Maroa Express - Fast & Safe

“I had uh…” Layla’s grin held a little oddly for a bit as she started along with Logan. “Some difficulties to deal with. And I started training for a new career.”

“How have you and the crew been?”

Mhm. Logan nodded, also a bit oddly. A party full of aliens, great way to spark a mental breakdown. He could imagine. (He didn’t have to.)

“Got thrown in kind of head-first, too, huh?” he asked. “We’re, um. All kind of managing. I mean, you talked to Noemi.” And Isfet. What a re-introduction. Steer away from that… “Skip and I got engaged, though!

Layla stuffed her shirt into her back pocket, then shook her head. “Uh uh, I still gotta replace the drink. I’m sure it’s more of a fuss getting it dracula-style.” 

She nodded her head back the other way, “My bike is just around the corner if we’ve gotta go far.”

It’s really not died on Logan’s lips.

“I—no, it’s—right around the corner.” Like the drink wouldn’t have disappeared in a blink if he’d made it any further. He scuffed around some more of the dirt, and satisfied with that, stuck a hand in his pocket and jerked his head back the way he’d come.

A few moments later, a bundle of cloth flopped over the wall, followed by an arm, then a leg, then the rest of Layla. She hopped back down to the pavement, leather coat zipped all the way up.

She plucked at the knot in the cloth, then semi-carefully dumped a pile of dirt on the spilled drink. “This’ll soak it up,” she said, then started stamping down on the pile while she shook out her now very dirty t-shirt.

Yeah, that was one way to hide the evidence. Logan stared in mild shock as Layla just—just dumped dirt on it all. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. She seemed like the kind of person who always had the most outlandish (and simultaneously straightforward…) solutions.

Wide eyes flashed between the smeared around dirt pile  and Layla. It looked like a five year old had gone ham on the sidewalk, but… better than an obvious blood stain.

“Of course I’m gonna get you another one, don’t be silly,” Layla looked at the ground, then nodded.

“Got an idea, just stay put,” she said, then turned back for the wall, jumped up, clambered over it, and disappeared.

“Where—okay.”

… And just like that, she was gone, quick as the apple had appeared.

Aquila smiled giddily at the success of his introduction and ducked out of the room, only to return moments later with a wooden box containing an embroidery kit.

Vannika wordlessly held out her hand for him to pass it over and inspected the contents.

“So you want me to sew you up, or would you like to do the honors yourself?” Vannika asked Layla as she pulled out bundles of silk thread and selected an appropriately sized needle.

“Well I say we should amputate, just in case,” Germanicus chimed in, “or perhaps euthanize the poor, suffering creature. Desanguination is a very humane death, she’ll hardly feel a thing!”

————–

Aquila looked taken aback at the statement.

“Your kind words flatter me, milady, I will honor thy spirit in its afterlife and pray to Her Lady Maria for its salvation.”

“No one’s dying just yet,” Vannika muttered, “believe it or not, I have first aid training from the military, it’s how I survived the…”

Her words trailed off as she carefully rubbed a vodka-soaked rag along Layla’s thigh, lightly tracing a finger and examining the depth of the wound as she did. Selecting a bundle of thread that looked the strongest, Vannika threaded it through the needle and cut the excess off with her teeth.

Germanicus made a show of examining his perfectly manicured nails and discussing the finer points of Roman wines with Aquila in the background, pretending his ego was not just a little bit bruised from being ignored.

Vannika stabbed needle through flesh and pulled the edges of the wound together with surprising gentleness and expertise, wiping away the newly oozing flow of blood. As she tied off the end of the suture, she stopped to tear off a section of her own cotton shirt, wrapping it around Layla’s thigh in place of gauze.

“Ah, geez,” Layla rolled off her perch on the wall, landing just before Logan with a soft thud. “I’ll help - I need to get you another one, too.”

