Another Elliot-heavy chapter, hope nobody mind. The second half of this is a product of my sleep-deprived mind, as I'm tired, but not tired enough to will myself to go to bed.
Brook Hadley knew she could be a cold Bitch, Capital B, but that didn't mean she was completely indifferent. She really did care about people and their problems, but she learned a long time ago that freezing her heart was a better way to keep it safe.
Brook's compassion bled through with her employees, though. She was hard on them, sure, but if someone had a problem she always did her best to help. Her club wasn't much, but damn if her workers weren't like family.
She worried about Elliot the most, though, especially after he showed up for work with a bruise coloring his cheek and a story about hitting his face on a stair rail, but she knew better.
She knew what abuse looked like.
There was no proof, though, and they never would have been able to do anything—if Elliot's domestic partner hadn't come to the club and physically assaulted the redhead while he was on the clock.
It wasn't a good night; Levi was arrested and Elliot went to the hospital, and his protests of 'I'm fine, really, I can't afford a hospital visit,' nearly broke Brook's heart.
She wanted to help, but she couldn't pay the whole bill herself.
It was Kate's idea to ask for donations, and everyone was willing to pitch in.
Elliot was a sweet boy; if they could help him, then they would.
Elliot was told to rest, but he couldn't. They had to keep him medicated or he would have tried to walk out of the hospital.
'I can't afford this,' he thought, groggy from pain meds.
He'd needed a lot of stitches and when he was finally released, he'd missed a lot of work and the rent deadline. It was no surprise to find an eviction notice pinned to his and Levi's door when he'd gotten home.
Levi . . . . . .
"Don't think about it," Elliot muttered, unlocking the apartment door. "Just . . . Don't think about it." He shut the door behind him before leaning heavily against it.
"Shit."
Now what?
Erika was worried when Elliot wasn't at the Rec Center on Saturday. Nobody knew where he was and his phone was shut off.
On Monday Erika went to the small bookstore/café he worked at, but he wasn't there and he hadn't called in.
"J.A.R.V.I.S, I need you to find someone," Erika said after the second week of his absence. "Elliot Renard, short red hair, green eyes, about 5'6"—5'7", last known employer was the Green Dragon Café." She gave the café's address.
"One moment please."
A beat.
"I'm having trouble locating an Elliot Renard that matches your description."
Damn.
"However, there is an Emily Renard employed at the Green Dragon, and that matches your specifications."
An image came onto Erika's StarkPad and her eyebrows furrowed.
"What's the address?"
J.A.R.V.I.S transferred the information to her phone.
"Yeesh, that's a bad neighborhood—no way am I going there alone," she muttered. At that precise moment the elevator dinged and her brother stepped out.
Perfect.
"What are we doing here again?" Fenrir asked as Erika dragged him across Manhattan to one of the city's worst neighborhoods.
"Checking on a friend," was all she said, stopping in front of a run-down apartment building. "Wow, talk about your fixer-uppers," she muttered. They were heading towards what she hoped was the right door when Fenrir stopped her. A moment later she heard why he'd stopped—someone was yelling inside the apartment they'd been heading to.
Before Erika could knock the door was yanked open and a middle aged man with a sour look on his face shoved past them. "If you're friends with that freak, I wouldn't stick around if I were you," he snarled over his shoulder.
Fenrir snarled something nasty in Old Norse right back at him and the guy spun around to yell again, but one nastier look from Fenrir made him shut his mouth and walk away. Fast.
" . . . . Alrighty then," said Erika, and then she knocked on the door.
No answer.
"Elliot?" she called, knocking again. "It's Erika—I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Someone was moving around inside the apartment and she stepped back as the door opened.
"Jesus Christ, what happened?" Erika asked before she could stop herself.
Elliot looked like shit. He was pale and thinner than the last time she'd seen him, and there were bandages around his arms, hands, neck and forehead.
"Nice to see you, too," he said dryly.
