empty hearths | nic & nell
PREVIOUSLY: Plot Drop Page
LOCATION: Nic’s Home
TIME: 10:05 PM
PARTIES: Nicodemus Bossier and Nell Vural
TRIGGERS: Family Death
Nell still didn’t have her license. The thought had bizarrely occured between all the shock and crying that had taken place since she’d woken up next to her sister’s headless body, Nell covered in blood that wasn’t her own. Generally one to have a strong stomach, it’d only taken a moment of looking between Bea’s body and the red splatters on herself to make the connection, and she’d promptly retched, body refusing to handle the reality of her situation. But she still didn’t have a license, and here she was driving to Nic’s home, hands clutching the wheel as if her very life depended on it, and trying not to think too hard about what was in the back of Bea’s car. It was the only way she could move the body. Nell refused to think of it as Bea’s, some part of her brain choosing to protect itself from that reality, as well. As she advanced on Nic’s door, the panic rose in her throat again, mixed with the black hole of pain that threatened to suck everything into its center, so massive and raw that she could barely make sense of it. “Nic!” she called out, voice broken and rough from her screams and cries. “Nic, please!” The words became more desperate, trying to keep herself together, but the composure quickly slipping. “I need help! Please.”
He hadn’t gotten to bed. Between what had happened with Skylar and his own thoughts, it was hard to shake the concern of what might happen if he wasn’t there. An unknown feeling that sat in his hands as he sharpened knives and cleaned guns. It was irrational, Nicodemus knew it, but sleep could wait. So when he heard a car approach and a familiar voice that didn’t sound familiar in the way he knew it, he was already moving. Senses alert, nerves near to shot. I need help. It was Nell. He knew it before he opened, no, threw the door open. Caught it in time before it cracked against the wall. Something had happened. He could smell the blood, heavy in his nose. A hand hovered towards Nell. Stopped before it reached her. The way she looked at him, he was afraid she might collapse to dust. “Nell,” he called gently. “What happened?”
Faced with the first live person she’d seen since everything, Nell crumbled, her body and hands covered in her sister’s blood beginning to shake without her so much as realizing they were beginning to do so. Everything was moving so fast, too fast, and yet seemed to be stuck in a statis in the same breath. She looked up at Nic, somehow both seeing him and looking through him with an utterly lost expression on her face. “I need help,” she repeated, quieter this time, still thoroughly in her state of shock. Tear tracks were still fresh on her face, running through the blood that had fallen on her when Bea had launched herself in front of Nell. “She’s- she’s-” her voice broke again, a dry sob coming forth, afraid to say the words aloud. “He killed her. He was supposed to kill me, but he killed her.” It was difficult to make sense when your head wouldn't stand still, when you weren’t sure if the world was still there, or if you were simply wishing it wasn’t.
She was falling apart in front of him and all Nicodemus could do was stand there. Breathless, throat wrenched tight. Something terrible had happened and it was wrecking through her, he could see it. He looked down at her, blood cold and senses eerily still. Blood covered her face and hands. From what he could tell, it was fresh. Was it hers? Goddamn it, what was happening? These things happened. He knew these things did. It wasn’t the time to think about when he had likely been the cause of such things. It was a far off thought and one day it would catch up to him, but looking at Nell, he decided it would not be then. Someone had died and it hadn’t been her. Lightning struck him and his eyes opened by a slim margin. It wasn’t with relief that he breathed. “What’re you talkin’ about, Nell? Who got hurt?” His voice was quiet as he spoke to her, his brow furrowed. Blood had stuck bits of her hair to her face and like his grandmother had once done for him, one of the handful of times he saw her, he brushed it back.
The hand was the only thing steady in Nell’s world for a moment, but the feel of it also reminded her that this was real. She was actually- “Dead. He- he took her head.” Processing wasn’t going all that well for her, unable to make sense of the world she’d woken up to, a world that was much changed from how she remembered it. “My- my sister.” There it was. Now that she’d said the words, she couldn’t get them back. Now that she wasn’t the only one who knew...fuck, this was actually happening, wasn’t it? Tears came to her eyes once more, unbidden and somewhat unnoticed as she shook her head, trying to dispel the thoughts that were ricocheting off the walls of it. “Bea.” Her voice cracked on the single name, the wetness on her cheeks only growing damper as she went on. “Bea’s dead. It’s supposed to be me!”
He. Was it a trophy killer? The way she spoke about it, that seemed to be likely. God damn it. But whose head was--Sister. Nicodemus didn’t blink nor breathe nor move. He went still. The realization seemed to cut into them both. Fuck, he couldn’t begin to imagine. Didn’t know where to start. His hand settled on her shoulder, light but present all the same. Looking at her, his eyes started to glaze. It was strange, the pain that came over him. He wasn’t wounded but she was and he could feel it in his own bones, his own skin. Bea. He had met Bea. Laughed with her, dealt with a brownie infestation. There and then gone. Her kitchen would be empty. Quiet. Hollowed out. It wasn’t alright and he refused to say as much. There was no comfort to bring to this that he knew of. “Nell I’m...” He didn’t know what it was that compelled him to move. Maybe it was her shaking, her trembling, that knife edge she was balanced on of completely collapsing that he could see. Not like this. Slowly, he brought one arm around Nell and then the other. Held her because he was afraid that if he didn’t, she might fall away.
