Through the fire, p.17
Through the Fire, page 17
"Yeah, I always knew it. Geek in the streets, freak in the sheets. You've got that vibe, Ni—"
Color rose in Nick's face and Chris had about enough time to say, "Nick, we just fix—" before his baby brother raised a hand and blew out the goddamn window.
"Niiick!" Chris's yowl almost drowned out the shattering of glass. Freezing wind burst into the trailer, and Nick, far too late, thought about what he was doing.
It had been easy. So easy. Natural, comfortable, hardly even anger-driven. On one hand, he needed to be able to control the power without getting highly emotional. On the other, he needed to think about what he was doing, too. Either way, he just stood there with the biting wind whipping hair into his face and watching Dayton, whose own hair was suddenly wild and unkempt.
He had to hand it to her, though. She said, "Oh. That kind of freak," like he hadn't really done anything unusual at all. "Now fix it, it's fucking freezing in here already."
Embarrassment rushed Nick, heating his face again. "I don't know how."
"You just exploded the window for dramatic effect and you don't know how to unexplode it? Man, next time, like, I don't know, break an egg, not your house. Is that what happened to everything else in here?" Dayton stomped around the dividing wall to the living room, disappeared for a minute, and came back wearing one of Chris's hooded sweatshirts over her winter coat. It came to her thighs and dangled past her fingertips, making her look like a kid.
Chris made a not-great attempt to choke back a laugh. "You're adorkable, Day."
"Oh, fuck you. Where's everybody else? Will you please fix that window!"
"Don't look at me," Chris said to Nick. "That one's on you. Go get some plywood and I'll catch her up while you fix it. We'll be in the bedroom where it might be almost warm."
"Oh yay," Dayton muttered. "Just what I've always wanted, huddling in a bedroom with the Cassidy brothers." She turned on her heel and stomped back through the house, with Chris in her wake, claiming there were people who would pay good money for the opportunity she was dissing.
"It'd go faster if you'd stay and help hold the plywood!" Nick bellowed after them, and despite being unable to see them anymore, had the clear impression that Dayton flipped him off.
Ten minutes into trying to keep the goddamn board from slipping down the wall, he yelled, "Stay!" at it, and a thrum of grendel power lashed out to pin the wood in place. Nick's heart stuttered in his chest and the piece slipped again, but the second time he tried, with less anger and more intensity, it held. A stupid grin crawled over his face and he pointed a fingertip at a nail. "Bang!"
It shot through the wood. All the way through the wood, and out the other side. Nick grimaced and tried again, with less enthusiasm. The new nail tapped into place with a couple of finely honed strikes of power. He breathed a sound, almost a laugh, and tried again before trying to pick up several nails at once with the grendel power.
It almost worked, the nails falling like rain when his concentration wavered. He held his breath, trying again, and got several up and nailed in place that time. Half aloud, like Chris would hear him, he said, "I think maybe I can control it," before putting in the last few nails the more conventional way. He pushed the toolbox under the window instead of putting it away, and headed deeper into the house, calling, "Hey, Chris, I think you're right, maybe I can learn to control it without getting pissed off!"
Chris, through his bedroom door, said, "Yeah, I know you can, man."
Nick went in, closing the door behind him and snickering at Dayton, who had pulled Chris's sweatshirt over her knees and turned herself into a little ball of warmth in the middle of the bed. "Did you get cuter while I was gone, Day?"
Dayton curled her lip. "I was always this cute. You're just an idiot. I was just telling Chris you shoulda told Stephanie in the first place."
"About what, being a grendel? It only happened a couple days ago." Nick stopped in the process of sitting on the bed, backing off with his arms folded across his chest.
"No, you idiot. About what you and Chris were really out there hunting all those years."
"No." Nick shook his head, backing off another step. "The whole idea was it was supposed to be normal with her, without any of that crap following me around."
"And how'd that work out for you?" Dayton gave him a hard stare from inside the puckered circle of the sweatshirt's hood. She looked like a cartoon character, or maybe a Pokemon: all face and scowling eyes in an otherwise amorphous dark mass.
