Snow

"You do realize I'm going to take my offer back in about five seconds, right?" Alec called back to him. "So you might want to hurry up."

David caught up to him easily. "I'm going to make you breakfast," he said happily.

"Well, that would be a miracle," Alec said, "as all I have is a bottle of ale and a bunch of grapes."

He paused for a moment. "You do realize by miracle I mean 'please don't cook me a dish with those two ingredients in it,' right?"

"Of course," David said. "You probably drank the ale already anyway."

"You know," Alec said, "sometimes I think you're much smarter than you let on."

***

On the third street past the farmer's stalls at the far edge of the square a tan door rested in the middle of a long wall. David smiled when he saw it and pictured a house like the ones his nurse had told him about, small and snug with a roof of straw that dripped down sweet smelling onto the floor.

It wasn't like that.

Behind the door was a long hallway dotted with doors and capped with a set of stairs at the far end, the roof dizzyingly far away and not made of straw at all. Up the stairs was another hallway and more doors. Alec lived up the stairs and behind the eighth door, at the very end of the hallway. And his house wasn't a house at all. It was a room, airy and wide with high ceilings and a large window high up on the wall, a bed bracketed to the left of it, tucked up and into a sort of loft. There was a fireplace set into the right wall and a long empty shelf running along the wall next to it, a cabinet tucked beneath it at the far end. The room was empty except for a table, a chair, a tin tub resting on its side, the bottom coated with fine black dust, and a basket that held a snarl of clothes.

"Well?" Alec said, his voice edged sharp. When David looked at him, he gestured around the room like a challenge.

"Can I sleep under the window?" David said, walking over and looking up at it. "You can see the stars!" He looked around the room again. There was a ladder built into the wall.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"Climbing." Alec's voice was, if possible, even sharper but when David looked at him his eyes weren't angry but confused, like what David was saying was what he hadn't expected to hear.

"Oh." David looked at the ladder again. "I've never seen a ladder inside a wall before. How does it work?"

Alec didn't move for a moment but then he grabbed the ladder. It slid right out of the wall and he propped it up against the edge of the loft. "There," he said, and his voice was back to normal again, light and wry. "Takes you right up to what the landlord calls 'the second room'."

"What do you call it?"

"A fancy way of overcharging for a bed."

David laughed. Alec grinned at him and the confusion in his eyes had melted into something warm.

"I can't believe I get to stay here," David said happily, caught up in Alec's smile, in knowing he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Alec stared at him for a moment, his grin fading. "Lucky you," he finally said, and his voice was flat. "You do realize this is it, right? One room, no servants, no fancy whatevers. And you really do have to sleep on the floor."

"I know," David said, and sat down under the window. "Here is okay, right?"

"Sure," Alec said slowly. "One night on the floor, probably an adventure for you."

"I slept on the floor when my nurse died," David said, staring up at the stars. "She was sick for a long time. If I lay just right on the stones I could reach up and hold her hand. I had to stop when-

-when it got too cold. It--I was hurting her. I just wanted to be near her."

Alec didn't say anything for a while and then he cleared his throat and said, "I'll get you a blanket."

He climbed up into the loft and tossed down one blanket, then two. Then he muttered under his breath for a moment and threw down a pillow.

"Thank you," David called out, but Alec didn't reply.

The pillow smelled like Alec. David slept with his face turned toward the window and one arm under the pillow, curling his fingers into it and holding it close. He woke up when it was barely light and saw Alec moving around. He was rubbing the back of his neck.

"Are you hurt?" David asked, sitting up with his hand still holding the pillow tight, smoothing over it.

Alec shook his head. He wasn't looking at him exactly, his gaze trained on David's hand moving over the pillow. "I have to go," he said abruptly. He rocked back on his heels for a moment and then said, "See you around."

"I know," David said. "Tonight."

"Sure," Alec said and there was something in his voice, almost like laughter but so bleak David knew whatever he was thinking about wasn't amusing at all. When he left he closed the door quietly behind him.