Robb Stark & Aubrey Rois (sonofthenorth) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-15 02:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | eric northman, robb stark |
Who: Aubrey & Dante
What: Aubrey shows up after getting the shit kicked out of him.
Where: Dante's place
When: After this
Warnings/Rating: Blood and swearing and Aubrey making googly eyes.
Dante was on. The. Phone. It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear the ruckus going on at his front door; there was a club downstairs but this floor had been soundproofed - he just didn’t think that it was that much of an emergency to warrant hanging up in the middle of a business transaction. “Yeah. No. No don’t worry about it - it’s just some drunk schmuck outside my door,” Dante said with a sigh. He couldn’t mumble anymore into the phone so he had to take the cigarette out of his mouth to speak clearly so that he could be heard over the noise. When the talking at his door didn’t stop, Dante moved from the balcony through the living space - it wasn’t minimal to look stylish; it was minimal because Dante didn’t want and didn’t have that much shit cluttering up his place - and slid the door open. “What the f-... Yeah. No. Hey. I’m going to have to call you back. Sorry bye.” He gave Aubrey a once-over. It certainly wasn’t his first time showing up like this but Dante had long ago run out of ‘what the fuck happened’ to say. “You gotta stop coming here after your Fight Club death matches. Don’t make me quote ‘dead nigger storage’.” He replaced the cigarette back between his lips and retreated back inside, leaving the door open for Aubrey to enter while he went to get his first aid kit. “I’m touched by your empathy,” he muttered dryly, a bit of a snarl coming through in his voice. He was absolutely not in the mood for Dante’s attitude, which made him wonder about all the various reasons he had for showing up at the man’s door. Aubrey’s voice was congealed with the sound of thick, clotted blood in the back of his throat, and he brushed past Dante and into the loft’s main living area. “Sorry for interrupting your business call,” he added as an afterthought, not sounding remotely sorry and not feeling much of it either. As far as he was concerned, Dante could shut the fuck up and deal with the goddamned shitty situation - but that wasn’t likely. “Wasn’t Fight Club,” he added, while a fresh spurt of blood bypassed the tissues. Aubrey got fed up and yanked the Kleenex out of his nostrils without ceremony, holding his sleeve under his nose and wondering if arriving at Dante’s door had been such a good idea. The man wasn’t terribly sympathetic - but then again, Aubrey wasn’t exactly looking for sympathy. He headed toward the kitchen sink since it was the closest. “What, you aren’t going to share?” He reached out and grabbed Dante’s cigarette in what was possibly the boldest gesture he could have managed at the moment. He held the smoke in for as long as possible before exhaling, casting a grey cloud around his head and trying not to drip too much blood onto the thing. He wasn’t entirely successful. It wasn’t that he wasn’t concerned about Aubrey’s wellbeing. What started out as casual flirting had long since developed into something else. Dante just didn’t feel comfortable with these sorts of house calls. Aubrey would one day bring the kind of company Dante had been avoiding for all these years to his door and then he’d have a lot more to worry about than just living in a fragile house of cards built on lies and uncertainty. He retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom, now short of a cigarette, and brought it to the kitchen where Mr. Not Fight Club was bleeding out at. At least he had the decency to try not to leak all over Dante’s floor. “Let me see,” he said, and without waiting for Aubrey to tell him to fuck off, he grabbed the boy - just a boy when he came here bruised and bloodied like this, not a man - by the chin and surveyed the damage done to his pretty face. “Wait here.” Dante disappeared back into the bathroom and re-emerged with a pail of warm water and a few hand towels floating in the water. He rolled his sleeves up and fished a wet towel out, wringing the excess water back into the pail. “If you start crying I’m going to call the SPCA,” he said dryly as he dabbed away gently at some of the blood away from the open wounds. Alright, that fucking hurt. Aubrey winced and made a soft hissing sound between his teeth as Dante’s wet hands found purchase against his raw and bloodied face. He scrunched his eyes shut and made a face without causing too much pain to his nose. No matter how callous or unforgiving those fingers were on his flesh, Aubrey promised himself that he would not cry. Dante could have punched him, and he would have maintained the look. He’d learned long ago that life was easier when he didn’t act like a lovesick teenager around Dante; he was learning, but he couldn’t slow the pounding of his heart against his chest. “I don’t cry,” he snapped, irritable now that he was unable to sip at his tequila. The bottle shook in his hands and he tried his best to steady it, noting with no small amount of wonder that Dante was actually managing to be gentle while he tended to Aubrey’s marred face. It was a lie, of course. Aubrey cried all the damn time, either at sad movies or when he thought about his father or realized the severity of his problem with alcohol. Thanks to his mother, he’d always been in touch with his emotions to a frightening degree. The problem now was learning how to hide it. “I shouldn’t have come here. Sorry.” The words that he spat out tasted sour in his mouth, but he tried his very best to remain aloof and unaffected by Dante’s presence. