by Reid Astor
He puts down the pen and wonders how it lines up with what Lars texted him. "Outside," he says, standing and clicking the key he's kept in the front door as he ushers the kid on out. He's aware of how Viola's eyes follow them as he shuts the glass behind them, her red hair all the more highlighted by the incandescent lights within the café. "Okay. Talk quickly."
He ignores the vibrations of his phone. Lars can wait.
Etburn shivers visibly and sticks his hand in his hoodie pockets, a hesitant grin coming over his features. He’s a figure like a silhouette cast upon the faint purple shades of the twilit street, shivering, lonely to the artist’s eye. "It's the mother of ops, boss. I'm actually a little excited. Do you think I'll get a promotion from this?"
Baranov wants to tell him a thousand things about the deeds his old friends had done to get a promotion. It itches on his tongue, the words of violence and degradation. This child. Instead, he forces a calm on the outside and says, "Tell me more."
The uncertainty enters his brown eyes then, and the youth looks around, as if there would be anyone to pay attention on these deserted streets. "I'm..." he murmurs. "I... this was passed to me straight from my captain, I-"
Quickly, Niklas spirits him away from the view from within the cafe, towards the alley just by his store out of eyeshot. "Novik," he says, "just tell me. What exactly is she bringing in through my shop? You can tell me, brother to brother. I won't get in the way of your promotion, why would I? We have the same skin, you and I." He feels the pitch of his voice break a little with that lie, but carries forward, feeling Etburn's eyes burning through him. "Do the right thing. Tell me."
What Etburn says is barely audible.
Niklas inclines his head and keeps a firm grip on the kid's shoulders, feeling like he's grounding him. Keeping him from wandering off into the uncertainty. "Say that again."
"Blow," he tears the word out like a band-aid off a wound. "Drugs. Cocaine, meth, I don't know. Drugs. They're doing the deal in your store, boss. Straight from off production, and your cafe's gonna see it happen next week during renovation. So much money," he sighs, looking to the ground. “I can’t really understand it myself. It’s crazy, boss. It’s crazy we can just do this.”
He lets go of him, trying to stave off the images of bricks of drugs sidled in boxes in his very own cafe's main room in the middle of the night, the curtains ensconcing the windows and a band of thugs lounging in his chairs. He shuts his eye for a moment, chewing the inside of his lip. "Yes. This is wonderful news. I always knew Madam Morris would never pull punches."
"Oh yeah," Etburn says, enthusiasm breaking out the youth in his voice. "Just think. With the kind of money from this, she could take down all her rivals in the city. We're part of something big, boss." He beams, uncertainly, in spite of the cold.
It's not easy to act like he's happy when he's imagining pounds of drugs changing hands in his shop, but Niklas makes an effort to actually smile, feeling his cheeks twitching in resistance. He turns away, brushes a hand over his eye, and says, "I never thought it would actually happen. Tell your captain I send my regards and we will do our best to make the place ready. Let's go inside-" As he speaks, his phone vibrates again, and this time a sense of urgency falls over him. He halts. "Go ahead, Novik, I'll be with you shortly. We'll drink to her, to Madam Morris." It's with this that he shoos the kid back inside and reaches for his phone.
"im coming to get you in 20 pack a bag. Unknown number, 23:34"
"nik Unknown number, 23:40"
He sighs, feeling a headache come on at the frustratingly short, demanding texts. He writes back, "What?" as quickly as he can before going back inside, tearing past Etburn and Viola before they can so much as say a thing.
Tethys is at the counter, his cadaverous face contracted in joy at the abrupt appearance of his boss. "Captain, I've finished the floor, the dishes, the bathroom-"
"Good," he says, "you can go-" as fast as he can as he marches up the stairs. He can vaguely hear Etburn raising his voice in some alarm, and Viola's mellow squeak of a voice trying to say something to calm him down, but it all disappears as he makes it to his room above, swinging the door open and heading for his drawer. A bag, he won't bother with, but he takes his wallet and jams it in his back pocket.
His phone whirs against his leg. He snaps it out and unlocks it, puzzled by the wall of text that pops up on the screen in the darkness of the badly-lit room.
"i'm parked down the block. take a walk, throw your bag out the window and retrieve it outside so your staff don't see you leaving with it. better yet, leave by the window, i don't give a fuck. i'm taking you to a hotel for tonight. we need to talk but you can't be seen with me. Unknown number, 22:42"
His phone shakes in his hand and a new message pops up. "it's about your dad. among other shit. Unknown number, 22:43"
Niklas takes a breath and hopes the man is not wasting his time. As quickly as he can, he circles the room for items, throwing a set of clothes into a haversack that he's kept rotting at the bottom of his shelf, as well as his taser, rosary, and- after a moment's consideration- the switchblade he keeps under his mattress.
He stops only when he realizes Viola is standing in the doorway. "Mr. Baranov?"
Slowly, he stands up straight, keeping his back to her. "Yes."
"Is everything... Are you all right?”
He feels his breath constrict. Yes, he has to leave for tonight, but what about Viola? Does he just leave her here alone? "Faraday. I have to go out tonight. It's not safe for you alone here. Go stay with Tethys or Etburn or one of your friends. Leave as soon as possible."
