Yuri stared into the mirror. No reflection looked back at him, so he inspected the tiled bathroom wall behind him. Warm water trickled from his hair, down the back of his neck, as he yanked the brush through his tangled, shoulder-length hair. The droplets slithered across his skin, growing thicker, hotter, sticky –
He clutched the edge of the sink. It's just water, Plisetsky, get a grip. A snarl of his hair was tangled in the teeth of the comb, refusing to relinquish two (or was it three? Five?) days' worth of hard-earned knots. Most days, Yuri could barely muster the energy to pull it back into a messy braid or bun to hide under his hood. It wasn't like he could see what he looked like, or cared enough to attempt any sort of style without the aid of a mirror.
The shower, turned up as hot as it could go, forced some life (hah) back into his limbs as the heat streamed over and through his body, chasing away thoughts of ice and darkness.
It dripped down his back, soaking into the collar of his shirt, and Yuri shuddered.
He was so tired.
The scissors sheared through his hair, the dulled blades catching occasionally and tugging at the strands. Handfuls were dumped unceremoniously in the trash, still clinging to the knots he hadn't managed to unsnarl. Yuri ran his fingers across the ragged tufts poking up from the back of his head and through the uneven fringe that now barely brushed his cheekbone. It was undoubtedly a mess - he was mildly grateful that his lack of reflection spared him the sight – but the awful creeping wetness was off his neck, and the few tangles fell easily into order.
A few stray hairs were scattered across the sink.
Yuri wondered if it would grow back, if he'd resigned himself to a short-haired existence, and if he cared. It had been part of his image- no, Yuri Plisetsky's image, but why did he need an image anymore? He idly inspected his fingernails. They were bitten past the quick, and he couldn't remember if that had happened yesterday or last month.
Four eyebrows lifted when he stepped into the kitchen, but neither Chris nor Viktor commented on it.
"Felt like it," Yuri mumbled as he opened the refrigerator door. It was close to empty; Viktor, in light of Yuri's apparent success with hunting, had stopped buying more than a few liters each week from whoever it was that sold cartons of blood.
"Oh, don't worry, we'll keep some around for snacks," Viktor had reassured Yuri. "If you get hungry, just let me know- or you can probably manage by yourself now."
Yuri couldn't, in fact, manage by himself, but nothing that he would call precisely 'hunger' had manifested yet, although he had begun to avoid humans almost religiously, nauseated by the scent of their blood, the shudder of heartbeats that his ears could pick up from many meters away.
"I can clean up the back for you," offered Christophe, stretching his legs across the linoleum. "Don't let Viktor touch it. After that disaster a few years ago, he's not allowed to have scissors."
"I was experimenting," Viktor pouted. "It grew back just fine."
It grew back. Like everything else, relief was lukewarm and faded quickly.
"Okay." Yuri slumped into an empty chair. "Thanks."
Viktor rummaged through the drawers until he found a pair of scissors.
"I promised Ulrike I'd drop in tonight," he said, handing them over to Chris. "Don't burn down the house while I'm gone."
That's why Christophe was over, then. Viktor didn't want him along, so someone else had to take babysitting duty. Yuri supposed he should mind, but it was better than staying at the house alone, half convinced that this was the time Viktor would decide not to come back.
The blades snipped away. Chris's touch was light as he worked silently, without the snags and jerks that occurred during Yuri's impulsive chopping. It was easy to be around Chris, without any of the tension that came from pretending not to be a pathetic asshole. Any good impressions Yuri could have made on him were years in the past, crushed into dust by their earlier interactions, but Yuri knew how to behave around people who didn't like him – he could understand that.
What he couldn't understand was Viktor, his abrasive cheerfulness, his charity. He was the sort of person for whom the world fell to its knees, bowing to his whims. Someone who would never have trouble biting a geriatric squirrel. Viktor had probably chosen to become a vampire, swept himself into a glamorous life of dark mystique, picking up a stray here and there when he grew bored.
Yuri shifted in his seat.
"Why is Viktor… like this?"
Chris hummed softly in response. "You mean, why is he Viktor, or a vampire?"
"A vampire."
"He hasn't told you?"
I wouldn't be asking if he had, past-Yuri would have snapped. Undead-Yuri didn't say anything. Christophe sighed.
