Archive of Our Own ^beta

*

The Count doesn’t usually like touching shop customers. Even with Chris and his brother, who are anything but customers at this point, he maintains a healthy distance. Sometimes, he allows Chris to cling to his legs and hide behind the sheer fabric of his flowing cheongsam with indulgent patience on especially bad days, but more often than not he gently shakes him off and quietly requests his own space, never mind that he lets the rest of the shop residents scramble and clamber all over him like a living jungle gym.

Chris doesn’t get upset about this. Not really. He knows that he’s different to the rest of the shop’s residents, even if he’s not entirely sure why. He knows that he can be too much sometimes, and there’s only so much clinginess the Count can be expected to take, especially from someone he never wanted taking up residence in his store in the first place. And it’s fine. It really is. He has plenty of other people who are overjoyed to scoop him up in their arms and twirl him endlessly; carry him on piggyback through overgrown forests, chattering about everything and nothing; nudge him into nests of fabric and moss and spend all afternoon dozing peacefully. He’s never been so wanted. He doesn’t need everyone to want him. Love him. Mind his presence at every turn.

So it’s all right if the Count needs his space. It’s fine if he can’t deal with Chris all the time. Chris would hate to have to deal with himself all the time, too. When it happens, he tries not to let the rejection sting too much, and finds something else to occupy him instead—there’s no shortage of oddities and distractions at the pet shop, after all. That’s one thing.

But since they were dumped into this basement, the Count hasn’t tried to shake Chris off once, even though Chris is nearly certain he must be sick to death of the constant clinging.

On the first day—terrified and confused and frightened—Chris goes to instinctively situate himself at the Count’s side, then checks himself, stiffening. Tries to shuffle back. Close, but not close enough to irritate or annoy. Far away, but not far enough that the dark and cold are all he can think about.

“No, Chris,” the Count murmurs. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

Chris squirms a little, and thinks, But, you don’t like it when I hug you. I don’t want to upset you any more. You’re already hurt so badly…

One single extraordinary eye opens, just a sliver. That golden gaze is strangely hazy, unfocused. “This room is abominably chilly. If you catch a cold, the Detective will be furious with me...” He trails off; coughs. It rattles lightly in his chest. “We can’t have that. Here—here.”

Chris reluctantly tucks himself under the Count’s arm, and finds it to be far warmer and more comfortable than the alternative. The Count isn’t exactly soft or good at hugging—underneath the layers of silk, he’s rail-thin and jagged at the edges, like a saber-toothed tiger’s fangs—but Chris wouldn’t care about that even if this was a normal day.

It’ll be all right, won’t it? he thinks, not fully understanding the gravity of the situation, not just yet. It’ll be all right. We’ll be back home in no time, won’t we?

The Count almost never lies to Chris. He’s so honest with him that Leon is often furious about it. Chris knows this, which means he has no reason not to believe him when he says:

“Yes. Of course we will, I’m sure of it.”

*

It’s all very confusing. It’s all very straightforward. Two things can be true at once.

At first, Chris is forced to sit in the basement by himself. There is a man on a chair on the other side of the room, and every time Chris shifts or shuffles or tries to stand up, he is glared at with such viciousness that he’s frightened back into staying as still as a statue once more. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, and he doesn’t remember how he got there, only that when he’d woken up the first time Count D had been by his side, unmoving on the ground like a broken doll.

He’d swiftly sprang to consciousness when Chris was scared enough to shake him, maybe a bit too roughly. He sat up straight as a pole, leaned down to gather Chris’ tear-stricken face in both hands, and asked with urgent intensity, “Are you hurt? Have they harmed you?” and even when Chris admitted that the only thing hurt was his elbow and his head, which ached a little, insisted on checking him over, head-to-toe.

That had been days ago. The Count has been taken upstairs and shoved back downstairs and taken upstairs again, all while Chris has to sit and wait, and he doesn’t know how to make sense of it but for the overwhelming sense of relief whenever they do finally give the Count back to him—whoever they are.

Now, he is curled up at the Count’s thin side, face tucked against soft silk that smells overwhelmingly of not-quite-blood. That piercing, acid stench isn’t nearly metallic enough for blood, and Chris knows by now what blood smells like. Some of his best friends prefer their steaks bloody and raw, and that’s all right. Sometimes his brother returns to the pet shop, tight-jawed and stinking of it, and that’s a lot less all right but the Count always manages to take his mind off whatever it is with cake and tea and arguments so maybe it’s a bit more all right than it seems. Sometimes he trips and skins his palms or knees while running through the corridors or up-and-down the steps of ancient temples, and blood wells up bright and red and it’s the worst thing in the world, but the Count is always there eventually to make it better too. Bandages and herb-fresh salves and gentle hands and murmurs of, now, you’ll remember be more careful next time?. If Chris doesn’t squirm or complain too much over the process he’ll get a delicious fruit-filled pastry or slice of delicate cake too, to wash the rest of the pain away. And even if he does complain, he’ll get the sweets anyway, eventually. The Count’s just like that. He can’t help but ply his friends with sweet treats.

The Count always makes everything better. Chris knows this with total and complete certainty. There’s nothing he can’t fix with a clever pet sale or a mild mysterious smile or a door to somewhere beautiful and wonderful that hadn’t been there seconds before, all accompanied by that ever-present swirl of incense. Chris is pretty sure that Leon doesn’t understand that Count D is real proper magic and can do literally anything. If he understood that they’d definitely argue a whole lot less.

Except they’re in an awful little basement somewhere terrible, and Chris can barely remember how they got here except that it hadn’t been on purpose and when he woke up the first time his head hurt so badly he’d immediately started to cry, like a stupid baby. And he’s cold and scared and hungry and wants to be anywhere but here so much; he wants to be back at the pet shop lying in the sun with Pon-chan and Tetsu half-draped over him, and most of all he wants his brother. And the Count’s not doing anything about it. Because he can’t. Because he’s hurt and exhausted and nothing like his usual self. Because he’s stuck here, looking after Chris.

*

For the first few days, the cycle is fairly predictable. Chris is barely awake for longer than a few minutes before the door opens and the Count is whisked up the stairs and away. Hours later, he is returned to Chris, face impassive as ever but never looking quite well. Often he is pale. Paler than usual. Sometimes he stumbles as he walks. Sometimes, there is blood. Always, he lets Chris slip into the space at his side and huddle—silently, clingingly—until they are presented with food and water.

That’s something. At least there’s food, but it’s always thin and tasteless and a little rotten, and more often than not the meaty-stuff is mixed in with the not-meaty stuff, which means the Count can’t eat at all, and Chris has to guiltily shovel it down while trying not to think about how selfish he feels. There’s never anything remotely sweet, so the Count has to be starving.

But on the fourth day, the Count is thrown unceremoniously down the steps, and he doesn’t try to catch himself—or maybe he can’t. In a whirl of fabric, he goes tumbling to the ground and there is a horrible noise like a wet bag hitting a brick wall and he just lies there and if Chris could make any sort of noise he’d be screaming.

There is blood pooling on the ground. It smells sweet and earthy, and seems thinner than normal blood. It might be the wrong color, but it’s far too dim and dark in their awful little basement to make it out. Chris doesn’t care. All he knows is that the Count is hurt, and the Count isn’t moving, and the door has clicked shut again, leaving them both in the murky shadows.

It takes him too long to work up the courage to scramble across to check the damage. He’s glad his brother isn’t there to see him, but at the same time, he wants his brother here more than anything. Leon would know what to do. Leon would curse up a storm and blame the Count for everything and nothing and ask a million questions that don’t matter—but he’d fix everything, in seconds. Chris wouldn’t even have to blink, and Leon would be scooping Count D up in his arms and carrying him up the stairs to safety, and they’d all be back in Chinatown just in time for tea. Safe and cocooned in incense and darkness, like always.

Leon isn’t here. And the Count is bleeding terribly. It smells like strangeness and flowers, and it’s still wet even as Chris tentatively prods at the him, trying to figure out where it’s all coming from without touching him any more than necessary.

You’re supposed to heal really quickly, he thinks frantically. I’ve seen it before! All of this should already be closing up, right? What’s happening to you? Why aren’t you okay?

The Count’s eyelids flickers, like he can hear Chris—he can always hear Chris, even when no-one else seems to—but he doesn’t respond. He just lets out a breathy little sigh, and twitches his arms closer to his chest, like a wounded animal.

Chris huddles himself at the Count’s side and shivers and panics to himself. Panics hard.

He sort-of kind-of knows how to deal with people who are hurt bad; hurt in a skin-torn-up bleeding-everywhere way. In theory, anyway. It’s the sort of thing you pick up, being a police detective’s younger brother. You’ve got to make sure the wound is clean, that’s one thing. If there’s dirt or grime in it and it heals like that, it might be worse than it never healing at all. The second thing is if it’s bleeding really bad, you have to bandage it tight and hold pressure on it until it stops—or until someone else can come and help.

Chris doesn’t have anything to clean with. There’s water, sort of, but he isn’t sure how clean it is and he’s been drinking out of it all this time so there’s probably all sorts of gross mouth germs in there. That’s not good.

He doesn’t really have anything to bandage with, either. He’s got his clothes, but it’s just a T-shirt and shorts and he doesn’t want to be any colder than he already is. The only thing that could work is the Count’s cheongsam, which is already bloody and half-shredded, the colorful embroidered floral swirls running all the way up and down it still clearly visible. Just thinking of ruining those colorful patterns makes Chris’ throat ache in exhausted misery. Too tired to cry any more.

Please wake up, Count. Please tell me what to do. I’m so useless on my own.

The Count still doesn’t respond.

