The Dragon's Lair

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas, almost so distracted by the question that he didn't notice the medical equipment leaving the chest, blinked and took a hesitant half step backwards. "We're not exactly friends with him," he granted, eyes now transfixed on the hardware being pulled from the vessel. "And, uh, we don't know him enough to know his boyfriend. But if the guy's dating Victor, the how well can he actually be?"


The confession to Victor's love life almost made him angry, and that was irritating beyond belief. There was no reason for him to be upset that the serial killer that decided to abduct him from a rave and then got drunk with had a relationship with another human being that was probably immeasurably more compelling than he ever would be. 'Cause, Christ, Nicolas wasn't even twenty yet. If, even for a second, he thought that Victor would be enticed by him he was an idiot. A childish idiot that didn't know up from down.


Watching Marcus remove the tools from the crate made him a little more wary of Victor, too. These could be the same weapons that lead to the demise of all of Victor's victims. He could have cut them into little pieces under the clothing that some of them were found in, only allowing for the cops and private investigators get a full view of his art. It also made him think that Victor's promise to him was faux. The man was misanthropic. Sardonic, egotistic, a real cynic if Nicolas ever knew one. There was no reason to trust Victor when he made teenagers deliver a box of instruments that would, possibly, be involved in a murder.


Out of the corner of his eyes, Nicolas saw Clayton starting to form an affirmative answer before Will jumped in and salvaged the situation. "Thanks for the offer," he started with a small smile, "but we have to get back. Got a couple more things to do before we can call it a day."


It was obvious, to an extent, that Will understood that Nicolas didn't want to be there any longer than necessary. Whether his friend had the same spew of information boiling in his head was an entirely different story - one that he would hopefully never had to comment on.


"You need us to give you a message or something to Victor before we head out?" Nicolas offered with a pinched smile. "We can make sure he knows that he needs to keep getting you the good stuff if you come back."

 

[void31]

"Yes. I do, actually." He upturned the box without hesitation, spilling the remainder of its contents onto the table. Several dozen thick, dark gray Styrofoam bricks toppled onto metal and cement, their resounding echo highly evident of their considerable weight.


Marcus slid the now-empty box very gently to the side, as if out of fear that it might disintegrate under his mammoth strength. There was no strain of impatience on his face, but his mouth was set, and his dark eyes ominously placid.


He pointed a thick finger directly at Nicolas. "You tell that skinny prick that if he tries to rip me off like this again--" He snatched one of the bricks off the table and shook it, like a mother scolding her children. "--I'll wring his rat neck. Okay?"


His voice had never grown louder nor angrier as he conveyed the gravity of this message. There was a calmness to this man that sharply contrasted with Victor's exuberance; he held the type of rigid demeanor that a serial killer would, all the while extending a cold friendliness that Victor was too sober and straightforward to maintain. His colossal physique did little to make any of this any less unnerving. Victor, at least, had an appearance that aligned with his personality.


Just as quickly as it had begun, the silent intensity faded, and was replaced by crinkling eyes that never quite implied any sort of a smile. "And do me one more favor, if you would."


He replaced the brick on the edge of the table, shuffled to the end of the room, and drew back one of the many white sheets hanging from the low ceiling, unleashing a rank miasma that reminded one again of that day-old meat smell. There came a brief scraping sound and the crinkling of paper, and the sheet was drawn back into place.


Marcus returned with his cordial aura alight, one massive arm outstretched to Will. Clasped in his hand was a package wrapped in white paper, dripping crimson, roughly the size of a football. The shallow indents left by Marcus' fingers gave the impression of a soft substance. "Give this to the dogs for me, would you?"

 

[kindaemissary]

The request was abrupt and opposed the seemingly tender ambience Marcus had so far given off, and Nicolas curled his shoulders back in discomfort. The words were incumbent, tying him down to the need to make sure that Victor knew exactly what the giant had to say. His neck jerked his head back and forth quickly and kept his limited view on the misleading heap of bricks.


Marcus could have acted differently with this entire meeting. He could have wrung their throats like he promised to do with Victor's. If they had done one thing differently upon entering the building, with all its innocent cracks and wavering gradients, the trio might have ended up at the bottom of the box they had carried inside.


"I'll make sure he gets the message," Nicolas swallowed.


When spoke again and turned around, Nicolas let a sigh he didn't realize he was holding. Surely he should have realized that his day wasn't going to continue being average when Victor bumped into it. Waiting around in an warehouse and delivering medical supplies to a butcher was likely normal when looked along the lines of whatever else Victor did in his daily life, so being ensured money and distance for a quick little errand shouldn't have seemed too off par.


Nicolas watched as Will grasped the material, presumably some sort of meat, and wrinkled his nose in reaction. "Yeah," he said, and he stared at the bulk of mass in his hand.


When the three of them retreated outside with Have a nice rest of your day still lingering in the air, Clayton kneeled to the ground and coughed into his hand only to produce dry air. Will continued to stare at the sludge in his palm before he walked to the wired fence and shoved it out of his hand and onto the ground. The hounds snarled out wolfish barks and gallivanted toward it.


"I need some hand sanitizer," he muttered while he gave his head a firm shake. His eyes met Nicolas' as he turned back. "What the hell was that?" he asked, and when Clayton pulled himself back together they walked slowly back towards Victor's car. "Are you fucking around with freaks, Nic? Is that guy - Victor - some kind of weapons dealer for fuckups like that guy? Did you get into something?"


Nicolas stopped walking and faced his friend, eyes tight. "No," he growled. " I had no fucking clue what was happening. This is the second time I've even seen Victor, okay? I didn't join a cult or something. Just get off my fucking back. We'll get back to campus and get your money, and hopefully, none of us will ever have to deal with him again." He knew it was a stretch to say that he wouldn't, but he could still hope that Clayton and Will would never be put in this kind of position other time. Once was a enough.


Clayton watched him carefully while Will rolled his eyes. "Just let us know if something's wrong, Nic. If you're involved in something we can help."


"I know,' Nic said. "But seriously, there's nothing happening. Nothing to worry about."


He started walking again and opened the driver's side door before slipping inside, Will and Clayton gathering themselves in the back for the return trip. He couldn't help but glare at Victor as he fastened his seatbelt, hands hard on the wheel. The car was still running in its parking spot, but he didn't pull away from the curb. "Marcus said not to fuck with him again or he'll kill you." A moment passed before he turned to face Victor. "Is that why you wanted us to go in place of you? Because you're messin' with people's shit? Basically asking for it?"

 

[void31]

With a cigarette between his lips and a blase expression to convey his utmost lack of concern, Victor gazed at Nicolas from the corners of his eyes and listened without interruption. He paused for a moment. "You got to be somewhere soon, don't you?" His brow wrinkled, seemingly out of thought rather than irritation. He shifted around in his seat to look at Mathias. "Doesn't he have somewhere to be?"


"I'm sure he does," the other man muttered, with just about as much urgency as Victor. Neither seemed to be particularly attentive to the line of questioning.


Victor raised his eyebrows and turned again to Nicolas. He drew the cigarette from his mouth and sighed a curl of white smoke into the space between them. "Well, how 'bout that." He leaned over the counsel and patted the younger man's knee. "I don't think you need to be worryin' about all that, kiddo. I think we need to get all you's back to campus so you're not too late for work, yeah?"


He flicked the cigarette out the window and opened his mouth, prepared to tell Nicolas to start the car. Then a flicker of movement caught his attention.


