Page 13 of Pistols and Plush Toys

Nikolai set himself recurring reminders to check on Brooks every three hours.

It wasn’t that he thought himself likely to forget he had a guest locked in one of his spare bedrooms, it just made him feel better to know he would be checking in on Brooks regularly.

That as busy as he was with everything going on, it wasn’t going to slip his mind that he had someone here against his will.

Brooks was here to make Vitale behave, but that didn’t mean Nikolai had to be cruel to him. If Brooks would be… staying for a few days, until Vitale got his head out of his ass, the least Nikolai could do was try to make him relatively comfortable.

But when he kept his promise and looked in on Brooks at eleven, Brooks just watched him with those wide hazel eyes from his position on the bed where he was seated, body thrumming with tension, until Nikolai gruffly left him alone.

He was starting to get the sinking feeling that “relatively comfortable” was going to be an impossible goal when it came to Brooks.

When he poked his head in at two, carrying a tray with several different options from his favorite burger place, Brooks looked somehow noticeably paler than he had at eleven. Nikolai strode into the room and opened the mini fridge to check the contents.

They were untouched.

He rounded on Brooks, trying to fight down his glare. Was this a tactic of some sort? A hunger strike?

Brooks shrank back with a sharp intake of breath.

Maybe Nikolai hadn’t been successful at not glaring. He inhaled and let it out, schooling his expression to neutral. “Is bad for you, not eating,” he said, doing his best not to sound accusatory.

“I-I’m sorry,” Brooks whispered, hunching his shoulders.

Fucking hell. If Brooks was trying to make Nikolai feel like the bad guy, he was doing a very good job.

You’re doing this for a reason, he reminded himself. Because Vitale needed to be reined in.

But thinking of Vitale, everything Nikolai knew about that rat bastard, it was hard to imagine this timid, shaking creature who apologized with every breath hanging off Vitale’s arm and reveling in his flashy spotlight.

Nikolai squashed his sigh and set the tray down on top of the mini fridge, then bent down and pulled out a water bottle and a bag of trail mix. He held them up to show Brooks. “See? Is sealed. Is very safe.” I’m not going to hurt you.

But he couldn’t help glancing at Brooks’s wrapped wrists, his split lip.

Nikolai set both things on the tray alongside the fast food, not wanting to scare Brooks more by getting closer to him, and left the room.

Once he had relocked the door, Nikolai rubbed at his temples. He needed a drink. But he couldn’t allow himself one yet. Not until it was late into the evening and Brooks was safely asleep, no longer relying on Nikolai to check on him.

He could already hear Gerard and Meredith having an opinion about that, but Nikolai was just going to have one. Just one drink.

Just enough to forget this whole horrible situation for a few hours.

At five, Nikolai knocked to announce himself and then opened the door. He immediately looked to the tray, which was still sitting on top of the mini fridge. The bottle of water was gone, as was the bag of trail mix. The rest of the food looked like Brooks hadn’t even had a taste.

Nikolai swallowed down the bitter taste in his own mouth and decided on an early dinner. Brooks had barely eaten all day—surely the man had to be hungry. Maybe he just needed to get out of his room for a bit.

Except when he brought Brooks out for dinner, he once again only picked at his food. Like earlier, Nikolai tried to ask if he wanted anything else, but that had only made Brooks shrink down in his seat as though afraid Nikolai was going to backhand him for being obstinate.

Fucking hell. Okay yes, the kid was being held here against his will, but did Nikolai really come off as the kind of person who would just smack someone around for finding dinner unappetizing?

He could practically hear Meredith’s voice, all the things she’d warned him about in this plan. How he was toeing a dangerous line kidnapping someone who really had no business being between Vitale and himself.

Nikolai had been forced to brush off her concerns because he didn’t have any better options, but a part of him had known she was right.

Meredith had the annoying habit of always being right.

But what else could he do? A bit of light kidnapping was a small price to pay for not letting Mattia Vitale ruin this city.

Still, Nikolai felt so shitty when he finally took Brooks back to his room after dinner that he didn’t even let himself have that drink he’d been thinking about all day. He marched himself to his bedroom with his laptop and did more work until the late hours of the night, stone cold sober.

It felt like penance.

The next day Nikolai kept up with what he had started yesterday afternoon and knocked on Brooks’s door in warning first, giving the man a few seconds to get himself together. He hoped it would help Brooks not be so scared.

