The Dragon's Lair

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas waited for an explanation but nothing came. He should have figured. There was no reason that Victor would share anything about his life with him, even though he practically knew everything about him. It was an unfair advantage, but Nicolas figured Victor created a lot of those for himself during these kind of situations. It was clear that he did all of these actions, these minor performances, because he enjoyed the exploitation. The extra rush. The thrill from exposing people to themselves and getting off on it.


Whether it was sexually or not, Nicolas didn't care. He thought about it though.


He turned at the question and raised an eyebrow. "You should know if I have one or not with the amount of research you've done concerning me and my life." He reached out and poured the rest of the vodka into his glass before taking a large gulp.


He gave in. So what. If the alcohol helped him to get ahold of himself and remain calm around Victor, so be it.


"I have a job during the school year," he answered anyway and swallowed another mouthful. He didn't say anything else; might level the playing field. Crossing one leg over the other, he leaned back on his stool. One hand stayed on the edge of the counter for leverage.


He took another drink.


"So what do you do all day when you're not killing people or working?" he asked. Nicolas pushed the glass away from him. He didn't want to get drunk. "Do you just sit around your library and find people to add your kill list? Find out where the live and plan it all out? Or are you more of a spontaneous sociopath?" He huffed and cracked his knuckles between his palms. It probably wasn't a good idea to keep asking him about all of this, but Nicolas liked to push. And Victor was drinking. He probably had less of a guard up.

 

[void31]

His eyebrows twitched upward, though he'd invested far more attention in the counter between them than the challenge from Nicolas' end of the conversation. The faint smile on his lips was a positive indication that his drunk ass hadn't taken it as a challenge at all; in a cleaner state of mind (or a higher level of drunk), he would have cracked down hard on such an insult to his skills.


He initially drifted away from the questions and watched Nicolas drink with mild interest. Clearly the guy had done so before, and Victor wasn't judging (he may have been opposed to the consumption of alcohol, but he wasn't the kind of douche to force his life decisions on other people), albeit he did catch himself considering just how much a skinny kid like that could manage before he gave in. Victor himself was, clearly, a lightweight, although that was more a combination of small frame and general inexperience than anything else. Last night Nicolas had been so out of it that it probably wouldn't have been too difficult to just lead him down to the library like any drunken idiot. Probably not sans vomit, but nevertheless.


He smirked and pushed the glass back.


"I've...killed a lot of people, y'know." Victor spoke in a tone that was neither haughty nor shameful. It echoed like the ramblings of a standard drinker, twisted and gnarled in its telling but ultimately true. A simple fact that he wanted to paint as more than it was. Nicolas had to have known it wasn't a lie, anyway; he hadn't exactly been discreet about his most unorthodox hobby.


"Back in...sixty-three--" He stopped, snickered, and shook his head. "Yeah, you're right. That's exactly the kind of thing I do."

 

[kindaemissary]

It was becoming glaringly more obvious that Victor hadn't drank enough to start rambling off his secrets. Nicolas wanted to keep prodding for information simply because he was curious and, most likely, this sort of situation would never again happen in his life. He had to live in the moment, and right now the moment had him entertaining a serial killer in his kitchen. A serial killer who didn't look like he was alive in 1963.


"There's no way you're over fifty years old," he countered, and he leaned back onto the counter so his chin was against the granite. The alcohol was making his head a little cloudy, but not too much. He could still see straight. If it wasn't early in the afternoon, he'd say he hadn't drank even consumed an acceptable amount. "You might dress like an older guy, but you don't even have gray hairs. And you don't wear glasses. Those are key above-fifty requirements."





Yeah, totally. Because age has requirements.


Victor couldn't be that old, Nicolas decided. There were no crinkles when he closed his sharp copper eyes. No weird hunch when he walked. Hell, he had toted Nicolas by the throat without any signs of struggle on their way here, and he had carried him down sixteen flights of stairs. Maybe old people weren't as weak as he thought and didn't have all the stereotypical qualities, but Victor wasn't one of them. He couldn't be.


"You don't even look a day over forty. If you wanted to trick me into believing a lie, this wasn't the right one. I'm not stupid. Even if you managed to get me in your house without a problem, I'm not dumb." Nicolas propped on arm on the table, elbow creased, and rested his cheek in his palm. He probably shouldn't have drank so quickly.

 

[void31]

Victor snorted. "I damn sure hope I don't look forty." The last time he'd glanced in a mirror and given any thought to his appearance beyond the next time he needed a hair cut, he'd determined himself to look no older than thirty-four. A decade of cigarettes had tightened his skin here and there, but he could still pull off late twenties, and occasionally lower, depending on the eyesight quality of whoever needed to think so.


He swirled the fluid at the bottom of the bottle and raised it again to his lips. The burn had long since numbed his senses and clouded his head, but he was clearly indifferent. Victor smirked as he swallowed.


"I don't look over fifty, no." He leaned precariously in his chair and rubbed his palms together. "And I don't feel over fifty, either. But--I've got some very clear memories that would...state otherwise."


A late November afternoon in Dallas. An evening outside a certain Lorraine Motel in Tennessee. Horrific memories, but none projected by a drunken conscious.


