It was a crowded, merry group of people, because the bar itself was a decent, relatively high class one. There were no drink stains on the glossy countertops, no half drunk morons leaning to close to someone else, no ear shattering music reverberating through the fuzzy speakers. Instead, it was a pleasant, warm sort of place with glowing gold lights and red orange decorations so that everything felt like a fireplace, without the burning.
Seth sat at the bar itself, a glass of red wine in his hand. His fake ID really did work wonders in places like these, and he would only need it a little longer before he didn’t have to rely on it anymore. Dressed in a pair of slimming black jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and expensive leather shoes, Seth tapped the edge of the mahogany bar top, signaling the bartender for another with a serene smile.
It was a good night. And there was an attractive, raven haired young woman in the corner of the room who kept glancing his way, a coy smile playing at the edges of her lips. If he played his cards right, he might just be able to have an even better night.
Seth grinned.
It was all going to be just fine.
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Of all the places he expected, it wouldn’t be some dumpy city that no one ever talked about. The fact that he was even there was the result of a strange turn of events that Lev would have rather not had to deal with. He wished he could say he was over his past by now. He wished he could turn around and walk back out, just as it had been done to him, like nothing before that had ever mattered.
But he couldn’t just ignore the fact that Nikolai was within reach. If anything, he felt that he was being rather calm, all things considering.
He looked different. Almost two years had changed Nikolai in the subtle way a man who didn’t want to be recognized, and yet was stubbornly holding onto everything he felt was unique about him, would change. But that was okay, because Lev had changed too.
Unlike Nikolai, Lev was at least of legal age in this country to drink, but that had never stopped the other man before. He waved to get the attention of the woman bringing him his drinks, requested their best whiskey to be sent to the man with the dark hair and dark clothes at the counter, along with a note written in Russian, “You look well, Nikolasha”. It wasn’t wine for the connoisseur, but not everyone listed wine as their favorite drink.
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He had one elbow perched on the bar, Seth’s head tilted sideways, resting on the palm of his hand. His other hand was lazily swirling the wine in his glass, watching the colors shift against the sides, letting the scent of it reach his nose and make him draw a deep breath, letting the familiar, airy smells pervade his senses.
The woman in the corner was still eyeing him with open invitation now. Seth gave her a slow, sly smile and then took a sip of his own drink again, savoring the rich flavor. Once he was finished, he would get up and move across the room to her; it was an easy game to play, one that he had done often in the last two years.
One that he had done deliberately, to forget.
(He could never forget.)
Seth drained the last of his wine and made to get up, but -
“Sir.”
A waitress was standing beside him, smiling. There was a bottle in her hand - not of wine, but oddly enough, of whiskey, which was peculiar enough for Seth to slowly sit back down, frowning at it. He was not a whiskey drinker, not now, not anymore. Wine was his preferred drink and had been for a while, and the liquid in his current glass had been a dark red - clearly not the amber color of whiskey.
“An admirer?” drawled Seth, accent thick as he drew the bottle to him for closer inspection. “How very...unexpected.”
It wasn’t the first time. He’d had people send him this sort of thing before, in an attempt at catching his attention, but it never worked the way they wanted it to. Seth eyed it with curiosity, then turned the bottle over.
A piece of paper was taped to the side. The waitress had disappeared back into the crowd, her job done, and Seth’s frown deepened. He put the bottle onto the bartop and tugged the piece of paper free, unfolding it to look at what was written inside.
You look well, Nikolasha.
The world around him froze.
For a few seconds - precious, crucial seconds - Seth did nothing but stare at the words, written in such a familiar hand that it was hard to even consider the possibility that it was anyone else’s handwriting. The Russian, as well, was a dead giveaway - but it was the name, more than anything, that was making everything inside of him seize up, his nerves on fire.
No.
No.
Slowly he folded the note, stuck it in his pocket, as calm as could be. Calmly, he extracted a set of folded bills, and unfurled a few to place on the bar beside his now empty drink. He stuck the billfold back into his pocket, then stood, flashing a nod and a passable smile to the bartender, who was thanking him for such a generous tip.
Seth made his feet move, out of the range of the stool he’d been sitting on.
And then he bolted, running for the front door as hard as he could, wrenching it open and careening outside without so much as a look behind him.
