your blood, my blood

who: caleb and nic
where: third and washington for the start
when: later evening

With the bonfire she'd skipped, Nic had an open Friday and a town largely clear of plenty of people she normally wanted to avoid. There wasn't any reason to stay in; before long it'd get good and properly cold, and no movies were really worth renting. That added up to a desire for some good, dangerous night skating. Nic had pilfered some rum from one of her mom's bottles, mixing it with a partial bottle of soda and stowing it in her backpack to last her through wherever she went tonight.

Which, thusfar, had just been down to the elementary school for rickety rides along the steps around the fountain. Though, courtesy of a few drinks, her courage was growing. Standing with one foot on her board, Nic stared at the steep hill running down Third Street to join with Washington. If she was lucky? There'd be no traffic at the cross streets and the lights would be red. And maybe timing it with a cigarette first would help. Uncapping her bottle for a long drink, Nic lit up and turned up her discman's volume, trying to sap courage from the Soulfly pounding in her ears.

Caleb happened to be out as well. He was bored, generally didn't want to be in the house, and had nothing else to be doing. So...he was back to his old tricks. Out walking, despite the fact that he actually owned a car. He'd rather just wander, really, as opposed to drive around. So, also with is headphones shoved in his ear, music up loud. As was now usual, he had one tugged out, though, one ear free just in case. Paranoia never quite left him. As much as he wanted it to, as much as he sometimes wished he could just fucking relax, that wasn't going to happen. He was heading up the hill, not paying that much attention to where he was headed, eyes mostly down on the sidewalk as he walked.

Caleb was too far down for Nic to really pick him out, her vision just a touch blurry, but she could definitely see someone down there. They'd better move, she thought, pushing off with one foot and squinting her eyes as she started rolling forward. The build-up of speed was staggeringly fast, and before the first block was done she was already moving fast. "One side!" she hollered at whoever was ahead of her, her own voice drowned out under the music. In moments like these, Nic really wished she'd learned some tricks, if only because with tricks came tips on how to fall easier, which she figured was inevitable at some point during her descent.

He looked up at the shout, and saw someone coming at him stupidly fast. Didn't take more than a second to see that he was in imminent danger of getting run down. However that second was eaten up really fucking fast by how quick she was going, and while he tried to get himself out of the way--that didn't really happen. He was good, he wasn't that good. It probably would have taken his brother to move fast enough to get out of the way of this particular train. All he could do was brace himself, which didn't keep him on his feet as she crashed into him, and didn't do a whole lot for the fall back either, where he had a whole lot of person on him right before his head cracked back against the sidewalk.

The impact was staggering, sucking Nic's board out from under her feet and sending it clattering along as she hit Caleb bodily. She fell with him as he hit the ground, her momentum rolling her off of him and down the sidewalk. The backpack came in handy for her back, but as she slid and rolled she felt her hands scrape and twist, the sharp pain of a nail breaking flaring up one finger. Nic finally came to a stop with one cheek pressed on the pavement, instantly aware of the ache in one ankle and the flare of fresh scrapes all along her hands and wrist. Most likely her cheek too. "Fucking whore," she muttered at no one, working to push herself up and letting her head hang in the direction of whoever she'd hit. "Augh... hey? You okay back there, whoever?"

Motherfucker, that had hurt in a lot of places. His skull bouncing off the sidewalk was obviously not cool. His elbow had slammed down hard and he felt sparks of pain shooting through his whole arm. He'd landed hard on his back...it was a goddamn good thing pain didn't bother him. He pushed himself up, looking down the hill a bit at the person who collided with him. And saw Nic. With blood on her cheek. "Jesus christ, Nic, the fuck are you doing?" he asked, reaching back to drift his fingers through his hair to see if where he'd cracked his head was bleeding or not. When his fingers came back slicked with blood, that was obviously a big yes. Awesome. He pushed himself to his feet, which was steadier than most other people would have been with his ability to ignore the shit out of anything that hurt, and he walked over towards her, crouching down. "It's a good fucking thing I like you." he told her, already reaching out to try and help her. "Sit up." he said.

Okay, that was a familiar voice. Propping herself up a bit more, Nic grit her teeth against the sting in both hands and the sight of blood on one finger, then twisted to look over. "Caleb?" she blurted in surprise, twisting around and dropping on her ass instead of standing fully. But hey, she was sitting up at least. "Holy shit I just hit you," she went on, sounding a bit dazed or surprised by the revelation. "Told you I was gonna kick your ass..." The bravado got exactly half a shaky smile out of her before that vanished, replaced by a flood of guilt and awareness. "Shit, dude... sorry? Seriously, really fucking sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I caught that bit, with the whole hitting the pavement like a mack fucking truck." Caleb said drily, reaching out to turn her face towards him, eyeing the scrape on her cheek. Then he tugged the sleeve of his long sleeved shirt down over the heel of his hand and pressed it against the wound for a moment. "I'm fine. You're not though." he pointed out, mostly concentrating around the ache in his head as he looked her up and down for obvious injury. He could certainly smell the alcohol on her, and glanced quickly the rest of the way down the hill. For fucks sake, people called him suicidal. "What hurts?" he asked her, really focused in on that. He could feel blood trickling down the back of his neck by now. That was fun.

"You, by the look of it," Nic said, eyes growing wider as she gradually processed the smear of blood his hand had tracked back through his hair. "And, uh, me too. Ugh, nasty," she went on, raising her hand to inspect the torn nail and the blood welling over her fingertip. And just like the blood on his head, slowly she became aware that he had a hand on her cheek. Nic reached up to tap his arm lightly, wincing as she tried to smile. "Would you believe me if I said I was just kinda scraped? More fugly than usual? More worried about the blood shampoo you've got going?" She grimaced as she twisted an arm to unsling her backpack, fidgeting with the zipper. "Know I've got a bandana in here somewhere."

"Can you walk?" Caleb asked. "And I'm fine." he repeated. "C'mon, let's head to my house, I can patch you up. Get you some...I don't know, ice or something." he offered. He stood, and held his hand out to her, wiping blood on his jeans. Well if anything jumped them on the way, he'd have more than enough supply to shred it. That was something. He was bright siding right now as a headache was coming on. "And you're not fugly." he added absently.

"You're not fine," Nic asserted, taking his hand and hauling herself to her feet. Stars flooded her eyes when she first put weight on her ankle, but she was quickly filling up with guilt and embarrassment over what she'd just done. Not a day earlier, he'd been telling her how he thought she was smart, that she wouldn't be doing the stupid shit most people did, and now here she was. "You're all bloody. But yeah, I'm good to walk... just need a washcloth to clean my hands up." She'd deal with the ankle, and hopefully sober up quick enough to keep from doing anything else this stupid tonight.

More blood on his hands, this time from hers, and he noticed the wince she gave. "Did you hurt your leg?" he asked, glancing down automatically reaching out to steady her, grasping her upper arm. "Trust me. I've had a hell of a lot worse, and pain doesn't bother me." he said. And almost clarified that it wasn't in that tough guy 'I'm just saying that so I don't look like a pussy' way, but he was more concerned with her condition than clarification on something most people didn't buy in the first place.

"Probably just a scrape under my jeans," Nic answered, looking around their surroundings for her lost board. Spying it near the corner, wedged under a street-mounted garbage can, she gave her arm a little tug away from Caleb so she could move to get it back. "I do this all the time when I'm out riding. I know, I obviously suck at it. I'll just be a second and we can get you cleaned up," she muttered, clear-headed enough to turn that back around on him. If he was going to insist, with a pressure-cut on his head, that he was fine? She'd do the same until they hit a situation where she could try and actually help.

He let her go, but he was watching her pretty closely, sort of half reaching up to rub at the back of his head again. She was limping a slight bit, but he knew a limp when he saw one, and with her pull away from him he was willing to lay money on the fact that she was trying to play up 'fine' right then. Which just made him sigh, but he didn't say anything farther. At least, not til she was back over to him, and he nodded in the direction of his house. "Well, whether you do this a lot or not, you still fucked yourself up pretty well. What the hell were you going to do when you got to the bottom of the hill?" he asked.

