Page 214 of White Wolf

“I know, I know.” Nikita ran a hand down the back of his head, cupped the vulnerable curve of his skull, fingered the silky long lengths of his hair. “But I’m not him. We’re not them. Don’t compare it.”

Sasha breathed in fast little exhales, warm and damp against Nikita’s throat. “I want you to be happy, though.”

“I am.” And in that moment, with his wolf in his arms, Nikita was. Happy in a selfish way, glad that he had his wolf all to himself, all the time. Same job, same apartment, no friends, no one else but them. Sasha would forever be the outgoing, exuberant boy he’d been at nineteen, and Nikita would always be the bitter, jaded asshole who clung to what little he had left.

“I know I shouldn’t have done it,” Sasha whispered, and Nikita stilled.

They had versions of the same conversation too often; knowing that time was endless led to more than normal amounts of contemplation. But both of them were always careful to skirt the real issue that lay at the heart of it. Nikita’s turning was an accepted fact; they never talked about Sasha’s determined “I’m going to save you,” and they never reminisced about the way Sasha had fed him the heart, bite-by-bloody-bite.

Sasha burrowed in closer and Nikita went back to petting him. “Don’t say that.” His voice was rough and hitched.

“It was selfish,” Sasha said. “You didn’t want me to, but you were too weak to say no, and I forced you. You never wanted to be here now. It’s my fault.” His voice was the miserable, grief-filled whimper of a child, and it broke Nikita’s black heart.

“No, no. Don’t. Listen to me.” Nikita cuddled him in close, spoke with his lips against the top of his head. “It wasn’t selfish, and I don’t regret it.”

Sasha’s answering whine was doubtful.

Nikita sighed. Raked his fingers through pale hair. “You know what I think? I think we’re supposed to be here right now.”

Sasha shifted a little, nosing at the soft patch of skin under Nikita’s ear, quiet canine snuffles of curiosity. This was Sasha’s weakness: he didn’t need blood, could get by on regular food just fine, but after a long day of playing human, he had to decompress and let the wolf side take over, act like the overgrown lapdog he really was, deep inside. If Nikita was honest, he enjoyed it; this was why humans had therapy dogs for anxiety: it was hard to fret when someone who loved you wanted to sit in your lap.

“I think...surviving – that day.” That terrible, bloody, unforgettable day that they never talked about. “I think maybe it gave us a chance to do something worthwhile. For me to make up for all the awful things I did when I was pretending to be a Soviet. I always told myself I was biding my time…but the time never came.”

He sighed again. “I think I’m still waiting, in a lot of ways. And I think I’ve had it wrong this whole time. Still. Shit, I’m always wrong.”

“Nik–”

“No, let me finish. There’s no magic right time coming. If I want to make up for the evil I’ve done, then I have to go out and actually make up for it. Be proactive – like you were, when you turned me.” He scratched at his shoulder in the way that always made Sasha’s head tilt to the side; it worked now, like clockwork. “I didn’t get to save the empire,” he said, and for the first time in a long time, something warm started to unfurl in his chest. “But maybe I can help Trina. Maybe that’s a good start.”

“Hmm,” Sasha hummed.

“What do you think?”

“I like it.”

“Yeah? You don’t have to, you know, you could–”

“Shut up,” Sasha said, fond now, happiness coming back into his voice. “I go where you go.”

In the quiet of their little unremarkable apartment, Nikita petted his friend’s hair and smiled up at the water-stained ceiling. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said.

Sasha echoed him, a warm chuff of breath that said so many things, all of them affectionate.

Their little pack of two.

~*~

Lanny felt alive. He felt eighteen and untested. Uninjured. Feltstrong.

He’d never been one for drugs. He drank too much, had spent too many nights in bars, both before and after his injury, but other than a little pot he’d never experimented with anything else. So he couldn’t say for sure that the blood – the honest to Godblood, oily and hot and tangy like sucking on keys; and the worst part, not as disgusting as he’d anticipated – had hit his system like cocaine, but that was the closest comparison he could make. It was a high, he knew that much, a punch of adrenaline, and a sort of clearing, too. His sinuses had opened, his tired eyes had lost their scratchiness. It was like caffeine without the shakiness. As he walked back to Trina’s apartment, he could detect none of the little everyday aches and pains that he’d learned to live with the past few years. The stiff neck, the tender knee, the achy back and the constant dull fire in his wrist from his bad hand – all gone. He took deep breaths of night air and smelled so many things: the grease of a twenty-four hour diner, the exhaust of cars and trucks, the garbage from an alley, the lingering notes of perfume and cologne long after a crowd of club-goers had passed, like the scent had lingered on the concrete of the sidewalk.

He was alone, and he felt wonderful. He tipped his head back, searching for stars through the light-smudged sky, chuckling quietly to himself. The cancer wasn’t something he’d been able to feel in a tangible way, but he imagined he could feel it receding now; shrinking down to little pebbles; powdering into dust.

God, he loved this city. Always had. New York wasn’t a place so much as it was a being, something sentient that put little feelers through your skin, the mother tree all the little symbiotic plants fed from. Shit, he never got philosophical like this, but it seemed a correct thought, somehow. In the slow crush of depression, of uselessness, of the drudgery and sickness of his job, he’d forgotten how much he loved this damn place, and it wasn’t acceptable anymore. This moment, laughing to himself in the brightness of a New York night, felt like remembering that love.

He heard something, the scuff of footsteps on the sidewalk ahead, and righted himself so he didn’t run into anyone.

A man stood three feet away, hands in his jeans pockets, staring at him.

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