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Nikolai would run. Lev already knew this. That was why he, after giving his request to the waitress and tipping her generously, had finished his drink and vacated his seat. There was absolutely no way the other man would want to approach him, and after knowing him for so long, Lev knew what he would most likely do.
No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t expected him to run before. But now that he knew he was capable of such cowardice, he was prepared now.
“Good evening,” his thick accent and tone making it sound like the evening was anything but good. Striking blue-green eyes narrowed on the dark haired man as he exited the building, standing with his arms crossed, waiting. He wore dark clothes as well, jeans that didn’t hide any of the definition in his legs, and a dark navy button down was untucked, and the top buttons unbuttoned, under a tweed brown blazer.
Without waiting for a response, Lev reached forward to grab for the other man’s arm, pulling him away from the bar’s entrance, and shoved him unceremoniously up against the brick alley way wall.
He knew they were getting odd looks from the people still around the doors, but most of them were too tipsy to really care. Some murmuring perhaps, but it wasn’t as though Lev planned on staying long.
His blond hair was a bit longer than the last he’d seen Nikolai, at least where it wasn’t cut shorter in the back, but it wasn’t as though the other could even remember, or care, what he looked like before.
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He had, not for the first time, underestimated Lev.
Or rather, he’d underestimated just how far ahead of him Lev already was. Seth had made the grievous error of thinking that he’d still been back in the bar, watching for his reaction, but Lev had been two steps ahead of him the whole time.
The sound of his voice sent something ringing through Seth, but he barely had time to register the achingly familiar tones before a hand gripped his upper arm, dragging him bodily sideways. Seth’s back hit the brick wall harder than he’d expected, a stifled gasp escaping as the wind was knocked out of him. He jerked his head up, shaking his hair out of his face, and this was a mistake, too.
Because now he could see that it was, unmistakably, Lev standing in front of him. What little hope there had been that he was not who Seth had thought drained immediately out of him. The tall figure stood an inch or so above him, maybe more, and the blond hair was longer, but styled impeccably, in spite of the fact that he’d just thrown someone.
Seth felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him a second time. He forced himself to relax, forced all of the tension currently running through him to calm, Seth straightening a little, lifting a hand to swipe at a stray strand of black hair that had fallen across his forehead.
He was very studiously ignoring the fact that his pulse was going a thousand miles a second.
A small smile tugged at the corners of Seth’s lips and grew, because the lazy, relaxed nature he had cultivated was all he had left to try and safeguard what was inevitably going to happen. He leaned his head back against the brick wall behind him.
”Добрый вечер,” Seth said, sounding slightly breathless, chest rising and falling.
“Good evening, Lyova.”
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Something tightened in Lev’s chest, his fingers burning with electricity as he’d pulled Nikolai to the side, but it was easy to pass it off as anger, especially after everything.
Nikolai looked good, and part of Lev wished that he didn’t. He wondered if maybe it would be a little easier if maybe this man was just as miserable as he’d been for the past two years. Not a word had been uttered between them, and now this was how they were greeting each other for the first time.
Where Nikolai smiled, Lev frowned. He didn’t care about the space kept between them, and lifted his forearm to press against the brick above the other man’s head, his hand balled into a fist as he leaned close, his other hand against his hip. It was as though he was looking at something for the first time. Really looking. Inspecting it for damage, for any hint that it was maybe spoiled or ruined.
The answer to his observations came in the form of a sneer, his usually handsome face twisting into disgust.
“You have no right to call me that,” he hissed. He’d lost that right when he ran like the coward he was. With no explanation, no reason, although if Lev was honest with himself, he should have seen the signs. How was he supposed to know everything would change at the drop of a hat after years… years... after everything they’d gone through, after everything they’d accomplished together.
“Seth?” he practically spat, once again disgusted. “You changed your name.” And it was obvious by his tone that he wasn’t just talking about the name Seth.
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He hated that Lev looked as good as he did - even better, in fact, than the last time that Seth had seen him. It had been two years; rather than waste away, or disappear, Lev seemed to have only grown more into himself, a better and more impressive version of the person that he had always been. And this fact, especially, made everything that much harder.
