Scene 16: Carraway's office.

  By the time Rich is showered and dressed in dry clothes again, it's time to head to Carraway's office. Rich’s pants are mercilessly tight in front, and he's even more tense than Rafael recalls from previous days, a crease between his eyebrows that won't go away.

  It’s unsurprising that as soon as Carraway arrives, he senses Rich’s weakness like a wolf scenting blood. He goes straight for the man, draws him up out of his chair and toys with him. A sharp-toothed mouth on his ear, a hand groping at his chest and toying with his piercings through his shirt—Rich yields, gasping and flushing, with an exhausted, desperate anguish in the way he presses his eyes shut and trembles.

  Carraway cuts him loose quickly, but even so Rich sways as he’s released, and sits down behind his own desk so hard the chair creaks under his weight.

  “I like whatever you’re pickin’ up from the quartermaster,” Carraway says absently, and settles at his own desk, uninterested in Rich or the wreckage he’s wrought of him. “You always do smell nice and sweet when you come up here, doll, it’s precious.”

  “Yes sir,” Rich says hoarsely, and squeezes his eyes shut, taking a long, quiet breath before opening them again and raising his screens. His lips are set, his shoulders squared, and he sets to his work with grim determination—for all of fifteen minutes. Then Carraway glances over, idly watches Rich type for a moment, and gives Rafael a meaningful, pointed smile.

  Rich hasn’t even fully recovered when Rafael slips apologetically under his arm—he makes a pitiful, guttural noise deep in his throat as Rafael presses against him, and his skin feels fever-warm when Rafael kisses his neck.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rafael murmurs, as low and close to his ear as he dares, and turns his head briefly to catch Rich’s mouth in a gentle kiss before returning to his ruinous task. Rich is gasping in moments, hands tight on Rafael's hips.

  He makes a choked, shaky noise and says, “Please! Sir, I'm, I can't—please!”

  “Alright, darlin’, alright,” says Carraway, amused and a little startled, as if he has no idea why Rich would have such an outburst. “Give him a break, doll.”

  Rafael pulls away immediately, trying to meet Rich’s eyes, hands lingering on his arms. Rich doesn’t look up at him, just slumps back in his seat and gasps, panting in rough, fast bursts like an exhausted animal. Rafael’s stomach twists with awful, acid guilt.

  “Sir,” he starts, barely a whisper, casting a pleading look in Carraway’s direction. “Might I, please—”

  “Now, sugar, he’s got work to do,” Carraway chides, and there’s an edge to his voice. As desperate as Rafael is to bring some end to Rich’s suffering, piquing Carraway’s temper can only end in crueler games. Rafael bows his head and returns to his seat, looking past Rich’s slack arm to make any attempt he can towards repairing the damage he’s forced to cause.

  Carraway remains in a fair mood for a large part of the morning. An hour before lunch, another message arrives in the correspondence he’s been taking part in, and whatever he reads there draws a low, rolling snarl from him.

  His vitriol isn’t aimed toward Rich, but the man is already tense and dismayed, jittering unhappily in his seat. He’s more than dismayed a few minutes later when a sharp knock breaks the tense quiet of the office and a familiar, hateful face appears at the doorway.

  Sandgren doesn’t wait to be invited inside, only steps in and closes the door behind him in one casual movement. Rich and Rafael freeze in concert, one of Rich’s enormous pale arms wrapping around Rafael’s back in useless protection.

  “Will,” says Carraway, and beckons without looking up. Clearly he summoned the man, and Rafael’s stomach turns in fearful confusion. But Sandgren seems to have been called for business rather than pleasure this time. He spares a glance at Rich and Rafael, frozen in their perverse tableau, smirks to himself, and then crosses the office to stand by Carraway’s shoulder, leaning down to squint at his screen. Whatever he reads makes him scoff derisively.

  “Oh, he thinks he’s big news, now,” he says. “All this young blood—no respect at all.”

  “I’ve got a mind to turn him down cold,” Carraway says. “It’d do him good to have his nose rubbed in it.”

  “It’d do him even better to see how a real man runs the show.” Sandgren reaches down, paging through Carraway’s screens, and gestures at whatever he finds.