He was… disappointed it didn’t make any headway in Brooks's jumpiness. The man still picked at breakfast, barely eating, and by lunch Nikolai was beginning to get seriously concerned about the amount of food, or lack of, that Brooks was consuming.

If this kept on, Brooks was going to wither away before Vitale saw reason, and Meredith would have to break her oath about physical violence.

Nikolai needed a different tactic. Pressing Brooks about the food only seemed to make him more nervous, and less inclined to eat. Silence, likewise, seemed to unnerve him.

When they sat down for dinner, and Brooks stared down at his plate of pasta with the air of a man about to head to the gallows, Nikolai cleared his throat. “So. Your clothes, they fit?”

Brooks, who was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt that did hang a little big on him, looked up, fork clenched in his fist. His knuckles were white. He met Nikolai’s eyes and then his gaze returned to his plate. His shoulders hunched. “Yeah, they um. They fit fine. Thank you.”

“My assistant Meredith, she is wanting to know if you’re needing anything different,” Nikolai said.

Brooks’s gaze darted up again, then back down once more. “Yeah. Everything is–it’s good. Thank you.”

“Meredith does good work,” Nikolai said, trying to just get something out of Brooks that wasn’t abject terror. “But she is texting me five times a day to see if you’re needing anything.”

“I-I don’t need anything,” Brooks said quietly.

“If you think of something, you tell me, yes? Meredith, she is saying I’m taking bad care of you.

” Which wasn’t exactly a total lie, but Nikolai maybe tried to push the point.

Brooks was very clearly scared of him, so scared that he probably wouldn’t ask for anything he needed.

That was… not good if his stay here was going to be more than a couple days.

And it was beginning to look like it would be more than a couple of days.

“Your wrists,” Nikolai tried, beginning to feel desperate. “How they are doing?”

Since Brooks was wearing the too-big long sleeved shirt, Nikolai couldn’t see if he was still wearing the bandages.

“Better. Thank you for–for dressing them.”

“Is nothing,” Nikolai said. “I’m not meaning for you to get hurt. I’m sorry it’s happen.”

Never in a million years would Nikolai have envisioned he’d be apologizing to a man he was holding captive.

Not that Nikolai had ever imagined he’d have a hostage like this, but his father would have dragged him straight to the basement for even daring to think about admitting he’d done something wrong.

But Nikolai was not his father. There was no basement here. And Brooks was just so… soft. There was a delicacy about him, and two days in Nikolai didn’t think he was faking it. Every line in Brooks’s body screamed that he needed to be taken care of. Treated gently.

Maybe if Nikolai managed to be gentler, Brooks would stop being so terrified of everything.

Maybe he would eat.

For the love of American freedom, Nikolai needed this man to eat.

Brooks's eyes met his again. There was a wrinkle between his brows, as though what Nikolai had just said had confused him. It probably had.

Nikolai saw a glimmer of opportunity there.

“You want shower after dinner?”

He watched Brooks sink his teeth into his split lip that Brooks seemed intent on not letting heal. “Stop biting,” Nikolai said, and managed not to growl it this time. Adding, “Is hurting you,” so Brooks would understand why Nikolai was so unhappy with his habit.

Brooks cringed. “Sorry! I’m sorry.”

Nikolai sighed wearily. “Is hurting you,” he said again. “Is why I’m not want you biting.”

“Sorry,” Brooks said again. At least this time he sounded less like he was expecting a blow. “I—it’s just a habit. I-I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

It was the most Nikolai had heard Brooks speak at one time. That was progress, right? “But your lip, is hurting, yes?”

Brooks licked his lips this time. But at least he wasn’t sinking his teeth into the abused flesh. “I guess I-I don’t notice stuff like that anymore. Sorry.”

An unpleasant coldness slithered down Nikolai’s spine at the wording. Brooks didn’t notice having a split lip… anymore?

Why was that something he’d grown used to?

In the face of Nikolai’s silence, Brooks looked back down at his plate. Nikolai tried not to watch too closely as he took a bite of the spaghetti. Brooks chewed slowly, but it didn’t seem as though he was enjoying the flavor.

Well, that made two of them. Nikolai had boiled the water for the pasta and then combined it with a jar of pre-made sauce, because he couldn’t cook for shit.