His usually-pristine wrists and arms are a mess of bruises and wicked-looking gashes, and it’s so bad that Chris has to turn away and dry-heave several times before he can get it together enough to get to work. He uses the hem of the cheongsam, tearing ragged strips of silk with his teeth and trying not to cry as he does.

Silk, as it turns out, is slippery even when caked in wrong-smelling blood, and wickedly hard to tie off. Especially when your hands are shaking so badly. It takes Chris three, four, five tries to manage to wrap the worst of the arm wounds and tie them off in a bow, just like Pon-chan taught him. The clumsy little loops of fabric hanging limply off the Count’s forearm look incredibly childish. Chris feels so stupid, even as he feverishly starts to do the same to the other arm. He doesn’t know what else to do.

By the time the Count’s eyes open fully, Chris has finished double-wrapping both arms and one ankle for good measure, and has fully succumbed to tears. He wants to hide in a corner and not have to look at any of this—not the Count, not the blood, not his stupid bad terrible bandaging work—but to do that would mean having to leave the Count’s side.

“Christopher,” says the Count like a sigh. “There you are…”

Hi, Chris thinks, shakily. It’s good that he doesn’t have to use his mouth to say it. He can’t stop crying, and his head feels all snotty and clogged-up and he doesn’t have anything to blow his nose on except his clothes which are already filthy all over, and he hasn’t bathed in days and he feels disgusting and he hates it.

The Count hates looking anything less than pristine and totally-put-together. When Chris’ brother comes into the shop covered in city grime and the occasional blood-or-beer splatter, the Count is quick to chivvy him into the shower in the backroom, clucking his tongue and shaking his head, and won’t hear a word about tea and cake until Leon is looking his best, or as close to best as he can get. Chris must be repulsive to him right now. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Count shoved him away and insisted on redoing all of the makeshift bandages, one-by-one with total precision.

That doesn’t happen. Instead, the Count reaches up to Chris, as if about to touch his cheek, but his arm shudders and twitches halfway through—and his fingers fall limp on the ground. He looks hazily down at Chris’ handiwork, and Chris is momentarily terrified that he’ll get in trouble for ripping the Count’s clothes (of all things). But he just says, “Ah… thank you,” and starts trying to push himself up.

You need to stay down, Chris insists, tears pouring down his cheeks. He tries tugging at the now-ragged hem of the Count’s clothes, but as weak as the Count clearly is, Chris still is far weaker. You aren’t meant to move people when they’re injured. You’ve got to stay still.

“I will be fine. I just… I need to…” The Count breathes in and out harshly, then shakes his head like a disgruntled cat. “I would prefer not to lie in my own blood. Just—over there. Not too far… just to the wall…”

With Chris’ fumbling assistance, he manages to claw his way to the nearest wall. He props himself up delicately against it, chin falling to his chest as he wilts in place, clearly exhausted by the short burst of movement. Chris clambers onto his lap and the Count’s arms tangle around him, drawing him closer. Chris desperately hopes he’s not hurting the Count any further. Chris doesn’t want to imagine the Count hurt any worse than he already is.

He doesn’t know how long he spends there, quietly tucked into the space between blood-stained arms and heart, before he thinks, Why are they doing this to us?

“It is… my fault,” says the Count thinly, still holding Chris very tightly. “You’re… I’m afraid you’re collateral.”

Chris doesn’t really understand what collateral meals except in the way that some shop customers will offer to leave their jewelry or fancy clothing or children behind if it means that they can get their hands on that one pet, just that one over there, and the Count always refuses those customers anyway.

I don’t understand.

“There is a widely-perpetuated and utterly false myth amongst humans,” the Count says,his beautiful melodic voice strained and low, cracked and broken, “that eating the flesh of the strongest, most powerful, most unstoppable animals will in turn make oneself—just as strong as they are. That eating the throat of a songbird will give you a voice to make the coldest heart weep. The eyes of a raptor will let you see for miles and miles. The heart of a lion will grant you the strength and stamina to rip your foes apart with bare, bloody hands… Foolish.”

If Chris closes his eyes and forgets about his sticky hands and trembling body and just how weak the Count’s voice is, he can pretend he’s in his room back at the shop. That he’s being carefully tucked into bed after a very long day of running and playing and adventuring, and the Count is telling him a velvety-dark, honey-rich bedtime story to lull him to sleep. He thinks, But you said once that eating mermaid flesh could make you live forever.

“Yes… well, I suppose it isn’t entirely inaccurate, in some strange cases,” the Count says, fingers curling gently into Chris’ hair. “The more… ah… esoteric the species, the more likely there is to be… medicinal properties. At a price, in most cases. A price that’s not worth paying, I might add.” He sighs. It’s not the Count’s usual sigh. It’s a tiny, shuddering, pained thing. The cold, thin fingers curl tighter, tugging just a little at Chris’ scalp. “But killing and eating a lion will not make you anything but a murderer. And extracting and drinking the blood of a presumed immortal…”

A cold sort of horror washes over Chris. He can’t help but stiffen. They’re drinking your blood?

Another shuddered sigh escapes the Count. The fingers slip down to cup Chris’ cheek, fluttering helplessly at the skin before pressing down, reassuring. “Ah… my apologies. I did not mean to frighten you.”

They can’t do that. That’s—it’s awful, it’s disgusting, it’s hurting you, they can’t—

“No. They shouldn’t,” he says. “They presume too much. They overstep. They… misunderstand the nature of my being. They think that I will…”

He trails off.

The thought springs to Chris’ mind and forms into a full impulse before he can think to choke it off. How much are they-?

“How much blood? More than I’d prefer. I regain it quicker than a human would, but…”

He trails off again, head listing to the side. His mouth remains slightly open, pale lips parted but unmoving.

Chris thinks, That’s why you’re not healing.

“That’s why I’m not healing,” he agrees, after a moment—features flickering reluctantly back to some semblance of life. “All bodies have their limits.”

What will happen when they… Chris hesitates. He doesn’t know what he’s about to ask. There are so many awful conclusions to this awful situation, and it feels as if when he puts any of them into words, he’ll be calling them into existence. …If they realize that it’s… not making them live forever?

“Nothing good, I suspect,” the Count says quietly.

Chris swallows. Leon will find us.

“Yes… I have no doubt the Detective is searching for us at this very moment. That is true.”

He’ll find us and he’ll rescue us, and… and we’ll be all right.

“I’m sure,” says the Count noncommittally, and Chris knows—all at once, in a terrible rush—that the Count doesn’t believe in his brother the way he does.

He doesn’t understand that Leon will save them. Just like he did when Auntie and Uncle and Sam hated how much Chris didn’t talk, and tried to send him to a strange little hospital in the middle of nowhere where everyone would do nothing but try to make him, and Leon stared them down with a dead forthright certainty and said, No, you’re not doing that, and took him to live in the pet shop instead. He just doesn’t get it. The Count knows so many things, so many strange facts and figures that everyone else has forgotten, but when it comes to things like Bugs Bunny or Star Wars or the fact that Leon is the best big brother in the whole entire world… Well, even the smartest people on Earth can’t know everything. Chris contents himself with knowing that he and Leon will always be there to fill in the gaps.

He can believe in Leon enough for the both of them, too.

Time goes hazy and strange in the way that it so often does, lately. There’s not much to do but talk and think. When they’re not talking, Chris is thinking to himself instead. When he’s thought too much, he starts doing nothing, and the nothing stretches out for years before he blinks and finds himself back in his body—his hurting, weakened body—with a single remaining thought, carved out from the total confusion into quiet, soft realization.

…You could hurt them, Chris thinks. You could tear them to shreds. You could make them stop… Count, you could kill them all in an instant! Because you… I… you can do anything. You could be back at the shop by tomorrow… but you’re still here. Why are you still here?

The Count is smiling at him. It’s strained, but it’s real—not like his usual thin unnerving smile that he directs at most of the world and particularly his customers. It’s pained and it’s pale but it’s undeniably fond. “You think too much of me, Christopher.”

But it’s true!

“Hush. I can’t ‘do anything’. I sincerely doubt there’s any living creature with that sort of power…” He trails off, eyes going briefly hazy and distant in a way that terrifies Chris; makes him bury himself closer to the Count’s chest and squeeze his eyes shut again and keep on counting every thump of that slow and stuttering heart. “…And although I admit that… I might very well leave… if I found the opportunity…”

Chris sobs, once, and then bites his lip. Hard. So you can leave, he thinks. You could leave at any time. Why don’t you? Why are you still here? They’re hurting you…

The Count’s heartbeat is as soft and thready as his voice. “I could leave,” he says. “I’m not so certain I could take you with me.”

But—you—

“Hush. I know.”

Why can’t you—

The Count clears his throat delicately, and says, “I’m afraid you’re my leverage.”

I’m your-? Chris begins, then thinks of the way that the Count had fought back on the first day—sharp eyes and twisting fingers and fierce words. And he thinks of the way that the Count hasn’t fought back since. And something hard and cold and sour settles at the base of his throat, and he understands.

He can tell the Count knows he understands because of the way his face shifts into sad weariness. “It isn’t your fault.”

But-!

“It is not. I wish it did not have to be this way, but the fault rests on their shoulders, and theirs alone. You are as innocent as you always have been, Chris.”

But, I-!

“Hush,” says the Count once more.

Chris tries to tell the Count to go without him. He really does. Just leave him on the ground, leave him down here. Next opportunity he has, he should escape and take to the skies. Flutter like a bloodstained butterfly all the way back to Chinatown, whichever way that is, and settle back into the petshop—safe and warm and surrounded by all his favorite things, foods, people. Exactly where he should be. Perfect and untouchable.

