“I’m ready. How did you make your way in the world without money or friends?”
“I ...” Micha sighed. “I fell upon hard times. I’ll tell you, if you ask me, because I don’t want to lie to you anymore. But please don’t. I don’t want to speak of it.”
“Then I will not ask,” said Thomas, at once.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I have faith in you too, Micha. I don’t need to hear anything you don’t wish to tell me.”
Micha pulled Thomas with him onto the bed, so that they fell together, entangled. “I don’t deserve any of this,” he muttered, relieved and humbled and perilously close to happy.
Thomas gave a small, breathless laugh, all but smothered by Micha’s body pressed against him. And suddenly they were kissing, clumsy and frantic, scrabbling and struggling to get closer to each other, as though flesh itself had become a barrier.
“Oh hell,” growled Micha, dragging himself away before he lost any power to do so. “Thomas, there’s something else. Something I need to ... change. Somehow.”
Thomas’s hands stroked languorously up and down his spine. “What is it?”
“While I was ... that is ... during ... when I was ...” He stuttered into silence. Micha’s habits were well known at Madame Defleur’s, but he had never spoken of them. It had not been necessary. Survival, in whatever form it took, was simply unquestioned. But he hated to lay such wretchedness bare before Thomas. “I can’t remember when I started, only that it helped.” Thomas was nodding but without comprehension. Micha took a shuddering breath, the word clogged in his throat. “Opium. I lived for it. I always knew it was treacherous, nothing but smoke and madness and empty dreams, but a beautiful falsehood is better than an ugly truth.”
“How lost you’ve been,” whispered Thomas, tears thick in his voice again.
“Beyond rescue, or so I thought. And I’ve been using laudanum since my illness.”
Micha felt the scrape of Thomas’s eyelashes across his skin as he blinked. “Sheba thought so, but I saw no sign of it.”
“I hid it from you. I was ashamed. I still am.”
“Why? Is it harmful?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it drives my actions, and I want to stop except I can’t, I just fucking can’t.” Thomas held him and gentled him while Micha raged. “It’s why I did what I did. I made your Mrs. Clark bring me laudanum. And then she knew all my secrets, so I wanted her gone. Please ...”Micha faltered, despising his own weakness but unable to deny or suppress it. “Please don’t hate me. I’ve committed so many wrongs, but I was desperate.”
“All this,” said Thomas, softly, “for a remedy?”
Micha could only nod. “Or for my own frailty. I can’t tell where the one begins and the other ends.”
“You know I would have given you anything? Helped you however I could.”
“I know. And I know that makes it worse.”
The seconds moved slowly, landing as heavy as rain upon Micha, until Thomas finally spoke again. “Thank you, at least, for telling me. And for trusting me.”
Micha gave a soft, tight laugh. “I think I was in love with you, even then, but in such a twisted way it barely deserves the name.” He cringed from the remembrance of himself, so wanting and so afraid. “I was monstrous. Most likely I still am.”
Arching up, Thomas kissed him, pressing a denial into his mouth, like a bite without teeth. “I cannot lie. I wish you had behaved differently, Micha. But it’s not for me to judge you.”
“Because”—and here Micha’s tone grew sardonic—“that’s reserved for your damn God?”
“Because I love you.”
“Even after ...” Micha couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Even after,” Thomas confirmed.
It was exactly what Micha needed to hear, but it crushed him nonetheless. He sheltered his face beneath his arm. “I don’t deserve—”
“Let’s not speak of what is or is not deserved.” Thomas cut him off gently. “I doubt you deserved your hard times either. May we go back to the laudanum?”
“Why not?” Micha huffed out a sound that was not quite a laugh. “I always do.”
