We Are Bulletproof

Okay. Well, it seemed that Nico now had a job. Just walk Red home, wherever that was. Or to his grandma's? He wasn't quite sure but he thought they must have been in the same area.

Once he cleaned up his desk a bit and tossed out the now empty bag that used to contain the fries, he got up and swept a few things into his backpack so he could take some of his work home with him. He gestured for Red to follow him. Before leaving, he handed a USB to Susan, who would take his articles and place them in the paper for him. After he said goodbye to everyone, he led Red out of the building.

The conversation was a bit sparse on the walk towards his grandmother's. When he arrived, he stopped and turned toward Red to ask if he wanted to come in or if he wanted Nico to walk him the rest of the way to his home.

"What?"

Nico looked from Alex to Red and back again. An assignment that he could tag along with... Nothing in this town was worth tagging along with anybody. It was all so mundane. Their newspaper never covered anything of substance. Even when things of substance always seemed to be happening. It was like they were some big coverup and he sort of knew why--Mr. Meyers wasn't human, either. A lot of people in Hazleton, he was pretty sure, weren't. But nobody knew who was and who wasn't--not for sure. And so they silently held their secrets and covered things up.

It was ridiculous.

Nico thought maybe Hazleton started with good intentions. A place for their kind to gather safely. But as always, humans found a way. And behind them, hunters. There were a lot of hunters around lately and not just the kind that traveled through the forest with guns, hoping to get some nice fur. No... these ones were much more dangerous and they worked under the veil of being just another human in town.

"...I could walk him home," Nico offered, since the idea of being a tagalong sounded boring anyway. Plus, Red looked terrified at the idea of heading home alone in the dark. "I was going to see my grandma anyway, if it's the same direction."

"Huh? Me?"

Nico half smiled and shrugged. He was fine. Why would Red even ask him that? Because of his grandpa? Nico shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat before swiveling his computer chair back to his desk and sifting through the paperwork, notes, and half written articles that littered the desk.

"I'm fine. I didn't even know my grandfather."

He only knew him from the stories his grandmother so fondly told. Nico remembered when he first asked about his late grandfather, his mother reached over and pinched him on the arm, trying to be discreet. His grandmother scolded her for it and then told Nico that she wanted to talk about him. It was the only way to keep him alive, now that he was gone. Nico liked the way she thought. He never really thought about it like that; he thought he was more like his mother that way.

His mother didn't want to talk about him. She missed him. Nico saw her crying when she thought nobody else was watching. But she couldn't seem to bring herself to talk about him.

"Anyway... are you working here now?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at Red. It didn't seem likely. If his English wasn't very good, they wouldn't hire him on at a newspaper, even a podunk one like theirs.

"Oh."

That explained the sudden panic. Shit. Nico shouldn't have said anything about dead people, then. He didn't know Red's family had passed on. He put his hands up gently, as if that would somehow help calm Red down and keep him from trying to get up over and over again.

"It's okay. Grandma is okay," he said. "I was just saying that... you can visit her sometime if you like. She would appreciate it. But she's okay. She likes having people come over to talk to and feed and stuff."

Whoa! Nico stared in alarm as Red became distraught and shot up, like he was going to march right over to Nico's grandmother's place. Before Red could take off, though, Alex came back and stopped him in his tracks. If Nico knew that bringing up his late grandpa would freak Red out so much, he would have kept it to himself. That's what he got for being stupid and awkward; he always brought up the worst subjects to the wrong people!

"Oh... I was just telling him about how my grandpa passed away and my grandma is lonely..." But thinking he might sound like he was somehow fishing for pity or something, he added quickly, "I was just telling him that my grandma was probably happy to help him! Not... anything weird."

"Oh! Yeah... my grandpa died a while ago. My grandma really misses him."

Nico's mom told him they were together practically forever, that they had been childhood friends that grew into boyfriend and girlfriend in high school and then they married after graduation. Not a lot of people loved the same person for so long. Nico thought it was really romantic but also kinda sad. The one person his grandma had been close to for her whole life, basically, and he was gone. So she filled the void inside by helping people, animals, anybody who might need it.

"I think she's sad she couldn't save him," he said, perhaps saying too much. No, no. A lot of people wanted to save the people they loved. But... his grandma, she was a healer, a natural healer at heart, and not even her magic could save her beloved husband. It made Nico's heart hurt every time he thought about it.

"But she's not giving up," Nico said, inordinately proud of his grandma for going forward, not giving up. "And she has a lot of love to give. So... if you ever need help, don't be afraid to ask her. She needs it as much as you do."

"Yeah, my grandma likes helping everybody. She's lonely, too. Her and my grandpa were really close."

And now without him, his grandma filled her time with charity cases. It wasn't that big a deal. So far, she was fine. But Nico's mom really worried about her. She kept saying they should move in with her so they could monitor her more closely. Or not her, per se, but all the people she was helping.

As for Nico being nice, he only shrugged a little self consciously. Giving up half a burger and some fries wasn't that big a deal! His grandma was way nicer. But it was kinda cool to see one of the people she helped and see that his grandma actually seemed to have a real impact on his life. Maybe his mom could meet Red sometime and she would see his grandma knew what she was doing.

"Ah, outskirts, then?"

A lot of people didn't live in the town proper so that wasn't too suspicious. Being as young as he was, Nico still lived with his parents and they did live in the town proper, in a nice enough set of apartments close to the newspaper building. Nico shook his head at Red's question.