Snagging her board, Nic slung it through the loops of her backpack and reached up to feel her cheek with a scowl. "Well... the plan? Whip a shitty into the parking lot by that bar," she answered, moving back to him with as much of a straight step as she could. Great. Welcome to the list of girls he has to take care of, she scolded herself, feeling her unharmed cheek burn as bad as the scraped one. Stupid, Nic. Fucking stupid. "It was a pretty terrible plan, huh? I was out skating and thought 'fuck it, let's finally try that hill'."

"I suggest next time--" he started, then broke off entirely. "Fuck that, I suggest there not be a next time." he amended. "And people say I'm suicidal. You could have killed yourself. Or at the very least fucked yourself up beyond recognition. Hit a car...have a car hit you..." he went on, reaching out absently to wipe blood as it ran down her cheek with the back of his sleeve. He was surprisingly gentle about it, though. "So mark it down as a bad idea, and find something else to do while drunk-skating. Or at least buzzed skating."

Even with the gentle touch, the reprimand still stung. He was the closest to a friend she'd made in a while, and suddenly she'd literally knocked it all down. Or maybe she was just buzzed. "Look... I'm sorry. I know I already said that and I know it was just stupid in the first place, but I'm sorry. God I feel like a retard right now. I don't... I don't want you to think I'm some dumbass you need to take care of." Which still didn't sound quite right, but the channel between her thoughts and tongue was a little jumbled right now. After all, he'd already offered to help her, and she'd accepted. But this was different; this was her fucking up with him as a witness to it. She shut her eyes as he wiped at her cheek, waiting until he was done before she stepped back and started up the street.

He looked slightly surprised when all of a sudden she was rambling at him and apologizing. And of course that bit where she mentioned not wanting to be someone else he had to take care of. He kept himself walking closer to her than he usually would have, just in case. Just in case of what he didn't know, but he didn't examine the reasons either. He was busy. Like vaguely wondering what had happened to his mp3 player. Or his headphones. But they were walking know, and he was just going to worry about it later. "It's okay, Nic." he told her, more to calm her down than anything. "...don't worry about it. Just if something looks like it might get you killed? It's probably best to skip it. But don't worry about it. It's fine." he insisted.

Shooting a sidelong glance at Caleb as he said that, Nic wanted to believe him. But there was still the self-embarrassment riding on her shoulders just as tangibly as her backpack, and that wasn't too easy to get rid of. "Yeah, I'll skip the dangerous shit," she muttered, looking back to the sidewalk ahead of her. She needed a hiding place, and a memory eraser while she was at it, just to make them both forget this entirely. Reaching up to tug her headphones away from her neck, Nic growled as the plastic finished snapping. "Oh awesome," she spat, following the cord down to her discman. "Probably fucked. Serves me right."

He glanced over. He didn't mention he didn't even know if he still had his player on him, or if he'd lost it in the fall. That would just make her feel worse. "I probably have headphones you can borrow at my house." he told her. He reached out to wipe at her cheek again as they walked. He'd had scrapes like that before and they bled like a bitch. They weren't actually all that bad, but yeah. Head wounds bled a lot, regardless of severity of injury. He figured it was nature's way of scaring the shit out of people. "How's your head, anyways?" he asked, still paying extremely close attention to everything about her right then, just to be sure he wasn't missing some major injury that needed to be taken care of sooner than later.

Was he patronizing her? Had she fallen onto that list without any choice or say in the matter? It felt that way to Nic, the way he was more or less doting on her. But then, maybe she was just expecting the worst. "Feels okay," she murmured, stopping to let him wipe at her cheek more easily. Nic watched him with the sleeve at her cheek, and as he wiped she decided she could at least return the favor. Yanking her sleeve over her scraped palm, Nic stretched an arm around Caleb's neck, to where the trickle of blood was clear now. "It was all face and hands when I hit the ground," she said, swiping her sleeve up his neck and into the base of his hair.

He let her, though internally twitched. He had an easier time with contact if he initiated it. So, there was that kneejerk reaction that he didn't show, but was there. He figured in the end it might make her feel a little better so he didn't tell her not to. "I noticed." he said to her, quirking a half smirk. "You're going to be feeling great tomorrow." he added, starting them walking again, and thinking his shirt was going to need changing with as much blood as was on it now. Thankfully, he didn't think either brother would notice it in the pile of laundry that was built up at the house, so there wouldn't be questions to answer.

Nic's sleeve was getting doubly soaked, pinned between her hand and Caleb's neck, but she didn't mind. She even managed a little smile in response to his own, shaking her head as they started moving. "I normally feel like crap in the morning, now I'll just be looking the part," she joked tepidly, "And why do I always see you when I'm looking like shit? Bloody or covered in paint or in my sweats." You had to give a girl credit; even if she was still dreading everything that could possibly be going on in Caleb's head, she was trying to keep from apologizing over and over.

"I don't know, can't say that it's crossed my mind. You haven't really looked like crap to me, I guess." Caleb told her, slightly baffled on that. "You've always looked just fine. And the scrapes and shit'll just five you a story to tell. Just let me know what it is so I can back you on it." he offered. Because no story was solid until you had someone who was agreeing with it.

"I was thinking 'I suck at skateboarding'," Nic told him with a weak laugh, "Sometimes the truth just fits best." And while 'you don't look like crap' wasn't really a compliment, Nic took it as one. Whether he was genuine or just keeping at his current endeavor of making her feel better, she didn't know. She didn't really care either; the crash and ensuing pain had sobered her quickly, and she was realizing now just how stupid the whole idea really was. Withdrawing her sleeve, Nic's face was a mix of disgust and curiosity at the sight of his blood smeared on her hand. "Caleb? Are you sure you're okay? That's, like... kinda a lot of blood. Like your head's probably worse than my everything else."

He glanced over. "....I haven't dropped yet?" he suggested. "Look, at the risk of broken recording at you, seriously, pain doesn't bother me. I've had tons worse than this, and I'm still just fine. Head wounds bleed. I'm pretty sure I would notice if I actually cracked it open, or I would probably be less coherent at the very least, right? But I'm fine. Lucid, everything. It's just blood." he told her in a reassuring tone.

"Good," she repeated, sliding her fingers together and watching them with something close to fascination. Aside from her skating accidents, Nic didn't really see much blood. It was different than it looked in the movies; thicker, with a strange texture she wouldn't have thought it possessed. "I'm already going to be kicking my own ass over this for a while. If you were seriously hurt, it'd go at least until after graduation. But I'd drag you to the hospital... and even come visit," Nic added, smirking down at her hand.

He watched her as she looked at the blood on her fingers. "Well, don't kick your ass on my account." he told her. "If I was pissed, you'd know." And he wasn't. Still, he kept his eyes on her, kept watching her drawn in by the red. It was fascinating. Enough so that he actually started watching that more than continually checking her over for injury. "You'd drag me to the hospital, huh?" he asked. "And visit and everything? What would you bring me?"

She curled the hand shut lightly, not quite into a fist, just a folding of her fingers. The blood would probably dry quickly, and when it did she'd clean it off, but she wasn't going to hasten it any. "Let's see... music the nurses would confiscate, I bet," she started, "Play Doh, because that shit's just endlessly entertaining, maybe some comics or something. Oh, and some flowers and a stuffed rabbit," she added, smirking his way for a moment. It was as much of an acknowledgement as she'd give that she was happy he wasn't pissed.

He laughed. "Flowers and a stuffed rabbit. Excellent, just what I always wanted." he said. "The nurses might not confiscate anything, I can be charming when I want to be." he told her, winking. "Be careful what you give me though." he told her. "I keep gifts." He held out his other wrist, and tugged it up so she could see the two necklaces he'd wound round it. The weird symbol he'd gotten from Lullaby, and the hello kitty guitar pick Leija had given him. "Girls like decorating me, I guess."

