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Niko picks Packie up after he discharges himself from the clinic and Packie’s a real picture, Niko can’t help but take notice.
Scraped chin, busted knuckles bleeding through gauze, and when he lowers himself to get in the passenger’s seat of Niko’s car, he winces. Slightly. A quiet little hiss escaped through clenched teeth.
Niko asks him if he’s alright.
He certainly doesn’t look it.
Packie looks at him like he expected the question, with a lopsided smile a bit reserved like he’s trying to be subtle. “I’m good, Niko, boy - how’re you?”
“You don’t look good ,” Niko eyes him for a second longer before taking off, turning his attention back to the road and heading towards Meadows Park. “You look like you just got your ass kicked.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Packie laughs, a sound similar to a car engine sputtering. As goofy as the smile that still lingers on his face. “but you should see the other guy.”
“ Yeah ?”
“Yeah,” Packie parrots the word back at Niko. “Think I broke the poor fucker’s nose.”
“Why?” Niko glances over at him again, and Packie’s attention is diverted out the window, captured by the buildings and civilians passing by them. “Did the two of you have some sort of... argument ?”
“You’ve been hanging with me sis a bit too much, Niko, you’re starting to sound like her,” Packie glances back at him, and smiles. Maybe he never stopped smiling - hell, maybe the man was smiling on the steps of the clinic when Niko picked him up. “Thought you of all people would understand that you don’t need a conflict to start a fight.”
“Then why were you fighting?”
“Boredom, mostly - nothin’ better to do,” Packie shrugs, short and jerky. “Bit like fuckin’, I guess.”
Niko chuckles, moreso to himself. “I guess.”
The next few blocks pass by in silence, but not an uncomfortable one. Easy. Like a silence shared with Roman or Jacob. Like a silence shared with someone close to him, someone he cared about.
Niko isn’t sure when he moved Packie into that category, or when Packie moved himself into that category. Niko imagines Packie shuffling into a small room - a room occupied by Roman, by his mother, and Packie just making himself at home, like he belongs there.
Maybe he does. One shared silence at a time.
“Oh, if you don’t care, could you come in with me? Tell ma we were out drinking and I was just in some bar fight,” Packie’s voice snaps Niko back into present-day. “Last time I came home like this, she started asking too many questions.”
~
Niko parks at the curb infront of the McReary Residence, and Packie’s wincing again as he tries to climb out of the passenger’s seat of the car, so Niko lends him a hand, heaves him to his feet.
Packie nods to him as a thanks, still clutching at his side - Niko nods back, almost a knee-jerk reaction. Unconscious.
Niko leaves a hand on Packie’s shoulder as he leads him up to the steps of the front door, one that Packie doesn’t brush off like Niko expected him too.
Instead, Packie sort of leans into the touch, like it’s a comfort - like its the shared silence back in the car.
Niko wonders briefly, as he leads Packie up the steps and watches as Packie digs his keys out of the pocket of his jeans, if he belongs in the same little room as those Packie cares about, as well.
~
Packie calls him again, about two weeks later, asks Niko to pick him up from the bar in Steinway. Niko can tell from the way his words slur together ever so slightly, the way Packie seems to giggle through his sentences, that he’s a bit too drunk to drive himself, so Niko tells him he’ll be there within the hour.
Niko pulls up and Packie waves at him before he approaches the car with one hand, and is holding a napkin to his bleeding nose with the other.
He doesn’t wince when he gets in the car, but he’s got patches of blood all down the front of his green polo shirt.
Niko asks, “Did he break your nose this time, instead?”
Packie looks at him, and blinks. “Who?”
“The guy who kicked your ass the last time I picked you up.”
“Oh,” Packie smiles behind the napkin blotched with red. “No. Different guy this time.”
Packie’s launched into his speeches about how fighting is an important aspect that makes him who is he, Niko’s heard them before. It’s as important as drinking or robbing gas stations or liquor stores to make a quick buck.
Packie talks about fighting like it’s a hobby, wears his scars like a badge of honor and muses about how the slit on his eyebrow he got from someone busting his face open with the butt of a shotgun makes him look badass.
Niko could ask him why he gets himself into these fights almost weekly it seems. But, somehow, he already knows the answer.
So Niko just glances at him, then at the road, then back at him - all in the span of a couple of seconds and says, “Okay.”
“You should come with me one night,” Packie’s rolling his shoulder in Niko’s peripheral view like it aches. “You like a good fight, don’t ya?”
“Come with you where? To get your ass kicked?”
“No, asshole,” Packie snorts. “To fight . I meet up with this group of guys every week and we fight. It’s like a club, almost - or like one of those pathetic anonymous social groups that meet at the community center.”
Packie rolls his shoulder again, this time gripping at it and rubbing it underneath where the seatbelt strap falls over it. Niko runs a red light, and the unblinking, stark red hue passes over Packie’s face and disappears behind them into the night.
“Like one of those cage fighting clubs except nobody’s placing any bets. Just fighting,” Packie elaborates, like Niko needed any further explanation.
It doesn’t sound like a good idea at the time, only a forgettable suggestion that Niko can easily brush off and discard.
