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The Dragon's Lair

You'll still be the only one being ridiculous. He didn't dare say it aloud. It was hardly true, anyway; he may have been far more calm and collected than he really should be, but he was a mess of a drunk. Nicolas' suggestion was probably for the better. Victor took a drink.


"Listen--" He wondered briefly how much Nicolas actually did. "I'm...old. Older than everyone else I know. And when that happens, you gotta be--" He paused, lips pursed. "--tolerant. I know what you're feelin', I've been there. I've been nineteen before. And my nineteen was probably a lot more like your nineteen than either of us realize, yeah?"


He shifted a little and let himself nurse the whiskey again. His vision was starting to waver, words taking longer to connect in his head. There was a wobble to his movements that hadn't been there before. He looked at Nicolas and caught himself thinking, again, how imprudently above average he was. If Victor hadn't been there with him in the presence of that twisted fuck at the bar, the guy would have snapped him up in an instant. He bit his lips. If things were different, would he have been that twisted fuck? Was he that twisted fuck?


It was too existential for his current level of drunk, so he pushed the thought to the side, took a moment, and resumed his rambling. "You do piss me off. But if I let you see that, then I'm not doing either of us any favors." The glass was half empty. Victor pursed his lips and reached for the bottle. "It's good to scream when you're pissed, but it doesn't get you anywhere. And when you get to be my age, the ends gotta justify the means."


Out of all the strange "compliments" he'd received from people, he couldn't quite wrap his head around "you're so calm". There were a million people he'd met who were calmer than he was. Marcus was a rock; Mat was the essence of tranquility. Even most of his clients weren't nearly as neurotic as he found himself to be on a day-to-day basis. He reacted too quickly to things with such intensity and emotion that it had developed into an almost monthly habit of him very nearly losing his job. He was twitchy, defensive, and usually the first to scream at someone when he thought it was called for. Very few had ever called him "calm".


So he wasn't sure what kind of bullshit he'd just spun, or how much of it was actually true, but he did know that he'd never met anyone as prone to their emotions as he was. Nicolas was not worse than him, but Victor had made him worse. He'd malformed his own personality to put himself above the kid, to make him feel like this. He strove to keep his cool because he knew Nicolas couldn't. They were damn firecrackers, the both of them, but Victor would be sure they didn't ever go off at the same time. The results would be horrific.


He drew in a deep breath, leaning forward on his elbows to look at Nicolas. When that didn't satisfy him, he swept around to the other side of the coffee table and perched on its edge, legs crossed. "It's nothin' to get upset about, I promise." Again, there was that terrible soft tone to his voice that he was entirely unfamiliar with. It was like a mouth full of feathers. "I'm not keepin' anything from you. There's nothing you need to understand."
 
Nicolas stared hard at the coffee table as if would give him some kind of sign. A beacon of awareness, maybe.


He huffed another time anyway before looking back up at Victor. The other man was old, way older than Nicolas would have ever come up with on his own, and maybe that's what set him apart from the rest of the people in Nicolas's life. Victor knew what he was going through on an age level since he already been nineteen, had already been a teenager. Nicolas thought that Victor might have had a similar relationship with his parents as Nicolas did with his own from the little bits and pieces he was able to gather together. So maybe Victor understood him on a personal than Nicolas realized.


Both of his parents had been in the same pool of people growing up: northern New Yorkers, religious folk, primarily white elderly neighbors with inherently racist regards. They grew up well off and well provided for, married young, had Nicolas once David settled down into a profitable career. It was easy for the to climb the social ladder when the rest of the world around them was going under. The city had been turning into a ghost town. Full of crime and hopelessness, no one feeling like the matter. Reading back on the collapse of New York, Nicolas was surprised that it had never caused the stock market to crash.


Whatever, though. He was raised to act like the world belonged to him without working toward anything, without working for anything, and sometimes (he had to admit) he did feel like that. Being a Cardou gave him more of power trip than he would ever get from anywhere else. His parents were well off and the city's business world knew it. Most of the people in his life knew. Victor knew it.


Nicolas focused back on Victor and licked at his bottom lip. "It just makes me mad when I don't know shit," he said, and his eyes lowered to his knees. The flare-up of anger inside him still had his hands vibrating in his lap, clenched in tight balls to halt the chattering of muscles. "Maybe there's nothing for me to understand, whatever, I mean, I get it. It just feels like there's a lot about this whole thing that I'dunno, and I guess it makes me anxious."


He spoke slowly, eyes catching Victor's for a few seconds at a time before jerking away toward another part of the room. He was glad that the glass was back in the kitchen and away from him. If it was near him, he might have gotten up and refilled it for a fourth time. Between now and back at the bar, he already knew that he had enough. His head was spinning slightly and his eyes heavy. He wasn't a lightweight, could handle his liquor, but eight or so glasses of whiskey could put any normal person in a state of trance if it happened fast enough.


Stirring in the chair, Nicolas cracked his fingers and neck before stilling again, this time body hunched over the thighs and head back into his hands. A thinking position, he thought to himself. Half-assed thoughts, though. Nothing smart enough to actually say.


"We should talk about somethin' else," Nicolas said, eyes on the floor. He nodded in agreement with himself and looked up at Victor. "Yeah, I don't wanna talk about this anymore." He paused and quirked his lips. "What dya wanna do? I just need ta stop drinkin' for a bit. We can talk, chat, whateva. Do you have friends that aren't criminals? Normal people?"
 
Victor smiled. It was a genuine thing, not a smirk or part of a smirk, like it usually was, albeit the sarcasm-laced taunt remained deeply ingrained. He found something genuinely endearing about the poor boy's frustrations. Of course, Nicolas probably didn't want to hear about it, so he kept it to himself.


Then again, he probably didn't want to hear about Victor's friends, either. He was just looking for a sufficient distraction to keep his mind off why he was so damn pissed about everything. Victor swept the smile off his lips and leaned back on the table, bracing his weight with one hand. "Listen, don't bullshit me. If you're pissed about something, let me know. I'll fight ya about it." The words were slurred, but he meant them. If Nicolas wanted an explosion, then by all means, he'd get one.


But he could sense the kid had changed the subject for a reason. Victor licked his lips and glanced toward the opposite end of the room. "No. I don't make friends with people who don't know what I do. They'd end up dead, sooner or later." He caught sight of the faint crescent-shaped scar on his wrist, still red and aggravated from Marcus' blade. He wouldn't call the man his "friend"--they were colleagues at best, and maybe not even that. Technically, Marcus didn't know what he did. He knew only that Victor brought him bodies, and there were a lot of things in bodies that people would give their life savings for, if one knew where to look. Their relationship was symbiotic, if anything.


Part of their tension (a lot of their tension) was because Marcus and Mathias fought like angry cats. Each had notable scars from where the other had essentially tried to brutally murder him, but with the size difference between them, Mat often took the brunt of the violence. (The last time they'd spoken Marcus had almost eviscerated him, and that had led to another complicated "breakup" scenario.) That was another thing: Victor didn't make friends with people who he knew would get along with each other. He liked to keep his relationships separate. Less drama that way. Less he had to deal with.


He supposed he could have rambled on for hours about those he knew and didn't know, clients who'd tried to buddy up to him and creepy-ass kids who "admired his work". But he didn't let himself start. In his mind (which was already stirred up, struggling to decipher between what he wanted to say and what he should say), keeping quiet was the best course of action. After all, he might let something slip.


He studied his companion instead. Let his eyes fall from Nicolas' sweet chocolate brown gaze to his sharp jawline, down the slope of his neck and shoulders to the sleek planes of his stomach and hips. Shit, shit, fuck. Victor swallowed and crossed his legs.


"I want to know--" He paused for a heartbeat, hoping he didn't look as hungry as he felt. "--who you're out there screwing at these little parties of yours."
 
It was obvious that Nicolas was curious about anything and everything that routed back to Victor. He knew that he didn't want to know the details of the other man's life, at least a good amount of them, but he did want to know all he could without learning about tricks of the trade and whatnot. If he figured Victor out, he might begin to understand why he felt a strong pull towards him. Figure out what made him so much more interesting than anyone he had ever met before.


He didn't really give two shits about who Victor's friends were, but hearing about them could give Nicolas a better hindsight on what he was getting himself into just by being around him. If his friends were all involved in the copious amounts of murders in NYC like Victor was, there might be more there than Nicolas first thought.


More than learning about Victor in general, Nicolas was highly intrigued by what drove Victor to do what he did. Did he thrive from the feeling of blood pooling under his hands, seeping from a slash on some strangers neck? Maybe it was the power that got to him and made it more of a pastime than a job. There was no way Victor killed people for a living without liking just a small part of it. It wouldn't make sense, especially with what of Victor's character he was already starting to understand. If Victor continued to be a hired gun (or knife, whatever) for all these years, there had to be something behind the scenes giving him a rush.


