Chapter 103: Chapter 103
Outside, the cold wind whistled through the window they’d left open, beginning to scour the room clean. The scent of sickness and sweat faded, replaced by the damp, mineral smell of incoming rain. They lay in the grey light for an hour, maybe two, not sleeping, just breathing in the cleansed air. Cassian’s hand never left the dip of Felix’s waist.
“We should go see Sam and Arthur,” Cassian said, his voice raspy from bile and disuse.
Felix tensed. A visit to his grandfathers meant performance, and he had no energy for their kindly, probing questions. “Why?”
“Because they’re family.” Cassian’s thumb moved, a slow arc on Felix’s skin. “And we have to tell someone we’re being evicted. Might as well be them.”
The trip across town on the bus felt penitential. Felix’s head throbbed in time with the diesel engine. Cassian sat stiffly, his complexion still wan. They carried their hangovers like fragile, shameful artifacts. Arthur answered the door of their tidy, book-cluttered bungalow, his glasses perched on his forehead. He took one look at them and called back over his shoulder. “Sam! Put the kettle on. The boys look like they’ve been dug up.”
Sam bustled in, wiping his hands on a floral apron. His sharp eyes scanned them, missing nothing. “Sit. You’re grey, the pair of you.”
They were ushered into the warm, cinnamon-scented kitchen. The comfort of it was almost unbearable. Felix almost cracked when Arthur set a strong, sweet tea in front of him. They talked in circles about classes, about work, about the weather. The eviction notice sat in the room like a fourth person.
“Spit it out, Felix,” Sam said gently, topping up his mug. “Your knee hasn’t stopped jiggling for ten minutes.”
Felix looked at Cassian, who gave a single, small nod. “They’re selling the building. We got notice. We have to be out by the end of the month.”
A silence followed, filled only by the ticking of the strawberry-shaped clock on the wall. Sam and Arthur exchanged a look, a whole conversation passing between them in an instant. Arthur smiled, a slow, crinkling thing.
“Well,” Sam said, leaning back. “That’s serendipitous.”
Arthur got up and rummaged in a drawer, returning with a key on a faded blue fob. He placed it on the table between them with a soft click. “We’ve been downsizing. The old place on Elmwood. We finally moved the last of the boxes out last week. It’s just sitting there, clean and empty.”
Felix stared at the key. “The… the two-bedroom? With the garden?”
“The very same,” Arthur said. “We were going to put it on the market. But we’d much rather it stayed in the family.”
“We can’t afford a place like that,” Cassian said, his voice flat. “The rent would be triple—”
“Who said anything about rent?” Sam interjected, waving a hand. “It’s paid for. Has been for thirty years. You’d just cover the taxes and the upkeep. Which, frankly, would be a relief to us. Arthur’s knees can’t handle that garden anymore.”
The offer hung in the air, immense and impossible. Felix felt the ground shift under him. This wasn’t help; it was a lifeline thrown from a past he thought had forgotten him. “You’re giving it to us?”
“Not giving,” Arthur corrected softly. “Lending. For as long as you need it. It’s too much house for two old men. It needs you two. It needs life.”
Cassian looked shell-shocked. His work-roughened fingers traced the edge of the table. “That’s… sir, that’s too much.”
“Nonsense,” Sam said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Take the key. Go see it. Get your things out of that hovel. Start fresh.”
They took the key. The weight of it in Felix’s pocket felt alien, like a talisman from another life. They walked the twelve blocks to Elmwood in a dazed silence. The house was a narrow Victorian terrace, its brickwork weathered but sound, a small, winter-bare garden behind a rusting gate. The key turned smoothly.
Empty rooms echoed with their footsteps. Sunlight streamed through tall, uncurtained windows onto polished floorboards. There was a real kitchen, not a galley. A bathroom with a clawfoot tub. Two bedrooms. Space. It was clean, and quiet, and utterly theirs.
Cassian stopped in the middle of the bare living room, turning slowly. The afternoon light caught the dust motes dancing around him. He looked at Felix, and his face did something complicated, a crumbling of defenses Felix had never seen before. His eyes glistened.
“Fuck,” Cassian whispered, the word cracking down the middle.
They stood there, in the center of the unexpected gift, and wept without sound. It was the release of months of pressure. Cassian pulled Felix into him, his big body shuddering, his face buried in Felix’s hair. They held each other as the silent tears soaked into each other’s shoulders.