But Chris’ thoughts are muddled and his brain hurts, hurts, hurts, and all he can manage to think in the end is, Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me all alone. Then, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m being selfish again. You can—no, please don’t leave. You need to get out. You need to stay with me. I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. I’m sorry…

The Count doesn’t say a word. He simply tucks Chris under his chin and wraps bandaged arms around him until they’re bundled together like a silk-wrapped, bloodstained package of misery. He hums and mutters something in what Chris thinks must be Chinese, sing-song and soft and melodic. When Chris starts crying again, the Count runs long shaking fingers through his hair over and over and just keeps on humming until Chris’ eyes flutter shut and he’s taken away from the nightmare, if only for a little bit.

*

He dreams of the beach. Splashing in the waves with his brother, scraping sandcastles out of sand with Pon-chan, the Count sitting serenely on the shore below the shade of an ornate parasol. In the dream, Count D is glowing with health and radiant with contentment. No-one could look at him and say he’s anything other than the most beautiful creature alive. In the dream, Chris is suntanned and sand-stained and grinning. In the dream, his brother says he loves Chris dearly, and hugs him tight, and as he’s scooped up and twirled around in the salty shallows, Chris catches sight of the Count raising a hand to his mouth to hide a single, fond smile.

He wakes up and he’s in the basement again, filthy and cold and wrapped ever-so-gently in half-torn silk, and he cries, cries, cries. He thinks the Count might be crying too. What else is there to do? At least they can cry together.

*

Now that Chris knows exactly what they’re doing up beyond the locked door, every time the Count is dragged away becomes a million times more agonizing. He hadn’t liked being left without the Count in the cold basement to begin with, and he hadn’t liked the way his rotating cycle of nameless guards had looked at him either. Now, he knows that the Count’s blood is being drained away over and over again, their captors becoming more and more greedy as they realize just how efficient the Count’s regeneration is. And now he knows that the man staring at him with blank eyes and a downturned mouth isn’t just some kind of twisted parody of a babysitter. He’s here to kill Chris if Count D doesn’t cooperate.

The idea of the Count cooperating just for Chris’ sake is nearly as terrifying as the thought that, eventually, he might decide not to.

There is the outline of a gun in each guard’s pocket, and a walkie-talkie clipped to their belt. Just like Chris’ brother’s gun. Just like Chris’ brother’s walkie-talkie.

Chris tries thinking at the guards, once or twice. He doesn’t have much else to do, so it’s worth a shot. Simple, obvious things. Why are you doing this to me? I haven’t done anything wrong. Neither has he. Leave him alone. Let us go.

The guards show no sign of comprehension. Even if they can hear him—and it’s a very big if—they don’t seem inclined to engage in conversation.

It’s sickeningly familiar. Chris has become entirely too used to all of his friends understanding him without a single word having to leave his mouth. Even Leon understands him immediately, these days—even if he sometimes seems confused as to how he can do that. He’d almost forgotten the days when nobody understood him at all. Back when his attempts at communication were met with blank stares and angry frowns, rather than knowing nods and swift responses. It feels like he’s drowning all over again.

He wants the Count back. He needs to talk to someone. He needs someone to understand him, if only for a little bit. But sometimes they don’t bring him back for hours and sometimes it’s a whole day, and every time they fling the Count down the steps to stumble and stagger back down to Chris’ side, he looks paler, sicker, thinner, worse.

And there’s nothing Chris can do.

Sometimes he tries to force his throat to work. His vocal cords to untangle. If he can get a single word out… several words out… he can talk to the guards. Maybe he can talk them into being a little sympathetic. Sneaking the Count a little chocolate, so he can feel a little better. Getting a message out to Leon. But the fear is choking him from the inside out, and the words just aren’t coming, and Chris spends so often crying lately that his head aches near-constantly.

Useless, useless. His brother would be furious just to look at him. Real men don’t cry. How are you supposed to get anything done if you’re spending all of your time sniveling and sobbing in the dirt? Maybe if Chris stopped crying, he’d start talking. Maybe if he started talking, he could do something, anything.

The words don’t come. The tears refuse to stop. When the Count returns—beaten and bloodied—he’ll wipe the stains away with the hem of his robes and he’ll murmur reassurances as best he can—but there’s only so much reprieve that can exist in a place like this.

Which is to say, there isn’t much reprieve at all.

*

Sometimes the Count is well enough to tell Chris stories. Most of the time, he clearly is not, but he still tells them anyway, and Chris is too starved for comfort to think about refusing. They both need a distraction, after all, and it’s not as if there’s much else to do down here.

The Count’s bedtime stories are very rarely happy, Chris has found—either they start happy and end sad, or start sad and end worse. In his first days at the shop, this often upset him, and the Count never seemed to understand why. The Count asked him multiple times if he wouldn’t rather someone else tell Chris stories and put him to bed, but Chris—not entirely understanding why—had always insisted on more, more, more.

Yes, the stories upset him, but Count D is a marvelous storyteller nonetheless. Not like Tetsu, who rushes through every tale at breakneck pace as if worried he’d be caught in embarrassing the act of doing it, or like Honlon, who’s irritatingly predisposed to interrupting herself three times within a single sentence. Chris loves the sad stories, now. They still make his heart ache and keep him up at night, but he’ll never complain about hearing them, even though sometimes he stays up night writing better endings in his head. The Queen of Snakes didn’t lose her husband and turn into a spruce tree forever—it was a clever trick planned out many months in advance, they faked it all and lived happily ever after. The rabbits on the moon aren’t dead, they’re just hiding. They’ll be back one day, they all will.

Here and now, trapped in the cold and dark, Chris wants those sad stories more than ever. If the Count started telling happy tales that end in sunshine and rainbows and everyone living happily ever after, Chris might start crying all over again. Thankfully, the Count seems to understand. Or maybe he just doesn’t know any happy-ending stories. Either way.

“There once was a girl who drowned in the sea,” he begins, on one of the story-telling nights, “and thus, having drowned, she became a bird that sang a song like its name—jingwei, jingwei.”

He tells Chris of the girl who was a bird was a girl, who devoted her life to dropping twigs and sticks and stones into a vast and uncaring ocean so no-one would ever have to drown like her again. How every day, she flies from the mountains to the sea, tiny feathers fluttering with determination. Twigs and leaves clutched firmly in her mouth; at war with the impossible.

You’re a fool, Jingwei, says the sea to the bird one day, as she lies exhausted on the beach, too tired from her endless treks to even twitch a feather. You pick your battles unwisely. You’ll never fill me up and you’ll never hold me back—not in a million years!

So I’ll spend ten million years, Jingwei retorts. I’ll spend the rest of eternity if I have to. One day, no-one will ever die to you again!

And the sea has no answer to that, of course, so Jingwei picks herself up off the sandy beach, shakes her feathers into order, and keeps on flying.

Chris asks, So what happened to Jingwei?

The Count says, “As far as anyone knows, she’s still dropping stones in the ocean. The work is never complete.”

The Count’s stories never have happy endings. Sometimes they have hopeful ones, though—and they always have thoughtful ones.

At first, Chris imagines of a determined little bird fluttering through a storm, but that doesn’t feel right. Try as he might, he can’t help but imagine her as a scrappy little girl, one with bright, exhausted eyes and salt-drowned hair that dries in stiff sandy chunks around her round little face. She wears an old patchwork coat too big for her, pockets sewn to every square inch, and stuffs those pockets full to bursting with twigs and stones and grass and anything that could dry out an endlessly cruel ocean, even just the slightest amount. He pictures Jingwei, a girl smaller than even him, and yet so determined to win an impossible fight. It makes him feel a little warmer. If Jingwei can keep on going, then maybe so can he.

He doesn’t know if the Count meant to make him feel better with the story.  Maybe it doesn’t matter if he did or not. The Count tells him a lot of stories, while they’re stuck down in the dark together—but for some reason, Jingwei sticks in his mind, patchwork coat fluttering in an endless breeze.

*

At other times, the Count seems too blood-thin and wrung-out to speak, so Chris does his best to tell stories back. Stutteringly, and not altogether coherently, he manages a scattered mental retelling of the time he and Pon-chan tried to teach Honlon to play Monopoly. They’d had to sneak out of the shop behind the Count’s back—to this, the Count stirs enough to let out a faintly-disappointed but fondly-indulgent sigh—and steal a shiny-new plastic-wrapped game box from the shelves of a store, because both Chris and Pon-chan hadn’t thought to bring money to pay for it.

Most of the afternoon had been spent explaining the concept of money and property-dealing to Honlon. A non-insignificant amount of time was devoted to letting Junrei and Pon-chan bicker over who got to be the top hat. By the time the five of them had gotten around to actually playing, very little of the original rules remained and Kanan had already claimed the role of banker for her own, jealously hoarding all the board’s wealth close to her chest.

When Chris tells the Count about Tetsu getting so frustrated with the mortgage system that he’d simply started eating the property cards rather than deal with it any longer (and complaining vigorously about the inky taste), he laughs. It’s soft but real. Chris counts that as a win, and doubles down.

There isn’t much more to that story other than a heated fight that had destroyed the board entirely, and a pleasant afternoon spent making up another game by themselves—one that Chris can’t remember the rules to, all these weeks later. So Chris hurriedly makes up a story of his own, a real story this time.

In it, there are two birds. One is rare and beautiful—the most beautiful bird anyone has ever seen, a prized paragon of jeweled feathers and a song to thaw the coldest heart. The other is small and plain and brown and not good for a lot of things, but the beautiful bird loves him anyway—like a distant relative, maybe, or a pet. The birds are meant to be wild and free as all birds are, but one day an evil birdcatcher comes and snatches and cages them up and hangs them from the tallest tree on the top of the tallest mountain. He forces the beautiful bird to sing until his throat bleeds, otherwise he’ll crush the brown bird’s head in his big grasping hand and the beautiful songbird’s feathers will be stained with bloody ugly red for the rest of its life.

