Despite the fact that it was probably his worst thought out decision in recent memory, asking Bri to help out turned out to be a surprisingly good idea. The boy’s natural street smarts and the way he could relate to those who walked through the door in a way none of the volunteers could, seemed to make a world of difference. Dealing with one of their own, Nick supposed, made those who came in less suspicious, more at ease. There was none of the wariness or badly concealed animosity that the rest of them sometimes felt.

Rightly or wrongly, Bri was on their level, and the volunteers weren’t. Like Bri had told him earlier that day, how could they possibly understand, however much they wanted to help.

Given a little responsibility, Bri was more than capable of living up to the task; he directed people to tables to make most efficient use of the space and to clear the lines quicker. He implemented a self-serve line that the volunteers had been wary of, assuming it would lead to arguments and trouble. Bri had looked at them all with a stare that made them feel about two inches tall, and snapped; "They’re people, not fucking animals. Give them a break."

Nick had returned to his own duties after that, but kept an eye on the boy. And much as he tried to chase it out of his mind, he couldn’t help but return to Bri’s first reaction to his demand of a favour.

It was just loneliness, he asserted. Just sheer surprise at the remark. Just this damned time of year, just that it had been so long since Peter…

Fourteen months, a week, two days and – he glanced at his watch – ten hours. Give or take. And he had no idea anymore why he was paying Dr Mariotte an exorbitant hourly rate when even Nick himself knew that wasn’t a healthy bit of information to have to readily.

But in all that – anally exact – time, there hadn’t been anyone. Nick hadn’t wanted there to be anyone, stupid as it was all things considered, it had felt as though he was cheating, as though he should be ashamed of himself for even looking at someone else, this soon.

He knew now that Peter wouldn’t have given a shit. But Nick did. And he was the one who had to live with it.

And he doubted Bri was deliberately avoiding him, the boy just had plenty to do, that was all.

It was late, the last shift winding down, when Nick eventually had a chance to speak to him.

"S’okay," Bri shrugged, when Nick asked him how things were going. "Even if you do-gooders don’t have the first fucking clue how to run a thing like this."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean you’re looking at it like you’re doing this to people like you. But since there’s no fucking way in hell any of you’ve gone maybe days without food, how are you gonna know what it’s like standing in that line and—" Bri cut off so sharply that Nick blinked, thinking something was going on to distract the boy. It took a moment to realise that Bri had stopped taking the moment he realised he *was*, and not just that, taking to Nick in a reasonably civil conversation.

Nick watched that caged expression in dark brown eyes, and sighed a little. "What about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" Bri looked at him suspiciously.

"If you wanted to. We could always do with an extra pair of hands, and you seemed to be doing such a good job…"

Bri frowned at him, as though waiting for Nick to add `but the catch is…` After a moment, he shrugged again. "Might as well." Brown eyes met Nick’s, held his gaze. "Got some time to kill, nothing better to do."

Nick couldn’t help the relieved little laugh that escaped at that. The last thing he expected was for the boy to crack a joke. No, scratch that. The last thing he expected was for Bri to have paid enough attention to him to remember the things he said.

"What about tonight?" he asked, without thinking. "Do you have anywhere to go?"

"Yeah." Bri stiffened. "I do."

"Okay," Nick nodded hastily. "I just thought, you know, if you didn’t, I’m sure they would have let you stay in the backroom or something, especially since you’ll need to be here in the morning."

The boy looked hesitant for a heartbeat, before coldness settled over his eyes again. "I said I’m fine."

"All right." Nick backed off agreeably, taking a surreptitious step back out of Bri’s personal space. "Do you need a ride to where ever you’re going?"

Bri looked at him dubiously. "Why?"

"Because it’s freezing, and I don’t know why you’d choose to walk through it when you didn’t have to."

Bri muttered something under his breath, the only word Nick could make out clearly was `choice`. Nick shrugged, backing off even further.

"Anyway it’s up to you. I’m not leaving for another hour or so, and I’ll have to walk a couple of blocks to my car if you didn’t mind that."

He moved out of reach before the boy could answer, giving Bri time to consider that offer. He chose to ignore the little voice in his mind telling him he was only doing it to give himself an excuse to approach Bri again later.

He tried to ignore the boy’s presence for the next hour too, though that wasn’t as easily achieved. Every time he glanced in Bri’s direction, it seemed the boy was watching him, dark eyes boring into him with hostile suspicion. Most of him wanted to sigh at the boy’s attitude, but a small part of him was strangely pleased that he was holding Bri’s attention at all.