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Aubrey’s hands ached and his fingers twitched as he longed to grab hold of the man, and it was with no small amount of hesitation that he reached out and brushed his fingertips over the underside of Dante’s wrist. Thank you. The words remained unspoken, hanging in the air like perfume. “No, yeah, you should have gone straight to the police and gotten yourself arrested,” Dante said, and his lips twitched as he resisted the urge to smile. He had made it quite clear from the beginning that he couldn’t do this - on a superficial level, he had a reputation to maintain, but on a not-so-superficial level, he didn’t want to entangle anyone else in his web of lies when everything collapsed - but here they were, doing this. Whatever this was. “The good news is your face hasn’t fallen off and you don’t need to lie your sorry ass into a hospital,” he added as he draped the other towels over the side of the pail before dropping the dirty one into the water. After wringing out a second towel, Dante went back to tending to Aubrey’s face. “The bad news is that you probably won’t want to go into work for the next few days. Hold this up to your nose.” When Aubrey was holding the towel, Dante flipped open the first aid kit and started taking out the band aids, bandages, cotton wool and antiseptic liquid. “Sit down. Have you broken anything else?” “I wouldn’t have been arrested,” Aubrey, ever the belligerent drunk and made no better by the state of his face and the bitter taste that defeat had left in his mouth, muttered this under his breath. “They attacked me, I didn’t start shit this time.” Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d started it by snooping around where he wasn’t wanted, looking into the various employees of the Wynn whom he suspected of infiltrating the hotel on behalf of the mafia. Only idiots harassed the mob and expected no retaliation, right? He would have had better luck poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick. For once in his life, Aubrey obeyed Dante’s instructions without comment and held the towel against his nose, though he eyed the first aid kit with suspicion. He wasn’t even sure where all the blood was coming from besides his nose, though he guessed there were probably a few lacerations. He vaguely remembered the metal taste of a knife against his mouth, and immediately pushed the thought from his mind by lifting the bottle with his free hand and taking another drink. He noticed the cigarette clenched between his fingers and offered it back to Dante, as an afterthought. “I don’t think anything else is broken. Maybe a cracked rib, but I’m hoping it’s just bruised.” He supposed he would find out for sure in the morning, when the adrenaline and tequila had worn off and he was left to deal with the reality of his injuries. “Yeah. That’s what you said last time.” Said in a deadpan tone that indicated that Dante had heard it all before. He covered the bottle of antiseptic liquid with a small ball of cotton wool and turned it upside down, letting the yellow liquid soak into the cotton wool. “No thanks. You leaked all over it,” he said in regards to the proffered cigarette as he dabbed at the cuts on Aubrey’s face. It looked bad but even minor wounds on the face bled very dramatically. He knew that from experience. “Nothing needs stitching up,” he informed. He knew how disconcerting it could be to have someone else tend to you like this without saying anything about the severity of the injuries. “Stop flinching or we’ll be at this all night.” Tempting as it was to keep up the combative routine, Aubrey couldn’t help but a deflate a little. His shoulders slumped and he assessed the remaining contents of his bottle before setting it aside, turning his attention to the cigarette that he’d unintentionally claimed with his blood. He shouldn’t have come. He cursed himself silently for being so weak; how many times could he show up in pieces on Dante’s doorstep and expect to be put back together? It was a miracle that the older man hadn’t tired of him yet - then again, who was to say that he hadn’t? Dante would never be the type to turn him away when he was battered and bloody, and Aubrey knew it. Maybe that had something to do with his propensity for getting in fights. Then again, maybe he