Blood.

Chapter Four: Nic vs Nico.

Nico ran his fingers through Alina's hair, she had buried her face in his lap.
"Li..." He asked a small pout on his face because he wasn't answered the first few times when he asked the question. "....why are you so...not happy?"
"I'm happy," Alina's muffled voice answered. Her eyes closed, her heavy heart lightening at his cuteness and care.
"No," Nico objected, "You're not. Tell me, Li!"
Alina didn't answer.
"I'm your brother," He tried pitifully. Alina sighed and turned to face him.
"I saw something I shouldn't have...." She finally admitted to him, she needed to say it to someone, might as well be her insistent baby brother, especially since admitting to Vincent would be harder, he would not stop pressing for details. Nico would. He was still only a kid compared to them.
"Is that something important?"
"It sort of changes everything,"
"It'll be fine..." He finally said after a long pause. "I love you more than coco loves chocolate. You're the greatest big sister in the world, you can handle it."
"I love you as much as coco loves chocolate too" She paused and looked up at him, looking at those beautiful night blue eyes filled with curiosity, "I can?"
"Uh-huh!"

Aurora's P.O.V:

"Morning, little girl," Milo dropped a kiss onto the top of my head, walking over to the empty chair, Justin nudged me as he sat down beside me.

"Heard Alina grounded you?"

I closed my eyes a moment for the brief embarrassment and then looked at Vince who was talking to Alina while rubbing the back of his hair, she seemed to listen to him for a few moments and then nodded, he seemed so nervous. And then I closed my eyes again. First time Alina had to ground me actually...more than three days at least. The last time I had been grounded was because of Justin.

The sneaking out thing? We had an entirely different punishment for that, a rather creative one. We had to wash cars. A lot of cars. Nico's idea I think. I don't really remember but what I do remember is washing all the cars (I am sure there are hundreds at this point) for the number of days equivalent to every 15 minutes we were away.

2 weeks, that's all we did from 5:45 pm to 9:30 and then we were too tired to do anything else so we just ate and slept. Vince still came and kissed my forehead, heard me complain about my day while stroking my cheek until I fell asleep. One of those nights I realised something.

Alina makes me feel safe. Vince makes me feel at home.

"Earth to Aurora," Landon snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, I blinked and Nico sat down in front of me. 

"Eat your food," He told me dryly and reached for one of the dishes placed on the table, I pressed my lips into a frown. 

Well, good morning to you too, big brother.

"I am, Nico."

I had come up with a distinction for my brother's nicknames. Nico for when he was his usual self, and Nic for the sweet moments he had. I don't think he ever noticed, my brain at times forgot to. But then when I thought about the day later a conversation with him came into my mind that happened during the day, it always went Nico vs Nic. Usually turned out to be Nico. 

"Don't see you eating." He said and then titled his head, "Aren't you already grounded, I would watch myself before you have to wash plates."

Like right now. Nico, not Nic.

"That's not a puni..." The words died on my lips and I shook my head at him. Washing plates is not even punishment and I know for a fact he isn't a dumb person. "You're an asshole, you know."

I bit my tongue, closing my eyes instantly.

"Excuse me?" Nico's voice was eerily low and scary, so much so that everyone stopped talking for a minute to look at us, even Alina raised her glass to her lips sipping the orange juice instead of coffee for once and looked at both me and him emotionlessly.