Nick's defensiveness fizzled out under the cute factor, and he had to search to find it again, finally muttering, "Not great."
"So you should've told her. If you want a long-term relationship, that's not the kind of secret you should keep, Nick."
"Yeah, and when was the last time you had a long-term relationship, to know so much about it?"
Dayton released her legs from the sweatshirt and pulled the hood back to glare at him, her hair turning to blonde static wisps all around her head. "Whaddaya mean, I thought I was in a long-term relationship with you two jackasses."
Chris snorted. "Not sure found-family-siblings counts, Day."
"Found family," she echoed. "You been reading fic again, Chris?"
"What are you talking about, found family, we all just basically grew up together, we're just family," Nick said, bewildered.
"First, I'm not your family, you Cassidys are definitely a league of your own, and second…" Dayton turned her gaze toward Chris, brushing her wild hairs down with her palms. "Why doesn't he know the found family trope?"
"Because he only reads books, not stuff with Ao3 tags."
"What," Nick said to the ceiling, "is Ao3, or do I even want to know? Never mind." He finally did sit down on the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. "Maybe you're right, I should have told Steph in the first place. It's too late now."
"So what're you gonna do now?"
"I donno." He lifted his head enough to glance at Chris, who shrugged.
"I donno either. Saboac's dead. Maybe that's the end of it. Maybe you do get to go h—back to Cali."
"Chris." Nick heard the weariness in his own voice. "If Saboac wanted me, or us, for a reason, I can't go back until we figure out what it is. You know that."
"Maybe your dad just pissed off the wrong people or something," Dayton said. "Sins of the father and all that crap."
"Who do you piss off enough that they call a desanctified angel down on your ass?" Chris demanded. "Like, that's not normal-level trolling. I didn't even know it was possible."
"Yeah, okay." Dayton tucked her legs back under the sweatshirt, which was never going to regain its shape at this point. "I dunno either. You said at the funeral that the pyre was a family tradition. That's not normal either, so maybe there's something in your whole family that makes you desanctified-angel-worthy. Doesn't your grandma still live in Nebraska or something?"
"Montana, yeah."
"Come on." Nick shook his head. "You're the one who said Grandma's normal."
"She is!" Chris's shoulders fell. "Unless Dayton's right and there's some kind of family bullshit tied into all of this."
"Why would it have to be her side of the family? It could be Dad's."
"Yeah, well, Dad was the only one left on his side of the family so I guess it better be Mom's side because we don't have anybody else to ask. And it was Grandma's husband that got the funeral pyre, not Dad's parents."
"Oh." That hit Nick like a swift punch to the diaphragm, popping the word out of him. "Shit. Yeah. I guess so. I don't know, so, what, should we call her?"
"This seems like a face to face conversation."
"The Dodge is wrecked, Chris."
A line of tension thinned his brother's mouth. "We can take my van."
"The shagmobile?" Dayton's soprano shot above Nick's tenor, but their voices both broke on the second word. "Oh my God," Dayton went on. "I'm totally coming with you. I've always wanted to see the inside of that thing."
"You really don't," Nick promised. "That thing is a rolling crime scene."
"There's not room for three anyway," Chris muttered.
"Oh, but I bet you've fit three." Dayton's voice dropped suggestively below her normal register and she waggled her eyebrows. Nick snickered, she grinned, he grinned bigger, and a couple seconds later they were both giggling like tweens while Chris's expression grew increasingly grim. Nick laughed harder and Dayton leaned over to punch his shoulder, then turned her face against it and giggled until she shook the whole bed.
"Okay, fuck you both." Chris got off the bed with a chorus of Nick's ewwww and Dayton's sing-songy "I've never been able to make that work in my head without it getting incesty," following him.
Nick pushed her over sideways as Chris stomped out. "Ugh, that suggests you've even thought about it."
"Oh yeah." Dayton pulled her hood up again, still cackling. "Hours of my life, Nick. Days. Whole weeks, even."
"So gross."
"Uh huh. Yeah. Super gross. Like dudes and their twins fantasies."
"I don't have twins fantasies!"
Dayton eyed him from inside her hood. "What about the Thompson twins in seventh grade?"
