Page 125 of Filthy Little Fix
It's absurd. How could I not recognize theone thingthat shatters my monotony, the one thing that causes any kind of chemical reaction in my head besides pain? I smile, pressing our lips together. "Fine. Then it's not love. It's...inevitability. It's fuckingphysics. Call it whatever you want. But stay with me."
The fight in Dante's eyes fades.
All the fury, all the hesitation, all the walls he built around himself... it all comes crumbling down. He sighs, a sound of exhaustion, of an internal war that has finally ended.
"I'm not going anywhere," he says.
I kiss him. Slow, deep, a seal on the silent pact we've just made.
When we pull apart, he keeps his forehead pressed to mine. His gaze is still warm, but the usual shadow is there, slowly returning.
"But if you make me regret this..."
His hand slides to my throat. A light squeeze. A reminder.
"...not even God will save you."
I laugh.
Perfect.
If hell has a master, he's lying next to me.
And I've never felt so at home.
EPILOGUE
LEO
I’ve madea few discoveries these last few months. Even after countless repaintings, cigarette stains are very persistent. They know I don't really want them gone.
Waking up and looking at the ceiling used to be just that: waking up and looking at the ceiling. Now, it's waking up and looking at a discreet, stubborn nicotine and tar stain a few inches to the side of my vision, right where Dante usually sleeps. And smokes. The smoke clings to the walls, the ceiling, the windows, and the upholstery. The whole room smells of tobacco.
Once, Dmitry set foot in here and grimaced. "Do you smoke?" he asked. Their intelligence report on my vices—and lack thereof—was a bit outdated, he thought. Maybe the stress of the job had gotten to me. Depressed people are twice as likely to smoke as chemically healthy people. True.
My neurotransmitters are still completely out of whack—this shit is chronic—but I said, "No." I was surprised he evennoticedthe smell because, in my head, all the Volkovs smell like cigarettes and have long lost the ability to perceive it. Mymistake. They smell like cigarettes becauseDantesmells like cigarettes, and the scent sticks to you, embraces you like a haunting.
Dmitry tilted his head at me, and I saw the exact moment he understood. His eyebrows shot up, he subtly tucked his chin, and he seemed a little desperate to change the subject. I almost called him over.Come and see, Dmitry, the smell is much stronger in my bed.
The yellowish-gray stain makes my mornings happy. Even when Dante gets up before me. I think,it's real. This god in human form is really spending all his nights in my bed. Most of the time, doing a little more than just sleeping next to me.
Sometimes, too, I don't need to look at the stain on the ceiling. Ifeelhim. Behind me, holding my waist;beneathme, his heartbeat in my ears; or just with his back against mine. That last one is less frequent. Dante is a possessive guy. He likes to make sure I won't move away from him without him noticing.
And that's another thing I discovered: if a feather falls to the floor, Dante will wake up instantly, pulling a pistol from under the mattress. It's automatic, an irrational impulse. It doesn't matter what it is. I didn't even know there was a gun under the mattress. I asked him after the first time if there was any remote chance of that gun going off one night. He looked at me like I was an animal. We have this wall between us—he knows everything about guns and ways to kill people and punching them. I don't. He said, "The hammer isn’t cocked, you imbecile." I don't know what that means. But it's a testament of trust: knowing the gun is there, that he leaves it with me when he's gone, and that he trusts I won't use it against him. Or myself.
Overall, having Dante and this morbid smell of cigarettes helps me sleep. It's never been easy for me to stay still for enough hours without my sleep being choppy, but it gets a little better with him. At least, most of the time, he's the one whowakes me up—Dante's sleep quality is the worst imaginable, no matter how much he acts likemineis the problem. I don't have anything that messes with my head enough to make me wake up drenched in sweat, breathless, with a racing heart and a surge of norepinephrine. He does.
It happens often. I don't get startled anymore. He shoots up in bed, grabs the same hidden gray gun, and I wait for him to find himself again. It doesn't take long. His eyes refocus within a few seconds, but the things that haunt his mind linger for much longer. He usually gets up, takes a cigarette from the pack he's started leaving in my drawers, and goes to smoke on the balcony. They are ghosts I will never know.
I've joined him on the balcony a few times. Most of them, he says nothing. "Do you want to talk?" I asked him once, and he didn't look at me. All he said was, "No."
I never pushed. I learned that his silence after the nightmares is a wall you shouldn't try to climb. Now, I just keep him company. When Dante wakes up like that, we just stay silent, and when we go back to bed, we're silent too. It takes a while for him to relax. And when he does, it's the only time he seems truly vulnerable.
This morning, for some reason, I wake up before him. He's holding me by the waist, and I noticed some time ago that the relationship between the perimeter of my waist and the width of his hand is offensive. I measured it one night, out of morbid curiosity: his hand covers it almost entirely, from side to side.
I nestle closer to him. It's cold this morning, and Dante's body is always warmer than mine. I still prefer him to those Hungarian goose-down comforters—as much as I insist I don't want them, all the Volkovs persistently try to drown me in overpriced luxury, even though I'd be satisfied even in a filthy basement if Dante were with me.
I prepare to go back to sleep. The room is brightening with the daylight outside. It must be early morning—just past dawn—or Dante wouldn't still be here.
