Page 65 of Pistols and Plush Toys

He was drowning.

Elliot reached for the nearby wall as he staggered into it. He’d barely eaten anything the last two days, not having had the stomach for it, and he knew he was weak and woozy from the lack.

“Breathe,” Nikolai urged. There was some shuffling, the sound of a zipper, then a soft bundle was being shoved into Elliot’s hands. A strong arm curled around him, Nikolai preventing him from falling all the way to the floor.

“Elliot, breathe,” Nikolai’s voice said. “Is okay. You’re safe now. I’m not leaving you with him.”

The words didn’t make any sense in Elliot’s head, and he squeezed the soft thing in his hands.

He looked down to find familiar orange fur.

Apricot.

Elliot’s chest split open, and then he really was crying, tears streaming down his cheeks as his shoulders heaved. Emotion moved through him, crushing him, pulverizing the walls he’d tried to build to withstand Mattia.

He was so, so tired.

“Is okay,” Nikolai repeated. “But we have to go. Is there anything you’re needing from here?”

Was there anything he needed? He didn’t understand the question. “I don’t–I don’t know. You have to go,” he said again. All he knew was that Nikolai couldn’t be here when Mattia came back.

“Yes,” Nikolai said firmly. “We are both going. Do you need anything? To take with you?”

Did he need anything from this apartment? Elliot shook his head dumbly. The only item of sentiment he had was the one right now in his arms. The one he thought he’d lost forever.

“Then we’re going,” Nikolai said, and his arm around Elliot's shoulder began ushering him from the room.

Elliot went, body weak and mind spinning circles.

They went down the hall and down the stairs before Elliot could even wrap his head around what was happening. But Nikolai's hands on him were strong and careful as he guided them down the stairs without incident.

At the bottom of the stairs was a man dressed in the same tactical attire, weapon in hand. Pyotr. He and Nikolai nodded at each other, and then they started back through the apartment and toward the elevator.

There was another man in the elevator, Alex, and a woman he didn’t know, who was dressed in a housekeeping uniform. They all crowded in, and the elevator doors closed.

Elliot bit his lip to keep his whimpers in, terrified that when the doors opened again, Mattia would be there.

But when the doors did open, the lobby was empty. Nikolai guided him out and they went right, walking quickly down the block. It was dusk, cars and pedestrians everywhere. His feet were bare. He’d forgotten shoes.

Then suddenly, they were at a minivan and Nikolai was helping him inside.

“We’re done, heading back now,” Nikolai said. It took Elliot far too long to realize he was speaking to someone not present, that there was an earbud in his ear. “Get out.”

There were more clips of conversation, but Elliot tuned them out, without the capacity to intake anything else. He felt sick and tired down to his bones, but it felt too pathetic to be the person in the car crying and curled around a stuffed animal.

He needed to not be a bother.Moreof a bother.

The drive back to Nikolai’s house felt like a dream. Then the car was through the gates and up the driveway.

The van stopped. Nikolai said something in Russian to Alex, Pyotr, and the woman, and then ushered Elliot out of the van.

Nikolai guided Elliot up the steps and into the house, a careful hand at the small of Elliot’s back. He was warm, and everything else about Elliot was so cold.

He didn’t know what was going to happen now.

Nikolai took him not to the bedroom he’d been staying in, but to a different one. Elliot had just enough awareness to notice it was a regular room. It hadn’t been stripped bare, and there were no bars on the windows. It looked like every other part of Nikolai's house. The furniture was plush, the bedspread colorful, and the large armchair by the window looked cozy enough to curl up in. There was even art on the walls, bright, artistic shots of cities.

“Here, sit,” Nikolai said as he led Elliot over to the bed.

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