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Areylia winced as she pushed yet another drunk teenager into the jail cell. She has agreed to go patrolling with Tina tonight for old time sake and they happened to interrupt a group of five teenage boys drinking and getting high. A full three hours later she was just getting them in a cell and starting the paperwork.
“Alright,” She addressed the group, Tina standing just behind her. “Who wants to be the first to call their parents?”
No one volunteered as she suspected. She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. Areylia glanced at Tina, who gave her a gesture that seemed to say “you’re the detective, you decide.”
“You,” Areylia pointed at one of the boys. “What’s your full name?”
“John Smith.”
“Real one,” She corrected, raising a brow, already knowing his first name was Ethan as that’s what the others had called him before she locked them up. She was not in the mood to play games at the moment even as often as she made light of things. They needed to understand how serious this was, and just how much trouble they were in right now.
“Ethan Doyle.”
Areylia wrote that down, and got the rest of the boys’ names. Then she looked back at Ethan. “Ethan, which one of your parents is less likely to freak out upon discovering your behavior tonight?”
“Probably my mother,” he answered, slightly confused. Areylia glanced back at the list of names she had written down. She drew a dash next to Ethan’s name and wrote father next to it before posing the same question to each boy. Then she handed the list to Tina. “Find and contact these parents. Have them all come down to the station, and I’ll answer all of their questions at once.”
While Tina gathered up the parents, Areylia started typing up a report. Of course teenages would choose the moment the town got busy to start upping their shenanigans. Naturally, teenagers did stupid things no matter what, but it was still annoying she had to waste her time dealing with them. As she listed the charges she already braced herself for the complaints she was going to get, knowing how serious they were. Normal drinking and drugs would have been bad, but they would have survived no worse for the wear. Instead she had to add resisting arrest which would have already been considerably worse, not to mention the fact that one of the boys had pulled a knife. Too bad she couldn’t charge them with terrible pick-up lines. That had been the hardest part for her to suffer through.
She pressed one of her hands to her side at the memory, quickly wiping off the blood on the spare shirt she kept in her desk so Tina wouldn’t see. She’d told Tina the kid with the knife had missed. In truth, Areylia’s combat skills were sorely lacking, and the blade had sliced into her side. No matter, there would be time to worry about her injuries later, but the paperwork was a nightmare.
The next few hours consisted of being interrogated by angry, confused, and scared parents, explaining the charges to Mayor Friedman and Captain Sung, and filling out far more paperwork than anyone should ever have to suffer. As the time passed, Areylia felt each of her injuries more acutely.
She finally made it home, closing in on 3AM. As she pulled her tired body up the stairs she felt each one of her newly acquired bruises throbbing with pain. She bit her lip to keep herself from making any noise, at least until she was safely inside her apartment.
Areylia closed the door to her apartment, kicking off her shoes and hanging her jacket on instinct. Somehow she managed to drag herself into the bathroom, pulling out all of her first aid essentials. Standing in front of the mirror, she grimaced, working up the nerve to start cleaning herself up.
Catching a glimpse of her reflection, she realized just how bad she looked. Her grey eyes had bags under them, and her eyelids drooped. One of them was already turning a deep, angry purple and yellow. Her hair was falling out of its braid, and sticking to her face in sweat. Areylia took a deep breath and pulled her shirt off, letting out a hiss of pain.
A purring sound interrupted her inspection followed by a gentle softness brushing past her legs. Areylia bent down to pick up her kitty and pressed him to her now shirtless torso, drawing comfort from him. After another several moments, she forced herself to lower Socrates to the bathroom counter, so she could inspect and clean her wounds.
Areylia groaned when she realized the knife wound was much deeper than she had originally thought. Not deep enough to need stitches, thankfully. That would have been a pain to explain to the hospital unless she went directly to Elidor. He might help her out, though it would probably get back to her mother, and Areylia didn’t want her to worry or to waste a favor on something as trivial as drunk kids picking a fight.
Meanwhile
Adam followed the path of his patrol route, forcing himself to focus on his mission and not on a certain dark haired detective. It always got harder the closer he got to her apartment. He instinctively glanced at her window as he passed by as always, and was surprised to see the light on. She was typically an early riser and as such went to bed earlier. She only stayed up this late when she was working on a particularly disturbing case.
It took far more effort than it should have for Adam to force himself to step away from the apartment. He had a patrol to finish, he tried to tell himself as every inch of him longed to go to her, and fought to walk in the direction of her door. This was the same battle he found himself in every time he drew near her apartment.
He managed to make it exactly eight steps before turning around. Glancing back at the window to her apartment, he realized it was open, and Socrates was sitting on the exposed sill. The cat sat there for a moment before jumping onto the edge of the window that was hanging out, balancing on the thin edge. Adam frowned at the animal’s precarious position. The detective would be devastated if anything happened to her cat. Perhaps he should warn her before the animal hurt himself. For that reason and absolutely no ulterior motive, Adam found himself walking in the direction of her door.
