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Four days. He dropped Sebastian off at the hotel four days ago, met Thomas in the foyer to hand him over like a hostage exchange (and they got nothing, nothing that was worth the wide smile and wider eyes on Sebastian’s face).
Four days since Nikolaj dropped him off. Nineteen hours, nearly a full day, since they’ve heard from him. Thomas hasn’t left the hotel–or at least his car hasn’t, and Nikolaj and the rest have watched every exit like hawks for four days –and that’s the only reason he didn’t storm the building sooner. Sebastian is supposed to check in at least once a day, more if he can manage it, but under very few circumstances are they to contact him. He’s safer when his assignment can think they’re the most important thing in his world. If they don’t hear from him, then. Then. Then that’s fine, because they would hear from someone else if something bad had happened, something worse than what’s been happening for the last four goddamn days.
He doesn’t break the door down, even though he wants to; the clerk gave him a key when he asked. She was young, quiet and wide eyed as she handed it over with trembling fingers. Nikolaj had not asked politely.
He slips the card into the slot, waits for the light to turn green, and nudges the door open.
The suite is in shambles. Empty bottles, scattered clothes, naked and half naked people as young as or younger than Sebastian. He lets his eyes slide over them dismissively. Sad, yes, but not sad enough to hold his attention when he’s after someone else.
Someone that’s not there.
He doesn’t draw any weapons, but he’s more than willing to do so. Spies Sebastian’s shirt lying by the sofa, grits his teeth as he stalks past it. Not now. Not the thing to be angry about, just now. Not like he doesn’t know what Sebastian was doing, but he thought that maybe there would have been a break at some point, that maybe they wouldn’t strip him down and leave him that way for four days, half a week-
The door to one of the bedrooms is cracked open. He pushes it the rest of the way with the toe of one booted foot.
Nikolaj has seen dark and horrifying things. He has, often, been the one to do those dark things, things that would make a mother cry (not his mother, of course; theirs is a family business, with blood ties in more ways than one). He watches them or does them or occasionally hides evidence of them without blinking, without hesitating or questioning or feeling. He has seen death and destruction, he has greeted them like old acquaintances, he has more than once run towards them with open arms and not a moment of fear.
He stumbles when he sees the bed. Sees Sebastian, unmoving, unblinking, hair in his open and sightless eyes and no no no no no-
Sebastian’s chest rises and falls in one slow, shallow breath, and the constant fear Nikolaj feels when Sebastian is on a job… doesn’t lessen. But changes, because he knows now that Sebastian is alive, but he also knows now that there are bruises and bloody scratches and blank, glassy eyes staring out a window.
He’s seen this before. Not this bad, not this long (four days four day four days), but he’s seen it, and he knows what to do. Wishes he doesn’t, wishes he was lost and stunned, wishes this weren’t so familiar. But he does, he’s not, and it is.
He crouches by the bed and brushes the hair out of Sebastian’s face. Sebastian doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t seem to see him at all.
Something cold and sick twists in Nikolai’s belly. That, too, is familiar.
“Sebastian,” he murmurs, slides the hand on Sebastian’s forehead down his side to his back, ghosting feather light across his skin to find somewhere he can touch that isn’t bruises or inflamed or–his breath catches in his throat and he takes a deep breath to calm himself–still bleeding. The other hand finds Sebastian’s shoulder, rubbing gentle circles on his collarbone with his thumb. “Băiat. Come on, wake up now.”
It takes another minute until finally, finally, Sebastian blinks slowly, twice, and seems to realize that someone else is there.
“Can you hear me?” Nikolaj asks. “Sebastian?”
Sebastian’s voice is a mumbled croak when he asks, “What?” and something fierce and angry lights up in Nikolaj, feels like it starts in his stomach and flares upwards through the rest of his body.
Sebastian must see it, because he- shit, he recoils and then does his best to push himself up on trembling arms. “‘M sorry,” he says, and Nikolaj can’t hear it, can’t hear him apologizing for this. Slides an arm under Sebastian and sits him up as gently as he can.
