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The Dragon's Lair

"I already told you I'd stop with the drugs and shit, remember?" Nicolas said easily, as if it was going to be that easy to stop doing the same things he has done since the beginning of high school. He knew that he didn't need a high to make him feel like he's worth something, but it definitely helped. "It's not like I'd have money for drugs anyway."


He leaned back against the headrest and slinked down into himself. It was easy to overthink everything when it came to Victor. He didn't want to; not really. But everything he did had to be calculated down to a tee - not one thing that wasn't thought about beforehand. Sometimes he talked without thinking and he looked like an idiot. And even if he didn't look like one, he knew there was a chance that Victor would make him feel like it. That might have not happened yet, but there was reason to be cautious. Victor was more calculated than Nicolas himself.


Nicolas reached behind his head and scratched at the nape of his neck. "I just don't want you to treat me like a child," he admitted. "I don't really care about having to go to you for money. I mean, it's a little inconvenient but still better than my parents. Especially if getting money from them gets everyone killed or whatever. I don't wanna feel like I'm trapped, right? Like you're suddenly becoming in charge of me. I don't want it to be weird."


Because it would be weird to go from this kind of confusing and physical relationship to one where Victor tried to put an authoritative stance on things. He didn't want that. Even if he wanted the little bit of pressure to be up to some certain kind of standard, to be what Victor wanted him to be, that was one he could do outside of their financial situation. He didn't want to feel like he owed Victor something because he helped him fund college and living expenses, and fuck, where was Victor going to get the money anyway? Posted jobs he'd take and kill people, and then pay with that kind of money? Most likely. Nicolas didn't know. And that was hard to think about.


"Would I have to live with you? It wouldn't be a problem, I'm just trying to get everything together in my head. But if I have to tell my parents that I'm done with their shit ASAP, I kinda gotta get my crap outta there before they hold it hostage, and then I'll have to find somewhere to put it." He sat up on the mattress and grabbed his shirt from the floor. "Can you just give me a lowdown or something? Just an overview of what needs to happen and when and where and all that shit?" he said, slipping the shirt over his head.


"I know it's not ideal that you have to do any of this, obviously, I just want it figured out. Or to know what the hell I'm supposed to do now that our lives are in danger. Which is still confusing, but whatever. You can keep your secrets; I don't give a shit. Just tell me what you want and I'll work around the holes."
 
He stood up and raked his fingers through his hair. "You don't have to live with me if you don't want to." It'd be nice. Nice, but it wasn't his choice. He'd committed himself to bending every rule in the allegorical book to maintain Nicolas' satisfaction, and damn if he was going to make an exception for his own vexing abandonment issues. "But if you don't, you need to find someplace else close enough that I can keep an eye on you."


That worked in his favor, at least; close proximity was both a want and a need. His lurking fear of Nicolas never wanting to see him again after last night had mostly ebbed, though the possibility of a separation still pulsed on the horizon. There had always been periods of absence between them: a week, a month--longer, maybe. They served as retribution for Nicolas' torture and restraint for Victor's inherently controlling demeanor, and they always seemed to serve the two of them equally well, more or less. But with drastically altered circumstances and this unspoken link of intimacy that, again, both of them seemed too chickenshit to address, Victor found himself pushing hard against any implication that they should be apart for so long again.


He didn't know why. No, he did know, but he sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up now.


"You can get yourself a job, that's fine too. Be as independent as you want, and I'll pay for whatever you can't." He threw him a sharp sideways glance. "Even if you can pay for it, let me buy crap for you sometimes." He started mulling over this concept over before he even finished the sentence. He'd have to get a fucking job. Not as if his traditional one wouldn't provide for he and Nicolas and then some, but he'd have to give off the impression (at least temporarily) that he was actually making the effort to blend in with the New York scene as more than just another well-dressed rat. Retail or Wall Street? The latter seemed more suitable.


"You can...you can talk with your friends. Hell, you can talk to your parents too. But you need to give them the idea that they're second priority, alright? And I know you're not this stupid, I hope you're not this stupid, but don't ever use my name. Don't tell 'em what we did, what we're doing, nothing. Just tell 'em you uh--met somebody." He paused. Nicolas wasn't the kind of kid to fawn over somebody so intensely that it would give off a solid impression that they were all he could think about--the thought alone was a little unnerving. "I don't care how you do it, but you need to make 'em think that they've been replaced. That you're growin' as a person or whatever the hell and that this is what makes you happy--or somethin'.


And you might have to talk to some people. I dunno yet, that's my business. If it comes to that, I'll handle it." If it comes to that, he thought, we're in deep shit. Because if it came to that then he'd have either royally screwed up somewhere along the way, or things were sickeningly, unfathomably worse than he thought they were.


He wasn't too eager to meet up with some of his old buddies, either. The phone calls hadn't been particularly cordial.


Christ, I need a smoke.


He looked at Nicolas, expression drawn into a blank slate. Was it worth it to do this? He felt like shit for putting the kid in this situation, and for drinking too much, and for getting defensive when Mat had tried to help him, and for confusing Cardou continuously when it was obvious that all he wanted was something to do with himself--frankly, there wasn't much going on in his life that he didn't feel shitty about.


He opened his mouth, but caught himself before he could manage the ever-typical "are you okay?". It was a waste of conversation, anyway. He knew the kid wasn't okay, knew nobody, not even someone as ill-tempered and confused as Nicolas Cardou, would be over the fucking moon at the idea of detaching himself from his life overnight. Victor would have been pissed. Well--he had been pissed. So that was another thing Nicolas had on him in terms of adolescent strife; the score was starting to even out.


Instead he sighed, almost silent, and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "I'll take you home if you want. Get all your stuff out of there and we'll see if we can't find wherever else you want to be. You can stay there for a bit, think things over if you want, I'm not gonna stop you, but--" What are the chances he wants to do that? But he had to give him choices where choices were due. "It's whatever you want, kiddo."
 
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Throughout his life, Nicolas had been granted so many options that he didn't know what to do with them. When it came to choosing schools, the debate lasted almost six months until he finally settled with NYU. Clubs in high school had been so abundant and so immediately interesting, Nicolas didn't know how he was only supposed to pick a few.


And now, with Victor, there was never really a good option. Either let Victor take over his life (financially, at least) or risk the both of them dying. It was obvious. Nicolas wasn't stupid. He wouldn't want to deal with the repercussions if one of them (or his own friends or family) ended up getting hurt because Nicolas was too headstrong to make a choice.


He'd have to figure out this shit soon. (And by soon, now.)


"I don't want to walk up a two thousand steps a day just to see daylight," he started, eyes focused on his knees as they pressed against his chest. "But I don't want you to have to pay extra for me to live somewhere else. That'd be dumb." He pursed his lips and glanced across the bedroom. "And being around you and staying somewhere I can't tell my friends about, that could help keep those people off your back, right? If they know that we're -- well, that I'm pulling away from everyone else but you. Living together would make sense."


It wasn't that he wanted to live with Victor. He had no idea how he really felt about the situation, because them being together physically -- sexually -- changed everything. Way more so than Nicolas ever wanted it to. He'd have to get over it obviously, and figure out what he really wanted and how he was going to work to get it. Moving in with Victor could, in the end, make his life easier tenfold. Or it could fuck him over for the rest of his life and he'd never know what to do with himself ever again. There were too many outcomes, and Nicolas wanted to think of them all before deciding. He knew he'd give up after a while, but hesitancy was a personality trait he couldn't easily shake.


"I'm not gonna tell anyone about you, you know that." Nicolas pushed his legs away from him and finally looked toward Victor. Eye contact for him was hard when it came to the other man. Breaking it was easy. "I can make everyone think that I stopped giving a fuck about anyone that isn't you; it wouldn't be hard. But Clayton and Will already know what you look like and you're name, and they might have told one of my other friend, I'dunno. My parents don't know anything. Hell, my mom barely remembered that we had a meeting yesterday until I wasn't there to listen to her bitch."


He shrugged. "A lot of my shit at home is already together. Not packed or anything, but everything I use is kinda out in the open since I don't really sleep there. Most of my clothes and shit are probably thrown across my bed." It was mildly upsetting that he hadn't been there in so long that he didn't remember what his bedroom looked like. It made sense since the only times he came by for clothes or deodorant or whatever was when he was already high off his ass and had no ambitions to remember anything. "I don't really need much. I'll snag a blanket or too, but I really only have to get my clothes and shoes and shit, right? Most of my textbooks are in my backpack and all of my electronics are. I can get new shampoo and all that. I just need my clothes."


