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Part 24 - Trauma

(Alexei)

"I... do not understand." Alexei staggered back, allowing Erik a half-step to the side and away from his intense grasp. His colleague's revelation had ploughed into him like a freight train, leaving the wolf reeling in the aftermath. "He is your brother!?"

"Half-brother," Erik confirmed, spinning away from the wall he'd been pinned against. "We have the same father. He is a tiger, too."

"I did not know your brother... your father were tigers."

"How would you? How often is it that I speak of them?"

Alexei's ears flicked back. He searched his memory for past conversations with his friend. "You speak of problems at home... we speak of these often, in fact."

"This is true, but I do not speak of them in detail. I have never spoken about how my brother left home under a cloud after stealing money from us years ago. As for my father... let's say that he abandoned us. He is the one who has caused these problems."

Alexei's calmness didn't persist for long. Rage returned to sear through his mind all over again, though not only towards the snow-furred feline leaning gloomily against his workstation. He felt outraged at himself for offering sympathy, if just for a moment, towards this so-called friend; a friend that conspired in having his husky snatched up, dragged off and taken gods know where to have gods know what done to him. "This does not explain you helping your brother, his friends!"

"It's not like I wanted to help them take Nate. I didn't--"

Alexei stormed forwards, prompting Erik to hurriedly throw his paws up in front of him. "I am losing patience!" He ignored the leopard's futile defenses and grabbed his shoulders with both paws. In a flash, Alexei pushed Erik backwards, slamming him down hard atop the wooden bench. The impact scattered various tools and discarded timber, knocking much of it to the tiled floor below with an echoing clatter. He glared down at his squirming colleague, focusing all of his power into holding him in place. "If I must ask you to explain yourself one more time, you will regret it."

"I didn't have a choice!" Erik grabbed and tugged at Alexei's arm, but failed to shift it. "Yuri, he threatened me! He was home last Saturday evening, drunk or high or a combination of the two. He yelled at my mother for more money, the same as every other time he comes back these days." Both the wolf's vice-like grip and steely glare intensified, quickening Erik's tongue. "He must have overheard me in my bedroom! I was speaking to another friend on the phone about Nate, offering to send the picture I had of the 'Polcian husky' I had seen at work. Yuri burst into my room and snatched my phone shortly after. He took one look at the picture and went crazy, screaming about how Nate had mocked him, along with every Velikan they had caused to lose their jobs and homes."

"What are you talking about!?" Alexei yanked Erik up from the bench by his shirt, fury bubbling to near bursting point. Only the memory of his apprentice's supposed friendship held him back from truly unleashing his emotions upon him.

"It is what he said!" Erik's voice grew desperate, panic unmistakable. "I didn't realise it was him and his friends you were having trouble with until that night! After he had finished with the picture, Yuri grabbed me, held me down and threatened me. He told me that if I didn't help them, he... would take out his anger in other ways." The young leopard swallowed hard, releasing his paw from Alexei's wrist. He stood slumped with the expression of someone holding the weight of the world upon their shoulders, guilt almost tangible with each word spoken and each breath taken. "I still said no... at first... but this is why what happened here Sunday happened."

The earnestness of Erik's ramble finally compelled Alexei to ease the tightness of his grasp, though his anger wouldn't subside so easily. "You blame your mistake on this!? I do not care about--"

"No! The accident with my work... it was no accident." Erik spoke far more freely once Alexei let up, albeit still with a weak, whimpering voice. "After I said I wouldn't help them, Yuri and his friends came here that afternoon. They surprised me, forced their way into the shop through the side door and made me call you, demanding I have you come back here from your trip to the Polcian district. The planned to jump you and Nate, to do... I don't know what to him. I shouted at them, told them no to that also... but--"

"But you did_call me. They _did try to attack us!"

"Because they did not react well to me saying no twice!" Erik winced, his posture drooping further within Alexei's paw. "That fucking bear grabbed me, held me while that bigmouthed fox gouged what I was working on with the disc sander. Yuri, he roamed around the workshop during this, grabbing a weapon while giving everything here a good study. When they had finished, he came over. He... punched me in the stomach... so hard. Hard enough for me to collapse, if not for being held." Erik's voice cracked into a meek squeal as Alexei loosened his paws to release his colleague completely. "My brother has never hit me before... ever... but on this day, with that hammer in his paw, he made it very_clear that if i did not agree to their demand, they would do much worse to the shop. To me, you _and to Nate."

"Why did you not say anything sooner?" The wolf truly began to pity Erik, though the thought of Nathan facing such torment at his small stature drove him on. "Why have you waited until now!?"

"I-I don't know! All I could think of were his threats, thinking that if I were to tell you straight away... I thought he would..." Alexei looked away, shaking his head in disgusted disbelief. "I... just tried to do what was best."

"What is best!?" He snapped back to face Erik, thrusting his muzzle so that it pushed the shorter leopard's downwards. "You would let that bastard take Nate? Let him do... whatever it is he wishes to do with him!?"

"I don't think he'll... I didn't think--"

"No, you did not think!" He pushed his head further forwards, causing Erik to shirk back and stumble into the workbench. "But you will now. You will tell me where I can find him."

"W-what?"