“How awful of them,” the Count says, gaze fixed on the ceiling. His long hair, usually brushed to a lustrous shine with not a hair out of place, falls ragged and disheveled over his bruised cheeks. “How awful for all of us.”

It’s all right, though, says Chris, anxiety squeezing at his heart as he scrambles to fix that look on the Count’s face, because the bird—the beautiful one, you know—has a friend. A best friend. And he’s not a bird, he’s a dog, and he’s big and rough and a little scary-looking, but still great to hug. And they’re best friends.

“You mentioned,” the Count sighs. Something that’s not quite a smile is playing about his lips. He’s still watching the ceiling.

In the story, the dog sneaks its way into the birdcatcher’s camp in the dead of night, when the world is quiet and still. The bars of the cage are strong and unbendable, but the dog sets about gnawing at them anyway. It takes him hours to do it, and the entire time the beautiful songbird is telling the dog to give up. He’s saying that it doesn’t make sense for a dog to free the bird, seeing as it’s the dog’s nature to use those terribly powerful jaws to seize the bird and snap it up for dinner anyway. He might as well be saving the bird for dinner.

And to that, the dog says, Damn my nature! I want you to live.

The Count says, “Chris, such language.”

Chris bites his lip. It’s for dramatic effect.

The Count says, “I dread to think what sort of bedtime stories your brother typically tells you… Do carry on.”

So obviously the dog gnaws through the cage. He ignores all of the stupid stuff the bird is saying about nature and animal behavior and saves the bird anyway—both of the birds—because he loves them just that much, and it’s the right thing to do. When it turns out the two of them are too weak from near-starvation to fly away, the dog lets his companions ride on his back, and barely even complains when they have to dig their claws into his fur and flesh to hold on. It’s a narrow escape, thrilling and dangerous, but all the way down the mountain they go nevertheless, until they reach a beautiful secret grove hidden at the base.

There is a river there with sweet, clear water. There are beds of flowers of every color, and they smell heavenly. The three of them lie down in the morning sun, and they rest for as long as they want. They’re free and they’re happy, and the dog does not eat the birds up—he protects them for the rest of his life.

“A marvelous tale,” the Count murmurs, and he really does sound like he means it. “But if it’s not too presumptuous of me to inquire… however did the bird and the dog come to be best friends?”

Everyone asks them that. Chris rests the side of his head on the Count’s chest. But does it really matter? It’s just nice that they are.

“Mm,” says the Count. “I suppose that is nice. Stranger things have happened in nature, after all… My turn now, I think. Once upon a time, a bird of prey snatched a child from its mother, and abandoned it at the top of a very tall tree… although the child wasn’t much of a child at all…”

*

Chris isn’t sure how long they’ve been here. It can’t be longer than a week, he thinks, but it’s hard to tell with the lack of light and lack of clocks, and it’s growing even harder to tell. He’s started sleeping a lot more. There are not as many stories anymore, from either of them. The Count is absent more often than not, and when he’s back at Chris’ side and curled into their corner, he spends most of his time sleeping too, or gently encouraging Chris to eat. “You’re running a fever,” he says, fingers ghosting over Chris’ forehead. It’s funny, because they don’t feel too-cold, the way his mom’s hands used to be when Chris was sick and small. If anything, they’re far too hot. Maybe the Count’s running a fever, too. “You need all the strength you can get.”

Chris blinks up at the ceiling, dazed and upset and only half-there. He keeps thinking about the pet shop. His favorite couch in the main room, just to the side of Leon’s own favorite. The pile of cushions Honlon keeps in her room just for him. How nice it would feel to lie in the sun with Phillipe right now. He keeps closing his eyes and forgetting he’s not actually there. You need to eat too.

“They’re feeding me,” the Count says, and smiles painfully. He does it in a way that hides his teeth and doesn’t meet his eyes, but Chris can see the blood on his lips. “They’re feeding me, Chris. I’ll live a while yet.”

I want to go home, Chris thinks.

“Oh, Chris,” whispers the Count, and his fingertips are scalding as they comb gently at Chris’ sweaty, disheveled hair. His breath smells like death. Thousands of dead animals, rotting in piles from here until eternity. “Chris. Tell me, what will you do when we’re back home?”

A week ago, he would have said board games with Pon-chan or teatime with Tetsu. He would have said trips to the mall with Leon or going to the garden with the Count just so they can sit side-by-side in the sun, reading silently together. He wants all of those things still, certainly, but the want is distant and ill-formed; fuzzy pictures that blur in his mind.

Right now, all he can think about is his bed. His cozy little bed in his cozy little room, tucked like a secret just off the main pet shop hallway, covered in beautifully-patterned quilts and silks, pillows stuffed with feathers that poke out from the fabric in all shades of the rainbow. A little stuffed lion that Testu pretends he didn’t carefully sew for Chris with his own two hands. Sometimes the pet shop has late-night customers or emergency stop-bys, and Chris can hear the distant mumble of conversation through the walls, and he falls asleep to that—the ebb and flow of voices in languages he doesn’t understand. Other nights, there is beautiful strange music from far deeper in the shop, and the sound of it follows him into his dreams.

He misses his bed so much it aches. He’s exhausted down to the bone but no matter how much he sleeps it doesn’t seem to fix anything.

I want to go home, he repeats.

“So do I,” says the Count, and he sounds more heartbroken than Chris has ever heard him. “Oh, Chris, so do I. Home soon, I promise.”

Chris seizes onto that, a little too eagerly. A promise from Count D is no small thing. He never says things he doesn’t mean… unless he’s complaining about Leon, of course. You promise?

“I do. Home,” says the Count, “one way or another.” His hand shifts through Chris’ hair again. “Try to sleep the fever off. Dream your way back to your bed, if you can. A soft place to land will do you some good…”

*

Chris does not dream his way home. Instead, he dreams that he and Jingwei are gathering stones and twigs at the beach on a cloudy day. He keeps telling her to find the heaviest rocks, the chunky rough ones that enter the water with a satisfying plop and sink all the way to the bottom and fill up all of the space, but she says that there’s not nearly enough space in her pockets. Her eyes are bright. She looks tired. She presents a gleaming sky-blue stone to him, presses it into his hands. Says, Sea glass. Isn’t it pretty? For you.

Chris takes the stone and holds it up to the sky and the cloudy light of the sun shines through it. It’s beautiful. Thank you. Don’t you need it?

There’s always more rocks, Jingwei hums, picking her way delicately through the shoreline. A jagged conch shell is shoved into her pocket. A chunk of granite. A handful of clay. Do you know how sea glass is made? It’s shards of abandoned human trash, abandoned in the ocean and left to tumble for hundreds of years before it washes onto the shore, looking just like this.

Chris stares at the stone and feels his heart sink a little. Why do humans have to throw glass into the ocean? Fish could choke on that. Animals could get hurt.

They could, she agrees. They do. It’s dreadful either way, but at least something beautiful came from it.

She takes his hand with fingers that are as thin as they are strong, and tugs him forward. He holds the little lump of seaglass in his other, fingers curled tight against his palm. Together, he and Jingwei pick their way across the shoreline, weaving their way around carpets of seaweed and sandy sinkholes, and he helps her stuff her pockets full to bursting until the ocean mist creeps in and swallows them both whole.

*

He’s shivering again when he wakes. The Count isn’t there. Chris is alone and he’s on the ground and he still feels all hot-and-cold-and-miserable. Someone is waiting in the dark with a gun pointed at him—waiting for the signal to kill him, should the need arise. For a single, mad second, he wishes they’d just get on with it.  

There is something cold and smooth in his hand, no larger than a quarter. It’s too dim to see and he’s too tired and he doesn’t want anyone to take it away from him. Silently, he presses it to his mouth, relishing in the lingering chill—the faint sting of salt on his cracked lips.

The stone and the salt and cold keep him company until the door cracks open and the light comes in for a moment and the Count comes stagger-stumbling down the steps to him. He doesn’t make it all the way across the room. He’s been doing that less and less, lately. Chris rouses himself as best he can. Dizzy, he crawls across, and blindly tries to figure out the best way to help. There wasn’t a lot he could do to begin with. He’s even more useless than ever.

Today, the Count’s hands are hot, almost scalding. Chris fumbles his tiny cold stone into his hands, hoping that it’ll help, at least a little. The Count coughs and shifts, and murmurs, “Interesting. Wherever did you get that?”

Chris can’t even remember. There was a girl, he thinks, and can’t finish the thought.

The Count says, “Always a blessing to make unlikely friends in dark places,” with a tiny sigh, like he barely understands what he’s saying either. “Be kind to her, please. She’s struggling too.”

Chris huddles into place and ignores the sticky feeling when he presses. I know, I will.

“Of course. Of course you will,” the Count says. “Kind, sweet boy… dear child. Hold on. Hold onto that.”

He presses the rock back to Chris with a kind of firm intensity, and won’t take it back for anything, so Chris gives up and holds it tight—wrapping his fingers about it and taking the coolness for himself. The Count no longer smells of the familiar sweet incense. He just smells of filth and blood and rotting flowers, and every time Chris buries his face into once-soft fabric, he can’t be reminded of anything but exactly where they are now.

They lie together in the dark. After a long eternity, the Count lets out a long, slow whistle, but Chris is too far gone to wonder why.

*

There are other people in the room with them, Chris thinks, although he can’t work up the strength to open his eyes and check. Not the ones with guns and heavy boots and dark gazes. He hears soft feet and quick-jabber whispers and the swish of ragged fabric across rough stone floors. Someone says—Hmm, half-dead already.

Another says, And we’re hungry too. What luck. A snack for us, Count?

