#there's a chatzy coming to explain where erin's dad went

[corpse--diem]

Only If For A Night | Nic & Erin

@bountybossier

Two glasses sat on the empty metal body slab, the dark auburn of the whiskey beside it bouncing off the bad overhead lighting. Ready and waiting. Nic had made good on his word when he’d told their boss a heads up would be needed. Dale informed her there’d be a body on it’s way to the funeral home and their hunter-for-here would be delivering. The basement was eerily quiet now without the sounds of her father bellowing and growling in the background. Erin’s eyes moved to the large blood stain in the middle of the room where she hadn’t been able to completely remove the last trace of the night that had absolved her of that particular problem. Maybe it was time to get a rug down here. Realized how she looked just now, literally standing around, waiting for Nic to drop in with the delivery. Yikes. This was weird, wasn’t it? Hints of desperation were abundant in the air, here. The sharp knock on the door abruptly broke her from those thoughts. She pulled the basement door open, a knowing smirk on her lips. “I’m sorry. Can I help you?” Couldn’t help when her grin stretched wider, arms aptly crossing as she leaned against the door entrance.

Nicodemus had no earthly reason to feel nervous. He didn’t feel right in the slightest but the further he got away from Traveler, the further he got away from the ocean, he felt more like himself. Whatever that was. Heading to the funeral home, heading to see her, wasn’t the place to start having an existential crisis. Blame the night. That had been the mantra for the last handful of weeks or however long he had been fucked up as he was. He didn’t want to think about that and he chose not too as he checked himself in the rearview. The bruising from his nose was fading but still, dark fell under his eyes like spread bat wings. He frowned. Oh well. Like Erin said, bloody and battered was his thing. The hunter tried not to linger on it too much as he lugged another werewolf over his shoulder. Somewhere in the familiarity of the situation, his nerves settled. As the door open and he looked at her, a crooked smirk appeared. “Yeah, you might be able to, ma’am. Got somethin’ of a bountiful harvest an’ all.” The smell of old blood hit his nose and he couldn’t help but look away from Erin for a second, to the unmistakable stain of blood. “That’s new, huh?”

Erin didn’t miss bruised patches beneath his eyes. She’d seen him the night it had happened but it still threw her how healed up it looked already. Was that a hunter thing? Still made her inwardly flinch and not because she was squeamish. Lord knew she wasn’t. But she also couldn’t help the way her chest lurched when he smirked at her like that. “Bountiful harvest,” she nodded, a soft chuckle on her lips. “That’s good. There’s that quick wit I know and miss,” she said, pointing at him as she stepped back to finally let him in. Just because it was dark didn’t mean it was a good idea to have him hover outside with a body bag on his shoulder any longer than necessary. She locked the door, glancing back to where his eyes fell. “Uh, yeah,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “It took three witches, a moose, and a fuck ton of magic, but dear old dad is no longer with us.” That summed it up enough, right? She crossed the room, patting the metal table she had reserved just for this delivery. “You can toss this big guy right over here.”

His gaze lingered on her, lips loose in a thin smile. The scenario was so damn similar. Nightfall, corpse of a stranger on his shoulder, and Erin Nichols welcoming him into the underground. Nicodemus stepped past her and chuckled. “Yeah, you sure it ain’t just weirdo talk?” He eyed the bloody spot as he set the werewolf down on the table, the ring of metal sounding for just a moment. “I’ve been tryin’ to sleep. Maybe that’s helpin’. Can’t run off nothin’ like some people.” Namely but without being said, Alain. He couldn’t stop himself. “A fuckin’ what? A moose?” The magic and witches glanced off of him, but he had to huff a raspy laugh at how an animal like that got involved. “Really startin’ to build a rapport with moose, y’know? Kinda startin’ to make it seem like an art. Maybe that’s your, uh, gift.” He paused and wrung his hands. He had started so confidently. Surely, he could find it again. A small and ugly bud in him started to bloom. Tracking things was one of his specialities. It couldn’t possibly be the case, his logical brain thought, but then that less than logical bit crept out. Maybe his presence was cursed somehow. He shook his head and stepped off to the side. “One of ‘em.” He coughed into his shoulder and shook it out. “Anyhow. Better he’s gone now, yeah? Rest easy an’ all.”

