Page 67 of Pistols and Plush Toys

When he got to the table, with the way they’d slid into the U shaped booth, the only available seat was next to Gerard.

“Oh,” Elliot said, as Xander hesitated. “We can move–”

“He can sit next to me, no worries,” Gerard said with a grin. “I don’t bite.”

That seemed to put Xander more at ease and he smiled. “Ever?” He asked as he slid in next to Gerard.

Gerard’s eyes brightened, “Only if they ask nicely.”

Meredith groaned.

Xander laughed before his attention moved to the rest of the table and he sobered again. “Uh, hi. Hey everyone. So, uh, I’m sorry for crashing your thing.”

“No, no, the more the merrier,” Meredith said. She offered her hand across the table. “I think I’m the only one you haven’t met. I’m Meredith. You must be Xander.”

“Yeah,” Xander said, shaking. “It’s nice to meet you. You’re Gerard’s college friend, right?”

Her brows went up. “Oh, you’ve been talking?”

“Yeah, we’ve been texting about concerts,” Gerard said, with a shrug like it was no big deal. “I was telling him about how you and I used to go to punk shows in college.”

“Oh,” Meredith said, but now her smile had a knowing tilt to it. “Yeah, we had some good times.”

“Xander’s into music,” Gerard added.

“Oh?” Meredith said. “Is he now?”

Before Xander could answer, they were interrupted by the waiter coming up for drink orders. None of them had touched the menus yet however, so they all quickly reached for them.

Well, everyone but Nikolai. “Water, please,” he said to the waiter while everyone else looked over the menu.

“Same, please,” Elliot said from beside him.

“Water, thank you,” Xander said.

“I’ll have an uh…” Gerard flipped through two pages of the menu. “I’ll have the San Pellegrino, thanks.

“I’ll have the same,” Meredith said, “San Pellegrino, thank you.”

The waiter headed off, but Nikolai turned his attention to Meredith. “No wine today?”

“Not really in the mood,” Meredith said.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Xander was saying to Elliot. “Living at home has been… not my favorite.”

“Living at home?” Gerard asked, sounding curious. Nikolai guessed the topic hadn’t come up in their talk about concerts.

Xander still blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah. Unfortunately. Stuff kinda went real badly with my ex. So now I’m stuck back in my parents house while I build myself back up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Meredith said.

“A bad ex?” Gerard asked, sitting up at attention now. No doubt thinking of Elliot’s ex, the way Nikolai had. “Are you okay?”

“I mean, not like that bad. ” Xander’s eyes flicked to Elliot before focusing back on Gerard. “There was just some light identity theft and him maxing out a bunch of credit cards in my name and ruining my credit for the next decade.”

“He did what now?” Gerard asked, displeasure all over his face.

“It’s fine now,” Xander said, flapping a hand.

“In the past. Totally behind me, except I’m just, you know, working on fixing his mess now.

But once I’m done paying off the debt, I can start taking steps to finally move out again.

Just, uh, until then, things kind of suck a little bit.

” Xander shook his head. “But anyway! That’s a big downer and I’m fundamentally against being a big downer.

That’s why I was asking Elliot earlier if I could borrow his boyfriend. ”

“Because you want your ex dealt with?” Gerard asked carefully, glancing at Nikolai. Almost as if asking permission.

“What?” Xander blinked, obviously taken aback, before he snickered at Gerard’s joke.

“No, of course not. Because Nikolai isn’t a jerk, and it would be nice to have someone actually take me out on a date that wasn’t secretly on my own dime.

Not that I don’t believe in also doing the paying, obviously, but I’d like to know upfront whether or not I’d be the one footing the bill, you know?

” He grinned. “Also there’s a lot to be said for dating mature men. Right Elliot?”

Elliot’s ears turned red and he suddenly became very interested in his menu, even though Nikolai knew for a fact that he’d already long picked out his food. “R-right.”

“Wait a second, dealt with how?” Xander asked, brow furrowing. He focused his attention on Nikolai. “Do you, like, make people swim with the fishes?”

“Oh, u-um…” Elliot also looked to Nikolai, eyes wide.