Part of him really wanted Victor to know that this wouldn't be a hard process and that leaving his home was going to be easy as cake, and the other part was trying to convince himself of the same thing. Going home had given him a lot of anxiety over the past couple years -- especially once he was in college and didn't have to be home everyday. So it should have been easier to want to leave. Nicolas should have fucking jumped at the chance to get out of there, but leaving was still much more final than never coming home. Sure, he had shitty relationships with both of his parents, but if he fucked them over now he'd never get a chance to fix it.


And if he did nothing, he probably wouldn't have the chance because they'd all be dead.


Fuck.


"I'll probably get a job. I'dunno where or when, but I should get one anyway. Even if this wasn't happening." Nicolas propped himself up against the pillow behind him and pulled the covers over his lap again. "I don't wanna fuck this up, and I really don't wanna get murdered for whatever god-knows reason. We can live together, and I mean, I'll get pissy sometimes, and sometimes it'll be because of you, but whatever."


Nicolas watched Victor carefully as he lingered against the wall. He was still trying to figure out exactly what this was and if Victor was lying about any of this for some sick form of satisfaction. He had no idea what was going on, really. Victor had barely told him anything with real context, and he just kept going along with it.


"Can we go there later? Today, I mean? I technically have a class at 1, but I can skip it. I'd just rather my parents not be there when we stop by."
 
"We can go whenever you want." He pushed against the sarcastic note that threatened to creep into his tone, reminding himself yet again of the fact that Nicolas would be all but oblivious to the general urgency of the situation. I'm doing all this shit for him, right? And if he was doing it all for him, then it shouldn't matter how urgent the situation was; he should be able to take care of things, regardless of how quickly they escalated.


Though he may have been lacking a bit in the responsibility department (though, in his defense, there were few things he cared to be responsible for), Victor had always been exceptionally protective. He kept close what little he had, and what he didn't have, he never tried for. It was the safest way for him to live these days. He was old, too old to avoid suspicion and too old to act like he still had the capabilities that made him envious of people like Nicolas. He coveted his job, his library, the city, Mathias--and until he'd dragged the kid so mercilessly into this monstrous life of his, he would've died happily thinking that was all he'd ever needed.


Maybe there was never any sense in acquainting himself with Cardou. Maybe it'd been instinct. Maybe it was some part of his subconscious acting for him, trying to get him to understand that he was a sick, antisocial bastard worshiped only for the worst things he'd ever done, and there was no way he was going to pass these next several decades alone without offing himself one way or another.


Well. Whatever.





Point being, his attachment to Nicolas was making it damn hard to convince himself that the kid didn't need to be looked out for as if he were twelve. He can handle himself. He knows what he's doing. He's smart. But so was Mathias, so were his parents, the friends he'd once had, so was he--but they'd all shattered too, some way or another, and Victor refused to believe that protecting them just wasn't enough.


It couldn't be them. It had to have been him. He just wasn't trying hard enough.


Victor sighed, louder than he should have, stirring the stray hair that had fallen near his eyes. He pursed his lips and pushed it all back, considered his thoughts, dismissed them--the standard. Then he looked at Nicolas, and it took more effort than he was entirely comfortable with not to repeat the process.


"Okay." He pushed off the wall and retreated to the bed, sitting with his elbows on his knees and a smirk on his lips--naturally condescending, but softer than usual. "So what's botherin' you?"


It was either a genuine question or a projection of his own internal dialogue, though he wasn't sure which. Nicolas' plan seemed, for once in the entirety of their relationship, fairly decent, and (disturbingly enough) certainly better than whatever the hell Victor planned to do to keep it held together. For now, he supposed it had to be the former.


"You're never happy." The corner of his mouth turned down, though he found himself increasingly amused. The kid had reason not to be happy, of course, and--well, what did it matter anyway? Why did he care now?


He brought his hand up under Nicolas' chin and gazed at him through half-lidded eyes. "I guess that's just you though, huh?" There was an edge of disappointment in his tone that he stifled two seconds too late, but didn't regret entirely. "There's always somethin' bothering you, isn't there?"
 
There was a lot to think about when it came to deciding where he wanted to live. The choice wasn't easy -- wasn't something he could make his mind up about without looking at every single angle first -- and he knew he was overthinking everything. There was no doubt about that. Nicolas tended to either blow something off completely or think about every single thing that could have gone wrong.


"Nothing's bothering me," he replied easily, but it was obviously a lie. He was thinking too hard, looking too contemplative, for it to go unnoticed. And Victor wasn't stupid. He was obviously going to pick it up at some point that Nicolas wasn't on the same page as him, wasn't really what page he was on in general. "It's a lot to take in, y'know? It's not like I'm choosing what's for dinner, okay. I'm choosing where to live."


If the living circumstances were the only things bothering him, this entire conversation would have been over a long time ago. But Nicolas always felt like he was being played and that he truly had no idea what was going on. Marcus was a prime example. Victor through Nicolas and his friends into a building with a madman that tried to kill him.


He moved his chin out of Victor's grasp and pushed his hand away. Fucking was different -- less intimate. He didn't want the barriers between their relationship to change simply because they had sex. There was a part of him that did, kind of. That wanted everything to change so drastically that he didn't feel like himself anymore. So dramatically that it felt like killing himself and being reborn again. He knew that was depressing -- it obviously was. Some days he just hated to be who he was, and that was stupid. He had everything he could want. Everything that he need was already practically in the palm of his hand.


But he still hated to be himself. There were many other people he would rather be, and thinking about that made him even more depressed.


"I'm happy," he argued, "sometimes. I don't have to be ecstatic all of the time to be content, alright? Some of my classes make me happy. I have good friends, well. Until I have to throw them to the side." Nicolas quirked his lips to the side and narrowed his eyes up at Victor. "You know, most of the reasons that I'm upset and what-the-fuck-ever route back to you, so why don't you get off your high horse and stop pretending like you care. You're the reason why I have to stop being friends with Will and Clayton. You're the reason I have to tell my parents to fuck off. You're the reason my life's in danger."


He huffed a heavy breath and looked away as he pulled himself back from Victor. "Did you ever think that you're the main reason that I hate myself? That most of my problems are because of you? My life was going perfectly fine until that night at Aria. You were the one who made us know each other. You were the one who fucking abducted me from a rave. I didn't ask for this."


One of the worst things about Nicolas was that he alway exploded exactly when someone wanted a reaction from him. Time and time again that happened with Victor and, as much as he wished it otherwise, Nicolas couldn't help but let himself get angry and get off onto some semblance of a rant until Victor shut him up.


It wasn't like he was trying to let Victor get so deep into his head. It just happened. And it sucked that it seemed to happen all of the time.


"You're what's really bothering me, okay? Everything was going all fine until you pushed your way into my life again and again and again. Ever think that I could have been happy before you fumbled on in? And now you're taking away my friends, and my family, even if they suck. You're making me stop doing things that I enjoy. Fuck it, I'm not a drug addict either, and taking pills and whatever ain't gonna do shit that it hasn't already, 'kay? The only real problem in my life is you."
 
He kept the raging emotional turmoil balanced between them and bit his tongue, eyes void and expression pulled carefully placid. He was notoriously the type to leech off the heat of other, more voracious fires when in their presence, but Nicolas had since given him an opportunity to control that instinct. Perhaps it was a mark of maturity on his part. He was supposed to be the big kid in this scenario now. Terrifying as that was, he supposed there were some decent things to learn from it--mental restraint included.


And at his age he'd come to realize that younger people (no longer like himself) built far higher, meaner fires than he could, even if he hurt himself trying. Nicolas had more energy than Victor did--he was more confused, more pained, more damaged, even. And it was all very terrifying, because he saw so much of himself in the poor kid, recognized some part of every line and every curse, and it sent shivers down his spine to hear the rising anger in Nicolas' tone as he gradually came to the realization that Victor was a liar, a cheater, and, frankly, not a good person.


It was nauseating. Worse yet, Victor found himself consistently recycling the wicked old spiels that had been used on him: Don't you trust me? I've never really hurt you. You're worth a lot more than you think you are. If you hate me so much, why don't you just turn me in? You don't want your family to get hurt, do you? I'm the only thing you've got. I love you.





Disgusting. He was disgusting. All of this was disgusting, and Nicolas was right. And if he didn't stop, if he didn't change something, Cardou would turn out to be just like him--and, God forbid, the cycle would continue.


But Victor didn't know how to act any other way. He'd been indoctrinated into a vicious cycle of the sick preying on the naive until they became sick themselves, and with that type of lifestyle came a certain set of rules ingrained so deeply that they were near impossible to break. He'd already dragged Nicolas so close to the edge that it was going to be hell, if not downright impossible, to right him again.