"And I would hope that you weren't dumb," he chortled. "You think I'd've told you that if I thought you were dumb?" He shook his head and raised the glass again. "No. You're smart enough to keep a secret. We both--know you are." Because Victor did not share such things when he was wasted unless he knew who was going to hear them. Nicolas--though he didn't exactly favor the kid in most aspects of his personality--had already declared that he'd be quiet as a church mouse. And if he wasn't--well, what would it matter? He could cry serial killer all day long, but no one would bat an eyelash if he tried to convince them that Victor Grange was "a day over forty".


That was part of the reason he'd felt so compelled to say it. He had to get these things off his chest occasionally, and the great thing about doing so was that they weren't believable. Not in the slightest. On the off chance that Nicolas would ever even suspect that the truth was actually the truth, who would he tell? More importantly, what would he tell them?

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas scrunched his face up in what looked like disgust but was more of confused doubt. "Really?" he managed and then frowned a bit when he leaned back down. Victor being closer to his age made the "abduction" less creepy and, not to mention, his growing ,albeit slowly, attraction more troublesome. This new information made Nicolas realize that this was much more disturbing than he had thought.


It just made everything more complicated.


"Well," he started, voice low and towards the counter, "you look good for your old age." Why he said that, he didn't know. Victor didn't need any compliments, especially not from Nicolas. Staring at the granite helped the moment pass because he didn't have to look up and make eye contact.


God, Nicolas didn't think he had any professors so far that were older than fifty. There were a couple close calls, but they were only at the fault of balding spots at the back of heads. Victor was older than his dad who had just turned fifty a couple months ago. When Nicolas was born, Victor was probably already thirty. Thirty. Nicolas had even thought that Victor was younger than that - not even pushing the big five-zero.


He stretched his arms out of the counter and groaned, face hard against the cold countertop. "It makes sense, I guess," he said, and he peeled his face back and looked up to look at Victor. "You must have used all that time on your charisma, because you're quite the people-person." It was mostly the alcohol talking, but there was a little bit of truth to it. Maybe more than a little bit. He laughed loudly and tilted his head sideways on the counter. Even back at the library, Nicolas didn't feel that alarmed. Sure, he was scared when Victor appeared out of thin air and pulled him around by his collar, but that was to be expected. He had this magnetism that just drew people in. It made sense how he was able to get people to trust him before he, most likely, tore them limb by limb.


"You have this aura that gives people this assurance and then you go and slice them up or whatever you do." He snorted and closed his eyes before looking back up at Victor. "How crazy is that?"

 

[void31]

Victor returned Nicolas' laughter with a throaty chuckle of his own, a low noise heavy with the glacial undertones of intoxication. He didn't sound over fifty. His voice wasn't strained from countless years of use, as was typical in someone of his (technical) age. Hell, for a guy who'd spoken as much as he had throughout his lifetime, he would have been all but mute.


His affinity for people, as Nicolas had so suggested, had also contributed a great deal to his projected tone. People picked up their dialects from those that surrounded them. Victor picked up his from his clients. Every rat politician that had ever crept out of Boston and Brookline was far more comforted with someone who sounded like them; it gave off the impression that they came from the same place, had the same experiences, and understood the necessities of accomplishing the same goals. The standard, booming East Coast drawl had given him great advantages when dealing with everyone from the Kennedys to a Broad Street actor who needed some help in covering up a few dozen affairs. Humans were funny like that.


"People person..." Victor muttered to himself, testing the words as the tested the glass with his drumming fingers. It wasn't entirely untrue. He was, technically, a people person, in the sense that he worked with people and lived with people and spoke to people--but who didn't? Damn people were everywhere.


He did suppose, however, that his occupation was primarily a social one. He was a chameleon of sorts, able to blend in or stand out at will, luring them in when he needed to and keeping them at bay when he didn't. He gave them something to be attracted to: voice, appearance, words, whatever. It always varied, because people were always unique and unpredictable, but Victor always made sure that he had it all. He wouldn't have been very good at his job if he didn't.


"That is...crazy," he echoed, followed by a bout of wheezing laughter. "I dunno about the 'assurance' part, though."


He did take an interest in Nicolas' vague compliments. Victor was not a haughty man, and, truthfully, he rarely relished in such attention--unless he was drunk.


You look good for your old age. That was true. Although he hadn't heard it much, considering he almost always looked about the age he described himself to be. It was nice to hear, anyway.


Victor squinted at the boy sitting across from him. He was that standard, ivory-skinned, chocolate-eyed wet dream that Victor had given quite a bit of thought to when he was younger. Only now did he realize that those thoughts had hardly changed. He'd never made any intimate moves toward his victims, but it wasn't as if he'd never considered it. It just wouldn't work have worked out as well in reality as it did in theory.


But he might as well return the compliment. "You're not so bad-lookin' yourself, Sherlock..."

 

[kindaemissary]

As they laughed together, Nicolas couldn't get over how ridiculous this entire situation was getting. There he was, day drinking in his kitchen with a mad man that had abducted him the night before and could have killed him. It did give that extra rush that the younger man was always searching for, but he didn't want to satisfy this way. It was drunken flirtation, he tried to convince himself. He wasn't that attracted to Victor, even when his mouth was wide open and his eyes creaked together in whatever weird kind of happiness a serial killer could manage to have.


It was all weird. The whole thing. Victor being in his home in the first place was eerie all on its own.