Lev’s arm propped up against the wall beside him, bringing them even closer, did not help much, either. Seth felt trapped in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, caged in on either side, in spite of Lev having his other hand on his hip. There was, at the very least, a chance of a way out, but Lev was too close now, staring at him with those blue eyes of his that always seemed to be able to read Seth better than anyone else could.
There was a wild, desperate urge that rose to just lean forward, to close the distance between them, and -
No. No. It wasn’t like that, it had never been like that, and it was never going to be like that, especially not now, not after everything had happened between them. Or not happened, as the case may have been. And especially not when Lev was looking at him now as though he was something on the bottom of his shoe.
Something inside of his chest was twisting, threatening to burst out at any moment.
Seth rolled his eyes. “Do not be so dramatic. If you vould prefer me to call you Lev, then I vill call you Lev, if that makes you feel better.”
He resisted the urge to lift a hand and pat Lev’s cheek consolingly. The sarcasm and deliberate barbs would only hold out for so long.
You changed your name.
Seth sucked in a breath, so sharp it was almost painful, and a look of startled realization crossed his face as he realized just what was being implied here. There was more to it than that, a heady knowledge that Lev was making him confront the fact that he had taken things a step too far.
“I did,” he said, after a moment, still trying to keep his tone light. “I thought Nikolai vas a little too much mouthful to speak all the time. Seth is a good name.”
The lack of comment on his surname was also deliberate.
“Are you done now? Can I go?”
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The eye rolling made Lev tense with irritation. Once upon a time he might have considered Seth’s antics endearing, but now it was rude and dismissive. Although perhaps Seth could sense his annoyance, because he didn’t seem to want to follow through on any patronizing gestures that might have normally come after a comment like that.
And then Seth decided it was perfectly acceptable to ask if he could go.
Lev’s nostrils flared with anger that was barely restrained, his hand gripping tighter into a fist as he pressed it against the wall above Seth’s head, and his eyes seemed to spark with a cold fire.
"You have nothing you want to say?" he asked, his voice calm even with his accent, but there was heat that was rolling just below the surface. His type of anger didn’t explode, and Seth would know that. It would slowly build in intensity and take a long time to settle.
It had already been building.
"Of all things I thought you were," he said slowly, his voice low and hinting on dangerous, "Spineless vas not one."
His eyes were narrowed, jaw clenched tight as he looked down at Seth. Maybe there was an explanation for what happened. Maybe he wasn’t giving him enough of a chance to explain himself. If something happened to him, Lev knew he would feel horrible for having hated him all this time, only to find out it wasn’t his fault. Surely it had to be that.
"What happened to you? Was it your father?" he asked, something in his voice shifting into something hinting on concern underneath the heat of anger. He was giving Seth every chance to come clean, to tell him if there was some extenuating circumstance that kept him from making any kind of contact for two years and changing his name.
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Did he have something he wanted to say?
Too much was the answer to that. Too much, and nowhere for him to start. There were a thousand, million questions burning through Seth’s mind, none of them capable of being put into words that would make any sense at all. He couldn’t even have explained anything at all.
The look on Lev’s face - in his eyes - was terrible. And it ached, somewhere inside of his chest, somewhere he had long since buried away, pushed aside, ignored for the last two years. He had seen that expression only once or twice before, and it had never been directed at Seth before, cold fury radiating off of him in waves.
Well. He had a reason to be angry.
Seth did not want to do this.
Of all the things I thought you were, spineless was not one of them.
A sick, swooping feeling of shame mingled with anger and touched with immediate outrage burned in Seth’s throat like bile. He stared up at Lev, his lips pressing together in a thin line, his pulse rabbit face against his neck, and for a few moments, there was nothing but silence, nothing but the heavy weight of everything that was unsaid between them.
He couldn’t answer the question. Not truthfully, anyway.
None of Lev’s questions could be answered truthfully anymore.
”Nyet,” Seth said, and he’d dragged the old facade back across himself again, though the smile was harder, not reaching his eyes. It was too edged in tension to be genuine. “It vas not my father.”
A part of it had been. Just not the most important part.
“I just - “ He forced himself to say the words, to act as though it didn’t matter, pushing past the feeling in his chest, wanting it to hurt because nothing could possibly be worse than everything he already felt now, burning in his throat.
“I just did not vant to see you anymore, that is all.”
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I just did not want to see you anymore, that is all.