Very close to him, the Count says—voice thin but steady, and undeniably firm—“He is not for eating.”

There is a chorus of laughter from many different angles. The voices shift and swirl about—all corners of the room, drawing closer and further away, dizzying whispers. Chris shivers, and the Count presses a hand to the back of his neck. Silent, reassuring. Chris settles.

The voices draw closer. Chris feels fingernails scratch at his arms, his cheek. The nails are very sharp, but they don’t pierce the skin.

We know. Only joking.

Jokes are all we have left, you know.

We wouldn’t eat a human unless it was dead already. We hate how they twitch when they do.

They stink of fear. We spend most of our lives scared as it is. He stinks worse. So do you, Count.

They place traps to keep us out. We were foolish at first—then we learned. They barely catch any of us now.

Looks like you didn’t learn fast enough.

“Enough,” says the Count sharply, and coughs—it rattles, deep in his chest. “Enough. I need you to… here, come here. Smell the boy—catch his scent. There is another like him… you must find him. I do not know where we are, but… I am sure he will be nearby.”

Must we?

If you say so, it must be true.

And what if we do?

“You will never have to fear traps ever again,” the Count says with ringing certainty. “Find the other human, and lead him here, and we will all leave together.”

Suddenly, there are slim sharp fingers all over Chris. None of them are malicious, but not particularly gentle either. He is pressed this way and that. He cracks open an eye, and beady dark pupils are staring at him, inset in a sallow face, and he is so abruptly overwhelmed that he starts crying all over again.

“Shh, shh, they’re here to help,” the Count soothes. Dozens of identical world-worn faces nod in agreement at his words. They seem to take up all of the space in the basement and at the same time barely any of it. One of them creeps forward and presses a lingering peck of a kiss to Chris’ cheek, and it lingers like a snowflake on a stovetop—briefly, searingly, before fading away to nothing. Chris’ eyes fall shut. The Count says, “Do you have what you need?”

A chorus of chattered agreement. Someone says, It may take a while. Someone else says, Will you be alive by the time we get back?

The Count laughs but there is no humor to it. He says, “Our family is well-known for surviving.”

We see—

We understand—

—we’ll hurry. For you, and the boy.

“Thank you,” the Count says, sinking back against the wall and bringing Chris with him. The words hiss out from between his lips like an insect buzzing to frantic freedom. Like the buzzing in Chris’ ears. Under his skin.

*

After the sharp-fingered people leave, Chris thinks the Count is telling him another story—or maybe he’s dreaming it again. In the story, there are three brothers, and they all want to go fishing, but the youngest one isn’t allowed. He is too small, his older brothers say. Too weak and too puny, not suited to fishing and hunting in the least. They shove him off the boat when he tries to clamber on, dump him in the shallows, leave him standing on the shore with fishhook in hand—laughing fit to burst the whole while.

They are good fishermen. They catch fish, and they do a fine job, but the younger brother knows he is better. So he sneaks off in the dead of night with his fishing hook and catches the greatest fish in the sea—as large as a mountain, shedding oceans of water as it rises. He takes it to his brothers in the morning—says, See, see, look what I caught. Won’t you say I’m the greatest fisherman of our family now?

And his brothers say, Yes, of course, we’re ever-so-proud; now hurry along and tell everyone what you’ve found. And the moment their younger brother has fled up the path to their village, flight-footed with excitement, the two of them fall upon their prize with flashing knives and greedy eyes. They carve the great fish to shreds—tearing out all of the best parts to keep for themselves. Flesh and bone. Blood and gristle. They cut and saw and slash and hack but the fish never seems to grow any smaller.

They’re still cutting by the time the younger brother returns with the rest of the village. Still covered head-to-toe in gore, and the fish lies there on the sand, solemn and silent with a fishhook buried in its mouth—halfway to death already. The fishermen are covered in gore that will never wash away. Guilty hands full of fresh meat.

Their father says, What have you done?

And the fish lets out an aching groan, and starts to peel apart at the seams, all the seams where the brothers cut at it. It unspools like a reel of thread, and everything in existence comes slopping out of its exposed belly, messy and strange.

And the younger brother is sad but unsurprised. His lips tighten. He sighs. He says, Ah, well. At least something beautiful will come of it.

And the swathes of flesh became mountains. And the oceans of blood became rivers. And the fish became an island, and the absence of the fish became the world. And the two treacherous brothers were never seen again.

The Count says all this, or maybe Chris dreams it, but either way there’s an awful rattle and rasp to the words now. Like it’s all being spoken through mouthfuls and mouthfuls of blood. Like a fish choking on air.

*

The Count’s hands are covered in blood. He is with Chris all the time now, lying there, holding Chris tight like he’ll never get up again. Chris asks, What did you do? and the Count just breathes shallowly and smiles in all shades of dimly-lit red. “I’ve been hungry,” is all he says, voice barely there anymore. “We all must indulge, on occasion.”

*

In another moment: Chris dreams of a vast, ever-growing tree filled with birds that sparkle like jewels—radiant and delightful, singing their sweet songs into the twinkling night sky. He is allowed to nest among them, and they make room for him amidst the branches and leaves. They don’t love him, but they tolerate him, and that is all he can ever ask for. He folds himself into the curve of two branches and wraps his arms around a bark-rough trunk and listens to the stories they tell without words, and he tries his best to understand.

One by one, the birds begin to vanish. They go quietly at first, so quietly that Chris doesn’t see them go—just looks over at gaps in the trees and wonders if he’d imagined more of them then there actually are. And then it happens faster. There are blossoms of angry red that spill across their glimmering breasts as they lose their grips and plummet from the trees. Some are caught around the neck by crystalline garottes that glimmer in the night air, and choked until they are limp and colorless and slip into the dark. Others just begin to scream—songs morphing into outright terror until they coalesce into agony, and then they’re just gone, in violent showers of all colors of the rainbow. And soon, Chris is clinging to the branch of a tree that is dead and withering, and there is only one bird left. Chris looks at the bird. The bird looks back at him, and opens its mouth like it’s about to start singing.

A single gunshot rings out, and the last bird in the tree goes tumbling into the dark without a sound.

*

Another:

Chris dreams of teatime at the pet shop. But he is not there, and neither is the Count. It’s just Leon and his friends, and they’re all drinking tea and eating cakes in silence and nobody speaks to anyone. Dust is piling up all around the tables and nobody makes a move to clean it. And all the while Leon is crying—tears pouring down his face in the way he claimed he never would, because real men don’t cry.

*

And Chris dreams that the Count is singing to him. It’s a nice dream, he thinks. The Count has a nice voice, even though it’s hoarse and strained and the longer he sings the quieter it is. He stays in the dream as long as he possibly can.

*

And then Chris dreams he hears his brother’s voice. It sounds like it’s coming from a very long way off, and it’s saying, “The rats, D? You had to send the rats after me? Just when I thought you couldn’t get any weirder—oh, hell. Oh, Jesus Christ. D?”

Leon’s voice is a very nice daydream. It’s exasperated and furious in a way that’s sweetly familiar. Chris hadn’t liked the way his brother and the Count argued, not at first. It had made him nervous and twitchy and scared, and whenever they began raising their voices at each other he’d found every excuse to disappear into the pet shop depths and not emerge until the voices died down. It had taken him weeks to understand that the Count and Leon argued like that for fun—they genuinely enjoyed getting on each other’s nerves. It really was the only explanation for why Leon kept coming back. For why the Count never, ever tried to kick him out. It’s not scary anymore. It’s just nice. As long as they argue, Leon will keep coming back, and Chris will get to stay in the pet shop forever and ever.

The daydream goes sour there, though. Leon’s voice shifts, and all of a sudden he’s yelling at the top of his lungs, and it’s not directed at the Count. And then there are other voices—footsteps from all around. Light flares. People are yelling. There are hands reaching for them, trying to tug them apart, and Chris tries to burrow deeper into the Count’s arms but there’s only so close they can tangle themselves.

Someone says, Found him, Count.

Someone else says, Count? Are you well? Are you alive?

There are long sharp nails up the side of his neck. Someone’s whispering in his ear. He could swear that he hears Tetsu, somewhere far away, yelling his name. He can definitely hear Leon, closer than ever now. Some of the hands might even be his.

“Chris? Chris, oh—Chris. There you are, oh, thank god, thank you, thank you. D, you have to let go of him now. Can you even hear me right now?—get off, you freaky little… rat, don’t crawl all over his face—what the hell, D, where is all this blood coming from? What did you do? Chris? Can you hear me?”

Big bro, Chris thinks desperately, and he thinks the thought must have gotten through, because Leon is now repeating, thank god, thank god, under his breath like he just can’t stop himself. Chris tries to organize his thoughts, but the pain and the relief are coming all at once now and it’s all too much. It all comes out as a desperate jumble of: They were taking his blood and they were drinking his blood and hurting him and he gave me all his food and he said they were feeding him but they weren’t not really and they were going to KILL ME if he didn’t let them do it, but he wouldn’t let them and he might be dying and you can’t let him die PLEASE don’t let him die—

And this has to be real; only the real Leon curses up a storm like that. The arms around Chris abruptly constrict, and he gasps soundlessly, jolted into full awareness as a horrible sound claws its way from the Count’s throat.

“Oh, no,” Leon says, “you did not just growl at me. You are not one of your fucking pets, you are a full-grown man, so act like it, and—fuck, what did they do to you?”

Chris wants to squirm his way out of the rapidly tightening arms and into his brother’s, but the Count won’t let him go. He’s pressed up tight and close enough that he can hear the panicked stutter of the Count’s heart. He’s afraid. They both are.