When he turns around, the girl's face is so blanched he thinks, for a moment, that there’s something wrong.
Almost violently she throws up her hands and runs them through her red curls, smoothing them back over and over as she turns around and seems to swallow down a mouthful of terrified words. She seems almost to be choking as she speaks. “If I'm a burden, just say it, Mr. Baranov." Her eyes well up, scrunched and reddened with grief. In that halting moment she seems to catch herself, and awareness returns to her features, turns them still and almost stony in the darkness. "I'm sorry. I'll put in my resignation tomorrow, I-"
He doesn't know what else to do, so he drops the bag and paces forward as quickly as he can without alarming her. She's small, short as well, and is an ill fit between his arms in a hug, but he tries anyway to silence her with it.
And Niklas thinks that he shouldn't find it so unusual to feel another human being so small in his arms like this. She's just a woman, he tells himself, this is how people feel. People who aren't Lars Verdura and don't crush you against fencings and envelope everything you are with voracious anger. People who don't want to use you. Without realizing it, he lets out a sigh. Viola, on her part, is quiet, burying her head in his chest and wrapping her arms around his torso, holding the grip and not saying a word. "Don't quit," he says, eventually, into her shoulder.
"I… I'll be fine here," she mumbles back into his chest. “Don’t make me leave.”
He breaks the embrace and studies her face for any signs of uncertainty. Then, he picks up his bag and takes out the taser, wordlessly slipping it into her hand. “Please… Tell the others I’m not feeling well. That they should leave.”
She takes it but doesn’t look away from him. It’s startling how serene she’s gotten with the weapon in her hand. “Just tell me…” she says, softly, “Wherever you’re going in such a hurry, that it’s a safe place, that…”
His phone whirrs in his pocket, impatiently. Her eyes travel to it, then settle on the ground. “Just tell me if you’re not okay, Mr. Baranov.”
“It’s Niklas,” he says, before he can catch himself. He doesn’t lie to her by saying anything else, just goes to the window and checks the view, the distance to the alleyway ground outside. He hefts the bag back up and tests the windowsill.
“I want to help,” she says, quicker, now, a step of something impatient turnin
g her voice high and urgent, staccato. “I can tell about people who need-“
He snaps, “It’s not your business to help with, Viola.”
* * *
The hotel Lars takes them to turns out to be a multi-storey affair wedged in a block between a handful of other shady competitors in what seems to be the penumbra of the bar and red light district.
The man wears a dark, brimmed hat the entire time he goes through the check-in, not looking at Niklas once- in fact, ever since he's gotten in the car Lars has been surprisingly short with him. He wouldn't take the man to ever get so tense, but there he is- hunched over the paperwork in this dingy place straight out of some east coast crime movie and cursing when his pen rips through the paper on accident.
The clerk, to her credit, maintains a steady, uninterested, bubblegum chewing composure as Lars takes a second form to check in with, muttering foul words the entire time. There's something in her vacant look that tells Niklas that this bullshit happens all the time. He preoccupies himself with the tragic-looking, dying potted plant that hovers at the edge of the counter.
When Lars is finally done checking in and tearing the keys straight out of that poor receptionist's hands, he grabs Niklas by the hand and marches them wordlessly up the stairwell. They rush through the bad lighting and the worn down, mildew-eaten plaster walled stairs to the second floor hallway, and Niklas loses himself in the thick but welcoming chill of that place. Hotel air, he thinks, should always smell this way- heavy and reassuring but also cold and merciless. A proper blank to put a picture on.
As soon as Lars shakes free the unlocked door, Niklas feels himself all but manhandled inside the room. The man shuts the door behind them with a decisive, short slam, locking it and throwing the key, hat and bag down on the ground at the same time.
Only then does Niklas realize that Lars is gasping for breath right in front of him. He raises a hand and sweeps the wall for the light switch, finding instead a pull-trigger that sets off a dim overhead bulb at the entrance of the room. Lars winces at that, wine-colored eyes screwing shut for a second before fluttering back open and looking at him.
Finally, the man's expression drops off and he gives a high, raw laugh. "Ya feel like a secret agent yet, Nikky?"
"I feel like I want to know what's- what are you doing?" Lars has paced past him and, quite unceremoniously, is tearing off his trench coat, his suit jacket, and starting on the buttons of his shirt and unbuckling his shoulder holsters. When he realizes he's being stared at like the goddamn lunatic he is, he cranes his neck over his shoulder and says, "Look, I need a fucking shower. Keep talking or join me or both." Carelessly, he continues to strip, throwing each article of clothing on the floor. "I'll tell you about your dad later. So shut up and relax, shit, do a bump or something, you look like you could use it. Baggie’s in the suit pocket."
He holds his breath, but then thinks How long are you going to let him hold over you like this? And paces forward, feeling the anger blooming up inside him like a steady stream that's been dammed off too long-
It's a flash of a moment of blackness until Niklas comes back, and Lars is on the bed half-dressed, his red-brown eyes flickering calmly as Niklas realizes his hands are on his throat. He stops, hearing the man's breath start up deep and measured through his grip, Lars' pulse strong and beating back from his arteries into his fingers.