All at once, he flung the door open, stumbled out, slammed it shut, and clambered onto the roof of the vehicle. An enormous figure was barreling towards them, roaring in a guttural foreign language and wielding something sleek and silver.


"Stay off my fuckin' car!" Victor shouted, and then repeated it in what sounded like very Boston-y-accented German. He scrambled to the far end of the roof and snarled at Marcus with wide eyes. The man was nearly rocking the Continental beneath his massive weight, fingers curled into the top of the door frame and his huge face twisted with rage.


The two proceeded to scream at each other in German, Marcus growing increasingly furious and Victor increasingly nervous. The fact of the matter was, Marcus was big, and Victor was small--and there were few who would come between a giant and his intended victim.


Mathias was no longer one of those few. He cursed and pulled himself up to the passenger's seat, skillfully avoiding the echo of Marcus' wrath. He's pissed. Of course he was pissed. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and if he knew Victor (which he did), it certainly wouldn't be the last. But he'd lost sympathy for his friend a long time ago. If Victor was going to keep going around lying and cheating people out of their shit, he got what was coming to him.


Of course he didn't want him hurt, but it was never too soul-crushing to see him get his ass kicked every once in a while. He was, like everyone Mathias hung around these days, kind of a dick.


"Just hang on," Mathias grumbled, clutching the back of the seat for support as Victor scrambled again and the car shifted considerably under Marcus' reaction. "It'll be over in a few minutes."

 

[kindaemissary]

Heaving a distressed groan, Nicolas turned back to face ahead again with an air of petulance about him. He couldn't help but let the irritability consume him for the next few quick moments, and up until Victor lurched out of the Continental he remained stared forward, features tense. The rattling atop the car caused him to shift in his seat and face the passenger side as Mathias ascended into the seat.


Everything was happening so fast and Nicolas turned quickly to see Marcus running from the building towards the car, and by all means he wanted to start the engine and pull out of their as quickly as possible - whether was inside the vehicle or not. Instead, Nicolas gripped tight to the steering wheel and hoped that the seat-belt would prove useful if, for whatever reason, things didn't turn out how Mathias thought they would.


"This happens often?" he guessed, knuckles white. Nicolas could see Will and Clayton in the rearview mirror becoming increasingly more concerned. He wondered if their worry was centered around Victor or themselves, but it would be weird if it was for Victor. Still, their trepidation reminded him of his own and he looked away before they caught him staring and moved his attention to the clothed ceiling.


It would have made sense for him to assume that it wasn't the first time Victor pulled this kind of shit on someone, whether they were just a not-so-friend or whatever kind of client-of-sorts that Marcus was. He almost wanted it to be a one time thing that ended up leading to this increased temperament, but by the way that Marcus had reacted and Victor flung himself out of the car so quickly, it was stupid to believe that this hadn't already happened before. It might not have happened with Marcus as the victim - in fact, that didn't seem likely - but Nicolas didn't think that Victor would pull this kind of stunt on Marcus before he did it to anyone else. Marcus acted calmer than Nicolas thought he would whilst they were in the building, but once they left and he ransacked the car, any perception that Nicolas had of the other man went flying out the window.


In his life, Nicolas had never had to deal with anything like this, so he wasn't really sure what to make of anything that was happening outside the shell of the car.


Will shifted in his seat and clutched onto the right side of the drivers seat, and Nicolas turned around to face him. He didn't even think to acknowledge the fact that his friend had medicated anxiety until his eyes stared hard back through his skull. It had been a few minutes since Victor exited the car, and he figured that the period of waiting was too long for Will to manage. He looked like he was holding himself together enough to last a little longer, but the sooner this was over the better.


He might even give Will and Clayton a little extra cash once all of this was over with and done.


Nicolas twisted his torso and placed a hand on his friend's forearm. "If he takes too much longer getting the shit beat outta him, I'mma just leave him here. We have places to be, as you both so eloquently said." He stared towards Mathias then. "Don't think I wouldn't do it. He'd have too much to clean up if he wanted to get back at me."

 

[void31]

"Often enough," Mathias sighed. He snubbed out his cigar in the ash tray that replaced a cup holder in the center counsel and leaned forward again to peer out the tinted window. He was a little thicker than Victor, but that didn't make him any more willing to step in between the mammoth and the guy the mammoth wanted to pummel. He loved Victor, he did, but it wasn't too hard to lose your sense of humanity around the guy--and for the guy.


"Wouldn't blame you if you did." He considered lighting another smoke, and denied the urge. "Now what did Victor say? Two thousand?"


It seemed less than excessive. Mathias opened the glove compartment, revealing a stash of bills banded together by the dozens. He collected several bundles, counted them carefully, and tossed them into the back seat. "Twenty-one hundred each, for your troubles."


He shifted a brief sideways glance to Nicolas. He still wasn't sure about the boy. Why did he act so irritable, when the rest were so afraid? Not that Victor couldn't be frustrating, but people were usually too consumed by the fact that he'd killed people to recognize his insufferable personality.


"I'll make sure 'e stays away from you." He gave little more than a slight nod and a reassuring tone to enforce his promise. There was no reason for Nicolas to trust him. He should have, if he was to trust any of Victor's associates, but Mat wasn't going to waste his time trying to convince him.


Victor re-entered the car with a flourish. Mathias whipped around as the other man arranged himself frantically in the back seat, relieved to find that he wasn't visibly hemorrhaging. With his eyes wild, hair in a mess and a deep scratch across the back of one wrist, Victor threw himself up against the back of the Nicolas' seat. "Alright, you see me in the car? Let's get goin', princess."


He whipped around to stare out the rear windshield, easing his throbbing heart somewhat when he found it to be unoccupied by a huge German man wielding a butcher knife. "Shit. Well, we can't go back there for a while." There was a note of genuine irritation to his voice, as if this were a great inconvenience. For Victor, it was. He and Marcus had scraps like these all the time, but Victor had always found them unjust. He was always the one who suffered in the end. Marcus was the best butcher around and Victor despised doing the dirty work himself.


"You're an asshole, Victor, that's what you get." Mathias pointed out from the front.


Victor shrugged. "Yeah, well. I'll find someone else." He glanced instinctively toward Nicolas. Shit. The kid had done it, though. Not without complaint, and probably not if his life and that of his friends hadn't been threatened, and almost certainly not without a bribe--but he'd done what Victor asked of him.


But Victor saw the lines of irritation on the boy's face, so he went with what little conscious he had left and decided against asking for another favor. It'd be too complicated, anyway.

 

[kindaemissary]

The bills bounced on the seat, and Will and Clayton gathered them together before taking a collection of them each for themselves. Nicolas remained in the front seat, watching Mathias as he promised to keep Victor's word, and as much as he wanted to believe that the other man would actually stay away, it was not exactly easy to let his guard down and take Mathias' word for it.


At the sound of the back door opening, Nicolas turned around to see Victor, scraped up more than the latter would like to admit. He started the car quickly and watched in the rearview mirror as they pulled away, Marcus shrinking in the background. He caught Victor's glance in the background and looked away fast, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him as he headed back to campus. He had enough to think about without making something out of nothing when it came to Victor.


Nicolas kept his hands tight around the wheel as he drove and peeked once in awhile to see into the backseat. Will and Clayton had shuffled away from Victor as much as they could in the small confines of the car. They both held the cash in their hands like their lives depended on it, steady and stable. There was no way that he was going to get out of explaining any of this to either of them once their lives got back in order. It was fine when they were in the courtyard and only had to deal with Victor talking to them, but after the events with Marcus and Victor almost getting a hand chopped off, they weren't going to settle for whatever bullshit Nicolas tried to spew. They were going to want answers more now than ever.