  “We didn’t lean on ol’ Westling for his debts before he kicked it because he knew how the game was played—so play nice until his little brat brings out whatever horse piss he’s calling wine this season, then remind him he’s not half the man his daddy was right before he does his stupid little dedication speech. I’ll send some of my biggest drones with you—real kneecap-breakers. I give it ten to one he folds like one of his cheap suits.”

  Carraway doesn’t look entirely cheered, but his stormy attitude lightens, focusing into the vicious intent of a predator.

  “That’ll do, Will,” he says, and takes possession of his screens back, examining whatever Sandgren has dug up for him with interest. “Pick me out a couple of your worst.”

  “Yessir,” Sandgren says, and leans on Carraway’s shoulder to pick up an open envelope from his desk. “Oh, hello. Dawson sent a care package ‘round? Any new treats?”

  “One or two,” Carraway says absently, and shoots Sandgren an amused look as the man begins pulling out patches in iridescent packets, examining the fine print with interest. “Lookin’ to requisition something, Sergeant?”

  “Business expenses!” says Sandgren, with horrible good cheer. “You’re the one who put me on discipline, Arthur, and that Tennessee slut’s been awful mouthy the last couple days.”

  “And I take it you’d like to do something about that,” Carraway says, and shows no sign of noticing as Rich tenses and a helpless growl starts in his chest. “I don’t know about that, Will. For such a sweet-lookin’ little thing he surely does rile you up, and I’m not keen on having one of my boys out of commission because you couldn’t hold your temper.”

  “Breakin’ my heart, captain,” Sandgren says, and Rafael, watching with his helpless heart in his throat, sees the exact calculation of the obeisance and the self-effacing half-laughter, and the way it warms Carraway to a rueful sigh. “You know as well as I do if we spare the rod with that boy he’ll only get bolder. Matter of time before he starts mouthing off at you too, and what kinda NCO would I be?”

  “The kind with a pretty boy to play with, on my dime,” Carraway says wryly, but he’s smiling again. “No denying he does have a whole lot of ugly things to say when he gets ahead of himself…”

  “All I’m saying,” Sandgren agrees, and glances just for a moment at Rich and Rafael, long enough to see Rich’s unguarded horror and Rafael’s blank, motionless mask. Long enough to smile at the sight. Then he turns back to Carraway and says, “Go get Westling’s attitude back in line, and I’ll beat the backtalk and the choke me daddy bullshit outta the boy while you’re gone. He’ll be in a more agreeable kinda mind to welcome you home by the time you get back for dinner, or you can send me packing.”

  Rich opens his mouth, the beginning of a protest rising in his throat, and then jumps as Rafael’s hand flies to his knee and squeezes with all the strength in his numbed and shaking fingers. Rich looks down at his hand, and then at his face, and then back to Carraway—taut, straining against the constraint of Rafael’s caution like a leash.

  Rafael understands more fully than Rich can know. But he also knows that as dangerous as each of their captors is alone, to challenge either of them in front of the other is to invite immediate, harsh discipline. Even Sam only managed to win mercy from the cruelty of that combined front a handful of times, and each of those a small miracle.

  Connor won’t be ruined, won’t be broken. He’s to be Carraway’s evening entertainment, after all. Rafael grips the restless, shifting expanse of Rich’s knee. And Rich, sweet and shaken, against every natural inclination, takes his cue and sits in wordless, rumbling misery.

  Carraway says, “Well then, as you were, Sergeant-Major,” and waves a careless hand. “Don’t go too hard on him, now.”

  Sandgren salutes, lazily smug, and excuses himself again. Carraway pulls up the letter he was writing, wipes it clear with a palm, and begins again.

  “Sir?” says Rich after a few moments, vibrating with tension.

  “Hush,” says Carraway, and snaps his fingers at Rafael without looking up. “Keep him busy, sugar. I don’t have the time right now.”

  Rich makes a desolate, helpless noise, and when Rafael moves to touch him again, Rich snatches him up and squeezes him instead, holding him close and swallowing convulsively around the fearful growl in his chest. When he reluctantly lets go again and falls back against the seat, he’s as lovely as some sacrificial saint or martyr, eyes falling shut and throat bared and bitten to a patchwork of vivid pink bruises.

  Nothing can be done for Connor. Nothing can be done for Rich. No momentary opening presented itself, no brief flash of possibility. No golden angel patch returning Rafael to a caricature of charm and vitality, to visit the illusion of courage on him. It’s crushing to be reminded so clearly how fleeting his control is, how transitory his pleasures.

