Charlie #2
The air comes easier through my nose when my mouth is busy.
I hate that it works.
I hate that my body softens almost immediately, that the buzzing in my hands begins to fade, that the hard fist around my whole chest loosens finger by finger until I can pull in a breath that doesn’t hurt as much.
Nikolaus watches my face the entire time.
“Good boy,” he says, the words quiet and pleased. “Just like that. You’re okay.”
My eyes flutter, because “good boy” feels like a blanket around the scared, messy part of me that doesn’t know how to stand up and demand to be let out of the car.
Constantine’s voice reaches me again, clearer now. “Well, that worked.”
Nikolaus doesn’t look away from me. “Of course it did. Poor baby just needed something to keep his mouth busy.”
His thumb stays in my mouth while his other hand drifts down, petting over the back of my head, then my neck, then between my shoulders. Broad, patient strokes. The kind that makes my body forget, little by little, that it was trying to panic.
I’m still scared, but it becomes a quieter kind of scared.
A faraway kind.
Like the fear is still in the car with us, but maybe not sitting directly on my chest anymore.
Nikolaus shifts slightly beneath me, and I feel his hand slide along my hoodie. For a second, I stiffen again, but he only reaches into my pocket, slow enough that I know exactly what he’s doing.
“What’s this?” he murmurs.
My wallet.
My stomach dips, but the panic doesn’t come back full force, not with his thumb still in my mouth and his hand still stroking over my spine.
“Dat’s mine,” I try to say, but it comes out soft and muffled around him.
“I know, baby.”
He opens it with one hand, practiced and easy, like everything belongs in his hands if he decides to touch it. I watch through heavy, wet lashes as he slips out my ID.
The little rectangle looks so foreign between his big fingers.
“Constantine.”
Constantine takes it from him without hesitation. “Yeah.”
There’s the faint sound of a phone unlocking, then tapping, then the soft hum of expensive car tires over the road.
I suck gently on Nikolaus’s thumb because I don’t know what else to do with my mouth, with my fear, and with the little whine that keeps trying to climb up my throat.
His eyes drop to my lips.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, so quiet I don’t think he means for anyone but me to hear.
My face gets hot again, and I look down, but there’s nowhere to look that isn’t him. His coat. His shirt. His big arm around my waist. His thighs beneath me.
I feel tiny.
Smaller than I ever feel on my own.
Small in a way that should scare me.
Small in a way that makes some secret place inside me curl up and sigh.
Constantine starts speaking again, his voice lower now, businesslike. “Charlie Palmer,” he says. “Twenty-five. Birthday in six days.”
Nikolaus’s hand pauses between my shoulders. “We’ll need to make plans.”
Constantine continues, “Address is local. Apartment complex on the east side.”
Nikolaus makes a displeased sound in his chest.
I keep my eyes shut.
I know what my apartment looks like. I know about the peeling wall, the flickering kitchen light, and the roach poop that stains the printouts from the doctors’ offices.
I know it isn’t good, but it’s mine.
Was mine.
Maybe.
My fingers curl weakly against Nikolaus’s shirt.
His hand moves to my side, petting me there now, fingers sweeping over the curve of my side through the thick cotton of my hoodie. It’s such a strange touch—so familiar when he has no right to be familiar, so careful when everything else he’s done has been the opposite of careful.
“Employment?” Nikolaus asks.
“Patchy,” Constantine says. “Part-time. Looks like he’s bounced around a bit. Mainly some work from home gigs.”
Because I get tired.
Because my body stops working.
Because sometimes standing feels like climbing out of a grave with a backpack full of rocks.
I want to tell them that, but I don’t.
Nikolaus strokes down my arm, and his thumb moves inside my mouth just enough to remind me it’s there, and I suckle again without thinking, cheeks heating as the motion settles me deeper.
“Medical?” Nikolaus asks.
Another pause.
This one feels different.
“There’s… a lot,” Constantine says.
Nikolaus goes very still.
I open my eyes a little.
Constantine is looking at his phone, brows drawn together. “Frequent appointments. Labs. Imaging. Specialist referrals. I can’t see any details, but there are billing records all over the place.”
How can he even see all that? That’s not fair.
Nikolaus’s hand cups the back of my neck protectively.
“What kind of specialists?”
“Rheumatology. Neurology. Gastro. Cardiology. Pain management consult once, looks like. Physical therapy referral.”
My eyes sting.
Everything’s negative.
No need for a follow-up.
Nikolaus must feel something change in me, because his thumb presses a little more firmly against my tongue.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs. “You are not there anymore.”
There.
My apartment.
My phone.
The doctor’s message.
Me alone in my kitchen, crying into my sleeve.
I blink, and tears slip out anyway.
Nikolaus catches them with the side of his hand.
Constantine’s voice softens by a fraction, though he keeps reading. “Parents in another state. No spouse. No partner. No siblings. Emergency contact is his mother.”
Nikolaus hums, and I don’t know what it means. “Financials?” he asks.
“Niko…” Constantine says quietly.
“Tell me.”
Another pause.
Then, “Debt. Mostly medical and credit cards. Nothing surprising, considering.”
Nikolaus’s arm tightens around me.
I wait for the judgment.
For the little shift in the air, that means someone has decided I did this to myself, that I’m irresponsible, or lazy, or too much trouble.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, Nikolaus bends his head, his beard brushing faintly against my hair as he says, “My poor baby. You’ve been struggling without your Daddy.”
My eyes squeeze shut again.
That should not make me want to cry more.
It does.
Nikolaus’s hand keeps moving, up and down, over my back and side and arm, patient as the car glides through the city. His thumb remains in my mouth until my jaw loosens around it, until I’m not really sucking anymore so much as resting there, eyes half-closed, breath slow and damp against his skin.
The voices above me start to blur at the edges.
Hotel.
Airport.
Clothes.
Doctor.
Security.
No, not security—Constantine says something about keeping things quiet, about making sure no one asks the wrong questions, about my car still being at the club.
My car.
I should care about that.
I think I do care.
Somewhere.
Far away.