He was already fucked up when I got to him, though. That's not my fault.





He pushed the thought out and rubbed his eyes until stars broke out behind them. "You're right. You're right."


He wanted somewhat desperately to comfort Nicolas, to try and calm him down instead of snapping or scraping together some shitty excuse. The idea turned terrible almost as soon as it surfaced. Calm and collected had never done anything good for him, so what made him think Nicolas would respond any differently?


He observed Nicolas calmly from the corners of his eyes, hands clasped in front of his mouth so the tremble wasn't visible. He was a little stung, sure, but the quivering had evolved from his lack of cigarette, as opposed to the brutal verbal lashing he'd just endured. No, truthfully, it didn't matter how pissed Nicolas was--all that mattered was what came out of his mouth.


"I'm what's botherin' me too, Sherlock, so spare me." He shifted a little further from Nicolas, but didn't get off the bed. "And I can apologize, even though it doesn't really mean shit, because we're still stuck in this and there's nothing I can do about it." There was a bit of self-loathing lost somewhere in the last words, but Victor didn't attempt to analyze it. "So what do you want? What can I do for you?"


He turned to look at him head on for the first time. "I don't want you to have to give up anything. I don't want you to have to do anything you don't want to do, d'ya get that? I'm not out to get you and this ain't my decision. I know I fucked up your life, sweetie, and I wish more than any-fuckin'-thing that I hadn't. But there's nothing I can do about it." He paused and breathed deep. "If you never want to see me again, I can arrange for that too. I don't fuckin' blame you."
 
"Can't I just have some goddamn answers?"


Nicolas had lived his entire life having things kept from him. His parents didn't tell him shit when his uncle was killed in a car accident until the holidays came around and they couldn't hold it off any longer, and Nicolas was fourteen. He could have handled it, and all their bullshit excuses didn't mean shit when it happened again and again throughout his teenage years. He was almost twenty and had the same issues going on now that he had going on then. And wasn't that disappointing.


For a while, he thought he'd be able to grow out of some of the problems that he had going on his life. He thought his parents would stop being so insolent and pay more attention to him. Obviously, that didn't turn out like he expected. He figured that after some time drugs would stop being an escape for him, but considering the fuck he had to live with, that wasn't necessarily going to happen until he had no connections to them. For whatever reason, he really thought that he'd be able to be open with his parents. They were both fairly liberal in private, even though his father was conservative with his company and the way he did things publicly. He wanted to be able to tell them - "hey, maybe I need help" - literally anything without it turning into a big deal. But things never worked out the way he wanted them to.


It became more obvious that what he expected from life was never going to happen when Victor came into his life. He figured their post-kidnapping encounter was going to be a one time ordeal. "Stop following me" and all that other stalky bullshit. But that didn't happen. They kept running into each other like it was normal, like it was something to be expected. And for a while Nicolas was intrigued. Now he's just annoyed.


He took a big breath and pressed his hands flush against his face. The room was warmer now. Probably because his heart was beating a hundred and two million times per minute in his chest. He almost wished he had stayed naked for the conversation, but that would have lead to weird power play shit.


"Shit," he huffed, and he sat up and held his chin in his palms as he looked up at Victor. "I don't even need answers, okay? Is there anything you could say that's going to make any of this better - probably not. It's just going to keep getting worse and I'm still not gonna know how to deal with it."


Nicolas leaned forward and onto his knees, forehead hard against his hands. "I don't want to stop seeing you. And not because of whatever happened. You're kinda the only person who cares about me right now I feel like. My parents never did. My friends are starting to distance themselves. I don't wanna lose everything." He paused and took a deep breath. "And I don't wanna live at home, so if we can figure that out - that would help out a lot. I'll stop with the drugs and I'll go to class, I just need my own space sometimes and I don't want to feel like I owe you anything. Does that make sense? Is that fair?"
 
"You don't owe me anything," he echoed, striving to make absolute certain that those words would be taken to heart. Subconsciously, he still wasn't sure if it was Nicolas or himself he was trying to convince. Typically it was the latter who needed the most convincing, because Victor was always sure of himself--but with the shit he'd just pulled last night (and the way he was acting now), who's to say he wasn't the ignorant little brat here?


"You need to make up your mind on whether you want the fucking answers or not." He tensed, as if he were prepared to stand, but waited. I'm not gonna tell him anyway. Not every answer. Not every truthful answer. They weren't a devoted couple; Nicolas didn't need to know any more about Victor than what he already speculated, and Victor wasn't liable to spill his guts to a volatile kid who already hated them. Never. Not unless the situation calls for it. And if the situation called for it, they'd have more important things to worry about than his own grungy past.


"And I'm serious." There was a certain hardness to his voice that hadn't been there before, come to replace the note of hesitance that lingered up until Nicolas tore into him. "I know you don't wanna settle for 'fair'. I can make it look like you got snatched up, got in a bad accident or somethin'. You won't be able to talk to anyone you knew ever again. Y'have to start new, maybe far away, get a new name and everything. But it'll fix this." He doesn't want that, though.





But maybe he did. Maybe Nicolas hated him just enough now that he was willing to do anything to get away from him. And Victor didn't blame him, hell, he couldn't--but, Christ, it stung a little. God only knew why. For every fucked up thing that had ever driven the course of his life, falling a little (in a twisted, confusing, aggravating way) for a temperamental, upper-class young whippersnapper had never been in the cards for him. That, he was quite certain of.


Then he did get up for a minute, but sat back down before he could take a single step away from the bed. He'd been looking intently at Nicolas for the last five minutes from the corners of his harsh amber eyes, trying and failing to gauge just how aggressive he now sounded when he spoke. What the hell else was he supposed to do? The kid's hostility was a challenge, but both of them being pissed off wasn't going to get anybody anywhere.


He should've stayed. He should've been there when Nic woke up instead of clambering around Mat's house like a squirrel on speed, looking for anything and everything else to do. Maybe then he would've had the courage to lie. Maybe then they wouldn't be so fucking loathsome of each other right now.


I don't want him to be so fucking miserable, he reminded himself. But he also didn't want Nicolas to leave him, for whatever fucked-up reason. And one of those was easier to encourage than the other.


"Why'd you do it?" He noted the sharp accusation in his tone and forced himself to tone it down, relaxing his shoulders and smoothing out his expression. Compassion wasn't always the key with Cardou, but it never hurt. "Hm? You weren't that drunk. I knew what I was doing, so you sure as hell knew what you were doing. So why'd you go through with it?"
 
The main problem was that Nicolas didn't know what he wanted: Victor, his family, ignorance, knowledge. It was all going to be shit anyway, and he wasn't sure what he'd rather have - peace of mind and the chance of dying or physical freedom and knowing all the fucked up truths Victor had kept him out of so far. He wanted to know exactly what was going on and why them fucking was such a big deal - at least part of him did - because not knowing was almost eating him up inside. There were so many unanswered thoughts going through his head he wasn't sure if they were even worth thinking about anymore.


He's not gonna tell you shit anyway. If he's kept you outta loop this long, you're never gonna know what's really going on.


And that was easy to believe. Victor never gave him anything to work with. All of their little meet-and-greets were because him was following Nicolas - Nicolas thought that anyway. Maybe some of them were coincidences, but still. A little too sketchy for his taste.


Nicolas wasn't stupid. And nobody really thought he was stupid, but sometimes he felt like not knowing what the fuck was going on had him coming off like an idiot. He knew next to nothing about Victor, truthfully, and that seemed to grate at him more and more as time went on. Victor knew practically everything about him, and that made the power balance between them so off (even though Nicolas thought that he liked it sometimes) to the point that Nicolas felt like he didn't know himself.


But he could make more friends and establish new relationships and it wouldn't be too hard. The only reason he wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to do was because he was scared of putting his life entirely into Victor's shaky grasp. He didn't have a lot of reason to question the reservations that trusting Victor gave him, but he let himself have the doubts that he easily possessed. Trusting someone was hard for him. His parents were trustworthy until they broke that - lied to him, told him half truths, told him nothing. He got sick of the bullshit pretty fast and pulled away from them completely when he realized that he was almost born to be a pawn in their little mind games.


He didn't want it to be the same with Victor.


"You think I didn't want it?" he asked, eyebrows pinched and raised. "I could control myself, I wasn't doing it for some sick weird reason, I did it because I wanted it. You always question me - and fuck, it's getting annoying. You think I don't know what I'm doing and talk down to me like I'm some sort of retard that doesn't know shit, but I know what I'm doing. I wanted it, and that would probably be more obvious if you didn't overthink every goddamn thing, you get it? It happened. You weren't that drunk either so why aren't you questioning yourself instead of badgering me? I know what I did. I know why I did it. Maybe you need to stop asking me all this bs and figure it out for yourself."