The drive back to campus quick and quiet. Once Victor stopped talking, no one else felt the need to say anything. It was almost peaceful in comparison to everything else.


The car pulled back against the curb near where they had left from, and Nicolas shifted the vehicle in park before Will and Clayton exited the car. He hesitated before doing anything and turned around to face Victor. He could still see his friends just past the glass window as they waited for him.


"I don't care if you keep bringing me into all your shit, okay? But stay away from them. They weren't the ones that snooped on you and figured anything out, but if I have to keep explaining how I know you, they're going to stop believing me and look into it themselves." He huffed and unbuckled his seatbelt. "You're making it difficult to not tell the truth, and I'd really appreciate it if you kept them uninvolved. They're going to ask me questions about this for weeks, and saying that I met you at a party or whatever isn't going to make any sense if you have them go on more of your errands."

 

[void31]

Victor waited until the silence was broken and the two most oblivious passengers had exited the vehicle before turning his attention away from picking at his wound.


He leaned forward and braced himself against the seats, one elbow on Mathias' shoulder, the other on Nicolas' headrest.


"Listen, kid, let me tell you something. After I got through with my very first job and I had the body delivered and whatnot, one of my client's guys punched me right in the stomach. Like he was givin' me a fuckin' slap on the back or some shit. And a' course I thought, what the fuck was that for? And I wanted to fight the guy about it, y'know, because who the fuck does that? But it was my first job see, so I figured the guy was just retarded or somethin' and I brushed it off and I drove the fuck home.


"And I dunno what he hit or how he did it, but I started to feel like shit after about twenty minutes on the road, so I pulled over into a Macy's parking lot, threw up a shit ton of blood, and passed out for about forty-five minutes. And somebody thought I had fuckin' died, because people were stupid back then, so they called an ambulance and they took me to the hospital. And then I met this doctor who offered me a job that was triple the pay of the last guy."


He leaned back, studied Clayton and Will for a moment, and lit another cigarette.


"Anyway, the moral of that story is to not question the weird shit I do to you or your buddies, because it's gonna open a lot more doors for you little rats."


Mathias cleared his throat and glanced in the rear view mirror at Victor, his mouth pressed into a hard line. The thinner man shrugged.


"There's no moral in that story," the former pointed out. "Just stay on his good side."


"Oh, shit, yeah, and stay in school and don't do drugs," Victor sniffed from the back seat, dripping with sarcasm. "Just keep it in yer head, Sherlock. You're a clever kid." He gestured to Will and Clayton with a sleek smile. "You know this can't all be bad."

 

[kindaemissary]

"But none of that even matters," Nicolas huffed. He readjusted himself so that he was facing forward in the driver's seat, eyes directed at the rearview mirror. "Don't you get that? Even if playing these mind games with you actually helped out in some way, it still wouldn't mean anything. They don't wanna be like you. I don't wanna be like you."


And even if Nicolas wanted to be like Victor in some fucked up fantastical sort of way, he'd want that part of himself to steer clear of his friends. Will and Clayton had enough going on in their lives without adding the fear factor that came with dropping off medical equipment to psychopaths on the other side of time. Even if Nicolas had something as dark as what was inside of Victor inside of him, he'd still keep his internalized wants at bay. Including his friends in whatever else he needed would only hurt his image.


With a small rotation of his body, Nicolas looked over his shoulder at Victor and glanced between him and Mathias. "I can't keep up the lie if you're going to pull stunts like this," he offered, voice calmer than he thought it would be leaving his mouth. "If you have more of these errands, I'd do them. Well, I might do them. But I'd be more willing to them if they weren't around, y'know? It'd be easier for me to keep all of this unwraps and better for you if they weren't askin' as many questions. But if they're there, and they for whatever reason think something more concrete than the freak-vibe they're gettin' from you now, I can't cover that up. I can't."


Nicolas looked at his friends out the window, Clayton bending over to see inside from the back window. Nic raised his hand and waved him off, and after a couple seconds of waiting, Will and Clayton meandered away back towards the performance center, bookbags riding low on their backs.


If had to do something stupid to keep them away from Victor, he would.


He looked back at Victor and shook his head, exasperated. "Do you need anything else or can I head outta here before I miss my shift? Y'know, 'cause aside from doing whatever this is, I actually have important things to do."

 

[void31]

Victor absorbed Nicolas' growing frustrations as if they were a minor inconvenience that could be fixed with a flick of the wrist (or another wad of cash) instead of the potentially life-altering crisis that the latter pressed it to be. He liked to think he had some kind of relationship with the kid, fickle though it was. He liked to think that he knew him, about as well as he should, anyway. He had his personality pinned down to the point where he couldn't be caught off guard anymore. Nicolas was always going to be frustrated and pissy, because although a boy might chase a serial killer, he wasn't always keen on catching him more than once.


Cardou might have been a little naive, but he was no psychopath. It would have taken a man who was insane and idiotic to convince himself that this kid wanted to be anything like him. Victor was but one of those things.


But the memory of their drunken conversation lingered in his mind as freshly as if it had occurred just earlier this afternoon. Perhaps it had. The recollections of the more--intimate moments between them had begun to muddle together like the colors of some chaotic, confusing painting. Just moments before he'd rambled off his tale (and in part the reason for why he had), Victor recalled that he had, indeed, kissed this boy who was surely a decade younger than him--technically more.


Truthfully, he didn't know what to do about this kid. He hardly knew how he felt about him, either. Clearly he liked seeing him struggle, but Victor knew himself well enough not to be concerned by that. On the contrary, he'd actually shown some concern for Nic when he'd thought for a half-second or so that he might have maybe considered blowing his brains out at some point in time.


It was fucking confusing. Nicolas was fucking confusing.


He felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. Mathias was turned around in the passenger's seat, glowering at him with his sharp, icy eyes. Victor clutched his arm and curled his lips back, prepared to snap out a perfectly justified "what the fuck was that for" when he came to the realization that he'd been nodding absently throughout the duration of Nicolas' case.


"I'll stay away from your buddies, kid, don't worry about it," he said, proud to have beaten Mat to all the sentimental shit. It'd do him good to be the caring one every once in a while, even if he couldn't pull it off nearly as well.


"So, yeah, get out the car." He leaned back and snatched the Camel straight from his mouth, shifting it around between two fingers as he flashed a wolfish grin, a curl of gray smoke pouring off his lower lip. "I'll see ya again real soon, yeah?"

 

[kindaemissary]

The relief that flooded through his body created a relaxation that he wouldn't want to admit. Nicolas knew that at any point in time, Victor could change his mind and bring them back in on a threat, but for the moment it seemed to appease him. If he could manage to sweep this day under the rug without too many questions, they might just stop thinking about Victor altogether, and wouldn't that make his entire life easier.


He pulled at the door handle with his left arm but continued to face Victor. "Hopefully not too soon," he stressed, and removed himself from the car as quickly as possible. He might have slammed the door a little hard on his way out.


His backpack was heavy on his shoulders as he pulled it on and walked away, casting a few glances behind him as he approached his friends. They were stationed outside by a different tree, Will's hands on his waist and Clayton's over his chest, both of them looking unimpressed beyond belief. Nicolas knew what was coming before it came spewing out of their mouths: "That guy could have killed us!" "Are you sure you're not in the mob?" "Seriously, how do you know that guy?" It was going to happen at some point, so there was no reason to put it off for later. If he did, Will and Clayton might bring it up when their other friends were around.