So he studied him. Watched Victor as simply staring at him would give him a notion to what was going on between them. Victor knew that Nicolas was interested for whatever reason. Found Victor more attractive than he had found someone else before. He hooked up with attractive people, of course, but none of them had the same lure Victor possessed. He could get with them for a night, maybe a few more, and not look back once they went their ways.


Victor was different.


Nicolas arched an eyebrow and leaned his torso against the right arm of the chair. "Who do you think?" he asked, exasperated. "It's not like I go clubbin' or some shit. They're frat parties and mixers and Greek formals and stuff like that. I'm not gonna go outta my way to find some stranger in the city to fuck. There's enough strangers at NYU already."


There was a chance, albeit slim, that Victor was asking because he was curious in his own right. Nicolas knew that when he asked questions like that, directed in such a similar way, that there was definitely a slimmer of jealousy inside of him. He didn't know if it was the same for Victor, tried not to care, but he could hope.


"It's mostly guys," he said after a beat. "Guys'll meet you in the middle of the night at some sketchy old science lab if it meant that they gotta get off. Girls are much harder to please, y'know? Sometimes they're okay with hookin' up and not doing it again, but some want relationships and dates or just more sex, and, well. I'dunno. I normally don't have sex with someone more than a coupla times. Gets a little boring after a while to see the same body again and again."
 
He listened with a kind of raptness that he himself would likely frown upon, considering the original question at hand. He rearranged himself on the edge of the coffee table once, twice, switched legs a few times, and finally settled, leaning forward at a slight angle with his hands on his knees. God willing, he wasn't as conspicuous as he felt.


And he felt a lot of things, though not as much or as powerfully as he wanted to. Victor recognized that he'd asked the question for a very specific purpose--that being to fuel the spike of hormones that had surfaced from some less than coherent parts of his mind--but he hadn't gotten quite what he wanted from the response. Not all of it, at least.


He knew now that the kid was into pretty much whatever, so he supposed that was something. Unfortunately, that little sliver of what people called envy these days was somewhat aggravated by that. Guys and chics, huh? So how many people was he screwing on a day to day basis?


He supposed he should be a little impressed by that. Sure, you could get plenty of action when you were that good-looking, but managing to rope in both genders at a steady pace was a feat even Victor couldn't manage.


Then again, he hadn't really been trying as of late.


He hadn't been trying at all as of late. Maybe that's why he was being so fucking bitter these days (not like he was any different any other day, but whatever). Victor was rarely the one to initiate things, but people usually fell into his lap regularly enough to keep him satisfied. For a few weeks or so, anyway.


But he was never desperate. Truth be told, he rarely had time for sex. The whole reason he'd been so cut off from intimacy these last few months was because of work and Cardou, and one of those things was making the urge more difficult to ignore than the other.


He couldn't help himself, and it wasn't like it was his damn fault or anything that he found the little prick to be more than a little good-looking. He'd tried to confront himself with the idea that he might just be attracted to someone less than a third of his real age (always in a public space, of course; God forbid he let his mind stray too far), and he just couldn't comprehend it. On the other hand, he didn't really find himself giving too much of a shit when his mind did wander.


Hell, they both knew it was wrong on so many levels, but they were both attracted to each other. So what else was holding it back?


Victor bit his lips. He glanced away for a moment, contemplating whether it would be wise to express some degree of shame here.


He lifted his drink to his lips, eyeing Nicolas from the corner of his gaze. Fuck, he was already drunk enough, why did it matter? "C'mon, kid, you know what I'm asking. This ain't for pleasantry's sake."
 
Nicolas gave Victor a side glance and raised both of his eyebrows again before settling back into the confines of his own chair. Watching Victor adjust his body in the couch across made him want to fidget himself. It made him anxious to see, for some reason, but he held back the urge. Giving into such a desire while Victor was straight in front of him would make him want to lower his guard more and let Victor get out of him what he wanted.


Of course Nicolas knew why Victor was asking, but it wasn't that simple anymore. Victor had toyed with him for weeks, and if he could manage the same feet for at least a sliver of time he'd put himself in a better headspace. Delivering the lack of answers to Victor could perhaps give him the satisfaction Victor himself got when Nicolas was in a similar position: questioning yet curious, wanting. He didn't quite have the upper hand but still liked that Victor was asking and not searching elsewhere for his answers.


On the other hand, Nicolas knew that he was in fact attracted to Victor, so why did he want to play games when they could simply figure everything out? He didn't necessarily want to put Victor down or make him reveal half-truths before Nicolas actually gave a real answer.


It was mildly confusing.


"I know, I know," he said anyway, running a hand through the air in front of his face in dismissal. "What dya wanna know, though? You wanna know how many people I've had sex with? You wanna hear stories? Wanna hear me talk about it?"


Nicolas shifted in the armchair and felt the expansion slowly moving against his pants. Maybe it was the rush that was getting to him: the thrill of having the opportunity to rub something in Victor's face. Surely, he wasn't fucking people multiple times throughout the day, and he didn't go to parties every weekend, but maybe the thought of Nicolas with so many people triggered something in Victor that Nicolas had wanted to get to this entire time. Maybe he finally figured out how to crack him.


Instead of letting it go, Nicolas rose from the chair and patted Victor's shoulder before moving back to the kitchen. "I could tell you about this one time. There was a girl in my abnormal psych class last semester. Real pretty. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes. Always wore red lipstick. Don't think I ever say her without it. Stayed on the entire time I fucked her into a mattress." He shrugged and poured another half glass of whiskey before sipping at it, back against the counter. "Is that what you want me to tell ya? You wanna know everything I've done? Everyone I've fucked?


"It's probably way less than you, considering you're old a fuck, but maybe not. Maybe you're just tryin' to figure out why you're attracted to me." He smirked a tad and finished the rest of the glass. "Is that what you want?"
 
He growled beneath his breath, the muscles in his shoulder pinching instinctively at the spot where Nicolas had touched him. He had to catch himself to keep from flinching away. The kid never touched him casually like that, not nearly as often as Victor did to him. That was just fucking abnormal. On top of that, there were a few select things that Victor found himself appreciating considerably less than he had just a few moments ago, when he'd been the one smirking devilishly and withholding trivial answers, forcing the other to tiptoe around his pleas for more. Nicolas' abrupt audacity was already beginning to pick at his nerves.


Victor twisted around and fixed his sharp eyes on the kid (his figure more than his face, but that was beside the point). He pressed his lips together and considered the fact that, in all technicalities, this was fair. He'd been picking on Nicolas almost nonstop throughout the entire duration of their relation ship. He'd done everything in his power to make him feel vulnerable, to make him want to know more about his captor than Victor would ever need to know about him—to put him on the bottom. And that probably lapsed into a pretty shitty feeling after a while, if he was being truthful.


But that didn't make Victor any more eager to have the tables flipped on him so damn quickly. He hadn't stuck to his own rule—don't ask questions. That was why he was here, now. So whatever the below-the-belt situation was currently in action for him, it was his own damn fault.


Fan-fuckin-tastic.





"Shut your damn mouth," Victor muttered, though any aggression in his tone had lapsed into mild irritation, as if Nicolas' snide comments were no more than pesky flies that could be waved away with the right amount of determination. That wasn't the best metaphor, truthfully, but Nicolas didn't have to know that.


When he found no cigarette between his fingers, he snatched up his drink and nursed it again. "And you know damn well I'm not interested in hearing your girly stories." Did he? It was almost news to Victor. Maybe his preferences were a little stronger than he thought them to be.


On a different note, demanding the details of sex excursions from a teenager was a little bit unsettling—but, hell, when had that stopped him before?


"I know why I'm attracted to you," he declared with raised eyebrows. "Do you?" Because he knew this had to be as confusing for Nicolas as it was for him, or else they'd have been all over each other by now. Both of them knew it, but no one wanted to be the one to come out and say it, because—well, what the hell would they do then?


Victor stretched back in his seat, crossed his legs, and managed to mirror the beginnings of Nicolas' smile. "Don't you take that tone with me, Cardou, I know what I want." Did he? "What about you?"
 
Not able to hold it back, Nicolas pushed a smirk to the forefront of his lips and gave Victor a once-over. Even if the growl was in perpetual annoyance, Nicolas was the one had put Victor in that state. It wouldn't have seemed like much from the outside, truthfully, but the swell of delight in his chest made it worth it.


But if Victor was telling the truth and knew exactly what he saw in Nicolas, then the latter was back in the same place he started. Questioning and unsure. He was always a tad timid in figuring out what he wanted, what he desired. At least he didn't want to admit it, anyway. He knew at heart what he wanted and why he wanted it. It was coming clean with the appetite that made him choke up and slide up to the stool at the counter.