She turned her head fully to glance at the loops around Caleb's wrist. Some rune or glyph, who knew what most of them meant? And... "Hello Kitty?" she asked, her gaze ticking from the guitar pick to his eyes, "Seriously? Wow. If you weren't bleeding because of me, I'd so be pointing out how much of a homo you are. Plus? You seem more like a Batz-Maru guy to me." She leaned back as they kept moving, fingers swirling along her palm slightly. "And in this imaginary scenario, you'd get the CDs no matter what. I'd just force my mom to pull some strings."

He kind of looked blank at the Batz-Maru comment. "Who?" he asked. "And it was a gift. The ex gave it to me when I was in the hospital. So blame her. I expect you to get me something a lot more my speed." he told her. He kept watching her playing with the blood, wanting to say something about it, but knowing if he did she'd stop. So...he just watched very, every closely. "I trust it all to you."

"Too much trust, if you ask me," Nic was quick to tell him. "I have what the guidance counsellor calls poor judgment, especially if tonight's factored in. But you're excused, since it was a gift." And Hello Kitty or no, a cool little guitar pick was a good memento to give someone. "Batz-Maru, Hello Kitty's villain. He's an evil little penguin, he's awesome." She could've rambled about the adorable costumes and disguises and vehicles? But that was far too girly, so she just shrugged, reaching into her hoodie for a now-quite battered pack of cigarettes.

"I'll judge on the too much trust thing. And if everything was all safe and perfect and there was no possibility of a fuckup then life wouldn't be very interesting." Caleb told her with a shrug. "So I'll just live dangerously and trust you." Then he pondered what she'd said about the penguin. "There's a bad guy for hello kitty? Um...alright. I guess this one was the best of two evils though. I don't know. I just keep it. Guess I'm weirdly sentimental sometimes. Just...shh. Don't tell anyone."

Working with her cigarette pack was proving to be a trick; one hand was only bloodied on the palm, but the other had a nice smear of Caleb's and a trickle from her ripped nail. She flipped the pack open, shaking it briefly and scowling at all the broken ones inside. "What makes it weird?" Nic asked, bringing the pack to her lips and fishing out an unbroken smoke without using her messier hand. She took a second before continuing, lighting up and scowling at how even gripping a lighter stung with the fresh scrapes. "Hell, I got my board from this guy back home. And sure, it's functional? But it also reminds me of him, even if we were just friends. I think everyone's sentimental, some people just hide it under their sleeves," she teased.

"I guess what makes it weird is most people wouldn't peg me for it." Caleb said. "And generally I'm not, in other ways. I just...I don't know. If someone gives me something, I keep it." he told her. At least her cheek looked like it wasn't bleeding so bad anymore, and they were starting to get closer to his house. "What guy?" he asked. "Name...personality...relationship..." he said, wanting those details, and curious about if she'd hand them over or not. He had to resist the urge to reach out and take the lighter from her and light her cigarette for her, and he noticed she was sort of...leaving his blood all over her hand and not actually trying to rid herself of it. Again, he was absolutely fascinated with that whole thing.

"I probably wouldn't peg you for it either," Nic admitted, shaking her head, "But I'm not, like, floored to find out you like to have things that tie into your memory. Mementos are good, they remind you like that. And since I saw both, what's the rune-thingy?" She chuckled at his questions, finding her own memory triggered by them. "Just a friend from back in Green Bay, this gutterpunk everyone called Spacker Dave. Real sweet guy once you got to know him, but it's a long story. He was just... a cool friend. I didn't have a ton back home, y'know? And he was one of them."

"It's a religious symbol of some type...I don't actually know what type though, so don't ask. A girl I know gave it to me--wait you actually probably knew her. She...well, she died. Lullaby Draven?" he said, watching Nic for reaction. "She gave it to me a while before then, this summer. Something protective, I gather. And he sounds cool, as most people are with nicknames like that." he noted. Meant they were a little larger than life, someone who needed to be immortalized by a name that fit that.

Nic grew a little somber when he brought up Lullaby's name, nodding. "I didn't really know her? But I knew who she was. That was just fucked, I remember my mom asking if I wanted to go see the hospital's grief counsellors." She hadn't of course, but she'd taken some time being more solitary than normal, reflecting on life and death for what turned out to be the first time of her new, three year long life. "It was almost like a warning, how it happened before the gangs and everything, like someone saying 'shit's not quiet here any more'." She took a long drag off her cigarette, staring cross-eyed at the bent length of it as she inhaled, then chuckled. "Yeah, he was a good guy. Hope he's doing okay..."

"You don't keep in touch?" he asked. He skipped over most of the Lullaby stuff. Mostly because he knew she wasn't dead. So it was difficult for him to talk about sometimes, just knowing what he did. Just having in the back of his mind that he'd helped her up the steps, that he'd had far more of her blood on his hands than Nic had on hers right now, when he'd been stitching her up. That she wore chokers now and he was pretty sure that she was covering something up. "And yeah, I know what you mean about the warning thing." he added, voice slightly quieter.

"There's no way to," Nic told him, shrugging and frowning over that. "He was a literal gutterpunk, Caleb. Slept on the streets or friends' couches, scrounged for cash to go to concerts, played a few every now and then for a little more money. It's hard to keep in touch with someone who doesn't have a phone or address." Not to mention that, aside from a few friends back in Wisconsin, most hadn't really tried to hard to keep in touch with her. And she got why; they were teenagers, she'd known the lot of them for less than a year, but that didn't make it suck less. "Honestly though, I hope I'm wrong about it being a warning. I just want shit a little more sane," she added, dropping her smoke once it was done and curling her other hand a little tighter to stem the trickle of blood from her finger.

"Sorry to hear." he said though he knew the type. There were a lot of them in New Orleans. "And I don't know. If you want my honest assessment, the non-sparkly one where everything sucks, I think shit is on a downhill slide. There were the gangs, there was the two students that were killed, then Lullaby was. Things seem to be on a clear downgrade." Which played into why he wanted her to know how to defend herself quickly and efficiently.

She nodded in agreement, knowing his assessment was far more likely than her hopes were. Nic was quiet for a long while, glancing at him once or twice, looking out across the streets and the odd passing car, then finally speaking again. "There were the shadows too," she added with a line in her brow, a troubled look in her eyes. "Or shadowmen, whatever you want to call them. I never heard what the story was with those, it's like once they were gone? No one wanted to admit they'd ever been here."

"Yes, there were the shadows." he agreed, and was glad she'd brought them up. Because that was one thing he'd wanted to know about since meeting her. If she knew the score there, if she'd seen them, if she knew something was fucked. This made it a lot easier. He hated talking around shit. "I'm not sure exactly what the story was. They were after my brother, and a friend of mine." he told her. "...that the first time you've ever come up against something..." he trailed off, not sure how to put it to her and figured she'd come up with a word.

"They were after them? Like, trying to kill them?" Nic asked in disbelief. "All I ever saw them do was walk around, saw one climb right out of a mirror too." She nodded again though, slower this time. "Yeah, first time I saw anything like that. Something so... unreal. But it was real, it was like I woke up in a fucking Tool video, and when it was over everyone just ignored it. Why would they do that?" she asked him, since the 'not sure exactly' sounded like maybe he had some idea at least.

He looked at her as they walked, and they were about a block from his house. Which was a better place to have this conversation. Still, he answered her. "Because people don't like it when their world view is challenged." he told her, voice quiet. "Because they want everything to go back to normal, where things aren't at all unexplainable, where they can just get up, go to work, come home, sleep, and start over. If they have to start worrying about what might be in the shadows they hit a wall. Can't deal." he told her. "It's a defense mechanism."

She sneered at that, flinching slightly from the tight pull of her cheek. Another drink would probably dull the pain, but Nic could wait until they were inside to get her mixed bottle out. "Stupid fucking mechanism," she commented bitterly, " 'Let's ignore the things that might kill us, I'd hate to miss tonight's Lost!' Idiots." Although she could probably understand why if she tried, she didn't want to right now. Caleb was the first person she'd asked about it in a while, and the first, period, to tell her that it had really happened.

"Yeah, never said I agreed with it." he said. Then he nodded to wards a dark house. "Mine." he said, and headed through the yard and up the walk, digging his key out of his pocket and finding his mp3 player was still in it. That was something. "Come on." he invited, not flicking the living room light on, and he held the door open for her before he kicked off his shoes, and led the way towards the bathroom. "First aid kit's in here."