Nikolai frowned. He’d heard that expression before, but couldn’t recall now what it was supposed to mean. English idioms were difficult. “Is not my business how people swim.”

Across the table, Gerard snorted and Meredith laughed.

“He’s asking if you’re in the Mafia,” Gerard supplied in Russian.

Xander’s attention snapped to Gerard, leaning toward him with wide, excited eyes. “Oh! Okay, wow, hey, say more words. Please?”

Gerard looked startled for only a second, then grinned. “больше слов.”

That got a huff of a laugh out of Nikolai.

“What’d you say?” Xander asked eagerly.

“He’s say ‘more words’,” Nikolai translated.

Xander laughed and Gerard’s smile got wider. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

“No, no,” Xander dropped his chin into his hands. “It’s very important to me to hear you keep talking in whatever language you just spoke. Is it Russian? It sounds like Russian. That's so cool! I had no idea you spoke another language.”

“Yeah, Russian,” Gerard said. “Learned since my best friend was fresh off the boat and shit at English.

“I’m better at English than you are at Russian,” Nikolai said in Russian.

“You have the same amount of brain as a potato,” Gerard shot back.

“So cool,” Xander said, looking between the two of them. “I always wanted to learn a second language. I had a violin teacher who was Russian. The language has such a pretty sound.”

“Oh, you play violin?” Meredith asked. She was eyeing Nikolai and Gerard with deep suspicion, like even though she didn’t understand Russian, she knew they were being inappropriate.

“He’s really good!” Elliot said. “He does busking at the park.”

“Oh, the one downtown?” Meredith asked.

“Yeah. Near the Park Street fountain,” Xander said, beaming.

It reminded Nikolai of the way Elliot lit up when someone talked to him about food.

“I was telling Elliot that he and Nikolai should come by sometime after one of their date nights. I’ll play something romantic!

And then they could slow dance in the park like a movie.

It’d be totally cute. There’s a lot of couples who take romantic strolls in the evening there. ”

What? Nikolai had heard none of this. He turned to look at Elliot. Elliot, who had ducked his head and was pinking.

“Sounds good, okay,” Nikolai said before he could think it through.

He felt both Gerard and Meredith’s eyes on him as soon as he said it. But he was only looking at Elliot.

“Really?” Elliot’s eyes were wide as he finally lifted his head. The blush made him look so pretty.

“If you will like,” Nikolai said. Anything you like—

“Ugh, you’re so cute.” Xander sighed. “I’m so happy for you two. Jealous, but happy.”

“Oh, um, t-thanks,” Elliot said. Nikolai could see how embarrassed he was, but he was going along with their story anyway.

Well. Technically the plan was still in play. Nikolai had eyes on him, it made sense to keep up the story until Mattia was back in the states.

But Mattia was coming back. And if this was going to be his very last opportunity, Nikolai was going to let himself enjoy it for the evening.

Which was why, even though he knew he’d hear about it from his best friends later, Nikolai let himself do the thing he’d been wanting to since they sat down and slid his arm over the back of the booth.

Not technically touching Elliot, but there.

Because, at least for tonight, they were together. They were a cute couple.

The waiter returned with their drinks, three glasses of water and two bottles of sparkling. When he’d left to give them a few more minutes as Xander and Meredith perused the menu, Nikolai noticed Gerard sipping at his bubbling water with cautious interest.

“Since when you are drinking bubble water?” Nikolai asked him.

Gerard looked up from where he’d been inspecting the bubbles, and the expression on his face was the same one he’d made when Nikolai had walked in on him jamming out to the Mamma Mia soundtrack after ranting about the horrible pop sound of it just weeks before.

Like he was guilty and trying to pretend he wasn’t.

“Since now. I’m trying something new. Meredith says it’s good, so I figured I’d try. ”

“And is it?” Meredith asked from behind her menu.

“I mean, it’s not bad,” Gerard said, tilting his glass from side to side. “I like the carbonation. I think next time I’ll get a soda though.”

“You could try a mocktail,” Elliot offered, flipping through his menu. “Almost all the ones here are soda based. So you’d get the carbonation but also an interesting flavor. Like they have the Birch.”

