“Nik…”
“From my hand, from my fingers, will you take food?”
“Nik…”
Kors felt a hot piece of meat touch his lips. Involuntarily, he tried to push it away from him. Trying to remove Nik’s hand from his face, he accidentally touched his wrist just below the bracelet. Now that all of Kors’ senses were sharpened to the limit, he very clearly felt the thin dent of the scar under his fingers. It was rope trace. Kors ruined his son’s wrists, constantly tying his hands tightly for the purpose of treatment and education, and, being carried away in the process, tightened it so that the rope literally dug into the skin. Tattoos, as always, helped to hide the abrasions, and Kors didn’t think about the consequences. He instantly remembered how Nik, in those moments when his hands were free, tried to rub his stiff fingers, grimacing from the pain of rubbing his wrists, on which deep grooves from the cord remained. And in the Ore Town, Kors tied his hands behind his back with a thin iron wire. What has he done! Now the same marks on his hands were waiting for him, Kors no longer doubted it. And yet, without knowing why, he was sure that after dinner Arel would fuck him, or he would suck him off. Nik was cunning, daddy Kors was punished. But for how long?
“Eat!” Nik hurried, pressing the piece of meat to his lips again.
And Kors doomedly parted his lips. The piece of lamb was small but very hot, burning the palate and tongue. Opening his mouth, Kors took a deep breath, trying to cool his food:
“Hot!”
“Forgive me, hold it, drink it,” Nik lightly pushed him with a goblet in the chest. Kors seized the goblet and drank the contents frantically.
“Another bite,” Nik touched his lips again, and Kors dutifully took the meat from his fingers.
On the fourth or fifth piece of lamb he pleaded:
“Nik, please! I can’t take it anymore! It makes me sick, I feel nausea.”
“Okay, I won’t do it anymore,” Nik said to Kors’ delight, “I have poured you more wine.”
Kors drank it.
“Daddy, would you like an injection?”
“N-no-no, thank you, please don’t! I'm fine.”
“Okay. Then go back to bed. And try to sleep.”
Kors groped his way back to the trestle bed, took off his camisole and shirt.
So far, they didn’t bother him. He warmed up under the covers, and the wine he drank made itself felt, giving some peace of mind.
Suddenly, Kors heard Nik make a strange sound. He seemed to sob, groaning softly, as if in pain, and his quiet moan turned into an equally quiet hissing.
“Ver!” He called loudly, and, apparently, having remembered himself, he added already in his mind, “Bring me this damn plaster and cotton wool,” and then again cursed out loud in unclean language.
“Nik! What happened to you?!” Kors shouted excitedly. Jumping up abruptly, he sat down on the couch.
“What’s the difference to you?” Nik answered coldly. “After all, I’m a piece of shit in a dirty candy wrapper.”
Kors froze ashamed:
“Why do you need cotton wool and plaster? Doctor Cassiel warned that when the poison finally begins to leave your scar, inflammation may begin. In recent days, the skin around was very reddened, did the inflammation intensify from shaking on the road? Yes? Just don’t put the steel brackets in again, I beg you!”
“That’s not your business! I will do what I want!”
“Nik, please! You are offended and angry with me, I understand, but be reasonable.”
“Don’t call me Nik again! For you, I’m Nikto! And I’m not offended and not angry with you, daddy master!”
Kors was well aware that Nik was mocking him, calling him daddy, but he didn’t want to give up so easily:
“No, no. Nik, please! I never really got mad at you. Were you listening to my thoughts on the road? My memories of you?”
“It was hard not to hear you jerk off incessantly to my human appearance in your head.”
“No! I didn’t jerk off… you have misunderstood…” Kors heard Verniy run into the tent. Nik began to mentally communicate with him and was distracted from the conversation with Kors. It pissed him off. “Nik, I was wrong, I admit it…”
“Fuck off and shut up now,” Nik hissed softly again. Kors suggested that he applied cotton soaked in a healing agent to an inflamed scar.
“Son, it’s my fault, I thoughtlessly started treatment and irritated your old wound. Let me help you,” pleaded Kors, he was madly worried that the Demon would completely disfigure the face of his son.
“No!”
And Kors couldn’t resist:
“You're ruining everything now! You won’t be able to apply the medicine properly! You don’t know how to do it! Stubborn idiot!”
“Ah, look, you washed me again and didn’t dry me! But I’m not going to sit and cry anymore after you yelled at me! Mister daddy, shut up, I said, otherwise now I’ll put a plaster on your mouth, and not just on your eyes! And if you want, I’ll fasten it with a steel bracket so that you will completely shut up!”
Kors froze and fell silent. He was very worried that Nik would spoil all the treatment without supervision now.
Nik walked over to him.
“Don’t talk to me. I forbid you to talk, you understand? Everything you wanted, you already told me in the Fort.”
Kors remained silent, not knowing what to do, whether he could answer or not. But he involuntarily mentally said: “Son, what’s wrong with your face?”
Despite the prohibition, Kors didn’t dare to call him Nikto.
“What’s wrong with my face? Nothing. It’s covered in black scales, you know,” Nik answered aloud. “Don’t address me mentally! And now I will touch you with my nasty paws, and you will wet your pants from fear, right, daddy?”
Kors grabbed his head.
“Forgive me, forgive me. I will try to accept your essence and this image of you, in our world you are in merger with my son, and…”
He “heard” how Nik abruptly closed his thoughts from him, as if loudly slamming the door, and moved away from him:
“Sleep!”
Chapter 3
Skid Row — Wasted Time
Kors is locked up again in some empty and dark cell with no windows. Is this a dream? Or is he “catching” Nik’s memories again? Kors has already understood that as soon as dark holes, low ceilings, cells, basements, unpleasant sensations of tightness in a closed space and darkness appeared in his visions, these were the memories of his son.
Darkness and limited space. Kors is no longer afraid, he doesn’t experience panic attacks and claustrophobia any more. He separates from Nik’s consciousness, in which there is emptiness and no thoughts and emotions, as if he is dead. Kors separates because he wants to see him from the side. There is no light source here, but Kors “sees” anyway. Nik is so small! Shit! Kors, as always, falls into Nik’s childhood memories.
He is too small, he is probably not yet five years old. Maybe a little more, but even for five years he looks small and thin, and the expression on his face is so serious and adult, not at all childish. Cheekbones are clearly distinguished on a thin face, there is no roundness and plump cheeks that are often inherent in babies. Pale face with harmonious features. Nik is very handsome, despite the fact that his face is grimy, as if smeared with earth, and his lower lip has already been ruined, rings stick out of it. His lips are black, also in soil. Did he eat soil? Nik’s hair is not cut or combed, it’s tangled and dirty, however, as always. His crown is also dirty with soil. He is badly dressed. He is wearing a short jacket and torn pants. This is frank rags, so old that it seems decayed. Nik is sitting on the bare dirt floor in this crypt-like closet where there is nothing else but him. He sits alone, dirty, covered in soil, thin, lonely. Kors involuntarily remembered Shagezh’s childhood memories. Zaf also always kept him in a closet. What kind of wild methods of upbringing do you unclean ones have?