In the beginning, there wasn't a chance in hell that Nicolas would have ever imagined himself in this place. Victor had been a man he met at the wrong place in time, an enemy, an evil. Nothing more. He didn't want to find him appealing or envision anything further. It was disgusting. It was wrong.


Instead, Nicolas found himself in the same quandary again and again, put there by Victor and his queries, and he felt himself drowning in the tide once more.


His face felt droopy as he leaned his side against the cold granite countertop, upper arm grazing against the corner as he relaxed into the cool. The alcohol certainly helped his inhibition. Without the aid of whiskey, there was a chance he'd still be arguing a moot point and pushing his cravings to the back of his mind. The likelihood that Nicolas would be pissed about this incident in the more was high, soaring even, but right now and there there was little to care. Only starved flesh to touch.


"I know," he said, voice quiet but not murmured. He knew the words carried their weight to Victor. "I know what I want."


It was harder to say why he wanted it. Much harder than acknowledging the truth of his hunger. Confessing the nature of his will, where he longed (secretly) for Victor's physical exasperation was worlds away from the simple "I want" that uttered out his lips. Nicolas was young and naive and knew nothing of what Victor was really like - he barely knew him as a person - so how was it that he could feel such a gravitation toward him? They weren't even in the same playing field.


How it got this far was beyond him. If Nicolas had never meandered to Aria that night so many days ago, would they be in this same position? Would Victor had ever caught up to him? Would any of this be different? Would they still be perched in Victor's second home, Nicolas's body tight in the kitchen and Victor stretched out in the living space?


Did any of that matter?


Nicolas stepped up from the stool and clunked the empty glass back down on the peninsula before moving to stand in front of Victor. Nic stared straight down into his eyes and hoped that the hunger their would sort everything out without the need for words. He licked at his bottom lip and took a small breath. "Is this it?" he asked. "You want this?"
 
Victor watched him prowl back into the kitchen and slink along the edge of the counter top like a wary animal, all the while contrasting threads of concern and ambition wound together in the back of his own mind. He made it a point not to move. Movement--sometimes even the slightest twitch or breath--could be a great inspiration to change the minds of the uncertain, and Victor was fairly confident by now that he didn't want Nicolas to change his mind. He knew what the kid was thinking--or what he ought to be thinking, anyway--but, like a fucking amateur (shamed as he was to admit it), Victor found himself caught somewhere between cautious optimism and something almost like fear.


The "I know what I want", though, that took his breath away. He'd never heard something so confident come out of Cardou's mouth. He'd always been the one with the upper hand. Always. He could read the kid like a map, and he pointed it out, too, all for the sake of degrading his sense of self-possession further and further into something that Victor could tear into whenever he liked, without even trying. He was the one who told Nicolas what he wanted. He'd always thought it better that way. He could have his control, and Nicolas--well, Nicolas could deal with it.


It was probably the alcohol talking. Nicolas probably drank more than Victor thought he had, and now he was rambling, feeding off whatever kind of weird pseudo-sexual aura Victor had been radiating over the last ten minutes and warping it into this thing that he thought he needed.


Now, he'd be a filthy fucking liar if he said he wasn't feeling whatever the hell the kid was feeling, but this attraction between them that had surged from plain and almost awkward to voracious and unquenchable only after they had both addressed it was now remarkably nerve-wracking. Victor was hesitant. For the first time in a long time--even after he'd been taught that hesitation would end him, even after hesitation had almost ended him--he was hesitant.


What if he ended up hurting the kid somehow? What if someone else found out? What if everything went downhill from here? Hell, he didn't even want to think about the age thing again, and Nicolas' parents were barely clinging to the far corners of his mind. He had a feeling they weren't exactly top priority for their son at the moment, either.


He shifted his hips again, suddenly restless. He wasn't the type to start sprouting hard-ons at the drop of a hat like Nicolas apparently was, but something was certainly giving him problems--and it wasn't the alcohol.


He was a little more sober than Nicolas, too--enough to know what he was doing. What about the kid? Did he even understand what he was trying to imply right now?


Victor scowled. To hell with it. Whatever the fuck was making him suddenly weigh his decisions could go screw itself. He'd do whatever he damn well pleased.


When Nicolas returned to stand in front of him, he found his heart catching again in his chest. There was a difference in his posture now, that overwhelming confidence that Victor still wasn't quite accustomed to laced with a kind of timidity that he'd actually expected when they finally arrived at this point. He peered up at him with hazy, caramel-colored eyes and blinked slowly, only appearing to judge his options now, after he'd put himself through all that mental unrest. When Nicolas licked his lips, so did he.


His faux mental evaluations took all of about fifteen seconds. "You look like you do." He nodded, slowly, as if confirming his own answer. His eyes were anywhere but Nicolas' face and the nail of his little finger was wedged between his teeth, nervous gestures that were drowned in self-assurance. He shifted upright and patted his lap, his other arm slung over the back of the sofa. "C'mere."
 
Nothing that happened between Nicolas and Victor seemed to go without purpose. Every sentence, every look, every breath. There wasn't a single thing that didn't have some other meaning than the expected and warranted response. In a sense, the way the two of them watched and sought after each other was another language that flowed between them. All the little hiccups and drawn-out words and tired eye rolls, they all had a reason.


Maybe Nicolas was overthinking the humanity of his existence and giving himself too much credit, but there was a semblance of thought that what they were doing was transcending what had already done before. What had already happened. Had their been a time throughout human history that two men were in the same positions as them both? Two humans, even? Most likely not, he'd like to think. Feeling like he was the beginning of a new story was something that he was learning to thrive on. The interactions between him and Victor were feeding his ego, and even though he talked not about it, the little under-the-surface responses were what he liked most.


He watched the older man, shifting in his seat, as he spoke and found himself licking his lips at the invitation. His own stance was awkward in contrast to the relaxed aura that Victor was giving off from his seat on the couch.


Every now and then, Nicolas's thoughts switched back to the confusion he was faced with when it came down to Victor. He was always left a couple steps behind when they were together and, although he didn't mind too much, he pretended like he cared. His mind couldn't help but move back to the why and the how this was happening in his life. How was he sucked into something so dark and unknown so soon after discovering it? Why was he still part of Victor's life? Why was he letting Victor be part of his?


But facing these thoughts was asking too much of a practically-drunk nineteen year old with a strained groin. He wanted the physical contact. He wanted the burden placed onto him, wanted to be thrown into another new pool of information, wanted a crashing influx of sensation.


Basically what he wanted was Victor.


"'Kay," Nicolas said, and he nodded to himself as he moved toward Victor. The movements were quick, silent, but they seemed to last forever as Victor watched his body.


In his mind, he knew that whatever their relationship was was pretty much doomed from the start. Nothing that happened between them would be normal. There would always be some kind of societal influence on anything that would end up happening. There was nothing that could change the ill-fated closure of their relationship.


So Nicolas let himself sit down atop Victor's thigh, side barely touching the older man's chest, and forced the thought-provoking ideas out of his head. If he convinced himself that this was stupid before it even started, he would never really know.


After a second passed, he opened his mouth. "I keep over thinking this," he mumbled, and he moved his opposing hand to Victor's shoulder to keep their bodies close. There wasn't much between them aside from fabric and small slivers of air. It would be so easy to simplify the moment, for Nicolas to lean in and do what he had thought about since the moment he woke up in Victor's library. "I'dunno why. You know you want, and same for me. It's not a big deal."
 
Victor watched him move, biting his lips, gradually convincing himself--possibly by means of alcohol; hopefully through some relatively sound deviation of logic or other--that he wasn't prompting Nicolas to do anything he didn't want to do. Granted, the contrary idea left him with a bit of a rush (which was not an unwelcome feeling at this point), but he pushed it away. He didn't need things to turn out any more complicated than they already would be, come a time when they were both a little more sober.


He was certain he'd tense up the moment he felt Nicolas' weight, but his reaction was entirely the opposite. The kid leaned against him and he positively melted. It was something he'd been yearning for, something he'd been trying for, back in the bar--and something he knew well enough that he couldn't have until Nicolas decided he was worth it. It was frustrating, to say the very least, but Christ, it was a huge fucking weight off his chest. Victor didn't wait to be given a lot of things. He'd been so painfully oblivious to the sweetness of the reward that he almost considered committing to this new pattern.


Almost.


He acted like he'd expected it. As if he weren't the faintest bit surprised when Nicolas responded to him, even exceeding his expectations in a way. He played off the faint murmur on his lips as a casual sigh and let his shoulders fall because he was tired, not because he was relieved at finally having gotten what he wanted.


