#i would say thank u bex for writing with me but u stomped on my heart so many times that im not sure if im grateful

[ohwynne]

Vampires suck // Emilio & Wynne

PARTIES: Emilio @mortemoppetere & Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: Wormwoods. TIMING: Early April CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A SUMMARY: Wynne's existential late night walk is interrupted by Emilio hunting some ustras that caught their smell. An unexpected team up follows which leaves the vampires defeated.

It’d been two years since the massacre in Etla, and Emilio was still getting used to hunting alone. It hadn’t been unheard of, back home, to go out on a hunt by yourself — some things didn’t really require a group to take out, after all, and wasting resources by sending multiple hunters on an easy job didn’t make much sense — but backup had always been an option before. He’d had his siblings, his uncle, Juliana, Rhett, Gabriel. His mother, on the days when he thought she might answer if he called. 

That wasn’t the case anymore. In Wicked’s Rest, when Emilio got wind of something that needed killing, there was no one he could trust to help him kill it. But an ustra wandering the woods turning bones to mush wasn’t the kind of thing you could leave alone, and Emilio didn’t particularly feel like trying to meet any other hunters. So… he was alone. Running through the woods like a madman with a knife in one hand and a vial of holy water in the other, cursing under his breath in a string of wild Spanish. He’d come out here for one ustra, which would have been easy enough; three was a little more difficult. 

Christ, this would be a stupid way to die.

It was hard to pay attention to where he was going even with his enhanced night vision, considering he was running for his fucking life on unfamiliar terrain. That was his excuse for barreling into the kid. The force of the impact coupled with his bad leg was almost enough to topple the hunter over, but he managed to stay on his feet through sheer luck. Wild eyes darted to the kid he’d run down, and he squinted at them carefully. “You should get out of here,” he suggested. “Now.” 

—

A silent wood was more haunting than a noisy one, that much Wynne knew, and so there was some comfort in the sounds surrounding them. It was late, too late to be out on one's own perhaps — but they found themselves in need of the constant movement of walking. One foot after the other, that therapeutic and natural beat combined with the crunch of leaves, a hint of moonshine, an owl hooting, some bug crittering. It was as close to peace as they tended to get those days, at least until one of the sounds seemed less natural. Rather beyond it. 

While curious, they had very little interest in fucking around and finding out in this instance. No, Wynne preferred to apply a philosophy of fucking off and living in ignorance from time to time, and so they picked up the pace. In the back of their mind circled the thought of home, of their entity, the impending retribution that had not yet come. There was more rustling, a screech — Wynne picked up their pace, sticking to the path. Another thought popped up: what if they were imagining things again? A mind was so feeble, so easily misguided and when misguided, so easily warped. They had been straying off the beaten path these past months. 

They blamed their frazzled mind on their inability to look ahead, body colliding with another. One heading towards the (possibly-imagined) sounds. As wide eyes met wide eyes, Wynne had a sinking realisation that perhaps there really was something in the woods. “I am working on it,” they nearly exclaimed, tossing a look over their shoulder before looking back at the stranger, “Though maybe you ought to do the same?” 

—

Working on it. Good. There was some relief in that, because while Emilio had known that they were young when he’d first stumbled upon them, further inspection of the figure in front of him now affirmed the fact that they really were just a kid. Probably not much older than twenty. Definitely too young to get their bones turned to mush in the middle of the woods late at night. There was something funny about that line of thinking, coming from him. Emilio had been ready to martyr himself for his cause at twelve, was still eager for it now, but when it came to other people? He looked at them, and all he could think of was Flora. Like all the protective rage he’d felt for her hadn’t died along with her but been transported instead, passed along to anyone who was close enough to take it. This kid shouldn’t be alone in the woods in the middle of the night, but they certainly wouldn’t die here. Emilio wouldn’t let them.