just enjoyed the pain a little too much. “Thanks,” he finally said aloud. He took a haul off the cigarette and then was silent for a long moment as he held the smoke deep in his lungs, enjoying the burn as it distracted him from the rest of his aches. He tried his best to hold still, hoping that he could at least avoid pissing Dante off by not being deliberately disobedient. Aubrey looked like an abandoned puppy, kicked while he was down and reeling in pain - Dante really should call the SPCA. He tore his gaze away from Aubrey’s face to look at the contents of the first aid kit. He had band aids that came in a range of sizes that he would need. They worked a lot better than tape and gauze and were easier for Aubrey to replace on his own, unless he planned on stopping by to have Dante check up on him again. He honestly didn’t mind. Everything he said, he mostly said in jest. He’d rather Aubrey come to him than some back-alley whoever. They might do a better job at fixing him up but they were equally likely to leave Aubrey waking up in a bathtub full of ice with stitches on his chest where his kidney had been removed and put up for sale on the black market. A few cuts and bruises Dante could help with. A stolen kidney was out of his league. “Don’t. We aren’t filming a romantic comedy.” He started tearing the paper packaging off and patched up Aubrey’s face one band aid at a time. “I’ll get the blankets out when we’re done. Stay the night.” Though Aubrey tried his very best to disguise a tiny and involuntary smile, he knew he wasn’t entirely successful. Only in Dante’s world was a simple ‘thanks’ considered to be a sign of verging on a gushy-romantic situation. If he were to really think about the night’s circumstances, it would be depressing - so instead he focused on holding still as Dante applied the bandages and smoking himself into light-headed oblivion. He wouldn’t think about the way that his heartbeat quickened when Dante was paying the slightest amount of attention to him. He wouldn’t think about the tiny creases that appeared between Dante’s eyebrows when he was being serious and concentrating on something. And he definitely would not think about the fact that Aubrey’s entire relationship with Dante raised some seriously fucked-up questions about his daddy issues. “The whole night?” He asked, feigning sarcasm in an attempt to cover up how pleased he was by the offer, even if it wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic one. “Maybe I should get myself beat up by the mafia more often, if it’s going to buy me a spot sleeping on your couch.” “Don’t push your luck,” he said, but for the first time that night he had a proper smile on his face. Dante said he’d leave Aubrey to bleed out outside on the kerb every time but Aubrey kept coming back and they fell back into the same routine of Aubrey not talking about it and Dante making snarky comments to fill in the silence between them. Except this time Aubrey did talk about it, and that smile betrayed how Dante really felt about any sort of mafia coming so close to home. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill you. I would have. It’ll save me all this trouble.” He discarded the bits of paper onto the coffee table and gave Aubrey’s face one last silent appraisal, to make sure he had done all he could to fix it up. “Okay. I’ll get you a change of clothes. And those blankets. Any busted kneecaps or bullet holes I need to tend to?” And why not? Aubrey made a regular habit of pushing his luck, especially when it came to Dante. He had pushed his way into Dante’s life and, surprisingly, Dante had let it happen. That was despite all of the reasons that they should have had nothing to do with each other, in a strange way they actually worked. Aubrey had developed his skills at playing deaf and dumb to the things that Dante was up to when it came to business, varying degrees of shady as they were. Not exactly appropriate stuff for the head of security of the Wynn to be even remotely associated with, and yet he’d managed to ensure it was never a problem. Hell, at least no one from Dante’s little slice of paradise was trying to kill him yet. After tonight, Aubrey knew with certainty that he was being watched, and it was his own goddamn fault. “I promise, next time I won’t fight back as hard and then I’ll be out of your perfectly-styled hair,” he said as he stubbed out the cigarette. “As for my knees, it was only the left one that got a little friendly with a baseball bat. Should be right as rain by morning.” “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he called out from the bedroom. He had a few of Aubrey’s clothes from when he stayed over - more for the intimate things they got up to than these sorts of much less fun reasons - which was just as well, because Dante’s clothes might not fit. He had a t-shirt and pants in one hand and a blanket in the other as he headed back into the living room. Dante knew that kneecap vs. baseball bat incidents never turned out good for the knee, but Aubrey