Bri was probably right, he was a do-gooder. It was never something he’d have chosen to term himself before now, but for some reason, in the boy’s case he was making an exception.

From the stares he’d received, Nick had expected his repeated offer to be turned down with a brusque antagonism. Not for the first time, Bri threw a curveball at him;

"Uh…could I still get that ride?"

"Uh…sure." Nick hadn’t been making many wise decisions lately, but he prided himself that deciding not to ask Bri what changed his mind was one of them.

The boy followed with unsettling duty as Nick picked up his jacket and his keys, said goodnight to the other volunteers preparing to leave. The bitter cold hit them as soon as they were out of the heavy oak doors of the church, a biting wind whipped Nick’s hair into his eyes, and the clouds were low and ominous, uplit a dirty orange from the city glow.

"Think it’ll snow?" he asked no-one in particular, tone one of whimsical boyish excitement.

Beside him, Bri glowered, throwing a bigger dampner on his mood than any sudden snowfall. "It better fucking not…"

The boy left him speechless, he really did. There was nothing Nick could say to those casually cruel statements that wouldn’t be either incredibly insensitive, or incredibly stupid. Or both. More than likely both. They’d walked a short distance down the silent street before he spoke again.

"So what did you think?" He inclined his head back in the direction of the church, too comfortable to take his hands from his pockets.

Bri shrugged, before answering grudgingly. "Was okay I guess."

"You were good at it. Have you ever thought about getting involved in something like that? I’m sure there’s plenty of—"

"Bullshit." The boy sent him a glare that was colder than the wind. "They want the likes of you, not me. ‘Sides…I haven’t even finished high school."

"You didn’t?"

"Kept going for a while after I got kicked out of the house…" Bri mumbled, staring off into the dark. "But they need shit, y’know? Permanent address, the olds’s signature on shit." The laugh was short, bitter. "They don’t like you coming in after spending the night in a stinking alleyway. They don’t like when they catch you trying to sleep in the locker rooms at night."

Nick watched him silently, feeling an irrational pang of fury at everyone who had failed this boy.

"I’m sorry."

"Why?" Bri muttered. "Not like you were the one that threw me out."

The car was parked outside the bookstore. The nondescript blue Mazda was hardly a target for thieves, but Nick had it filled to the fenders with alarms and security devices anyway. He unlocked the passenger door for Bri, and could barely hide the smile as the incredulous look the boy gave him as Nick held the door open for him.

"So…" Nick asked tentatively after starting the car and pulling away from the curb. "Where to?"

Bri gave him curt directions at every turn or intersection, but any deep and profound conversation that they might have been cultivating seemed to have gone stagnant.

Eventually, Bri stirred from his position, huddled against the door like he couldn’t wait to get out of it, and said "Stop here," outside a dilapidated boarding house. Most of the windows were dark or broken, tattered trails of net curtain drifting out through the cracks like ghostly fingers. The few that were lit revealed dirty glass, peeling paint from rotting windowframes, and glimpses into unkempt rooms; the top floor windows revealed a mesmerising pattern of mould and damp running along the point where wall met ceiling.

On the steps outside what passed for a front door, hovered a group of men, a little older than Bri if they were at all. The glow of a cigarette or a joint was passed back and forth between them, the only brightness in the gloom. Their faces were obscured by black hoodies or baseball caps, but the ribbon of smoke curled up into the air around their heads.

Nick thought he’d concealed his horror at the whole scene quite well, until Bri said stiffly;

"Beggars can’t be choosers, y’know?"

"No, I didn’t mean—"

"What the fuck ever." The boy shoved open the car door, before pausing, turning around as almost an afterthought. "Thanks for the ride."

"It’s okay." Despite trying not to act as though he was paying any attention to the men at the door, who were now engaged in an argument among themselves, Nick smiled slightly at Bri. "Are you coming back tomorrow?"

Bri stared at him, leaning on the open door of the car. "Told you, I don’t have—"

Whatever Bri was about to say was interrupted by a deafening crack from the building’s doorway. The men that had been crowded there dissipated like the cigarette smoke, two of them waving semi-automatics as they raced down the street, firing off several more shots in random staccato rhythm.

One of the men left in the doorway had fallen back against the wall, clutching one arm to his chest and wailing to his friends in a language Nick didn’t understand. A couple of blood stained ten dollar bills drifted down the steps to the street.