"You heard! If the police will not help, I will find your brother and get Nate back myself."

"You're crazy! My brother is not someone you want to confront."

"Do you think I care!? Who else will do it?" Alexei screamed, clenching his paw. "Tell me where your brother is!"

"I don't know!" Erik yelped back, recoiling again. "Until this, I had not seen him in weeks. He only returns home now if it is to demand money from me and my mother. I am sure the only time he is here for any length of time is to hide, or to get an alibi for someth--"

"Erik, you must know something!" The wolf pounded the bench with his fist, sending some of the few tools still remaining atop it clanking to the floor. "Where would he go?"

"I-I think... he spends most of his time drinking away his welfare, getting into fights--"

"So, bars!?"

"If he is anything like he was before leaving home, most bars here will have banned him."

"This does not help me!"

"I am trying, Alex! Please..." The strain in Erik's voice undermined the boldness of his words. "Other than lurking the streets... he used to spend much of his time at the old docks, the abandoned warehouses."

"This is a start... but the docks are huge."

"My father, he used to work at an old ironworks there... Yuri planned to also before it closed. This was a long time ago... I cannot remember where it is exactly. Everything is closed, crumbling if not already demolished."

"Are you serious? That is all you know!?"

Erik hung his head in shame. "I... I'm sorry!"

The argument died with that apology, leaving a mess of scattered tools and timber amid the workshop's eerie quiet. Alexei stomped away from his colleague with a muddled mix of annoyance, distress and helplessness. 'What in the gods am I to do now!?'

In a moment of relative calm, he snatched his scarred phone from his pocket, glaring down at its screen as if waiting for it to give him the answer.

"Who will you call?" Erik asked, not daring to make eye-contact from his spot against the workbench.

"Perhaps... the police again. Maybe--"

"You can't!"

"Why the hell would I not!? I am thinking that maybe this time I can get through to someone who is not anti-Polcian--"

"No, you can't call the police... Yuri is still my brother... my--"

"You think that I care? Really!? He could... hurt Nate, and all the while I should care that he is your brother? You are dreaming."

"It... no..."

Alexei jabbed a finger at his colleague but didn't approach. "Tell me, why do you protect someone who bullies and beats you, someone who can threaten and kidnap so easily?"

"Because as lost as he may seem, Yuri is my brother." Erik's sad green eyes found the wolf's. "He wasn't always this way... When I was younger, he was there to protect us..."

"Protect from what!?"

Erik sighed, muzzle twisting as if searching out some long-forgotten memory. "When his factory closed, my father struggled to find work like many others. Weeks went by, then months, and still we only had his savings and welfare money to live from. The pressure... or perhaps the shame of it all, it hit him more than we could have expected." He took a moment to compose himself and closed his eyes. "I remember one night very well, when I was fourteen. It was late and my father had been out all day, drinking... like he did often by this time. I heard him stumbling around the living room, yelling and crying. I went downstairs to see what was wrong, to see if I could... he began to scream at me. He was so drunk that I could not understand his words, but the rage... this I understood."

"Erik," Alexei snapped impatiently, though his ears had splayed out in response to the story. "This is sad, but Nate--"

Erik continued on, as if the desire to unload had set him on auto-pilot. "Before I could blink, he hit me... the bastard punched me in the face and knocked me to the ground. I was in so much shock, more than pain... I just lied there on the ground. Yuri and my mother, they ran down the stairs soon after this. My father, he had gone crazy by this point. He rushed over to my mother, maybe to hit her also, but Yuri got there first to stop and shove him back. He was still only seventeen... so our father was still much bigger than him, but he didn't care. They fought terribly, all while my mother screamed and begged for them to stop. I watched from the floor as my father snapped Yuri's paw... and I watched as Yuri broke his jaw in response. That evening is the last time I ever saw my father... he stumbled out of the house and never returned."

The lump that had developed in Alexei's throat took two separate attempts at swallowing to clear. As much as he wanted to walk over to Erik, throw an arm around his shoulder and console him, rescuing Nathan took all priorities, no matter how sad the story sounded.

"It's funny," Erik muttered, seemingly as much to himself than to Alexei. "On that evening, Yuri became the man of the house, took it upon himself to look out for us. Even with that pressure, the duty he must have felt to work, to provide and to fill the space left by our father when he abandoned us... I don't think my brother ever expected to turn out so much like that bastard when he could not." The young leopard scowled, still trapped in his own thoughts. "If not for that damn 'Velikan Progress Union'... 'VPU'... whatever those anti-Polcians call themselves; if he hadn't fallen in with them, he wouldn't be anything like this... They have so much to answer for..."

Alexei tuned Erik out as he reconsidered his idea to phone the police. His colleague's words, combined with the memory of just how useless the authorities had been up to this point, made the decision for him. "Forget it... To hell with the police."

He marched off towards the workshop's side door, rushing past Erik with enough speed to pull him away from his dark memories. "Alex... You can't go alone! Let me help you at least. I might be able to speak to him--"

"I want nothing more from you than to close the shop and to go home." Alexei stopped at the door, fixing Erik with a cold glare. "Regardless of your story, know that if anything happens to Nate... I do not think I will ever be able to forgive you for it."