"It wasn't like your situation," he said softly. "Viktor was on holiday, walking back to his hotel late at night. He was, well, attacked. Bitten. Never found out who, didn't even meet another vampire for months."
The silence continued with Yuri frozen in shock.
He was… murdered, then. On his own. I can't even eat.
Chris seemed to sense his unease. "Some things were simpler for him, I think. No one knew what had happened - they mostly assumed he'd gotten bored and moved on. Contacting them again wasn't… so much of a big deal." Even Chris knew he couldn't handle it, then. How long until Viktor realized? "You haven't told anyone else?"
"No one to tell," Yuri muttered. No one who cares.
"Help me sweep this up?" Chris placed the scissors on the table and pulled a dustpan from under the sink. Yuri scraped the loose hairs into a heap. "Not even Otabek?"
"He made it pretty clear he didn't want to hear from me," said Yuri, unable to hide the crack in his voice. "So no."
"Ah." He ruffled Yuri's hair as Yuri stood up, turning his face to hide the wash of tears that had begun to build. "I'm sorry. It might have been for the best, in the end."
"I need a shower," Yuri said, trying not to run out of the kitchen. His hair was still damp.
:: :: ::
"- Anyway, after I did that favor for Chris, I forgot about it. For us it's no big deal, right? Whenever he asked what he could do to pay me back, I told him not to worry about it," rambled Viktor, trying to fill the silence. He wasn't sure if Yuri, who trailed along behind him, was listening or not. "But favors for fae are more like debts, and they hate owing people. I got an erotic vampire novel of the month in the mail for two years before I figured out that it was Chris's way of paying me back."
He glanced over his shoulder and was rewarded with a baleful gaze, one eyebrow arched by a fraction of a degree.
"Of course I kept them. A few were actually quite good. The authors really did their best." In fact, they had their own dedicated shelf in the library, which Viktor had caught Yuri staring at with a mixture of disgust and horrified fascination.
The streets of Berlin were never truly deserted, especially on Friday nights. The Friedrichshain neighborhood, where Viktor had stopped in to welcome a new family, was about as quiet as it got. It had been a pleasant visit – Viktor spoke with the young couple, directing them to a few child-friendly social spots, pulling up a map of the city to scout out places the young girls could fly away from curious eyes. The children babbled in Turkish, staring at Yuri with huge dark eyes as they dragged him around the apartment, showing off their newly unpacked belongings. Eventually, after a soft word from their father, Yuri was allowed to settle into a corner of the couch, petting an ancient calico cat as the girls bickered, flexing their velvety, batlike wings in an attempt to see who could stretch farther.
After saying their goodbyes (Viktor said goodbye, at least – Yuri scratched the cat under her chin, mostly ignoring her owners), they strolled through the nearby streets. Several blocks away, massive cement blocks of apartment buildings rose to the sky, their efficient, ordered facades a relic of the USSR that gave Viktor a flash of conflicted nostalgia. They turned into the Volkspark instead.
"This is a beautiful spot in summer," he told Yuri, looking at the few leaves still clinging to spindly branches. By the end of October, the park was rather dreary, but it was something to do – something that kept Yuri up and about for a couple minutes longer, instead of returning home where he'd drift back to the basement without a word. "Do you want to see a movie after this? There should be a few theaters open, since it's the weekend."
"Okay."
They weren't the only visitors, even in the witching hour. A young man jogged past, stopping a few meters away to lean on a bench and catch his breath. He unscrewed the cap of a water bottle and took a sip before clicking his tongue at the large, curly-coated brown dog, which cheerfully opened its mouth to accept a drink of its own.
"Oh my gosh, Yuri, look," gasped Viktor, before switching to German and addressing the jogger. "Do you mind if I say hi?"
"Sure, go ahead. She loves people," the man said, brushing his sweat-dark hair from his eyes. "We don't see many folks out at this time of night, do we, girl?"
"Oh, sweetie, you're such a good dog," Viktor cooed, ruffling the dog's ears. "What a perfect ball of fluff, look at your nose, what a good nose, and those ears! You should be a model, pup. Are you a model? You're not? I don't believe you. Yuri, maybe we should get a dog. What do you think? When I was a teenager, I wanted to move to Switzerland and adopt a poodle and name him Makkachin."
