Winter's bite was soft mouthed this year. The cool air was enough to see one's breath but hadn't fully made it into territory where snow would cover the ground. As a result, the light displays looked a little out of place, as though they'd been left out too long. Even the festive sprigs of Spruce and Fraiser looked strange on doors.

With a window open, the draft left small pockets of condensation where his arm rested on the heavy oak table in the dining area. The table was ostentasious for a place meant to be transient, but somehow it suited the owner. Ash was tapped inside of a cup that probably cost more than he made in a month, but Brandon wasn't concerned. Smoke filled his battered lungs and calmed his nerves while he listened to the old Regulator clock tick time by slowly. On the twelfth chime, he heard the door open. He let the filter of the cigarette roll between his fingers, squeezing cotton, before it landed in the bottom of the cup with a hiss.

"Jesus fucking Christ."

The illuminated hallway had cast just enough light into the dining area to turn Brandon from a silhouette into a waking nightmare. His face like rotten fruit, swollen in a spectrum of red, purple, and black tipped toward the slurred voice that came from the hall.

"Nice to see you too, El," he said as he rose up from the table slowly.

"What...How..." Frozen in place, Elliot was slow to process the fact that his brother was currently standing in his apartment. More than that, it was the timing and the state that had him paralyzed. A fading blackened eye of his own suggested the same fate had befallen his brother but he hadn't actually thought they'd been serious.

Brandon moved much quicker, fueled by rage and the overwhelming pain that he couldn't label, he shoved Elliot back into a wall. It was all that his brother had needed to snap out of his initial shock and a fist balled but never connected. Brandon grabbed Elliot's wrist and swung him against the table in the hall. Elliot let out a cry like a pained animal as he felt his wrist dislocate when it was shoved behind his back. Brandon's free forearm came to rest on the back of his neck as his jaw met the edge of the table. Minimal pressure would easily crush the vertebrae there.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully," Brandon started, the blood in his mouth speckled his brother's ear. "You are done with this family. Do you understand?" He applied just enough pressure to gain an affirmative from his brother. "You'll call our mother and tell her you've got to work extra on Christmas and you'll begin paying me in installments the fifty five thousand that you owed. You miss a payment, I'll break your fucking hands. You even think about gambling, I'll break your fucking hands. And if you ever speak a fucking word to me again after this, I'll break your fucking hands, are we clear?"

Elliot nodded and Brandon let him up to clutch at his wrist. It wasn't broken but it hurt like hell and had completely destroyed the pleasant buzz that he'd had up until he'd walked through the door. Suspicions confirmed he watched Brandon's back as he staggered toward the door.

"Why not just kill me?" Elliot asked bitterly.

"You don't deserve it," Brandon replied as he opened the door. "But you can live the rest of your life as a miserable piece of shit if you want to. By the way, I flushed your coke. Hope that didn't set you back too much."

The navigator that sat at the end of the block was still running by the time he climbed in the passenger side door. Nick Chandler's white knuckle grip on the steering wheel seemed to visibly relax as Brandon slid the seatbelt over his chest.

"We're going to the hospital now, right?" Nick asked. "Then filing a report?"

"Get me out of Philly," Brandon said, suddenly tired. "No hospitals, just take me home."

"Katze..."

"Take me home, Nicky."