Once his arm went around her, Nell instinctively reached out to cling to him, his motion somehow making things both worse and better at the same time. It was as human as they could be in that moment, unsure of what to do and simply reaching out to offer physical comfort when words couldn’t be found, but it was also a reminder of why she needed comfort in the first place. Finally, she crumbled fully into the moment, and though it was terrible and cutting, it was needed, and something she couldn't ignore or bottle up. Pain this raw simply demanded to be felt, to wreck its havoc on whoever it inhabited. So she stood there for a few minutes, letting herself break into pieces as she cried against Nic, knowing that no one had ever seen this like this before, but feeling safe enough to have the emotions flood over her while he was here. It took a long few minutes to remember that she’d come here for a reason. She needed help. So finally she lifted her head, trying to vainly wipe away the new tears that had gathered on her face. “I need help,” she repeated the same words as before. “The body- I have it. I need- I don’t know where to put it. I can’t put it-” at the house. What if her dad came by? At least her mom was in Turkey. God, her mom. Nell had taken the thing she loved most in this world. “I don’t want- people can’t know. Not yet.”
Nicodemus didn’t say anything as he held her. Just stared out at the distance beyond and the Beetle she had driven there. Emotion, feeling or understanding it, wasn’t his strong suit. But he knew that sometimes a wound needed to bleed before it could heal. This wouldn’t heal anytime soon but if Nell needed to bleed, he could at least be there. That much he could do. The hunter didn’t know who he was, the one that had taken Bea’s head, but he reckoned the man couldn’t do much anymore if he didn’t have his. That thought grounded him. “I’ll help you.” It wasn’t a matter of I can. It was an I will. He let go of her to give her her space as she spoke. Christ, she had the body. Had driven all the way to his home with it. When he looked at her, his face bled with concern that he couldn’t quite restrain. He couldn’t quite keep the body with him. If Skylar just so happened upon it… He refused to think about it. It was easier to think of it as a body and not as Bea Vural’s. “They won’t,” he assured. It was alarming how quick the name came to him. Erin. She’d get it. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time he waltzed in with a body over his shoulder. But it would be different. Wholly different. His expression softened as he looked at Nell. “Do...Do you want me to wrap her up, Nell? I can do that for you.”
The first positive emotion to cross over Nell since she’d regained consciousness was one of relief. It barely registered as it washed over her, it being hard to outclass the pain, but at least it was something to feel other than the gaping hole in her chest. I’ll help you. She wasn’t alone in this. Nic was going to help. It meant more to her than she could even begin to process in the moment. “Thank you,” she managed to strangle out. “Thank you, Nic.” Nic was providing what she needed most in these moments. A direction. If she had direction, it would give her something to focus on rather than these feelings running rampant in her chest- stomach- head. Wrapping her up. That was something that should happen, shouldn’t it? “Are you sure? She’s just- it’s just-” she switched pronouns quickly once again, her mind already trying to create a wall between her and the pain, one that would make it so she could at least function without dissolving into the ground. “In the back of the car. I Summoned a tarp- I didn’t want- her car- she wouldn’t want-” She cut that train of thought off, some foolish part of having wanted to at least try to keep the car clean like Bea would have liked it. As if that mattered now.
“Ain’t gonna leave you out in the cold, kid.” Nicodemus said without hesitation. Focusing on that steeled the rest of him. She had come to him for help and that was all he needed to think about. He patted her shoulder, held it for a moment, and glanced at the car again. Bea was in the back of the thing. Good lord. He glanced at Nell and nodded once. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said as he started past her. Paused a moment to look at her. “Ain’t gotta be you. You got here. You did good. Let me do this for you.” He didn’t know if it would help. He didn’t know what place words had when grief buffeted her like unrelenting storm wind. It was a grief he couldn’t know, but whatever she needed, he could try. He walked slow to the car and when he got to the back of it, where that blood smell sat heavy like a living wall, he paused. He was used to the smell of blood. Used to it enough that he could ignore it more often than not. But he knew Bea and Nell, her blood, was just a few steps away. It was different when it was the blood of someone he knew, he found, and it sat uncomfortably in his throat. “You ain’t gotta see this, Nell.”