Shirking her shoes just past the door, Nic followed Caleb through the dark space, her gaze curious on the shapes in the darkness surrounding them. She moved to the bathroom door with him, lingering at the threshhold of it. "Thanks, I'll be a few while I clean myself up," she told him, relieved by this opportunity. Her mother always hated when she came home roughed up, maybe she'd be less agitated if Nic showed up already bandaged.

He turned the bathroom light on, and got the kit out from beneath the sink, before turning his eyes on her. "I can do it." he said. "I've done a lot of it before, and your hands are a little fucked up right now." he pointed out. Plus she still had his blood all over hers, if he was thinking about it. He noticed belatedly now that they were in the light that his elbow must have scraped beneath his shirt, because there was blood on his sleeve there too. It had likely already stopped though.

Well, so much for rinsing her sleeves in the sink. That would've meant getting topless for a minute, and Nic certainly wasn't about to do that in front of Caleb. "I'd get by," she insisted weakly, leaving her protests there. His house, after all, she could give him that little concession. Sticking her hands in the sink preemptively, Nic kept her eyes on the mirror. She could still see him like this, after all. "I guess you probably have," she agreed with a little nod, chewing her lip for a moment before asking her question. "Where'd they come from? The, um... the scars." He didn't seem like some emo-cutter kid, but he'd talked about not really liking his parents. Maybe abuse?

He leaned around her and turned the water on, trying to make the temperature hot but not too hot, and he stopped the sink up to fill it. He set the first aid kit on the counter, and opened it up, revealing that there were a few things in his that didn't come standard. Such as the stitching kit. He didn't say anything for a long moment as he debated that. "Most of them come from fights of one description or another." he said. "And...I suppose, my particular brand of it." His eyes were down on her hands, and he reached out to take one, standing to her right and a little behind her, and he brought it down into the water. "If you want to know, I'll tell you, but I give fair warning first--you know what we were just talking about? Things that are out there that people don't know about? It falls under that category." He ticked his gaze up to meet hers via their reflection. "So...you can pass, if you want."

Hissing softly at the temperature change, Nic looked down to watch the water cloud up and turn a ruddy pinkish color. She wriggled her fingers, working some caked blood free, then looked back to his reflection. 'Things that are out there... my particular brand of fights. The shadows were after some friends of mine.' Not only had he acknowledged their presence, Nic was suddenly certain that Caleb knew more about the strange beings than anyone else she'd talked to. "I want to know," she said after a moment, nodding at herself in the mirror.

He nodded in return. "Alright." he said. "Let's get you patched up first...kind of works better if you see it rather than just me explaining it." he told her, looking down at her hands again and he pulled the one he still had hold of up out of i, and turned it over. It had been the one she'd smeared his blood all over, and it was gone now, just pink droplets clinging to her skin. The scrape wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good, either. He realized after a moment that he'd just been sort of standing there for a moment, looking down at her hand as he held onto it, and kicked himself back into gear. He could think over everything later, how she'd been playing with his blood there, how it had smeared in with her own. Yeah, not thinking about it. So he grabbed the kit, letting her hand go as he busied himself for a second, getting the bandages he'd need and all.

Whatever 'it' was, Nic was curious. He had to show her where the scars came from? This was some part of the strangeness that he said people ignored for their own sake? She didn't want to rush him, but asking herself these answerless questions wouldn't get her anywhere, so she could at least save him some time cleaning her up. Biting her lip to keep from hissing again, Nic dropped the other hand into the sink and worked her fingers against the slightly deeper scrapes on her palm. "Gotta patch you up, too," she said after a moment, "If I were my mom I'd shave off a clump of your hair to get at that cut. But you'd look stupid with one big patch missing, or a skinhead style."

"Not sure the skinhead look is one I'm ready to go for." he said. "Annnd...just leave it." he said. "Trust me." he added. He dried her hand gently and then bandaged it up, after making sure there wasn't a bunch of dirt pressed into the wound. Then he grabbed a clean washcloth, and wet it down by turning the tap on again, before he turned her face towards his a little, so he could start wiping at her cheek. "This is going to bruise, too, you know." he told her, more for something to say while they were in kind of close than anything else.

The bandaging wasn't so bad, she just focused on cleaning up her other hand while he tended to it. But that light touch to turn her head? Well, that set off alarms in Nic's mind. It was entirely unexpected to have him even do that, let alone the gentle pass of the washcloth at her cheek. Working hard to focus on something else, Nic kept her eyes angled sharp to one side as he dabbed the scrape clean. "Yeah, I know," she told him, "I'll see if I can't start some more rumors about the hockey cocks beating on girls." She looked over to Caleb with the joke, hoping to see amusement in his eyes that matched her own, and froze. The closeness was more surprising than the contact, and for half a second, Nic's lips curved into a big, awkward smile. Luckily? Smiling hurt right now. "Oh whore!" she snapped, keeping herself still for his sake and looking to the side again.

He squinted one eye shut in a wince as she did that. "How about you try to keep yourself as stoney-faced as possible for a few?" he suggested, putting a hand on her elbow to steady her a little bit, an automatic sort of reaction. Then he gave her a second, before he dabbed at her cheek again, putting some pressure on because she'd made it start bleeding fresh again.

"Sorry, sorry," she murmured, careful to keep her eyes sideways and lip movements small. "Swear i must have Tourettes." Of course, being told to stay blankfaced just made her want to smirk or laugh or stick her tongue out at Caleb. Okay... sad thoughts. Al Jourgensen gave me the finger? No, that's awesome. Dead babies? Gross. Yeah, that'll do. And she managed, her brow lined in concentration as she stayed put, idly swirling her fingers in the semi-bloody water of the sink.

He got her cheek cleaned up, and put a bandage over that, taping it in place well enough before he turned her shoulder, so he could get at her other hand more easily. Taking it, he dried it off and bandaged that up too, and got her finger done as well. "Okay, last chance. Anything else need looking at?" he asked. "You were walking a little stiff--do you need ice?" he asked as he finally stepped back from her, though it was more to look her over properly to satisfy himself he'd done a good enough, thorough job.

She could probably conjure up a few choice words at being turned like that, but Nic just looked down at her feet between them, rolling one with a soft pop of her ankle. "I think it'll be okay, nurse. I'm gonna be giving the board a break for a day or two, no danger there," she told him, smiling very faintly for fear of undoing his work on her cheek. "And are you seriously not even going to let me help clean up that crusty blood mess you've got going in your hair? Because that's not fair, I made that blood come out, remember? The least I can do is clean a little of it up."

"We'd just have to come right back in here anyways." he told her cryptically. "Now...c'mon." he told her, and he headed out of the bathroom, glancing back over his shoulder as he headed to his own room. He flicked the switch, which turned on his bedside lamp, and he crawled onto his bed and over to his window, shoving it open. "You're staying in here." he told her, looking back at her, and he crooked his finger, to beckon her to come over to where he was.

Did he seriously just say and do those two things? she had to wonder as she moved into the small, sparsely decorated room. "Staying in here? Where are you going, then?" she asked, moving to sit at the foot of the bed and drawing her legs up under her. "Gonna tell me you can fly or something?" Sitting was good, though, it gave her a chance to lightly rub the tendons along the back of her ankle with the less-fucked of her hands.

"Over here, by the window. I'm going out there." he told her, before he dropped down out of the window, and he leaned back in it. "You get a demonstration. I just want you clearly out of the way for it, just in case." he told her, starting to back away from the house, hoping she'd appear in the window in a second.

Not normally a girl prone to obedience, Nic nonetheless scooted down the bed and leaned to poke her head out the window. She pulled her cigarettes again, figuring it wasn't an issue if she was already half-out of his room, digging free her last unbroken one as she watched Caleb backstep away from the house. A demonstration? What, was he going to pull one of the shadows from thin air? How did his scars factor into this? "How out of the way do you need to be?" she called after him, filled with a mix of anxiety and anticipation as she watched.