It also made their concern a little… weird. Emilio let out a quiet huff of air that was half a laugh, glancing behind him where he knew the ustras were gaining. He could take them if he had a moment to think of a plan. It was just the thinking that was hard. It had never been the kind of thing he was particularly good at.

“Not really in the cards for me, kid. I don’t take these things out, somebody’s going to die.” Maybe them. “You run. I’ll make sure they don’t follow you. Okay? Go on.”

—

When they’d run from the estate, they’d felt like this. As if there was something breathing down their back, licking at their heels, slithering over the ground in their direction — Wynne had never really known what the entity they and the rest of their people owed their life to, and so it appeared to them in many shapes and sizes. That was what they imagined now, behind them and in front of the other: something that demanded, that devoured if not pleased. And while their instincts always led to obedience and no questions asked, they now looked at the other with wide, quizzical eyes.

“What are you on about?” If this was not imagined, not just their mind playing tricks on them, then there must be an explanation. “What things?” All they knew of placating hungry things was sacrifice, and that too was something they preferred outrunning. Perhaps this was their comeuppance, something demanding that they finally lay down their life as had been intended.

Wynne was tired of inaction, of blind obedience, of fear. “No, what! I’m just supposed to believe you at your word, that this is some murderous thing and let you run right at it?” Martyrdom was another thing they had tired of some time ago.

—

He didn’t have time for this. He’d been working under the assumption that, if the kid was out in the woods in the middle of the night, they knew what was out there. Evidently, it had been the wrong assumption to make. They were lucky, Emilio figured, that he was the one who’d stumbled upon them; someone else might have used that ignorance against them, weaponized it and made it into an advantage. 

But… they weren’t too lucky. A little luckier, and they might have been met with someone who knew how to explain why he was running, someone who could give them a real answer without freaking them out. Emilio didn’t know how to do that. His experience with kids had always been hunter kids. Tiny, deadly things who learned about creatures of the night before they learned to walk. Kids in their twenties who didn’t know what they were running from in the woods at night were far, far out of Emilio’s wheelhouse. 

“Just… Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. Just go.” He waved a hand at them, as if trying to usher them forward. It was just his luck that they didn’t move. Instead, they looked at him. Or… maybe that wasn’t quite right. It felt more like they looked through him, with how accurately they managed to call him out. And god, he didn’t have time for that, either. “Even if I were, it wouldn’t be for you to worry about. Would it? I’m a stranger. What does it matter if I run at some murderous thing? You worry about yourself, kid.”

—

Wynne had been a little under a decade when their predecessor had stepped onto the Protherian’s altar and met their honorable fate. Blood had dripped onto the earth and mixed with the dried flowers and fruits that lay at its feet. Sacrifice was the highest honor for a living person amongst their people: to offer one's life for the betterment of that of others. A mantra they’d learn to live by in subsequent years, never quite able to forget the look in that boy’s eyes before he’d risen to his fateful task. There was honor in martyring oneself  — there was a point to it, a higher purpose, or so the lessons went. Or so they told them, braiding flowers in their hair. 

Whether it was bullshit or not, Wynne wasn’t sure: but they had turned from that purpose all the same. While still unsure what to do with this, this time they had never thought they’d have — they did know this: sacrifice seemed meaningless. It didn’t rule most people’s lives the way it had theirs and their family. And they all seemed fine. Wynne themself seemed fine, with their heart still beating and nothing having come to collect what they were owed. Yet. Unless this was it.

So to let a stranger run into uncertain death went against newfound instinct and philosophy. And though Wynne wasn’t sure who they were any more, they did know they didn’t want to be a coward again. That there were certain principles solidifying in their mind they wished to cling to. “It’s clearly not nothing, and what is it with your people’s insistence on not caring about those around you?” They all needed a lesson on living more community-minded, but now was hardly the time for such a rant. “Of course it matters! So what is it, out there, and why are we not both running?”