She wouldn’t be left out in the cold. Something was comforting about that even if it had been meant in a more literal sense than anything else. Nell didn’t have to face this completely alone. She had someone here, someone on her side, someone to help guide her through the endless night that had gathered on the path in front of her, leaving her blind. Nic would be the flashlight, to show the next steps that were needed. She’d done good? He’d said that, hadn’t he? Nell hadn’t imagined it? Part of her rebelled instinctively against the words, knowing that Bea was dead because of her. Nothing about that was good. And yet— if Nic said it, that meant he believed it, right? So she clung to this as well as her feet followed Nic on autopilot, grateful for all he was offering her tonight. “I’ve already seen it, Nic,” she offered quietly, still by his side. The thought of not being next to him was daunting. Part of her felt like if she was even relatively alone, she’d fall back into that panic without an anchor to keep her in place. And Nic was her anchor tonight. “I just- I can’t- touching her-” Nell didn’t want to feel it, the absolute lack of life and the clamminess of Bea’s skin beneath her fingers, that fire that lived in her sister finally extinguished, the hearth empty. “I’m sorry.”
She was right. She had already seen it. He heaved in a heavy breath solemnly. His hands wrung around each other before Nicodemus lifted the trunk of the car. Ignored the way the blood clung to his fingers as he pulled his hands away. The smell was overwhelming and he tensed as his guts roiled. Nell had been spared from having to smell that heavy copper. It wasn’t much, but it was something. The body--Bea’s-- was on the tarp, just as Nell said. But it didn’t feel right to wrap her in plastic. Didn’t feel right to crinkle her up like she wasn’t Bea Vural and her baby sister was looking at her. He murmured to Nell that he’d just be a second as he went over to his truck, not too far away, and returned with a faded plaid blanket. It was old, a relic in comparison to most things he had, but it would do. With the blanket over his shoulder, he shook his head. “You ain’t got to.” There was nothing to be sorry for, no apology that needed to be said. What had happened was beyond it and Nell Vural was the last person on earth that night that needed to seek absolution. Bea’s skin was frigid as he carefully bundled her in the sheet, a bit of plastic around where her head had been to keep the wound from sticking to the fabric. He went about it as efficiently as he could. Bundled up as she was, she was alarmingly light, small even, as he lifted her out of the back of the car. “Think I know someone that could keep her for you,” he said as he glanced at Nell. “Until you’re ready.”
Seeing Bea, even from this distance, was more than enough for Nell. Headless, bloody, grotesquely fit into a trunk that certainly wasn’t meant to hold a body. But instead of sending her back into emotional turmoil, the sight caused a numbness to begin its spread. Was this her body’s response to the pain? Shut everything down because seeing this— and knowing her sister was dead was far too much for her psyche to safely handle at the moment. Better to just push it away and feel nothing at all. If she let herself be carried away by these tidal waves of emotion, there’d be no making things right. Not that things could be made right. Things weren’t anywhere close to right so long as Bea was gone from this world. And yet seeing the blanket in Nic’s hands, it broke through that nothingness for a single moment, her throat tightening once again. It was such a small gesture, but one that caused tears to prickle at the corners of her not yet dry, eyes. When he hefted Bea, she finally looked away, not wanting to see the sight of her sister being carried, as limp as any other carcass. “Thank you,” she repeated once again. “Thank you, Nic,” she barely breathed, clinging to this gift he’d given her, something she could put her energy into that wasn’t the feeling of the fabric of her life and mind unravelling. “I don’t know how to-” How could she possibly let him even begin to know how much he’d been here for hers, the thing that had kept her from slipping through the cracks into a heap of nothingness. “Just thank you.” She didn’t even say anything along the lines of owing him, somehow knowing for once that this was something he was giving free of any strings whatsoever, even those that she might generally draw for herself when it came to paying people back. Besides, she was sure he knew that she’d do the same for him in return. Anything at all.
He didn’t know how to mourn. Had never been properly taught how to welcome the absence of someone that had been there one day and then gone the next. As he held Bea and looked at Nell, Nicodemus felt secondhand grief come down like heavy rain. It wasn’t secondhand. He couldn’t claim immunity and God knows he didn’t want to. Not for this. None of it was fucking right. His hold on Bea was stalwart as he carried her to his truck. The hunter reached for his phone but paused when Nell spoke, his gaze pulled towards her. His thumb hovered over Erin’s name before the phone slipped back into his pocket. It could wait. That sensation of heavy rain gathered in his eyes as he walked towards her. “Ain’t gotta thank me, Nell,” he said, throat tight as a drop slipped from the inner corner of his eye. “I’ll get her taken care of.” Speech proved difficult, with the way that emotion choked, but he tried. Unsure of what else to say, he put his hands on her shoulders. Looked her in the eyes. Ignored her sister’s blood on her face. He shook his head and carefully, slowly, pulled her into another hug. Why she had gone to him, he didn’t know, but it meant something. Rain continued to fall from a well he didn’t know had been filled. He might not be good at it, his hands too good at breaking shit, but he could try. “I got you, kid.”