He walked about halfway back through the yard then stopped, then looked around entirely, gauging distance. Alright, he figured he had it down. Then he walked back over towards the window, but kept a good five feet between himself and her. Reaching up, back to slick his fingers through the sticky blood matted into his hair, he rubbed his fingers together, then glanced back to be sure she was paying attention. "Try not to freak out." he told her. Then he traced a symbol into the air, it hanging there, a dark red glow that faded out just as the spell completed itself, and then he dropped down to one knee and slammed his hand down into the grass. A red arch like a claw beneath the surface of the ground rent through the yard, leaving a furrow in it's wake. He felt the backlash from it open up on his forearm, slicing a jagged line down it towards his wrist. Then he pushed himself back to his feet and looked back at Nic.

She wasn't there when he looked back up, not at first. The very moment he'd traced that symbol and it had just... stayed put in the air, Nic's world turned upside down. And suddenly it had gotten worse, too, but she could only stare in blank amazement as something split grass and dirt. She'd understand his warning about distance a moment later, but when she saw that? Nic tumbled off the bed, her head landing neatly in both bandaged hands. "Holy shit," she murmured to herself, sitting up to peer back out at Caleb a second later. "Holy fucking fuck," she went on, breathing the words out the window and at him.

He walked back over, and looked up at her. "You okay?" he asked. He didn't get too close, definitely out of touching distance, though that was for her benefit, not his. He didn't want to scare her. He'd need to see how deep the backlash was in a second, and he could feel the blood running down from it, soaking into his shirt sleeve, welling down at the cuff of it. Starting to soak into the cord from the gift Lullaby had given him.

This was why the rumors couldn't pin down who Caleb Lockwood was; he was something that the gossips at school couldn't even imagine. A witch or demon or mutant or something. There was definitely a flight instinct in some part of her mind as he approached, a wild urge to run (or limp as it were) out of here and tell her mom they needed to move. Fuck the house, fuck school, fuck her job at the hospital. But that was only a part of her thoughts. The other part? Well, it pointed out how Caleb had been honest with her, had probably expected her to freak out. "Okay," she murmured with barely contained amazement, "You're going to get in here and explain what the hell you just did? Or I can keep up the 'holy fucking fuck', but louder."

"I'll be in in a second." he said. He could climb back into the window. But he wanted to give her more space than that. And, of course, the opportunity to drop out of it and bail if she had to, while he walked around the house to come back in the front door. He walked slowly, hand clasping down on his arm to try and slow the bloodflow down. That was going to be fun to deal with, of course, but it would highlight the scars thing. When he got to the front door, he opened it up cautiously, aware that she could decide to attack him. It was a reasonable response to something like what he'd showed her. Or at least, one he could understand.

She was waiting in the doorway of his bedroom, listening for his return amid the dark of the house. She saw the silhouette as the front door opened, one arm clenching the other. And in the streetlights beyond the door, she caught the faintest reflection on the floor, something wet and shiny. If it was blood from when they arrived, the door would've smeared it. "Caleb?" she asked in a soft voice, "Are you... are you okay?"

"You asked where the scars came from." he said. "This would be where. What you just saw was blood magic." he said, shutting the door behind him, though he didn't cross over towards her. "It's destructive, powerful, and backlashes every time." he explained. "It also scars every time." he told her, before he started to head for the bathroom. "...I might be a minute." he said over his shoulder.

She hesitated, watching him move, then started to follow back to the bathroom. "Uh, no?" she said in that same quiet voice, catching up to him. "I think you might need a hand, since you're dripping." It was amazing how she was still rational enough to say as much, given what he'd just showed her, but Nic felt like the shock had receded to some private place, like being in a car accident. "C'mon, let me help," she insisted, "My mom's a nurse, remember? Plus... yeah, questions."

He sighed a little, but didn't tell her no. Instead he walked into the bathroom, and realized belatedly that he hadn't drained the sink when they left before, so he did that then, looking at the blood soaked into his shirt sleeve. He pushed it up, and saw the ragged gash along his forearm. See this was why he preferred to be fighting something. He could use the knife, and heal himself back up, no problem. He turned his arm over and inspected it. looked kind of deep. And from the bloodflow, he figured that was more than enough indication. Being he had to push his sleeve up as far as he did, he knew that gave her a good look at a ton of other scars, and it was the other arm, even than he'd showed her before. His right arm. "Ask whatever you want."

"Okay, uh..." she said nonsensically, looking at his arm and frowning. She needed something to focus on first, something to occupy her thoughts. "Christ, that looks deep. You might need stitches," she said, snagging a gauze pad from the first aid kit he'd left out. "Lemme help, here," Nic went on, reaching to press at the base of his wrist. He was already keeping pressure on one end, she could cover the other, then bandage it up. Of course, that was if he didn't need stitches. "Okay, let me try again? Blood magic? Like, magic-magic? And this 'oh cruel world' cut, this is... you said backlash, right?"

"Yes, like magic magic. It's out there. This is the only kind I'm any good at though. which...y'know. Figures, considering the backlash factor." Caleb said, not trying to stop her from putting pressure on the wounds. "And I need stitches. I do a lot, it's why I've got the needle in there. It's fine, I can do it." He paused a little bit, watching the little spatters of blood on the white counter. "Remember I said how pain doesn't bother me? You learn to ignore it really fast after you deal with this shit a lot." he explained. "It just...it's like a price. I get to shred anything coming at me with little to no problem, and it bitchslaps me back for it. Like a trade off."

That made sense, it would explain him being fine after cracking his head so hard that Nic would've cried. "Alright then, grab your needle and let me hold by the elbow too," she offered, figuring it might be tricky in the small bathroom, but she'd manage even with her bandages. "And wait, there's other kinds of magic? Do they all have prices like these?" Nic asked, bringing her other hand to bear below his elbow, where he'd already set a grip around the wound.

Caleb moved, and sat up on the countertop, resting his leg on his knee, so it would be easier for them both. Then he grabbed the curved needle--which was always threaded and knotted at the end just in case--and he started to stitch himself up. "I guess." he said. "Something like a three fold rule or something, I don't know for sure though. Honestly I tried some of it but couldn't get it to work right, and found this and it worked perfectly. So...I stuck with this." he explained, not even really wincing as he stitched. Like he'd done it a thousand times. "There's a lot out there." he said. "Kind of most of the things you can think of...they're out there somewhere. Not necessarily like the movies, though." he amended, ticking his gaze up to her face. "Very little is like the movies."

"I'm getting that," Nic agreed, keeping her grip firm on both points of his arm and blinking as he sank the needle in without a second's hesitation. "I've heard of the three-fold thing? But somehow I doubt it was anywhere near right." There's a lot out there. Out here. Somehow, it didn't surprise her as much as she'd expected. Maybe the living shadows had robbed her of the full shock, or maybe she'd just always figured that the world she saw wasn't the whole world. Either way, Nic found the urge to run fading away as she stood there, watching Caleb stitch himself. He wasn't a monster, he was her friend. "Vampires?" she asked flatly, releasing below the wrist for a second to grab the gauze and wipe at errant blood along his arm.

He did the usual job he did, which was fast, not that terribly straight or clean. Because it didn't matter, it would scar anyhow, so there was no point in doing it up nice, now was there? He tilted his head to the side, and pointed out a faint scar on it. "Vampires." he confirmed for her, before he went back to stitching more.

She nearly reached out to touch it, realizing it was so faint that she never would've spied it without him showing it. Instead she just kept up the pressure, removing one hand entirely to keep cleaning up his arm. When there was no more blood to wipe for the moment? She watched him, the familiar ease he had with the work he was doing. "It wasn't gangs that attacked us, was it?" she went on, thinking back on the savagery of the assault the town had endured. People she knew died, people her mother was friends with died or were never seen again... and now she knew. It was some unknown horror in the dark.