—

They were stubborn. The kind of stubborn that dug its heels into the sand and refused to move until it got whatever it was it wanted, the kind of stubborn that never accepted an answer that wasn’t what it wanted to hear, the kind of stubborn that got people killed and left the world around them a little bit emptier because of it. Stubborn was only ever useful until it wasn’t, was a virtue up until the exact moment it became a vice. And that moment was fast approaching now, hot on the slayer’s heels. He’d led it right to them without meaning to, carved a perfect path through the woods and straight to those heels dug firmly into the sand. 

He couldn’t be responsible for what happened next, couldn’t be the reason this thing found them when it might not have otherwise. Emilio had gotten enough kids killed already; he didn’t need to add another one to the damn list. But how could he get them to go when they were so insistent on staying? His personal brand of stubborn had been waning since the massacre in Mexico. It was so much easier to give in, these days.

But he wanted this kid safe, and that lit something up in his chest. There were parts of him that had been dark for years now, but they still glowed sometimes. Maybe he wasn’t a father in any kind of way that counted anymore, but the instincts still remained. “I am trying,” he ground out, “to take care of the people around me. That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s why I told you to — I don’t have time for this. You’re running because you’re a kid. I’m not running because I’m an adult. How is that, hm? Is that good?”

—

The human instinct to live was strong in Wynne — strong enough to defy what they had been taught all their life, to turn their back on a family, a community, a demon. And yet here they stood, feet rooted into the ground, staring at someone larger, older and presumably much wiser than them (though the bar was low, in that regard), refusing. Instincts went head to head, mixed with a rising panic in their chest and Wynne told themself that they had been selfish before and could do it again. Why care about this stranger, when they had abandoned their family to certain death only months ago?

There was so much they didn’t know and understand about the scene unfolding around them and maybe it would be good to trust that the other knew what he was doing. But Wynne’s chest was already so tight with guilt, these days, and as they heard another screech their stomach only sank. What was left, then, besides truth? If that was even what it could be called, though Wynne felt that it was reality. There were little other explanations, now were there?

“No, not good — see, I think it wants me, whatever it is,” they said, as the sounds grew closer. It was either that or the world was filled with more cruel creatures than the one they had once answered to. They weren’t sure which was preferable. Wynne’s head whipped back once more, then looked at the other. “How do I know it’ll be alright? I don’t —” There was a sharp intake of breath. “Won’t let you just run to your death, no matter how old you are.”

—

I think it wants me. The statement was perplexing, and Emilio furrowed his brow. As far as he knew, ustras were opportunists. They didn’t target anyone specifically, didn’t track people down without reason. They were only chasing him because he’d tried to kill them; it was more self preservation than pursuit, on their part. The idea that they were looking for this kid, specifically, didn’t make much sense to him. It was probably just a bit of confusion on their part, and he knew it, but… They said it with such conviction. With certainty. Like they had some reason to believe it.

Like something, somewhere was after them, even if it wasn’t this. 

Emilio studied them for a moment despite not really having the time, eyes darting over their face as he tried to puzzle out what it was that might be after them. Fae had a tendency to hyperfocus on a single victim sometimes, didn’t they? Was it something like that? Those were always the monsters he felt least capable of dispatching. He’d been fighting the undead all his life, and he’d taken it upon himself to learn more about shapeshifters and beasts when he and Juliana got together, but he’d always left the fae to the wardens. If there was something like that after this kid, he wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to help them.

(And there was never any question, in Emilio’s mind, as to whether or not he would help them. There was a kid, and they needed someone. He didn’t need any more reason than that.)

His train of thought was abruptly cut off by the screech of one of the approaching ustras, and he cursed quietly. “Listen to me,” he said, gripping the kid’s shoulders and lowering himself to meet their eyes with a determined gaze. “These things are not after you. Okay? They’re after me. I still think you should leave. But if you’re not going to, you can help, yes?” He fumbled in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a particularly sharp knife and holding it out with the handle towards them. “They will try to attack you from far away. Don’t let them get you with their tongue, or their spit. Get in close, and use this. Their skin is easy to cut. I just need you to distract them, then get away when I say. Make sure you get away. Fire is the best way to kill them, so… I am going to do that.” The lighter in his pocket wasn’t the best weapon in his arsenal, but if he fashioned a torch out of a few items on the forest floor, the ustras would go up easily enough.

