Project 43: Healing

A lot of good

Steve and Bucky snapped their necks turning around to face the door, the second they heard it click open. The man who had been introduced as Dominik poked his head out of the doorway and looked for the pair.

"Come on in then won't you," the man called before disappearing back into the room.

Steve and Bucky turned to face each other for a second before Steve went back in with Bucky following soon after him.

Dominik was leaning against the back wall behind Victor, shoving more grapes into his mouth. Victor was still sitting on his chair, not looking a bit more relaxed. Steve walked up to the desk and set down in the chair next to Elias as Victor motioned for him to do so. Bucky chose to keep standing up once again.

"We'll get you a place by tomorrow. Tonight you can stay here in the basement. It's a storage room, but it's a safe place which you did ask for," Victor explained making Steve smile.

"Thank you. We appreciate your help," Steve said nodding to the man in front of him.

"Great," Dominik exclaimed clapping his hands as he spoke. "Now, if you'll excuse us, the three of us are going to get hammered. You are welcome to join us, if not I guess you can go to the basement or something I don't know what you guys like to do," he continued as Elias just grinned at the man.

"You're a lot different," Dominik said as Elias grabbed three beers from the other side of the counter.

"Am I not as interesting anymore?" Elias asked with a chuckle. They had simply walked down the stairs, slightly sad since they couldn't go to a public bar anymore.

"No. But it's fine," Dominik said digging into his jacket pocket and pouring something from his flask into his beer. Victor looked at the man in disgust, but Elias just laughed feeling right at home.

"So tell me about Annie," Elias said after the trio had downed their first drinks. Dominik's smile grew so much Elias started to laugh.

"You're really down bad," Victor pointed out causing Dominik to hit him over the head.

"We met at the bar one night and after the night we spent the entire day together," Dominik explained, weirdly blushing as he explained it all.

"Aw," Elias taunted his friend.

"Yeah, yeah, bully me, that's fine. At least I have someone waiting for me at home," Dominik said flipping off the two others and grabbing another drink.

A wave of sadness hit Elias like a truck when he remembered why he was there. He put down his glass of whiskey and stared into nothingness, thinking about the people rotting in prison while he was out in Belize City, drinking and having fun.

"What's up?" Victor asked, turning away from Dominik who was trying to do a handstand.

"It's nothing," Elias tried, but as soon as he said that, Dominik crashed down to the ground. He quickly got up and rushed to Elias' side.

"Why are you pouting? What's wrong?" Dominik asked attempting to sit down on the barstool next to Elias but falling off at first.

"There's a bunch of good people in prison right now so that we could get out," Elias explained quickly to which Victor and Dominik just nodded. 

"We'll you just gotta bail them out," Dominik said, not truly understanding what Elias was talking about.

"It was their choice to go down for you. You have to try your best to get them out but at the end of the day, you just have to thank them for their service," Victor said, clearly having experienced similar things before.