Erika blinked. "Sorry, that was rude, I was just—you haven't been coming to the center, and your phone's off . . . . ." she cleared her throat. "I'm just happy you're okay. Well, obviously you're not okay, but you're not dead, so there's that—sorry, I'm glad you're not dead, we'll go now."
Elliot frowned. "We?"
And then he noticed Fenrir, who, Erika, noticed briefly, looked a little pale.
"Um, yeah, this is Fenrir. Fen, this is Elliot," said Erika.
Fenrir seemed to be having trouble forming words.
Elliot, too, looked like he'd seen a ghost, but then he blinked and said in a hesitant voice, "Here, come in," stepping away from the door. "Sorry, I should have invited you in first. Here, sit, I'll get some coffee going." They followed him in to a worn looking couch and Erika was wondering why they both looked like someone had killed a puppy.
Erika looked ready to beat on Elliot's partner herself when he finished telling her what happened, and she immediately offered him a room in the Tower, knowing Tony and the others wouldn't mind.
Elliot declined, explaining that he had a friend who'd already invited him to stay with her.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Erika asked again before she and Fenrir left the apartment. "I meant it, Elliot, you can stay with us, and it's no problem."
"I'm fine," he assured her. "Kate's apartment isn't too far from work, and I've already helped her clean out her spare room." He gave her a small smile. "Thank you, though." Fenrir had already bolted and was waiting outside, so he took the opportunity to ssay, "So, he seems . . . . Nice?"
Erika shook her head. "He's usually pretty prickly, but I've never seen him like this; I'll just give him a good whack on the head for his bad manners."
Elliot swallowed. "It's fine. I appreciate your concern," he told her sincerely, and gave her a brief one-arm hug.
"Get better, kay? The others miss you, and between you and me they're getting sloppy without our drill instructor," she said, and then with one final 'bye,' she was out the door.
"I am not 'prickly,'" Fenrir said defensively when she came out, and he dodged the blow aimed for his head.
"Your default setting is 'unapproachable,'" she retorted. "Seriously, why were you looking at him like that?"
"Like what?" he asked, feigning innocence while dodging another blow.
"Don't play dumb, I know you're smarter than you look—why did you look like you'd just seen something poisonous?"
Fenrir wouldn't meet her eyes and he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'it's personal.' He clammed up after that, so she left it alone. It wasn't until she'd talked with Jormungand that she learned Fenrir had already met Elliot. Jormungand didn't say how they'd met, but just said Fenrir had been 'having an identity crisis' since their meeting.
He almost snorted his coffee when Erika asked, "They met at the strip club Elliot works at, didn't they?" At his incredulous look she added, "It's not a secret, Jor, at least not with the people at the Center. He's even taught us a little pole dancing."
"Now there's an image I didn't need," Jormungand muttered after his coughing fit died down. "If you must know, then yes, they met the night before my wedding and Fenrir has been trying to come to terms with being attracted to another man."
Erika thought about J.A.R.V.I.S's search finding an Emily Renard instead of an Elliot, but that, she was sure, was not her information to share.
"Hurry, Uncle, hurry! Auntie, make him go faster!" Erik whined to Erika from his perch on Fenrir's shoulders as they walked down the busy sidewalks.
"We're going as fast as we can," Fenrir said, jostling Erik a little and making the boy squeal. "Your Auntie can't go as fast as I can, so we have to go slower."
"I'm fine," Erika insisted, though she was leaning heavier on her cane than normal. "I guess I just got a little too used to my good brace." Some wiring had busted and the new one wasn't ready yet, so she'd been forced to use one of her old braces and her cane.
"It's right up the street! I see the sign!" Erik cried excitedly, and he would have fallen from Fenrir's shoulders if not for the man's sturdy grip on his legs.
A large sign with a dragon on it that read 'Green Dragon Café and Bookstore' hung over a rounded green door and Fenrir had to take Erik off his shoulders to enter, lest the boy knock his head on the doorframe. Fenrir himself had to duck slightly, his six-foot-three frame only able to straighten again once they were in the building. "They need a taller door," he muttered.
