I choke.
My knees hit the snow before I even notice I’ve fallen. Cold seeps straight into my bones, but it’s nothing compared to watching him collapse in front of me.
I yank him off the ground against my chest, gripping into his curls, pressing his face into my neck. He clings to me as if I’m the one tread that keeps him from falling into the darkness.
My eyes stay fixed on the small keychain lying on the gravestone. It’s such a painful symbol of everything that could’ve been but never was.
My pain claws its way up. I know what it’s like to cling to something tangible, to keep the memories from fading when trauma tries to erase them. It’s how we survive.
“Yosh… I can’t do this…I can’t.” His nails dig into the bare skin of my nape.
“I don’t want to, but I have to let him go… I can’t take this anymore.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I whisper against his ear.
“You can let him stay with you, just not in the same way. We’ll work on that, baby. We’ll get you there.”
I kiss tears from his cheek, hush, and rock him in my arms as he lets the wounds bleed.
This is probably the first time anyone’s ever held him here at his son’s grave. His pain in the middle of the night,the silence, his arms wrapped around his cold body. Alone, always.
Fuck, this is real. This is so fucking real.
An owl flutters from branch to branch above us, its soft oohoo echoing through the bare trees.
I tip my head back to the stars; the white moon hangs proud above. Beneath that light, the wolf cries in my arms, his grief is wild and untamed, just like his heart.
I feel every shudder pass through him and I know there is nothing to say, nothing to fix, only his body that needs a place to break. That’s the only medicine I have right now.
Back inside the West House, we head straight for the shower. Tom’s body is cold, shivering, leaning weakly against mine as warm water runs over us both.
His lips, blue and icy, turn pink again under the stimulating touch of my thumb, then blood red and full.
He keeps looking at me with eyes that are small, perhaps a little confused.
“I’m here, Sapphire. I’m here. You’re not alone.”
His lips graze my collarbone, leaving soft kisses across my chest while his face rests against my shoulder. We say nothing in this moment where everything feels so fragile.
It sinks in. Whatever comes, he and I are there to hold each other through it. It makes me realize that I am ready to share my biggest secret with him, who I really am, where I come from. Not right now—this is his journey. But when we’re back in Avalon.
“Love.” It's nothing more than a hot breath that dissolves into the steam surrounding us.
His pupils twirl in the haze of his pain. This is so intense. All I want is to make him feel loved. He needs to know he’s not alone, so I kiss him everywhere, my lips taking claim of every spot on his neck. Soft moans escape his mouth when I roam his back with my hands, and with every press and suck of his lips on mine, I feel his erection growing harder between us.
I hesitate, questioning if it’s right. Fuck, of course this isn’t right and I shouldn’t proceed. So I take a step back, but his fingers dig into my thighs, tugging me against him. A subtle nod of his chin follows, lips slightly parted, whispering a soft plea: “Take me.”
“No, Sapphire.”
“Please,” he begs, fingers sliding down my stomach. He looks me in the eye before whispering,
“I know what you're thinking, but I need to feel you. Make me yours, baby.”
My throat bobs as I swallow. This plea isn’t about sex at all. Part of me understands. I know how it feels to surrender in the darkness of your pain, when you've felt so much that, in the end, it only leaves the raw clarity of not feeling anything at all. His mind is telling him to chase a high to escape that numbness.
I take him by the hips, turning him around. One arm wraps around his torso to steady him, my palm splayed just below his ribs.
He grabs my arm tight, his other hand against the shower wall for balance.