Nicolas couldn't seem to care as he poured some more vodka into his glass and slurped it down easily. If was going to do this, keep hanging out with a monster for a random extended period time, he was going to need more to drink. If vodka did wonders for his father when he was supposedly stressed, it would work for Nicolas when his body was growing rigid as time passed.


He would attest it to the alcohol, but drinking was supposed to make people smoother, more fluid. It didn't normally produce hard-ons. There was no way NIcolas would admit that he was budding and erection, which still could be from the alcohol, while sitting across from Victor. Now that he knew the man was over half his age, it made him feel a little sick. The reciprocated compliment didn't help.


"Yeah?" he slurred back, face flushed. It had to be the alcohol. He reached out and took another sip. The glass almost slid from his hand but thankfully he managed to catch it. His hands were sloppy, but he managed to set it down without shattering it on the counter or floor. A little over five shots and he was feeling particularly sloshed. Victor looked even more attractive than he did when they met. It could have been the lighting maybe. He did look more at ease when he wasn't threatening Nicolas's life.


Nicolas had been told before that he was attractive. By frat boys, sorority girls, random people at parties that wanted something a little physical. He wasn't the hottest person in the world and he knew that - he wasn't that arrogant. He just knew that he was far away from ugly and that's what mattered.


"Did you go to Woodstock?" he asked out of nowhere. Nicolas sat up more on the stool and folded one leg over the other. Maybe the boner would fade away. "I mean, since your old enough. Christ, you're so old."

 

[void31]

"I'm so old," Victor echoed, more matter-of-fact than in a sarcastic, juvenile way. "I did...yeah, shit, yeah, I remember Woodstock. I was..." He trailed off. How old had he been in '69? It became increasingly difficult to keep track of these things as the years ticked by. He supposed it didn't really matter anyway.


"Was there towards the end of that weekend...God, it was shitty, but it was great," he slurred. Hundreds of thousands of half-naked bodies packed tight in a field behind a dairy farm was not Victor's most ideal vision of heaven on Earth, but it had been reason enough to get high as a kite and waste his time with public sex stunts and mediocre music. The lack of food and sanitation was another thing entirely, but hell, he'd do it again.


He didn't share these details with Nicolas. He knew the kid didn't have the attention span, that he himself did not have the necessary coherence, and that they would ramble on about it without really listening to each other for hours on end if they could. Despite his sort-of abstinence, he knew how being drunk worked. And it was safe to say that they were both considerably drunk.


"Did you--" He snickered, raising a hand to his forehead, grinning at Nicolas through his fingers like he'd just said the funniest goddamn thing in the world. "How do you know what Woodstock is? They teach you about that shit in school now?" It was strange, he thought, almost surreal that his life could be considered part of history nowadays. It hadn't been so long ago when he'd caught himself being lectured by an older member of the community about the way things were way back when, and how ungrateful he must be for what he had now. He'd wanted to tell her to shove it up her ass. Anything was better than what he had then.





Then again, it really hadn't been that long ago that he'd been high off his ass in the middle of an enormous music festival that had somehow made it into the history books, and he'd thought that was a pretty fucking nice time. Pretty boys like Nicolas hadn't been around back then, to be fair, but he'd been satisfied enough with the selection then.

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas's eyes widened at the concession and his mouth upturned into a lackadaisical beam. "That's so fucking cool," he admitted. He didn't know why he had asked the question to begin with, but now more that ever he was saying the first thing that came to mind.


"You don't give me enough credit," he supplemented. "For your information, I wrote a paper on Jefferson Airplane for my senior research paper. Man, I poured hours into that thing, it was insane. My teacher told me - can you believe this? - that I needed to pick a serious topic, and I told her that Jefferson Airplane was as serious as serious got. She probably would have given me a detention for being rude, but she was fucking my dad so that worked out pretty well."


He uncrossed his legs and leaned back on the counter, both elbows bent and face pressed hard into his hands. His dad went around and did whatever he needed to do to get off. After his mother and him stopped having sex, Nicolas figured one or both of them were getting it somewhere else. He was pretty sure his father didn't know that he knew his entire senior year that his english teacher was a "good lay" and it would probably stay that way. He wasn't about to bring it up.


"Did you know that?" Nicolas asked, eye stretched wide. "With all the creeping that you did, did you know my dad fucked basically everyone but my mom? God, I wonder if she knows. She probably does. She's not as dumb as I think she is sometimes. You know, she was the one who got me out of my first ticket. She said she talked it out, but I always wondered if she sucked a cock or something. Both my parents are sluts."


Man, he should drink more often. It felt freeing to get all of this pent up frustration out in the open instead of bottling it up. Victor made a good listener too because he didn't always respond. Nicolas could probably talk for hours and Victor would probably only perk up once in a while. He didn't talk that much. Nicolas thought old people talked more.

 

[void31]

Victor was silent throughout the duration of Nicolas' turn to ramble, his lips quirked into the slightest impression of a smile while his half-lidded eyes focused on nothing in particular. He seemed all but perfectly content to lean there against the counter and half-listen to Nicolas describe his passion for washed-out sixties bands. He didn't have anything better to do--not when the alcohol had given him such an impression, at least.


