Sean’s gaze slipped away from Alexei’s face to the gun in Alexei’s hand. He didn’t say anything, but his hands clenched into fists, shaking a little. Alexei remembered what Gracie and Kyle had told him every day he was in Medical and after he wasdischarged.
“Still not talk?” Alexei asked the question gently, but it still made Sean’s shoulders tighten. Shaking his head, he stepped to the side and gestured furiously for Sean to come in. “Is fine. Come sit. Eat? Mama made lots of food before leaving. Should last until Thanksgiving since Kilyusha atJamie’s.”
Alexei knew he was babbling but couldn’t stop. For a fraught moment, he thought Sean wasn’t going to enter the apartment, that he was going to leave, and he honestly didn’t know what he would’ve done at that point. Maybe hauled Sean over his shoulder and carried him back inside. That never came to pass though, as Sean finally stepped inside, and Alexei breathed a heavy sigh ofrelief.
The door slid shut and Alexei primed it with all the new locks Katie had programmed into it. He followed Sean into the living room and set the gun on the coffeetable.
“Computer, television off,”Alexeisaid.
Quiet descended in the apartment, afternoon sunlight streaming through the plas-glass windows that could no longer be seen into from the outside. Katie had come by while he was in Medical, along with several MDF technical agents, and done a complete overhaul on the apartment’ssecurity.
Alexei pointed at the couch. “Cansit?”
When Sean didn’t move, Alexei took a step toward him. Sean’s gaze met his before jerking away. Alexei might not have a doctorate in psychology or be able to read someone’s mind, but he knew enough about the many shades of trauma stemming from war to know what Sean’s reactionsmeant.
“Is okay to look, Senya,” Alexeiquietlysaid.
Sean jerked as if he’d been hit, eyes squeezing shut for a moment at Alexei’s words. Alexei took a step forward, hands coming up to—grab him, hold him, he didn’t know what, just that he wanted totouch.
And Sean wouldn’tlethim.
Sean shook his head, knocking aside Alexei’s hand as he stepped backward, putting distance between them, distance that Alexei absolutely hated. But he stayed where he was, even though it pained him todoso.
Alexei swallowed thickly, throat tight from emotion he couldn’t completely shake off. “Is not your fault, Senya. Everything that happen…not yourfault,da?”
“I told Cillian tohurtyou.”
The words came out cracked and harsh, Sean’s voice rough from days of disuse. Alexei wasn’t sure who was more surprised at his words, himself or Sean. Even through his surprise, all Alexei could think was how relieved he felt to finally hear Sean’s voice again. He watched as Sean slapped a hand over his mouth, all the blood washing out ofhisface.
“Senya,” Alexei said, voice breaking a little from a shared grief on thediminutivename.
Sean frantically shook his head, hand skimming off his mouth as he drew in a couple of deep breaths. He was shaking hard enough that his lips trembled and Alexeididn’t know howfixthis.
Tofixthem.
“It’s my fault, Lyo—Alexei,” Sean rasped after a heavy beat of silence, eyes gone wide in a too-paleface.
The sound of his given name coming out of Sean’s mouth like that made Alexei more than a little nauseous. “Nyet. You still say Lyosha. Want you to,Senya.”
Sean still wouldn’t look at him. “You shouldn’t wantmeto.”
Alexei closed the distance between them, only stopping when Sean threw out a hand at him in warning. Alexei stilled, trying desperately to catch Sean’s gaze, but it was so hard when Sean would look everywhere butathim.
“What you see when you look at me, Senya?” Alexei asked softly. “Hmm? What you see,kotyonok?”
Sean’s face screwed up in a mask of agony, brown eyes suspiciously bright for a second or two before he shook his head. “You know whatIsee.”
For an instant, Alexei had a flash of Cillian’s face, his unstoppable fist, blood spraying through the air from one hit too many. He blinked, and the waking dreamlike image disappeared, but Cillian’s ghost still lingered, maybe always would. Some things in this war couldn’t be easily left behind orburied.
“Not you who hurt me,”hesaid.
“It feels like it was,” Sean confessed in an unsteadyvoice.
Alexei ran a hand over his face, biting at the inside of his cheek. “Think it easy for me see you get hurt? Was glad it me and not you he workovermost.”
Finally,finallySean looked at him and Alexei wished he could kiss away the self-loathing on Sean’s face. “I kept wishing it was me, and not you,Alexei.”
In no world would Alexeieverwishforthat.
