Nikolaus #2
Constantine busies himself with his phone, glancing up periodically to find my attention still locked on the boy.
Minutes pass.
Then more.
The movie continues to flicker across the room, soft colors dancing over his face, casting him in shifting shades of light and shadow.
Eventually, our patience pays off.
His nose wrinkles, lips parting on a soft, sleepy sound as his head burrows further into the bean bag. One hand lifts, rubbing clumsily at his eye, smearing what little remains of the dried tears.
I straighten in my seat.
“There we go,” Constantine murmurs.
The boy blinks slowly, lashes fluttering as he fights his way back to consciousness. There’s no immediate awareness in his expression, just softness.
He lets out a small yawn, then curls in tighter around the plush, nuzzling into it with a soft hum before finally lifting his head.
He doesn’t look toward the window, and most importantly, doesn’t look for anyone.
Instead, his attention drifts to the television for a second and then away again, like it doesn’t quite hold him anymore.
He pushes himself up, wobbling just a bit as he shifts to sit cross-legged on the bean bag. The blanket pools around his lap, and he frowns down at it like it’s mildly inconvenient.
He stretches his legs a little where he sits, another yawn leaving him.
He leans forward after a moment, reaching for something just out of view, and when he settles back again, he has a soft block in his hands. His lips tilt up faintly as he moves it between his palms, seemingly perfectly content with such a mundane toy.
“I’d bet his little age is pretty young,” Constantine states from beside me.
I don’t answer him immediately; my focus is on the boy.
“That,” I finally say quietly, “is not something you can fake.”
Constantine glances sideways at me. “Regression that deep?”
“Yeah.”
The boy presses the block to his cheek for a moment, eyes half-lidded with sleepy contentment, then carefully sets it beside him and reaches for something else on the mat. His movements are slow and a little clumsy, just how they should be.
The boy reaches for a second toy and pulls it into his lap before folding forward over it.
Constantine watches him for another moment before leaning back in his chair.
“So,” he says carefully, “tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I am thinking,” I reply, still watching the boy’s hands as they trace the edge of the toy in slow circles, “that I have never seen someone regress like this in public without a caregiver present.”
“Neither have I.”
Which means something.
Either he trusts this place completely… or he has nowhere else.
Constantine shifts beside me. “You’re already making conclusions.”
“I am making observations.”
He snorts quietly. “Fine. Observation, then. What do you observe?”
I watch as the boy drags the blanket back over his lap without really looking at it, instinctive and absentminded.
“I observe someone who is not performing.”
“And?” he prompts.
“And I observe someone who is alone.”
The word settles heavier than I intend it to.
Constantine exhales slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “That one’s hard to miss. Want me to go ask the girl up front about him? Since they’re supposedly friends?”
“Yes, please.”
He slaps my shoulder as he gets up. “I’ll be back. Don’t do shit while I’m gone.”
I grunt in response, too preoccupied by the boy crawling across the room with a coloring book and the pink cat he’d been napping with. When he reaches a bright yellow low table, he stops, sits back on his haunches, and arranges the coloring book on the table.
He then presses his face briefly into his stuffed animal’s fur before setting it carefully beside him, as if he doesn’t want to squish it.
His attention leaves the toy once he’s satisfied with its placement. He reaches for the book on the table, flipping through several pages until finally stopping on what appears to be the outline of a cat with two kittens. Satisfied with his choice, he nods to himself.
Fuck, he’s perfect. If Constantine comes back with news of the boy already having a caregiver, I don’t think I’ll be able to respect that.
He has to be mine.
I watch the boy select a crayon with careful seriousness, holding it in his whole fist instead of between his fingers.
The tip of his tongue peeks out at the corner of his mouth as he colors. He studies the page like he’s trying very hard to do it right.
For a few unguarded moments, I imagine how he’d look in a different setting—maybe even the private cocoon of a high-rise bedroom, sheets pulled up to his chin and stuffed animals as sentries at his flanks.
He’d hold my hand the same way he holds that crayon—desperately, with a strength that belies his size.
He’d look up at me, eyes wide and slightly wary, and I would tell him that everything is fine, that no one can reach him here, that he is safe.
I picture the evenings full of storybooks, warm milk, and maybe a bath with too many bubbles.
I could be the first person to give him that—complete safety, stripped of any expectation but to exist and be small and sweet.
The thought of it makes my throat constrict.
But he looks tired. Not the cartoon version of sleepy—no rubbing of eyes, no pouting—but the kind of tired that sits on your bones and will not leave.
His shoulders slope downward as if something invisible is pressing them down.
He pauses every few lines, the tip of the crayon hovering midair, as if searching for permission to continue.
Once, his head tips forward too far, chin nearly brushing his chest, before he jerks upright again, as if startled by his own abandon.
He keeps going, stubborn, as if the act of coloring is a duty imposed on him by some unseen authority.
Maybe it is. The thought makes me want to step in, right this second, and ask him what he needs.