"I--" Even in his altered state, the questions had caught him a little off guard. "...no. I looked after you, not your...parents." He scrubbed a hand through his hair as he spoke. Jesus, the kid was awfully concerned about their sex life. He supposed it was a pretty normal thing to think about when a relationship became so detached. After they didn't really seem like your parents anymore. Victor had never taken it upon himself to stalk either of Nicolas' parents beyond anything they did concerning their son, but it wasn't incredibly difficult to see that the lack of intimacy was a glaring fault in what was presumed to be a happy marriage. He wasn't surprised. This happened all the time in exceptionally wealthy marriages. It had happened with his folks, too. You just can't fit a camel through the eye of a needle.


"Why does it matter so much?" He'd come to the conclusion that a lot of weird things held some importance in Nicolas' life. Why was there a serial killer on the loose, who were parents were sleeping with, had Victor had been to Woodstock. He was a fairly strange kid as a whole. Normal kids didn't think like this. They weren't keen on the sixties or obsessed with tracking down serial killers. They didn't share a drink with those serial killers, either. It was becoming somewhat eerie. How fucked up did you have to be to hold an active interest in these things? Perhaps Cardou was a little more interesting than he'd thought.

 

[kindaemissary]

The truth that Victor had focused his snooping on him and not his entire family made Nicolas's stomach twist. He had known from the get-go that he looked into him because he was snooping on Victor to begin with, directing more of his time on the sequence of homicides and less on his studies. He didn't perceive it to be uncanny at all - his growing fixation on the murders series - at first, but after time he just wanted to know more. The news stories normally weren't full of sociopaths, but break-ins and tax evasion. The bloodshed was worth investigating.


Victor going out of his way to dig into Nicolas's life was almost a commendation in itself. He did enough of a good job to warrant worry.


"I guess it doesn't," Nicolas said, and he sat up in the stool. The kitchen was warmer from when walked in but not enough to change the thermostat. His hair was still wet, coiling at the back of his neck, and he lifted his hood to his hairline to soak up some of the water. "But what else am I supposed to think about? My parents don't talk to me. The rest of my family is either worlds away or dead. My friends from school aren't that interesting, they just have good parties." He shrugged and crossed his legs again, trapping the tight heat between his thighs. Victor was attractive, but he didn't want to heighten his ego even more.


"My entire life is boring. I study and go to school, drink on the weekends, go to parties that I don't really care about. Once in a while I have sex, but even that gets boring after a time." Nicolas rubbed at his right eye with the back of his hand. "I was tired of waiting for interesting things to happen in my life," he admitted. "So I paid more attention to the things I used to look over. My parents' relationship, college nightlife, you." He pointed towards Victor with a crooked finger. "I probably need a normal hobby, and I know that, but nothing works. Nothing's alluring enough."

 

[void31]

Victor clicked his tongue. The twinge in his gut was not so much sympathetic as it was pitiful; he couldn't relate to such feelings of isolation and utter boredom, as he could rarely relate to any kind of struggle in the average human being. It was quite the benefit as a corporate sociopath--not so much as a shoulder to cry on.


He'd always busied himself with books and work, and in between he had a few very close friends that he could trust to keep him company when he needed it most. He hadn't gone to a party in years. The last social gathering he'd attended was a wedding reception in Central Park, and even that was primarily business. Victor wasn't the most social butterfly in terms of casual interaction; he didn't speak to anyone without having a reason to. Not soberly, at least.


"Hm." It was more difficult than he'd expected to produce a solution, so he didn't try. So the kid was bored and lonely or whatever--what kind of teenager wasn't? Hell, that was probably the only normal thing about him. He'd waste these next few years going to parties and getting wasted and chasing girls (or guys, or whatever he was into) and probably following a few more serial killers around the block, and but he'd eventually settle down into the hellish rut of adult life. They all did sooner or later.


Or maybe he'd become a piece of shit like Victor. Who knows?





He would have liked to tell Nicolas that it was an average feeling. He would have liked to say that everyone had those restless urges, that his had never really stopped, actually. It was normal to want something to do all the time.


But Victor wasn't the most comforting person in the world, so he didn't say anything. Instead he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank.


Over the edge of the counter he caught a flicker of movement, and, out of drunken curiosity, leaned forward on his elbows and promptly frowned at Nicolas' crossed legs.


"Why--" It struck him so hard that he almost choked. Shit. Well. It wasn't like he'd never pulled that move before, but it was unexpected, to say the least.


He leaned back in his chair and snorted violently, his eyes cast to the ceiling as a faint scarlet tinge mounted his cheeks. "Goddamn. Nothing alluring enough, huh Wesley?"

 

[kindaemissary]

They sat in some semblance of comfortable silence for a few minutes, Nicolas tracing his finger along the upper ledge of his drinking glass, until Victor noticed his frequent below-the-waist fidgeting. There was nothing to do aside from lean back and placing his hands in front of his crotch and glare at the other other man. "It happens when I drink," he lied, and he rotated the stool with one foot so he wasn't facing Victor head on.


He had popped an erection when he was drunk before, but that was normally after someone had already been touching him for a prolonged period of time without giving any attention to his dick. He wanted to make Victor believe that it was just a normal reaction for him to have from drinking. If he realized that it wasn't, it would become weird.


"Don't take it as a compliment," he grimaced. "And stop calling me Wesley."


When he lied to Victor in the beginning, he didn't think that the name would become a big deal. Even though the older man knew the entire time, it wasn't that huge of a thing to begin with. Why Victor kept bringing it up was beyond him.