Nicolas wasn't angry, he really wasn't. He was just tired of being put on the spot again and again when Victor's questions were probably more aimed at himself than they were at Nicolas anyways. Their conversations were always so angry and forced, and Nicolas wanted to feel like whatever was going on between them was slightly normal.


"So what," he added. "We fucked. Don't over-complicate everything. No one forced you to do it, okay? It's not like I asked you to push me around and fuck me. It happened. You're making it a big deal." Nicolas straightened his shoulders and leaned forward, one leg folded over the other. "Sex isn't some, like, promise or whatever. I fuck people all the time'" - even though that hasn't happened much in the past few weeks - "so don't think I made some weird exception for you. Sex doesn't mean fucking shit."
 
Victor pursed his lips. "Bad question." He wasn't sure if it was because he already knew the answer, or because the amount of detail in Nicolas' response had given him plenty of insight into what his own would have been like if the circumstances were ever turned on him. The boy was right in everything he'd said, but there had to be something inside him that was singing a different tune--or a slightly less repetitive one, at the very least.


"Alright. We're not getting anywhere and I'm not gonna scream at you anymore. If you want to stay pissed, stay pissed." I sure as hell will. But he wouldn't let it be nearly so obvious in himself. Already his rigid demeanor had begun to seep into faux serenity, his posture lax, lips unfurling. He couldn't stand to be caught up in such a vehement riptide of emotion for so long without giving himself a heart attack; age would do that to a guy. "You know what your options are and you know you can make me do whatever you damn well please--" Spoiled brat, he thought here, but didn't dare say it, "--so you do whatever the fuck you want."


He didn't close the bedroom door behind him. Pissed though he may have been, this weird, disgusting, protective urge that he bore over Nicolas was overwhelming in its presence. He wouldn't leave the kid. He wouldn't let himself.


The idea of going upstairs was fleeting. A college kid catching sight of him pacing around Mat's house like a five-foot-ten sasquatch in a state of hissing fury might be cause for some alarm, and he'd done enough in the making-kids-hate-me department for today. He thought about eating, about taking a shower, about maybe throwing up a couple times, about one more call--


His stomach plummeted at the idea. Get that thought out of your head.


He did. But it was a useless effort. He put away the dishes stacked in the sink and folded the rest of the laundry sitting on the sectional and wiped down the counter tops and rearranged the bookshelves, and when he wasn't satisfied with himself, he then, driven only by his own desperate need for a distraction, made the call.


It was about nine minutes long. Victor knew only because he watched the grandfather clock at the other end of the room the entire time, ticking away above the pendulum in all its unbridled, unnecessary beauty. Mat had always loved gaudy antique shit like that.


The call was five parts in all, and the subjects went in the order of Victor, Mat, Nicolas, Nicolas' parents, and back to Victor. He hung up when the big hand was a sliver away from the twelve, wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, threw up in the sink, brought his breathing back under control, and returned to the bedroom.


He halted in the threshold and crossed his arms over his chest, shouting down the nauseous protest in his stomach. His eyes were trained on Nicolas'. Big, gorgeous brown eyes.





"Get up," he rasped. It wasn't cruel. His voice was too soft for that, and he didn't want to be, anyway. The bedroom felt heavy with the remnants of rage and betrayal and everything in between, and Victor wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible. The feeling of it, at least. "We're gonna go to your parents' place and you're going to tell them whatever you need to tell them. And then we have to go meet someone."
 
Nicolas wasn't stupid, and he knew that. Sometimes the way that Victor talked to him made him feel like an insolent child that had no idea what he was doing, and he hated it. Sure, there were times that he didn't mind the nagging simply because he was fucked up and had issues. Everyone had problems. Nicolas's just had to do with the fact that he liked to be put down from time to time. On his own terms, though. That was important.


Victor leaving the room (again) didn't make him feel any better. He didn't want to fight, and even more, he didn't want to be fighting with Victor. He wasn't going to win no matter what happened or how the conversation went. He didn't want to win. He wanted everything to fix itself so that he wasn't in this mess. He wanted things to change between him and Victor, the way they were now, but he wanted them to change on their terms. Not because they both fucked up when someone was watching too closely and had to make a move.


He stared at the open door and sighed.


Pushing away the part of him that wanted to storm out of the room and acquise, Nicolas pulled one leg in toward his chest and picked at his toes. It was easy to get lost in thoughts about what would happen if him and Victor moved in together. Whether or not that was of either of their consents beside the point, he wasn't sure how it would work out. He wasn't sure if it was going to be some weird domestic partnership. He wasn't sure if it was going to be just friendly roommates. He wasn't sure if it was going to be like last night. There was also the question of what he wanted himself, but he had time to figure that out.


He needed to shower. He could smell sweat still on him, could feel it making his shirt stick to his back so easily it made a squeal when he peeled it away. It was obvious from the look of him that he was physically tired - head reclined against the pillow, body still pliant and loose as he leaned against the headrest - and he wondered if anyone would be able to sense the sex on his skin.


When he started to wish that Victor would come back and they could figure everything out, he walked back in with a "Get up" and Nicolas sat up faster than he's probably ever sat up in his entire life.


"Is everything okay?" he asked, and leaned over toward the ground to grab his shoes. He pulled them toward him and started to shove his feet in on the ground, the heel bending under his foot as he rammed them inside. "Should I, y'know, be like freakin' out or somethin'? This isn't one of the hitmen that want us to figure out shit out, right?"


Nicolas stood up from the bed and grabbed at his sweatshirt, thrown over a chair in the corner of the room, before he pulled it on over his head. "It won't take me long to get some shit together, everything's pretty much where I need it to be. Just shove everything into a duffle or whatever and we can be outta there fast." He shrugged and looked at Victor, licked his lips and focused back on his face. He almost wished Victor wasn't so appealing. Then he wouldn't be in this mess. "Is there anything I need to know? Or you gonna keep me in the dark again?"
 
Don't act so fucking hurried. He caught himself before it could be said. Nicolas' urgency made him anxious, but it wasn't completely unnecessary; Victor just wasn't eager to acknowledge the fact.


The gentle slope of his mouth had malformed into a hard line, and his eyes were dark with thought. "No." It was a lie. "His name is Mr. Grant, and he's a friend of the man who taught me." Mentor. Again, he caught himself before he could say it. There were many synonyms for "the man who taught me", but "mentor" had become dramatically less credible as the years ticked onward.


"He's a condescending prick, but it doesn't matter, because you're not going to get out of the car until or unless I say so." He wove in and out of the room restlessly, searching for keys and clothes and still bouncing erratically once he had them both. He wouldn't waste time with gussying up, he decided; his visitor may be critical of that, but Victor didn't really give a shit. He wasn't worth it. None of this was.


And they're afraid of me anyway, aren't they? They're supposed to be, aren't they?





He wouldn't waste his time thinking about that, either. His primary focus was on taking care of Nicolas. While a good dose of respect from the other side would do him some good, he had to make sure he could do without it—just in case.


Mr. Grant. Martin Grant. Martin Grant had killed someone important, too; people were afraid of him, too.


"Let's go." Victor waved frenetically and bounded up the stairs, unusually limber and for once not taking the time to see if the most important part of his afternoon was going to comply. But what the hell else was he gonna do? Stay down there and mope?


He skittered through the front room and scratched out a brief "took your car, back by 2" on the back of one of the many essays scattered across Mat's desk. Two was a rough estimate, but it should have left them plenty of time—and if it didn't, at least someone else would know about it. Someone who would actually do something worthwhile, for that matter.


"And he's not a hitman. Anymore. He's retired. Like Mat." Almost every word set off a blaring alarm in the back of his head, reminding him that even a spastic idiot like himself wouldn't have let that slip. Victor ignored it. It was all bound to come out sooner or later, and he supposed he'd have to go with the former when it came to deep, dark secrets.


Even if it made him sick to his stomach.


"He wants to know what you're like, so do me a favor and tone down the bitching, alright?" Maybe he should have taken his own advice. It could have been the anxiety talking, but some part of him was honestly, genuinely pissed. At Nicolas? Maybe. At himself? Likely. A combination of the two? Almost certainly.


He raked a loose strand of hair away from his forehead and strode off into the garage. Mat's car was a sleek silver thing, a Buick, old, but not quite as antique as Victor's. The light beyond the creaking garage door made him wince as it caught against the glossy windshield.