They moved in a frantic, joyous burst over the next two days. Their meager possessions looked lost in the new space. To celebrate their first night, they bought two bottles of cheap champagne and a family-sized bag of salt and vinegar chips. They sat on the floor of their new living room, backs against the wall, and drank from plastic cups.
“To Sam and Arthur,” Felix said, his voice echoing slightly.
“To not being homeless,” Cassian replied, clinking his cup hard against Felix’s.
The champagne was sweet and acidic. They drank it fast, toasting the garden, the high ceilings, the mysterious cupboard under the stairs. The relief was a new kind of intoxication, headier than any whisky. The first bottle disappeared. Then the second was opened. The buzz smoothed the remaining rough edges of the week, built upon the foundation of their relieved exhaustion.
“We should break it in,” Cassian said, his words beginning to slur into each other. He gestured vaguely at the empty room.
“The house?” Felix giggled. The champagne bubbles seemed to be popping behind his eyes.
“Yeah. Properly.” Cassian pushed himself up, swaying. He grabbed Felix’s wrists and pulled him upright, then down onto the bare floorboards. The wood was hard and cool through their clothes. Cassian kissed him, a deep, champagne-wet exploration that tasted like hope. They wrestled with jeans and shirts, their laughter echoing off the blank walls, their movements clumsy with drink and elation.
Cassian laid back, his head swimming. “Come here.”
Felix crawled over him, aligning their bodies. He took Cassian’s cock in his mouth, the salt and musk of him familiar and grounding. He sucked him slowly, savoring the heavy weight on his tongue, the way Cassian’s hips twitched upwards. But Cassian grunted, shoving at his shoulder.
“Not like that,” he slurred. “Together. Turn around.”
Understanding filtered through the fizz. Felix maneuvered himself, his head over Cassian’s groin, his knees framing Cassian’s head. He lowered himself, feeling Cassian’s hot breath against his own aching cock. Then Cassian’s mouth was on him, wet and voracious, sucking him deep with a drunkard’s lack of finesse. Felix moaned around the flesh in his own mouth and returned the favor.
The 69 was a shaky, drunken geometry of mutual greed. They bobbed and lapped, each focused on the task before them, their moans vibrating through each other’s bodies. Felix reveled in the power of his mouth, in the way Cassian’s thighs trembled when he swirled his tongue just right. Cassian’s own oral attention was relentless, his hands gripping Felix’s ass, holding him in place as he deep-throated him with a guttural, choking enthusiasm.
“Gonna come,” Felix warned, the words muffled against Cassian’s skin. His own jaw ached beautifully.
Cassian just hummed in response, the vibration pushing Felix to the brink. Felix swallowed him down as Cassian pulsed, the hot, bitter release flooding his throat. Swallowing triggered his own climax, a white-out seizure of pleasure as he came into Cassian’s waiting, swallowing mouth. They collapsed sideways onto the hard floor, a sticky, panting heap, their limbs still intertwined.
The champagne demanded tribute an hour later. Felix woke from a doze with a stomach that lurched like a falling elevator. He stumbled to his feet, the room tilting wildly. He made it to the pristine new kitchen sink just as the contents of his stomach—champagne, chips, hope—erupted in a violent, acidic gush. He retched, eyes streaming, gripping the cold stainless steel.
Behind him, he heard a similar, deeper retching sound. Cassian was on his hands and knees in the doorway of the half-finished bathroom, vomiting spectacularly onto the new bath mat. The symphony of their sickness echoed through the empty house. It went on for minutes, a brutal, physical purging of all the stress, the fear, the sudden overwhelming gift.
Spent, Felix slid down the cabinet to sit on the cold kitchen floor. Cassian crawled over from the hallway, his face pale and clammy. They sat back-to-back in the doorway between rooms, shivering in the dark, listening to each other’s ragged breaths. The smell of bile and champagne hung in the air of their beautiful new home.
Cassian’s head lolled back against Felix’s shoulder. “Made a mess,” he mumbled.
“We’ll clean it,” Felix said, his own voice thin. “Tomorrow.”
A long silence stretched. Then Cassian’s hand found his, their fingers linking tightly, slick with sweat. “It’s a good house,” Cassian whispered.
“Yeah,” Felix said, leaning his weight back against the solid, familiar bulk of his husband. Outside, a fresh wind rattled the old windows, but here, amidst the mess they’d made, the foundations felt solid for the first time.