Nick could only stare. Even when Bri jumped back into the passenger seat, slammed the door, muttering "Fuck…" under his breath, Nick remained frozen, unable to think, unable to move.

"Drive!" Bri grabbed his sleeve angrily, yanked hard.

"But…the…" Nick shook his head, eyes wide. "He’s…shouldn’t we…?"

"Go…! Just drive!"

When they were a safe distance away, driving through the generic sprawl of streets, Nick relaxed his deathgrip on the steering wheel, and glanced at Bri.

"What was that about?"

"Dunno…" Bri’s gaze was resolutely fixed out of the window. "Some of the guys in that place’re kinda fucked-up a lot of the time…"

Nick could find nothing to say to that, his frayed nerves not quite supporting the loud cry of `kinda?!` that he was considering. He could still feel his pulse racing so thunderously in his head, he wondered if something in there was about to explode.

It would be typical, he thought a little maniacally, that as soon as he didn’t particularly want to, circumstances would send him to an untimely death anyway.

Bri dragged him out of his near panic with a predictably flat question.

"Where are we going?"

"My place." Nick shook his head. "It’s late, I’m tired, I’m cold, there’s no way in hell I’m taking you back there…"

"Your place." Bri looked at him.

"Don’t worry." The words were spoken through gritted teeth. "I don’t want any `favours` from you. Except maybe that we both manage to live till morning without anyone trying to shoot us again."

"They weren’t shooting *at* us…" Bri muttered. Nick was getting rather adept at letting his surprise slide, and barely gave second thought to the fact Bri wasn’t arguing about going back to his apartment.

"There was still shooting. It was still *way* too fucking close to me for my liking…"

Beside him, the boy scoffed softly. "Bet that was the first time you’ve even been near a gun that wasn’t on a movie screen."

"Actually…" Nick’s fingers tightened so fiercely on the steering wheel, his knuckles whitened, and the car swerved slightly. "It wasn’t."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bri turn to stare at him. But the boy didn’t ask, which was fortunate, since Nick was in no mood to explain. Giving a shit about Bri was turning out to be one mistake after another, and Nick was beginning to wonder whether he should just cut his losses.

"…I’m sorry."

The words were so soft, for a moment he thought they were in his own head. Schooling himself to let go of some of the tension in his arms and shoulders, he glanced across the car. Bri watched him, brown eyes equally miserable and sulky, and spoke the words again. "I’m sorry."

Nick sighed loudly, took a couple of breaths before shaking his head. "It’s all right."

The rest of the drive passed in a vaguely disconcerting silence. Nick had the distinct impression that somehow things had been turned on their head, and suddenly it was Bri concerned about him He’d thought that would make him pleased, but it just made him uncomfortable.

Bri stared as he stepped out of the car, frozen. Nick glanced at him, a little more impatiently than he would have liked.

"What?"

"You live here?" The boy gazed up at the apartment building. Considering his mood, Nick could have thought of a dozen sarcastic replies to that, but Bri didn’t deserve it. Instead he just nodded.

"Yeah. Come on, it’s cold to be standing around out here."

The building’s lobby was almost as large as the church vestry, just as elaborately decorated in a black and white, silver and gold throwback to the art deco twenties. Bri’s gaze took in everything with avarice, from rather bemused doorman, to the polished marble floor; from the black glass of the elevator doors, to the tall potted plants placed either side of the doors.

Nick’s hands were still shaking a little as he tried punching the button for his floor, taking three attempts to get it right. Bri watched him, far less impressed with him as he was with the surroundings. Nick had no idea how the boy could be as nonplussed as he was. No matter how accustomed anyone became to events like that, no-one should have been as devoid of interest as Bri appeared to be.

"Do you think someone called the cops, called an ambulance?" he asked softly, after a moment.

"For what?" Bri glanced at him. Meeting Nick’s eyes, he shrugged. "I don’t know. Sometimes they do. Most the time they’d be more pissed off at you for calling the cops on their asses than they are grateful."

When the elevator doors pinged open at his floor, the slightly stuffy warmth of the hallway was a system shock from the cold of outdoors. Nick still shivered, feeling a chill he doubted he’d be able to shake for a while.

Bri followed him silently to the apartment door, his open admiration tempered slightly by the time Nick flicked on the lights of the spacious apartment, with it’s high ceilings, wooden floors, and postcard perfect views of the city.

The boy probably knew better than Nick did that the view might look good, the reality wasn’t.