“Well that fixes nothing, does it?” he asks, and his voice is sharper than he intends, but he’s trying so damn hard because Sebastian’s voice is raw and his lips are cracked and swollen like they were put to hard use even dry and chapped (and what’s the point, Nikolaj thinks with an almost hysterical dark humor, why would someone even want to fuck a dry mouth and he knows the answer but even after four years and four days he can’t accept it). “What did they give you this time?”
Sebastian gags. Sebastian’s head drops and he curls in on himself and Nikolaj wants to scream. He sighs hard and sharp and reaches for Sebastian’s wrists, instead, turns them so he can see the pale bruised insides of his forearms, and he only realizes his grip is too hard when Sebastian winces. Lets go immediately, stands back because how dare he, what right does he have to be angry when Sebastian needs him calm?
He takes a deep breath. Sebastian only hunches over more. “Can I take you home?” he asks, and he’s going to, no matter what Sebastian says. He’s willing to throw the boy over his shoulder and carry him kicking and screaming back home if it means getting him out of this place.
The desperately grateful look on Sebastian’s face burns itself into his memory forever, when Sebastian opens his mouth, looks around the room, and hesitates. Nikolaj can see the questions forming, the worries and the desire to do this well, and he cuts him off before he has to hear those questions or, god forbid, answer them.
“It’s Wednesday,” he says, and it takes everything he has to keep the last four days out of his voice.
Doesn’t matter. By the look on Sebastian’s face, Nikolaj might as well have slapped him. “Oh god. Oh no, shit. Nikolaj-”
His breathing is too fast, raspy and weak as it is, and Nikolaj grips his shoulders and tries to find the right place between soft enough to comfort and solid enough to protect. Just like always, he’s not sure he manages it. “Alright, breathe,” he says. “I’ll take you home, stay calm.”
Sebastian is babbling in Romanian, more gut wrenching apologies and pleas, and Nikolaj lets go only long enough to grab Sebastian’s pants from the floor, fingers flexing in the fabric in lieu of snatching Sebastian against his chest and holding him there. “E în regulă,” he says as he hands Sebastian his pants and flicks the covers back. He should be gentler, more understanding, but as soon as he gets Sebastian back to his apartment he plans to bury him under lays of blankets and soft clothes, and this might be the only time he has a chance to survey the damage before Sebastian cleans himself.
Hand-shaped bruises. Bite marks. Semen, his or someone else’s, left to dry tacky on his skin. Nikolaj makes himself take it in impassively, then look away before Sebastian realizes he was looking at all. “Just get dressed. Can you stand?”
Sebastian doesn’t look up. His skin looks like it’s trying to flush, if he weren’t so sickly pale. “Nu știu,” he mumbles, and Nikolaj bites back a curse as he pulls Sebastian to his feet as gently as he can. He takes in every wince and half-gasp, makes sure Sebastian is able to get his pants on, and slips into the next room to pick up the rest of his clothes and make a phone call.
“Nik-”
“He’s alive,” Nikolaj interrupts. Any other time he wouldn’t dream of cutting off that voice, but after four days, Marcus is not Nikolaj’s boss as much as he is Sebastian’s father. “Drugged, and hurt. But alive.”
A quiet breath of a word that might be a curse or a prayer. When he speaks, however, Marcus’s voice is as hard and matter-of-fact as ever. “Find out what happened. Get him to a safehouse, first, but set someone else on it immediately. As soon as the boy is taken care of, go join them.”
“Da, domnule,” and Marcus hangs up before he does, so Nikolaj simply stuffs the phone back in his coat, collects the rest of Sebastian’s clothes, and steps back into the room. Sebastian is sitting on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around himself, staring blankly at the floor and shaking intermittently. Nikolaj hands him his shirt, waistcoat, and jacket, bends down to help him into his shoes. When he looks up, Sebastian hasn’t yet managed to button his shirt, clumsy fingers sliding helplessly over the buttons. He squeezes Sebastian’s ankle gently enough that he doubts Sebastian even notices, then rises to his feet and does up the buttons for him.