  Rafael rests his forehead against Rich’s for a long, quiet moment, and feels the man’s breath tremble against his lips. Then he shifts down with a heavy heart and follows his orders.

  It’s nearly lunchtime, and Rafael has been forced to toy with Rich twice more, when Carraway sighs.

  “Near time to wrap up for today and get on the road for Westling’s damn thing.” He frowns over something on his screen and turns to Rich. Rafael starts to shift, stomach dropping, but Carraway doesn’t even glance at him.

  “Treasure,” he says, “I’m not seein’ the numbers for the Burlington granaries in here. Where’d you stash those away?”

  Rich's breathing stutters and he squeezes his eyes shut.

  “They're not ready, sir,” he says in a strained tone. “I'm sorry, I haven't been able to focus—” his voice cracks and he stops, swallowing hard.

  Carraway sighs, clicks his tongue. “Well, go ahead and get those ready for me, will you, doll? I got business out there tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rich mumbles, and Rafael can see him trying to pull himself together, trying to refocus despite his body's desperation. He starts navigating through various files, and Rafael can at least track what he's doing on the screens now, even if his own attempts to imitate it are halting and clumsy.

  Carraway doesn’t give Rafael any more expectant looks while Rich is trying to work, at least—a small mercy. What he does instead is glance periodically over whatever screen Rich is apparently meant to be supplementing, huff to himself softly, and go back to what he was doing, and each time he does Rich flinches and fumbles, miserable and stressed.

  In desperation, Rafael is about to break the quiet to ask Rich if he can help, when Carraway finally closes whatever he’s working on and sighs.

  “Sweetheart, I know you can do better work than this,” he says, heavy with sugary disapproval.

  Rich looks up from his screen, mouth open, and stares at Carraway.

  “I—sir, I can, just not, not when—” he gestures to Rafael, apparently out of words. Rafael shrinks down in his seat, hands clenching on his knees, but Carraway just sighs again, shaking his head.

  “You’ve been doin’ fine the days before this,” he says. “I just wanted to make it nice and clear, doll, I need you to focus on applyin’ yourself. I don’t want to have to keep you back for any… remedial discipline.”

  Rich's mouth opens again, but no words come out. He stares at Carraway, green eyes very bright—and wet, Rafael realizes when he blinks. Then he doubles over, his elbows bracing against his knees, his hands locking together over the nape of his neck, and begins to silently shake.

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  Carraway’s just turned back to give his work one final glance, but he pauses at that, giving Rich a puzzled look. Then he turns to Rafael expectantly, as if Rafael might have an explanation for this unexpected malfunction. Rafael stares back at him, throat thick and heart heavy, hands knotted in his lap, and Carraway stands up, padding silently across the office towards the side of Rich’s desk. Rich barely seems to notice his approach, but his trembling intensifies as the man nears, and his wide eyes are shocky and unfocused. Like this, he’s not so much a mountain of muscle as a fortress, and it’s entirely possible no one is home.

  “Now,” starts Carraway, and reaches out a hand. “There’s no need for all this—”

  Rich makes a truly terrifying rolling snarl from deep in his chest and escapes up and over the desk before Carraway can touch him. Rafael cowers in his seat as Rich surges past him in a titanic wave, and Carraway jerks back, hands rising with the heavy silver claws glinting viciously at his fingertips. Rich just backs further across the room away from Carraway, with blank, frightened eyes and that ripsaw snarl rumbling on, loud as thunder in the suddenly far too close confines of the office.

  There’s a breathless tension as Rich stares at Carraway, that horrifyingly inhuman growl still rising and falling with his desperate gasps, eyes blazing green in his papery-white face. Carraway untenses, watching him thoughtfully—and then slowly steps forward.

  “Easy,” he says, more softly. “Got you all worked up, didn’t I, treasure? No call to be scared, now.”

  Rich keeps panting through clenched teeth, and doesn't look any less tense and stressed, but his growl stutters and dies down to a low, rasping rumble. It's beyond disturbing to see such an intelligent, self-possessed man so badly panicked he can barely comprehend speech.

  “That’s right, you just settle down, now,” says Carraway, and doesn’t come any closer, still with that calculating look in his golden eyes. He makes no move to remove his claws as he has in days past—but he lowers his hands, turning them away, and Rich’s eyes track them even through his blank panic. “I don’t need you pushin’ me into anything we’ll both regret. Just simmer down.”