She started digging in her pockets. One had… there it was. A fistful of crumpled napkins appeared a moment later, from different fast food places. She handed half the bunch to Logan. “Here, get your boots, I’ll…” she looked down at the overly red drink. Then back up at Logan. “Ah hell…”

Logan accepted the crumpled up pile of napkins with both hands like they were already used. He followed Layla’s glance back to the puddle of PSL, then up.

“Yeah. Hell.” The vampire gave the park another quick lookover as he ducked to wipe as much of the blood latte off his shoes as he could, until they just looked like they were stained with . No one was paying them any attention, but all it’d take was one Regulator to come make a (worse) mess of things. 

And possibly brain-wipe Layla. Since that hadn’t happened after the party, apparently.

Uh oh, this was one of the Scooby Gang. Layla thought for a moment; it had been a long, boozy time since she’d looked at these people. She tried not to peer too long, trying to place this one. 

Skipper? No no, that was the one with the amazing hair. This was… “Logan?” she tried, not bothering to hide the awkward face she was making. “I hope?” 

Well, that made two of them, because Logan wasn’t any less horrified seeing the telltale expression of someone who was trying to remember someone they’d last seen several drinks too many.

His being well acquainted with the feeling? Didn’t help.

“Yeah. Glad you remember me.” Fuck him, all he had was the one just-in-case napkin he’d grabbed as half a thought on his way out. “Sorry—um—I gotta… clean this up…”

“Oh shit!” came a call from above him. Layla, still perched on the wall above Logan, was giving him a horrified look. “Oh jeez, I’m so sorry, it slipped right out of my hand.”

She’d whacked her arm against a wall the other day, and despite being certain nothing was broken or anything, her muscles still were complaining. Apparently enough to drop an apple on a unsuspecting victim. 

Logan stared blankly at the woman above him until it clicked, a second or two (or five) later. 

“L-Layla?” There was a face he hadn’t seen in a year, not since the pool party. Where the fuck had she vanished to, between finding out about vampires and… finding Isfet. … Actually, you know what, did that matter? Right now? His gaze darted between the bloody mess at his feet—fuck—and the human. “It—it’s fine!”

“I— actually you know what don’t worry about him,” Vannika swiveled on her heel and carried Layla past a set of curtains acting as the doorway into the bedroom.

The windows there were covered over by black trashbags, vintage newspapers, and haphazardly nailed in wooden boards, much as the windows of the living room had been. A guitar sat perched in the corner, looking slightly less ancient and more recently used than everything else thus far.

“A nap on the bed then,” murmured Vannika nonchalantly as she tossed Layla down onto a dusty mattress, covering her over with a moth-eaten quilt as an afterthought.

Despite his earlier claims of still working diligently on his lounging hours, the “twink” followed after them into the room, curiously.

“How rude of you to not introduce our dear guest, Vanya! What’s your name, strange girl? And do you prefer a pinot noir or a chardonnay sauvignon? There’s also ale and vodka of course, but those are drinks enjoyed by barbarians and the plebeian class, wouldn’t you agree? Ahahahaha!”

“This is my apartment, you’re not even on the lease,” Vannika interjected flatly.

“In my apartment?” he continued, unperturbed. “Hm, well no matter. I’ll go first then, my name is Germanicus Albinus Fulgentius, aedilis curulis of the senatus romanus. You may refer to me as Germanicus if you don’t have the head for long titles.”

The wide grin plastered on Germanicus’ face never wavered, though perhaps he did sound just a touch annoyed.

Vannika rummaged around the room behind him, already having procured a bottle of bottom-shelf vodka. She took a long swig before tossing it to Layla.

“Where’s Aquila?” she asked, glancing towards Germanicus.

“Oh he’s been hiding in the broom closet since noon. The fire alarm scared him again, you see.”

As if summoned on cue, a new face popped into the bedroom— a man with dusky skin, strong shoulders, and a streak of silver in his dark hair. He blinked a few times in confusion at the sight of a stranger bleeding out on the bed, but soon regained his composure.