But he did everything else for himself. He tucked his arm around Nicolas' waist and traced the curve of his hip with the pad of his thumb, watching him carefully, thoughtfully, trying to gauge what he should do, what he could do, if he was still determined to play the dominant card. More than that, he actually listened to what the kid had to say. Not as if he hadn't before, but something about Nicolas sitting in his lap had made him especially attention-grabbing.


He listened, allowing a gracious stretch of silence to spill between them before offering his reply. "You don't have to." One hand twitched on Nicolas' hip, debating where to wander--or if he should at all. "S' relax. You're fine, I promise."


He sounded ignorant, rude even. But it's true, isn't it? For all his sick desires of making Nicolas do everything he knew the kid didn't want to do, he was suddenly very eager to make sure he was completely comfortable. When it came right down to it, he supposed he wasn't the complete psycho bastard he thought he was--at least not with this one.


Gradually Victor had been leaning closer to the younger man, until the space between his chin and Nicolas' shoulder was nonexistent. "And you're right." Without a single reasonable thought in his head, he pressed his lips to the skin just beneath the corner of his jaw, his grip having grown notably tighter around his waist. Nineteen, he reminded himself, but it was a vague and worthless thought.


"And you do know what you want." The honey-slick tone was the same, but his mouth had shifted lower. Two more gentle kisses on the line of his jugular, and a (slightly) less gentle nip just above his collarbone, which Victor was sure to compensate for with another apologetic brush of his lips. Nineteen. He almost grumbled at himself. But it wasn't enough to deter him. He rested his chin on Nicolas' shoulder again and hummed, light and reassuring. "And I do know what I want. So it's okay, isn't it?" He smiled, a sleek, voracious thing that was hardly visible from where he'd tucked it against the crook of Nicolas' neck. "You can tell me, kid. You know you can."
 
The finger running along Nicolas's leg was both encouraging and disquieting at the same time. The physical satisfaction was hard to argue with. Victor's knee was not uncomfortable nor jarring into Nicolas's skin. While sitting on someone's lap wasn't something that he normally did, Nicolas was surprised at the relaxation he found nestled in Victor's. He had wanted this unknown for so long, the enhanced physical contact, and was glad that hit held up to the fantasy.


He felt breath warming against his neck before Victor's words registered in his mind. You're fine, I promise. For the first time, he actually took the words seriously. It was easy to think that Victor was being fake with him when he wanted something from him that had to obtained by a force of manipulation. It happened a few times, not many, but it was enough that it outranked the times where he was honest because he wanted to be. It was always a little hard to differentiate from what Victor wanted and what he needed, and this time, Nicolas was hoping that the chemistry between them was a need.


This time, the words rang true without any sort of covert purpose. Victor wanted him to relax.


So he did. Nicolas leaned back into the arched tough on his hip and even more into the heat along his jaw and throat. It was perfect. Much more than Nicolas would admit to another human being, but it was. Each peck against his skin left him mouth agape and eyes closed, sighing into the feeling.


"This is good," he said, and he gripped harder with the hand along Victor's arm, and he moved his forefinger to trace the artery on the side of his neck. Nicolas was already tight against Victor's chest, the other man's jaw resting puzzle-piece-perfect along his shoulder. They were touching each other everywhere and nowhere all at once, and all he wanted was to scream for more.


Nicolas moved his hand from Victor's throat to the back of his neck. His fingers wrapped themselves tight into the snarls and wisps of the older man's hair, lightly of course, and caressed the gently taut skin that rested there, warm from alcohol and dry against Nicolas's clammy palm. They were jumbled together, limbs tangled around each other like they had no better place to be, on the couch and it was pure comfort.


He sighed breathlessly. "Your skin is soft," he mumbled, and he opened his eyes. With the rush of light, his head pounded, and he closed them tight again. "I like touching you. It's nice." He wanted to ramble but held himself back. At least he was learning when to hold himself back. If he always jumped out with whatever he wanted to say, he'd be back where he started. Not that that would be a bad thing.


"Did you think about this before? Like, a lot?" He twisted his so that his mouth was adjacently pressed against Victor's cheek, warm and soft in its company. "I thought about it a lot. When you were at my house and we were drinking, I thought about it. I said I wasn't but I lied." He quirked his lips. "I don't think if I told you then anythin' would've happened. I was still scared of you. 'M not anymore, though, so this is good." He pulled his hand out of Victor's hair and moved the other man's palm from his thigh to the center of his hips. "Really good."
 
He felt himself tense, a sheet of chills biting into the hot skin on the crook of his neck. Briefly he'd come to realize that Nicolas would want to touch him too, but it was a concept that his subconscious still wrestled with. Whenever things had escalated to this point between him and someone else, he was usually fairly feisty, if not downright aggressive. Any touching from the other party was ignored at best and forbidden at worst. But whatever reasonable thought still bobbing in this pool of drunk and horny that was his current conscious still reminded him duly that Nicolas had never been this comfortable with him before, and if he was to fuck it up now, it'd more than likely be a damn long time before he got the kid to trust him again.


Then again, Nicolas wasn't doing it because he had to. He wasn't tense or shifty or complaining, and at this point he was just as grabby, if not more so. Victor took that as solid evidence to keep things up. Any future guilt that may be lying in wait for him would have to wait a little longer.


"Well aren't you sweet," Victor growled, though he did find something endearing in the kid's drunken rambles. It'd been a while since he'd allowed himself to genuinely appreciate someone's comments, even if they came in a whiskey-riddled slur.


But he did appreciate them. He also appreciated the contrast between his greed and Nicolas' affection, and the closeness that accompanied it, and the satisfaction that resulted from everything happening so quickly. Nicolas was warm and lively and young and naïve and all Victor wanted to do was whatever he damn well pleased.


Not to mention that the very thought of Nicolas envisioning something like this—whether purely fear or hormone-induced, or both—was making the remaining space in his jeans painfully tight. He didn't try to hide this from him. His arms tightened around the younger man's waist until he was practically crushing him, allowing no escape from what he wanted. The catch in his breath was heavier than he thought it would be.


"That so?" He wasn't entirely sure how to respond to the end question either. Of fucking course he'd thought about it. He'd thought about it whenever Nicolas was off on one of his angry but justified tirades, wondering what would happen if he let his irritation show through and offered to let the kid do something else with that pretty mouth of his. He'd thought about it almost every moment he had alone to himself, every time Mathias made a comment that vaguely regarding Nicolas' appearance, and every time he considered what Nicolas' parents might think of a serial killer taking care of their boy. He'd thought about it in the kitchen, too—what a stress relief it might have been to just have him over the counter for a few minutes. (He could have done it, too; he almost did.)


Hell, he'd thought about it a few times between now and the minute they'd seen each other at the café. Only now was it pressing on his mind with such piercing desperation.


When Nicolas moved his hand, Victor ate up the opportunity as if he were starving for it. His hand slipped between the younger man's thighs, kneading and caressing, occasionally rough but more often moving with a slow, deliberate pace that he'd committed to using with those who were less familiar with his eager touch.


"I think about it sometimes." He curled his fingers around Nicolas' wrist and brought it up his mouth, pressing his lips to the tender skin just beneath the heel of his hand. He was hot, everything was hot. Victor was panting a little.


"Tell you what—" He'd gone back to work on Nicolas' neck, his kisses a little deeper, a bit more demanding. "You just let me know what you need, sweetheart, and I'll take care of you." He smiled again, nuzzling the corner of his jaw. "So long as you ain't scared anymore, that is."


 
It was difficult trying not to get lost in the physicality building between them. Nicolas wanted to turn over and grind himself so hard against Victor it would leave both of them in a panting, desperate heat. Already, the younger man was putting himself into that rickety state of mind. His palms were clammy and side sweating against the warmth radiating from Victor's torso. The way they were pressed against each other, hands tangled up as they moved along each of their bodies, made it hard for Nicolas to keep a hold over himself. He was ready to ravage. He was hungry.


Nicolas already knew Victor was heavily attracted to him - he was always calling him cute - but hearing that Victor thought intently about them being together, at least at one time or another, was driving the fact home. This wasn't some one-sided fling that Nicolas was pretending existed. It was the real deal. Whatever that meant.


For a moment, a memory flashed in his mind of his last year of high school. His life prior to university was pretty much the same as it was now, but there was a great deal more sex in his college life. Being a senior had its perks, though. People threw party invitations at him more than ever before, and the amount of friends he had skyrocketed. Of course, nowadays he hardly talked to any of them. It was hard to keep relationships strong when everyone was across the country.


But that was besides the point. Nicolas was overcome with the same sense of desperation and anxiety that he was the first time he had sex. And, well, it made sense. Victor was an entirely different type of person than he had ever been with before. They had more of defined relationship than he had ever had with any other person he had been with, and that was almost alarming. Frightening. Exciting. It gave him the same stomach anxiety he got as a child, butterflies dancing along the inside of his abdomen.