"No." he answered her. "It wasn't gangs." He kept stitching, then gently removed her hand from up near his elbow, so he could stitch up to the top of the wound. "That was vampires, though the scar isn't from that. I got jumped here shortly after I arrived. Random, really." he told her. "The vamp attacks on the town though...that was pack-vampires. Nasty fuckers, obviously. When that was going down, I went out every night. Did what I showed you there, only a bit more efficient-like, and did what I could. They're hard to take down though. they don't really have any regard for each other so it isn't like there's any leverage. And they just breed like fucking rabbits, replace their ranks when they take a hit and keep going. I figure the reason they stuck around here as long as they did was because there were other people out there too, trying to take them down, so their numbers must have kept fluctuating. I don't know, though, that's pure speculation."

She let him move her hand, draping it at her side and just listening. Packs of vampires? Jesus. So many people had died or vanished, and if what he was saying was true? Some of them were vampires now. But the town had survived, probably because of people like Caleb... and that made her eyebrows draw together in thought. "Other people? You mean others like you?" she asked thoughtfully, just wondering. Did his ex number in with those? She couldn't imagine Caleb dating someone without them knowing about all of this, though this would be a good reason to break up too. Suddenly Nic found herself a lot less secure about her place in things, about her mom's feeling that this'd be a safe place to move. The idea had been shaken before, sure, but now that she knew that the danger was ongoing the idea was just gone.

He shrugged one shoulder, tying a messy knot, then pausing to tie another knot into the end of the string, so he could get the last bit down by his wrist. "'Like me' might be kind of a bad term." he said. "Just...others. People who can deal with this shit, I guess. Or people willing. I didn't exactly stop and ask for names." he told her, quirking a little half smirk at her. "Was busy and everything." He also was deliberately leaving out his brother's involvement. Because as far as he was concerned, she could know about the blood magic. Anyone could learn that. But the half-demon thing...that stayed untold. Besides, right now was a piss poor time to start testing the strength of their friendship. He'd already tested it enough tonight. He nudged her hand out of the way and peeled the bandage back, to start stitching up the last part of the wound.

"And that's why you know how to use a knife," Nic finally said, breathing a little sigh of relief at that insight, at least. He wasn't a teenage serial killer, and that was a nice thing to know for certain. "And why you wanted to teach me, too?" she asked, stepping back to lean on the edge of the sink. That knowledge made the offer much more sincere, it let her know that he wanted her to avoid the sort of thing that had happened before, to survive it if it came again. "So you balance school and this?" Nic joked, "I'd go nuts if I had more on my plate to deal with. And I won't lie, okay? This? This is fucking freaky. But I, uh, I'm glad you told me."

Nodding, he quickly and messily stitched up the end of the wound and tied it off, dropping the needle on the counter. "That's why I know how to use a knife, and why I want you to as well." he said. "Though...I want you to know how to drop something fast so you can get away, not how to kill something." he amended, taking up a bit of gauze to dab at the stitched wound, to get more of the blood away from it. His shirt was uncomfortable as all hell, because the arm of it was stiff with drying blood now, and he needed a shower bad, but he wasn't giving Nic the full picture of the scarwork on him. Fuck no. She she made the joke, he ticked his eyes back up to hers, and smirked at her. "Yeah, and people wonder why I don't think school's that terribly fucking important." he said. Because he didn't. He didn't even know why he still went, most of the time. "And yeah, it is. Most people kind of...have an adjustment period." he said, putting that delicately. Then he sighed and fully looked back up at her. "I'm glad you didn't run." he said, voice maybe just a touch quieter than it had been before.

Nic smiled awkwardly, looking down at her feet and nodding. "Me too," she agreed, glancing his way. "Because I still get to help with what's gotta be a goose egg on the back of your skull." She slapped him on the shoulder, half-pushing him towards turning. "C'mon, it'll be quick, then you can kick my nosy ass out and let me think on all of this all night instead of sleeping. Gotta love weekends." Because yeah, she'd be up all night on the house computer, digging for every fleck of the supernatural she could, no matter how ridiculous it seemed. And then, Saturday and Sunday? Well, she'd probably just walk around, people-watch, try to imagine what they really were, or what they could do.

He quirked a light smirk at her. "Okay fine." he said. "Where do you want me and what am I doing? This might work better in the kitchen." he added, sliding down from the counter, and he made a fist, seeing if there were spots along the gash that were going to well up when he did it, but he was old hat at this by now. No blood welled up.

"I just figured I'd mop you up a little, see how bad I kicked your ass," she joked weakly, figuring there wasn't a whole lot of room for humor in everything they'd just gotten into. "Kitchen works, I just need paper towels, or a towel you don't mind getting messy. Some antibiotic cream'd be good too." Nic's eyes were on his neck as she spoke, on the streaked, dried blood there. He could probably tend to it himself, but after what he'd just revealed to her, not to mention the start of the night, Nic wanted to try and do something to repay it all. Even just the gesture would make her feel better.

Caleb grabbed a towel off the back of the bathroom door. "Not sure we have the cream stuff." he said. "But maybe. If we do it's in the kit." he said. He didn't usually bother with it. Then he headed out to the kitchen, where he flicked the light on, and turned the faucet on, checking the temperature. He leaned over the sink, and reached behind his head to rub at the back of his neck, dried blood flaking down into the basin. Yeah, he really needed a shower.

"You should get some if you don't," Nic chided, following after him into the kitchen. "It's pretty handy. Helps healing, reduces scars, all that. You're probably sick of hearing about her? But my mom swears by the stuff." Taking the towel, she stuck it under the faucet to wet it quickly, Nic started a slow repetition of cleaning off Caleb's neck, working from the base up. "I think in your line of work, you should just buy stock in the company." She did her best to return the favor he'd done, keeping the passage of the towel gentle. When she reached his hairline she started dampening it, pinching a bit in the towel, and drawing it away. Over and over, working the clumps out and parting the hair until she saw it. "Well shit," she muttered, reaching in to gently touch the swollen lump already forming on his skull. "Yeah, that's a good one. Want me to get a bigass band-aid?"

He smirked faintly. "...yeah, not so worried about scars, Nic." he told her. He relaxed, leaning his good arm on the sink ledge, and he rested his head down on that, pretty much letting her do whatever. "Think that would stand out a bit, don't you think?" he asked, light humor in his tone. "Just clean it up, it'll be fine." he told her. "I'll just...I don't know. Sleep on my stomach tonight."

Resisting the urge to poke the swollen lump, Nic chuckled softly instead. "It's the weekend, remember? Unless you've got big plans tomorrow no one would even see it." She smiled lightly though, figuring that she had no place to argue it. It was her fault after all. Working the towel a little higher, Nic smoothed the dampened hair away from the pressure cut and felt a wave of guilt as she swabbed the dried blood away, hoping she got any dirt with it. "There, good as new... if new meant big fucking lumps on your head," she told him, shutting off the water and piling the towel on the counter.

He looked up at her and smirked. "Hey, how do you know it isn't?" he asked. "I'll count it as good." he told her. "Thanks." he added, even if it had been wholly unnecessary and all that. He was hoping she felt better about it now, at least. "So, am I properly tended to, Nurse Nic?" he asked. The look he gave her when he said that was almost purely angelic, save for that impish glint in his eyes.

"Until I make you a match set, yes," she replied with a weak growl, shaking her head and stepping away to lean nearby on the counter. "Should I call someone to kiss it better for you?" Nic teased in kind, smirking back at him. With what he'd just shown her, and how easily it had lapsed into tending to his injuries, her guilt over causing them in the first place was nearly forgotten for the moment.

He reached back to tug his fingers through his now wet hair, and then stood straight. "Well, I've never been adverse to that kind of thing, but unless you're volunteering, I don't know that there's anyone who'd be on call for that sort of thing." he told her, flashing a grin. Rose was sick, though he could imagine she would in fact, be the kind of girl who'd kiss things better, and Leija...while he was aware she might actually do something like that with a much less innocent agenda in mind, he wasn't going there.

She found herself grinning back despite a flash of pain as she shook her head, tucking stray braids behind her ears and crossing her arms over her chest. "You can just fuck right off," she told him smartly, her head hanging a little. For someone who'd just shown off his weird-ass powers and stitched himself shut, Caleb was definitely free with his smiles. "Maybe if your brother comes home he can do it," she went on, winking at him and shifting her feet restlessly on the kitchen floor. "So, um, everything we talked about? If I seem weird at school, it's not you, okay? Just... me trying to grapple with it, wondering if anyone else in the halls is involved in all this."