Nicolas switched his legs around so that the other was crossed over this time. With the added concentration on his little situation, it was getting a little more difficult to forget about its obvious presence. Victor was going to make a spectacle of this even if he was drunk, gauging from the look in his eyes and stupid conceited smirk on his face. "You've already been through this point in your life, asshole. Where everything arouses you. Don't be a dick about it."

 

[void31]

"Course I have," he snickered, "but I'm flattered, nevertheless."


He didn't believe that lame-ass excuse, not for a minute. "No one gets hard just because they been drinking," Victor sneered. "That's not how it works, boy." He'd had to employ the awkward leg cross himself about as often as any man, especially as a hormone-driven, lovesick teenager. However--even with his avoidance of the drink--he was no idiot. He knew well enough that there was (almost) always something to trigger that inconvenient little perkiness, and it was never vodka.


Then again, there were no pencil skirts or bulging cleavage to be seen.


"You into guys?" There was no shame in the inquiry. He leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, his teeth bared in a picture perfect ivory grin. He seemed to find great amusement in the prospect, though he'd be a hypocrite if he was to make a joke of it. Victor had never been ashamed of his preferences. He didn't have a problem with pointing out a person's attractiveness, whether they were male, female, or anything in between. After those horrific "experimental" years, he'd decided that he cared as much about labeling his own sexuality as he did anyone else's. He wasn't the most romantic person on earth, but he liked sex and he liked intimacy, and that came from a vast variety of parts. What they had between their legs didn't matter to him nearly as much as what they could do with it.


He was a bit taken aback, however, at the fact that he'd never suspected Nicolas might be into men--or at least, enough into them that he had a little below-the-belt situation going on in the presence of one. God, was he attracted to Victor? That was weird. The experience wasn't alien to Victor, not in the least, but from a kid? That was new. And, sure, he'd given him little hints here and there as to just how interested he was, but he told people they were attractive to their faces all the time. Everyone from waitresses to presidents. How they took it was another thing entirely, but ultimately irrelevant. How did Nicolas take it?

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas glared at him and turned his attention back to the glass sitting on the island counter. It didn't matter if was into men. In college, it was a lot easier to hook up with girls because they threw themselves at you when you were walking down the stairs case, asked "wanna go back to my room?", and tended to a quick easy lay that Nicolas didn't have to think about the next day. Guys were different. When he hooked up with guys, they remembered him. They went out of their way not to forget his face. They'd see him across campus or while he was working, even in the mail room, and make lewd comments about the things they wanted him to do to them (or them to do to him). It was this cycle that he couldn't really escape from because he didn't want to stop having sex. He fucked people. People fucked him. Anyone could enjoy a good lay.


"I'm not into anyone," he scoffed, hands spinning the glass in circles on the table. "And if I was into anyone, it wouldn't be you."


It was true that Victor was physically appealing - that much was obvious - but not enough to make Nicolas actually attracted to him. It was the situation, the power exchange probably. He knew people got off by others putting them into place, but that was never him. He was the one who pushed guys onto their beds, tied their hands to the frames, and teased them until they were begging to be fucked.


But Nicolas remembered Victor's hands holding him tight as they headed into the building, the coarse whispers as they headed from the library and the condo, and the way he stayed seated when Victor showed himself in the beginning. If he was scared of being hurt, he would have gotten up right away and defended himself. Right? But he stayed down and pretended to be calm throughout the entire situation. He didn't get up until minutes later and then was pushed up to a wall, but he didn't shove away.


He was protecting himself. If he had wanted something more venereal, he would have done something about it.


It felt like he was trying to persuade himself more than anything else.


"You're old and a murder. I can think of a million things better than that award-winning combination." The sarcasm was dripping, but even Nicolas remained unconvinced. He turned towards Victor. "I, on the other hand, are young and perpetually horny. So what if my body so happens to be proving that point right now. It doesn't mean anything."

 

[void31]

"Aww," Victor crooned, his lips wedged into a dramatic pout as he leaned forward on one elbow and cradled his chin in the palm of his hand. "Come on, pretty boy, don't be shy. I know you gotta get rid of all that energy somehow." The pout stretched into a wicked grin, and Victor reached out to drum his fingers on Nicolas' end of the counter, a half-teasing gesture that dripped with the intent to make him squirm.


He didn't present himself as anything of a show-off, but he'd always put some effort into claiming those he was interested in. Men were consistently more difficult than women. It was the power struggle that was the largest issue--Victor rarely went for femininity (he'd have fucked a damn woman if that's what he wanted), but overly masculine guys compromised his need for the upper hand in literally almost every situation. He was a kind-of-small, lean, feisty, young-looking guy, and for some reason that always raked in big veiny animals who were only looking for something to hold down. He'd never been a huge fan of that sort of thing.


On the other hand, he wasn't quick to pounce on kids like Nicolas either. He'd given it some thought, of course, but in the end, that kind of risk-taking didn't sit well with him. No one looked at a seventeen-year-old making out with a guy in his early thirties and thought it to be a perfectly normal, loving relationship. No. They thought the kid was a whore and the adult was a pedophile, and that was the end of that.


They never said too much about it, though.