"Nic," Clayton started, and Nicolas pivoted onto his left leg. "What the hell did we just do? Like really, did we just aid and abet for some crime ring or something?" He looked more worried than Nicolas thought either of them would be. Sure, they'd be a little hesitant and obviously creeped out, but Clayton was almost having a midlife crisis.


"I don't know what that was," he admitted, hands shoved down into his back pockets. "But whatever it was, he's not gonna involve you again, okay? And if he does when I'm not around, even if you just see him, tell me and I'll figure something out."


Will shifted on his feet and glared. "Did you know something like this could happen? That there was even a slight chance he could bring us into this, or even you? Did you know?"


"What?" Nicolas asked. "No, God no, I didn't know shit." Lie. "If I had known that something like that could have happened I would have done something sooner, involved the law or something, I don't know."


"Why don't you involve the law now?" Clayton pressured. "That guy, Marcus. He could be killing someone with those tools right now."


Nicolas sighed and ran his hands hard through his hair. He couldn't keep them off the trial for long, but if they took it and left it alone, he'd be fine after a while. "One, why do you even think that guy was gonna use those things to kill people? He could run an underground doctors office or something, you never know. And two, if I went to the cops now after all of this, Victor would know it was us. I don't really wanna be in that position, okay? I want him out of my life as soon as possible, and if that means staying quiet, then fine by me."


"Whatever," Will sighed. Clayton huffed next to him but didn't say anything.


"Yeah, well," Nicolas started, gesturing away. "I have to get to work, so I'll see you later. Just - Keep everything to yourselves, okay?"


The two of them stared back but eventually nodded in halfassed agreement before Nicolas walked away, bag heavier on his back than before. That might have been because of the lying, but he wasn't sure. These days he was never really sure what to think when it came to Victor. He had tried to forget about it, all of it, but it didn't really work. It didn't help that whenever he was in his kitchen he pictured Victor at the end of the island chugging vodka.


He needed to do something, anything really. No more raves, obviously, but he had to get out. If he kept to himself too much longer he' end up going crazy. The like Victor went unsaid.

 

[void31]

Victor watched him reconvene with the others, narrow-eyed and thoughtful. They were too far away for him to hear what they were saying, but the urgency of the other boys' body language led him to believe that they had a shit ton of questions that were just begging to be answered.


He leaned forward. Nicolas' cool composure was impressive, he would admit; then again, the kid was smart enough not to drag his buddies into his own personal hellhole for the sake of having someone to share the experience with. He wasn't superficial the way other young people were. He wanted to protect them. He wanted to do this on his own.


Victor could appreciate that.


He slid a glance toward his own solitary companion, who was far more interested in the cut on his wrist than the boys' conversation.


"Jesus, Victor, you think maybe one of these days you ought to stop rippin' off obviously dangerous people?" There was scorn in Mathias' tone, but Victor knew him well enough to hear the concern.


"I'll stop when he kills me or finds someone who charges less." Which he won't. It was a paranoid thought more than anything. Victor was the only one who made black market deals around here. The threat of competition made his mind scramble—but he usually took care of it before things got serious.


"Think you should stop making kids do your bidding, too." Mat flicked his cigarette out the window. "You're playin' a dangerous game dragging his friends into it. Kids like to talk, Vic. You of all people should know."


Victor snorted. "I know what I'm doing," he said. "Sherlock knows what he's doin'. And he knows what I'll do if anything gets out about what he did today."


That was true, but how long would it stay that way? Had he angered Nicolas to the point where he didn't care anymore? Worse, what if the kid thought he was bluffing?


He wasn't, but—he would admit, hurting the guy would be tough.


"So you just wanna see 'im squirm?"


Victor looked from Nicolas to Mathias. He'd known the man for well over a quarter century. He was responsible, far more than Victor appeared to be, but truthfully just as wily and shameless (Victor had chalked up his unusual irritation to a painful afternoon and the introduction of people he didn't know). He didn't hurt people the way Victor did. He'd never really wanted to.


Victor lingered on the last word. It had come out something like "squehm" when Mat said it.


He nodded. "Yeah. Something like that."

 

[kindaemissary]

After two and a half weeks had passed by, Nicolas stopped keeping track of the days that came and went without Victor. His mental reasoning for doing it in the beginning was to wait and see if the other man would actually keep his word, but after so long he didn't really care anymore. If Victor showed up unannounced again, he'd deal with it like he had the last time. There was no doubt that he'd be upset that Victor hadn't vanished completely, but he'd deal. He'd figure it out.


Without that mental calendar to focus on, the beginning of September passed by pretty easily. He managed to go to a few parties and get drunk a good couple of times with his friends. Most of the activities he did aside from school were really to keep his mind away from Victor. If he had more to do, he wouldn't think as much. He'd actually be able to get something done. It never worked out the way he wanted it to, though, because whenever he drank it brought back the memory of Victor in his house, Victor drinking in his kitchen, Victor pointing out his physical frustration, Victor showing up at NYU, Victor kissing him in front of Clayton and Will, Victor getting the shit beat out of him by Marcus, Victor in general.


It was irritating to say in the least.


Another good amount of days had passed, and now Nicolas was sitting, legs crossed, in a little run-of-the-mill cafe three blocks from his house and waiting for his mother to show up for what he felt like was a required brunch. She made it seem like it had been years since he saw her, and it was true, it had been awhile. But that was her fault. She was the one that was never home and forced him to make up for it on a bright yet chilly Sunday morning when he could have sleeping in and nursing away a hangover. Before he left Jaxon's house that morning, he had popped two Tylenol to get his headache to subside, but it worked slowly.





Most of the time, he ended up crashing wherever he was on the weekends, whether it was at one of his friend's houses or another frat party. No one ever kicked him out so it seemed to be working just fine. The walk from campus or from across town back to his parent's place was always long and lonely, and he had spent enough time being alone already to go back to that.


The cafe wasn't as big as the Starbucks at the corner two blocks east, but the coffee was better and wasn't even half as expensive as the shit the franchise tried to sell. Nicolas didn't have to worry about the cost of anything, really, but his mother liked to keep up appearances and play the helpful civilian card once in a while. She told him that going to smaller places gave them a better reputation because she had been there, but she was full of shit. No one cared about someone who wasn't good at anything. She still didn't know that Nicolas had figured out that his parents were getting divorced - finally - so when she told him that she wanted to get together he assumed this was more of a formality than anything.


He knew it was coming years ago, really, so when he heard his father on the phone with a lawyer discussing alimony, he was relieved. Them separating gave him more reason to get his own place and, as he approached his twentieth birthday, that sounded absolutely fantastic.


Nicolas stirred the coffee in his styrofoam cup and sighed, one hand pressed in his face and elbow bent on the glass table. He checked his phone in his pocket and rolled his eyes - twenty-three minutes late and counting. The delay wouldn't be a problem if she was a normal person and apologized, but if he left and she got there she'd blame him and make them do this all over again. It was better to just stick it out.


Reaching over, he pulled out his laptop from the bookbag resting next to him. He hadn't been home since Friday morning, so he had to keep a spare change of clothes and his school supplies somewhere. If he was going to wait for another twenty-three - he checked his phone - twenty-four minutes, he might as well use the time wisely and get some work done.


