuck fixing,” she said aloud to no one in particular. Nero was around somewhere; off dealing with whatever demons were running amok in the area they’d driven out to while she waited for him leaning against the side of the van, having a smoke.
“Would it kill someone to say please or thank you once in a while,” she said to herself angrily. She took a long drag from her cigarette, completely wrapped up in her horrible mood. So much so, that she failed to notice that her talking aloud to herself had attracted the attention of a red empusa, which was now approaching her from the side.
She’d barely had time to register that Nero was suddenly yelling something at her before she turned and saw the demon too little, too late. Time seemed to slow as she felt her adrenaline rise. It felt almost like one of those moments that people talk about where you see your life flash before your eyes, but the only thing Nico could see in that moment was her death at the hands (or was it claws?) of this demon. The empusa was bearing down on her and she was unarmed; not that there would have been much she could do even with a weapon, but still, there was definitely no way she was getting out of this alive unarmed without a miracle.
Luckily, one in the form of Nero happened to reach her in time. He jumped in between her and the demon and took the hit that was meant for her, suffering a fairly serious injury to his side. He was far from incapacitated though, and he managed to kill the empusa before it tried to run away from him after it realized a greater threat had just interrupted its attempt at killing its prey.
Nico was stunned for only a moment before her brain caught up with what happened. She registered the sight of Nero clutching his side, which was bleeding profusely and immediately sprang into action.
“Shit, Nero! If you wanna kill yourself there are better ways to go out than getting killed by an overgrown maggot!” She grabbed him by the hand on his uninjured side, still running on adrenaline, looping his arm over her own shoulders to help him into the van. Remembering there may have been other demons around, she took a cursory glance of the area finding it clear.
“Last one. Shouldn’t be any more.” Nero gritted out when he saw her scanning the area. She let out a huff of relief. Thank goodness there weren’t any more so she could focus on his injury without worry. He grunted in pain when she hefted him up to his feet and began helping him into the van.
Once inside, she got him to the couch before pulling out the first aid kit, then helped him out of his shirt so she could assess the damage. She grimaced when she saw the wound. Something like that would have surely killed her. Her momentary lapse of attention in her anger had nearly ended her life. Maybe she didn’t fight demons herself, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be on her toes when out in the field. Nero was lucky he was part demon himself, otherwise she’d have a lot more to feel guilty about than just an injury.
“You didn’t have to do that, ya know?” She told him as she wiped the wound clean and set about patching him up. It was mostly unnecessary; the wound would likely be completely gone in a few hours, but it was the thought that counts, right? Plus, it gave her something to focus on. The adrenaline from that tense life or death moment was starting to wear off and she realized she was starting to tremble.
“So…what? I was just supposed to let the thing skewer you? I can take a hit like this, you can’t.” He shrugged it off like it was no big deal, but she didn’t miss the wince he made while she wrapped his injured side.
“Still, ya didn’t have to jump in the way. If you were that close, you shoulda just killed the thing without takin’ the hit.” She finished wrapping his wound as he stood up to find his torn shirt.
“Couldn’t guarantee you wouldn’t have still been hurt, so I made the best decision given the situation.” He stated matter-of-factly.
Nico just scoffed. “I may be human, but I can recover from injuries too...just not as fast as your clumsy ass.”
“Yeah? But then you’d be out of commission for a while. Can’t let anything happen to my ‘pet mechanic’ now, can I?” He made air quotes around the nickname she’d effectively dubbed herself with. “Besides, that’s the kind of thing you do for family.”
Nico’s head shot up at that to look him in disbelief. “F-family?!” she half-squeaked, half-yelled out. She was flabbergasted at his remark. Did he just call me family?
“Yeah? You’ve hung around this long, put up with all the crazy shit that goes along with being a part of this, and you haven’t turned tail and ran. What else would you be?” He located his shirt and started putting it back on once he finished speaking.
She’d had a rough day. At least that’s what Nico told herself when her vision started getting blurry. She was just stressed and nearly dying tended to have that kind of an effect on people. She wasn’t about to cry over Nero calling her family, no of course not. It was just stress. Yeah, just stress.
Nico took her glasses off to rub at her eyes in an effort to keep the tears from falling. Unfortunately for her, Nero had finished getting his shirt back on and caught what she was doing and he was grinning when she put her glasses back on.