"Nah, we don't live with grandma but I visit her a lot and she visits a lot, too. Actually, mom says we moved here to keep her company. She got really lonely after my grandpa passed away and mom got worried about her so she had to come and keep her company and one thing led to another thing and now we're... just here."

He shrugged slightly, face reddening slightly. The thing was, he sometimes babbled uselessly when he didn't know what else to say and the words just sort of tumbled out.

"...Alex said you stayed with her... or something? So you're a drifter...?"

"No problem."

Yikes. The kid... was he starving to death? He seemed so grateful that he was almost close to tears when Nico handed him the food. Now he felt guilty, like maybe he should have brought more food. What if Alex was starving, too? Although Alex had money from the job here so... But this guy was a drifter, right? This kid was a drifter? Sounded more like he was homeless. Did he get kicked out? Maybe Alex was helping him out now. They seemed close. At least somebody had his back?

Nico took a bite. Happy Burger was delicious, he had to hand it to them. But he had never eaten there and experienced the kind of euphoria that crossed Red's face. Wow. He was either starving or he really, really loved burgers. Nico felt somewhat guiltier; he could have given him the whole burger if it was going to be a thing. Fries would tide him over until the end of his shift here. As a junior journalist with shit jobs in a sleepy town, he didn't have to stay until the wee hours of the night. In fact, he was usually off by around three or four PM.

So they ate in silence, since Nico didn't want to interrupt Red's experience and they were eating, anyway. Best to eat first before blabbing. When Nico finished, he followed it up with a handful of fries and then wiped his face and hands with a napkin.

"So you live in town?" he asked. "With Alex?"

"Really, it's fine. You look hungry."

Which wasn't a lie; the way the kid stared, it was hard not to take his expression as hungry. Probably hungrier than Nico was. There was no knife at the desk to cut it in half, so he gently pried it into two parts. Not elegant or anything but hey, food was food. He handed the part still wrapped in the paper over to Red.

"No point in being polite. Come on. My grandma would want me to share."

So far, his grandma had held her own with her drifter friends. And they all seemed to treat her nicely in return. A lot of them would help her around the place, with leaky faucets or getting out raking up all the piles of leaves that scattered over the property.

Nico was surprised to hear that Red was one of these so-called drifters, though. His grandma never told him about any young drifters but then, to her, they were all young. It probably wasn't even worth mentioning to her. Nico didn't say anything until after Alex left and Red took another fry. Nico half smiled before grabbing one himself.

"They are. Best in town. Happy Burger sounds cheesy but it's really good." Nico pulled out the burger he ordered and salivated slightly just at the scent. He glanced at Red as he began to unwrap it. He wanted to ask about the thing with his grandma--he was just working his way to it. At glacial speed.

"Want half?" he asked, indicating the burger.

Thrown in jail, huh? That was putting it kindly. But Alex probably didn't know how truly heinous it was. Animals being slaughtered was pretty bad. But knowing those were also people somehow made it so much worse, at least for Nico. But that was because he was the same as them. It was by the grace of... something--the goddess, his grandma would say--that saved him from being a part of that.

"Yep. I guess it's kinda famous, huh?" Nico smiled fondly as he thought of his grandma's old house. It was on a pretty big property out by the woods, connected directly to it, actually. So she was right there where it happened. The actual house was bigger than an older woman like herself needed but it had been passed down to her by her father and his father before him. They used to have a huge family here in Hazleton but it had dwindled down over the decades.

"She's always letting drifters come live with her. It scares the shit outta my mom," Nico confessed. "She's afraid she's going to let the wrong person in, but grandma has a big heart."

"Yeah..."

He looked down at his bag of food and rolled the sides down before sitting it down where everybody could reach in and grab some more fries. His stomach churned slightly at the thought of what happened out there. Nico's grandma was the one who told him about it, warning him to stay away from that part of the woods, lest something happen to him. They can tell what you are even when you're not shifted, she told him. They have instruments.

"I just... I guess I just wanted to see justice for all those poor... animals. But nobody's looking into it." Probably because they were "just" animals. "My grandma lives close by the area. She saved one of them so I guess you could say I'm invested personally."

Nico never saw this guy before but he seemed close with Alex. A weird kid, though. Like really weird. Heh. Maybe his middle name was Weird. Nico turned the bag towards Red, since he didn't immediately take a fry from it. Having food in front of people with no food felt shitty and it wasn't like he couldn't afford to share. As he held out the bag, he looked over at Alex.

"Oh."

Well, he couldn't lie and say he was doing something else because Red caught him out there in the woods. So he shrugged as if it was no big deal.

"I was out in the woods where all those... animals were found a while back. I thought maybe... uh..." He cleared his throat. "Poachers or out of season hunters maybe. I didn't find much though."

Weird. Today was just... weird. Slowly, Nico took his seat and he plugged his phone into his charger. A second later, the picture of himself was whipped away with such ferocity that it didn't surprise Nico at all when the kid hissed. Red, was it. Why was he drawing him? At least... he didn't look threatening in the drawing. Nico got the feeling he scared the living daylights out of the poor kid.

"Want some fries?" Nico asked, trying his best to make things less awkward but struggling. Awkward, next to boring, was probably his middle name. Awkward and Boring Nico Ellison. Nico Awkward Boring Ellison. (His friends would disagree with the boring part but... friends are going to friend.)