had managed to walk all the way here from god-knows-where and made it up the flight of stairs, so it wasn’t shattered. The fact that he could still stand upright and talk shit meant that it likely didn’t need hospital treatment, so Dante didn’t bring it up anymore. “You sure you want the couch? It gets cold,” he said as he tossed the clothes into Aubrey’s lap and dropped the blanket onto the empty left cushion. Something as simple as trying to catch the clothes as they were tossed at him probably would have resulted in too much painful demand on his sore muscles, so he settled for picking them up off his lap. The pants wouldn’t do, they were a pair he had left as part of an emergency work outfit for the nights when he crashed here, and they were much too business-casual to be comfortable. He discarded those, then decided that the plain black t shirt and boxer-briefs that remained in his hands would be suitable. “Of course I don’t want to sleep on your couch, Dante,” he said with an eye-roll that was audible even in his voice, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He stood up slowly, noting that his body had already started to tense up after he’d been sitting for a few minutes. He was grateful for the alcohol he’d ingested on his way over, even if he had better distractions now. “That’s why you’re going to feel bad for me and invite me into your bed.” Aubrey smirked at this, slipping out of the jacket he’d ruined and going to work on the knot of his tie. “Not to mention the fact that my devastating good looks have only been enhanced by a good beating and a couple of shiners.” “The couch doesn’t want you either,” Dante commented when it squeaked as Aubrey rose. It’d be easier to wipe any bloodstains off the couch than have to put all the linen through the washing and drying process, but it was about time he changed them anyway and perhaps having Aubrey in bed wouldn’t burden his non-existent conscience. “I’m not inviting you anywhere until you take a shower.” “I don’t blame you,” he laughed - a real laugh, even though it hurt his ribs and made his face throb. “But I’m not going in there alone, unless you’re hoping that I’ll slip and crack my head open. I need some adult supervision.” He left his jacket where it was on the floor, figuring that it would just be easier to throw out in the morning, and made his way through the kitchen toward the master bath. He left a trail of bloody clothes in his wake, more because he suspected it would annoy Dante more than anything else. At least he was careful enough to avoid the carpets and he didn’t even leave any smears of blood on the wall as he flipped on the light in the bathroom, which he thought was especially considerate. Within a couple of minutes, the air was growing thick with steam and he had managed to undress and step into the shower without hurting himself. A stream of colourful expletives escaped his mouth as he moved under the spray of hot water, watching the bottom of the shower turn pink as his blood rinsed away and swirled down the drain. “You need some supervision, period.” Aubrey would be better off even if he had a twelve-year-old watching over him. Dante’s eyebrow twitched at the clothes being strewn over the floor but he said nothing and resisted the urge to pick them all up and clean up after Aubrey. He’s cleaned up after people enough in his youth thanks to his drunk mother and he’s not going to start doing that again now. “Should wash your mouth out while you’re at it,” he said, standing just outside the shower. The patchwork done to Aubrey’s face would hold under the water since Dante had relied on band aids rather than rolls and rolls of bandages and gauze. His eyes wandered down the body that had been enshrouded in a thick, warm fog, looking out for anything that needed the first aid kit though that clearly wasn’t all Dante was looking at. “Need me to get in there or did you just want someone on guard duty?” Aubrey turned at the sound of the other’s voice at the door and peered through the steam, shooting a withering look in that general direction. Did he always have to be so goddamn obstinate? It wasn’t like Aubrey could have been a whole lot more seductive in his current condition; he was doing his best not to whine and moan and collapse on his gimp knee. The alcohol hadn’t helped, and the combination of unsteady nerves and inebriation had him a bit shaky in the intense heat of the water. “Shut the fuck up and get in here already, Kessler.” His voice cracked a little, because as he’d turned he’d accidentally let the full spray of the water hit him in the face. That was less than pleasant. Shit. He’d really done it this time, and he had no idea how he was going to explain this one away. Especially to Theo, because Dante had been right when he’d said that Aubrey wouldn’t be able to go to work for a while. He quickly turned his head away from the direction of the nozzle, scrubbing water out of his eyes and trying to avoid his sore nose. He sighed and started unbuttoning his shirt. Always