He logged in and shoved earbuds in before typing onto a word document about a newly-discovered oil field in Greenland that his econ teacher added last minute to their syllabus for whatever reason. Nicolas was ninety-seven percent sure that oil fields had nothing to do with macroeconomics, but he'd write some BS and turn it in anyway. His grades were looking good so far and if he could pull another 4.0 by the end of the semester, he'd be in a good place.


Nicolas reached out and took a sip of his coffee. His mother still hadn't shown after fourteen minutes, but he kept waiting. He'd wait all day if it meant he could prove that he was right.

 

[void31]

Victor kept his promise.


It wasn't exactly difficult, he would admit. His chore list grew at an exponential rate as fresh clients crept up to mutter their grievances with him in dark cafes and busy Subway tunnels, which was a pleasant surprise, considering Marcus Kline had connections in high places and was not a particularly forgiving man. Victor had thought it to be a conspiracy at first. The majority of his demographic were dubious businessmen and representatives of slick-haired politicians with their hearts in their wallets. Among this unusual round of patrons he'd found a homeless man who stunk of brandy, a portly grocery store owner, and a mother of three (he'd turned her down; authoritarian soccer coaches weren't exactly his specialty), among other odds and ends who spoke desires of eliminating everything from fat cat bosses with god complexes to pure projections of paranoia. As it turned out, people needed other people dead now more than ever.


It wasn't surprising--there were regular swells in his clientele, especially right before the coming of the bitter autumn frost that sent everyone spiraling into an icy gray world of insanity-- but managing it all was painstaking. Over the last few nights, Victor had found himself struggling to find surrogates for his lost services. He needed a new butcher (for those especially twisted folks), at least until Marcus calmed down. He needed someone to get rid of the bodies when he was finished. He needed to figure out what the fuck that damn grocer wanted him to do with his thieving employee's severed lips. Hell, he probably needed some more bleach for the car, too.


Usually, as one of his few, dear, oldest and most conveniently located friends, Mathias would have handled the majority of the dirty work. Coupled with their (Victor's, really) delicate but diligent relationship with Marcus, they made the perfect headed-for-the-chair-in-a-second-if-the-chair-was-even-still-around serial killer team. The bastard was sneaky, too. He had a way of making the kids think to his advantage. Where do you think the best place to hide a body in New York would be--hypothetically, of course? And then his rats would giggle because Professor Kennedy was cute and charming and had this cool nature about him that gave off the impression that he wouldn't hurt a fly, so of course this was hypothetical. Enchanting as Victor could be, he just couldn't pull that kind of crap. Kids were more observant than adults.


But while Marcus' ailment went without saying, Mathias had grown visibly weaker over the last few weeks. It wasn't any more cause for concern than it had always been--Mat was a roller coaster of illness, and it bothered Victor far more than it bothered him--but enough to make Victor shut his mouth and sidle up to his friend when he'd visited him at his upstate apartment to ask a favor (several, to be honest, but that was beside the point) just a week after the incident with Nicolas. Mat was paler and colder, and when he coughed into a tissue (which he always did), heavy and wet, the tissue was always streaked red when it came away from his mouth.


He'd shot Victor a knowing grin and rasped, "I know you need help, buddy, but I'm gonna hafta take this week off. Maybe your kid can help you. Now pour me a gin and tonic, would ya?"


Victor hadn't encountered the hole-in-the-wall corner cafe with intentions of getting "his" kid to help him. Truth be told, it was purely by accident. But was Cardou really going to believe that?


Of course, he didn't have to talk to Nicolas at all. In hindsight, he probably could have grabbed a table and buried his nose in his yet-to-be-organized brief case full of confidential serial killer notes and never noticed the kid. He could have, if he tried hard enough.


He was steaming when he stalked into the place that afternoon. It was unfamiliar--warm, quiet, but ultimately strange. Victor usually didn't take too kindly to that type. Sketchy, smoky, dimly-lit dives were his element, and this was squarely the opposite. But it seemed he'd been changing things up today, based on his growing stress, skipped breakfast, crushing migraine, and tense altercation with the driver of a Mercedes Benz that involved a lot more screaming than his head was willing to take.


He all but collapsed into a seat just three booths down from Nicolas Cardou, managed a very measured tone with the waitress that arrived (after fifteen fucking minutes) to take his order ("Just a black coffee, wouldya sweetheart?"), and set to mulling over his own misfortune. Too many jobs. Butcher's pissed. Best friend's dying. I'm probably dying too. Car's got a dent in the hood.


Victor picked at the edge of a laminated menu, his eyes pinched shut to block out the adversaries of his throbbing headache. Jesus, maybe he should ask the server to bring him a hand gun while she was at it. It would've been easier to blow his brains out now than deal with all this shit.


A faint, precise sound pierced his muddled stream of thought. Keyboard. Victor opened his eyes and looked around.


Oh.


Nicolas came flooding back into his mind like water from a broken damn. Of course he'd thought about the kid since he'd seen him last, but they were vague, like trying to recall a memory one had as a child and determine if it was even real or not. It seemed like they'd been apart for six months rather than one. Had it been a month? Numbers raced through Victor's mind. Thirty days, as least. Goddamn. Had the kid changed, or were his eyes just strained from staring at his own shitty handwriting for hours on end? It was hard to tell just looking at the back of his head.


He was surprised Cardou had leaked from his mind so quickly. There was good reason for that, of course, but it occurred to him in a strange and slightly frightening way that he hadn't been considering Nicolas as a solution to any of his problems as of late. Mathias had brought him up that one time, and perhaps Victor had lulled over memories of their oh-so wonderful experiences together for a few moments--but other than that, his mind had been too cluttered by bloody tissues and severed lips to think about kind-of underage kids that he had weird mixed feelings for.


Victor got up from his booth and moved to the one straight behind Nicolas, practically sitting back to back with the boy. He stared over his shoulder and peered hard at the words on his laptop screen.


Then, with all the carelessness of a man who feared getting his throat cut by a stranger considerably less than the majority of New Yorkers these days, he shifted around and slung his elbow onto Nicolas' shoulder, and rested his chin on his forearm. "Jesus, this is what they teach you these days?" There was a note of genuine disgust in his voice. His nose was wrinkled and his eyes were narrowed. "Greenland? I bet you don't even know where the fuck Greenland is."

 

[kindaemissary]

If Nicolas had to admit to having any sort of fault, it was becoming more and more obvious that "selectively negligent" could be at the top of that mountainous list. In class, he only heard his name half of the time it was called and normally left his friends hanging mid-conversation when he got distracted by something else. Sometimes he up and left study groups or parties without realizing that they were yelling out after him, and sometimes he forgot to watch for a light change on the highway only to get a horn blaring from behind him until he drove on. Maybe it was because he had on his plate - parents splitting up, academic stress, the addition of extra work hours, Victor - but he had to wonder if he was just losing it. Some nights he went without a single hour of sleep only to do the exact same routine the next day. He tried taking some insomnia over-the-counter shit, but that didn't do much. At least it didn't for him. So yeah, it was getting easier to become slightly oblivious. Maybe more than slightly.


He should have noticed Victor the moment the other man entered the building. He should have sensed him. Nicolas knew that it was stupid to think that he should have noticed right away. He was listening to music, head down and facing the other way. His mind was focused on anything but the older man, but that didn't make him feel better. The realization that he let Victor creep right back into his life was gnawing at him from within, chewing at his mind like a starving man.