"Nah, you're just freakishly tall," Erika sniffed," Kay, Buddy, go with Uncle Fen to get a book and meet me by the window table," she told the little blond boy, and couldn't help the small laugh at the sight her nephew and brother made—Erik had grabbed onto Fenrir and was pulling towards the bookstore half of the shop.
Erika hobbled over to the café's ordering counter and scanned the menu, trying to figure out what Erik might want.
She wasn't worried about ordering for Fenrir—he'd eat anything.
The Green Dragon was odd in two ways. The first was, obviously, that it was a bookstore as well as a place to eat. The second was that the menu followed J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit meal times. They opened at 7 am and served breakfast until 9, then second breakfast until 11, elevenses until 1, luncheon until 6 with afternoon tea starting at 4, and supper beginning at 6 until they closed at 9.
That, paired with the Middle Earth décor, made it one of many memorable shops Erika had visited while living in Manhattan.
It was a little past 3, so luncheon it was. Erika was next in line and she smiled at the person behind the register. "Hey, Stranger."
Elliot smiled back at her, and it was none of her business if it looked tired and forced.
"Hi," he said in a friendly tone.
"Glad to see you're back on your feet," Erika offered. "How's the move to your friend's going?"
"Good. I just got the last of my stuff moved over," he answered.
It hadn't been that long ago that Elliot had told her about moving, and she wondered if he'd rushed to pack everything or if he'd just not had that much stuff to pack.
She didn't ask.
"Well, I'm glad you're better," she said instead.
"You and me both," he sighed. "What can I get you?"
Erika ordered and leaned her cane against the counter before pulling her card out of her clutch purse. One wrong step with her bad leg, though, made it lock up. She cringed and dropped the card, and she would have fallen, but by some luck Fenrir was somehow suddenly there and helped steady her.
"God Damn it," she hissed between clenched teeth.
"Easy," Fenrir murmured in his native tongue, letting her lean against him. "Just breathe."
"I'm trying," she ground out. "Jesus, that hurts."
"Are you okay?" Elliot asked worriedly. He'd moved to come around to the front of the counter but stopped when Fenrir shook his head.
"I've got her," said the taller man. "Erik, get her cane and card."
"Okay, Uncle," Erik answered in the same language, shifting his book under his arm before retrieving Erika's cane and credit card from the floor. "Here, Auntie." He held out the cane so Erika could grab the polished silver wolf head handle.
"I'm fine," Erika muttered, reaching for the cane. "See?" she insisted, letting go of Fenrir and leaning against her cane instead. "I swear, Fen, I'm fine. Honestly, after all this time, you'd think people would stop making such a fuss."
"It's not fussing if it's a legitimate concern," Fenrir shot back. "You need to sit, you've been on your feet too long. Go sit, I'll finish," he said in a 'don't argue' tone, plucking her card from Erik's fingers. "Erik, help her."
"Come on Auntie, Uncle says you need to sit," said Erik, pulling on Erika's sleeve, and Erika gave Fenrir a look through narrowed eyes before following Erik to a table by the building's large front window.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Elliot asked, accepting Erika's card when Fenrir handed it to him.
Fenrir nodded once, still watching Erika. "She just needs to rest."
"She's lucky to have such a caring boyfriend."
Fenrir blinked and turned back to Elliot, his brow furrowed. "She's my sister," he said in a voice that screamed 'isn't it obvious?'
Elliot flushed. "O-oh. Um. Sorry. Here, your food will be right out," he said, handing over Fenrir's copy of the receipt and Erika's card before scurrying off towards where Fenrir assumed the kitchen was.
Fenrir would only realize later, once his concern for his little sister wore off, than he'd actually been able to function normally around the little redhead that caused him to 'short circuit,' as Jormungand had teased. He thought that maybe his dreaming hours would finally be free of pale freckled skin and copper hair, and he wouldn't wake up in a tangle of sweaty, sticky sheets.
He was wrong.