Outside, the cold wind whistled through the window they’d left open, beginning to scour the room clean. The eviction date passed three days later. They moved their boxes into a cheap storage unit that smelled of damp concrete and regret. They existed in a suspended state, sleeping on Leo’s couch for a week, the faux-leather sticking to their skin. Cassian’s silence became a physical object, a third presence heavier than any box. It was Sam, Felix’s grandfather, who finally called.
“You’ll bring that welded brute of yours for Sunday dinner,” Sam’s voice crackled through the phone. It wasn’t a question. “Arthur’s making the pot roast with the ale. You know the one.”
The house was a time capsule of worn floral upholstery and the faint, permanent scent of lavender polish and old paper. Sam, at seventy-six, was all sharp, bird-like glances andknitted cardigans. Arthur, seventy-eight and broader, moved with a slow, deliberate warmth that filled a room. They had been together for fifty-two years. Their peace was a settled, deep-rooted thing that made Felix’s chest ache.
“Sit, sit,” Arthur boomed, waving a wooden spoon. “You both look like you’ve been chewed up and spat out by the city itself.”
The pot roast was tender, the gravy rich. They drank Arthur’s good burgundy, then his even better port. Cassian, initially stiff in his chair, began to thaw under the relentless, unassuming warmth. Arthur asked him about metallurgy, about load-bearing stresses, listening with genuine interest. Sam watched Felix, his eyes missing nothing.
“We’ve decided to sell this old ark,” Sam said abruptly during the cheese course. He reached over and placed his thin hand over Arthur’s gnarled one. “Stairs are becoming a negotiation. We’ve bought a lovely bungalow. One floor. A manageable garden.”
“That’s… that’s wonderful,” Felix said, trying to mask his sudden, irrational fear of this house changing hands.
“The new place is smaller,” Arthur continued, his eyes twinkling. “Two bedrooms are frankly wasteful. We’ll use the second for Arthur’s library, of course.” He paused, sipping his port. “Which means the apartment above the garage here is coming empty.”
Felix’s fork clinked against his plate. Cassian went utterly still.
“It’s a proper flat,” Sam said. “Kitchen, bathroom, living area. Bigger than that closet you were describing. The rent would be what we pay in maintenance. Which is to say, negligible.”
Silence stretched, taut and immense. Cassian finally found his voice, low and graveled with an emotion he couldn’t name. “We can’t accept that.”
“You’re not accepting a gift, you dense man,” Arthur chuckled. “You’re doing us a favor. Keeping the place lived in. Deterring burglars. We’ll be right there in the bungalow. You can help me move my damn books.” His gaze settled on Cassian, then Felix. “It’s what family does. It’s just bricks and mortar. You two are the life that goes inside it.”
The magnitude of it, this sudden salvation, was a physical blow. Felix felt his eyes burn. Cassian looked down at his hands, the scars and calluses stark under the dining room light. He gave a single, curt nod, his throat working. “Thank you,” he rasped. The words were inadequate, but they were all he had.
“Then it’s settled,” Sam said, clapping his hands once. “Arthur, open the cognac. We’re signing the paperwork tomorrow, but tonight we’re getting these boys properly hammered.”
The cognac was smooth and volcanic. They drank to new chapters, to fewer stairs, to fifty-two years and to just beginning. The stories flowed: Arthur and Sam meeting in a Soho jazz club, being raided, fighting for scraps of legal recognition. Cassian listened, his usual reticence drowned in reverence and fine liquor. Felix watched his husband’s face soften in the golden light, saw the relentless worry in his shoulders finally begin to dissolve. They drank to that too.
They stumbled across the dark garden to the garage flat at two in the morning, leaning into each other, laughing at the sheer absurd fortune of it all. The space was larger than any they’d shared, the rooms echoing with empty potential. They had no furniture yet, just a suitcase of clothes and a blanket Sam had thrust into their arms. They spread it on the bare living room floor.
“Fuck,” Cassian exhaled, lying back, staring at the shadowed ceiling. “Fucking hell.”
Felix lay beside him, the world tilting in a pleasant, golden blur. The relief was an intoxicant all its own, layered over the cognac. He rolled onto his side, propping his head up. Cassian’s profile was a cliff-face in the moonlight from the bare window. “We have a home,” Felix whispered, the words sacred.
Cassian turned his head. His eyes were black pools, unguarded. “We do.” He reached out, his hand rough and warm against Felix’s cheek. “C’mere.”