He hated admitting that he didn't notice Victor until he made physical contact more than Nicolas hated anything else. The touch sent a jolt through his entire body, and it would have if anyone had approached him from behind. He wasn't going to confess that the shock was due to Victor. It wasn't true. If another person had been sitting at this same table and a person leaned on them, touched them, they'd probably be just as jumpy.


Nicolas jerked his toros away and ripped the earbuds out of his ears, forcing Victor off of him. "What the fuck," he gaped, anger deep in his eyes. A few patrons had glanced over to the two of them and stared before going back to their business yet again. Nicolas panted for a moment and resisted the urge to slap Victor across the face. "What are you doing here?" he whispered, voice sharp. "Don't you have an errand to run or somethin'? Or another body to bring to Marcus?"


He huffed and slammed his laptop shut. Sure, it had been just over a month but Nicolas was hoping for more. "That's what he does right?" he pressed. "You're probably too chicken shit to actually do any of the dirty work yourself, am I right? You probably just pick a body off the street and send it over. If not, then what else were those tools for? Excavators, tweezers, chisels. Don't tell me he's running an animal hospital or somethin'."


Everything had tried to ignore for the last so many days - who was he kidding, it had been exactly thirty-two - came rushing back in waves. The fear and underlying anticipation from their last episode sprouted up, and he recoiled his shoulders in some semblance of a delayed reaction.


"And shut up," he spoke again, torso toward Victor and an accusatory finger pointed at him stupid face. "I bet you know less about Greenland than I do. It's been decades since you've probably taken a class, but I'll have you know that there's no reason for what professors teach us. They're all a little crazy. Kinda like you."


Nicolas reached down and pulled his backpack towards him and shoved his computer down along the backside. "But if you're only here to fuck with me I'm just gonna head out," he snapped. "'Cause I really don't need this right now, okay? I have enough real stuff goin' on in my life to deal with your shit."

 

[void31]

Victor recoiled, pleasantly surprised at Nicolas' reaction, and the reaction that he managed to invoke in Victor himself by way of it. He gained a twisted sort of gratification from seeing the kid explode, he would admit. When you hung around sullen, cool-headed people for a long time, being an explosive guy yourself could get fairly exhausting.


Nevertheless, they didn't need it right now, not in a public place. People were staring. Victor's expression went from open and surprised to pinched and concerned. He grimaced and lifted his palm up and down, signaling Nicolas to lower the volume. "Shhh, will you shut the fuck up? There's people around." He gestured to the innocent bystanders with a flick of his eyes. Aside from the fact that discussing dead bodies and medical tools in the same context could catch quite a few glances in your average scene, he didn't want to interrupt these nice people's breakfast with Nicolas' seemingly insane ramblings.


Of course, this was New York City, so the innocent bystanders were probably more concerned by the latter than the former. Still.


"Marcus dumped me, so uh--oh, thanks doll." His attention was drawn briefly to the waitress as she arrived with his brew, flashing her a picturesque grin before she could dash timidly out of sight. Pretty little thing with high freckled cheekbones and curly black hair done up in a bun. Victor had never killed a woman. He may have been "crazy" from certain angles, but he had his morals. You never hit a lady, you never asked her age, and you certainly never cut off her head and sent it to her ex-boyfriend, even for thirty grand. "So uh, you don't have to worry about doing any more chores. For a while." And neither do I. That was the sad thing. He and Kline weren't exactly the best of friends, but their "break up" still left a gap that he didn't know what to do with.


Victor raised the mug to his lips, and paused. It was times like these he forgot how warm things above ground could be. His bed had been too cold over the last few nights, it seemed.


The bitter slash of black decaf returned some warmth to his misery-laden body, and a light quiver ran through his shoulders. He slouched against the clean red Channel and tilted his head on the partition between his booth and Nicolas. "And if you're really that concerned, we can have a good long conversation about it--" The mug found its way to his lips again. Victor hummed in satisfaction. "When I get all my shit together." Togethah. Hanging around sketchy clientele was starting to thicken his drawl. "You think you're special just 'cause you're a college kid? We all got problems Sherlock, you and me too."


He turned around almost completely, resting one arm on the partition again. "Who're you waitin' for?" Foh. "I know you're not here by yourself, kid. You know better than that."

 

[kindaemissary]

"My mom was supposed to meet me here," Nicolas answered. As much as he was used to Victor making surprise visits into his life, he still didn't like being completely honest with him. But he wasn't stupid and had already lied to Victor once before, and the older man didn't let it go for weeks. He still might not have.


Nicolas gestured towards the ample amount of empty space around them and gave Victor a look. "But as you can see, she ain't here." He relaxed back into his chair again and took another sip of his coffee - hazelnut macchiato with no whip - and peered up to the other man, display irritation. "Honestly, I shouldn't have expected anything less. She's late for everythin' she plans herself. Once she was late picking me up from school. I waited for four hours before I decided to take a cab, and when I got home, she got mad at me for not waiting longer for her." He huffed and gave a jerky shake of his head.


That day was easily the first time that he realized he cared about his parents as much as they cared about him. He was a ticket toward looking like a perfect American family. His existence alone helped his father with deals, helped his mother with the divorce settlement, and helped both of them cheat on each other. Most days, he wondered if he was an accident. His parents never seemed the part to want children, nevertheless care about anyone else's unless they could get something out of it.


"But whatever, right?" Nicolas started again, pulling himself out of his head. "Why are you here? It's a little hard to believe you came solely for the coffee. Needed a little pick me up after your break up?"


Marcus had mentioned something about Victor having a boyfriend, so it made more sense that it would be a platonic relationship ending rather than something more. Nicolas wondered if he brought it up that Victor would comment on it, but he wouldn't press his luck. When it came to Victor, things never seemed to go the way they planned.


His bookbag went forgotten on the ground, weight resting against Nicolas's leg, half zipped with his laptop haphazardly peaking through the opening. The angle wouldn't make too much of a problem when he started walking, but if he didn't shift it after a while the corner would begin to dig into his spinal cord. After a while, Nicolas got used to the minor annoyances in his life, but every once in a while things just irked him to the point of exhaustion.


Like Victor.


"You don't really look like the cafe type," Nicolas added. "You have more of a "weekend brunch with the grandkids" vibe going on. You might not look old, but you do act it."

 

[void31]

"Really?" He didn't think he was that out of date. Then again, it didn't really matter what he thought, because Nicolas was almost as vocal in his opinions of Victor as Victor was in his opinions of Nicolas. And if there was anything to like about the kid--anything to like about teenagers in general--it was the brutal honesty.


So he smiled instead of protesting, a tight but genuine thing that teased one corner of his mouth into the shadow of a sneer. "You couldn't be my grandkid if you were ten years younger." And you don't look like me neither. Nicolas was a little paler, his hair and eyes darker, and his frame generally wider (relatively speaking) in contrast to Victor's tall, angular, copper-tinted physique. They could have passed for uncle and nephew at best. "Hell, I s'pose it's a good thing I don't have grandkids if spendin' money on shit like brunch is a requirement," he muttered, half to himself. Well--no grandkids that he knew of, anyway. Either way, no one whose useless meals he had to pay for.


He paused in between addressing the barrage of questions to unfold the menu at his end of the table, more as an excuse to inconspicuously get his head together than to examine the fine cuisine. But his eye did catch a few select dishes, and he did grimace. Nicolas was right. He wasn't a cafe person. Hell, he wasn't even a three-meals-a-day person.