Nick felt heat crawl up his collar. "Okay, but I was like twelve and they were really cute and I was stupid!"
"Uh huh." Dayton leaned over, knocking her shoulder against his before her voice softened. "You doing okay, Nicky? Both of you, you doing okay with your dad and everything?"
Pain twisted Nick's chest hard enough to take his breath away and he had to stare at the wall a minute before he trusted himself to speak. "No. No, but I guess we're managing, because we have to."
"Yeah." Dayton sighed. "Yeah, that's the really shitty thing about death. The whole world should stop and wait for you a while and it doesn't. You guys…" She shrugged like she didn't know what to say. "You want me to hang around for a while or anything?"
Nick snaked his arm around her shoulders, and she squirmed to hug him hard, like she thought it might give him an excuse to hold on hard, too. She wasn't even wrong, and Nick guessed it took a while before he was able to mumble, "I don't think so, but thanks," in a too-rough voice. "I think we're probably gonna head out in Chris's nasty-ass van pretty early. Grandma lives way up north."
"Okay." Dayton wriggled away, tugged Chris's sweatshirt off, pulled the coat she'd never taken off back down around her hips, and leaned over to kiss Nick on the cheek. "Text or call or something if you need anything, okay? Even if it's just to scream about your dumb brother."
"I will. Thanks, Day." Nick walked her back into the living room, where she said exactly the same thing to Chris. Nick, laughing, said, "Hey!" and Dayton smiled unrepentantly on her way out the door.
"She knows about all this and still likes you," Chris said in her wake. "Maybe you oughta date her instead."
"What're you talking about? She's had a crush on you her whole life. You date her."
"Dude, what are you talking about, she's had a crush on y—" Chris broke off, obviously hearing himself repeat exactly what Nick had said. Then his face curled in a dismay that Nick felt his own expression reflecting, and they both looked after Dayton. "Oh. Oh shit. Did we, uh, did we miss that?"
Just as aware he was echoing Chris, and equally unable to stop himself, Nick said, "Oh, shit," in agreement. "Shit. Dude. I thought she liked you."
"I know she liked you!"
"Shit! Did you ever like her? Poor Dayton. Shit!"
"I dunno! She was like my little sister! Who was into my little brother! Shit!" Chris pointed at him. "We can never speak of this to anyone."
"Yeah, no, they'll all think we're idiots."
"They already do!"
"Apparently they're right!" Nick spread his hands like he'd settled the point.
Chris made a motion suggesting he couldn't argue, then, with a shrug, said, "Nothing we can do about it now. Go get some sleep. We gotta leave pretty early if we want to get up to Maddock tomorrow."
Nick made a face. "There's really not another working car? We have to take the slutmobile?"
"Give it a goddamn rest, Nicky."
"Jeez. Okay. Fine. See you in the morning, I guess." Nick stomped down the hall, hesitated between the bedrooms, and in a fit of pique took Chris's, leaving his brother to deal with being the first one to sleep in their dad's old bed.
CHAPTER 13
"C'mon, Nicky." Chris's voice came out of the dark not nearly long enough later. So, though, did the smell of bacon, and Nick rolled out of bed toward the promise of food before his brain could register a meaningful protest. "You got time to shower, if you're quick," Chris called, so Nick stumbled directly into the bathroom and was more or less awake, whether he liked it or not, when he sat down for breakfast several minutes later.
There was a lot of bacon. Enough that he could eat as much as he wanted without feeling guilty, which didn't usually happen except in a cafeteria, and not always then. A tall stack of buttered toast and mostly-full carton of orange juice sat beside the plate of bacon. Chris said, "Might as well drink it, it'll go off if we're gone more than a couple days anyway. Two eggs or three?"
Nick gratefully poured half the carton into a large glass as he wrapped a piece of toast around some bacon and folded the whole thing into his mouth. "Freeh peefh."
"'k." A minute later Chris slid three over-easy fried eggs onto Nick's plate and went back to cook himself a couple.
Nick dipped another piece of toast into a yolk, then paused, staring at his plate. "I thought you said eggs over-easy were gross."