"I'm not scared," he bit back, but he leaned into Victor anyway. The soft kisses on his neck felt good. Comforting. He could still feel the phantom caresses between his hips and shivered against Victor's hold. "I just really wanna feel you. Wanted it for a while." He turned his torso so that he was facing Victor head on, and he brought a finger to the side of Victor's mouth and rested at the corner of his lips. "Tired of waiting."
 
"You're acting weird."


I know. But he didn't lift his eyes from the counter, or catch himself saying it out loud. That was probably for the better. Given everything--everything--that had been strangling his abruptly muddled moralities over these last twenty-four hours, the last thing he wanted to do was pretend like his acting weird was anything but as unsettling as it seemed.


Fortunately, Mathias didn't need to be convinced. He'd been pinning Victor with dubious sideways looks and the occasional punch to the ribs since the moment the latter had scrambled up out of the basement at the crack of dawn, wide-eyed and unusually skittish. Victor knew well enough what he was trying to do; their actions spoke louder than their awkward, half-assed "g'morning"s ever could. One "fuck you" or "what's your problem?" out of him would have put Mathias perfectly at ease. At least then he'd know--they'd both know--that he was guarding his problems for a reason; reason being that it was something he could (and would) fix on his own.


But Victor had never responded with more than a sneer and a shrug, and silence was his most terrifying symptom. So Mathias had chased him into the kitchen, made him coffee, and here they were.


When Victor finally garnered enough courage to look up at his friend, he shrank away almost immediately. The unwavering persistence and I-know-what-you-did conviction that only a teacher could pull off was not much of an encouragement to share.


"Look, it's my problem, alright?" He scowled and leaned away from the other man's guilt-inducing glare, fingers curled tight around the edge of the counter top. It was borderline embarrassing. Why the fuck was he even trying at this point?


Don't dig yourself into a deeper hole.


"What is your problem?" Mat was hardly an emotional person, but the firmness in his tone left little room for escape. He leaned forward when Victor leaned back, fed off his fear and turned it against him. Victor bit his lips.





Just tell him.





He wasn't prepared. He wasn't going to tell him, either, but he didn't need to. Mathias jerked upright, his expression going slack as if he'd just come to some great realization.


Victor swallowed.


"You didn't."


He jumped out of his chair, almost knocking it and the coffee mug over in the process. A wall of indemnity rose up against his wall of regrets and turned him wild against his friend, bursting with things he couldn't understand.


"It wasn't my fault," he snarled. "I was drunk, he was drunk, hell, it wasn't his fault either. You screw around with your seniors, don't act like you don't. What are you blaming me for?"


He was furious; Mat was still aghast. "I don't screw around with people who know I hurt people, Victor."


"He doesn't--" A tense silence hung in place of Victor's uncertainty of how he meant to finish that sentence. It was broken by Mat's sigh, gentle but strained.


The younger man ran a hand through his russet hair and gestured back to the bar stool, lips pinched together. "Sit down."


Victor did, though not without hesitation. He wasn't entirely sure why. His plan from the moment he'd flipped shit on Mathias were to continue being pissed and unreasonable until some terrible emotional riptide came along to ruin what was left of his fortitude (or he stormed out, but that option was all-around terrible in itself), but he'd come to establish such a reliance on his friend that the response was all but involuntary. Mat seemed always to know infinitely more than he did. He knew what was right and what was wrong and where and how the line blurred, and, most importantly, he knew how to work it back into place without a trace.


"It's complicated, buddy, that's all." Mat's voice had gentled considerably, though he was gazing out the kitchen window as opposed to his friend's eyes. Victor was shifting uncomfortably, hot and eager to be anywhere but here. "Kid's got rich parents, prestigious school, and you know how kids can be." He paused. "I know you think he's somethin' special, but he's still young."


Victor frowned. "I get the concept."


"I just want you to be careful."


"I know." Silence.


Mat shifted his eyes to Victor's. "Is he okay?"


The frown returned. Victor wasn't entirely proud of how he'd handled the morning after situation, despite the fact that his options were fairly limited; at the very least, Nicolas had been (presumably) unconscious when he dressed himself and all but fled the scene. But he wasn't careless. He'd left a light on, made sure the kid was comfortable, gave him some space to absorb everything. At least he'd fucking tried.


"He's fine," Victor mumbled. The anger had dulled to a low hum, and faded further beneath Mat's inconceivable tranquility. He wrapped his fingers around the mug and fixed his eyes back on the counter top. "I wouldn't have left him if I thought he wasn't."


Mat drummed his fingers on the granite. "You better hope so."
 
A lot of time passed before Nicolas decided to move, and when he did, it was only to draw the blanket closer around his torso. He wasn't cold perse but the warmth helped him think. And so did Victor being out of the room. There was a lot of shit to process, and it was kind of hard to get anything figured out when Victor was breathing evenly next to him.


Blinking, Nicolas took a deep sigh and melted further into the mattress. He pushed his arm free from the comforter and reached out to touch the emptiness Victor left behind. The sheets were barely warm anymore, so Victor hadn't been out of the room for long. Nicolas had felt him shuffle off the bed earlier before he slipped back into sleep - heard the rustle of clothes as Victor dressed and watched the light turn on through his closed eyelids.


Nicolas sat up and pressed a palm against his throbbing head. He wasn't stupid - he knew that drinking so much was going to give him the hangover of a lifetime - but he still wasn't expecting it when it hit him. If putting away glass after glass of alcohol finally got him where he wanted to be with Victor - whether he wanted to admit it or not - was fine with him. The little suffering was worth it now that they had moved passed the awkward and confusing stage of their "friendship". Maybe now things would calm down.


You're an idiot if you really think that, he thought to himself. Now that you've moved passed it, there's no way you're getting out of this. He pulled you in more than you thought and just as much as you wanted, and now you're going to get fucked over more than you've ever thought.





He grunted and laid back down on his side, blanket pulled tight around his raised shoulder. Bet you thought that all of this would pass over once you fucked, right? Bet you thought that none of this would make any difference later, that Victor had no qualms about doing this again and again until you were far passed done.





"He's not a rapist," Nicolas muttered to himself, words muffled by the sheets. "He might be fucked up, might be a killer. But nothing would happen if I didn't want it."


The battle was easy to play out in his head. Did you really want any of this? The only reason you ran into each other, met face to face, was because Victor pulled you from a party and dragged you into his own home. You didn't ask for any of this.





But, fuck, you pushed yourself toward him almost as much as he did it to you. You probably wanted it as much as he did. You're just a little whore, little bitch who doesn't get anything about the real world. You're defending a fucking murderer - a murderer who's almost four times your age - after he convinced you to come back to his place and fuck. He could have easily picked another young, lithe boy to pull apart in ten million directions, and he chose you. And when he leaves, you're not going to know what to do with yourself. The only thing you're living for right now is the rush you get from simply knowing him. You hate everything else in your life. Your parents are shit. Your friends are preoccupied. You yourself would probably end it all if it wasn't for Victor, and isn't that sad. The only thing keeping you alive is fucking Stockholm syndrome.





"Why am I doing this to myself?"


Nicolas knew that the relationship he and Victor had wasn't normal and wasn't necessarily okay when it was viewed upon by other people. If his parents found out, there was no telling what would happen. Sure, Nicolas could denounce them as much as he wanted, but until he was out and done with school there was something tying him to them so strongly that it could choke him to death.


He knew that Victor wasn't a generally good person, but neither was Nicolas. Maybe Nicolas didn't thrive on power and pain and whatever other shit Victor got off on, but Nicolas was a mental health train wreck waiting to stand in front of the right car at a moment's notice. He wasn't depressed - not really. At least he didn't feel like he was. He was just bored - always bored - and nothing ever made him feel anything but bored aside from Victor. Victor made him feel alive. The rush from being around someone so enigmatic, so fascinating, drove him between each interact to the next. (If that wasn't emotional dependency, then he didn't know what was.)


The only problem with any of that was the fact that Nicolas wouldn't it become him. He wouldn't let Victor's presence actually help him. Sooner than later, he'll pull so far away that the only thing he'll know to do is fall apart. And by then he won't be able to pull himself together anymore. It'll be the end.


It was just a clusterfuck.


The lamp on the bedside table flickered and Nicolas sat up against the pillow pile behind him. He could leave the basement, could abandon the warmth of the bed in search of water or Victor, but it seemed like too much work when it was easier to stay there and pretend that he understood what he was getting himself into.


Nicolas reached over and pulled his phone off the wood and toward him. 6:17 AM. He could figure everything out later.
 