“Weirdo talk works too,” Erin chuckled. Watched him set the body down, that easy smile she wore faltering a few hairs. Bottom line, there was still a job to do here. “Moose are my gift? I hope you know this moose surgence didn’t start being a thing until I met you, ” she latched onto his words, trying not to think too deeply about the body in front of her. Another werewolf. She didn’t know how that worked in real life compared to movies. Had this been a person before? Or just a supernatural wolf-like creature? Wasn’t quite sure she wanted an answer to that, actually. Not when she was about to do what she was about to do. Her eyes flickered up to Nic’s briefly, like she’d find some sort of answer there. All she could see was the exhaustion still lingering in his features. “All gone, yeah,. Nothing to worry about there anymore,” she said quickly, trying to refocus back on the task at hand. Scalpel and Playmate ready, she got to work. Quiet for a few moments as metal sliced into skin, brows furrowed in concentration. “How are you?” Her eyes searched for his again. Paused a beat. “Really?”

“You ain’t made me leave yet, so looks like weirdo is workin’ for me,” Nicodemus smiled. Better than monster or whatever other fucking word a bleeding heart would spit at him. “Hey now, I said one of ‘em. Maybe the moose were just waitin’ to hear from you. You’re welcome for that.” Because that’s what Moose Caboose had been about. Fuck, he needed to stop talking about the moose. It was easier to talk about that than seeing eyeballs, sleepwalking, and killing strangers. Fuck. Why was he so hung up on that? Would he have let Jeff just die if he hadn’t suddenly felt compelled…? No. It wasn’t the time or the place. He looked at Erin as she looked at him and took a breath to ground himself. Too much thinking like that wouldn’t do him any good. It would paralyze him. “That’s good. Glad you got it figured out,” he said with a nod, eyes on the body as she started to cut into it. When she posed her question, he looked up. Fixed his eyes on her. He was quiet, the humor from before pulled out of him with death-grip hands. In bruised yet healing eye sockets, his eyes felt darker. “I don’t know,” he rumbled out. “Feel like I’ve been fucked up since I got here. Nothin’ goes the way I think it will and that shouldn’t be a huge fuckin’ surprise, but…” In White Crest, he saved people. He hated that word but he knew what it was. Why did that bother him so goddamn much? “It, uh, it does. Every time. Like I can’t get...right..” He realized how much he said, which in the grand scheme wasn’t much, but it was more than anything to him. A dry, humorless laugh broke the quiet as he leaned back against the counter and started to fiddle with a metal handle “...I guess I ain’t great.”

“It works. Don’t worry about that,” Erin returned the smile. God, the fucking moose. It was as funny as it was depressing. And after the night she’d spent and what she’d seen done to that moose, she was alright without ever seeing another one again in her life. She ignored it with a soft roll of her eyes, eager to get past that and any further discussion of her father. Moose and zombies. Two things she never would have pictured so prominently in her life. She could practically feel the tone shift when the room fell silent. Then he spoke, no cursed coins urging those reluctant truths from him. So she stopped, pulled her hands from the still-warm corpse, and listened. Suddenly more nervous than she could recall being in front of him. “I get that. In a way, I mean,” she shrugged, returning his wry smile with one of her own. Gestured towards the body directly in front of her. Case in point. She started back to work when her hands grew antsy, though her focus remained as much as possible on him. “I learned a little late but this town has a way of screwing with you in ways I never could have dreamed about,” she scoffed. Eyes darted towards the empty glasses and the liquor bottle. “Whiskey helps though.” She tried to smile again, but the way he was looking bothered her more than she could properly grasp. “It’s not you,” she insisted, words firm and sure. “It’s this town and everything in it fucking with you. But it’s not you. You know that, right?”