Social stigmas aside, he wouldn't have minded sinking his teeth into a kid like Nicolas. Young, impressionable, probably pretty inexperienced--good-looking, more importantly. Exactly the kind of person Victor got a rush from controlling. Now he may have been a cold-blooded murderer, but he was no creep. He didn't do that kind of shit with kids, let alone forcefully. But young guys like Nicolas--with their weird questions and weird interests and weirdness in general--never did anything to stop him from thinking about it.

 

[kindaemissary]

It was already enough that he had to deal with it in general, but he didn't sign up for Victor's retorts and petty little mutters. Nicolas's shoulders might have hiked up at the increase in proximity, but at least he didn't pull away like he wanted to. Victor made him uncomfortable. It took almost everything he had to keep that to himself, and he had already slipped so far. Victor probably already knew.


When Nicolas thought about it, there were only two things truly holding him back from the thought of seeing Victor as more of a person and less of psychopath that just happened to be in his kitchen. If the other man wasn't a serial killer or seven million times older than him - he knew he was exaggerating, but that's what it felt like - he could have actually admitted to the attraction. If Victor had acted exactly how he did and was how old he looked, but didn't kill people as a pastime, Nicolas just might be able to acquiesce to the feeling. But until all of that changed, it was godawful. Almost detestable.


So no, Nicolas didn't have to get rid of that energy somehow.


"You're a vulture," he pointed out, speech slightly slurred. "You think by making me nervous you're going to gain something here, but you're not. Since the moment we left your little killzone underground, you letting me walk free and clear, you lost the advantage. You're in my house, now." He stood up from the island and headed to the main counter facing the wall. He opened the silverware drawer and pulled out a steak knife, turned around, and aimed it towards Victor.


Okay, pulling out the knife probably wasn't the grandest idea, but he had had two too many swigs of vodka and Victor's little games were pissing him off. "You think you're so fucking smart, so fucking good at pretending to be this menacing evil, but you couldn't even kill me! And I was the one figured it all out! I was! Not some private-eye hired to find you by a victim's mother. Me. A fucking nineteen-year-old with no one idea what he was doing." He took a deep breath and slammed the knife on the counter, palm facing down on it and the other hand balled into a fist. "And you let me go. I said I wouldn't tell, wouldn't go to the cops, but what kind of serial killer trusts a fucking kid not to run away a tattle? Sure, you threatened my family, but it would have been so much easier to just kill me then and there. There'd be no hoping I'd keep shut because I'd be dead."


Nicolas pulled his hands back and ran his fingers slowly through his hair, stress obvious on his face. He just wanted to know why Victor didn't kill him. It was chewing him up inside.


"If you knew I was onto you for so long," he muttered, "why didn't you just find me and end it instead of waiting for me to get too close? Why didn't you just pick me off the street and slice open my throat."

 

[void31]

"Alright, alright, settle down, you little twerp," Victor snarled. The physical threat had spiked his adrenaline, and Nicolas' unanticipated shift in emotion had left him caught in a riptide of incomprehensible thought. Now he reflected his wrath without a single hesitation. If there was one thing he was exceptionally good at, it was defense.


"And what the fuck do you care, anyway?" He stood up too, though his grip on the edge of the counter spoke lengths of his inability to maintain any sort of balance. It occurred to him vaguely that if they happened to end up in a violent scrap, it'd probably look more like two drugged up elderly women slap-fighting over a purse. That bridge hadn't been crossed yet, however, so Victor wasn't too concerned. "The only reason I let you go was because they'd've been on me in half a fuckin' week if they found out some rich little shithead went missing. Nobody gives a shit about adults anymore, Sherlock, but upper class little white kids like you?" He snorted, rocking precariously on his heels. "Hell, they'd hang in me in Madison Square if they found out I cut you up."


He pointed a slim finger at Nicolas with grim accusation. "I don't want to kill people like you. You think that's how I get off? By killin' kids?" His face had drawn up as if in disgust. "No, I don't do that. I don't fuck with kids, I don't fuck with old people, I don't fuck with animals. I'm not a fuckin' psychopath. I do my job. And my job doesn't involve flaying little brats like you because I'm paranoid you won't take me seriously. I know you'll take me seriously."


He'd crept closer as he rambled on, only half aware of what he was really saying. His finger hovered a mere inch or two from the center of Nicolas' chest now. "You keep talking like I'm the freak," he snorted. "We both fuckin' know you're the one who's been hot and bothered the entire time, kiddo."

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas's face twisted in irritation, eyes focused hard on Victor's in front of him. The propinquity was enhanced as the finger wavered between them, indignant and intimidating. He wasn't used to this much hostility in a single moment, in a single room. The agitation he felt was riveting. Victor was a behemoth he didn't want to put up with, but it was getting harder keep calm in situations where he didn't know how to deal.


"If getting hard by a little push and pull is somehow worse than slaughtering people for some sense of gratification, then yeah, I guess I'm the freak."


He glanced down towards Victor's finger and took a step back so he was standing against the counter. Nicolas generally wasn't a stupid kid but he was tired of getting domineered like a child that didn't know how to retaliate. If he couldn't manage to persevere through Victor's onslaught, then he guessed he wasn't as smart as he thought.


"I think you should go," he said, eyes hard on Victor. His left hand was gripping the counter, elbow bent. "You got what you came for, right? So leave me alone."

 

[void31]

He stepped back, drew in a breath that swelled his chest to twice its size and released it slowly. One pale hand rose to brush the bangs out of his face. "I think you're right." Suddenly he didn't feel so at ease in someone else's home.