He’d walked into the lounge before stopping to glance over his shoulder. Bri remained standing by the door, as though unsure whether he was allowed to come in any further. Nick offered him a smile.

"Make yourself at home. Do you want anything? Something to eat, something to drink?"

Bri took hesitant steps into the room, shaking his head. "Nah…"

"Do you want to take a shower?"

Bri stared at him, and Nick blushed when he ran that question over again in his head.

"Not…not with me, or anything, just…" The embarrassment trailed off into mild shock, as a soft pealed laugh drifted from Bri’s lips. Nick blinked, almost unable to believe that such a caustic mouth could make that young, that innocent a sound.

"I know," Bri self-consciously clamped down on the laughter, much to Nick’s disappointment. "I was just screwing around with you. But yeah…a shower’d be good."

"Okay…" Nick nodded., gesturing to the hallway. "It’s the first door on the right. There should be plenty of towels, and there’s a spare robe on the back of the door if you need it."

Bri edged awkwardly towards the door, still uncertain what he was allowed to do in this place. Nick just met every backward glance the boy sent him, with what he hoped was an easygoing smile, trying to reassure him.

He let out a breath when the bathroom door clicked shut, and the lock slid into place.

It was times like this he wished he still drank. Wished he hadn’t cleared out every last secret stash of alcohol he used to keep around the apartment. He needed a stiff bourbon. Badly.

Sitting down on the cream leather couch with a loud sigh was a poor substitute, but it’d do. Eyes closed, he let his head fall back against the cushions, massaging the bridge of his nose as though warding off a headache. Maybe he was. That was all he needed on top of everything else.

It wasn’t simply the events of the evening. It was a rare week when he didn’t hear about something similar happening just a few blocks from the bookstore. And it wasn’t simply Bri’s presence, long as it may have been since he’d brought anyone home with him for any reason. It was just the combination of both, the ghostly echoes he’d felt hearing those gunshots, watching Bri and all but expecting the boy to fall to the ground.

That’s how it had been before. Over time he’d been able to piece all the parts together, but for a long time all he’d remembered was fragments, like flash photography. Gunshots and blood, stillness and horror. Sound and silence, light and dark. It was one of those old Victorian toys, where the spinning top revealed moving pictures when spun fast enough, but taken as individual images they made little sense.

None of this made a lot of sense. Why he’d taken Bri home in the first place was a mystery, at least when he took away the obvious reasons. And he could….couldn’t he?

There was no doubt the boy was attractive, even under the grime and ratty clothes. No doubt that Nick had gone a long time without, and sometimes just the idea of company was more inviting than anything physical pleasure could offer. And Nick was under no illusions that if he offered Bri some cold hard cash, set it out like a business exchange and not a handout, he could have had the boy in his bed any time he wanted.

And wasn’t that the question, all told…?

He hadn’t heard the bathroom door open, until a soft shuffling and an even softer voice drew his attention.

And in his own way, Bri just answered the question.

"Uh…you wouldn’t have any clothes I could borrow, right?"

For a split second, Nick didn’t recognise the figure that stood at the mouth of the hallway, eyes averted. Wet, his hair was almost black, falling in drying tousled tendrils to his shoulders. The robe almost swallowed him up, sleeves coming down to his fingertips. But Nick couldn’t stop staring at the boy’s face. Without the messy fall of hair obscuring it, Bri’s face was strikingly beautiful; full lips, a straight if slightly small nose, high sharp cheekbones, and those eyes that weren’t looking at him. For reasons he couldn’t – didn’t want to – name, Nick wanted to see those deep brown eyes looking out at him from that porcelain perfect face.

He got his wish when Bri glared at him impatiently, shaking him out of his reverie.

"Oh, yeah…I think anything I have is going to be a little big on you though."

"S’okay." Bri shrugged. "I only want them for the night, not like, forever."

Something about those words made Nick sigh softly. Passing the boy in the hallway, taking care to give Bri a wide berth, as much for himself as his guest, he made his way to his own bedroom at the end of the hall. It wasn’t the master bedroom, that one hadn’t been touched since the first day he came back here alone. It had been one of the guest rooms they’d been in the process of decorating, and the walls still bore testament to that, paint swatches and half covered expanses of plaster peeking out between mismatched furniture.

He eventually found an old pair of jeans that had been washed so often the fabric had shrunk, and a soft white shirt. Neither had a hope in hell of actually fitting Bri, but they were the best he could do. Walking back towards the boy, he held them out with an apologetic smile. Bri ignored it, taking the clothes with a murmur of thanks, and retreating back into the bathroom.