—

Their chest was moving up and down on its own accord, breaths moving faster than was typical. Back at home, when this would happen, they’d press their hands on their collarbones and hum a hymn, breathe in tandem with those present — but home was no more and this was hardly the place. They just looked at the other, and he looked back and it felt for a moment like they stood there like that forever. Not exactly sizing each other up the way predators would, but more like two kinds of prey who responded differently to being cornered. Wynne had fawned and freezed and fled before, and it seemed the other only had one answer. Fight, alone.

Wynne swayed from the impact of his hands on their shoulders, head drooping slightly now that he was meeting them at the same height. There was something steady about it, the way he looked at them and spoke, and yet they still felt unsteady. A gust of air escaped their mouth, the one they’d been holding. Even if he was right, and it wasn’t after them, Wynne was starting to be aware of one thing: they’d rather risk their chances with this stranger, than leg it. Out of both selfishness and selflessness, if such a thing was possible. And while for a moment, they did stare at the knife, they eventually closed their fingers around it. They tried very hard not to think about the moon’s reflection on its blade, how similar it looked to blades wielded before. That had always been to earthly, normal creatures though.

“Okay.” The echo of his question was too late, but it was there. “Okay.” They press the palm of their hand against their chest for a moment, breathing in and out. Whatever was out there was gaining on them, the absence of owls hooting and other night-critters moving more and more absent. Wynne backed away a little, turning around to face the direction the unnatural sounds came from. The knife was held in front of them, clumsily. “What is it, out there?” It was the only question they knew to ask, besides all the other ones dizzying their head — like why he was out there, or how he knew, and if he, by any chance, knew anything about demons, and why they couldn’t just run and get to a place where the door could be barred and Wynne could level their breathing. Maybe they had wasted their opportunity to run, though, through loitering and arguing. 

That much turned out to be true when Wynne saw it, in the distance. Something white and slimy, gaining ground on them. 

—

It wasn’t anything like staring at a mirror, looking at them. Their eyes were wide in a way he didn’t think his had ever been, their chest moving rapidly in a way his did, sometimes, but not in situations like this. Panic, for Emilio, didn’t come when the danger was near. The idea of dying was never the thing that set him off. He knew how to handle things that wanted to kill him, had made peace with the inevitability of it so long ago that he no longer knew what it felt like to not accept the possibility. No, Emilio found unsteady ground in the mundane moments. Buying groceries, walking the dog, having a conversation. Life or death situations made sense to him. It was the situations that were life alone that always managed to throw him terribly off balance. 

They weren’t much like Flora, either, if he was being honest. She’d been so young when she’d died, but already she’d carried some of that weight that all hunters bore. Already she’d known what lived in the shadows. Emilio didn’t know if she’d been afraid of it. That kept him up sometimes, the not knowing. The idea that, when she’d died, she’d died afraid. He couldn’t change it either way now, couldn’t comfort someone who was already gone. But… maybe he could do something for this kid instead. Make their breaths come a little easier, make that look in their eyes a little less haunted even if it was only for this moment, even if he never saw them again. You couldn’t save everyone, but sometimes you could hand them a knife. Sometimes you had to pretend that it was the same thing.

“Okay,” he said again, nodding his head. They took the knife, and he turned back towards the approaching noise. At their question, he grimaced. “Easier to tell you after, I think. Don’t worry about it now. When we’re finished, I can explain.” Knowing what they were fighting wouldn’t do anything for them except for perhaps make them a little more afraid. Knowing you were fighting a monster didn’t really make the fighting any easier. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, okay? We just have to finish it first.” They just had to survive it first.