Chris had all of these grand ideas about what would happen when Leon finally found them—how the Count would raise his head and go, Ah, Mister Detective, about time you caught up to us, with a sly little grin; how he’d refuse all help and ascend the stairs with delicate grace and emerge into the sunlight like a bright shoot of grass, with Chris trailing a few steps behind. Leon shaking his head and going, Only you. Why did I even bother to show up? Birdsong in the trees. They’d all be back in Chinatown for dinnertime—the Count would pour the tea, and his hands wouldn’t shake once.

But Chris is starting to think they won’t be back in Chinatown very soon at all. Definitely not, if the Count keeps holding onto him like this. There are other people in the basement with them. They sound worried. They sound professional. They smell like antiseptic and hospital, but Leon isn’t letting them get close—he keeps waving them back and barking vague almost-threats. There might as well not be anyone but the three of them here after all. The world has condensed to this: the Count, broken and bloodied. Chris, safe from anything at all that could hurt him, tucked into his arms. And Leon kneeling over them both, larger than life and so unbelievably present that Chris almost can’t believe it.

“D, listen.” Leon’s voice has gone quiet and gentle, which is the weirdest thing on Earth because Leon basically never talks to anyone like that, much less the Count. “You did good, okay? You kept yourself alive, and you—you kept Chris alive, too, and that’s—” Abruptly, his voice breaks, but almost immediately he recollects himself enough to say, “—that’s real good, D. But it’s over now, all right? We’ve got you. You and Chris are gonna be fine as soon as we get you out of this shitty place, so… so, you’ve got to let go of him now, all right?”

Count, thinks Chris, fingers closing weakly around the Count’s thin wrist, it’s Leon. It’s actually him. I think we’re really properly safe now.

The Count croaks out something near-inaudible. Chris is no longer so sure it’s Chinese. It sounds more like ancient birdsong.

 Please, Chris thinks. I want to go home. I want to go home with you—both of you. Can we go home now?

“You heard the kid, D,” Leon says, just one step away from openly pleading. “He wants to get you home, and so do I. So… please. C’mon, don’t make me beg.”

Slowly—like a flower reluctantly blooming—the Count unfurls, like every uncurled finger and uncrooked elbow is the greatest pain he’s ever endured. Chris holds on too, despite his earlier protests—clinging to the Count’s shredded clothing for just a few seconds too long.

Then all at once, the Count lists sideways, head falling against the wall and arms falling all the way open. Chris is free. Leon wraps both arms around him and lifts him high and holds him close. I love you, he doesn’t say aloud but he doesn’t have to, Chris can hear it anyway.

Leon’s chin is rough with unshaved stubble. His breath stinks of beer and cigarettes, but his clothes smell of incense and animal fur. Chris fits just right in there. It’s what he’s been missing all this time.

Like a flood, the rest of the world comes rushing in. There are people in uniform holding complicated-looking equipment; others with distinctly uncomplicated stretchers. There are police officers like Leon—although none look quite as stressed and broken-hearted as Leon does. They are talking to each other, into radios, to themselves. Chris is bundled onto one of the stretchers, covered in a strange foil blanket that crinkles when he shifts. They are checking his eyes, his heart, his wrists. It’s all too overwhelming, so he turns his head as best as he can and sees more uniformed people crowding Count D.

Seeing him in the sudden light—outside of being pulled close to his chest and shushed back into sleep over and over again—is a jarring thing. His skin is papery and thin, his breath barely-there. He reaches blindly for Chris as the paramedics roll him gently onto a stretcher, and Chris is too far away to reach back so Leon reaches out and takes his hand instead. The Count lets out a soft little noise of surrender, and Chris sees him gripping at Leon’s sturdy fingers as tightly as he can manage, which can’t be very.

Chris blinks. Realizes he’d kept his eyes shut for a few seconds too long. Blinks again. Leon is now bending close to the Count, heads nearly knocking together. The Count is saying something, and Leon is saying something back to him, too soft and distant to hear. For a long moment, they are still holding hands. Then Leon nods and steps away and their fingers unravel and the Count is gone, obscured by a wall of people who are all moving over and around each other like termites on a log, all talking all at once.  

And there’s Leon’s hand in his hair, rough and reassuring. “I gotcha, Chris,” he says. voice equally as rough as his hands, but no less reassuring. “I gotcha. Let’s get you out of here.”

And then the stretcher is lurching and moving and Chris curls in place a little. It feels like he’s going to be sick for a moment, but Leon is steady beside him. He adjusts the foil blanket and pushes the hair from Chris’ eyes and stays with him all the way up the stairs and into the house and out onto the street until Chris can’t keep his eyes open any longer and he is lost to dreamless black for what feels like an eternity of rest.

*

*

When he wakes up in a hospital bed and doesn’t know how long he’s been there, Leon is the first to offer him a drink of water and a small rock. The water is appreciated. The rock is baffling. It’s tiny and pretty and strikingly blue, and when Chris curls his fingers around it there is a pleasant sting of cold, like dipping his fingers in early-morning sea water.

Thank you? he thinks.

He must sound puzzled enough that Leon’s nose wrinkles. “You didn’t want to let go of it,” he clarifies, sounding exasperated and relieved all at once. “They had to pry it out of your hands. You and D, I swear... the two of you. Anyway, it seemed important, so I held onto it just in case. Did the Count give it to you or something?”

If Chris holds onto it hard enough, he can hear the distant cry of a bird, feel sand crumbling beneath his toes. I don’t think so. I must have picked it up somewhere.

“All right, then.” Leon scrubs a hand through his hair. “You wanna keep it? I can always throw it if it’s just some trash, but if it’s important…”

Chris presses the tiny stone to his chest. I’ll keep it.

“Sure,” says Leon, and reaches across to pat him—gently, oh-so-gently—on the chest, right over the stone. “Whatever makes you feel better. Speaking of. This is yours, right?”

He unfolds a familiar quilt over the crisp white hospital sheets, which unfolds in a whirl of colors and incense. One of Chris’ arms is still wrapped up in wires and tubes and hospital equipment, so he can’t wriggle down all the way under the quilt, but he manages to tuck the hand holding onto the seaglass stone underneath it. He breathes in deep, and it smells like home. It’s mine, he agrees. It’s perfect. Thanks, big bro.

“Okay, great. That stupid goat-cat insisted I get it to you. I wasn’t sure, but…” Leon settles down, fondness in his tired eyes. He looks the kind of rumpled-and-run-down he is every time he’s finally washed his hands of a grueling weeks-long case, when he’s worn down to the bone and can’t do anything but drag himself into the pet shop foyer, settle down on his favorite couch and fall into a contented doze. Except he’s not at the shop, he’s sitting by Chris’ side, which has to be a lot less comfortable, and less interesting by far.

There is a frown on Leon’s face. It creases his expression in all sorts of ways that aren’t normal. It’s kind of awful to look at. Sorry if I worried you, Chris thinks.

“We’re just glad you’re back, kid,” Leon says.

Something deep in the pit of his stomach is sick and sloshing, but his chest just feels warm. So warm he doesn’t know what to do with it. He thinks that if he’d gone missing like this back at his aunt and uncle’s, they wouldn’t have been half this frantic over him. They would have come to see him at the hospital, but they wouldn’t have waited at his bedside to wake up. They might even scold him for being a bother. They certainly wouldn’t be able to hear him apologize, much less reassure him.

Some people think Leon’s an terrible brother and a worse guardian. Some people even say it right to Leon’s face—right in front of Chris, too, as if him not being able to speak means he won’t be able to hear or understand either. Those people will never understand how perfectly solid and reassuring it is to have Leon sitting at your side when you’re small and helpless in a mass of white sheets. How large and wonderful he is sitting as a barrier between you and the rest of the world.

The Count may be able to make anything happen with a smile and a raised finger, but Leon can stop anything bad happening with nothing more than a glare and a single step forward.

Thinking about the Count makes Chris remember pale skin and limp fingers and sweet-smelling blood turning dark and acrid in the shadows. He shifts, curling into himself, and shudders faintly before he can manage to ask, Is the Count…?

“They’re taking care of him,” says Leon. A little frustrated twist of his mouth lets Chris know that Count D is currently being the worst patient imaginable. If he’s busy making the hospital staff’s lives a living nightmare, though, he can’t be too badly off. Chris sinks back into the bed, immediately reassured. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. You can’t keep D down for long, you know that. Shitty smug little drama queen—he keeps demanding pastries. Of course he does.”

They didn’t give him any sweets, Chris says, the whole time. You should bring him some, he’ll love it.

“Yeah, yeah, maybe later,” Leon says, like he couldn’t care less. But Leon knows all of the Count’s favorite bakeries all over the city, and is the best-equipped person in the world to figure out just the thing to make him smile. He’s probably got a little corner store with a specialty in chocolate cake in mind already. “Like I said, he’ll be fine. We’re more worried about you right now, Chris.”

I’ll be fine too, Chris thinks, wiggling his feet under the covers. They didn’t hurt me, not really. I feel all right. They mostly hurt the Count. He tried to keep me from seeing most of it, but I couldn’t help it. He looked… really bad…

“Pretty scary, huh?” Leon says, when Chris trails off, a little awkwardly—in that way he tends to talk to other kids when they ask him about police work or being a detective.

Chris fiddles with the edge of the quilt, embroidered with shimmery golden thread in criss-cross patterns that fold back on themselves over and over again. It was, he says. I don’t remember a lot of it, but I was—really scared. But the Count took care of me.

Leon sighs, long and exhausted. “Yeah,” he says. “‘Course he did. I’d kick his ass otherwise.”

Chris bites his lip. Gnaws at it furiously. You’re not angry at him, are you?

“I’m always angry at D,” Leon says, sounding pained. “What about, specifically?”

He didn’t mean for us to get kidnapped.