The doorbell tolled and Victor lurched from his seat, torn abruptly from the sliver of peace he'd managed to cling to in the silence Mat left him with. The sound throbbed off the high ceilings (surely much louder than it should be) and sent him spiraling into what felt like the shortest panic attack of his life, all clammy skin and fluttering heartbeats until he could process that it was the arrival of a visitor, as opposed to his own death.


That's what it feels like. That's how fucking bad this is.





He chased the hysterical thought from his mind and looked at Mathias, who had leaned forward to grab his wrist. "Relax." His expression was smooth, but his eyes were sharp—much as he tried, Victor knew, he was concerned. Concerned and a little shocked, a little disgusted, perhaps. Victor's heart sank at the thought.


"I've got kids over for tutoring." He squeezed Victor's wrist and straightened up. "That's it."


"Damn early to be learning." Victor curled his fingers into the edge of the counter, nervous all over again. He wasn't even remotely prepared to be seen by normal people.


"They're college kids, they don't have an internal clock." He straightened his attire and raised an eyebrow. "I want you to go talk to Nicolas."


"He doesn't want to see me."


"He doesn't want to be alone, either."


There was some vague conviction in Mathias' tone that made Victor's stomach lurch painfully. He traced the flowing patterns in the granite with his eyes, trying fruitlessly to ignore the flush in his neck and the terrible sinking feeling everywhere else.


"S'okay, buddy." Mat nudged his shoulder as he passed, looking gently at him sideways. "If this is gonna happen again, I don't want you to end up feeling like Atticus. You're better than that. Now get out of here before you scare somebody."


"Thanks, asshole."


"Go talk to 'im."


He waited for the sound of the twisting doorknob and left the voices beyond to echo in his wake as he ducked around the kitchen wall, slinking down the stairs like a cautious animal. His fingers quivered and the depressing tone of fear had settled deep in the pit of his stomach, making him ache in the worst of ways.


He doesn't want to talk to me.





Victor hesitated.


It doesn't matter. The longer they danced around it (although this wasn't really "dancing" now; he wasn't even sure if Nicolas was conscious yet), the worse they both became. Victor was a shell of weakness in the face of his own mistakes, and Nicolas—Nicolas would be a manifestation of them. They'd both get sick and fidgety and ultimately end up loathing each other if he went down there acting like he was now.


He was fine. This was fine.


And hell, even if it wasn't, and he wasn't, it didn't matter. He'd been discreetly putting the kid's well-being before his own for quite some time now. Things weren't going to change just because they'd slept together.


Although—he supposed they'd have to.


He crept down the latter half of the staircase and turned into Nicolas' room, not allowing himself to linger. The sight of the boy himself almost made him reconsider.


He thinks you always know what the fuck you're doing. Don't ruin it for him.





He took up the appearance of the confident man he was supposed to be, pressed his hands into his pockets, and tried not to wince when he looked at Nicolas. He couldn't remember being too rough (he couldn't remember much at all), but he knew himself well enough to know he had his—moments. Embarrassing though it may have been, if the boy had a few marks, he wouldn't have been surprised.


He licked his lips and spoke up. "How're you feelin', kid?" He wasn't completely sure if it was what he wanted to say, but it seemed less bullshit than "good morning" and less direct than "are you hurting?", so he went with it sans hesitation. After a moment of genuine doubt, he slipped into the room and perched on edge of the bed. His hand hovered pointlessly above Nicolas' side before he drew it back, licking his lips. Don't do that, a small, paranoid voice chattered at the back of his mind. Don't do that. Don't do that until he lets you.
 
Quickly, almost startlingly, Nicolas's eyes flashed to Victor as the older man flushed through the doorway. He knew they wouldn't be able to avoid each other forever, and why he thought that was possible in the first place was beyond him. They were in Mathias's home - not some public vicinity where he could avoid Victor until he wanted to confront exactly what had happened. He was stuck. He knew that.


Victor sat on the edge of the bed, and after he pulled his hand away, Nicolas sat up against the headboard. His mouth tasted like sleep - stale and hot - and sitting up made him realize how tired he had been up until this point. For the last short while, the last month at least, he had barely got a good night sleep that didn't end up in him missing something. Falling asleep drunk, even though the hangover was killer now, was probably the best thing for him. The moment they were done he was out like a light.


"Fine," he said, and he pushed down the comforter so that it rested just above his hips. The room wasn't warm, but Nicolas's body was running a little hot from being under layers upon layers of sheets for so long. "My head hurts, but that's my fault. Shouldn't have drank so much. It was stupid."


Nicolas wrapped his arms around his torso and relaxed back, shoulders slouching down.


"Why did you leave?" he asked after a moment. "I mean, it's whatever. I just wasn't sure if something was wrong or you just stepped out or something." Nicolas looked down toward his feet midway down the bed. It was hard not to fidget. With Victor so close, he didn't know how to feel. There was always an air of anxiousness around him whenever Victor was close, and he thought that might dissipate after they fucked, but that didn't seem to have happened. It kind of made sense that it didn't change. If anything, intensifying their relationship made Nicolas more concerned about everything that was going on. He paid more attention to how Victor sat, had stared hard at Victor's hand before he pulled it away.


He licked his lips and glanced back up at Victor. Don't be so standoffish. It's not like he killed your dog. You had sex. That's it. You need to pull yourself the fuck together and stop acting like your entire life is in shambles. Nothing has changed.





Victor just seemed so sure of himself all of the time, and that kind of put him back in ways of feeling confident. There was no way Nicolas could outshine the self-assurance that Victor so easily seemed to possess. Even now, where neither of them truly had the upper hand, Nicolas couldn't pull together the same kind of credence that Victor always had.


"I know," he started, and then swallowed away his insecurities before opening his mouth again. "I know that what happened - between us - that it wasn't really planned. You probably didn't even think about it until it happened. I just wanted to say that I didn't think things get that far, but I don't regret that they did. Okay, there are a lot of things that I still don't fully understand when it comes to you. That's most things, really. But I'm starting to realize knowing everything doesn't really matter."


Nicolas looked back down, this time to his hands as they twisted in his lap. "I don't want this to become something. You confuse me more than you make sense, and most of the time I'd rather punch you instead of having sex with you, but what happened." He stopped for a second to think, to breathe. "What happened was good. Even if we were drunk off our asses and, hell, I barely remember anything, but I know it was good. I slept better than I have in a long time. I don't feel so useless... when I'm around you. At least less than I do with my parents."


He took a breath and stared back up at Victor's face. "I don't want you to think that I'm expecting something more. I'm not some needy little kid, you know? Just don't think that I'm gonna sit around waiting for you to ask me to the prom. Nothing has to change."
 
He gnawed the inside of his cheek and ran a hand through his hair, nodding in tune to Nicolas' exposition as if he could and would understand everything perfectly, and accept it without complaint. At this point, he didn't have much choice; not only was he the adult in this situation, but he'd been the initiator. Nicolas had him wrapped around his finger whether either of them liked it or not.


"I know you're not," he murmured, a light smirk on his lips that he hoped was reassuring enough. He leaned over his knees and peered sideways at the boy, trying to evaluate his expression without giving himself away. It was a little scary, he supposed, all this—but Nicolas, for all his wayward behavior, had reacted so much better than Victor ever could have anticipated. He hadn't expected a furious meltdown or a blatant accusation (though he couldn't say the idea hadn't run screaming through his mind between then and now), but this utterly mature examination of what had happened and why it had happened was one of the last things he thought he'd walk into.


"Nothing has to change," he repeated in a sigh, picking thoughtfully at his nails. "But you do. And I do too, just—not as much." He turned so he was facing him almost completely, one leg folded over the other. "Listen, sweetie. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself and I'm glad you're not pissed at me, 'cause that puts us way ahead a' schedule already. But—" He stopped, lips pursed. How the hell can I—? "There's just a...certain way it works between people like me, and people like you."


I fucked up. I fucked up and now I hafta drag you into this shit.


"And it's not your fault. It's all me. Everything was all me. I know it was good for you and damn, it was good for me too, but—" He paused again, struggling to arrange his thoughts. "—that was a real fuckin' stupid decision on my part. And I'd do anything to keep things the way they were, doll, I really would."


You're rambling.


"You gotta split things with your parents, kid." he blurted. "Not all at once, but—they need to get the message that you're movin' on and out. And your friends—" He stopped, suddenly sick with guilt. "—You gotta get away from them too, Nicolas. Not—completely—" Don't sugarcoat it, you're going to make things worse for him. "—but enough. Everyone needs to think you're uh—preoccupied. Like you're set on something you're not ever going to let go of."


He almost winced. It was so fucking stupid, all of this. One drink too many and he'd all but destroyed the kid's life. Not like he'd had much to celebrate to begin with, but did that even matter?


