Snow

David didn't leave. He saw Alec talking to a fat man wrapped in a heavy cloak in the corner, watched as the man rose and pushed his way to the door, Alec following close behind. He took a deep breath and followed.

Outside Alec was standing in the alley, the fat man next to him.

"This? Won't buy but two lungfuls. You'll be back here before you know it," the fat man said. "It really all you got?"

"No, I have six invisible bits here too. What do you think?"

"I think," the fat man said slowly, pausing to spit on the ground, "that instead of two lungfuls, you just talked yourself into one."

"Fine," Alec said sharply. "Just give over already. All it has to do is last long enough for me to go back in and drink enough to forget about going home."

"Grief waiting there?" the fat man said.

"Something like that," Alec muttered, mouth set into a thin tight twist. David heard a shifting crackle under his feet and looked down to see ice blooming across the street stones. He thought about walking back, about sitting and waiting and how, when Alec finally returned, he'd think of things to say and not say them, be afraid to. He was good at waiting, at not asking questions, at not asking for anything. He'd done it all his life.

He wanted to know what had made Alec leave. He wanted to know enough to ask. He went back inside.

When Alec came back his eyes looked different, gone glazed over and lost. He stood looking at him for a moment and then smiled like he never had before, open and sunny and warm. "Always strange to see you looking like you actually want to see me," he said, and sat back down. He tilted his head to one side. "Talking about biscuits and for a moment I forgot you'll go." He closed his eyes and then opened them again. "I should be somewhere else now."

"Why did you leave like that?" David said, and his voice only shook a little.

Alec ignored him and leaned across the table. Up close his eyes were odd looking, filmed with what looked like thousands of tiny wiggling creatures, and he smelled like strange pungent smoke, spicy and bitter.

"Wormwood," David said slowly, thinking of the night he'd spent in the square, of the old woman with her shaking hands and rusty knife and desperate voice. The things in Alec's eyes twitched and swam sideways, then flipped over.

"If you aren't here I can do this," Alec said in a whisper, and rubbed a thumb across David's wrist. It was the first time Alec had touched him, really touched him, since the night he'd said David could come live with him, and it felt good. It felt better than good. He wanted to ask Alec why again but all he managed was a soft sound, a plea.

"I knew you'd sound like that," Alec said and something in his voice, his smile, made David shiver. Alec saw it and smiled more, linked their fingers together and tugged him up. "Come on,"

he said, and tossed a handful of coins down on the table.

Outside he put one hand on David's back, fingers brushing along the line of his spine. David froze, breath catching, and turned toward him, stopping in the middle of the street. Alec was a dark shadow next to him, his face impossible to see, but his hand curved lower, a caress that turned David closer.

"You're going to disappear," Alec said. "Any minute now."

"I am?" David said, confused, and Alec's fingers were still moving, sliding softly across his back, his other hand coming to rest on David's arm. David let himself touch in return, one hand sliding up Alec's shoulder and around the back of his neck, coming to rest on the warm skin that lay just above his collar.

"I see you in the rocks," Alec said, and his voice had gone lilting, dreamy. "There you are, in the clump of purple over there. But I don't want to be in the mines. I'm leaving." He closed his eyes and then opened them again. "I'm in the cart. I'm far away. But you're sitting next to me. How did you do that? Why won't you leave? I know you will."

"I don't want to," David said, and Alec's mouth brushed against his lightly, a teasing slide.

"Why?" He could feel the word, Alec's lips shaping it against him, a hint of the taste of his mouth, ale-sweetness cut with a bitter ash tang.

"You," David breathed and Alec's mouth opened against his and his hands pulled him close. He was still talking, murmuring words into David's mouth, and David was shaking all over, straining toward Alec.

"Please," he said, and Alec pushed him back against a wall, breathed hotly into his ear. "Want you," he said, voice slurred, and kissed him again when David shuddered. Then he froze, one hand sliding up under David's shirt and stroking along his stomach.

"David?" he said quietly and David shifted a little, moving to rub against Alec, and Alec let out a strangled, shocked sound.