Nocturne | ONC 2024

Ten: Catch Up

"This is nice."

His father looked around the restaurant, smiling, and Aaron couldn't help smiling too.

It would have been a lie to say it wasn't a relief to get away from the case for a day. Bill had let him off his shift early after Coran Simms left, and Aaron had been only too glad to accept the offer and snatch a solid stretch of sleep.

It hadn't been entirely peaceful, but it was enough to make him feel halfway human again.

"It is," he said, digging into his steak. He hadn't seen the point in scrimping; Bill had made good on his promise to the double the pay for this week, and payday was tomorrow. He'd stayed away from the wine, though. Even looking at it made embarrassment rise in his gut like acid.

His father settled back to the table, humming quietly to the music playing somewhere near the bar.

"Do you want another coffee, Dad?" Aaron asked, noting his cup was empty.

"Oh, no thank you. Susan said it was causing my stomach aches."

Aaron frowned. "You've been having stomach aches?"

His father nodded absently, scooping greens onto his fork and then chewing meditatively. "How is work going?"

It wasn't the conversation Aaron wanted to have today. By tomorrow, he would be back in the fray, trying to solve impossible murders in an impossible timeframe, when he still hadn't figured out his complicated feelings over his case partner.

Bill had determined that Nikolai would stay on the case – it was simply too dangerous to do it without him – but Aaron knew that his supervisor would be questioning the vampire today on the things he'd left out during his time working with the force. It made him feel slightly better, that Bill was doing that instead of him. His supervisor had always been better at negotiating more delicate topics than he was. At no point had Aaron considered that Nikolai's mother being a sorceress meant that Nikolai was any kind of sorcerer himself. He'd assumed it would only leave traces of the gift in the bloodline, and that even if he had inherited it all, it wouldn't have survived Nikolai's change.

He blinked, dragging his thoughts back to the present. He'd been planning this; he'd booked this time off weeks ago. He was determined not to spend the entire time thinking about things he was having time off from.

"How long have you been having stomach aches?" he insisted, hoping it would move the conversation as a whole away from those waters. He felt bad enough that he'd spent most of the week away.

"Oh, I don't know," his father muttered, scowling at his plate. "A while now. I told you about them the other day."

Aaron felt another pinch of guilt, deep in his gut. "I think it was Susan you told, Dad. I didn't know about them. Do you want me to make you a doctor's appointment?"

"No. They're all quacks." His father frowned. "Nicholas. Your new work partner. Did you ask to be transferred?"

"Nikolai and I worked things out." Aaron suppressed a sigh. "Kind of. It's fine. We still haven't solved our case, so we'll manage until then."

"Oh, good." His father peered at him. "Your mother wouldn't have wanted you to be a policeman, you know. She'd have had kittens every time you went out on a night shift. She would've told me to make you change your mind." A hoarse chuckle. "And threatened to make my dinner out of dishwater if I didn't at least try."

Aaron laughed, even as the words went straight to his heart. He knew his mother wouldn't have wanted it. He knew it wouldn't have stopped him, either, if she'd lived, but knowing that didn't make him feel less guilty. "Do you remember when she rang up my college and asked them to make sure I wore shin pads to rugby practice?"