As he drew closer to her door, Adam heard a sound that made his whole body stiffen. He waited a moment, and sure enough another small cry of pain came from the direction of the detective’s apartment. He felt his own heart rate increase as he searched for any other signs of duress. Her heart rate seemed steady enough, and there was no screaming, only small hisses of pain. In fact the only other thing out of the ordinary was the way the door was not quite closed all the way.
Against his better judgment, Adam pushed the door open. “Detective.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” An annoyed huff answered from the direction of the bathroom.
“You left the door open,” Adam protested before heading in her direction. “You sound as if you are in pain detective. I merely wished to ensure you are safe.”
“You could hear that from outside?” She asked, shock filling her voice. “Vampire sense must be even better than I thought. I’m fine though.”
As she finished speaking, Adam rounded the corner, eyes widening at what he saw. Her usually immaculate hair was falling out of place. Her left eye was almost swollen shut, and there was a small split in her bottom lip. Adam swallowed when his gaze moved past her face and he noticed the other clothing on her upper body was a sports bra. Her torso was covered with bruises, and she pressed her hand to her side, where an open wound was spilling blood.
Under the cuts and bruises were several linear scars littered across her waist, each at a slightly different angle, making Adam wonder what had caused such injuries. The lines were too scattered to be something medical, and they were different thicknesses as well, which was unusual for any commonly used weapon.
The scars were old as well. Old enough that it was pointless for him to linger on it, especially since their age proved she’d received them before they had met, but he couldn’t stop himself. The idea of anyone harming her made him sick. Whatever had happened to give her such scars would not happen again. He would make sure of it.
Adam frowned as he finished his examination. “You are not fine.”
“I am, I just need this bandage to cooperate with me,” she insisted, and Adam glanced at the hand on her side, noticing that she had managed to catch half the bandage on her hand instead of her side. He moved past her into the bathroom to get a better angle on her injury.
“You will not be able to accomplish your task in this manner. It would be more efficient if you allow me to assist you.”
Adam tried to ignore the way her pulse spiked at his suggestion. Pretended he didn’t feel the heat radiating off of her. Insisted he wasn’t feelin the same sensations. She wasn't going to say anything. He knew her well enough by now to know that she would also pretend there was nothing to notice. As long as she ignored it, he could force himself to ignore it as well.
She sighed and dropped her arm, handing him the box of bandages. “I suppose it would be easier since you’re not going to let me do it myself anyway.”
“Did you at least clear it out first?” At her sheepish smile, Adam grimaced. She quickly opened a cabinet and grabbed some hydrogen peroxide, and antibiotics. He took them from her grasp and started applying them to the injury. “How did this happen?”
She snorted. “Well you see, since I am such a good friend, I decided to go out with Tina because she was bored, and we stumbled across an old map, and we felt that it was our duty as police officers to investigate, but when we got there, we found a secret cavern of treasure guarded by samurai who were a bit perturbed by our interruption, and it escalated into a fight. It's all good though Tina is brilliant with a katana.”
“Why must you make light of everything?” He snapped, pulling his hand off her. The joking glint in her eyes fizzled out as she met his stern glare. Could she not see how serious this was? How many times had she been in dangerous situations and made sarcastic quips as if it would lessen the danger. Why could she not understand how important her own safety was? It was not something to make a punch line of a bad joke.
“Why not? Clearly, I'm just fine. I wouldn’t be able to joke about it if I wasn’t.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that your life is more valuable than your attempted wit?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that this is how I cope?” There was no joking in her expression now, it was all seriousness. “Just think about everything that has happened to me in the past several months, and add on to that all the crap I had to deal with before you showed up on my doorstep, supernatural world in tow.”
Adam involuntarily dropped his gaze to the scars covering her waist. The crap she had to deal with before meeting the unit on proud display, almost taunting him in a way. Her scars boasted of the pain she had survived. He wondered if it was insulting to her to have everyone treat her like she was fragile, which she physically was, when she had proof of her strength written all over her body.
“Are you just about done?” She snapped when he didn’t respond.
He had already finished cleaning it out. All he had left was the actual bandaging part. Bandaging the wound was a simple task for one who didn’t have to contort himself to reach it, and Adam finished his task relatively quickly, focusing solely on her wound.
Right as he was finishing, her phone buzzed. She reached forward to pick it up, but ended up dropping it on the floor instead. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose with the hand on the opposite side of her body than the wound, muting “Skiddley Whiffers.”
Adam turned his head, so she couldn’t see his involuntary grin as she bent down to retrieve her phone. While he still had no idea what the phrase meant, he had heard her mutter it several times. At first he assumed it was another language as she always used it in situations where one of the others would swear, but after talking with Nat it was decided that it wasn’t a curse word in another language. Felix mentioned something about it being a reference to a cartoon.
