The Flesh Cartel #6: Brotherhood

bathroom? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
Is he . . . taking care of me? Offering to wait on me? Me?
“Thirsty, sir.” He rubbed the front of his neck in illustration, although with how rough his voice was, that really wasn’t necessary. He had to piss, too, but frankly he didn’t trust his legs to carry him to the bathroom right now, and the lurking pain terrified him. If he moved . . . Well, it could wait.
He felt Nikolai shifting—not enough to jar him, just enough to reach for the bedside table. Dougie saw a tray there, everything covered like plates were when you ordered room service at a fancy hotel. Nikolai picked up a steel—or is that silver?—pitcher dripping with condensation and poured orange juice into a tall glass.
“Do you think you can sit up?” he asked.
Dougie didn’t want to disappoint him, but there was no way in hell he’d voluntarily put weight on his ass. Between the belt and the bat, he thought he might never sit again. He shook his head against Nikolai’s thigh, fisting Nikolai’s pants in one hand and squeezing his eyes closed.
He must have looked panicked, because Nikolai petted his head again and shushed him. “That’s all right Douglas. You’re hurt. I understand. Let’s take it slow. Think you can scoot up a bit? Lean against my chest and your hip?”
Yeah, he could do that. Felt like he had no strength in his arms at all, and moving sparked a hundred little and notso-little fires in his flesh, but Nikolai got an arm under his and helped him settle halfway vertical, still curled on his side against that sturdy chest. Nikolai kept the one arm around him even after he’d finished moving. Cradling him. Stroking his shoulder. Dougie closed his eyes to ride out the fading pain, and he was almost able to fool himself into thinking he was a little kid again, curled in his father’s lap on the couch watching Saturday morning cartoons while Mom was in the kitchen making pancakes and Mat was at the gym.
Almost.
“Here we are, then,” Nikolai murmured, and Dougie opened his eyes to see the glass of OJ hovering near his lips, plastic bendy straw poking out the top. Within reach. Didn’t even need to use his fingers. Just had to catch it with his tongue.
It should have been humiliating, catching and drinking from that straw like a sick child, but it was just Nikolai. Nikolai had seen him at his very worst and still wanted him, still took care of him and kept him and didn’t judge him for being weak. Not like Mat had.
Besides, the OJ was heaven, sweet and cold and fresh and not a bit of pulp, just how he liked it. It soothed his battered throat, soothed all the way down—he could feel it traveling to his stomach, a perfect, bracing chill. Feel the sugar hit his system, wake him a little, give him a little strength. His stomach rumbled. He realized how hungry he was and took another long pull on the straw.
“Easy, easy. Here.” Nikolai urged him to hold the glass on his own; he could, so he did. Hand freed—the other one was still stroking soothing little lines across Dougie’s shoulder blade—Nikolai picked up three white pills off the tray. “Pain killers,” he said. Dougie had no reason to doubt him. Opened his mouth without hesitation—with a wash of gratitude, in fact, gratitude and affection and powerful relief—and let Nikolai place them on his tongue. Swallowed them down with the last of his OJ.
“More?” Nikolai asked, and Dougie nodded, too stunned for a moment to speak, too confused, too. He felt like he’d fallen through the twilight zone into some bizarre set-piece of domestic perfection. Felt a seed of that happiness he’d been searching for earlier start to take root in his belly, nourished by the juice and the painkillers and Nikolai’s patient kindness, his paternal affection. “Hungry?” Nikolai asked, and Dougie nodded again, found his voice. Had to. Had to let Nikolai know how much this meant to him. “Yes, sir. Thank you. I . . . I don’t know how to . . . what to . . .” He wished he knew how to finish that sentence. Any sentence. It all felt so tenuous; he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t lose it to his own inaction or silence.
“Shhh.” Nikolai silenced him with a fresh strawberry, top already cut off. “It’s all right, Douglas. I know.”
Of course he did. He knew everything. And where once that thought had terrified Dougie, now it reassured him, brought comfort. He didn’t have to struggle for words because Nikolai understood.