He forced himself to slow then, goaded by the anxious churning of his stomach. Nicolas didn't know he'd gotten sick. If he threw up in front of the kid, it'd put the both of them on edge, and that was the last place either of them needed to be.


"I'm a hitman." He said it slowly, as if stating a simple fact that neither of them understood just yet. "And you're not. You're not a criminal. As far as they know, you're just some guy I slept with once. But they know I won't kill you either, so they know that's not the case. I know you want to know more—or I fuckin' think you do, I don't know—and, Christ, I'm trying my best to make this less confusing, but—" He paused, his mouth curled mid-snarl. "—I can't. Not til I know they're not gonna leave you in a gutter. Let's just focus on that first, alright?"
 
"A friend?" Nicolas asked, more to himself than anyone else. He wasn't expecting Victor to tell him the truth, but it was still hard to figure out when he was lying. Most of what Victor had told him throughout their time together hadn't been truthful in the first place. It's not like he was a liar, but it was obviously easier to keep Nicolas in the dark than it was to have him actually know anything.


Mr. Grant sounded more like a pedophile than a friend, but Nicolas would let it slide. It's not like Victor would tell him the truth if he asked anyway, because Victor was kind of a dick like that.


He fluttered after him up the stairs, hands shoved deep into his pockets like he was going to find an answer in there. The upstairs was warmer than the basement, cooler than he wanted it to be, and definitely more comfortable than it was going to be outside.


Nicolas knew more than enough about Victor to gather that he didn't keep the best of company (even though he knew barely anything else), but hearing that Matias did the same work that Victor prided himself in through him for a loop. He almost wished he saw it coming, because learning the information was alarming. Kind of. He was used to being blindsided with shit that he would never expect to happen in his real life when it came to Victor, so maybe he should have seen it coming.


Opening his mouth to ask "seriously, are all of your friends crazy?", Victor spoke up again and Nicolas smacked his lips shut. The complaints came in stride, always more annoying than being bitched at for other reasons. He hated listening to Victor tell him all the ways he was dumb and stupid and less and all that other shit that made people feel inadequate.


More than anything, Nicolas wanted a hit. He wanted something to calm his nerves, to slow down the rapid beating of his heart. He was used to turning toward drugs in these particular instances - high school it was alcohol and weed, he didn't get into coke or heroin until college - but now with the addition of Victor practically controlling his life, that wasn't really an option. If he wanted to take away one of the few things that actually made Nicolas happy, then so be it. It's not like they'd be stuck in this situation forever, and when Victor was through fucking up his life Nicolas could meet another dealer, another connection. And he wasn't an addict in the first place, so he didn't see the problem. But it was whatever, right? Not like anyone cared what he had to say anyway.


"Jesus, fine, I'll 'tone down the bitching', you don't have to be a fuck about it,"Nicolas muttered with a roll of his eyes, still tottering behind him. "I can easily pretend that I'm easy to be around," he taunted, voice fake and dripping with petty sarcasm. "I wouldn't be such a bitch if you were nice once in a while, think 'bout that?"


He liked his lips and took a step back and moved around to face Victor when they got inside the garage. "They're really that worried about me?" he asked, mildly confused. He couldn't tell if that was even a real reason or some bullshit that was going to end up with him meeting another shithead-psycho-bitch like Marcus. "And yeah, I'm curious as fuck, but I mean, yeah, let's worry about this now. I'd rather not know anything than be dead. And that doesn't mean that you should stop telling me things! You don't really anyway, so whatever, but right now I just wanna figure this shit out and get back to a kinda normal life where my main problem is finals and crazy killers aren't on my radar."





Nicolas took a deep breath and walked around to the other side of the car before sliding his fingers across the sleek finish on the door handle. "Can we just leave already? It's like eight o'clock on a Monday, my parents probably aren't even there, and it would be dope if we got outta there before my mom comes back pilates."
 
He pushed a hand through his hair, raking it irritably from his eyes. Where's the damn building again? Nicolas' request nearly passed him over. Their fourteen hours of hauntingly tranquil Westchester bullshit had left him scrambling for a mental map of the city—something that was terrifying all on its own, considering he hadn't done so in almost forty years.


The address caught in his mind like a leaf in a gutter, and Victor seized the opportunity, nodding rapidly as he ducked into the vehicle. "Yeah. Let's go. You need to be quick." I know you will be. He didn't add it. Even as common knowledge between them, it felt too intimate to be said out loud.


Christ, he was spineless. And it only took eighty years to sink in.


Though he'd committed his attention to the task at hand, not five minutes had passed before he found himself concerned with Nicolas' well being. His bright eyes shifted to his passenger, resting there a moment too long—almost long enough to clip a hefty red Ford heading in the opposite direction.


He snapped open the counsel and flipped the pack of Camel straights lying at the top (Mat was just as addicted as he was, all excuses aside) into Nicolas' lap. "Smoke if you have to," he grumbled. "There's a Zippo in there somewhere. You look tense as shit."


Victor himself was also tense as shit until they re-entered the towering confines of Manhattan, though he never made a grab for the cigarettes. The subtle high had the opposite effect on him that it did on most—especially when he was already so damn wound-up—and he wasn't eager to present himself as a rabid maniac when he reunited with his old "pal". Not unlike most social situations, it wouldn't do him much good when it came to convincing him that he could keep Nicolas under wraps.


An audible sigh slid through his lips when the sickeningly claustrophobic press of the cityscape ate up the clear blue skies, and the din of furious drivers invaded his every thought. This was home. The thought of abandoning NYC for anywhere else because of one stupid fucking mistake had his stomach churning again.


"Okay." It was said somewhat out of the blue, simple and steady as he approached Nicolas' building. "If this goes okay, I'll tell you everything. Okay? We'll do a full disclosure or whatever the hell. Then maybe you'll stop asking me so many damn questions and then insisting you don't need to know." The tinge of bitterness that usually came with such statements had been replaced with his typical deadpan sarcasm; he was getting better, slowly but surely. Maybe the idea of "full disclosure" was more relieving than he'd thought. "Hopefully it'll be easier then."


He turned sharply into one of the few remaining spaces, leaning forward to look through the windshield in a half-hearted attempt to recognize which window was the Cardous'. "Are you sure you've got this, or do you want me to come with you?"
 
Nicolas fumbled to catch the pack of cigarettes as Victor tossed them to him, hands flinging every which only for them to land on his lap in the end. He stared at Victor for a long moment before he flipped the lid open and pulling one out and pressing it between his lips. Finding the lighter, he inhale heavily as he lit the Camel.


He hated Camels.


"I'm not tense, I'm thinking," he countered, face straight forward as he watched traffic go by. And maybe he was tense, but that wasn't really any business of Victor's, was it? It was his fault in the first place, and Nicolas was getting tired of apologizing. He let Victor critique him to the point that he felt sorry for being himself sometimes - with the inscenetant bitching about his bitching, the fact that he liked drugs more than people, that he couldn't change that he hated himself more than he hated anything else from time to time - and it was getting old fast.


The drive wasn't terribly long, but it was long enough to get him thinking. Running into his parents, either of them, as he was packing his life away into a new duffle bag was going to look bad, and they were probably going to ask more questions than he had the answers to. Not like he cared, really. He just hated getting stuck in their mess all of the time, and while he didn't exactly give a fuck about either of them, he didn't want to have them get dragged down into his shit. Because then he'd have to see them and deal with them and Nicolas had already done that long enough.


He bit the inside of his mouth. It'll be easier when I know everything? Knowing everything was just going to make him want to jump off a bridge more than he already did. Knowing everything meant that he was going to continue to be part of his once today was over. Knowing everything cemented the fact that he was seriously and undeniably fucked.


"Yeah, okay," he lied. "Hopefully this all goes well, because I'm tired of having half-assed answers, okay? I wanna know what's going on, and you barely tell me shit."


The parking lot for his building was packed like always. How else was it supposed to be in the city? They found a space after a while that wasn't taken half over by another vehicle or handicapped, and Nicolas unbuckled and reached for the door before turning over his shoulder. "I mean, I don't care?" he started, and then shrugged again. "I might be easier if you're there and my mom comes by, but then she might have more answers, but if I'm by myself and she's there I might never get the chance to leave. Especially since I blew her off yesterday or whatever."


He took his phone out and opened to the conversation with his mother. "Can you believe this?" he asked. "So after I waited at that cafe for hours before she didn't even show up, she texted me 'I hope you feel good about not making our coffee date. Don't know when I'll see you again. Take care of your grades.'" He snorted. "Like she gives a fuck about my grades or whatever, she didn't even care enough to show up on goddamn time."