Sebastian apologizes, again, still in Romanian, now tearful. Nikolaj wants to throw something.
“Stop apologizing,” he says instead. “Put on the waistcoat and jacket,” because he wants Sebastian as far from this as possible, even though he knows that putting on a ruined suit isn’t going to help the bruised skin underneath, “I’ll find your coat. Where’s your phone?”
He grunts when Sebastian only shrugs, and stalks out of the bedroom. The coat is nowhere to be seen. He dials Sebastian’s phone, follows the buzzing to one of the sofas, and snatches up both the phone and the coat where they’ve slid down behind it. The scarf he sees when he straightens up, one end tied sloppily around a table leg. He tries not to think about why.
He does anyways, can see the table, just the right height to bend someone over, long arms and thin wrists pulled forward and tied to a leg on the opposite side-
He slams down the thoughts before he can gag. Actually, while he’s thinking about it, he finds an unbroken glass in the cabinet and fills it with water. He doesn’t drink anything, because he doesn’t need it, fuck, he’s fine, simply has a quick, silent conversation with his stomach about what it is and is not allowed to do until Sebastian is in a safehouse.
He glances down at the phone as he carries his finds back to the bedroom. It’s nothing he didn’t know already, but he grimaces all the same as he hands Sebastian the water and slides the phone into his pocket, careful not to so much as brush Sebastian’s waist as he does so. It’s one thing when he’s helping Sebastian get up and get dressed (things Sebastian should be able to do on his own, and fuck the last four days), when neither of them has a choice. He’s gotten Sebastian back in his protective layers now, physical and otherwise, and he’s not about to push his way past them.
“Drink this,” he says, and Sebastian does. “Ten missed calls, seven messages.” Six of the calls and five of the messages are from him, which he doesn’t say and isn’t sure Sebastian will even realize. In all likelihood, he’s going to delete every message that didn’t come from his mother without listening to them. Might be for the best. Nikolaj’s messages became progressively more frantic the longer he went without hearing from Sebastian.
“I already spoke to your father,” he says, and doesn’t tell Sebastian what Marcus sounded like, the way he couldn’t even say Sebastian’s name, needed the distance to stay clear headed. “You need to call your mother, once you sound human.”
Sebastian nods meekly, holding up one arm and then the other while Nikolaj helps him into his coat, transferring his glass to the other hand so he can keep drinking. Nikolaj keeps his face impassive as he closes the coat and pops the collar up so that when he ties the scarf loosely around Sebastian’s neck, it doesn’t come close to touching his skin. It’s unlikely Sebastian even notices, and even less likely that he would know why, or why he’s never going to see it again after today. Nikolaj will carry the memory for him, as he does with so many of the things Sebastian has forgotten, but he sees no reason to hold onto the reminder.
He gets Sebastian out of the room. Into the car. Home. Doesn’t follow him into the bathroom, as much as he wants to, doesn’t even make him leave the door open even though it means he has to strain to keep an ear out for any sounds of wretching or stumbling.
He’s cracking eggs into a bowl when his vision goes fuzzy, and he realizes he’s been standing still and staring at the counter for so long his eyes have damn near dried out. He carefully throws the eggshells into the trash, then bows his head and grips the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turn white.
Four days, four goddamn days, longest four days of his life, and all he can do is scramble some eggs.
He’s not an idiot. He knows what Sebastian thinks of him, know what Sebastian thinks he thinks. He wants to shake the boy silly and tell him wrong he is, wants to hold him close and tell him I love you, I love you, I want this all to stop, wants to grab him in the night and spirit him away somewhere warm and quiet and safe and happy. Hell, Christopher can come, and any of the kids, the piano, the sofa, the whole damn building, anything on this earth that might get the hollow look out of Sebastian’s eyes.
He doesn’t do any of those things. He stirs the eggs in the pan. He listens out for Sebastian in the shower. He swallows down the last four days, and he braces himself for the next one.