He sighed and rested his chin in his palm, gazing at Nicolas in silence, his eyes a mixture of pleading and guilt. "I left because I had to make some calls," he said gently. He'd refused to let his eyes stray (it was borderline sinful at this point; he'd had his fill, and look where it got them), but the kid's eyes alone were enough to make him melt. "You're not useless."
 
Nicolas opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but nothing managed to come out. He listened to what Victor was saying, really listened, but he was confused. He knew that the way his parents made him feel like he had nothing better to do but put up with their bullshit was part of the ruse that they were a great and magnificent family, but the fact that he felt misplaced around his friends was more his fault than any of theirs.


Hell, Clayton and Will could have died due to what Nicolas led them into. And he apologized, goddamn did he apologize. They weren't mad at him anymore, but there was still a hesitancy when they were around each other. They must have told Jaxon what happened. The entire lot of them had been timid around him since then, and even though Niclas had been crashing at Jaxon's house most nights it was still uncomfortable.


He felt unwanted, and maybe that's what Victor was trying to show him.


"Why does anything have to change?" he asked, face twisted in uncertainty. "You said it yourself. That nothing has to change. Everything can be the same as it was. It's not like this - whatever it is - made that much of an impact on either of our lives." Lie. "We could just forget it and move on." Lie. You couldn't do that. Victor probably could. Victor isn't attached. "It just seems stupid. Why do I have to change? Because we fucked?"


A jerky headshake shortly followed. "No, that's ridiculous. I mean, my parents - sure, fuck them. I could easily tell them to fuck off and that I can worry about myself from now on. No big deal, okay? But my friends - that's different. Things might not have been that great lately but that's on me. I don't get why I have to abandon everything just because of this."


He gestured toward Victor with a wild, accusatory hand. "Are you just gonna pretend that Mat doesn't exist, then? Or am I the only one making sacrifices? Why the fuck are we making sacrifices in the first place? You said it didn't mean shit. That it's not gonna become something. So why does it feel like this is going to change my entire life?"


Honestly, Nicolas wouldn't mind pulling himself out of his parents lives completely and telling them to fuck off. It would be freeing. Relieving. But to do it all because of this - when this was practically nothing - was baffling. He'd probably do it anyway - he was already so out of the loop with both his family and friends - but the reason why he was going to be doing it didn't seem to make much sense to him. They had sex. That was it. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.





"I mean, I can. It wouldn't be hard. But it's just crazy. It's not like I'm child. It's not like I didn't want it. It's not like I'm going to do anything to jeopardize whatever this is - whatever you do. But why? We fucked. So fucking what?"
 
"Listen to me," he repeated, knowing full well he hadn't yielded nearly enough the first time around. "It's not me. If it were up to me, things would go back to the way they were. D'you really think I'd make you do all this shit if I had the choice?"


Maybe. Their recent interaction with Marcus didn't garner much support for his argument, and Victor had been known—despite his endless generosity—to take the upper hand for himself, rarely paying mind to the opposite viewpoint. It was a habit of his; if he wasn't on top, then he was at the bottom, and the bottom was somewhere he seemed entirely incapable of placing himself. It wasn't a stretch to assume that he was suddenly demanding all this shit purely for his own pleasure.


Nicolas knew this. He knew Victor never second-guessed himself, and never placed anyone's needs above his wants unless he found them to be of the utmost importance—which Nicolas' now were. But with everything else the kid knew—or thought he knew—what reason was there to believe he wasn't doing this for himself?


But he didn't let himself look doubtful for a single second. He raised his eyebrows, trying to urge Nicolas in the right direction, trying to help him establish some faith in the confident demeanor that felt suddenly so flimsy.


It's real this time, I promise.





"I don't work alone, Nicolas. That's the problem, alright? I keep an eye on people and people keep an eye on me, and the guys doin' that are—above me, in a way." The words felt clumsy and forced, like rocks in his mouth. If he'd known it was going to be so goddamn hard to explain all this, maybe he wouldn't have said anything at all.


But that would get them both killed, so maybe clumsy and forced was better.


"And they'll find out what happened, if they haven't already. And they'll have a problem with it, because they always do. And if they find out you're not with me—I mean, really not with me—" He scraped out a bitter chuckle and rubbed his jaw. This was so fucking stupid, all of it. "—Then they're gonna start lookin' for you. And if they can't find you, they'll get your parents, your buddies, your teachers—hell, they'll get people who don't know shit about you, if they think it'll help. Letting you go out and about your business like nothing ever happened is—the worst thing I can do for you right now, kid." It's my fault. It's all my fault and I'm so sorry. "And I'm sorry this isn't much better, but it's not just for you. I know you care about your friends and I know you don't want your parents hurt, and I wouldn't blame you if you don't give a rat's ass about me anymore, but I certainly don't want to find you in the gutter. You understand that?"


The knot in his chest was almost painful now, and he wanted more than anything to come to some brilliant realization on how he was supposed to handle this situation; how he was supposed to give away the fact that he'd been a goddamn filthy liar and never thought to share it until their lives were practically in the balance. How he was supposed to convey the fact that he cared when everything he'd just asked was burning with the opposite implications. His fingers furled into the bedsheets.


"It won't be forever." You don't know that. "Just until I can get them off my back. I did a lot of stupid shit in the past, Nicolas, so they've got me on lockdown, practically. They know you've been hanging around me and they'll know what happened, sooner or later. If they find out you're still mingling out in the outside world, they're gonna kill you, and they're gonna kill me, and they're gonna kill anyone else who knows anything about us or what happened or who I am or who Mat is. You get that?"


He rubbed his palms together, nerves jumping, painfully aware of the thin line of sweat gathering at his hairline. "I'm sorry," he muttered, barely audible. "I really, really am. All of this is on me and you'd think—" He laughed another scraping, hysterical laugh. "You'd think at seventy-eight goddamn years old I'd know how to act like a fucking adult. But I guess not."
 
Nicolas watched Victor's movements and tried to figure out exactly how much truth was in each word he spewed. The older man had told him half-truths before - the incident with Marcus a clear example - so believing something that could easily be so outlandish was hard to do. Nicolas wanted to trust him. It would make his life much simpler. Much more straightforward.


But if Victor wanted Nicolas to remove himself from every other aspect of his life, he would just say it. There wouldn't be a lie to cover up what he really wanted; probably. Victor would tell him that his family were worse than what Nicolas had ever said they were - and sometimes that did happen - but this time there was a reason. A reason that didn't seem as selfish as before.


"So I tell my parents to fuck off and stop hanging out with my friends, is that it?" The words sounded angrier than he meant. "What am I supposed to do when they kick me out for good? Come crawling to you to make it look like something it's not? Make whoever's watching you think that the only thing in my life I care about is you and myself until they lay off and stop watching after you like a hawk. And at school, I'd just go to class and act like I stopped giving a solitary fuck about anything other than homework?"


He huffed to himself and rolled his eyes before pushing the comforters off and climbing out of the bed to grab his boxers. "Why does it matter what I'm doing anyway?" he asked as he pulled the underwear up over his thighs. He picked up his jeans from the floor. "Yeah, they've been watching me or whatever, but that's because they're watching you. If somehow they figure out what happened, why would it even make a difference? It's not like we're married. I'm not a child."


Standing up, Nicolas fastened the pants above his hips and sat back down on the mattress. He could have faced the other way and gave Victor a reason to worry about him following through, but he didn't. Because both of them knew he would.


"It's not the end of the world, so stop acting like it is, okay? I was probably gonna stop talking to my friends after college anyway." By the way things were going, you weren't going to have any friends by the time you finished college. "And I was already well on my way to telling my parents that I was done with their bullshit. It's just moving plans a little sooner, but whatever. I can do sooner."


There has to be something severely wrong with you. To just believe everything he does, to do whatever he tells you. That's not a healthy relationship, Nicolas. You know that.





Nicolas pushed away the thoughts quickly. He had doubts. It was easier to just go with what Victor said. He wasn't looking for something noteworthy when it came to Victor. The only thing that Nicolas was really looking for were answers, and spending time around Victor was (hopefully) going to push him toward some kind of one. Really, since the beginning the entire fascination with Victor was due to not knowing and not understanding what was happening around him in regards to the older man. There was never any clear reason for him to keep hanging around - either of them, to be quite honest. Hell, Victor could have killed Nicolas that first night and none of this would be happening now.


Maybe he regrets not killing you as much as you do.





"I don't really care about why or what and all that shit. But I don't exactly how the money to live on my own and pay for college, okay? And dropping out isn't something I'm interested in. Even if it helps us not get killed by your little not-so-friends." He had more questions than he had answers at this point, but he figured it was easier to acquiesce now and ask later. "Just help me figure out what the fuck I'm supposed to do. I'm not even twenty yet, Victor. I have, like, ten days but still. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing."
 