Yuri didn't pet the dog, which was perhaps taking his self-professed stance as a cat person a little far, in Viktor's opinion. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the stranger, narrowing them slightly and tipping his head when the man laughed as Viktor's face was thoroughly licked.
He should have seen it coming, he thought later, should have recognized the leaden slowness that had weighted Yuri's limbs more with each passing day, been wary of the flicker of sudden interest after so many weeks of apathy.
If life were a movie, the moment would have been played in slow motion, but it seemed to be in fast-forward instead, skipping jerkily through the frames as Yuri's teeth punched through soft skin, filling the air with the thick iron tang of blood. Instinct snapped his muscles into action, and within a split second he was locking his arms around Yuri, pulling him away. The man blinked, dazedly lifting one hand to his neck and peering at the smears of red across his fingers. Yuri struggled, whimpering softly as he tried to fight his way out of Viktor's grip.
He doesn't know what's happening. Viktor hadn't told Yuri, hadn't wanted to push his fragile state past the brink by telling him he could turn into a monster, a killer. It shouldn't have been a problem, unless he was starving.
Viktor suddenly wondered if it had been like this for the vampire who had bitten him all those decades ago, nothing more or less than an accident. They might have been young, scared, ignorant; maybe they hadn't come back for him because they hadn't made it past the next dawn.
"Did he just-"
"A branch fell on you," exclaimed Viktor, thinking as quickly as he could while trying to restrain the writhing vampire in his arms without making a scene. He shouldn't be hungry, not like this, he went hunting just a few hours ago. He shouldn't be losing control. "Oh my god, are you okay?"
"A branch," he said, frowning in puzzlement. "I didn't see a-"
"Happened very fast, no wonder it got you," Viktor replied, cutting him off. "Oh, dear, you're bleeding, must have gotten scraped- how's your head? Why don't you call a cab to get home?"
"I'll… do that."
"Would absolutely wait with you, but we've got to get home, early day tomorrow and all that." Yuri had stopped trying to break away. His body had begun to go limp and shake violently. "That's it, Yura, hold on a little more, you've got this," Viktor murmured in Russian. "Focus, stay with me, you can do it."
"Um, thanks."
"Nice meeting you, love your dog, bye!"
Viktor ran for the car, half-carrying, half-dragging Yuri.
At least they hadn't taken the bus.
:: :: ::
"Drink this," insisted Viktor, pushing a cup into Yuri's hands. "All of it."
The contents were cold. Yuri drank.
I attacked him. I bit him, he thought numbly. That's it then.
"What happened back there?" Viktor poured out another mug, taking a minute to microwave it before setting it in front of Yuri. "You've been eating, it shouldn't have…"
Yuri snorted bitterly. Some of the leaden exhaustion was fading from his body as he drank.
You fucked up, Plisetsky. There's no hiding it now. You failed. Should have given up from the start, not put everyone through the trouble.
As if nearly tearing out someone's throat was merely an inconvenience. He pulled himself to his feet.
"Right, you go rest," Viktor said, running his fingers through his silvery hair, which had been tugged into an unruly cloud already. "I need to- to handle things."
Zoyenka tried to follow Yuri into the basement. He gently nudged her away with his foot, closing the door before she could slip in, and gritted his teeth as she mewled her protests. It's not safe for you, baby. I'm not safe.
Yuri's eyes burned as he took out his phone, fingers trembling, forcing him to stop and rewrite the text to Christophe three separate times.
YP: i need you to take my cat. please. i can't take care of her.
YP: she likes you. she'll be happy.
How long did he have? Yuri wouldn't beg, refused to fall to that level once more. It had never worked in the past, so he might as well save himself the trouble and leave with whatever dignity remained, the semblance of choice.
He threw things into his backpack almost at random. A change of clothes, his phone charger, his headphones. It didn't matter anyway. Yuri bit his lip before adding a small toy cat, its plush black and white fur almost a carbon copy of Zoyenka's, tucking it safely into the side pocket.
His phone stayed silent. It would be easier for both of them if he left before Viktor threw him out, but he couldn't – not until he knew Zoyenka would be okay. Yuri dropped onto the bed curling into a ball, and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck. His hair was already a little longer, enough to twine around his fingers. It was so cold outside. He wished this had happened in summer. Yuri had always hated summer, the heat that made him melt into a soggy pink puddle, but after he wished the thermometer would creep ever higher. The warmth would have given him one less thing to deal with, to fight against.