The kiss was slow, deep, a tasting of cognac and shared history. It was different without the acid-sharp edge of fear. This was a celebration, a claiming of their own territory. Felix pushed at Cassian’s shirt, needing skin. They wrestled with fabric, their movements lazy and drunken, until they were both bare on the blanket, the cool air raising goosebumps.
Cassian’s mouth traveled down Felix’s chest, his tongue circling a nipple, his teeth a gentle scrape. Felix arched, a shiver that wasn’t from the cold. He tangled his hands in Cassian’s thick hair, guiding him lower. Cassian went willingly, his breath hot on Felix’s stomach, then his hip, then the coarse hair at his groin.
“Want your mouth,” Felix mumbled, his hips lifting.
Cassian didn’t tease. He took Felix’s cock into the wet, sucking heat of his mouth in one smooth motion, his tongue pressing hard along the frenulum. Felix cried out, the sound echoing off the empty walls. Cassian worked him with a dedicated, rhythmic intensity, one hand cupping Felix’s balls, rolling them gently. The dual sensation, the visual of Cassian’s head bobbing between his thighs in this new, theirs space, was overwhelming.
“Wait… stop,” Felix gasped, tugging at his hair. Cassian released him with a wet pop, looking up, lips swollen. “I want… I want to taste you, too. Now.”
Cassian’s eyes widened slightly. Then, with a groan, he rolled onto his back beside Felix. “C’mon then.”
They shifted, a clumsy, drunken rearrangement of limbs on the blanket, until they were locked in a sixty-nine, each man’s head between the other’s thighs. The position was intimate and filthy, profoundly equal. Felix took Cassian’s thick cock into his mouth, savoring the weight, the salty pre-come beading at the tip. Above him, he felt Cassian’s mouth engulf him again.
The world narrowed to scent, taste, and wet sound. Felix hollowed his cheeks, sucking hard, listening to the ragged gasp it pulled from Cassian. Cassian answered by deep-throating Felix with a drunk, devoted hunger that made Felix’s toes curl against the blanket. They moved together in a sloppy, synchronized rhythm, each groan and muffled moan vibrating through the other’s body. Felix felt the tense coil in his own gut tighten with each pass of Cassian’s talented tongue. He redoubled his efforts, taking Cassian deeper, using his hand to stroke what his mouth couldn’t reach.
Cassian’s thighs began to tremble on either side of Felix’s head. A low, warning growl vibrated against Felix’s cock. Felix knew the signs. He worked him faster, his own climax threatening to overtake him. Cassian came first, his hips bucking off the floor, a hot, bitter flood jetting onto Felix’s tongue. Felix swallowed convulsively, the intense, rhythmic pulsing in his mouth pushing him over his own edge. He came with a choked shout down Cassian’s throat, his body seizing as he emptied himself.
They lay frozen for a moment, spent, still connected. Then, slowly, they disentangled, collapsing onto their backs, panting at the ceiling. The silence was profound, broken only by their ragged breaths. The smell of sex and cognac sweat filled the empty flat.
“We should… get water,” Felix slurred, but made no move to rise.
“Mmhmm,” Cassian agreed, eyes closed.
The nausea came quietly at first, a distant roiling beneath the euphoria. Then it mounted, swift and undeniable. Felix scrambled to his knees, the room lurching. He barely made it to the kitchen sink before the cognac, port, and pot roast came heaving back up in a sour, violent torrent. He gripped the cold stainless steel, shuddering.
Behind him, he heard Cassian groan, then a similar, deeper retching sound from the direction of the bare bathroom. They were sick in unison, in stereo, each expelling the celebration from their bodies. It was horrific and humbling and somehow, absurdly, a part of it all.
Eventually, the spasms ceased. Felix rinsed his mouth at the sink, trembling. He walked back to the blanket. Cassian emerged from the bathroom, pale, wiping his mouth. They looked at each other in the dim light. A slow, weary, genuine smile spread across Cassian’s face.
“Worth it,” he croaked.
Felix nodded, a weak laugh escaping him. They lay back down on the blanket, curled towards each other, too exhausted to do anything else. The flat was still empty, still echoing. But they were inside it, together. The future was no longer a void, but a room waiting to be filled. Outside, the wind had died down. The only sound was their own breathing, slowly evening out into sleep.