The approaching ustras cut off anything else he might have said, and Emilio had to hope that the kid could sufficiently distract them while he fashioned a torch. They were far enough from the water now that they’d already be beginning to dry out, so setting them aflame shouldn’t be too difficult. If he got close enough to them, they’d go up easy. He picked up a stick from the forest floor, ripping the sleeve off his shirt with his teeth and soaking the fabric in some of the alcohol from his flask to make it more flammable, glancing up to see how the kid was faring. 

—

Wynne had known they would die young at the age of ten. That much had been predetermined for them, even before they were born, and for a decade they had accepted that reality. A certain future ahead. It was to be a short but meaningful life, more meaningful than anyone could ever hope to live — and yet here they were, breathing in and out, so awfully alive and so horribly aware of it. Their chest ached with it. Their heart hammered with it. Maybe this, whatever this creature was, was fate catching up with them, but did it matter? The most primal of instincts surged through them: the instinct to live. The refusal to die by some grander design. Half a year ago, it had pushed them towards theft and escape, and today it pushed them to hold a knife a little tighter.

None of that to say that they weren’t afraid and feeling incredibly out of their depth, but adrenaline was making itself known. They gave a nod of their head. “Okay.” There was no time for preparation, no time to wield their knife and consider the best way to use it. Wynne had used a hunter’s knife before, albeit only on smaller creatures, prey animals that needed skinning or draining. There was no time to reconsider. 

The creatures came closer and Wynne recalled the other’s words, attempting to duck out of sight. Get in close, he’d said, and while instincts begged them to run or hide, to throw themself flat against the ground, they pushed themself forward through the cover overgrowth. A yelp of shock slipped past their lips as they got a better look at the creatures – three of them, looking significantly different than the demon they answered to – and it was enough to draw them in. It hadn’t been their intention to do as much, but it did seem to align with what the stranger had asked of them.

A slashing movement with the knife did little except cut some leaves of a bush, and Wynne yelped once more as a big wad of saliva was spit their way. Instinctively, they ducked to the side, rolling over the ground. Crawling on all fours, they moved forward, bringing down the knife in one of their feet — or perhaps paws was the better word. 

—

Was it better, Emilio wondered, to be handed a knife you didn’t know how to use, or to be raised with one in your hand? With Flora, he’d been petrified at the idea of raising her the way he’d been raised, terrified of his daughter ending up anything like him, of her feeling the things he felt. But was this better? To be handed a knife when the fight was too close to train for, to be given the barest instruction without time for anything more? Flora died defenseless after all, unable to do even the bare minimum to protect herself, unable to stall for time until Emilio arrived. If you refused to give a child a knife until they needed it, were you protecting them or dooming them? He didn’t know. He still didn’t know. And he hated himself, just a little, for that.

He kept an eye on them as he prepared his torch, heart pounding in his chest with something that might have been adrenaline and might have been that old fear that he’d never quite gotten rid of. It was clear they weren’t trained, but they weren’t dead yet, either. He just needed them to hold up until…

There. With the torch properly prepped, Emilio flicked his lighter, flames licking the soaked fabric as he rushed forward. “All right, kid, move,” he yelled, motioning for them to get back. He needed them away from the ustras when he set them aflame, otherwise he ran the risk of burning them up along with the monsters. And that was just about the last thing he wanted to do here.

—

There was a crunch beneath their movement, the creature’s foot-or-paw giving way for the knife. They had no time to register it to its full extent, and were only wise enough to pull the weapon back and hold onto it. It wasn’t in Wynne’s nature to attack, but it seemed to be in everyone’s nature to fight to stay alive. They tightened their grip on the weapon once more, but it seemed like another strike was not needed.