so bossy. Dante had become that at some point until he was far away enough from his old life to be able to breathe easy again. Now he was a lot more difficult to rile up compared to the old him, and taking things easy, one step at a time - sadly the laid-back attitude seemed to be in short supply. He dropped the pants and stepped inside the shower, turning the nozzle away to stop it spraying anywhere near Aubrey’s face. “I’d cover your head with a plastic bag but then I’d just be too tempted to suffocate you,” he said with a chuckle. He rubbed Aubrey’s arms in an attempt to comfort him. Despite how often Aubrey showed up looking like this, Dante had gotten no better at finding the right words to say. “I swear you get dumber each time you end up like this.” “Yeah, because you’re so jealous of my pretty face. And who wouldn’t be?” Aubrey gave what was undoubtedly an attempt at a dazzling smile, and only ended up wincing and having to spit out some more blood on the shower floor. He accepted the soothing touch of hands on his arms gratefully, though - and moved in even closer, wrapping his arms around Dante’s waist and resting his face very gingerly against a strong shoulder. His belligerence and snarkiness were mostly gone, having evaporated and been replaced with a weary relief. He was safe. He hadn’t brought the baddies to Dante’s doorstep, and he wouldn’t have to sleep alone tonight. For now, that was enough. “What do you mean, each time?” He protested with what little indignation he could muster. “I’ll have you know that this is the very first time I’ve ever been beaten up by mob thugs. I probably didn’t even lose that many brain cells. I have a very thick skull, you know.” With the change in gears, Dante briefly wondered if Aubrey’s adrenaline had worn off and he was just now beginning to register the fatigue. He ruffled up Aubrey’s wet hair, making sure that blood clumps and whatever else he’d gotten into it got shaken loose from the tangles and washed out. “The mob’s trouble, Aubrey. Even someone with a thicker skull than yours would know that. You’re a good guy and they’re way out of your league. Just stop whatever you’re doing and let go.” That was all the warning Dante was going to be doing. He wasn’t Aubrey’s father or caretaker and Aubrey was old enough to deal with his own shit. “I know the mob is trouble, Dante. More than you think I do,” he muttered with his lips pressed against the wet skin over the man’s collar bone, tilting his head back to look up at him with his wet hair all in disarray. “I didn’t go looking for trouble this time, I swear. These guys infiltrated the hotel, and I needed to find out what they were up to. They didn’t like me nosing around.” It was true that he hadn’t gone looking for trouble... the key words being ‘this time’. Dante didn’t know about the men Aubrey had killed a while ago. No one knew. Hell, not even the mob knew - if they had, he would have been dead a long time ago. “I fucked up,” he sighed, closing his eyes and turning around so that he could duck his hair under the water and rinse out the last of the blood, his back pressed up against Dante’s chest. When he spoke again, his voice sounded small and pathetic, barely audible over the sound of the shower. “I’m sorry.” “The mob is what keeps some of these places afloat,” Dante said. Not that he was suggesting that the Wynn needed the mob to generate the kind of revenue it did - it just wasn’t all that abnormal to have mobsters hitting up different casinos, hotels and clubs along the Strip. Unless they were causing a scene they should be left alone. Everyone along the Strip knew that. “Your job puts you in danger. I know that’s part of it. Just call for backup next time, or something. Whatever it is you have to do without getting yourself killed.” He sighed and gave Aubrey’s shoulders a light squeeze. There was no use in him apologising for anything now that he was battered and bruised like this. “I’m getting out soon. My fingers are pruning and I’ve got a drug deal to close,” he joked. Aubrey sighed a heavy sigh, ignoring the strain it put on his ribcage. His shoulders slumped under Dante’s touch; he felt defeated, and exhaustion was finally creeping up on him. He didn’t think he could handle anything as strenuous as shampooing his hair or soaping up his body, and he was either too embarrassed or ashamed to ask for Dante’s help. Probably it was an even mixture of both, now that the cloud of tequila vapours had cleared somewhat and he had a better picture of how much he looked like a sad little boy, desperate for attention. “Good idea. You don’t want to acquire any more wrinkles than you already have,” he teased, with a half-smile that didn’t quite reach all the way to his eyes. Before Dante had time to pull away or protest, Aubrey turned back around and leaned in to press a tender kiss against his mouth. Then he slipped out of the shower, picked up his clean clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist. “I’ll meet you in bed.” He patted Aubrey on the ass