Outside, the cold wind whistled through the window they’d left open, beginning to scour the room clean. It carried away the sour traces of their sickness but left the structural ruin of their lives untouched. The red-circled date on the eviction notice glowed from the fridge like a bomb’s timer. A week later, with no viable options and a silent, shared dread, Felix made the call he’d been avoiding. “We need to see Sam and Arthur,” he said, hanging up the phone. Cassian just nodded, his jaw tight. The visit smelled of obligation, a final, humbling admission of failure before they crawled into a hostel.
Sam and Arthur’s home was a time capsule of dust and affection, nestled in a quieter, leafier part of the city. The air was different here, smelling of lemon polish and the lavender candies Arthur constantly sucked. Sam, Felix’s grandfather, was all sharp angles and perceptive eyes behind thick glasses, while Arthur moved with a soft, deliberate care, his hands still showing the ghost of a pianist’s grace. They were both in their mid-seventies, a unit forged in a different, harder time. Over weak tea in fragile china, the truth tumbled out. Felix couldn’t meet their eyes. Cassian stared at a water stain on the rug, his shoulders hunched. “The landlord’s selling. We’ve looked. There’s nothing.”
The old men shared a look, a silent conversation conducted in the space of a blink. Arthur reached over and placed his spotted hand on Sam’s knee. Sam cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “That’s inconvenient.”
“It’s a fucking catastrophe,” Cassian corrected flatly, then winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Arthur said lightly. “It is a catastrophe. But it so happens…” He trailed off, letting Sam take the lead.
Sam leaned forward. “The building Arthur inherited from his aunt. The one we talked about converting for rental income.” He paused, letting the words hang. “The ground-floor flat is finished. It’s just been sitting. Two bedrooms. A proper kitchen. Larger than anything you’d find now.” He looked at Felix, then Cassian. “It’s yours. If you want it.”
The silence was Absolute. A Rent. Free.It was a lifeline thrown from an unexpected shore. "We can't," Felix blurted. "The money—"
"Is not an issue," Arthur interjected. "Consider it a wedding present we're horrifically late in giving. The taxes and upkeep we’d pay anyway. You’d be doing us the favor." Their logic was a graceful fiction, a ballet of generosity designed to spare their pride. Cassian’s face was a museum of conflict: relief warring with stubborn independence, love battling against the shame of being saved.
“We’d pay something,” Cassian stated, a line in the sand.
Sam shrugged. “Pay the utilities. Keep the door from falling off its hinges. That’s enough.”He stood, the decision made. “You’ll need keys. Let’s go see it.Nerves jangling, not from fear, but from a dizzying, disbelieving hope.
The flat was a revelation. Sunlight poured through enormous windows onto wide-plank oak floors Cassian’s boots echoed on. The kitchen had an actual gas range and room for a table. The bathroom wasn’t a closet. The second bedroom, empty, spoke of futures previously unimagined: a studio, a nursery, a guest room. It was solid, and quiet, and theirs. The weight of the impending street lifted so suddenly Felix felt lightheaded. Cassian walked silently from room to room, his calloused fingers trailing over doorframes, testing the solidity of the walls. When he turned back, his eyes were bright. “This is…”
“Yes,” Felix finished.
They moved in with two suitcases and a dozen boxes, their entire worldly domain looking pathetic in the spacious, echoing rooms. To christen it, to fend off the surreal gratitude, they decided on a private housewarming. Cassian brought home a bottle of oily, Ukrainian vodka a welder from Odessa had sworn by, and a cheap, sweet red wine Felix liked. “We get properly hammered,” Cassian declared, a grin spreading across his face. “On our own fucking floor. In our own fucking home.”
They started in the empty living room, sitting on a blanket, backs against the wall. They drank the wine from plastic cups, toasting to drywall, to functional outlets, to Sam and Arthur’s health. The wine melted the lingering formal edges of the gift. The vodka, taken in straight, brutal shots from the bottle, annihilated them. The antiseptic burn of each slug was a celebration, a rebellion against every hardship that had led them here. They talked louder, their words overlapping. Cassian described making a perfect weld, the bead flowing like liquid silver. Felix ranted about a pompous lecturer. They laughed until they cried, the sound echoing in the barren space.
“I love you, you know,” Cassian said, his voice slurry and profound. “Even when you’re a fucking disaster.”