“I know, I know.” Leon grimaces. “Wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t babysitting you all the time—fuck. Not that you’re a baby, I didn’t mean that. Looking after you. It wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t spend all your time at the pet shop. But…”

I like the pet shop, Chris argues, a little desperately.

“I know,” says Leon, distracted and harried in a way that he never is, which is why the next words slip out without him noticing: “So do I. Point is—you getting taken along with him…? No, I’m not mad at him about that. For once, it wasn’t his own damn fault. What sort of freaks kidnap someone to drink their blood? I’ve had enough of vampire wannabes in this city. Fuck…”

Leon trails off again, and his head comes to rest in his upturned hands.

“I’m not mad at him,” he repeats, exhausted. “He did his best, and so did you.”

Chris isn’t so sure that he did his best, but he’s not about to protest Leon saying nice things about Count D for once.

Yeah, he thinks, and then hesitates. So, then—when I’m allowed out of the hospital, can I…? Would it be okay if I—

“He wants to see you, kid,” Leon says.

It makes something small and scared and worried in the pit of Chris’ stomach wither away into nearly nothing. Some part of him is terrified that he clung too hard. That he said something wrong and bad and terrible when he was out of his mind with fear and exhaustion and now the Count wants nothing to do with him. That he was nothing more than leverage and liability and the Count can’t risk having him around anymore, so he might as well be sent back to his aunt and uncle’s so he can be dealt with in the way they’d always planned.

But the Count wants to see him. The Count actually wants to see him. Maybe he only wants to see him to tell Chris to leave forever, but the way Leon says it makes Chris think maybe not; maybe that’s not it at all. Guilt and a little lonely terror rear up once more, but he tries to squash them down as best he can.

Okay, thinks Chris, ducking down further into the scented warmth of the quilt. I want to see him too.

“He says he heals stupid fast, and—hell, I believe it, I’ve seen it firsthand,” Leon says. He slumps in the flimsy plastic chair. It’s sudden and shocking, like all of the energy that’s been holding him up this entire time has drained from his body, all at once. “But he’s not as perfect as he wants to think. He still needs a little more rest. Just like you. He’ll be here as soon as he can, all right?”

*

And sure enough, the Count comes to him the next day, all dressed up in swirls of radiant blue that cascade around his thin form like ocean waves. He appears much better, unlike Chris who doesn’t feel better at all and knows he looks just as bad. His face has regained what little color it usually holds, and the faint smile that darts across his lips isn’t strained at all—it’s the proper, lovely smile of genuine joy that he only takes out for the best of occasions. “Apologies for the intrusion. You have visitors.”

He looks well and healthy, but his voice is lower and softer than usual. Careful—like any excessive sound could cause it to shatter. Maybe he’s not totally better after all.

And he’s not lying—he isn’t alone. Q-Chan is back on his shoulder, exactly as it should always be, but Pon-chan comes scampering into the room at his heels too, immediately tugging herself up onto the hospital bed to snuggle herself in at Chris’ side. Tetsu lingers in the doorway, glancing around with a sour expression, and Ten-chan immediately scales the bedside table to perch at the head of the hospital bed, looking down at Chris like a benevolent gargoyle. His usually-animated face is still and stern, like he’s thinking hard.

Chris’ eyes immediately well up all over again. Pon-chan nestles her cold nose into his neck and pats her tiny hands up and down his face, chanting, “Don’t cry, Chris, please don’t cry! We missed you so much, and the Count said you’d be all right but we had to come and see for ourselves, and everyone else wanted to come too but he said they wouldn’t fit, especially not Honlon—”

“We had to promise them we’d keep you safe,” says Ten-chan, still uncharacteristically serious. “And properly, this time.”

Chris has never felt safer in his life. If his voice were anything approaching functional, he’s sure he’d be wailing. All he can do is hug Pon-chan back just as tight, and bury his face into the frilly fabric of her dress, and think, I missed you too, I missed you too, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry—

Leon pushes his way past Tetsu (who snarls, but for once doesn’t go to bite), saying, “Can’t believe you talked your way into this. It’s a hospital, for god’s sake, not an extension of your weirdo circus menagerie.”

The Count’s faint smile curls at the edges to become distinctly mischievous. “That’s not what you were saying half an hour ago when you suggested this little excursion, Mister Detective.”

“This was definitely your idea,” Leon huffs, who is a lying liar who doesn’t like to admit that he loves the pet shop’s residents just as much as Chris does.

They’re not a circus, Chris says, sniffling. They’re my friends.

Ten-chan slinks down from his perch, and arranges himself at Chris’ other side, a slim line of sharp angles and sweet-smelling leather and just a trace of distant incense, lingering from the pet shop itself. He smells like home. He wraps his arms around Chris and sighs deeply and noses at Chris’ hair. He sniffs again.

Leon sighs too, and picks Tetsu up like he weighs nothing, swinging him right across the room to throw him down (not ungently) on the edge of Chris’ bed. “All right, fine, I can take a hint. You all behave, all right? I don’t want to have to explain this to the nurses if you cause a scene.”

Chris doesn’t have enough arms to hug Ten-chan and Pon-chan and Tetsu and his brother and the Count all at once. It’s a major failure of human evolution, that they only ended up with the two arms. He does his best to fit Ten-chan and Pon-chan against both his sides, and Tetsu ends up near his head, curled awkwardly against the metal headboard to fit in right. He keeps on growling under his breath, muttered curses and self-recriminations. He seems like he can’t work out if he wants to be angrier at Chris or himself.

Pon-chan kisses his cheek and whispers in his ear: “Don’t tell the Count, but I stress-ate my way through his entire chocolate stash when you two were gone.”

He’s staining her dress with tears, but he manages a silent laugh. You’re not allowed chocolate, Pon-chan.

“If he didn’t want me to eat it all, then he should have been there to stop me.” Her lip wobbles, and her eyes are welling up with tears too. “You should have been there to stop me. You’re so thin. Count, you brought him cake, right? He needs cake; he needs to stop being so thin…”

The Count settles delicately in the chair just at Chris’ side, with a rustle of soft silk and sweet perfume. “He’s not well enough for rich, sugary foods, or so the doctors say. I’m inclined to listen. My apologies, Chris.”

It’s okay. Chris manages a watery smile in the Count’s direction. Save me a slice for when I’m better?

The smile is returned—thin and slight but warm like sunlight. “Of course.”

It’s not the sort of thing you say when you’re planning on kicking someone out of the pet shop forever and never letting them come back ever ever again. Chris is reluctantly hopeful.

Leon slumps into the other visitor’s chair, scratching at his head. “Kids can’t live on cake and candy, D. You’re going to give him diabetes, feeding him like this…”

“Not how that works, dumbass,” Tetsu says. Leon doesn’t seem to hear him.

From near Chris’ ear, Ten-chan murmurs: “Huh, you’re shaking. What’s going on in that head of yours, kiddo?”

Chris thinks, I missed you, that’s all.

“I missed you too! So much! And—and we have—we have so many tea parties to catch up on!” blurts Pon-chan, clearly distraught, and clings to Chris’ side so tightly it seems implausible that anyone will ever be able to scrape her off. “And games to play. And we still need to make a kite together and go to the park and fly it, you said we would and we never did—”

“Hospital food’s shit,” Tetsu notes. “I’ll make you something real to eat the moment you get out here, Chris.”

Ten-chan says, “Hey, if you’re feeling stir-crazy, we can always sneak you out early. I’ll pretend to be you again, okay? Just say the word.”

“D, your fucking animals are making my brother cry, again,” says Leon. “Tell them to cut it out, or I’m tossing them all out the window.”

The Count clears his throat diplomatically. “It seems you are all overwhelming our young friend slightly,” he says. “Maybe if you gave him a little space…?”

I’m okay, Chris insists, hugging Pon-chan tighter. I’m okay, I’m really okay. Please don’t throw them out the window, and I don’t need space. This is perfect.

Leon rubs his head. “Right. Fine. If you say so. D, remember what we talked about?”

The Count makes a little noise. “You assume my memory is as faulty as yours.”

“My memory is just fine,” Leon snaps, affronted. “Are you going to tell the kid what we talked about or not?”

“I was simply waiting for an opportune lull in the conversation,” the Count fires back, as acidic as he ever was. “But since you insist on forcing me to act out of turn…”

The Count straightens his collar, and leans forward to look Chris in the eyes.

“Chris, I don’t blame you for a single thing that took place in the last few days,” he says, very seriously. “I think you handled yourself marvelously, considering the circumstances. I do not consider you a liability. You may remain in the pet shop as long as you wish to. You are always safe within its walls, and I will endeavor to ensure you are safe outside them too from this point going forwards. Is that all clear?”

Chris nods, a little weakly.

“Excellent,” says the Count. He leans back in his chair with a little sigh, and catches Leon’s eye pointedly. “Good enough, Detective?”

Leon scowls. “Don’t you go saying good enough at me. He’ll think you don’t mean it.”

“Chris understands perfectly well that I never say anything I don’t mean,” the Count says, clasping his hands together pleasantly. “And certain pig-headed, uncouth detectives lacking a fundamental grasp on conversational niceties ought to understand that too, seeing as they are nominally and presumably more intellectually advanced than a nine-year-old child.”

“When I’m done throwing all of your pets out of the hospital window,” says Leon, markedly less pleasant, “I’m tossing you right after them.”

There is nothing more reassuring than the sound of the Count and Leon at each others’ throats. Chris bites his lip to hide a smile.

Pon-chan whispers, “You didn’t actually think the Count would kick you out, did you…?”

“You’re really stupid sometimes,” Tetsu says, flopping along his legs. “He wouldn’t. Not over this.”