Still balancing himself on the edge of the counter by his fingertips, he glowered at Nicolas through narrowed eyes. "What's wrong with you?" There was no accusation in his tone. Dare he think it, he kind of felt bad for the kid. He had shitty parents, an isolated life, and he was out here drinking with serial killers, which was all kinds of fucked up no matter how they tried to twist it. This vast range of emotions he'd seen from him over the last thirty minutes--or had it been longer? God, it seemed like it--was oddly affecting. Victor himself, though he did a near immaculate job of hiding it when he needed to, was an intense, emotional person. Anger was just more favorable to sympathy.


"Did you want me to kill you?" He took a half-step forward, though his body was angled away from Nicolas' to give the impression that he was ready to bolt. He wanted to, but he wanted an honest answer more. Shit. The idea of anyone wanting death screwed with his head a little too much.

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas stared at Victor for a good couple of moments before he looked away. He didn't want to think about it. The assault of emotions that kept piling up in his brain was giving him a headache, not to mention drinking when he should have been nursing a hangover. Nic was a bit of mess, and he knew it, but even through everything he made sure to keep up a pretense that showed that he had it all together, that he was well-organized and well-balanced. It didn't seem to be working anymore.


"I don't know." The admission was low, almost caught in the back of his throat.


He didn't want to be alone, but he still wanted Victor to leave. He needed to sleep; he'd been caught up in his head for too long. A decent amount of rest and forgetting everything that had happened this morning would cure whatever kind of problem he was facing internally. Keeping up his guard for so long was exhausting. He had to watch every twist and turn, and while it wouldn't have been so bad if he was actually sober, it still would have wiped him out.


He licked his bottom lip and shook his head to himself before looking back at Victor. The other man looked slightly appalled, probably at what he had insinuated, but Nicolas didn't pay it any mind. "I don't know what I wanted," he said again, more assertive this time. "I just didn't want this." He gestured towards the kitchen with his hands, towards Victor and himself. "I don't even know what this is, but I want it to be over."

 

[void31]

Victor shifted his jaw, struggling to maintain an expression that gave away little, if nothing in response to what he'd just been told. As far as he was concerned, "I don't know" was more synonymous with "yes" than it was with "no". Nicolas would have outright told him if he hadn't wanted to be killed.


Jesus. To want to be killed, even hurt, was an idea beyond Victor's comprehension. He hadn't realized how unsettling it really was until he was presented with an individual who could very well feel that way. Victor's life had been shitty too, but never to the point that he'd wished for death. Is this what people were like these days?


"Alright." He rolled his shoulders and bit his lips, staring at the ground between them. His head was still heavy with the fog of intoxication. He'd be nursing a killer hangover tomorrow morning. Fuckin' great.


"Listen—" He distanced himself a little more from Nicolas. "I don't want to hurt you, and I'm not gonna hurt you. You confuse the hell outta me, but you're a cute kid, and I don't like people thinkin' those things." He was scowling now. "You don't get to decide when you die. So—"


He stepped around Nicolas and lingered at the threshold of the kitchen, eyebrows raised. Christ, those fucking big brown eyes would be the death of him. "...you know where to find me."

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas turned his shoulder to follow Victor's body when he moved around him and towards the front door. He didn't want to be looked at like he was some fucking victim of his own mind. Life was a little mundane here and there, but he never thought that much about ending his own everything. It might have come up in his head a couple times, sure. Wasn't like he was going to do anything.


Even if it would make things easier.


"Yeah," he said quietly, giving a curt nod. He wasn't sure exactly what Victor was getting at. He guessed it really didn't matter. If he wanted answers about himself, he should be going to a therapist and not trying to understand Victor. He just made everything more confusing. "I'm not about to go blow my brains out, so don't worry about you being tied to anything. I said I wasn't going to say anything and that goes for my actions too." He glanced towards the front door and then back to Victor, shoulders pinched together, weight supported by his left leg . "No one else cares enough about those people to try and figure you out anyway."

 

[void31]

"No one cares about those people bec--" A sudden change of heart cut him short. He wasn't eager to engage in another pointless feud when he was already fairly certain the kid had been left distraught by their previous exchanges. His lips pinched into a thin line. "Get some rest."


Victor made it out of the complex and onto the street without interruption. Considerably less energetic and a great deal sorer, he hailed a cab, took it directly to the Strand parking lot, emptied his wallet of fifty-three dollars, and stumbled not-so-inconspicuously through his inconspicuous side entrance. Sixteen flights of winding stairs were a challenge, to say the least, but one he was proud to have accomplished in no more than twenty-five minutes.


The dark, gaping chamber echoed his own footsteps in welcome. Victor leaned against a bookcase. What are all these damn things for, anyway? He'd read every page of every book in the library; he could recognize each title, each cover and premise. They covered lost places and ancient languages, metallic wars and men whose blood he'd felt between his own fingers. Horrible, wonderful passages into a life that had been forgotten or that never was. Victor had always harbored a love-hate relationship with them.


What bothered him most about them was that they weren't his. He'd taken these books, as he'd taken most of the things he owned: each of them had come from somewhere other than the next. They were not the whimsical quirk of an inheritance or a unique find after a day of impulsive exploration. He'd collected them over a very, very long period of time. Hoarded would be a better word. It wasn't the fact that he'd taken them that bothered him, however; it was the fact that they were all still so unfamiliar.