They stare at each other for a moment, Niklas wondering where the fuck to take this, and Lars laying there prone and seemingly relaxed; and then, the man shifts a hand and grips right into his crotch. The sting jolts up his entire body, the pain centered there in Lars' palm, and he feels an unintentional keening of pain slip from between his teeth.
He tears his hands off of Lars and makes to roll away, only for the man to raise another arm and take a fistful of his jacket and slam him down on top of him. "Don't be a tease now,” Lars says, softly, into his shoulder, and rolls them over, hand still gripping his balls as he pushes him down into the sheets, both their legs dangling off.
He curls a bit beneath Lars in spite of himself, hands bunched into fists on the sheets as he tries to wriggle out of the man's grip. The pain is blinding, it's sucking the breath out of him desperate suck after desperate suck for air, his blood thumping hard in his arteries as every desperate breath seems to come to nothing- his diaphragm's jammed in pain- he groans into Lars' chest, biting back the noises of pain. "Stop-“ the word grinds up straight from his throat.
Lars stops, but the pain remains, pressed in and curling like sour milk in his abdomen as the man's palm hovers over his crotch. He feels the stab of discomfort in his throat as he tries to inhale, feels the man's roaring heartbeat steadily thumping against his cheeks. Up this close, he can't tell if the beads of sweat on his face is his own anymore. He can see the infinitesimal scars and bruises mapping Lars' torso, the strange circle of a formative scab in the center of it all like a target just inches from his parted lips.
The air is filled with the sound both of them panting. Niklas doesn't have the strength to move with the needling ghost of pain haunting his head and his groin. His grip on the sheets loosens and his entire body makes a struggling attempt to relax, even as Lars' weight grows more and more real and he can feel something pressing against his inner thigh.
"Why did you do that?" Lars asks him, at length.
He tries to speak, but his voice comes up dry and broken and far more childish than he wants to hear, so he presses his lips shut. Lars pushes himself up on his arms above him, looking at him with a frown, and Niklas thinks that no one has ever looked at him so piercingly before. To his surprise, the man raises his hand and brushes his cheek, bewilderment showing on his furrowed eyebrows and the thin line of his lips. "You're almost crying," he says, sounding almost awed.
Of course I'm nearly crying, you grabbed my balls, he wants to yell. Better yet, he wants to kill the man. When Lars touches his face so gently and presses a finger on his blindside, on his eyepatch, he realizes how long it's been since he's cried and remembered this feeling- the dampness of the cloth is hot against his skin. "I didn't even know you could cry on that side," Lars says, voice distant and tinged with interest, swung like a low whisper.
Niklas shuts his eye.
"Fuck, you’re beautiful,” the darkness says to him, the hand on his body rubbing in closer, visceral and hungry. In spite of himself, he groans out in the stinging pain that Lars is so gently doling out to him. "Niklas Baranov," the man hisses, "why do you insist on fighting me? Why do you do this to me?"
He reaches up, finding Lars' torso and digging his fingers into his ribs, scraping or counting, he doesn't know. He doesn't have enough arm space to punch him, not enough strength to roll off his weight when he's this close and his hand is this near to his eye. For the first time in a long time, he feels fear like a stone amassing in his throat. "Do what?" he asks.
He winces when the man kisses that very lump in his throat. And then the pain- the subtle sting of the bite Lars makes through the collar of his turtleneck right now his skin. "You make me want you so hard," Lars says, "when you fight me. Do you know that? Do you have any clue how breathtaking you are when you get your crowbar out and scare the shit out of lawyers, huh?" he laughs, and Niklas feels him tear down the hem of his turtleneck and bite. He draws a breath and feels the heat against his neck, the soft sting of Lars sucking on him as he grips and massages on him below.
Lars gasps a little himself when he lets him go, looks up into his eye, and says, "I didn't realize it either, couldn't put a finger on it until that night. But fuck when you get that look on your face I just wanted to tie you down and fuck you like an animal."
"You're a maniac," he realizes. "You're wrecked, twisted scum."
"Yes," Lars says, gripping his chin. "Maybe.”
He rakes his fingers over his skin and feels the disappointment, the futility fall on him as Lars doesn't squirm in pain, he smiles. He forces resolve into himself, imagines his insides are made of stone instead of
flesh and pain collapsing around him. That Lars is just flesh beneath his fingers, and that it doesn't matter that there are still traces of tears speckling his eyes. "No. I didn't come here for this, you fucking freak.”
“Freak,” Lars snorts, taking a piece of him between his teeth and tugging, running his flesh through his canines and sucking through it. "Freak. Keep talking. What else do you have for me?"
Firmly, "No."
He leans in and moves his face closer, and whispers into his lips, "I told you to learn how to pay me." He puts his hand round the nape of his neck and pushes them together, the kiss fervent but restrained. The mannish flavor of smoke and some drink fills his mouth- and Niklas feels it in his chest, the thumping, feels the man's hand move from his groin to his lower back, rolling them both gently on their sides and locking their legs together. “Niklas, isn’t there any piece of you in there that wants me even a fraction as much as I want you?”