Gerard picked up his menu to look at it again. “Sarsaparilla?” He asked.

“It’s like a root beer flavor,” Elliot explained.

“We have one of those at Blue Snake,” Xander put in. “I think sarsaparilla is pretty trendy right now.”

“Oh really?” Elliot asked, perking up. “I didn’t even see that on your menu.”

“It’s new,” Xander said. “We just added it. It’s called the Root of It.”

Elliot had pulled out his phone and Nikolai could see him scrolling through Blue Snake’s menu. “Wow, you have a couple new ones,” Elliot said. “How’s The Peachy?”

“That one is so good,” Xander said with feeling. “The peach and apple shrub really balance each other out.”

“What in the world is an apple shrub?” Gerard asked.

“It’s an apple fermentation in vinegar,” Elliot said without missing a beat, not even looking up from the menu on his phone.

“Vinegar?” Gerard made a face.

Xander laughed. “It’s not like drinking vinegar,” he told Gerard. “Plus, like I said, it’s mixed with the peach. I promise—it’s really really good.”

“I don’t know…” Gerard said, but he was smiling.

“What about the Pair of Pears?” Meredith asked. She was leaning in to Elliot now, looking at the menu on his phone. “It’s got pear and lime—Gerard, you love lime.”

“We’re not even at Blue Snake right now,” Gerard pointed out. “So it sounding good is kind of a moot point.”

Elliot’s head came up, as if realizing he’d gotten absorbed in the menu. “Oh, uh, right well—” He set his phone on the table and picked up the menu again. “I think there was a lime one here too…”

Gerard’s eyes found Nikolai, “Help,” he said in a stage whisper. “They're ganging up on me.”

Nikolai chuckled. “You were wanting fancy drink. They are helping.”

“Yeah! There’s the Limerance,” Xander said, finger tapping on the menu as he showed it to Gerard. “Honeydew, lime, mint and ginger.”

“I think you’d like that Gerard,” Meredith said. “You should get it. I’m glad you tried sparkling water, but don’t suffer.”

“But what if I don’t like it?” Gerard said, hand on his water, swirling around the glass. “I don’t want to waste another drink. Maybe the water was enough adventure for one day.”

“Hey, if you don’t like it, I’ll drink it,” Xander said. “I like lime too.”

“Oh, see? There you go,” Meredith said.

“You do?” Gerard asked him.

“Sure,” Xander said with a smile. “So go ahead and get it. Oh! The waiter’s coming back.”

They all ordered their food and, after a little more nudging from the table at large, Gerard ordered the new drink.

Maybe it was the good food, the friendly banter, or just having all of his favorite people in one place for dinner, but by the end of dinner Nikolai was feeling unaccountably fond.

Elliot was at his side flushed happily from the food and conversation, more animated than Nikolai had ever seen him. Like he’d finally, finally shaken off the weight he’d been carrying, and was letting himself enjoy life again.

Nikolai was glad they’d invited Xander out. He had such a positive history with Elliot, and it was clear that having Xander here helped Elliot to open up more. Made Elliot less self-conscious. More confident.

It was beautiful to see.

“Alright,” Meredith said as she emptied the last of the sparkling water into her glass.

They were waiting on desserts even though everyone was stuffed.

“Before we wrap this up, let me make a toast to the new Lucky Clover. May it prosper and not get blown to shit, because I’m sick to death of talking to insurance agents. ”

Gerard snorted the same time as Xander said, “Your store got what?”

Nikolai picked up his own glass, and he reached over to clink it with Meredith’s. “за все хорошее.”

“до дна,” Gerard said, clinking his second Limerence.

“Oh finally!” Xander cheered as he raised his glass, leaning into Gerard’s side. “Say more, say more!”

Beside him, Elliot laughed and raised his own glass. They clinked.

Gerard grinned and began to rattle off some Mamma Mia lyrics in Russian. It caught Nikolai off guard and he choked on his water with full bellied laughter.

Which was fine, because the glowing smile on Elliot’s face after he recovered made it more than worth it.