night train ✦ closed

Watching the train come in, a small smile spread out on the young woman’s face. It was just like old times with Niels, sitting up at that spot nobody else knew about, racing to get there first and see an ominous shadow dropping from the smokesta—wait. What? Sure enough, she could see a silhouette rising from the concrete like an asphalt golem down on the street below. The profile was male, about six feet tall and of an average build, but to have leapt from a moving train and gotten up as if it was nothing, this person was no ordinary citizen. Not even the roughnecks prowling these dingy alleyways would give more than half a thought to a move like that.

Someone with military training could pull that off, whispered a voice at the back of her mind.

She shook her head, leaned forward, narrowed her eyes. Now that she thought of it, most ordinary citizens did not come in riding freight trains in the middle of the night, and even those people who would live down in this area took the east side train, same as she had. Immediately, her paranoia spiked, sending a rush of adrenaline to her empty stomach and making her feel nauseous. It was a sensation only exacerbated by the realization that some part of her was enthralled by the newcomer’s presence—delighted at the fact that she might have to confront them.

Actually. That wasn’t quite a bad idea. Getting closer, she reasoned with herself, would allow her to assess the situation better; paranoia was, after all, part curiosity.

With her hands still clamped firmly about the ledge of the rooftop, she leaned forward into a crouch and sat still as stone, a veritable gargoyle atop her false cathedral. Continuing to lean, she let herself all gently forward like a diver into a swimming pool. Given that her intended descent was several stories, she had to catch herself on a piece of crumbling architecture—a flimsy metal tube from left over scaffolding jutting out from the building’s side—in order to slow her descent. It bounced haphazardly under the trauma of her slight weight and gravity’s bearing before dumping her unceremoniously to the concrete below. She had to press the back of her hand to her mouth to muffle the noise that she made, sniffling into her sweatshirt at the smarting pain.

“Ow…” she hissed, but, managing to get up anyway, continued her creep towards the figure.

Now…who are you…?

Nico was not the greatest spy in the world. This, she knew. Reconnaissance had always been Niels’ forte, and while she could—on nights with proper sleep—adequately maneuver in the darkness, she was not to the level of her former partner. Particularly on a night when she had had little to no sleep for the past twenty-seven or more hours. So, that she lost her target was not surprising, but it was no less unnerving.

The moment her target disappeared from sight, Nico froze in place, her muscles tensed like a wild animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. They were nowhere in sight down the streets or the tracks, and there had been no time to scale one of the buildings—to do so was the equivalent of her current assumption anyway: whoever this was knew that she was here. Chewing her lip, she flicked her eyes around her surroundings, looking for any sign of the person she tracked…only to be caught from behind. Not registering the gentle touch at first, fight won over flight, and she bolted her arm upwards and back towards her attacker’s solar plexus. In the twenty seconds it took to do so, however, a scent caressed her nose and she pulled her elbow to a quick stop, her strike caught by a careful palm anyway.

That cologne…could it be?

“Niels?” she whispered, her voice hushed.

Wasting no time, she whirled about in the circle of muscles holding her, throwing her gaze wildly over the man at her back. Soft blue eyes like the sky, silver hair like the moon, and a gentle, unassuming smile. Niels. The sweetest mercenary she’d ever run across, and the closest thing she had to a friend, or any such caricature of intimacy. Maybe wishing on stars worked, even if you couldn’t see them. She didn’t care. With a smile of her own blooming across her face, she threw her arms around the young man’s neck and let out a squeal.

“Niels! You’re finally here! I missed you…”

A lot of things happen on the front lines of war and in the back rooms of underhanded governments. The guy next to you in the trenches becomes your friend, your brother—your family. He becomes the person you can depend on to keep you alive, the person you have to depend on, and one of the most important people in your life. At the same time, he has to be one of the most insignificant amalgamations of cells and chemicals that you have ever known because there’s only enough time to think to save one of you and that one of you has to be you. He is your family, and he is a perfect stranger, and there was no one closer to the former than Niels for Nico. For someone who wouldn’t trust the air she breathed, Nico trusted Niels a lot.

Not only did she trust him, but she knew him. Knew him in a way that meant she didn’t always have to hear him say something to get the message. When he took her hand instead of responding aloud, the smile on her lips faltered into a faint frown, and she met his eyes questioningly. Shoulders tensed under a façade of relaxation only her partner or someone who had seen her at work could decode, she snapped her gaze to the left and the right, unconsciously moving towards Niels in preparation for assuming their back to back standard in dicey situations.

“Are we not alone…?” she whispered.

You always were better at hearing, and you don’t normally write this way unless you don’t want someone to hear.