He stood straight at that point, and looked at her for a long moment. "You know I understand if you want nothing to do with me after something like this." he told her, voice careful. Light. "It's a lot to take in and honestly, most people don't want to deal with it. It's why no one knows about this shit even if it's out there. Because people don't...it's a lot to deal with. And they don't want to and frankly, most of the time they don't have to. I will tell you this. If you decide to get involved, you're involved. There isn't a whole lot of fringe involvement in shit like this. As much as it'd be nice, it's sort of one of those if you're in, you're in situations. And if you want out? I'm not going to blame you for it."

Nic thought about that, and how earnest he seemed in the offer. She remembered during the gang... no, vampire attacks, how she'd stayed at the hospital with her mother. How, even though she'd stayed in the employee bunks most of the time, she could hear screams, people crying, frantic staff running out of ways to help. Once or twice she'd seen the carnage firsthand, and though she rarely thought about it? She remembered it. Reaching up over his head, Nic grabbed a clump of wet hair and twisted it up, leaving Caleb with a single point sticking above his head as she managed a smile. "I'm in," she told him, nodding slightly. "I don't think I could ignore this now that I know it's there, I'd need to lose thirty IQ points and only breathe through my mouth. I may be pretty useless in it, but you trusted me enough to tell me the truth. So that counts for something."

He made a face, and reached up to get rid of the hair point she'd just given him. Well at least she hadn't opted for horns. "Don't say you're useless, or you'd be useless. There's a lot to be said for knowing, learning what you can, and figuring out ways around shit." he said honestly. And, just for the record, even if you're staying in, as it were, if you don't want to be around me specifically I get that too. I mean, what you just saw...if anything had been in it's path, it'd be down a limb at least." then he thought a moment, and added another bit. "And that in mind, if there ever is a fight going down, or anything like that, you get to cover as soon as you can, and unless you can warn me really, really clearly? Don't come near me. That shit doesn't have the best control, and I can't pull it back once the spell's complete. So it's either stick directly with me or stay as far the hell away from me as possible."

She took the advice about his magic with a nod, not really having anything to say there. If he said to get clear? She'd get clear, and stay there. As for the rest? Nic leaned back a bit more, taking weight off of her ankle for the moment and turning a questioning look Caleb's way. "Why wouldn't I want to be around you? What you did is crazy, yeah? But you showed me, you told me the truth. For all I know, I've known people in this town for a year who could do that kind of thing. Maybe they're the ones who talk shit to me, maybe they work with my mom, I don't know. I do know that what I know about you? It makes sense, even with this thrown in. Hell, maybe more with this thrown in." She'd started looking down at her shoes somewhere in there, always finding it easier to speak openly without looking at someone, but she looked back up at him and shrugged. "You're not ditching me that easy, jerk."

He laughed just a little at that, and smiled at her. It was probably a more genuine smile than he usually gave in general. "Well, don't say you weren't warned or anything." he told her. He was glad, though, that she didn't want to bail on him. It would make watching out for her a lot easier, without having to stalk. That, and as he'd figured out the other day, he just flat out liked the girl and wanted her around. So he was pleased that he'd be getting to keep her in that respect. A new friend, and all that. It was something. "And just for you to know and all that...if anything does go wrong, if the shit does hit the fan or whatever...seriously. Call me. And if you're safe and everything stay there, just...let me know you're alright."

She didn't like being told that he'd essentially just want her to hide if trouble hit, but she understood why. There was no magic she could just bust out if she found herself fighting... who even knew what. "I can do that," Nic told him earnestly, "But can you keep me in the loop? Not just, like, telling me when shit's going bad. Not even teaching me to gut bitches. But more like, if I want to find out what's out there, what might be here, can you fill me in? I know I might not sleep as easy, but it'd be better than just wondering." And if anyone could do that? Nic had a feeling Caleb could.

He nodded. "Yeah, I can do that." he told her. "Good place to start is Nevermore, my brother's book store." he added. "He's got the real information there. So you won't get a bunch of bullshit, but it's also kind of overwhelming, because there's so much. But if you have any questions, I can do my best to answer too. Can't promise I know everything, but I know a good chunk." he admitted. Because he didn't know everything. Not by a long shot, but he knew a lot.

She didn't want promises, just the offer of whatever help he could give. After all, Caleb was her age, how much could she really expect him to know? Aside from casting blood magic and how to kill vampires... "I can check that place out, yeah. Think I have more of a reason to now," she admitted with a smirk, stepping away from the counter. "You know this means I'm going to be bugging you to actually hang out, now? Tapping on your window, we'll see how you like it," she threatened with a weak glare.

He chuckled. "Well, it's always open." he told her. "So, feel free to use it." Other people do... Or, alright, Leija does. He didn't mind though. "Just try not to get mud all over my bed if you do." he added in a teasing sort of tone. "Other than that, it's duly noted. You wanting to hang out. Check. I'll mark it down." he told her, hoping she meant it and such.

She did mean what she'd said, but didn't feel like repeating herself for fear of coming off as obsessive or even fake. "yeah, free up your busy social calendar, bunny-boy," she teased, tapping him on the arm with a fist and taking her first slow steps away from the sink and Caleb. "I should probably go, though. If it gets too much later my mom's going to wake up, call the hospital, and then call the cops. All three steps of that process suck ass."

He paused for a long moment. "Can I walk you home?" he asked. He didn't want to push, but...she'd just gotten herself knocked around, come in contact with a lot of blood...he'd feel a lot better walking her home instead of sending her out to be bait. That just didn't work for him. So...he'd rather deal with her sighing at him or whatever she was going to do than not ask. Besides, it'd be easier than following her, which he would do regardless.

Nic thought about that, frowning. In the past few times they'd hung out, she'd tried refusing, and he'd insisted. Now? Well, now she felt like the darkness might envelop her, like there might be strange things lurking at every corner, just past the street lights. Nic wondered if she'd ever feel as safe in the dark as she used to, and figured she probably wouldn't unless she got a shotgun for Christmas. Dear Santa... she thought with a smirk before nodding to him. "That'd be cool," she actually agreed, "As long as you don't pass out. I said I'd drag you to the hospital, but I never said I'd like doing it."

"I'm fine." he told her for probably the tenth time already. "Trust me. I'm not going to drop. I know my limits." And generally, that was pretty true. He did. He knew when he was going to hit a point where he was done. He'd been there a few times, after all. Sometimes deliberately. "Let's go then." he said, moving towards the door. "I'm going to change my shirt, gimme a sec, then we can go." Because walking around town with a severely bloody shirt wasn't comfortable nor advisable. But he was glad she hadn't fought him on it. Willingly accepting being walked home was so much better than the other way.

"Sounds good," she told him, lingering back in the kitchen until Caleb headed for his room, then gritting her teeth and heading to the door. Nic grabbed her backpack from the floor as she moved, sighing at the damp residue it left on the floor. "Great," she muttered, realizing that her booze bottle had leaked inside and probably ruined everything else. It'd have to be stashed away until she could clean it; the last thing she needed on top of finding out about monsters was getting grounded for being caught drinking. As she waited, Nic shifted her weight to her bad foot, hissing softly as she tried to get used to putting weight on it.

Caleb didn't keep her waiting long. He just ditched his shirt, then tugged on a clean hoodie before he headed back out to her. He noticed the smell of alcohol in the room once he got closer to her, and noticed the wet spot on the floor. Well, at least he wouldn't get into trouble for anything like that. "You want to leave that here to dry out?" he asked. Most parents wouldn't be too happy with their daughter coming home looking beat to shit and who'd quite obviously been drinking.

"Well, my mom might be asleep," Nic told him, hoping she was right. She'd feel better explaining how she looked tomorrow morning, for one thing. Actually, she'd probably feel sore as shit, but it didn't quite matter to her right now. "I think I can manage, but thanks." She'd just toss it through her window before actually going inside and hope for the best. "I don't still smell like rum, do I?" Nic asked, blowing lightly in Caleb's direction for a second.