What they had, albeit unconsciously, been waiting for was thrown their way: the demand to get out of the way, to let the real adult get to work. Wynne didn’t know how to do most of the things expected of them, let alone fight a creature they had never seen before. They clambered up to their feet and ran, creating distance between themselves and the monsters as the licking flames the other had produced lit the scene. 

In the newly gained light, the creatures were more horrifying and Wynne let out a sound without meaning to. It sounded nearly as animalistic as the things in front of them, but they soon realised one thing: this wasn’t gythraul, unless It had taken a different form and changed itself into three separate entities. This was something else entirely and that made the earth beneath their feet feel shaky. They backed away more, heartbeat rising again, their eyes pulled toward the flames and the person they hoped knew what he was doing. 

—

The kid was quick on their feet, and Emilio took a moment to be grateful for it as he moved in. Almost as soon as the command to move was out of his mouth, it was being followed. Like they’d been waiting on it, like they’d never wanted to fight at all, like he’d put a knife in the hand of a kid who’d never had to hold one like this because that was the only thing he’d ever known how to do. The kid was quick on their feet, but they shouldn’t have had to be. A better hunter wouldn’t have led the fight right to them. Emilio knew that.

But there was no changing that now. All he could do was move forward, was lower that torch to one ustra and let it light the rest up. He was lucky they’d gotten so dried out, lucky they stood close together as they prepared to attack. It made the getting rid of them that much easier, ensured they all went up like a goddamn pile of dry leaves in a summer drought. Flames rose up from the creatures as they screamed, inhuman sounds mingling with the kid’s distressed noise. Emilio swallowed, feeling guilty, somehow, feeling like he’d made a mistake, like he’d broken something in a new way when it was already in pieces. 

After a few moments, the screaming died down. The figures collapsed, one by one, and Emilio moved towards them, stomping out the smaller flames and tossing his jacket over the larger ones until the fire was out. Sweat pricked the back of his neck, but he didn’t know if it was from the heat or the nausea tugging at his gut as he avoided looking at the terrified kid, the one that was backing farther and farther away from him. He’d saved them. Kept them alive in the face of danger that probably wouldn’t have found them to begin with if he hadn’t led it right to them. Did he celebrate that, or mourn it? Was this a win, or another loss to add to the pile? He ached with the fact that he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. 

“It’s all right,” he told the kid, even if he wasn’t really sure it was true. “They’re done now, see? Can’t hurt anybody anymore. You, uh… You did good. With the distraction. You did a good job.”

—

As the flames licked up and up and up, devouring the creatures with no name, Wynne backed away. Trembling fingers held onto the knife as their footsteps moved further into the woods until their shoulders hit a tree. There, they moved to sink down, resting hands on their knees as their mind attempted to play catch-up on what had just occurred. On what it implied. They had known there was more to this world than the rest of the world might prefer to believe, but this hadn’t been in any of their teachings. This opened up a world of terrifying possibilities.

They watched the other get to work methodically, as if he had done this before. How exhausting it was becoming, to constantly feel out of their depth, to always feel like they were on the outside looking into something they didn’t get. But where in most situations Wynne wanted to know, had to know — they weren’t so sure if they wanted to now. Maybe it would have been best if they had just run, had chosen to look away and drown in ignorance once more. And they told themself that they were okay with not knowing. That they could live on without finding out what their actions had led to, back on the estate. But it woke them up in the middle of the night and sometimes they had to hide in the back from the store as doom-scenarios appeared to them. What good had ignorance ever done for them? 

When the stranger addressed them, they became aware of how they were sitting there. Wynne tried to relax, to not seem like they were on the verge of tears. They had been good at this once: keeping composure. It had been expected of them. But they weren’t sure what was expected of them any more, these days. “They’re gone,” they confirmed, staring at the smoke for a moment. They pushed themself up, moving towards the other and extending the knife handle first. There was still something dripping off it. Wynne wasn’t sure if it could be called blood. “What were they?” If ignorance had never done them any favors, why not ask? Even if the answer might unsettle them more. 