The basement door swung open, one hinge whining softly where a speck of rust had evaded every drop of oil, and light footsteps echoed down the staircase. Yuri rolled over, facing the wall. Maybe if he pretended to sleep, Viktor would give him a few more minutes.
Viktor sat down on the edge of the mattress. A moment later, Zoyenka nudged Yuri's elbow with her nose, chirping and purring – pet me, she was saying. Her insistence had always made him giggle, giving in after mere seconds. He stayed still, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly. She clambered onto his hip, kneading at his leg, the soft pinpricks of her claws catching the fabric of his jeans but never piercing skin.
Yuri gave up on the act and pushed her off, sitting up.
"I'll be out of your hair soon," he choked out, not meeting the icy blue gaze. "Just let me find someone to take Zoye first. Please. Then I'll go."
"You'll- Yuri, what are you talking about?" Viktor glanced around the room, his eyes halting on the half-zipped backpack. "Where would you… you can't go out by yourself, not like that."
"The fuck do you think?" Yuri turned the sob in his throat into an acrid laugh. He'd been stupid again. Viktor wouldn't toss him out and risk him eating the first human who walked by. "I guess you want to take care of things yourself."
Viktor's mouth hung open slightly, and Yuri forced the words out before they could die on his tongue. Zoyenka was still trying to clamber into his lap. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
"We both know this was a mistake. You did your best, I couldn't handle it, I've made that pretty fucking clear. I can't even eat, unless it's attacking a random guy who's just trying to walk his dog. Maybe I would have gone for his dog, too." Yuri looked up at the ceiling, hoping gravity would reverse the flow of tears that pricked at his eyes. "You don't even have to feel guilty, it's my own damn fault, you should have known it from the moment I screwed up and got myself killed."
"You couldn't eat?" Viktor blinked slowly. "But, the hunting, you were doing so well-"
"I couldn't do it." Yuri closed his eyes. "I let them go as soon as you left."
"God, Yura, I'm so sorry," said Viktor, his voice strained. "I-"
"Just let me pretend I have a choice here, okay?" For the first time in months, Yuri was almost shouting, the anger and frustration raising their drowsy heads, swirling sickeningly. It was easier when he couldn't see the regret in Viktor's eyes.
"This was my fault, not yours," whispered Viktor, and Yuri jumped as he was pulled into a hug - unlike the near-chokehold of earlier, he could have pushed Viktor away, but… tears were trickling down his face, another of his body's betrayals. "It's okay that you don't like hunting, I should have noticed, I should have told you what happens if you don't eat enough. I thought- I thought it would be easier for you. I knew it, all this, was hard for you, I didn't want you to feel like a monster. Someone's already driving over with more blood. We can just- you don't have to try to hunt more."
"I could have hurt Zoyenka," said Yuri, his voice cracking into Viktor's shoulder. "I was around people in the city. We were with kids today. I could- I could have attacked Grandpa. I… Chris told me what happened to you. I fucked up. I can't do it. You don't have to try anymore. I know you don't want me around."
"Yuri, please, listen to me." Zoyenka nudged Yuri's hand, which lay limp against the sheets. He gave up and scratched her chin gently. "I don't know what I'm doing. I never thought I'd turn someone, I wasn't prepared, but… I haven't regretted it, not for a second. And maybe it's selfish of me because I know you're not happy, I know you don't trust or even like me, but I like having you here. This house- I used to hate it, did you know that? Except for the library, it was just somewhere to go during the day, to keep my clothes. It was too big and too empty.
"You said we'll never be family, and I- I respect that. My family… they weren't great. I thought I never wanted another one, didn't need them." Viktor sighed heavily, weighing his words as Yuri listened, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When are you going to tell me to leave anyway? "Now you're here, and even if I barely knew you- Yuri, I care about you so much. I'm sorry I haven't been listening to you, I haven't been paying enough attention. I want you to be happy, and safe, and even if you don't feel the same way- you're my family now."
"You're- you're not throwing me out," whispered Yuri. "Even though I…"
"Never," said Viktor, leaning back to meet Yuri's eyes. "No matter what. I promise. I- I assume Chris told you I was on my own for a long time. I almost didn't make it. I would never abandon you."