Nick was back on the couch when the boy emerged for the second time, fussing with the clothes. The jeans were so long in the leg they bunched up even though Bri had turned the edges up at least once. The shirt was too big through the shoulders, but with the sleeves rolled up it didn’t look too ill-fitting.

Bri sat down, as far away from Nick on the couch as he could get, hands limp in his lap. Nick wracked his brain looking for any topic of conversation that wouldn’t deteriorate into another argument with the boy. He was seriously considering the subject of that day’s soup at the church when his guest spoke, startling him.

"Look, if…if all that stuff tonight freaked you out, then I’m sorry." Bri ran a hand through drying hair that was settling around his face in feathered strands the colour of expensive chocolate. "I should’ve told you it was that kinda neighbourhood, I guess…"

"It’s okay." Nick smiled wryly. "I own a bookstore a few blocks from the church. I know that’s not the best part of town to be in at night."

"A bookstore?" Bri stared at him, confusion evident in brown eyes. "You got a place like this just by owning a bookstore?"

"Well…not exactly." Nick squirmed slightly under the scrutiny of that gaze. "My family…"

"Oh." Bri snorted derisively. "One of those."

"Yeah…" Nick’s own laugh was a little bitter. "I’m one of those. But I bought the apartment a couple of years ago with my partner. We were joint owners of the store too."

"Were?" Bri raised a brow. "So where is she now?"

Nick froze for a moment, as physically incapable of answering that question as he was of floating up to the ceiling and dancing the tango upside down. He looked away from Bri, forced himself to take several long, deep breaths, and pushed himself through the two syllable answer.

"He’s dead."

Even though Nick wasn’t even looking in his direction, he heard the soft gasp that escaped Bri’s lips, and felt oddly comforted by it. Dr. Mariotte was always telling him he needed to be able to explain what had happened in a detached way, and that speaking of it as such didn’t necessarily mean it mattered any less. Nick had never really seen the correlation. Besides, he didn’t speak to much of anyone on a personal level, who was going to ask?

When he turned his head, looked at the one person who he’d known, deep down, would ask, those brown eyes were watching him intently, brows furrowed.

"Sorry…"

Nick tried to smile. "You weren’t to know."

"Yeah but still…" Bri lowered his gaze, frowned "Was none of my business…"

"Don’t worry about it. Really." With a change of subject that did a one eighty so quickly its brakes screeched, Nick stood up, before glancing back at the boy. "I’ll go and get you some blankets. Or I can fix up one of the spare rooms for you if you wanted? They’re not really used much, but it’d only take a minute…"

"The couch’s fine." Bri shrugged, playing with the cuffs of the too-big shirt.

Nick nodded. Fetching a couple of quilts from the linen closet, he set the blankets and the pillow down on the far end of the couch for Bri to do with as he wished. Somehow he doubted the boy would take well to having much done for him. Without a word, Bri set about unfolding the blankets, arranging them on the leather couch with a quiet efficiency. After a moment, he looked up, sent Nick a questioning look, and the older man realised he’d been standing there staring for several minutes. Smiling a little, he backed up, giving the boy some space.

"Get some sleep." He flicked the lounge light off. "I’ll see you in the morning." He paused at the corner of the hallway. "…’Night, Bri."

"Yeah…" the boy didn’t even turn to look at him. "’Night."


************


He noticed Bri was gone around five a.m. Nick hadn’t slept through the night in over a year, nightmares and anxieties either keeping him awake for hours, or seeing to it that he only dozed fitfully, waking up regularly every other hour. He had medication for it, but was loathe to take it; he preferred to feel like the walking dead and at least have a clear head, given any choice.

Passing through the lounge on his way to the kitchen, he’d been too bleary to even remember Bri was meant to be there. It was only when the empty couch was illuminated by the yellow glow on the fridge light, that the boy’s absence hit home.

He’d looked around the rest of the apartment, but Bri was gone. So were his clothes, and the clothes Nick had lent him were draped messily over the back of one of the dining chairs. No note, no explanation, no apology. While logic told him Bri didn’t owe him any of those things, his pride nursed the wound that had been so soundly delivered.

He wondered what he’d done, why Bri had seen fit to leave without a word. What he’d done, what he’d said, how he’d made the boy feel…

He didn’t get much sleep after that, and he doubted any medication would have made a difference.

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