“I love you more,” Felix shot back, climbing into his lap, the vodka making him bold. “Even when you’re a miserable old bastard.” They kissed, a deep, tasteless clash of alcohol, their hands pulling at clothes. They undressed each other right there on the blanket, a frantic, joyous unveiling. Cassian’s mouth found Felix’s neck, sucking a mark into the pale skin. Felix arched against him, the friction of their bodies a delicious promise.
“Get on your back,” Felix mumbled, pushing at Cassian’s chest. Cassian went, his head lolling to the side with a drunk, trusting smile. Felix staggered to his feet, swaying, looking down at the sprawling, powerful form of his husband on their new floor. He knelt between Cassian’s legs, the world tilting pleasantly. He took Cassian’s heavy cock into his mouth without preamble, swallowing down the length, his throat working against the intrusion. The taste of salt and skin cut through the vodka. Cassian made a guttural sound, his hips twitching.
“Your mouth… fuck, your fucking mouth,” Cassian chanted, his hands tangling in Felix’s hair. Felix sucked him with a sloppy, dedicated rhythm, saliva slicking his chin. He felt owned and owning, the power of giving this pleasure a drug as potent as the liquor. He came up for air, panting, and Cassian pulled him up for a wet, open-mouthed kiss. “My turn,” Cassian growled, flipping them with drunken strength.
Now Felix was on his back, the hard floor a distant concern. Cassian trailed kisses down his chest, his stomach, his breath hot. He took Felix into his mouth, his technique ruined by inebriation but his enthusiasm overwhelming. The heat was sudden, engulfing. Felix cried out, his fingers scrabbling at Cassian’s shoulders.
“Wait, wait,” Felix gasped, his brain connecting two drunken points. “Like this. C’mon.” He pushed and pulled until they were arranged in a clumsy, sideways sixty-nine, their bodies aligned, each man’s face buried in the other’s crotch. The floor was hard, the angle awkward, but the obscene intimacy of it was perfect. Felix took Cassian back into his mouth at the same moment Cassian’s tongue laved a stripe up his shaft. The dual sensation was electrifying, a feedback loop of shared, wet heat. The sounds were filthy: wet sucks, guttural moans muffled by flesh, the slap of a drunk tongue against skin.
Felix lost himself in the rhythm, in the weight of Cassian on his tongue, in the dizzying pleasure flooding from his own cock. He could smell them both, musky and blatant. He reached up, his hands gripping Cassian’s ass, pulling him deeper, fucking his own face with his husband’s cock. Cassian moaned around him, the vibration traveling straight to Felix’s core. It was a race, a shared, sloppy climb.
Cassian came first, with a sudden, choked-off roar, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself in thick pulses down Felix’s throat. Felix swallowed convulsively, the salty, bitter taste triggering his own climax. He came into Cassian’s mouth, his back bowing off the floor, a raw, shattered sound escaping him as Cassian drank him down.
They collapsed apart, slick and panting, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. The high was immense, a shimmering dome of drunken, sated bliss. It lasted perhaps ten minutes. Then Felix’s stomach, a cauldron of vodka, wine, and adrenaline, gave a definitive,警告性的 lurch. He sat up quickly, the room spinning violently. “Oh no.”
Cassian, lying beside him, groaned in sympathy, his own face turning a pale green. “Not here. Not on the new floor.”
They stumbled upright, a four-legged creature of nausea, and careened toward the bathroom. They didn’t make it to the toilet. Felix fell to his knees first, a violent, convulsive heave tearing through him, ejecting a torrent of purple-red wine and vodka onto the pristine white tiles. The smell was acidic, horrific. The sound triggered Cassian, who doubled over beside him, adding his own clear, viscous stream of pure spirit and bile to the mess, the two pools mingling on the floor.
They retched until there was nothing left, until they were just two shivering, sweating men kneeling in their own vileness, in the glorious bathroom of their gifted flat. Tears streamed down Felix’s face from the effort. Cassian spat, a final, bitter punctuation.
“Fuck,” Cassian croaked, wiping his mouth.
Felix could only nod, trembling. The sublime drunk was gone, replaced by the brutal, physical truth of the aftermath. They were a mess. They were safe. They were home. Cassian, moving with the slow care of the deeply wounded, turned on the shower. Steam began to fog the mirrors. Without a word, he helped Felix up and guided them both under the hot, punishing spray. They sat on the floor, letting the water sluice the sickness from their skin and the tiles. Cassian pulled Felix against him, and they stayed there, in the heat and the steam, broken and salvaged, the empty, beautiful flat waiting for them just beyond the door.