Nicolas paused, realized he was rambling, and put his phone away. "Anyway, you can come up. If my mom's there, fuck her, if not." He shrugged again. "Good."
 
"Must be terrible," he muttered dryly, eyeballing the skinny carton with a sort of hunger that was anxiously smothered, his thin fingers tightening considerably around the base of the wheel. Admittedly, he was somewhat comforted by Nicolas' ramblings—if not for the utter lack of difference he found between the boy's home life and his own, then because they served as good enough reason to think their relationship wasn't quite as crippled as he'd thought.


Then again, parents were a subject that they seemed eager to rant on with every given opportunity (Victor less so, perhaps, but only when sober). So he was supposed it was all a little more circumstantial than that.


Whatever the case, it was something.


He nodded, slow, fumbling with his seat belt for a moment before managing to peel himself out of the car. "You lead the way, then." He was oblivious. The last time he'd been here—five, six weeks ago?—was the last time he'd ever intended to be here, and he'd long since trashed the mental map of Nicolas' apartment. Even now, such information was far from crucial; if all went well, they wouldn't be returning any time soon.


Victor caught himself wondering briefly how detrimental an effect it might have on the esteemed Mr. and Mrs. Cardou. Would they be upset, somewhere deep down? Relieved? Terrified? That last option was terrifying in itself, but Victor had a back-up plan for it. He wasn't completely useless.


But he supposed he couldn't make any assumptions without having met the bastardss themselves, so his mind strayed to what his own parents would have thought. They'd wish me a good life, and good riddance, he considered. His father would, anyway. His mother might panic, might even be depressed for a while, but after she grew weary of the media and the manhunt, she'd move on, too. And they'd all live happily ever after. Without him. Probably have a second kid, too; something they could put more effort into shaping until he was just the way they wanted him.


They wouldn't have cared that he'd run off with a dangerous stranger. Hell, they hadn't cared; his hypothesis was already confirmed. Here he was, a hitman who'd aspired to be a Harvard graduate (though making roughly the same profit, which was nice), and all because of his goddamn parents.


And, of course, of it was probably his fault, too. But it was always easier to pin these types of things on Mr. and Mrs. Gregor.


A visible sneer had worked its way onto his lips. Victor quickly dismissed it. "What do you want me to say?" He raised his eyebrows at Nicolas, expression open, curious, even. He was perfectly fine at coming up with anything and everything on the spot, but who was to say Nicolas didn't have his own narrative to stick to? "If we run into her—or him—that is."
 
They walked inside the building, Nicolas always at least a half step ahead of Victor, and Nicolas shrugged without glancing back. "I don't care what you say to them if they're there. It's not like I'm gonna have to deal with them once this is over?" He thought about it for a second before turning around when they got near the elevator. "Okay, don't mention what happened yesterday or the fact that I'm moving out to not get them killed. I don't want them to feel like they owe me anything. Not that they would."


His face twitched and he hit the white button on the wall.


"Nothing that'll give 'em a heart attack, but enough of a punch to the face that it gives 'em whiplash." He grinned and stepped inside when the doors open. "You get what I mean?"


As they rode the elevator up the many flights, Nicolas couldn't keep his hands still. They fumbled in front of him, twisting and gripping back and forth. He didn't know why he was nervous. There was no reason for him to be. There was a slim chance that he was going to see either of his parents - his dad wouldn't take a day off work without someone dying and even then that wasn't expected. His mom always had the same schedule: wake up at 6, gone by 8. It was possible that she could come home before the two of them got out of there, and Nicolas was more okay with that.


He just needed to get to his room and clear everything out that he would need. There were clothes shoved everyone and a couple bags he was planning to take, two grams of weed under the fake bottom of his nightstand, his school stuff, his fake ID. He'd get it all together before anyone would even realize what was happening.


With all of Victor's "no drugs" talk and all that bullshit, he wasn't sure if he was going to get everything out that he needed to clean before his parents went through everything. There was an old plastic pharmacy bag on the floor of his closet full of empty prescription bottles and old needles he should have thrown away a while ago. He didn't want to seem like some fucking junkie when Victor was there - especially since he was only cleaning shit up. And he wasn't going to keep using anyway. At least not at wherever Victor was going to have them living.


He'd figure it out.


"They're bitches, so just let 'em have it," he finished, and he walked out of the elevator to his door and pulled out his house keys from his back pocket. It took a second to pull the right one away from the others, but he unlocked the door and pushed it open as he walked inside.


Everything was how he expected it to be. Clean, crisp, white. It wasn't anything else. David made sure the cleaning ladies only cleaned the bathrooms, kitchen, and living room, so he was hoping that his bedroom wasn't touched in the last few weeks since he'd been back. He'd freak the fuck out if something had changed.


"You can eat something, I don't give a fuck. Make breakfast, have a drink, brew coffee, I'dunno." He shucked off his shoes and headed into the bedroom without paying attention to Victor.


When he got there, everything was the same and he sighed as he started shoving everything into the black bag he had pulled out from his closet. Needles, three old razors, and a couple junk food wrappers piled into a trash bag he had taken from the bathroom garbage can. If Victor thought he was a freak or some shit for having so many clothes, he was going to punch him. There was more here than he had thought about taking, but the clothes kept piling in and soon he was grabbing another bag to shove clothes inside.
 
Victor hesitated in the threshold. It wasn't the sickening sense of déjà vu that held him back so much as the idea that by entering, he'd be reigniting a sensation of utter displacement that he hadn't encountered since his last visit. High-rise apartments weren't his speed; he'd always been more of a ground-dwelling type of guy. Height suggested wealth, and Victor, for all his affluence, had never felt particularly wealthy.


But he drifted inside anyway, coaxed more by Nicolas than anything else. He was trailing the kid like a lovesick puppy, he'd admit—but only to himself.


"Right." He didn't take up the offer. His anxiety was too poignant to consider eating, and sharpened significantly by the memory of his last panicky episode in the Cardous' kitchen. Alcohol was similarly out of the question. Possibly forever.


So he lingered at the edge of the room for a moment, eyes locked on the door as if completely prepared to spring into action when and if another occupant happened to come home early. Not as if he could do much, anyway; his first instinct in these types of situations was often murder, and he had some lingering suspicions that Nicolas wouldn't appreciate that in this particular case.


"Just go as quick as you can, alright?" he mumbled, never paying any attention to the fact that Nicolas had already left the room. "I wanna get out of here..." As soon as possible.





And it wasn't just because they had an appointment to make, either. This was the second time in forty years that Victor had found himself standing within a home that was occupied by more than one person—and the first had been just a few months prior. Nothing about the illustrious apartment spoke "family", but it was a hauntingly picturesque memory that Victor found himself identifying all too well with.


Rich, shitty parents who only wanted the best. We're not so different, you and I.





He slunk off in Nicolas' direction, feeling abruptly suffocated by the vastness of the front room. Leaning against the doorframe, he found the corners of his mouth twitching upward as he watched, cautious, but fascinated as ever.


He opened his mouth, and closed it. Some wisecrack about the considerable clothing collection was bound to get him all riled up again, and he had to figure Nicolas was probably already well on his way to having a heart attack before he was old enough to (legally) drink his problems away.


"Most kids like you don't keep their shit quite so—inconspicuous." he mused aloud. He picked up the little things, as was a habit of his: the needles, the razors, the vague sense of stress that was almost always dripping off the kid (but any idiot could have seen that).


He perched on the edge of the bed, neither needing not wanting an invitation, and watched the packing process through what he hoped were casually thoughtful eyes. "'S'impressive, I'll give you that."


 
Nicolas didn't hear Victor draw close, didn't even know they were in the same room until Victor spoke. He turned around toward him, face pinched enough to show discomfort before he looked away again and started packing. "Can't exactly be obvious about it," he muttered, face down as he searched for a specific shirt through the mess. "You think I want my parents diggin' through my shit like they think something's wrong with me? Nah, I don't need that."


With a zip, he picked up the second bag and placed it on top of his bed before looking at Victor again. "I just gotta make sure all this shit gets thrown out" - he gestured toward the plastic bag - "and then we get the hell outta here." Since Nicolas wanted to get out of there quick, he imagined that Victor wanted the same thing.


He left the bedroom and swung the bags from the bed and set them on the floor in the kitchen before raiding the fridge. Never got shit in here. He found a bowl of grapes on a lower shelf and took it out and placed it on the counter. Eating something small was better than not at all, and eating tended to settle his nerves and he still wasn't sure about this meeting or whatever. Nicolas opened a few drawers in the kitchen and pocketed a couple credit cards - the PIN was always 4267 because of his dad's birthday. Better to get the most out of them before he lost the chance.