When she pulled her hands out of the werewolf’s chest cavity, Nicodemus slowed his fiddling with the cabinet handle. Trigger finger tapping against the metal quietly as he listened to her speak. When she pointed at the very obvious body smack dab in the middle of an illicit organ harvesting between a mortician and a hunter, he couldn’t fight the wry smile that eased to life. “Yeah…” He sighed as he readjusted himself, looked at the whiskey and empty glasses. Whether he was sober or whether he wasn’t, the shit he dealt with didn’t have the mind to pack things up and leave him alone. It wouldn’t be life if it up and did that, did him a kindness. He looked at her as she worked. Just as tired as him. He didn’t know what happened, but considering the blood and the reluctance, he could only assume it wasn’t pretty. Assumed it would be the kind of thing to haunt the mind. She could do without being haunted. He crossed over to the whiskey and poured himself a glass, much less than what he usually would. He did the same for her but was forced to pause at her words. Wasn’t him? A low hum of uncertainty rose. He didn’t flinch when he saw that eye staring at him again when he blinked. “Ain’t sure about that, Erin,” he said, finger tapping against the bottle of whiskey as he set it down. “Peace of mind don’t come to people like me. Makes sense in a shitty way. All, uh, this.” He wasn’t hunting for pity. It was a statement of fact. That was the deal. They hunted, they died, and peace came in the form of a 2x6 foot coffin. Or just a hole in the dirt. He didn’t lament that. Of all things to make peace with, he had with that. He was certain of it. That part of the Bossier legacy he couldn’t outrun. “The town, yeah, I can buy that. But it's gotta react to somethin’.” He grabbed the glass of whiskey and threw it back. Didn’t go to refill it. He grabbed the glass he poured for her and handed it to her. “Givin’ it plenty to work with, I suppose.” He looked at the werewolf corpse as he found it hard to look at her. “How’s it lookin’ in there?”

Something in his voice could only lend to what he wasn’t saying. Erin hadn’t known him long, but Nic was a man of few words. When he spoke, you listened. Somewhere along the way she’d started reading between the lines. Had to, if she wanted to understand him better, or at all. This felt different, though. She felt different. And so did Nic. “You deserve better than feeling that way,” she reiterated, watching him knock back the whiskey, cup barely full. That was different too. She set the creature’s liver into the cooler, his words settling weirdly on her mind. All of this—the unsavory exchanges in the night. The secrets. The lies. Erin has only tasted this side of life for a fraction of the time Nic had. But it was part of her now. Always had been, even if she didn’t know it before a few months ago. “You’ve gotta keep believing that.” She had to keep believing that too. Lifted the glass to her lips, the blood on her gloves marring the clean surface. Like a reminder. Subtle. She paused, watching it for a second, before tossing it back just as quickly as he had. “You’re biased, you know.” She started, trying to find the words as warmth crept into her chest. “You've only got your point of view, making you think that any of this is your fault. And I know I haven’t known you long, but from what I’ve seen?” She tried to find his eyes as his avoided her own. “You deserve that. Peace. You’re a good guy. I know that. And I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t think so.” Fuck. Right. The corpse was growing colder by the second and she set her glass down. Found it harder and harder to concentrate on what she was doing. “It’s fine,” she nodded, getting back to it. Thought hard about how it had ended up on her table, and who’d brought them here. “Can you—you could stop, right?” She asked, genuinely unsure. “Step away from all of this, if you really wanted.”

The hunter forced himself to not respond when she called him a good guy. The same way his grandfather trained him to not give when wolf teeth sunk down. Nicodemus’s jaw started to tighten, the muscle there taut as teeth pressed tight together. Erin. Margot. Skylar. Blanche. Orion. All these people saying thank you, feeling grateful for the shit he did on a whim and couldn’t find an explanation for no matter how much he dug. Anger wearing the skin of self-loathing crawled up his ribs and sat heavy in his throat. He didn’t believe in much of anything. Was this Samson’s revenge? He hadn’t seen the old man in years but he kept tabs. Knew the fucker was still alive during all of this. As the thoughts pushed, collided, and broke apart against one another, he stared at the blood that clung to her clear glass. Whiskey and blood. That’s all he should have stayed as. His eyes traveled across her face. “Erin, you’re….You’re sayin’ all this shit elbow deep in a fuckin’ corpse that I brought for you,” he said after staying silent, his brows furrowed as he looked at her with dark eyes. “Same as before. It ain’t good and it ain’t evil. It’s just fucked. That’s all it is. It’s what I do and…” He pulled back, pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. His breath felt heavier yet light. Felt like it came quicker, but he wasn’t in a fight. He breathed in long and deep through his nose, shut his eyes for a moment. Her question prompted him to pour himself another glass, just as shallow as the one before it, and open his eyes again. She asked him a question that he had no obligation to answer. He had no obligation to any of them. And yet… “No,” he said, still not taking that drink. Whether it was his own conviction or the one beaten into him, he didn’t falter. Much. “I wouldn’t…” The empty fist at his side clenched. It was the town. The town pried open his iron mouth, his caged up chest, and forced him to speak. His voice rasped along the basement walls. “This is what I do. It’s what I know and I’m good at it. That’s the real shit part, y’know? I’m good at somethin’ and it’s this.” He couldn’t give that up and that realization, that slam against his head, finally had him drinking.