  Rich is starting to edge unsubtly sideways towards the door, and he hasn’t been given permission to leave but it’s clear that he intends flight however he can manage it.

  “Sir,” Rafael says, a bare husk of sound, and Carraway’s pointed ear hardly twitches.

  Rafael breathes deep, scrapes together his courage, and says, “Sir, he’s still so new—You know it takes us time, to learn. To be good…”

  “He’s not as new as all that,” Carraway murmurs. “I thought we were over all this, now, really. See here, boy—” At Carraway’s stiff disappointment and the commandingly raised hand, Rich makes a blatant shift for the door, only to shy back with a full-throated warning snarl when Carraway makes as if to grab him, a sound so vast and deep it’s percussive. He's straightened all the way up, now that he's cornered, he's squared his shoulders and raised his arms defensively in front of him, and he's colossal. Rafael can feel the immensity of that growl beating on him from the inside, rattling his heart, his spine.

  Carraway is taller than Rich, ruthless and powerful, an experienced killer, but Rich is still an enormous young man, and trembling all over with a mindless desperation to escape that’s transmuting, second by second, into a pyrrhic threat display. If Carraway insists on pushing this conflict to violence, it will end direly for both men, whoever manages the killing blow.

  There’s no time for subtle manipulations. To allow the current to sweep him along is to allow it to press forward; this must be redirected, stopped, denied, golden angelic courage or no. And without authority to turn the scene aside by force, the only means left is the fool’s riposte. The absurd, the punchline.

  “Well, I suppose you’ll have to send him to bed without supper, sir,” Rafael says, with an elaborate shrug. “I can’t imagine a punishment more suited to this little tantrum.”

  The gamble of it is hideous, but he’s fortunate today. Carraway gives a surprised bark of laughter, and the terrible tension eases as he steps away a careful measure, shaking his head. He always did prefer to smile, no matter how terrible the reason.

  “You’re cute, darlin’,” he says, “but I know you know there’s plenty worse a boy could get around here than a talking-to and early to bed.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” says Rafael, in the mask of the charmingly innocent coquette, playing out the winking joke of it—as though the constant threat of deprivation and torment are of no consequence at all. “Connor is of a worldly sort. I’ll have to ask him if he’s heard of such a thing.”

  Carraway laughs again, and returns to regarding Rich thoughtfully. The man’s growl has softened now he's no longer being directly accosted, but he doesn’t seem to have registered a word of the conversation happening over him. His eyes are sharp with animal caution, but vacant of any thought beyond that, and he’s resumed edging in wary increments toward the door.

  “Baby blues has had his little taste of military men,” Carraway muses. “I’ll bet he knows what happens when a man is fool enough to take away a Hastings’ supper. Do you?”

  The question has teeth, and Rafael lets Carraway see him nipped: he gives a wide-eyed, horrorstruck shiver, and shrinks himself down and away.

  “Yes, sir,” he says, as meek as anything. “Forgive me, I wasn't thinking, I just meant…” he lets the end of the sentence hang lamely, brokenly.

  The metabolism that runs such a lovely monster as the Hastings supersoldier is uncompromising. When they're starved, either by siege or mismanagement, they resort almost immediately to eating their enemies. If they can't reach their enemies, they eat their superiors. As delightfully appropriate as it would be to see Carraway devoured by his own taste for cruelty, he's far too experienced to make such a mistake… and Rafael himself ought to be mortified to have even implied that he might. And thus the fool is chastised, and the warlike posturing of beasts forgotten.

  “You high-strung young things,” Carraway sighs, avuncular and condescending. “Forgot how easy you boys spin up…” He looks at Rafael. “See him to bed then, sweetheart, and whatever appetites he's got you’re welcome to handle yourself. I’m sure you’ve figured out a few tricks in the last couple days.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rafael says gratefully. “I’ll handle it for you.”

  “Good boy,” Carraway says, and steps away from Rich. “Alright. Run along, now.”

  It’s been so long since Carraway’s called him good. It feels as though it should hit harder, or mean more. In this moment, Rafael only feels a distant, impatient disgust.

  “Yes, sir,” he agrees nonetheless, and makes his way cautiously forward. Rich looks at him as he approaches, and his deadly growl doesn’t renew in strength but neither does it die away completely.