"Well..." Victor exhaled slowly through parted lips, longing for the days where no one would bat an eyelash if he lit one up just then. He'd been smoking his way through two packs a day as of late. He could trust it not to touch his physical condition, but the taste had begun to settle in his mouth like a bloodstain.


Should he tell Nicolas the truth? He supposed he could vent to the kid (Nic had just done it to him, hadn't he?), but what was there to bitch about? A lot. A whole lot, really. And, in truth, he needed someone who would listen, and his options were quite limited at the moment.


But he couldn't just come out and say "I'm stressed, I've got too many people to work for and not enough people working for me, I've got a headache the size of Manhattan, Mat's literally coughing his lungs out and there's nothing I can do about it, and I need to get the car to the shop", much as he would have liked to.


So he turned his attention back to his companion. Again, he realized he hadn't seen the kid in a month. It was almost weird talking to him again. Almost. This was the longest they'd been apart for since their first meeting.


He closed the menu, but continued to fiddle with the edge of it with restless fingers. "So your mom's a piece 'a shit, huh? Let's talk about that."

 

[kindaemissary]

Figuring out Victor's actual age wasn't going to be as easy as Nicolas would have liked, but it didn't really matter in the long run. He was older, and Victor himself mentioned that he was over fifty more or less, so getting anything aside from those two bits of information didn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.


Nicolas watched as Victor picked at the menu in silence, head buried down at the laminated words. He didn't know what he wanted to get out of this occurrence, this little rendezvous, but it wasn't going to be a therapy session about the problems he had with his family. He would rather talk about anything else, though there was something about Victor that made it easy to rant at him. Maybe it was because he, most likely, didn't even give two shits about Nicolas and his issues. The only thing Victor had ever showed concern about around Nicolas was having to risk his anonymity by bringing him down into his home. Even when Marcus got a little rough, there was no sense of worry in Victor's body. Nothing.


"They're both pieces of shit," Nicolas decided. If he kept talking Victor would stay around longer. Why that was a sudden reason in his mind was beyond him, but he couldn't negate the fact that it was fitting to have him around, not that he would voice that out loud. "Last week I figured out my parents are getting a divorce and now they're trying to do damage control. People in the business world, well, they all want to see my dad crash and burn. He's not exactly the nicest entrepreneur around, so if they could get word out about him having fidelity issues and, even more so, family problems, it could knock him down a couple 'a pegs."


Victor looked like he had something on his mind, something bothering him, but Nicolas wasn't going to wait for the other man to start talking. If he knew anything at all about Victor it was that he wasn't exactly a people-person. Well, at least he wasn't around Nicolas. There might have been something down inside that wanted to rant and bitch and moan about his lackluster life. Nicolas wasn't his shrink; wasn't even his friend. Waiting around for him to solve his problems wasn't something he wanted to do.





You're acting like you care about him. Get your head out of your ass.


Sometimes he needed to let the filter go a little bit, though, and if pressing at an issue he didn't particularly care about was going to help that, then fine. He'd press.


"Not that I know much about you, but you don't strike me as the person who cares about problems at home," he said drily, "but I can keep humoring you unless you have something to talk about. Anything I could tell you now will make it into the New York Times in a couple weeks with the way things are going."


Nicolas shifted in his seat. "But you didn't come here to hear me complain about my family life. You said it yourself, you're the one who has shit to get together."

 

[void31]

Victor pursed his lips, as if the answer to all Nicolas' problems was perched right on the end of his words. "So? If you hate 'em both, why does it matter if they split up? Why does it matter that anything happens to 'em? That's less drama for you, yeah?" He might have seemed like a piss-poor listener, but he did try his damnedest for the right people. Of course, Victor's advice could be a little too simplistic for the average human being. Empathy got in the way of a lot of things that could be fixed fairly fucking quick if people saw people for what they were, without "deep emotional bonds" to leave them clinging. In this case, Nicolas' parents were shitty people, and that's all they were. From what Victor could tell, anyway.


He shifted around and winced at the resulting pinch in his ribs. Jesus, what if Mat gave me his thing? Fantastic. One more thing to add to his list. Maybe he'd just go home and get wasted and see where the night took him. Down the alcohol poisoning route, if he was lucky.


He folded his arms across the partition and gazed at Nicolas sleepily. "Listen, I don't wanna talk about it any more than you wanna listen, okay? Let's just say I got a lot on my plate. That work for ya?" It wasn't quite a fair trade, but he didn't think Nicolas had intended on a trade. Victor's problems were a little more--complex. Sure, he knew what it was like to be a miserable college kid who had shitty parents and wanted literally anything more than what he had, but he doubted the kid could offer him such blunt advice the way he had--not for these struggles, anyway.


Aside from that, he'd never really been the type to rant when invited. He took his own invitations. He mumbled under his breath until someone looked at him the wrong way, and then he unloaded onto them like cement from a truck. Standard procedure. Never angry, never with tears in his eyes, never emotional--but when Victor had something to say, it was always a lot of something.


He reached for his coffee again. "Your parents can go fuck 'emselves. You get out of that house and you don't even have to fuck with each other anymore. You're not their problem, they ain't yours." He took a long, bitter drawl from the mug. "Hell, if your dad crashes and burns like they want 'im to, I'd give ya the money."


Shit.





It wasn't that he didn't have the money. He did. He always did. He didn't have a problem with spending it on Nicolas, either. That was his choice. But the fact that he'd even offered it meant two things: that he cared (or at least related to) the kid enough to actually want to pull him out of a shitty situation, and that he was willing to risk being financially associated with anyone outside of his "circle" in order to do so.


There was a faint vibration in his pocket. Victor's phone was what the kids these days would call a "piece of shit", and he would have had to agree, despite the fact that disposable flip Nokias were necessary in his line of work. A gaudy orange letter blinked on the screen when it fished it out of his pocket. Victor bit his lip.

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas opened his mouth to snap something back quick before the subject got changed again, but he pressed his lips together in a cold hard line. If Victor didn't want to talk, then he didn't want to listen anyway despite what the other half of his brain was telling him. He couldn't push away the nagging entirely but he could ignore it.


It was hard enough to figure out what he felt toward his parents. They provided for him in every way since he was born aside from mentally (and socially and spiritually and basically everything else but food and clothes) so he didn't feel like he was allowed to hate them as much as he wanted. The two of them were pathetic people and horrible parents, but they were his parents. With all the drama going on at home, he didn't even want to be part of the family anymore, but he couldn't just forget about them. They never physically abused him. They made sure he got to school and that he was fed and that (until high school) someone was always around when he went to bed at night. They were shitty parents and people, but they tried in their own way. At least that's what he wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that they actually gave two fucks about him.


And he wanted to express that but the confusion that came with Victor's offer took his mind off of everything they were talking about.


Victor was willing to give him money if his parents didn't? What the fuck was that about? Nicolas's life was entirely in a bubble and the thought of someone outside of that bubble helping him through caught him off guard to say in the least. And it wasn't like he needed the money: if he twisted their arms the right way, he might be able to nab the condo right out from under his parents. But the offer of anything from Victor left him nonplussed, blinking eyes and a curious what the fuck expression on his face.


He would have brought it up - wouldn't have even let it go, really - but Victor's face changed when he pulled out the phone. The thing itself was trash, in all honestly (it probably came out before the turn of the century), but it didn't seem that the make and model of his phone was what left him affected.


"You look like someone ran over your dog," Nicolas pointed out and tried to get a better look at the screen, but his angle was all wrong. "What, Marcus send you a make up text? Wants you to come over and patch things up before he misses out on another deal?"

