Page 41 of Pistols and Plush Toys

He watched as Brooks collapsed at the answer. His shoulders pulled in and his hands tightened around the giraffe. His eyes went distant.

“Oh,” he said dully.

“You did not know?” Nikolai couldn’t help but ask. Know it for real.

“No,” Brooks said, barely an exhale.

Nikolai pressed a hand to his own eyes, rubbing them in frustration and pain. This was a new level of agony he hadn’t anticipated. He needed a fucking drink.

But first, he should–he should get Brooks out of this bathroom and back to bed. Or maybe to the kitchen, for breakfast.

Would Brooks eat? Nikolai didn’t think the odds were good, but he should at least try. He should do anything than just sit at Brooks’s feet in the bathroom.

“Hey,” he said gently as he got back up. “You think you could eat? Maybe drink something hot?”

He almost held out his hand to help Brooks up, but thought better of it. He had a flash of memory of himself on the steps manhandling Brooks by his arm. He looked down and could see the redness still there, the way it might bruise.

He might not be as bad as Vitale, but he wasn’t acting much better today. He needed to be better, at least when it came to Brooks. This man didn’t deserve any of Nikolai’s anger.

“I–” Brooks started, but the words fell away. He looked wounded, lost.

“I’m know,” Nikolai said gently. “Is okay. Let’s–”

“I want to do the call,” Brooks blurted out.

“What?” Nikolai asked, startled.

“You were going to have me call him,” Brooks said. “I-I want to do it. If it—if I can make a difference, if I can convince Mattia to stop doing… what he’s doing, I want to try.”

Nikolai stood there looking at Brooks and had immediate second thoughts. If Vitale was abusing him, making Brooks do this was… not good.

“You have had… difficult morning,” he started.

Then Brooks was pushing himself to his feet, wincing as he put weight on the leg. Nikolai needed to get him painkillers. “I can do it,” he said again.

But even as he said it, there was trembling in his limbs. His hands were still wrapped tight around the giraffe, and everything about him was screaming at Nikolai that he shouldnot let Brooks make this call. That doing so would cost Brooks something vital.

It reminded Nikolai of himself. Of his youth, when he’d forced himself to do the things his father had ordered him to. Before he’d hardened, before he’d killed off those tender things inside him, he’d been like this. Trembling. Afraid. Wanting to do the things that someone was asking of him, even if it destroyed him.

No. They weren’t going to do the call. At least not right now. If it wasn’t something that Brooks could handle, Nikolai wasn’t going to put him through it.

“We will have breakfast,” Nikolai ended up saying. “Take time to think. I’m not wanting to hurt you again.” He gestured out the bathroom door.

He didn’t miss the relief that flashed across Brooks's face. As much as he’d been trying to sound brave, he hadn’t wanted to do it. Not really.

So that settled it.

They went to the kitchen. Nikolai made himself a strong cup of coffee and put on the water for tea after asking if Brooks would like that or coffee, and forcefully pulled his gaze from the liquor cabinet to his phone, flicking through breakfast options before settling on ordering nearly everything from his favorite local diner.

He wanted a drink so badly it ached, but he sipped his black coffee and held himself back. It wouldn’t help Brooks calm down if he started slamming shots of vodka at seven in the morning.

Brooks sat at the bar stool beside him, giraffe still in his lap. When the food came and they moved to the dining room, Brooks picked at it slowly, but managed to finish half a banana and pecan pancake.

Nikolai would take that as a win this morning.

Chapter 9: Elliot

Elliot lost his breakfast almost as soon as he was returned to his room and locked inside.

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