#chapter progress

There’s blood on his hands, slipping between the rings he put on early that morning. It’s seeping into his team kit too, a darker, sickening shade that consumes the comforting rosso corsa he’s come to know as home. The room lists to the side and he stumbles, realizing that awful, rattling sound he’s hearing is coming from him. He can’t breathe. The side of his face, the line of his neck, his whole shoulder…all of it pounds to the same, jumping beat of his heart. It burns and when he presses his hand above his collar it’s slick. Wet, burning fire. A low, pained groan sounds out from the floor to his right. There’s a body shifting with regained consciousness and the fresh flood of adrenaline has the lay of the immediate surroundings coming into sharp focus. It’s fight or flight and he’s already done fight once. He sprints away, dodging around tabletops and workstations that are all empty. Why is it all so empty? Where is everyone? Where does he go?

'Cus, didn’t Agnus kind of count as a wizard or alchemist or whatever? he mused, sighing loudly for what was probably the umpteenth time as he pinched his brows. He was starting to get a headache. And look how well that turned out for him.

“Goddamn! Would you. Shut. Up,” Nico drawled, stubbing out her cigarette in the overfull ashtray that he'd told her to empty out over a week ago. The still smoking stub tumbling out as she jerked the wheel to get back in the lane after she passed a slower moving car. “You been sighin' like some lovesick teenager for hours now. S'gettin’ on my nerves.”

“Well gee. I’m sorry," Nero began in the most sarcastically oozing voice he could muster, "I’m just sighing! What? I can’t sigh?!" He threw his hands into the air, groaning as he leaned back in the chair and silently entreated some kind of higher power he knew didn't exist for saintly patience. Smacking a hand to his forehead he let it smear down his face, the exasperation palpable. "Maybe, if you were a little more transparent about what the fuck we are doing, I wouldn't be freaking out about the end of the world over here."

"Yer such a worrywart," she grumbled right back, taking a swig from a nearby water canteen that he definitely knew had more than just water in it. "And how the hell should I know? S'not like I was 'inducted into the deeper mysteries,'" she said, voice turning deep and somewhat sultry in imitation of someone, before switching back to her regular country twang, "—or however the fuck yer supposed to say it. We haven't exactly talked much since I was a kid, yanno."

He rolled his eyes. "I just have my doubts okay?" Nero crossed his arms, trying to close his eyes in the hopes that maybe if he fell asleep, this whole stupid trip would be done and over with by the time he woke up. "I mean really, who calls themselves a sorcerer these days?” he growled under his breath.

Which, unfortunately, didn't go unnoticed by his partner, who he swore at times had bat-like hearing—which went along just swimmingly with her batty personality. “Sorceress, thank you very much!" Nico snapped, giving his shoulder a rebuking backhand followed by a poke, with several more rapid fire pokes to follow. "And what’s wrong with that, huh? S’not like you were comin' up with any better ideas.”

Waving her invading finger away, Nero groaned, regretting ever bringing it up. “Yeah, yeah... Whatever. Let's just drop it, alright?"

He would have kept pouting, but was promptly interrupted by Nico leaning over and slugging him hard on the arm.

"Ow! Geez! What was that for?!" he barked, even though it didn't hurt in the least—it was more the principle of the matter, not to mention it being fucking annoying when she persisted in trying to poke him again, this time with a wooden back-scratcher that was hand carved to look like a creepy, mummified hand.

He'd given her the damn thing as a gag gift for her birthday. Never had he expected that she'd use it to menace him like this.

"Stop. Being. Such a. Debbie. Doubter!" she growled, lunging at him. Punctuating each following word with a sharp jab, weaving chaotically between lanes as she tried her damnedest to get him.