“Greetings milady, I am Aquila of Byzantium, trusted eques singularis of my lord Emperor Flavius Valerius Constantinus. At your service.”

Aquila took a deep bow towards Layla before turning to his two roommates and whispering, “We’re not eating her are we?”

Every year, the fall menus seemed to come out a little earlier. Mid-August, now. Not that Logan was complaining—although the sooner menus filled with pumpkin and caramel, the sooner he had a hard time picking a flavor.

… It was nice to have a problem that wasn’t related to the Regulators or anything vampire right now. He didn’t usually feel overwhelmed by that—if ever—but with everything going on with Lorna and Tom, memories of the time after being turned were cropping back up, and fuck if he wanted to be thinking about that.

The answer was a pumpkin spice latte from one of the various vampire-friendly coffee shops in the city. Nice thing about hot drink season? (No, it wasn’t hot drink season yet, but let him pretend.) Solid cups, which meant just about anything could get blood in it, no problem.

Until it was spilled all over the park pavement, that was. Logan stared in horror at the red-tinted coffee now covering the toes of his boots.

----------------------------------

The distinct clicking of claws on linoleum echoed throughout the store as Vannika stalked her way down a dusty aisle of the long-abandoned hardware store, cobwebs catching on her fur. She was an experienced tracker, even long before the curse took hold of her, she knew well enough that the sound of her steps could give her away. But this was all a test, to see if Layla’s human ears could accurately locate her position amongst the boundless echoes.

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“More like very bad insurance. Also I don’t want a record of weird little injuries haunting me.”  She let out a grunt as she was hoisted up and flopped over Vannika’s shoulder. The wound hurt, but it was manageable. Layla was just glad she hadn’t broken anything. That’d be annoying. At that last line, Layla let out a watery bark of a laugh, “If anyone asks, I’m very drunk.”

With the exception of some odd stares, the walk was just as uneventful as Vannika had hoped it would be. She trotted up the concrete flight of stairs of the apartment building, Layla still hanging over one shoulder like a duffel bag.

2, 3, 4… the floor numbers signs flashed past them as they ascended, finally stopping when they reached the top, on floor 13. Everything there seemed just a little more decayed than the lower floors.

Vannika fumbled around in her pants pocket, producing an old brass key that struggled against the lock of the door. When it at last produced a telltale “click” she unceremoniously kicked the door open with a booted foot, just as a man’s trill, oddly accented voice called out from within the apartment.

“Vanya~ You’re finally back! And you’ve brought us supper, how kind, just lay them down on the table, I’ll get to it in a minute.”

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“Yeah, you didn’t get me,” Layla answered, grimacing as she pulled her hand away from her thigh. Grimacing at the wound, she pulled off her t-shirt and wrapped it around the leg.  “However, when I dodged you a minute ago, I smacked into a display of hammers and I got a claw in my leg for my trouble.” The spot hurt like hell and she was starting to feel a little drained. She laughed. “Forgive me if I’m glad I train with a werewolf instead of a vampire.”

“One claw or another, it looks as if the fates had it in for you today,” Vannika chided as she followed the scent of blood to its source.

She saw the dark red stain spreading down the length of Layla’s pant leg. It was a dangerous amount- not deadly, but enough to render her weak, potentially unconscious given time. Even long past losing her humanity, Vannika knew well how much blood loss it took to kill a human.

“You’re not going to be able to walk on that, are you,” she said, speaking it as less of a question and more of a statement.

Vannika threw her long coat over Layla’s body, leaning down in preparement to pick the small woman up.

“I’m dropping you off at the hospital, unless you’re looking to take a long nap on the floor and wait for the rats to get to you.”

Guests. Vannika internally cringed at the thought, they didn’t exactly do guests at their apartment, especially human ones. But she supposed Layla was, if nothing else, always proving that she was an exception to the rules.

Vannika snaked her arms under Layla as she hoisted her up in one swift motion over her shoulder, heading towards the shattered glass door to the parking lot.