Every part of him was resisting. Erin could see it before he even spoke. Something fired up in her, somewhere deep in her gut and she pushed back. “Yeah, a corpse you brought to me. Because this is what I do too. But I can—I’m trying to remember this isn’t who I am,” she argued, frustration seeping through weary cracks. “What other choice do we have?” That muddy stain on the floor felt like it was screaming at her. Fucked. God, that description felt more appropriate the longer it simmered. She set the scalpel down and moved from around the table, abandoning any thoughts of finishing the extraction right now. “Okay, okay, fine. I get that,” she nodded. It wasn’t her place to dig or judge how he lived when there was a refrigerator of human organs just behind them. That wasn’t the point though—she didn’t care what he did. Jesus, wasn’t that obvious by now? “Good, bad, fucked—whatever.” She pointed a bloody glove at the stain, a surge of certainty taking over where precaution should have prevailed. “But that mess is what happens when you give up and give into it. I don’t want that and you sure as hell shouldn’t accept that either.”

Nicodemus started some where he stood. He didn't open his mouth to argue against her because she was right. The hand he clenched into a fist pulsed, slowly. He was the source of his own stress and yet he could try to will it away all the same. It felt wrong to find her beautiful in that moment and he hated himself for it, as confused and silently bewildered as he was looking at her. "I can get rid of your boss." His voice strained as he said it, trying to find that humor from before. They were in too deep for that and beneath it all, it was muffled. She came around close to him and he rooted himself to the floor, fighting every piece of him that had him wanting to go for the same door he had walked in. He had been so damn rootless before. Now he had too many. He swallowed his thoughts down as he looked at Erin, ferocious and refusing to accept the hand she had been dealt. And where he was resolute, she refused to accept that too. Whether to laugh or run, he didn't know. Both nervous responses. He did neither, rather braved the smallest step forward, spoke to her with a low, quiet voice. "What the hell happened, Erin?" His gaze moved from the blood spot to her eyes. "What are we doin'?"

He was starkly silent again. It was suffocating this time. Erin’s heart pounded while she waited for him to bolt, or yell. Demolish a glass with his bare hands again if she’d pushed down too hard on a nerve. Something. Those things she was prepared for. The way he was looking at her right now? Not that. Wasn’t at all prepared for the way it disarmed her so quickly either. “Don’t be an idiot,” she shook her head at his offer, letting out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been keeping in. What had happened? They’d gone from their usual banter to arguing to this in the blink of an eye. But she didn’t move. Didn't flinch or break eye contact, feeling like she was finally allowed to look at something she’d been wanting to for a long time now. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, much of her previous gusto gone. But fuck, was she ever tired of thinking about it. Tired of holding back. Wasn’t in her nature to do so anyway, and it felt like that part of herself was fighting to tooth and nail to be released. And she did. Fuck it. She wanted this. She peeled the gloves off, dropping them to the ground, eyes falling to his lips. It was the only real sign she gave him before she took that last step forward. Hands brushing against prickly skin as they cupped his jaw, pulling his lips down to hers. Slowly at first, testing the waters, but sure. More sure than she’d been about anything a long time.

“Idiot, yeah. Dumbass sounds right too.” Nicodemus huffed. A capable dumbass. Or at least, he thought he was. Much rather talk about being a dumbass than any possible moral responsibility or self-respect he should have. But then she was looking at him and he wasn’t thinking about himself at all. His thoughts stayed confined to the space between them that grew smaller with each breath. Watching her take her gloves off probably shouldn’t have stirred something in him, but it did and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He froze as her hands touched his face and he waited for the bait and switch. He didn’t wait long. He didn’t need to. It never came. For all the death she touched, her hands felt warm against his skin. Her lips against his did too. Fuck, he was tired of being frigid. Maybe Erin was too. Maybe, for a minute or an hour, that could be enough. With a crash, the glass in his hand fell to the basement floor as one hand pressed lightly against the side of her neck, his thumb against her jawline. The other came to tentatively hover over the small of her back as he leaned into her. The hunter moved with no expectation, matched the pace she set. A small, quiet groan hovered in his chest as he pulled away for a breath to look at her. “Is this...Fuck, is this okay?”