They looked over their shoulder, back to the path. At least their sense of navigation still remained. “Can we go?” 

—

The kid looked terrified. Emilio couldn’t imagine how it felt, seeing something like that for the first time. He couldn’t remember the first undead thing he’d seen, couldn’t even clearly remember the first undead thing he’d been expected to fight. His mother had insisted on starting her children off in training so early that there were days where it felt as if Emilio had been born with a stake in his hand, fending off vampires in his crib. To have your eyes opened at this age, and in this way… He didn’t envy them. All those years of ignorance didn’t seem much like bliss when this was how that ignorance ended. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to comfort them, either. Flora had been easy — she’d been so young, and already seen so much. She wasn’t afraid of the monsters under her bed because she’d been taught their names from an early age, even if Emilio had refused to train her the way his mother had trained him. She’d known, from the beginning, that there were people in her life who’d protect her from the things that went bump in the night. She’d known it was what those people were there for. (And Emilio hadn’t. When it counted, he hadn’t protected her at all. He tried not to think about that, even when it was hard to think of anything but.)

Reaching forward, he took the knife from the kid and wiped the blade on his pants before offering it back to them. “You should keep it,” he told them. “You might need it down the line, right?” At the question, he sighed. He had promised to explain things to them, hadn’t he? “They’re called ustras. Most of the time, you find them near water, but these ones were after me. I got into their nest, riled them up. They’d been causing problems in the area. They’re dangerous. Kill people. So… I try to take them out, when I can. That’s what I do.” How much could he tell them without terrifying them further? Where was the line between providing them with the knowledge they might need to protect themself and frightening them so completely that they’d never want to move again? He wished he knew.

A little surprised at the question’s wording — we? He would have thought they’d be looking to get as far away from him as possible. — Emilio hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m done. It’s safe.”

—

The world had been so limited, back home. It had felt wide and vast back when they’d been in it, but since their running off they had quickly realized that the world was wider and vaster than they could have ever imagined. It had started with libraries and language, media and internet, the fashion and the attitudes and the individualistic ways of living. But then it continued, the snowball of learning new things continuing to roll and roll and roll. Perhaps Wynne should be used to shock, by now, but their body still shook. They still weren’t sure how to digest this world.

Their curiosity helped, offering answers when people wanted to give them and otherwise pushing them towards research. The other offered an answer, twisting his mouth to speak a word they had never heard before: ustras. Creatures who killed people. Creatures this person killed. Wynne's mind did what it had done so much before: it played catch up. Took the information it was given and tried to make it into something digestible. All this while the other offered them the sharp knife back.

They stared at it for a moment before taking it back. Wynne didn't ask what they might need it for down the line. They just imagined handmade leather wrapped around it, to keep it safe. They missed Osian, who could shape leather into anything useful. "Right," they said, a beat too late. "Thanks." If this is what he did, then maybe — but their mind didn't want to go there. To that area where they began to wonder what the gythraul might have done to their family and loved ones since their escape. Even calling it that – escape – was almost too big an ask. "Just them?" The question did fall out of their mouth in the end, curiosity insatiable. Once, they had been taught that greed of any kind (which included that for information) always came at a price. They tried to form a more fitting response. "Ustras. Us-tras. Okay."

There was some hesitation in the other and Wynne tried not to see themself in it. "Okay." The knife was still in their hand. They didn't want to just stick it in their pocket. "Okay, let's go." They started to walk, back to where they should have never left. "I'm Wynne." That seemed only fair. To offer a name, after all this.

—

The kid took the knife back, wrapped their hand around the handle with only a moment’s hesitation, and Emilio wasn’t sure if that feeling in his stomach was relief or dread. It was better, he thought, that they had something to protect themself in this town. It was better that they had something sharp and deadly, but god, he wished they didn’t have to. He wished they lived in a world where kids like this never had to learn about things like that, wished they lived in a world where his own daughter could have grown to be this age without scars, without training, without dying long before she ever got the chance to be anything at all. 