Ten-chan says, “Chris can’t help what he thinks. Even if it’s wrong.”

With his friends curled up around him and the Count and Leon brewing up a truly classic argument over nothing beside him, it almost feels like Chris is home already.

*

*

The first thing Chris does when he returns to the pet shop is dump his tiny bag of possessions on the ground, think a vague apology at the Count’s put-upon sigh, and dash through the corridors as fast as he can go until he reaches Honlon’s shrine.

She’s viciously furious, quietly relieved, and nearly-in-tears all at once. He can barely keep up with her shifting mood and manner on the best of days, and even now he’s too tired to do much more than stand and let her cup his head in both hands, press her forehead to his, and breathe with him for a while.

Then she sends him off with a snarl to the rest of the pet shop, and he is passed around like a precious parcel from one resident to another, from one room to the next, until he’s overwhelmed and dizzy and so strangely happy that he doesn’t know what to do with it. There is not a single occupant of these dizzying, mazelike backrooms that he doesn’t recognize—that he can’t put a name to—and what’s more, not a single one of them is unhappy to see him.

It’s then that the Count finds him and takes his hand, leading him back to his room. The sheets are made up and the lights are low and it’s like he never left. He is tucked in with infinite gentleness, and for a moment the Count simply places a hand on Chris’ head and leaves it there, silently gazing down at him.

Sorry, he thinks, hurriedly averting his eyes.

The Count’s hand slips away like the breeze. A moment later, it’s at Chris’ chin, tipping it up and sideways so their eyes meet again. “Sorry? Whatever for?”

Everyone was hugging me… I was taking up so much attention. But you were gone, too. You actually belong here. I’m just…

He trails off. Visiting? Taking up space? In some small scared part of Chris’ mind, he knows that he can’t stay at the pet shop forever, as much as he wants to. It’s temporary, just like everything else in his life. Like his mother. Like his life with his uncle and aunt. Like Leon.

“I assure you that my welcome home was both thorough and enthusiastic,” the Count says lowly, warmly—firmly. “And several days past. I have had time to settle, and remember everything I missed, and everyone who missed me. You…” The hand smooths up his jaw, presses to his hair. “…need the reminder far more than I. Please don’t apologize for being loved.”

Chris has to squeeze his eyes shut again, against the sudden welling of guilt-confusion-joy in his chest. I don’t—

“If anything,” the Count says, “I ought to apologize to you. If you were not living here… if there were no association between the two of us… Indeed, if I did not associate with the Detective, I’m sure none of this would have ever happened.”

Chris swallows. It’s okay, he thinks, but the next thought comes, unbidden—he can’t seem to choke it back. If it’s so dangerous for me to be here… why haven’t you kicked me out yet?

“Well, I can be terribly selfish sometimes,” the Count says with a sideways sort of smile, tinged with a surprisingly real note of self-deprecation.

Chris bunches the covers up to his chin. It’s okay, he thinks. I’m really selfish too.

This draws a musical little chuckle from the Count, who sets about tucking Chris in all over again, adjusting the covers carefully. After he’s done, he extinguishes all the lights but one, and offers, “One last story, I think. Unless you’ve grown sick of them by now?”

Chris shifts aside, close to the wall so the Count has space to perch elegantly on the edge of his bed. Never, he thinks.

“Well, then,” the Count says, and speaks.

*

In the story, there are three travelers, all with the same face. A son, a father, and the father’s father too. They walk through a thriving jungle, far away from the ruining reach of humanity. They hold hands in a linking chain, drifting through the trees like dandelion seeds all in a row.

The son says, Why can’t we go home?

The father says, Home is long-gone. Home does not exist.

The father’s father says, Our home is everywhere. Our home is nowhere. Revenge is all that’s left.

The three travelers cross a path, then a stream, then a grassy plain. Now they are walking through the mountains, carving a trail up snow-speckled rocks.

The son says, We could make a new home.

The father says, Not until the old world is ash and dust.

The father’s father says, We are always making a new world.

The mountains are conquered, crested. The three travelers descend the other side, rocks and pebbles scattering in their wake, and the scorched red sands of an eternal desert stretch out before them.

The son says, Must we destroy it all? There are some things to enjoy of this world. It can’t all be worth eradicating.

The father says, It can be sweet. It can be delicious. It can be delightful, in turns and twists; but it is all pretty colors to cover up a greater evil.

The father’s father says, Some beasts camouflage themselves as poisonous, undesirable. Others cloak themselves in guises of indispensability. It doesn’t make them any less worthy of total eradication.  

The desert is crossed in a flurry of footsteps. Next comes the ocean. The three travelers do not stop walking. They descend below the shoreline—deep into the water—until they’re treading along silty sand in the depths where the light doesn’t reach.

The son says, They can’t all be bad.

The father says, They are.

The father’s father says, Even if they aren’t, we can’t take the chance.

Out of the ocean the travelers come, shaking the water from their robes. They are on a beach that stretches up into moorish hills. It is here on the shoreline that the son stops walking. His father keeps on walking, and so does his father’s father. He stands there on the shoreline, and watches them as they go, until they’re nothing but fluttering robes in bright colors, then distant dots on the horizon, then nothing at all.

The salt stings his eyes and the ocean breeze whips his hair and the water laps at his ankles. He stands on the shoreline, and he waits, and he doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He waits for days and nights and days and nights again, and the sun and the moon rotate around him in endless celestial cartwheels.

An eternity passes before someone asks the travelling son, Are you all right?

The traveler says, Go away, I’m waiting, but it’s too late and the moment has already broken. He raises his eyes and looks up and sees a perfectly ordinary man standing before him. His skin is tanned; his hair is stringy and salt-strung.

Funny place to wait, the man says.

The traveler says, Why do you trespass here?

The man says, I’m just walking. I walk down this beach every day. I see you here every day too, and it’s only taken me this long to gather the courage to talk to you. Are you seriously all right? You look tired.

The traveler says, I am deciding what to do with myself.

The man says, Okay. I am deciding what to do with myself too. I’m not sure what I want to become, but I’m planning on thinking about it for a while. If you want, we can stand here and think together.

The traveler says, I am deciding whether or not I want to kill you.

The man says, Funny story, see: I’m deciding that too.

The traveler says, Then, yes. Company would be pleasant.

The man stands next to the traveler. The traveler stands next to the man. They stand side by side and watch the sea in silent coexistence until the ocean is full of sticks and stones and the sand is eternally dry. Until the world burns around them and the sky fills with poison and every living being is lying dead in rotting corpse-piles of violence and neglect. Until the sky is red and the ground is black and all that’s left is the two of them, frozen in their indecision.

*

Chris thinks, At least they have each other.

A faint sigh. It sounds a little disappointed, and a little wistful, but there’s no time to linger on what it means. The Count says, “Go to sleep, Chris,” and since the Count can make anything happen with only a word, Chris does.

*

*

That night, Chris sits on a grassy cliff with Jingwei at his side, and they take turns tossing stones into the still ocean far below them. They make games of it—seeing how far they can fling their stones, the largest rippling splashes, if they can knock each other’s stones out of the air with a well-placed snipe. Jingwei is especially good at the last game. She has a way of squinting with one eye closed just before she lets the rock fly that means she hits Chris’ own rock nine out of ten times, shattering it into shards of shale and gravel like little grey fireworks. All of the rocks end up in the sea, anyway. The work is never complete.

But it doesn’t matter how many rocks they throw, the sea never seems to be any less all-encompassing and vast. The water keeps lapping at the rocks. The distant waves keep cresting in peaks of sugar-dust white.

Chris says, I can’t believe it doesn’t bother you. I would have given up years ago.

Jingwei shrugs. Her hair flutters on the breeze like threadbare feathers. I know. Some days I can’t believe I’m still at it, either.

Chris bounces his next rock off the cliffside itself. It goes skittering at angles, tumbling and flipping all the way down until it rolls silently into the surf without even a splash to mark its entrance. Don’t you get sick of never seeing it change?

Jingwei pauses. Her head tilts, slow and thoughtful, until her fringe is falling halfway over her eyes. You know when you’re excited for your next birthday, and you look at the calendar, and you realize that it’s hundreds of days away, and you think to yourself ‘I can’t possibly wait that long, that’s forever’?

Chris nods. Yeah, of course. Sometimes it feels like he’s been seven forever.

Well, says Jingwei, Maybe it really does feel like it lasts forever. But your birthday always comes eventually, doesn’t it?

Chris thinks about this for a long moment. He turns it over and over in his head, and he does the same with the tiny blue lump of seaglass in his hands. Dropping rocks into the ocean isn’t a remarkably hard task. All you have to do is keep at it, one rock at a time. Oh, he says. All right. I think I get it.

Jingwei wraps an arm around his shoulder, small and warm and gentle. You don’t, but it’s okay, she says. You don’t have to see the change to know it’s happening. A little at a time does a whole lot.

The grass beneath them is soft and sun-warmed. The sky is blue and freckled with puffs of cloud that stretch out towards the horizon like cotton candy. Chris lies on his back and inhales the sweet sunshine as Jingwei continues to throw rocks into the depths of the uncaring ocean. After a while, the faint mist rising from the sea swirls up to capture them both, sweet like incense, and the dreams fade away into indistinct softness.

*

Chris briefly wakes when Pon-chan presses her cold nose into his neck—and then again when Tetsu comes in to stretch out along the doorframe, blocking any further visitors from entering. There is music in the hallways and the clink-and-clatter of tea things echoing out from the entranceway as Leon and D converse in low tones. For once, their voices aren’t raised. At one point, Chris thinks he actually hears Leon laugh like he means it.

It's all very simple. It means he’s home. He’s safe.

Chris rolls over, wrapping his arms around Pon-chan, and sinks back into sleep.

*