When he'd garnered the energy to move without pitching into a fit of vertigo, he pulled himself from the bookcase and maneuvered to the desk containing Nicolas' files. Everything was still there, in order, as he'd expected it to be. A twinge of disappointment echoed strangely in the back of his mind.


He gathered up the manila folder and padded into his own apartment, a small room branching off from the library. It was nearly as luxurious as the main room itself: granite counter tops, modern furniture, white carpet, all lavishly decorated with Victor's own personal taste. He threw the folder down on the coffee table and trailed into the bathroom to shower.


Thankfully, it was not til he was out and dressed again that his mind returned to Nicolas.


Why had he been so concerned for him in the first place? Victor was not short of empathy; he simply had the ability to turn it on and off at will, as was all but required by his current occupation. Still--still, he didn't like the idea of anyone hurting themselves intentionally. There were enough horrible people in this world who hurt people free of charge.


The kid was awful damn cute, he'd give him that. Running around chasing bad guys because mommy and daddy didn't pay him enough attention. Victor had meant to kill him. Strangle him before he could even really see his face, truthfully. He still wasn't quite sure what had happened.


What he did know was that he didn't know enough. He thought he knew everything, but none of it was quite what he wanted to know.


He wanted to know the Cardou kid on a little more personal level than what he did--and that meant toying around a little more.

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas stood at the front door of his condo for close to ten minutes, staring ahead blankly, waiting for something, because he came to the realization that Victor was gone. He walked forward and locked the door, breathing hard. It took a while before he was able to do anything, but he figured it out. He cleaned the kitchen counter down and washed out the pan. The glass bottles sat on the counter, waiting for someone to throw them away or finish them.


"You shouldn't have gone out last night," he told himself, and he grabbed the two bottles of liquor that went untouched. The cabinet was full of other alcohol, but it was mostly to make mixed drinks and margaritas. His mom didn't like to taste the alcohol in her drinks. His father obliged. "None of this would have happened."


He slammed the cabinet door shut and took a step back. The glass shook but came to a quick stop.


His kitchen was clean as if a serial killer didn't come inside and have some weird version of a pity-party. Nicolas was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened, but his head was reeling. From the rave to Victor's home to Nicolas's house, it was all so perplexing. He didn't understand any of it.


It was probably the alcohol.


Nicolas grabbed a chilled water bottle from the back of the fridge and headed to his bedroom. He shoved the sweatshirt over his head and collapsed against his mattress. The sheets felt good against his face. Next time he went out, he needed to remember to keep hydrated. And not to get abducted by strangers. For now, all he needed was to sleep off this fucking hangover.

- - - - - - - - - -



​

It was twenty-three days after Victor had left Nicolas's apartment. Just a normal weekday afternoon on campus for Nicolas as he crossed another "x" through the date on his calendar. He had tried to convince himself that he was only keeping track because he was still trying to prove to himself that the event had actually transpired. As more time passed between then and now, it didn't feel like a memory. It started to feel more like a nightmare that he couldn't escape from.


Nicolas was still trying to figure out why he didn't run for his life when Victor appeared back in the athenaeum. He should have. He should have run away before Victor even showed himself. Waking up in the center of a library should have been a warning sign that everything in his life was about to change, that he should be concerned for his meager existence, but Nicolas didn't even fucking react.


He thought long and hard about what Victor had said before he left. Did you want me to kill you? The more Nicolas gave it attention, the more confused he became.


None of that mattered anymore, and Nicolas opened his laptop. He was sitting outside NYU's performance center under a tree with two friends. Tuesdays moved quick for him. He had two morning classes and a shift at 5, so in between he stayed on campus and worked on whatever needed doing. Sometimes it was boring, but he managed. Keeping track of the days helped with that.


Since Victor left, Nicolas paid more attention to the news and its murder stories. He looked into them when he got the chance, not wanting to draw attention back to himself. He wanted to pick out which homicides were Victor's and which weren't. It helped with his grieving process - or whatever this was. The murders gave him something to devote his time to. He was no longer prying online or asking people for information and going to raves near Victor's place, but he continued to watch the news. It was almost enough to keep him interested.


One of his friends said something and a moment later Nicolas looked up, dazed. "What?" he asked, and he rubbed at his forehead with a fist.


"You've been really out of it lately," his friend, Will, said. "I asked if you were going out this weekend. Sigma Chi is having an open house if you wanna come."


Nicolas sighed internally and shrugged his shoulders. He didn't want to go to some random frat party and have to deal with a bunch of pathetic teenagers wanting to get laid. By now, he was just really tired of everyone. He wanted to have a good time and go out, but it just seemed so exhausting. Everything seemed so exhausting. "Maybe, I don't know." He looked down at his laptop screen and then back at Will. "I'll probably go. Can I let you know for sure later this week?"


Will nodded, and Nicolas went back to his work. He could hear them both talking, Will and Clayton, but he couldn't make out their words. As he stared at the screen and the typing words appearing across the page, everything else faded out. He knew that he was acting weird lately but couldn't get out of this funk.


He looked back up at his friends. "Actually, I'll go. I need to get back out there, get back to normal." He grinned when his friends reached out and patted him on the back, and he could only hope that the party wouldn't be a bust.