The apartment felt much emptier than he remembered it feeling. Colder. It was never a warm place, not a home, just somewhere to live. But the fact that he was leaving made it feel all the more distant and reserved. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that.


Nicolas pushed the plastic bag through all the garbage in the can to the bottom and shut the lid as he turned to Victor. "I'm good," he said, and he grabbed the duffle bag and wrapped the strap over his shoulder. Everything in his room that was there could stay there. He'd find another bed or whatever, blankets and shit like that. As long as he had clothes, he'd make do with everything else for now. The backpack fit easily over the strap and he headed toward the front door.


"Looks just like it did when we came in," he said, quirking his lips. He used his free hand - the other carrying the grapes - to pull his key again and open the front door into the hallway. "See, nothing went wrong, this didn't take forever." He locked the door when both of them were out and walked back to the elevator. "Now let's just get to your little meeting or whatever and try not to get killed."
 
"No promises," he said, perfectly aware that his deadpan tone did little to make the statement sound any more or less genuine.


It's the truth, isn't it? Sort of. He'd been having these existential conversations with himself since the crack of dawn. He didn't expect to be shot--but, as with any situation wherein the primary characters were two trained gunmen, it was always a possibility.


But Grant's not as unstable as I am. That's true. It was. In all likelihood, he probably didn't need to worry about being shot. Or stabbed, burned, or bombed, for that matter.


But it didn't matter if he was killed. Mat may have been hurt, but he'd have the rest of his life to get over it, and Victor didn't care, because he'd had half a century to get used to it. He was constantly prepared to die; it was in the job description.


Nicolas, however, was another story. Maybe he genuinely wanted the kid alive and well; maybe his survival was just Victor's one good, selfless act that he had to do before he died. He was betting on a little of both at this point.


Whatever the reason, he found himself desperately, aggressively needing to keep the both of them alive. Technically, he could make no promises; risk was inherent, inevitable. But so long as they were smart about things, he supposed, they should have been able to make it in and out without much trouble.


Should.





Victor shot Nicolas a brief, easy smile in the elevator. His distress wasn't seeping, but it was there, and, for the first time in long time, nearly impossible to disguise. He wasn't a detached person, like Mat or Marcus--he couldn't manage a cool demeanor, kind, reassuring eyes and a soothing voice. He always knew what was happening. And when he knew, he made sure that anyone within close proximity knew that he knew.


It was a habit. One of many.


By the time they re-entered Mat's car, both the smile and the easy curve that replaced it was gone. He was rigid all over again, his hair tousled, his face creased with stress and exhaustion, despite the many hours of heavy sleep he'd been granted last night (and that was quite the miracle, considering Victor's typical routine). His eyes were foggy with a stream of thought that refused to be organized into anything even remotely comprehensive.


"He'll ask about you," he muttered, reminding himself twice that he was speaking to his passenger. "What you're like, what your parents are like. It won't be too tough. Just be honest. Most of the time."


His fingers tightened across the wheel. Am I still talking about Grant?





It was too deep and dark a thought for him to consider. He backed out of the parking lot, narrowly dodging the fender of a white Chrysler, and fumbled gracelessly with the Camels. He had to learn to take his own damn advice.


"He'll ask about me, too." This came out as more of a mumble, mostly to himself. But Victor had already practiced his lines; he didn't fret about his own interrogation nearly so much as Nicolas'.


"So just, uh--stay in the car until I tell you to get out, alright?" There was a long, heavy pause. Victor looked sideways at Nicolas, feeling his stomach knot painfully in response. It felt so wrong. All of this was so goddamn wrong. "I'm sorry it turned out this way."
 
He slipped the seatbelt on over his chest. His bags were resting atop his feet in the front seat, cramped and a little uncomfortable. It felt good to have everything he needed so close. There were no more reasons for him to him to go home, and now he wouldn't have to. There was nothing else he needed that he couldn't get somewhere else. He had money, had clothes, had the ability to buy food. It was all going to be okay.


The circumstances weren't exactly what he wanted - not at all, really. But it was fine. If he didn't have another reason to leave his parents behind, he might have never done it. He needed that last push more than he'd like to admit.


Nicolas snorted. "It's whatever," he muttered back, not exactly keen on being cross-examined. He stared out the window for a long moment before biting at the inside of his cheek. "Is there anything I should be aware of? Like, is this guy sketch as fuck? And when am I supposed to lie? How am I gonna know?"


Because Nicolas was more worried than he thought he was and definitely more than he wanted Victor to know about. It was weak - no, stupid - to be so on edge simply because a guy was going to be asking his questions. Honesty was the best policy, and he'd use that as much as he could, but what was he supposed to lie about? What was "Mr. Grant" going to ask him anyway? How was he supposed to prepare himself when he didn't know shit?


He pressed the back of his hand to the cool glass window. November hadn't gotten cold enough yet to the point that Nicolas needed to wear a coat, but New York was always a tad chilly. And Nicolas seemed to run a little warm so the change in temperature on his hand stilled some of his achy nerves.


The fact that he could see that Victor was nervous made the entire situation worse. It wasn't radiating off of him like other emotions did - annoyance, anger - but Nicolas could see it in the twitch of his lips. The way that he stared over at him for a long moment before apologizing. That he was apologizing . None of that helped.


"You're freaking out," he said, and he looked back out the windshield. "If you go in there on the verge of a breakdown, we're gonna have a problem."


Nicolas licked his lips and cast a glance toward Victor. "I took business seminar last semester, and most of it was bullshit, right? Like any class. They're all full of shit. But we had to give presentations on whatever our topic was and that shit, and our professor always said that confidence was more important than the material. Everything in the business world is based on appearances. No one cares what you think. They care how you act. When he could tell that someone was uncomfortable or didn't know what they were talking about, they got bad scores. If you can't convince someone that you know what you're saying and that you have faith in yourself, you were worthless." He looked back out the window. "This is just business. So what if this guy has everything we need dangling on the ledge. If you don't get your shit together, we're fucked no matter what you say."


He quirked his lip and bit the inside of his cheek again. "That was supposed to be more of a pep talk than it turned out to be." Nicolas rubbed at his forehead and sighed. "I meant to say that you have to go in there knowing what you want and your game plan. If you have nothing, you are nothing. And you are something, so pull yourself together and fix this."
 
The hard set of his lips broadened into a smile, which broadened into a grin as Nicolas informed him of his most fatal shortcoming.


Victor was well aware of his lacking in the confidence department at this particular moment—but it was, admittedly, comforting to have it addressed, especially by someone other than his paranoid psyche. He shifted his cigarette to the other corner of his mouth and adjusted his grip on the wheel, teeth still bared in the most genuine grin he'd been able to manage since last night.


"You're right about that, kiddo," he snorted. "And I appreciate the effort."


His fingers furled into the leather as traffic began to thin, and the buildings in his periphery began to parallel a certain stucco domicile rather than the grandiose skyline he'd become so accustomed to. In a few minutes, they'd pass the "restaurant" itself, with its big bold letters, dark windows, and the grimy back alley with the three snarling Dobermans that feasted on pieces of Marcus' work—and Victor would not let himself look. Things hadn't improved between them since the afternoon of the delivery. There was no reason to think about it.


"But..." Slowly, he brought himself back from thinking about not thinking about past relationships. "I'm already up to date on all that. It's in the job description." It was one of the first things he'd been taught, in fact; he shook hands with the men he'd killed, and had since proven to his companions that he intended to do so again. It was part of the reason (a lot of the reason, if they were being technical) why they were in their present situation. In fact, if Victor hadn't made such an impression with his overwhelming "confidence", he wouldn't have been in New York to begin with, let alone with Nicolas Cardou.


But that was then. He'd been just a little older than Nicolas at the zenith of his assuredness, and the position he'd been granted among his colleagues as a result had left him more than enough to carry him through the rest of his life. He was a confident man--not naturally, but, as Nicolas seemed convinced, that didn't matter, so long as he could look the part.


"You are right, though." MARCUS' passed; his shoulders tensed. The windows were dark. Not like that was new. "But it's not that I can't fake it. It's--" He paused. Several factors accounted for the wrenching in his stomach, but there was one that prevailed above all: he had to be the adult here, and he had to do it alone.


Mathias was the younger of the two (though not by much), but Victor had leaned on him for nearly fifty years. He was calmer, more distinguished-looking, and remarkably more amicable, making his relationship with Victor the perfect excuse for why the latter should be trusted in the first place. But here, he was alone. Mat wasn't here to be an arbiter, to make excuses for him when he scared someone. He was the adult--a seventy-eight-year-old man in a body not even half its age, here with a boy he was supposed to look after like his own. He couldn't heave his faults onto someone else this time. It was his responsibility.