 

[void31]

"That'd be nice..." Victor mumbled, never shifting his eyes from the minuscule screen nor lifting it any closer to his face, despite the effort it took to read letters the size of rice grains from the safety of his pocket. He didn't think Nicolas would venture to actually try and decipher the message--he had no real reason to, anyway--but it was a risk Victor wasn't willing to take. Privacy was vital.


He spent all of ninety seconds reading, then reading again before he stuffed the phone back into his pocket. Another swell of air escaped him, simultaneously silent and distressed. His stomach wrenched with anxiety. How was he supposed to respond to something like that?


Nicolas' words tumbled through his head. You look like someone ran over your dog. Well, it wasn't a far cry from the truth. He didn't have a dog, but he did have a very close friend and a sense of paranoia to rival the most deluded mental patient. He said it was fine, Victor growled at himself. There's nothing to worry about. Mat always said that, and more often than not it was true.


Still.


All thoughts of throwing money at Nicolas and the kid's shitty parents were dashed out of his head (for the most part). The welling uncertainty was an unfamiliar and unwelcome pain that prickled on the back of his neck and curled up in the pit of his stomach beneath all that hot coffee, which suddenly didn't look so appetizing anymore. Victor pushed the mug to the center of the table, one corner of his mouth curled with distaste.


He needed to say it, even if Nicolas didn't listen or give a shit. He just needed someone to hear it.


"Sherlock, what d'ya do if your uh--friend gets hurt--I mean, uh--really hurt--and there's nothin' they can do about it?" He'd hunched his shoulders and put on his gruffest tone, making it a point not to look Nicolas directly in the eye. "Like if Will or whatshisface got sick or somethin', real sick, what d'ya do?"

 

[kindaemissary]

For some unknown reason, the air in the room changed and left Nicolas almost troubled by whatever Victor was mentally going through. His concern was more confusion and wanting-to-know than anything but it still sat at the pit of his stomach waiting to evolve into something else.


Nicolas didn't know personally what it would be like to lose someone that he cared about. When he was little, his grandparents all passed away, but it wasn't like he knew them on a friendly level. They sent him cards on his birthday and made rare appearances at family events, but they still weren't really around. He would have liked them to be, but it was more than difficult to bring someone back to life. Almost as hard as it was to save someone that was too far gone to save.


"I guess I'd just hope," he said, eyes focused on the top of Victor's head. Eye contact wasn't accessible with Victor's shoulders arching downwards. "I'm not a religious person or anythin', so prayin' wouldn't do me any good, but I'd make sure that he knew I was there for him, y'know? When I don't understand somethin', I tend ta look into it a lot and try to see what I could even do if anythin'. If whateva's wrong is so bad that nothin' could change it, I'd just be there as much as I could.


"The best thing you can do is be around. If they're so sick that it can't be helped, they probably just want company, I'd think. More than anythin' else, they probably wouldn't want to be alone." Nicolas glanced away from the table and stared out in the street. The lunch traffic was starting to grow with the addition of church crowds. "If he was a religious guy, I'd probably get a meetin' with a priest or pastor or somethin'. Those things are important to people a lot of the time, but more than anythin' he'd probably just want someone else to be with 'im."


It was difficult to imagine Victor worrying about someone's nearing death. Aside from weird sicko freaks like him, Nicolas didn't imagine Victor having friends nevertheless people he cared so much about that it was leaving him distraught.


"If there's nothin' anyone can do, ya just gotta wait it out and hope for the best. If the best doesn't come, then ya gotta let them know that you'll be there. Do whateva it takes to make him know you're not gonna leave him to face this on his own. Ya gotta be friend."

 

[void31]

Victor's expression quirked with a degree of surprise. He was startled by Nicolas' compassion, to say the least--well, maybe compassion wasn't the right word, but at the barest minimum he'd put forth the effort to provide some advice for a problem that Victor was certain kids like Cardou couldn't relate to, and wouldn't try to relate to. Not only had he listened, but he'd offered a thorough solution.


Maybe that was an involuntary thing. Nicolas was probably just the standard decent human being; when someone was in need, he tried to fix the problem. It was a person-to-person thing. Victor had no reason to believe that it had anything to do with him.





Then again, he supposed it was weird for him to be asking for advice at all. That wasn't really something he did. He rambled on, but he usually found a way to fix his own shit. Victor prided himself on being independent. He liked having a small social circle because it meant that there were less people to rely on, and that he could continue to make himself handle his own issues. He needed to handle his own issues, because the more people that became involved in them, the more people he had to hurt.


Was Nicolas becoming involved in his issues? Debatable.





Victor exhaled--smoother now, but still strained. It took a bit of weight off his chest, but the pressure had yet to shift. It was like bad gas. Tiptoeing around it was even worse than not talking about it at all.


"Mat's sick," he muttered, half to himself. "The guy that was with me last time." My best friend. But he didn't say that. Nicolas didn't need to know. He probably assumed it already. "He's been sick all his life, y'know, but I think it just gets worse every time it happens, and he tells me not to worry, but he gives me every fuckin' reason to worry. And now that I don't have him and I don't have Marcus, I don't have anyone in the area, and I don't have enough time to get all the shit I need done--"


He stopped. He was starting to ramble. Shit.





Victor spared a sideways glance at Nicolas. How much empathy could you feel for a serial killer, even if you were a weird kid who was begging for trouble?


He didn't need empathy, he told himself. He'd have rambled to a rock if he thought it was listening.


He slid his fingers over the smooth texture of the phone in his pocket and bit his lips anxiously. "Well... you're a tolerant kid, Cardou, I'll give ya that."

 

[kindaemissary]

Nicolas caught Victor looking at him from the corner of his eye and continued to people watch out the side window.


Figuring out what the other man was trying get out of this conversation was confounding enough. He didn't have much to offer but the smallest amount of encouragement and it was becoming apparent that he didn't really know what he was talking about. His friends from high school and before weren't in his life much now that he was in university, but he still saw them posting pictures on social media from time to time. That loss didn't come close to dealing with death, though. That wouldn't be helpful in the slightest.


Why was he trying to help Victor in the place? That was the real question. The man had kidnapped him and threatened his family and made his friends drop off supplies to a butcher on one of the creepy sides of town. He didn't owe Victor anything, but he was still trying to offer something useful. Why?


"Do you have reason to believe that it's worse than he's tellin' ya?" Nicolas asked, and he turned back toward the table and took a large gulp of his coffee. It had cooled in the mug but wasn't cold enough to dump out. Before he left, he'd probably grab another one to-go so the crisp September air didn't take his immune system by storm. "If anythin', it sounds like you might be overreacting. He's sick all the time, right? Maybe he could get checked out, but it might be what's happened before. He gets a little under the weather and it all blows over after time."


He shrugged and ran his finger over the mug's rim.


Aside from offering what little he could, Nicolas didn't know what else he could do in this situation. Victor's predicament was something that he had never gone through on his own, but he watched a lot of movies and shows growing up to know that worrying about something when it wasn't necessary only made matters worse.


"If you make a big deal outta him bein' sick and it's nothin', it's only going to put more stress on him, okay? If it's bad, make him go to doctor. Hospital, maybe, I don't know. But if you worry him and get him worked up, it's only going to hurt him in the long run." He took another sip, eyes focused on the mug as he set it down in its matching coffee ream. "Just figure it out and go from there. Don't get all hypochondriac about it."