  “Come on,” Rafael says, coaxing. Recalls the quaintly nautical phrasing Rich used the previous night and adds, “Let’s go back to your berth, rest—be done for the day. Would you like that better? To rest?”

  Rich doesn't answer, but something sparks in his eyes, a flash of bright relief. He makes for the door with a plunging stride that's nearly a run, and he's halfway down the corridor by the time Rafael reaches the door himself.

  “Thank you sir!” he remembers to say, and then he’s gone before Carraway has time to answer, chasing Rich’s heels down the hallway.

  The door to Rich’s room is already closed when he arrives, out of breath. Rafael knocks as softly as he can, and gets no response. He hesitates there, guilt and fear and worry writhing like a hydra in the too-small prison of his ribs, and then he takes a deep breath and cracks the door open, edging inside.

  Rich is hard to find at first: the bedroom seems to be empty. Rafael checks the bathroom, also empty, then circles the space in confusion. Finally he catches a flash of bright blood red outside on the balcony, through the half-open glass door.

  Rich is huddled in the far corner of the balcony space, curled tight in the corner behind a potted Japanese maple as though he could camouflage himself against the wine-red leaves. His hands are locked over the back of his neck; he’s crouched down and pulled into himself as though he could be small, as though sheer desperate need could compact him into something that could curl up in a corner and be overlooked. His vivid hair, the shining pallor of his skin, his massive bulk, and he hides like a child, like an animal. Like a mouse, the little mouse he keeps sheltered on his wrist.

  He snarls like a monster, though, as Rafael sets a foot onto the balcony tile, and Rafael freezes, heart thundering in his throat, cold sweat on the back of his neck. That utterly inhuman growl tears at something in the back of the brainstem, some primal instinct, and speaks of glinting eyes reflecting in the dark, dripping fangs and hunger. A dragon’s growl. Here there be monsters.

  But the eyes looking back at him aren’t yellow, aren’t red, they aren’t a predator’s eyes—they’re wide and green and helplessly afraid, and Rafael resolved to care for this man. If he allows himself to turn in fear and leave Rich alone with his terror, he might as well return to what he used to be, a pale imitation of himself lying like carrion in the dark.

  “Fear not, Cesario,” he murmurs, his own voice dry and small to his ears, and closes the door behind him. “Take thy fortunes up.”

  Rich’s growl only rises when he attempts even a single step, so Rafael stops there. Just settles down on the warm smooth tile, leaning against the balcony railing, hands where Rich can easily see them, making it clear he intends to go no further. Making it clear he’s not blocking the door back inside, either.

  “Rich,” he says, and wets his lips, trying to keep his voice steady and soft. “No one is going to hurt you.”

  A louder snarl. It’s difficult to tell if it’s in reaction to the words, or simply to Rafael’s continued presence. Rafael swallows the fear, forces himself to remain unswayed—if he can survive Carraway’s capricious and intentional cruelty, he’ll survive any hurt Rich could do to him by accident. He’ll do nothing to tempt that fate, but he won’t run from it either.

  “No one will hurt you,” he repeats. “I won’t touch you unless you decide you want me. He’s gone, you’re in no danger now.”

  He continues to repeat himself, low and warm, never raising his voice, making no move forward, and Rich’s growl dies away again. Gradually, his breathing slows.

  “Can you nod?” Rafael says finally. “If you can hear me?”

  Rich stares at him, blinking fast and frantic—swallows roughly and jerks his head.

  “I’m glad,” Rafael says. His knees ache, but he doesn’t know if he should move yet. He stays where he is, scanning Rich’s face for a sign of ease or understanding. “You… you recognize me?”

  Another sharp jerk that might be a nod. Rafael nods as well, worry and uncertainty crawling through him in waves. If Rich does recognize him, why is he shrinking away? Or is he so thoroughly stricken that every approaching figure becomes Carraway, and he doesn’t truly see Rafael at all? Or is it…oh. Of course.

  “I’m sorry he had me touch you,” Rafael says, soft and wretched, and drops his gaze to the floor between them. “He—I could help you, this time, he allowed me to help you, I could—”

  Rich shifts, a hiccup of a snarl bursting out of him. Rafael flinches as well, foolishly hurt, and Rich pulls his knees up in the corner, curling around the places Rafael was made to tease him. Shaking his head mutely.