on the way out, his hand making a muffled sound against the towel. Dante needed a fresh towel of his own even though he didn’t get all that wet, but after doing a quick job of drying himself off, he put his old clothes back on and headed out the bathroom to get his phone. He ignored Aubrey’s clothes scattered across the floor as best he could and picked his phone up from the kitchen counter. While waiting for the redialled number to connect, Dante leaned back against the kitchen counter, occasionally glancing up to keep track of Aubrey. While it wasn’t exactly a drug deal phone call, he didn’t want Aubrey to be involved in any of the more illicit parts of his life. Fortunately, Aubrey had become rather good at turning a blind eye and a deaf ear when he sensed that he should keep out of the more colourful facets of Dante’s personal life, all in the name of plausible deniability. He couldn’t be accused of aiding a criminal if he avoided overhearing crucial information as much as possible. Frankly, he didn’t care what sort of shit Dante got up to in the time that they didn’t spend together, as long as there was still room for Aubrey in his life. He could have managed to pull on the boxer-briefs on his way into the master bedroom, but the shirt was another thing entirely. Raising his arms above his head was possible, but not exactly pleasant. Instead he chucked the clothes into a corner and crawled into Dante’s bed naked, hoping that he wasn’t going to leave too much of a gory mess on the sheets. His body still felt flushed from the excitement of the evening and the heat of the shower, so he turned the blankets down and stretched out slowly, carefully, testing each limb as he settled into a comfortable position to wait. He closed his eyes, telling himself that he wouldn’t fall asleep yet. He couldn’t, not while he knew that Dante was nearby but just out of reach. So he waited, patiently for a change, trying not to let the mere knowledge that he was in the man’s bed arouse him as it usually did and savouring the sensation of cool sheets against his skin. Dante spent ten minutes on the phone, keeping his voice low and sprinkling the occasional laughter in as and when was required of him. His responses were short but polite, and after he took down an address and time, he hung up with a thank you and good night. If only his dealings with Aubrey would be this simple. He keyed in the details into his phone before ripping up the post-it note and casting it into the bin. The phone came along with him into the bedroom and he tossed it casually onto the bedside table before slipping into bed next to Aubrey. He wasn’t tired yet but if he stayed long enough until the boy drifted off, he just might slip away too. “Should I be expecting mafioso knocking on my door at four in the morning?” The question roused Aubrey from his sleepy thoughts of guns and baseball bats and security-cam footage, and he cracked one eye open as Dante slid into the bed with him. He certainly hoped not, but he had to be realistic about the possibility. Thinking back into the events of the evening made his head hurt even more, but he rubbed at his temples with one hand and was quiet for a moment while he considered everything that had happened. “I don’t think so,” he finally decided. The attack had occurred because they’d figured out that Aubrey was getting close to figuring them out, and so they’d given him a warning. He hadn’t told anyone at the hotel what had happened, and he’d managed to slip out of the building without running into any of his co-workers, so they wouldn’t be able to spread rumours about it. Theo would have access to the video footage, but he would be smart enough to keep it to himself and remove it from the system’s memory until he could talk to Aubrey himself. He doubted that anyone had followed him, and Dante’s building had enough security to keep out just about anyone. All of his instincts told him that they were safe. Besides, he wouldn’t have come here if he really thought there was a chance he could be endangering Dante. Aubrey pulled the thinnest sheet up over his body to his waist, and slid over on the mattress so as to be closer to the other man. He wriggled his way under Dante’s arm and curled up against his chest, with one leg slipping between Dante’s and an arm going around his waist. His grip wasn’t exactly strong, so Dante could easily pull away if he wanted to; Aubrey just needed to feel close to him. “We’re safe,” he sighed softly, his eyes falling shut again. He could feel the insistent tendrils of sleep tugging at the edges of his mind, and it was impossible not to give in. As he drifted off on a cloud of aches and pains toward the inevitable hangover that awaited him in the morning, he felt the last vestiges of his inhibition slipping away. “Goodnight Dante,” he whispered, breath ghosting across the man’s skin, knowing that he wouldn’t add what he was about to say if he was in his right mind - and also finding that he didn’t care, not anymore, not right now. “Love you.” |