Erin heard the glass shatter beside them but hardly flinched. Didn’t think about much of anything outside of how gentle his hands and his lips felt as he kissed her back, pulled her closer. Surprised her only a little with that, considering how hard he projected that rough outer shell of his. She was already breathing harder when he pulled away. Was this okay? It felt more than okay, she wanted to say, slipping one hand down his chest. Felt good. Really good. She pulled nervously at the fabric of his shirt while she nodded. “Yeah,” was the only word she could manage. Her other hand found the back of his neck to pull him forward again. Couldn’t stop herself when she kissed him again, this time with more confidence. Didn’t want to stop, if she was being honest. That was an overwhelming new feeling sitting tightly on her chest. Fuck. She reared her head back suddenly, biting her lip. “This is okay with you too, right?” She asked in turn, realizing she hadn’t even bothered to give him a chance to speak. Her nails gently scratched the back of his head through the short hair there. “We can—we can definitely stop. If you want,” she nodded, though her eyes remained on his lips until she had the better sense to meet his again.

His breath came out as a quiet, shuddered mess as they separated. Nicodemus could feel his heart hammering under her hand. Felt surprisingly vulnerable. She was close enough to slip a knife into his belly. But he wasn’t in a fight, this wasn’t survival. Maybe, for a minute, it was living. Whatever the fuck that even meant. The hand on her neck slipped further back, the pads of his fingers absently circling the skin at her nape. She pulled him in again and that time, he braved pressing her in closer to him. He forgot about the blood underneath them or the blood on the table. It wouldn’t be going anywhere. The longer they kissed, the more he lost any stoicism. He became fluid, became like a slow fire. He pulled away for a second to look at her, at the same time she did, and made no effort to move. In answer to her question, he found her mouth again with his and gently, barely nipped at her bottom lip. Then, he pulled back again. He closed his eyes. Took in a long, slightly shaky breath. In spite of it all, a nervous smirk appeared. “I don’t--” The anxiety gathered in his throat and he swallowed it. He lifted his hand from her back and lifted her chin slightly with it, tried to find her eyes with his own. “I don’t got any expectations, Erin,” he said, voice a low thunder rumble. “I’ll follow your lead, alright? Tell me to go and I will. Tell me to stay and I will. I’d...I’d want to. If you did.”

The pause that lingered before his answer weighed heavily on her and for a moment, Erin was confident she’d fucked up. That some invisible line had been crossed and that he’d pack up and run out of there. Right out of town, if he wanted. There was nothing keeping him here, no obligation--not even their mutual employer. Said so himself. But that wasn’t what she saw in his eyes. Just a gentle fear, one that washed over her, dousing those thoughts. Softened her resolve--what little was left of it, anyway. Her hand moved from his chest to cover his own, holding it against her cheek. “Then stay,” she answered, a warmer smile tugging at the corner of her lips despite the way her voice shook just slightly. “I want you to stay.” Final answer. She started to move in closer to him again when the glass crunched under her boot. Blinked, glanced around to where they were. The body cut open on the table next to them, the others in the wall of coolers opposite them. A deep, nervous laugh shook her. Jesus. She turned her head to kiss the palm of his hand, holding it as she let their hands drop down. But she didn’t let his go, tugging him towards her as she moved backwards to the stairs. “Just--not here, specifically?” She quirked a brow, trying to inject some lightness back into the moment.

Nicodemus had been so ready for her to give him the word, tell him to go, that when she did anything but, he was momentarily stunned stupid. Reduced to mere blinking before he got his shit together. Her words and hands said the exact same thing. If he looked for deception, he would come up empty. A boyish smile, one that lifted a few years off him, came to life. And at the crack of glass, broke into a snorted laugh as he came to the same realization she did. The tension, the nervousness, broke into a laugh and he dipped his head to laugh into the skin of her. For a night, it’d feel good to just laugh. He could allow himself that, if only for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, lips against her neck before he stood up again and looked at her. It was hard to stop smiling, even with the heat that overwhelmed any cold he might have felt. The chill lingered in him but he ignored it. “Better not to have an audience, huh?” He followed close behind her, fingers trailing up her palm and around her slim wrist then back again. “I’m followin’. Sure as shit ain’t goin’ anywhere now.”