“It’s okay to cry, you know? It doesn’t make you a crybaby.” She cringed as soon as those words left his mouth. She knew exactly where this was going. “Does make you a little bitch though.”
She punched him in the arm, though Nero noticed that not only was she careful to avoid his injured side, she also didn’t punch as hard as he knew she could. “Shut the hell up! If anyone’s a little bitch here, it’s you.”
“Hey! Is that how you thank someone for saving your life?”
“Is that how you say thanks for me patchin’ you up?” They were just taunting each other; fighting almost like siblings, Nico noted; trying to get under each other’s skin, but not really meaning any of it. Just like a brother and sister…
“Hey, for real though, you okay?” Nero’s worried tone brought her out of her thoughts.
“Y-yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” She didn’t understand why Nero was suddenly so worried. She hadn’t been hurt because he’d protected her; jumped in front of a demon for her, in fact. Though it was unlikely since it was just an empusa, he still could have been killed. And it would have been her fault. What if it hadn’t turned out alright? What would she have done? How would she have told everyone? How would she have broken it to Kyrie ?
It wasn’t until he grabbed her hand to hold it steady that she realized she was still trembling…and Nero had noticed, of course. “I’m totally fine. It’s just the adrenaline wearin’ off. I’m fine…t-totally fine.” She couldn’t keep her voice steady as finished talking, the stress from her whole day, nearly dying, and the thoughts and worries that brought out making her voice break.
It wasn’t until Nero was pulling her into a hug that she realized she was actually crying now. When his arms closed around her back, the dam broke loose. She couldn’t stop the sob that tore through her throat and she clutched the back of his shirt as if it were a lifeline.
“Hey, relax,” he shushed her as he comforted her. “You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re both okay , got it? We’ve been through a helluva lot worse. Beside you’ve been around long enough you know me better than that. If I’m gonna die, it ain’t gonna be to some ‘overgrown maggot’ as you so eloquently put it.” Nero’s joke brought a bit of a laugh out of her and helped to calm her nerves a bit. She pulled away and stepped back, drying her eyes as best she could. He was right; they were both okay, even if one of them was slightly injured.
Nico grimaced at that. They were sure to catch a scolding from Kyrie for being careless. Nero seemed to be on the same wavelength as her and made a similar face. “Maybe she won’t notice?” He offered. Nico only gave him a deadpan stare and he shrugged in response. “She’s probably busy fixing dinner right now, so if I don’t hang around when we get back, I doubt she’ll even see it.”
“And if she catches on, I had nothin’ to do with hiding it.” Nico held her hands up as if to absolve herself of any part of the crime of concealing injuries from Nero’s girlfriend.
“Whatever you say. Guess it’s a guy’s job to look out for someone who’s like a sister to him anyway, right?” When he said that, Nico knew he was talking about more than just the scolding they’d get. After all, you don’t jump in front of a demon for just anyone.
“Hey! A girl’s gotta look out for her clumsy-ass brother too, ya know?” They were both laughing now and Nico, having realized she’d calmed down enough to drive, took her place in the driver’s seat. She started the engine, but waited for Nero to sit down before setting off back down the road.
They didn’t get far before he spoke up again. “Thanks.” She turned to look at him briefly before setting her eyes back on the road. “For the patch up, the van…and everything else you do around here.”
She could feel the emotions welling up inside her making her eyes water again and blinked back the sudden tears. It wouldn’t do to start crying while driving. “Yeah? Well you’re welcome. And...thanks for savin’ my ass back there, too.”
“Like I said, it’s what you do for family.” He said it so casually, like she should have already known this. In hindsight, maybe she should have. They’d been through a lot together already. And not just her and Nero, but everyone else, too. Incidents like what happened in Redgrave tended to make a big impact on people’s lives and their relationships with each other.
Neither spoke the rest of the way home, which left Nico to her own thoughts as she drove.
Family, huh? That doesn’t sound too bad.
It didn’t really hit home for her though, until they got back. They came in the back door, through the kitchen and dining room. Nero only stopped to give Kyrie a kiss as she finished up dinner, taking care that she didn’t see the bloody tear in his shirt. Then he went on to put his stuff away, change, and probably throw his shirt away so his girlfriend didn’t find it in the laundry.
Nico, however, stopped as she passed through the dining area and looked at the dinner table. They were six places set, not five like there used to be for just Nero, Kyrie, and the three orphan boys they looked after.
There was one more: for her. She smiled.