"...well, a little." he told her. "Not overwhelmingly so, but...enough that if I was a parent trying to figure out if you smelled like alcohol, that would be a definite yes." he told her. He almost asked her if she wanted to borrow a shirt, but figured he'd be shot down on that score, and it might be strange. Though, all things considered, the definition of that word might be taking a sharp turn for another direction for Nic. Then he decided to actually sort of maybe voice it. "I'd lend you a shirt...but your mom might be asking questions about that too..."

She raised both eyebrows at the suggestion, arms crossing over her stomach. "Yean, no... I'm not about to try and field those questions. I'll just make a dash for the bathroom if she's awake," she told him, looking him up and down with his fresh shirt on. "Big improvement, though. What with the non-bloodyness and all. If I do get busted? I'll just say I was out with you, maybe twist it so it sounds like you're tortured about your sexuality again," Nic suggested with a mocking grin. Not only did Caleb being gay excuse them hanging out with her mother? It was apparently also quite the source of amusement to Nic herself.

He rolled his eyes. "You keep that up too much, and she's really going to wonder if she ever meets me." he told her. "But get moving, I don't have all fucking night..." he teased. Because well...he did. He had just been walking around anyhow, and hey, look, he'd be walking again. really, it wasn't anything he was complaining about. "Fucking women, nothing but trouble..."

Popping open the door, Nic snickered over his griping and slipped out onto the front step. "And yet you hang out with us. I told you, didn't I? We're all crazy. Personally, I think you like it. Admit it, you'd get bored without all the trouble and insanity." She winked at him, backstepping a bit and letting her lips tighten as her ankle twinged with pain under her. It was probably good that Caleb was walking her home, even without the fear of the unknown factored in. Knowing Nic's luck? Her ankle would give halfway home, then her bottle would burst the rest of the way and leave her smelling like a wino at the end of a binge.

"Okay, it would be dull." he agreed. "Or, duller anyways. I'd be bored a lot more." he said. Then he paused as she stepped back. "Okay I know before I asked you if you needed ice, and that I noticed you were walking stiffly, you want to own up to what else you did to yourself?" he asked. "It's that or I throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the car. Which...I can just drive you home anyways." he said, thinking that might be better. He just occasionally forgot he had one.

"Do not try and pull that caveman shit on me," Nic warned him, pointing a finger Caleb's way. "It's a little sore, is all. Probably a sprain, but, like, minor? You already cleaned me up, you've gotta let me say no somewhere along the line." Which was just her being stubborn, but with everything he'd already done, Nic was starting to feel girlishly helpless and hoping he'd just let her be stubborn in this little way. "You have a car? Well hell, Caleb. That sounds a lot better than letting you do some ice pack on my leg."

"Technically." he said. It still looked like hell, but the passenger side door worked now, thanks to Dean. "Try getting me to let you say no when you're being more reasonable, it'll work out better for you." he told her, but he nodded for her to follow him towards the drive. Where his car sat, in it's beat to shit glory. "But alright, I'll drive you home, and not try and talk actual sense to you about shit."

Walking over with only the occasional flinch, Nic smirked as she got a good look at Caleb's car. "...and you bought this after it was used in an action movie or four?" she suggested, winking at him and making her way around to the passenger door, which groaned nicely as it opened. "Seriously, Lockwood. Classy ride, here. I can see why you're so beset with women, myself included." She chuckled dryly, leaning an arm across the top before climbing in to give him a less teasing smile. "Thanks for the ride, though. It's cool of you... this and everything else."

He got in. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." he said as he shoved the key in the ignition and fired it up. It started just fine. "And technically, this was just fine before my brother and I put it in a ditch--I wasn't driving--and then there was this vamp attack thing...that door's all fucked up because I happened to shut it on one that was trying to kill me. Good times. The only reason it opens now is because I gave it to my friend Dean while I was out of town." he told her. "So it's 'battle scarred'. Much better than 'piece of shit that should be retired by now'."

Nic climbed in, buckling up and listening, then resting both bandaged hands on the dash. "Damn," she murmured softly, trying to imagine it. Vampires swarming the car, Caleb fighting them off, it seemed like it'd only belong in movies. But here she was, in the car itself. And she'd seen proof that he wasn't making it all up. "So it's kinda like Mad Max's car," she offered, sitting back. "Only so beat to hell because you're not, huh? Fixed up enough to run, and fuck the rest?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I intend to work on it more, but that requires time and patience, plus a more technical mind than I've got." he told her, backing out of the driveway. "Plus money, probably, which I don't have a lot of. One of these days I'm going to get my ass a job, but so far, it's 'work at my brother's bookstore' which I don't really want to do, or this tattoo parlor that I got a card for. I keep meaning to remember to go talk to the chick who owns the place." he told her as he headed for her place. "Of course if you have hidden talents in car reconstruction, I'd be more than happy to let you have at it if you were inclined."

Now it was Nic's turn to smile, nodding as she thunked a hand on the dash again. "They're not even hidden a little, Caleb. I live in the shop bay at school. I mean, making it all pretty is going to cost some money no matter what, but..." She trailed off, listening to the hum of the engine and feeling the vibration under her hand. "...I could smooth out the timing of your engine in, like, an afternoon at least. You'd seriously let me fuck around on it? Because I'll just leave my tools here and do what I can," she rattled off, obviously more excited with every word and the prospect of having a car to do whatever with outside of the oversight of her teachers.

"Nic, she's yours. Alright? You can do whatever the fuck you want to it, whenever you want. If you wanted to mount fuckin machine guns on the front and spraypaint skulls all over it, be my guest. Do whatever. Seriously. And if you need any help, just let me know, just know that I'm a little useless at it, but I'd be happy to learn, too." he said. And he actually kinda was hoping that she'd take him up on that, and work on the car, and it would be a good way to spend time with her anyways. He was game. Also, he kind of found it cute that she seemed so excited about it, so no way was he turning it down.

"Fucking choice," she murmured, deciding that the moment her ankle was okay she'd be back here; elbow deep in the engine or under the car with a tool in each hand. Especially since Nic really did think a break from the more dangerous skating was in order. Besides, if she was hanging around and working on his car, she'd have plenty of opportunities to grill him about the weird world he apparently lived in. "It'll be a car that Lemmy'd be proud to ride in when I'm done," she promised, trying to restrain her eagerness. After all, it wasn't like she could start tonight.

He chuckled. "Well, have at it then. Have fun with it." he invited, glad that she seemed good for it. And, being Marquette wasn't a big town or anything, they were coming up on her house. "You want me to not pull up right in front?" he asked, looking to see if there were lights on, but there didn't seem to be.

She was peering out the windows with him as they drew closer, and though the house looked dim there was a slow flicker through one window, likely a TV. "Nah," she told him, "You can just swing up. I'm thinking I'm in the clear, I'll just have to be quiet. And despite all evidence, I can do that when I need to." She popped her belt early, sitting and waiting for him to stop as she tried to balance the clashing emotions in her head. Monsters were bad, Caleb was good, working on a car was really good. She'd sort it all out eventually, that's what weekends were for.

He pulled up outside her house, and looked over. "Points for stealth, then." he told her. "Anyways...take care of yourself, I'll see you when I see you." Since he didn't know when that would be. He didn't want to make plans for a next time, because she might decide when she woke up the next morning that really? Maybe hanging out with him wasn't such a great idea after all. Freaking out was sometimes a delayed reaction, so he wanted to put things in her court, just in case.

"You take care too, okay?" she echoed, reaching over to punch him in the arm lightly. "Try not to feel too rough tomorrow, go easy with that arm and everything. I think I'm gonna track you down soon, so you'll see me when I do." Slipping out of the car, Nic did as she'd said she would, moving to one side of the house and easing her bedroom window open to slip her backpack in, just in case she didn't make it inside entirely unheard. She turned, waving from the darkness towards the car, then started to the front door with her hands in her hoodie pocket. She couldn't say for sure if she'd actually sleep tonight, or even tomorrow night. That's the problem with having my eyes opened, she mused, glancing back one more time before easing open the front door and vanishing into the house.