  “Alright,” says Rafael, and swallows, his voice thick in his throat. “Alright. That’s—of course, whatever you want. Then… then something else.”

  Rich watches him with wary eyes as Rafael pushes himself up and slips back into the bedroom; the fear is still in him, and he gives another low, fearful rumble when Rafael returns with his book, although it hitches when he sees the bowl of fruit under Rafael’s other arm. Rafael just nods as though Rich had articulated a perfectly reasonable request, sets the bowl down between them and slides it as far forward as he may without approaching, and settles himself down in the far corner from Rich, against the railing.

  “Richard The Second, perhaps,” he says as lightly as he can, as though he can’t feel Rich’s eyes on him. “A play of your namesake, although I know historical drama may not be the most compelling to recite…”

  He doesn’t know how long he reads. He skips forward at times, when the story grows bleak or seems likely to cause more distress than comfort—Rich seems in no state to follow a reading at the moment, anyway. But slowly, at the corner of his eye, that huge, trembling shape begins to unfold from between the waving red leaves, and the rough breathing eases.

  Rafael doesn’t look up when he sees Rich shift, pushing himself to hands and knees; first, plucking a pear from the bowl with delicate fingers and retreating. Then rising again, a scene or two later, and creeping closer as cautiously as a beaten dog. Rafael stays where he is, eyes on the page, tracing a finger along the lines.

  “Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot unlikely wonders,” he murmurs, and the book falls into shadow as Rich eases close enough for their knees to touch, his powerful frame slumped and heavy with exhaustion. “How these vain weak nails may tear a passage through the flinty ribs of this hard world, my ragged prison walls…”

  “Raf,” says Rich, his voice so quiet and tired, and a pale hand, shining in the sunlight, creeps out around the side of the book and touches Rafael’s elbow, as though unsure of its welcome. Rafael falters, words dying in his dry throat, and when he looks up Rich is looking back at him, really looking this time, back bent as if he’s bowed under unfathomable weight.

  “Welcome back,” Rafael says as softly as he can, and Rich makes a miserable sound and nods.

  “I’m,” he starts, and takes his hand back, wraps his arms around himself. Presses his forehead to the balcony railing and looks down over the courtyard. “I'm sorry. I hate—how—”

  Rafael doesn’t interrupt him—doesn’t reach out to touch him, although every molecule of his being longs to do something, to give some form of sweet encouragement.

  “I hate it here,” Rich finishes finally, and closes his eyes, bends forward to run his hands over his hair and curl forward as he did before, elbows on his knees, hands gripping the back of his neck. Flinching away from the touch of the collar there, and then returning as if he can’t help himself. “I hate how—he just keeps making me—I keep finding new ways to be scared. And it. It doesn’t get better. Easier. Just worse, e-every—”

  He cuts himself off and this time he doesn’t begin again. Just sits, holding himself together, as an exquisite, agonizing pity fills Rafael’s heart, overfills it, tears through it at the ragged seams.

  “May I hold you?” he says, and Rich looks up at him with startled confusion, as if he forgot such a thing was possible. Rafael sets the book aside and reaches toward him, and this time Rich allows it, stretching out a hand to draw Rafael closer with a touch so tentative it can barely be felt.

  They embrace a long while, in the quiet sunlight together. Rich’s trembling has begun to ease to nothing, although it lingers in the breaths that brush past Rafael’s collarbone. Rafael traces the lovely, sturdy scaffolding of his spine, until even that has gone away.

  “Do you want me to touch you?” he says finally, and Rich twitches, hesitates and then shakes his head. “Do you want to talk about…?” Another shake, surer this time—Rich tenses under his hands before he forces himself to relax with an effort Rafael can feel in every inch of his body. “Alright. Then… shall I keep reading?”

  Rich nods to that and moves; vanishing inside and quickly returning with the oversized armchair. It takes up a third of the balcony, and easily holds his bulk; he slumps into it, turns his face up to the sun, and then holds out an arm and invites Rafael into the vast curve of his body. The gentle encirclement of his arms is heavier than the sunlight but just as warm, and it’s a marked improvement on hard tile and iron railings.

  “Something lighter then, perhaps,” Rafael says, and rests the book on his knees, flipping through the old, gilt-edged pages. Feeling the man breathe slowly against his back with a trembling frailty to his mountainous form. “Whatever you need.”

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