Viktor's phone buzzed. Yuri realized it had been vibrating nearly constantly for the past several minutes.
"I should text Chris," Yuri mumbled. "And tell him… tell him he can't have Zoyenka after all."
"You asked Chris?" Viktor's eyes were almost comically wide as he reached for his own phone.
"I knew he wouldn't- wouldn't argue," said Yuri, hiccupping once. "He doesn't like me very much. But he likes Zoye."
"Shit," muttered Viktor as the screen flickered to life, typing rapidly before handing the device over. "Yuri, look."
Yuri glanced down.
CG: why is yuri asking me to take his cat?
CG: viktor what's going on
CG: your idiot kid is going to do something stupid
CG: what the fuck is happening
CG: if yuri is trying to give me his cat something is wrong and if you don't go fix this right now because you're busy combing your hair i will never forgive you because now i'm fond of the damn brat and GODDAMMIT ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW VIKTOR
CG: i'm coming over
VN: It's okay, he's safe. It's under control. Talk later.
As he read, a new message popped up.
CG: way to give me a damn heart attack nikiforov
CG: call if i can help
"He cares about you too," Viktor said quietly. "I'll do better now. I promise. We'll get you through this."
"People always leave." Yuri lifted Zoyenka to his chest. She trilled happily.
"Not this time, Yuri," Viktor told him, his arm still around Yuri's shoulders. "I don't know who left you, but they were wrong, okay? No one's going anywhere."
:: :: ::
The tarnished hotel mirror was wrong, a voice in the back of Otabek's mind insisted. His hair couldn't be that long, the circles under his eyes so deep. He rinsed the last traces of shaving cream from his face, tossing the now-dull razor into the trash, on top of the ragged remnants of his old shirt. He'd closed his eyes as he unzipped his jacket, stripped off what was left of the bloodstained fabric and stepped into the shower, not opening them again until he'd dressed in the clean clothes purchased with the prepaid debit card that had, somehow, remained in the inner pocket of his coat since July.
A bus ticket lay beside the sink, its ink faded from countless touches as Otabek checked and rechecked the date.
Another bout of coughing tore through his raw lungs. He tossed the tissue on top of the discarded shirt and razor and rinsed the thick taste of old blood from his mouth. His body had healed too fast, sealing the injury quickly but not cleanly. It shouldn't have been able to heal at all.
15 December, från Malmö till Stockholm.
Four and a half months since he'd left Almaty.
Two days since he'd dragged himself back to a consciousness that shouldn't have come, waking curled against an outcropping of jagged rocks on an unfamiliar shore.
Sixteen hours since he'd stumbled into town, glancing over his shoulder, every instinct telling him to get as far away as possible, his chest tight and aching.
The phone, like everything else in the room, was old. The plastic casing was stained from too many hands, too many words, and the cord was rubbed bare where it connected to the base, wires peeking from behind the cracking cover.
"Сәлеметсіз бе?" His mother's voice was tired, as worn as the ancient phone Otabek clutched. He forced himself to breathe in.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered hoarsely. Almost five months. "I didn't mean to- I didn't-"
"Beka?" Her gasp was barely audible, interrupted by a babble of conversation as she called for his father. "Beka, is that you?"
"It's me." He lay down on the sagging mattress, counting smears of dust on the yellowed ceiling. Hot tears streaked down his face. "I'm sorry."
"Beka, oh god," his mother stammered, her words hitching and catching. "Aйналайын, where are you? Are you safe? Please come home."
"I'm okay." The weight on his ribs bore down harder, driving his breath into the scratchy duvet. He gasped for air, saltwater on his lips. "I'm- I'm in a hotel. Stockholm. Mom, I- my stuff is gone, I rented a locker but it's not- it's not there anymore, I don't have my passports, I-"
Otabek was crying in earnest, fighting the sobs that clenched his throat in an iron grip. I'm sorry, he tried to say once more. I'm so sorry.
"Beka, your mother is coming to get you," his father said, his accent thickened with emotion. "We have your passports, it's okay, we're going to get you home. Where is the hotel?"
He wiped at his eyes until he could read the address printed on the hotel's torn notepad, stumbling over the unfamiliar Swedish syllables.
"We're booking a flight now, ботам, just stay there, stay in your room," his dad urged. "She'll be there soon. We love you so much, we thought-"
The walls were falling in around Otabek, crushing him under plaster and regret.