"Shut up and eat." Chris came back to the table with fewer eggs, longer cooked, and sat down to eat like he was facing a firing squad at sunrise. "Got your stuff together?"
"All I even brought with me was a backpack, so yeah, I guess so. And it'll fit under the front seat so I don't have to crawl around in your shag carpeting. The bacon's really good."
Chris's eyebrows twitched downward and he glanced at the rapidly-diminishing pile of bacon. "Thanks. I couldn't remember how crunchy you liked it. Dad was 'cook it till it shatters.'"
"No, this is good. Hurts my teeth when it's shattery."
"Yeah, me too." A few minutes of concentrated silence later, Chris pushed his plate away and stood. "I'm gonna grab a shower so we can be on the road by six."
"Can I finish the bacon?"
To his surprise, Chris chuckled and smacked, almost patted, his shoulder on the way past. "Yeah, Nicky, you can finish the bacon. If there's any left over when the bottomless pit is satisfied I'll throw together some BLTs for the road."
"We have fresh lettuce and tomato?" Nick asked incredulously, and, forewarned, left enough bacon for BLTs. He got the dishes done, dried, and put away while Chris showered, and went out to see if the shagmobile needed to be dug out or anything.
The Dodge, with its big wheels and high chassis, could've gotten over the snow berm that had piled up in front of the garage door, but a van wouldn't. Nick broke the snow and ice up, shoveling it out of the way, and pulled the garage door open as Chris crunched through the snow behind him. "Oh, thank God, you painted it. And changed the license plates."
"Did you really think I was gonna drive around in something that said SLTMBILE on it?"
"I mean, yeah? This is better, though."
"No shit."
It had always been a large van, with a pop-up roof for more light and headroom, and Nick couldn't remember if it had had windows in the body or not. Probably, since there were windows now, with inside shades drawn down, but mostly all he could remember was there had been some kind of horrific mostly naked woman and an eagle and maybe a wizard hat, he wasn't sure anymore, painted down one side of the van. The other side had been comparatively tame, if a howling wolf and an American flag could be called tame.
Since then, though, it had been professionally repainted in two tones, kind of olive green and cream that looked pretty normal for a vehicle twice as old as Nick was. The paint job didn't cover the dings and signs of age, but it looked a hell of a lot better than it had. "Is it still all shag inside?"
Chris sighed and pulled the back door open. A ceiling light splashed on, brightening the interior, and Chris stomped around the door toward the front to throw a cooler onto the seats. Nick cringed in anticipation, then flinched upright and stared.
If the exterior had been bad before, the interior had somehow been worse. Three-inch orange shag everywhere, including on the step up to a shag-covered bed that had belonged on a 1970s porn set. Despite the orangeness, it had also managed to be a dark, dank space that Nick hadn't even wanted to breathe near, never mind think about what nastiness was in that carpet.
All the stuffy, muffling shag had been stripped away and the van's interior had been lined with light-colored wood. A halo of soft gold Christmas lights stuttered on around the pop-up roof as Chris started the van's engine, casting a warm glow on sanded wooden countertops over rough-wood sectional cabinets. A narrow sink and a two-burner stove took up part of the counter, and a bed filled everything from the side doors to the back of the driver’s seat. The bed had storage beneath it, more wooden cupboard doors that caught the light from above. A blue and gold rug was tacked to the floor, and the window shades, which were reflective on the outside, were lined with dark fabric on the interior to keep light from shining through.
"Holy shit, Chris. Did you do all this yourself?" Nick reached out to brush his fingers over the nearest wall, then leaned over to examine the construction. There was enough depth between the wood and the van wall to suggest the whole space was insulated. He stepped up inside, ducking so he would fit, but lifting a hand to the pop-up roof, which was lined with silk-soft wood, too. "This is beautiful. Why the hell didn't you say something when I was giving you shit?"
"What was I gonna say, it doesn't suck anymore? Like you'd believe that?"
"Yeah, well, you're right, I wouldn't have, but I should've. Did you do all this yourself?"
Chris's shrug said 'yeah, like it matters,' and Nick shook his head. "It does matter. You did a great job."