And that was a little terrifying.


"It's just the situation itself," he lied. "I haven't done this in a while. That's all. It'll be fine."


And it would be. If nothing else, he'd make sure of that.


Their meeting place in question was the parking lot of a small but modernized apartment complex; out of the way of the public eye, of course, tucked into the peripheral of a carefully-tended row of bushes that, Victor supposed, seemed inconspicuous enough. But then, no one ever really worried about being inconspicuous anymore.


Victor brought the car to a halt before the other vehicle was even within sight. His heart was in his throat, expression tight, though his voice was steady when he spoke. "You'll know when to lie. He gives off that impression." His lip curled. "Treat him like you'd treat me, if you had any concept of what a serial killer was. And on second thought, get outta the car."


 
Nicolas wasn't about to preen at the acknowledgement. Well, he tried not to. He knew that he shouldn't let all the little things get to him so easily, so quickly, but once in awhile having a secondhand compliment helped his self-esteem whether or not it was meant that way. Nicolas knew that he was right. He didn't need Victor telling him so in the first place.


The layout of the city was becoming eerily familiar, and Nicolas could sense a change in the air as they passed the building from the last time. MARCUS. It wasn't surprising - Victor's stillness. The intensity. It's not like he thought they became friends again or whatever after what had happened - Marcus peeling Victor from the car, Marcus being stronger than Victor, Victor coming back in shambles and marks on his visible body. Victor didn't come off as the type of person who could just shake shit off like that. Not when it got so intense so fast. But maybe that happened all of the time in Victor's life. He seemed rush then, so maybe that was more of a flight or fight response. They could still be friends.


Probably not.


Nicolas let himself stare out the window as Victor talked a little here and there. Pulling into the parking lot was what really put him on edge.


Cookie-cutter trimmed hedges, crisp and clean red and gray lines along the side of the building, jamboree of cars parking horrendously in arbitrary places. The location seemed a little more homely and together to be their destination, but the car was in park before he had a chance to ask.


"Is this gonna turn into another ordeal?" he asked, the words drawn out slowly. "I know I'm not bringing in a box of... medical equipment like last time. But is the same kind of person as... you know." He crossed his arms over his chest and sunk into the seat. "And you want me to act scared? Or hesitant? Or on edge? I mean, I'm kinda already all of those things, but if I need to pull myself together or some shit, I gotta know before he shows up."


He paused and looked around the parking lot slowly, shoulders moving. "He's not here yet, is he? Not sitting somewhere in the shadows? Or is he inside?" Nicolas placed his hand on the belt buckle and bit at the inside of his cheek.


The thought of all of this was making him think of everything leading up until now. How frightened he's been most of the time. How cornered he felt waking up on the cold floor of the library, phone almost dead and no one to call, nowhere to go. Victor had never exactly been hospitable. Even at Mathias's place when he woke up, Victor was gone. He only ever offered him alcohol on that apparently wasn't even to be nice, it was so that he could get something. Sure, Nicolas wasn't sure exactly how everything came to this moment and how in the world the previous night had happened at all, because he thought that he had morals, and fucking a hitman or serial killer or whatever didn't exactly fit the person that he thought he was.


He needed a better mirror.


"Get outta the car?" he asked. "Like, when you do?" He didn't want to. "Isn't that going to look confrontational? Some shit like that? I don't even know what I'm doing, Victor. This guy'd probably shoot me before I knew it was him." He watched Victor needingly. "Is this -- I'dunno. Are we gonna be okay after this? Or should I pull a Hail Mary outta my ass and do one last praise to God?"
 
His glassy golden gaze switched to the doe-eyed manifestation of growing terror to his right. He'd seen enough anxious men in his day to speculate what might have been running through the boy's head, but couldn't say in all sincerity that his reaction to them was much the same as it was to Nicolas.


Occasionally—that being, before all this—such a panicky barrage of questions would have left him thoroughly irritated at the inquisitor. Rarely, he'd ignore them completely. But usually, he'd work up a voracious smirk, invite them to relax, assure them that he had everything under control, as per usual, that everything would be fine—after all, didn't they trust him?


There was something familiar in that reaction. Something like confidence, almost.


But Victor didn't find himself stuck with any of those emotions, or even shifting through them, like the seven stages of grief. There might have been an initial burst of irritation, or haughtiness, just out of instinct—but Nicolas sparked something else entirely.


He felt so fucking bad. Not even guilty; just bad.





Empathetic. That's what it is.





It was inappropriate to be empathetic in his line of work. Difficult, too. And yet, it would become his downfall. Empathy and confidence.


He regarded Nicolas silently for the next several moments, never making any attempt to decipher his block of questioning. I'm too nervous, it occurred to him then; he's just feeding off my bullshit nerves. So much for nonverbal communication.


"Nicolas." He had to clear his throat to keep his voice from wavering. The kid fucking melted him. The obvious panic in his voice, his body language, the rapid flicker of his eyes—all of it, every fucking part of it inspired the strangest, cruelest combination of adoration and arousal that Victor had ever experienced. Thrilling and crushing at the same time. And to top it all off, he was minutes away from one of the men who'd probably felt the same way about him when he'd been a young, vulnerable anklebiter.


To protect or abuse? They only had time for one, so he supposed they were both the lucky ones this time around.


"C'mere." He unfastened his seatbelt, then Nicolas', and curled his arm around the younger man's midsection, bringing him close enough to allow Victor to kiss his temple. "S'okay." His voice was soft, intentionally so. "You just need to relax and shut the hell up."


He peered cautiously out the passenger window, eyes narrowed on the row of hedges. He's here. He'd meant to say it right off the bat. But now he was brushing the hair out of Nicolas' eyes and looking at him like he was the only goddamn thing left in the world, so he supposed that was off the table—for the time being.


"You introduce yourself, act real polite, that's all. I'll take care of the rest." He pressed his lips briefly to Nicolas' cheekbone. Whether it was hormones or desperation or genuine, horrible adoration talking, he couldn't stop himself. Couldn't afford to give a shit anymore. "Don't I always take care of you?"
 
All the anxiety building up inside him was ignored and pushed away as Victor pulled him into a comforting embrace. Comforting wasn't the right word. It was reassuring, really. Nicolas didn't feel pleased afterward, fit into the pocket of Victor's arms. He was calm and much more than he was moments before. It was aggravating and sweet that something so simple, such a insignificant gesture from a previously insignificant person, could make him feel so tranquil and serene.


Nicolas's eyes watched carefully over Victor's shoulder and at the window. He didn't dare pull away -- who knew when he was going to be able to feel so secure again? And Victor was warm in the November chill, so obviously Nicolas didn't want to distance himself.


He felt a hand on his face and he bit his lower lip and continued to stare out into the parking lot, still ignorant to the other man's looming presence. The touches, affectionate in Nicolas's eyes, quieted his racing heart and mind, and he didn't want to do this. He hadn't had much time to think of what this meeting could mean, what it did mean. There were more unknowns that certainties - at least for him - and he was supposed to put all the trust he had in Victor to get them both out of this alive and unscathed. It wasn't hard to believe Victor. Honestly, it was easier to trust him than it probably should have been with their past grievances. But he had a right to be worried; Victor practically instilled that in him from the moment they met.


"I guess," he said, the words mashed into Victor's shoulder. He moved his jaw so that he could speak to the wind. "Can you promise to me that this is gonna end up okay? Or is that asking too much?" The press of Victor's lips lingered on his skin, and Nicolas focused on them more than he thought about the words coming out of his mouth. "If this is just about pleasantries and whatever, do we really have that much to worry about?"


With a slight shift, Nicolas moved his arm to hold Victor's hand tightly in his own. He knew his palms were clammy with nervous energy ticking away inside like a time bomb. He didn't care. Victor could deal with the cold sweat on his skin. Nicolas was tense enough for the both of them and about ready to jump out of his own skin.


Full of nervous energy, he licked his lips and squeezed his fingers around Victor's hand. "I don't want to do this. I'm -- scared. Okay? I know you say you've got this all under control and that you know what you're doing, but I don't, and I've never been in this kinda deal before, alright? You probably have with your job and shit, but I'm not a professional. I can't lie for shit. Fuck, I told you my name was Wesley because I couldn't think of anything else. I don't even know a Wesley."


Nicolas swallowed and pulled back from Victor so that he could see his face. "Is there a way to do this that ends with both of us alive? Are my hopes too high to think that we're not gonna die?"
 
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