After spending more time with her, Adam had realized the detective never cursed. He’d heard Mason ask her once and she had simply replied that curse was behavior unbecoming a lady. When Mason told her she wasn’t exactly a lady, she had simply swatted him on the arm with her classic sarcastic smirk.
Sometimes Adam wondered if she really was a product of this century. He had lived a long time, and many things the detective did were old fashioned and reminded him of past eras. But there were also ways in which she was so decidedly modern. She was simply a walking contradiction.
She didn’t swear because it was uncouth, but her dark sarcastic wit dripped off in tongue without regard for the circumstances surrounding the joke. She kept her hair long, and never wore it down in public, yet still did things such as adding glitter to it or using temporary dye on a regular basis. She filled her room with antique, hand-carved furniture, but also had a flatscreen and some kind of gaming console.
She was always dressed conservatively, covering as much of her body as she could stand in the heat. Even the sports bra she currently had on was fairly conservative, covering most of her upper torso. A fact that Adam was grateful for as it was already hard to focus with the little bit of skin she was currently showing. He wasn’t sure he could handle her showing anymore. In spite of that, she appeared to have her entire upper back covered in a tattoo. From the bare portions of her back Adam saw pieces of it that appeared to make up the wingspan of a some kind of bird with its tail on her spine.
Adam watched Areylia’s reflection in the mirror as she set her phone down. As he had been dressing her wound, he was constantly glancing up at the mirror, and never once saw her look at her own reflection. Even now she was moving her gaze everywhere except the mirror.
In this behavior lie perhaps her biggest contradiction. Anyone who had ever met Areylia would say that woman thought very highly of herself. At first it may be mistaken for mere confidence, but spend enough time in her company and it would become obvious that she was more than confident, it was arrogance. She always considered herself to be the smartest person in the room, and valued herself more than most of the people around her, yet she was always willing to sacrifice herself if she thought it would be for the greater good. For all of her arrogance, she literally could not look herself in the mirror, and Adam wanted to know why.
Areylia swayed slightly, and in an instant, Adam was fully behind her, placing his other hand on her other hip. It wasn’t until he moved that he realized his one hand had never left her waist. She raised one of her hands to place on top of his. This was another area she always contradicted herself. She made no secret of the fact that she didn’t care to be touched. He had seen her pull away from people many times in their short acquaintance from her colleagues, from the team, even on occasion her siblings and mother, but she had never withdrawn from his touch. There wasn’t much to judge as he tried as much as possible not to touch her, but there had been times when the temptation had been too much even for him. Everytime he lost the mental battle not to touch her, he’d expected her to pull away, but she never had. Just as now, she had simply accepted, adding a small gesture of her own.
“How did you get hurt?” He asked again both wanting to know and looking for an excuse to continue holding her.
“I’m a police detective. How do you think I got hurt?” She snorted, but continued before he could say anything. “I was patrolling with Tina, and let's just say that five on two are not my favorite odds, especially when said five are both drunk and taking steroids.”
“You should really invest in more combat training.”
“You keep saying that, and I keep surviving without it. Look I get you’re just trying to help, but I am never going to be good at fighting. I’ll stick to using my head. When you’re smarter than everyone else, you should probably use it.”
“I do not deny your intelligence, Detective. I merely wish to suggest that you improve in an area you are clearly lacking.”
“Even those of us as close to perfection as I have our faults, and I must admit that I will never be able to fight like Lukas.” She turned around to face him, and Adam released her hips to give her freedom of movement. He had to flex his fingers to distract himself from the urge to hold her again.
“You do not need to know enough fighting techniques to compete like your brother, merely enough to keep yourself safe.”
“Why do I need to fight to keep myself safe? My mind seems to have an adequate job so far. Besides, that’s what I have you for.” She reached out to pat his biceps, causing him to stiffen.
“I shall do everything in my power to keep you safe, Detective,” he promised, completely serious. Areylia caught his gaze, and Adam sucked in a breath. Even bruised, her eyes were the most beautiful he had ever seen, but gazing into them, he could see her exhaustion. He forced himself to step away from her. “You should get some sleep, Detective. Staying up too late is not healthy. I would recommend taking at least the morning off tomorrow to make up for your lack of sleep.”
“Hmm. I’ll take you up on the first piece of advice, but unfortunately since this was an extra shift, I do have to work tomorrow.”
Adam didn’t hide his frown. “That is unwise. You need to rest to remain in top condition.”
“I get it,” She laughed, patting his arm again. Why did she always do that? She never did that with anyone else? “I’m going to bed.”
“Take care of yourself, Detective,” Adam insisted, stepping out, and leaving her to sleep.