"I'll stay here, I n-need to," he faltered. "I'll call you back in a minute, I promise, I need- I love you."
The loss of his parents' voices was an immediate ache, the reality of the weeks and months hitting him with the wave of silence.
It could have been years.
The thought registered slowly. The wolf didn't understand the passage of time, not the way he did, not the way his family must have felt as autumn slipped by without a word.
I might have never come back.
It had been so easy to slip away, dull the pain and fear and loss as he gave up his body, his mind, himself. Otabek's skin burned as he gingerly traced the gnarled ridges of the scar knitted across his body, spun into knots from collarbone to hip.
If he had died, his parents would have never known what happened, would have spent countless days listening for a knock on the door, a phone call that would never come. Maybe someone would have found him eventually – his heart stumbled in its rhythm, doubting what would have been left to find – and given them a half-answer, an ending… or maybe not.
They had thought he was dead.
But Otabek was still alive, still breathing, going home. She – it – had dragged him into darkness, his world going black as claws ripped into him, consciousness receding before the quakes of pain as he fought for breath around the welling wetness in his chest.
If he'd fought for more than air, forced his failing body to flee, destroyed – he couldn't bring himself to think kill any more than he could picture doing it, and she was already dead, he'd known it from the moment he touched her ice-slick wrist – then he couldn't remember, had nothing more than the fresh scars crosshatching his form to put the pieces together.
The bus from Malmö had driven for hours, kilometers sleeting past as it traveled north. It, if it still existed, had enough of a mind left to hunt, couldn't have followed. It had forgotten about him, surely, possibly distracted by more interesting prey. Nausea rolled through Otabek as a blurred picture of the woman's companion rose before his eyes. He should have looked for him, told him to run, to get away, apologized for his failure to save her, or at least carried an answer away from the ocean, one less family looking over their shoulders.
Instead, Otabek had run, as he always ran.
The wolf wanted to keep going. It didn't understand that he'd gone far enough, it had to be far enough, that if he didn't want to be alone, didn't want to hurt his mother and father and sisters more than he already had, it was time to stay. To wait.
The wolf, he decided, was an idiot.
He picked up the phone again with shaking hands, dialing the numbers twice more with fumbling fingers and blurring vision, listened as his father read off the flight itinerary. Otabek counted down the hours in his head. Five months. A day and a half until his mother landed in Stockholm-Arlanda. Her cell phone wouldn't work once she left Kazakhstan, his father reminded him. She would call from the airport.
Otabek didn't try to sleep, but the nightmares found him anyway. They crept into the corners of the room to build their nests, swiping at his heels as he paced. Every sound turned into the shush-crash of saltwater waves, the creak of a door, heavy footsteps dragging along the blacktop.
The hotel room was a prison and a sanctuary.
He washed his clothes in the sink and draped them over the towel rack to dry, watching specks of rust melt into the fabric.
His sisters called; Aisulu first, and Zhibek some hours later, hoarse and wavering.
He thought about Yuri.
That wound was still fresh, jagged, its edges something even the wolf in him couldn't heal. The lost time hadn't touched it either. Six months. Yuri had been gone for six months. It felt like yesterday. Otabek thought it would always feel like yesterday, like five minutes ago, like a sharp and biting now.
He wondered if Yuri had fought it too, willed himself to keep going just as Otabek had, pressed against the rocks (the ice), told himself to keep breathing, to hold on.
Yuri Plisetsky had the eyes of a soldier, the heart of a soldier. He'd never found a battle he hadn't fought – until then, never fought a battle he hadn't won.
Otabek found himself hoping that Yuri had, for the first and last time, decided not to fight. That it had been over before it had begun, existence and then not. That it had been easy, if dying could ever be easy.
I should have been there. If I couldn't have stopped him, he at least wouldn't have been alone.
The scar across Otabek's chest was tight, pulling him inwards, collapsing into himself.
A knock rattled the door, hesitant, fearful.
"Aйналайын," his mother whispered, looking up at him. "Oh, Beka."
He felt small in her arms. Otabek let the fear and pain pour through his mind, accepting it. He didn't have to run anymore.
Her silver earrings blistered him where they brushed against his neck, prickles and sparks burning his skin. He let her hug him tighter.
He wanted to go home.