"I know, I know." He chased the lingering rags of guilt from his tone and nodded hastily. Nicolas didn't deserve any of this, and he certainly didn't deserve to think that Victor knew anything less than exactly how to fix it.


And he did, truthfully, but it was hard to put out there when he was still dwelling on just how badly he'd screwed up.


"It'll be fine, kid, I promise." He straightened up and arranged his posture into that of the proper, confident man he thought he'd always been, shriveling conscious aside. "I'll pay for everything. Money's not the problem." He let himself examine the truth of that statement for a moment longer than he should have. Money wasn't the problem, per se, but he'd have to up the ante in his methods of getting it. Of course, that wasn't much of a problem either. Victor didn't hate his job.


He rubbed his temple and winced. The hangover came as an aftershock that morning, and it hit him hard. "Let's see..." He squeezed his eyes shut, trying and mostly failing to think against the wave of nausea skulking at the border of his thoughts. "I can get you through college. Tuition, loans, all that bullshit, that's fine. We'll get you a room at the Dakota if you want. No problem."


No problem. And it wasn't--technically. The only real issue with him wanting to spoil Nicolas rotten (a strange urge he'd discovered only just recently) was the inevitable decline of inconspicuousness that would come with it. Teenagers didn't room up at the Dakota. Teenagers didn't pay off the entirety of their debts overnight. Not unless they were doing something wildly illegal, or had someone looking out for them--who was, in this case, also doing something wildly illegal.


"You don't have to worry about anything, alright? You just have to trust me." He raised his eyebrows, though his eyes were soft. "And you trust me, don't you?"


You trust me enough. He figured he might've been pushing it a little in saying so out loud, so he didn't.


He shifted on the bed and switched his opposite leg over the other. "It's my problem, not yours, alright? You don't even have to think about it. I don't want you to think about it. And I don't want you thinkin' you're obligated to feel like you're supposed to be closer to me somehow, because I'm damn sure you don't want to be."


But it still hurt, even if he was the one who'd fucked up. Even if Nicolas' behavior was perfectly justified.


"It's okay," he murmured, surprised at the softness to his voice and even more so at the lack of paranoia. Already the thought of explaining his juvenile behavior to some other murderous suit-clad jackasses was scratching minutes off his life. How long was this going to take? What the fuck was he supposed to say? And was this even going to work?


Worse yet, what if Nicolas asked him these questions?


Hell, Mat doesn't even know. No--he knows, but he doesn't want to say anything. He's hoping it'll go away. Victor tried to bite his lip, caught himself, and smoothed his expression out. Shit. Shit. What if they try to get Nicolas first?





"It'll be fine." He wasn't sure if he was talking to Nicolas or himself. But the boy sounded less paranoid on the outside than he felt on the inside, so he fixed his full attention on him. "You'll be okay. I'll make sure a' that."
 
"It's just..." Nicolas began, eyes focused hard down on his hands. It wasn't that he was unsure that he could trust Victor at this point - there wasn't any reason for him to not. Victor always came through when he promised something, even when that promise was something he didn't generally want. But letting Victor take care of him took away a very small part of the authority that Nicolas had over his own life. And he wasn't sure if he wanted to let that go.


"I don't want to rely on you," he finished, words rushed out like a spewing faucet. "I've never really depended on anyone, you know? My parents gave me money but I never really had to ask. It was just there. I don't wanna feel like I need permission from you to do stuff. To pay for things. And I know that's stupid, but if I have to give up everything else shouldn't I be able to keep that little bit of independence or whatever? Or is that not gonna work?"





You want him to tell you what to do but you want some kind of individuality? How do you even know what you want when you don't even know the options?





It wasn't that Nicolas wanted to be taken over and have his identity stripped away from him by Victor. He just liked chasing the feeling that came with being encroached upon. The first time they met, down in the library, he was riding on the high of being unsure of what was happening and waiting for the situation to change. The unknown was overwhelming. It felt like being choked and liking it.


But it was fine. It was getting easier to manage the life that he led around Victor and the emotions he let slip out - anger, impatience, arousal. He couldn't do that at school, around his friends, with his family. When he was with them, it was like he was living as someone else, ad when he was with Victor he allowed himself to let his guard down.


That was a confusing idea to wrap his mind around. The person who he started off so wary of was becoming a safe zone.


Weird.


Nicolas looked up at Victor and shrugged like he gave less of a shit that he actually did. "I think it'll be fine. I could move back into a dorm or something to make it easier on you or whatever, and even though that would suck, I could. Would that look weird? If I didn't move in with you after I told my parents off? I'd probably have to. I'dunno. As long as we figure it out before I tell them to fuck off, we're good. At least the living situation. College can be dealt with later, but I'd like to have a bed, right?"


Why he was going to go along with this in the first place was beyond him.


"I trust you, kinda. I mean. You've never really done anything to make me concerned, right? You told me you'd leave me alone for a month. You did. You gave my friends money when you promised it to them. The Marcus thing was whatever, but you didn't make it seem like it was going to be all nice and dandy. You didn't exactly lie, so, yeah, I guess I trust you.


"But this is just sketchy, right? Why these people are watching you, I mean. Is it because of what you do? Or because you pissed someone off? Or because they're just crazy fucks with nothing better to do with their lives than stalk you?"


Nicolas crossed his arms over his chest and watched Victor. He wasn't sure why he was trying to piece everything together. Maybe it was because he still wanted to know every single thing about Victor. Maybe it was because he was as obsessed as the stalkers. Maybe he was bored. He still knew what he wanted even if he didn't know why. Figuring out Victor might help him figure out himself, and hell, that would be progress that he hasn't had in awhile.


"You don't have to explain yourself to me," he said after a moment. There was no need to corner him. "As long as I have food and somewhere to sleep, I guess I don't really care."
 
He smiled easily at the barrage of questions, fingers pressed to his temple to ward off the ache that came storming in alongside them. But it didn't feel like a bother. If anything, it was completely secondary to the silly little pang of delight floating in his chest when these sporadic waves of curiosity rose up between them. A small price to pay for a little fracture in Nicolas' obstinacy.


"We'll just uh...cross that bridge when we come to it, yeah?" His mouth twitched, threatening to betray his aura of reassurance, but Victor caught himself quickly. "There's a...lot...a lot I probably should have told you before all this. It's complicated."


It's not that complicated. But it could have been, for someone like Nicolas. What with his remarkably small and exclusive social circle, Victor had to remind himself almost constantly that explaining his circumstances to Nicolas was vastly different than explaining them to someone like Marcus or Mathias--he couldn't just bitch and moan without giving a reason, and even the simplest clarifications would always lead to more questions than answers. It was a way of thinking that he was completely unaccustomed to. He'd never had to consider such things from an objective perspective before Nicolas.


"We'll just say I was a punk-ass kid like you back in the day and did some questionable things, and now when they see me with someone like you--" His heart caught in his chest on the final words. He hadn't meant to say it like that--but then again, how else was he supposed to say it? "They uh...it causes problems."


"And there's nothin' I'd like more than for you to be independent." That's not true. He did want Nicolas to rely on him, but that in itself conjured memories of a past almost explicitly similar and made him shudder with guilt. Then the more morally-inclined side of him started wondering if Nicolas' independence would be a relief for the both of them.


"If you want to do it all yourself, that's fine. Seven bucks an hour, get you a shitty apartment in the Bronx in about three months, that's fine." There was more bitterness to his words than what he'd hoped for. He knew perfectly well why the kid didn't want to rely on him and admired it in a way, was jealous of it, almost, but it didn't make any sense. Why would he do that to himself when he's got me?





He made himself shut up for the moment, worried the implied accusations might have been a step over the line. But then, when had he ever given a shit about courtesy?


"Is that what you want?" He turned and raised his eyebrows, gaze alight with doubt. "Because I can give you what you want, kiddo. I mean, if it's independence you're looking for, then whatever. But bein' independent can get real shitty after you realize what it's like."


He won't be living in a box under the street. He's not me. No, Nicolas had opportunities. He'd been born into a position in which he could do just about anything he pleased, if he really wanted to. So had Victor, to be fair, but only one of them had made the conscious decision to become a hitman so early in life.


"It's not like I could put you to work or anything." I can. He bit back the thought. Last resort. "But if you want to get out there on your own, I don't want you to feel like you're crawlin' back to me all pathetic and shit because you don't know what to do with yourself, because I'm not gonna lie to you, babe. I'm sure you can do it, but you can't do it well." His eyes softened a fraction, as they usually did in the midst of his brutal honesty. "And I think it's safe to say you entertain me enough to keep you around, and I don't want you in that kinda hell. Especially not if you're planning on sticking with this drugs and parties and shit lifestyle."
 
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