My heart stopped beating. My hand flew to his throat, to the vicious puncture scar I’d never questioned because perhaps I’d been afraid of the answer.
Thunder kick-started my pulse, belying the calm sunrise that was starting to bloom around us. “You tried to kill yourself?”
Another casual shrug tore me in two, Saint’s gaze unwavering, as if he couldn’t see the horror bursting out of me. “I was seven. I don’t think I thought about it that much.”
I rubbed my thumb over the scar, seeing now, as I should’ve done years ago, that it was too old and faded to have come from a pub brawl or a fight on the road. “You never tattooed over it.”
Silence. Saint took the joint from me, finished it, and stubbed it out in a nearby ash tray.
Feeling clumsy beside a man I’d always believed to be somehow superhuman, I gripped his chin, my fingers wrapping around his unshaven jaw. “You made it impossible for them to keep you so you wouldn’t have to live through them giving you up.”
A ghostly smile flickered across Saint’s face, threatening the blank expression he’d sealed in place. Another non-answer, but I took it.
I had to. Or I’d fucking scream.
Silence consumed us. I pulled him closer, shifting onto my back so he could drop his head on my belly while I carded my fingers through his hair. It was the closest we’d ever been, and yet the brutal secret he’d shared exposed that we were still oceans apart.
“You can’t handle us both,” Saint murmured after a while.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. Just that the sky was beginning to turn blue, the frost white instead of grey. “You and Alexei?”
“We’re too similar. We’ll break you.”
I snorted, still rubbing my fingers through the messy silk of his hair. “You’re survivors. If I get to live that alongside you, I’m a happy man.”
“You have strange ideas about being happy.”
“So?”
Saint had no answer. He relaxed, tension slipping from his shoulders as my fingers roamed from his scalp to his neck and lower. I wondered if he’d dozed off; then he raised his head to look at me. “Alexei doesn’t sleep.”
“You’ve noticed that, eh?”
“Last man standing, but he doesn’t fall.”
“He does. I’ve seen it.”
“But?”
A sigh escaped me. “But what? You want to dissect his coping mechanisms, you’ll have to talk to him.”
“I don’t want to talk to him. I want him to sleep.”
“Then be with him. It helps.”
“Does it?”
“I think so.” Truth be told, the only time I’d seen Alexei truly sleep, he’d been as messy and distressed as Saint. He’d crashed and burned, catatonic in my arms. Could Saint fix that with the magic he didn’t know he possessed?
Fucked if I knew.
Saint fell quiet again, shifting slightly so I could see his face as he watched the birds dance in the sky and the hares boxing in the fields. Another smile graced his lips, but it was real this time, and I held my breath as he drifted into the place he felt most like himself.
It was torture of the sweetest kind, being this close to him. I wanted him. Ilovedhim. But I was scared too. Scared that I’d hurt him. That I’d fuck it up and he’d run again, and in this screwed-up life we were born to live, I’d never catch up.
Hours passed before he stirred in my arms, blinking up at me as another sharp, wakeful gasp battered him.
I held his chin, waiting for the storm to pass, and it was brief this time, replaced by a different energy as he registered whatever he saw in me.