But that world didn’t exist. This kid had gotten a good twenty years of living without knowing what undead things went bump in the night, and they were lucky it hadn’t killed them. If Emilio hadn’t been here, maybe it would have this time. Because even if he hadn’t unintentionally led the ustras to them, something would have found them in these woods eventually. Something always did. The dozens of missing persons cases that came across his desk destined to end in tragedy were proof enough of that.

“No,” he admitted quietly, glancing back at the ash that was left where the ustras had been, “not just them. I can tell you about all of it, kid, but not tonight. Not here.” There were more things in these woods than what they’d just teamed up to kill, and Emilio was tired. Maybe not physically — it took more than a fight of this magnitude to wear him out, even when he was running on very little sleep — but mentally. Emotionally. Kids always did that to him, always ripped out whatever was left of the thing in his chest and stomped it into the dirt. It wasn’t their fault, of course; it was no one’s fault but Emilio’s. He’d always been a little too soft. His mother had always been quick to point that out.

He hesitated only a moment before falling in step beside them, shoulders a little stiff as if he was carrying something on them, as if he had been for years now. When they offered him their name, he put it away in that back corner of his mind, pausing a moment before replying. “Emilio.” Might as well share it. “I’d say it’s good to meet you, but I think it might have been better if we’d met some other way.”

—

The woods were dark around them and the regular sounds had returned and Wynne was overtaken by a feeling of familiar fatigue. Adrenaline made place for weariness, for the feeling they kept coming back to. How much more of this? This feeling out of their depth, this wondering if this was a better way of living in the first place. And yet their heart hammered with it, their state of aliveness. Death could have come for them today, the way it should have come for them half a year ago and once more they had escaped.

It didn’t make them smile or celebrate, but it made them clutch that knife a little tighter. A blade would have been their undoing and now they had wielded one. They look at the other, at his offer to answer questions even if not tonight. Wynne gave a small nod of their head, swallowing questions of whether he knew of demons. They weren’t sure they wanted answers, anyway, to expose themself in such a way. 

“That’s okay. It’s late.” It had to be, by now. It had been late when Wynne had left home, their legs too restless to rest and their mind running rounds around itself. This had not helped the situation, even if there was a part of them that was sure that if they were to sink down now, they would never get up. They longed for their bedroom, the four walls of it. The privacy to whimper and breathe faster than good for their lungs. They longed for a shower. They longed for — no, they refused to do that. To long for home. Their brother, maybe they’d afford themself that: to long for his friendship and comfort.

Perhaps it was naivety, they did consider that reality, but Wynne decided to trust the other. At least for this walk out of the woods and at least enough to try and find him again, if their curiosity stuck with them. “Likewise. On both fronts.” They checked their phone, pulling up their map. “I’m not too far from here.”

—

There would be no questions tonight and, oddly, Emilio found that he didn’t entirely dread the future in which they would appear. He wasn’t much of a talker — anyone who knew him well could attest to that. He wasn’t entirely comfortable in English, wasn’t even entirely at home in Spanish. He’d been taught action over words, and it was a lesson that stuck. Often times, the latter failed him. How did you explain something you’d understood from the time you knew your own name? How did you teach someone things that had always been inherently true for you? He wasn’t sure he knew. 

And yet, somehow, he thought he might try to figure it out. For this kid, for the next one. He couldn’t save his kid, but he could save someone’s. Maybe if he did enough of that, that ache in his chest might feel a little less unbearable someday. 

(He didn’t believe it, even as the thought occurred to him. Nothing could make this bearable. Nothing.) 

Offering Wynne a small nod, he gestured for them to go ahead. “I’m not, either. I’ll walk you. Make sure nothing else comes up.” He couldn’t promise them tomorrow in a town like this, but… He could promise that he’d do everything he could do to make sure they made it home safe tonight. That he could do.