Somewhere along the duration of dropping Packie off his at his ma’s house, walking him inside again, flashing a quick and polite smile to Kate and Mrs. McReary on his way out, and heading back to his apartment in Middle Park East - the idea doesn’t sound so bad anymore.
Taking up space in the back of his mind, Niko likes to think that maybe he comes around to it. Considers it an option merely out of boredom.
He calls Packie a couple of days later, and asks if the option is still on the table.
Niko can practically sense Packie grinning into the phone.
~
Packie tells Niko to meet him at the bar in Steinway, and Niko does.
Waits in his car until he sees Packie come up behind it, circling over to the driver’s side and knocking on the window.
Niko follows Packie, neither of them speaking a word, into the bar and down to the basement.
Niko remembers reading in one of those “See the Sights” pamphlets about Liberty City he’d picked up from a gas station a couple of months back that the Steinway Beer Garden was the place to “slug ‘em and toss ‘em” - only then Niko had assumed they’d been talking about drunken games of darts.
~
Niko watches from the circle of people, crowded around all close-knit together and huddled. The same way people huddle around when there’s a fight going in the streets. A man who’s in a particularly bad mood, now taking his bad mood out on the guy who just rear-ended him at a red light.
Packie’s got his shirt off, and there’s a yellowed bruise near his ribs that Niko can see everytime he moves underneath the fluorescent lights hanging above. He’s got another bruise right above the only tattoo on his arm, more purple than the one on his torso. Packie’s own name scrawled across the skin of his arm, chanting along with the crowd.
He’s pounding into Gordon, landing a swift blow to his stomach, and another right against his jaw when Gordon doubles over.
Gordon hits the ground and Packie glances behind him, catches Niko’s eyes and he winks. All self-satisfactory like he’s dedicating this match to Niko in particular.
~
Gordon’s being helped out of the middle of the circle, a red splotch of blood against the concrete remains where his face was, and Packie’s still standing.
Packie passes him on his way out of the circle, spares him another glance and a pat on the shoulder, and edges him forward.
From the other side of the circle, a man that Niko doesn’t recognize steps forward, and motions for Niko to do the same.
Niko does.
~
They sit outside of the bar, in a couple of the plastic, white outdoor chairs, sharing a beer that Packie snagged on their way out.
Niko’s got a cut below his eye that won’t stop bleeding and there’s blood staining his fingers from where he touched the back of his head.
He feels like an idiot, but satisfied.
Packie asks him if he ever thought this would be how he’d be spending his Saturday night. He hands Niko the beer bottle and Niko’s fingers brush up against Packie’s when he takes it.
“Not really,” Niko admits, a slight chuckle in his voice. “But then again, I never would’ve been able to predict anything that has happened in my life.”
“Oh yeah?” Packie asks, and Niko takes a swig out of the bottle before passing it back to him. “Where’d you think you’d be at by now?”
“I don’t know,” Niko sighs, glancing over at Packie, watching the way he brings the lip of the bottle to his mouth. Watches his throat when he swallows. “When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut.”
Packie does that laugh - the one that reminds Niko of a sputtering car engine, and he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I could see you as a space monkey, Niko.”
~
The same routine as always, Niko takes Packie back to his ma’s and the next Saturday, instead of going to play pool or darts, Niko takes Packie to Steinway and they spend the next couple of hours in the circle of men. Waiting for their turn - their chance at a fight.
This, within itself, becomes a routine.
Until one night Packie’s almost certain his nose is broken, and the gash above his eyebrow is reopened and blood keeps getting in his eye.
Packie resets his nose, and the crack of it is loud against the quiet evening air, and Packie asks Niko if he can crash at his place - he’d rather his ma not see him like this.
~
It’s in the bathroom of Niko’s apartment, when Packie’s sat up on the edge of the sink with Niko standing between his legs, applying bandages to the cut above his eyebrow so he won’t have to go to the clinic again to get stitches - that Packie kisses him.
Slow and a bit timid; shy in a way that is out of character for Packie, and Niko hesitates for a moment, lips still against Packie’s as his fingers still grip at the last strip of surgical tape.
Niko’s eyes are still open, and he sees the exact moment that Packie’s eyes flick downward towards Niko’s mouth before he pulls him in, and the exact moment that Packie’s eyes flutter shut after he pulls him in. And the last thing Niko sees is the line of Packie’s light-colored lashes against his skin.
Packie’s got enough tape around the patch of gauze to hold it against his face, so Niko decided fuck it and places the roll of tape down on the counter beside Packie before his hands settle against Packie’s elbows.
He moves his lips now, mirroring Packie’s movements, and he feels Packie’s hands gripping at the fabric of his shirt now as he deepens the kiss - leaning a bit more towards a kiss that Niko expected.
But, to say this was the sort of kiss he expected from Packie - barely contained and raw, with the scrape of teeth and tongue, Niko would have to admit that kissing Packie is something he’s thought about before.
And, well, he has.
Probably ever since he realized Packie had moved himself into a special compartment of Niko’s heart without a single word, probably before then. It’s hard to say.
Taking up space there, in Niko’s heart, in Niko’s head, in Niko’s thoughts, and on Niko’s bathroom sink.