That was all? That was the answer Seth had for him? After two years, that was all?
Before he even realized what he was doing, Lev had ripped his hand away from where it rested against his hip, and his fingers hand curled around the fabric at Seth’s neck. He jerked him away from the wall and back up against it, his anger flaring, eyes wild with hate and bitterness and longing and so many other things that it was easier to play into Seth’s hand and leave with hating each other than trying to work through the cascade of emotions that threatened to overtake him.
”Мудак,” he spat, his expression twisting once more from the anger he felt, but the words Seth said were ripping through him like a knife. Seth must have known how terrified Lev would have been after he’d disappeared, how he thought something could have happened to him. How he’d gone for weeks, months even, without being able to sleep for fear that he would see on the news about a body found in the river, or learn that Nikolai had been kidnapped for ransom. He hadn’t taken anything with him, or at least that was how it appeared at first. Nothing obvious. Nothing that would matter to a thief. Thieves tended to pick items of monetary value, and not old books with photographs.
Eighteen years of their lives, and it was thrown away because Seth didn’t want to see him again. Lev refused to believe that was all there was to it, but the way Seth had said it made his blood boil. How could he say something like that so casually? So unfeeling?
“I was happier when I thought you were dead,” he hissed, shoving Seth against the wall once more and pulling his hand back before the people around the bar entrance decided they wanted to be good samaritans.
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He had expected the reaction, had braced for it, but it still hurt.
Lev’s fingers were tight in his shirt, and then Seth found himself dragged forward, briefly, before he was thrown back against it. The thin cotton of his black sweater scraped across the brick, making him hiss, his head snapping painfully back, his chest rising and falling too fast to draw air into his lungs.
For one brief, glittering moment, his eyes met Lev’s, and there was too much there, twisted emotions that made the bile rise, made everything inside of him rebel against what was happening, so that when the word was spat back at him, laced with vitriol, it hurt more than it should have. They’d called each other that, jokingly, as boys, and then as teenagers. It had never been snarled at him with hatred lacing every syllable.
I was happier when I thought you were dead.
He’d been happier when he’d thought he was dead too, because then he didn’t have to think about it - about any of it, about all the things he had done in the past that were now encroaching into his present, thick with the memory of it all.
Seth was breathing heavily, both hands braced back against the wall he was slumped against. His palms felt scraped and ragged; he’d automatically flung them back as Lev had thrown him, and while he didn’t think they were bleeding, they were still throbbing.
It wasn’t what hurt the most. Seth found himself shoved back once more, except this time a hand rose and caught at Lev’s retreating wrist before it could be yanked back any farther, Seth jerking him to an abrupt stop.
“Vell, guess vhat?” he hissed, grinning maniacally, something wild and shattered in his gaze. ”I am not dead.”
He knew, too well, how much it would have hurt. How it would have felt, for Lev to wake up and realize that Seth was no longer there, that he had gone. He hadn’t taken anything with him, had left all of his worldly possessions at the time behind - and even then, none of them had mattered except the one thing that he couldn’t bring with him.
The only thing he had taken had been the photograph, but Lev would never know about that.
“Hey!”
Someone - one of the bar patrons, most likely - had stepped forward, a concerned look on his face, brows furrowed. Seth didn’t recognize him at all, just another face in the crowd, someone interfering with what they were doing - it couldn’t even really be called a conversation.
“Do you need help, buddy? No fighting here.”
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He’d stepped back, trying to put some space between him and Seth before he did something stupid, before he did something he would regret. But Seth had grabbed onto his wrist, stopping him before he could move too far away, jerking him to a stop and grinning at him wildly.
And for the briefest moment, that look reminded Lev of a cornered animal, one that had nowhere to run, nowhere to go, fighting tooth and nail because they had nothing left but their instinct to try and survive -
But then Seth spoke, and even though he could hear the other people approaching, Lev was already swinging his fist at the side of Seth’s face.
They’d fought before. They’d roughhoused and wrestled and were normal boys who liked to try to best the other. But Lev had never thrown a punch at Nikolai with the intent to seriously hurt him before.
Seth. Nikolai had died two years ago. All that was left was this pathetic excuse of a man that Nikolai would be ashamed to even imagine himself becoming, two years ago.
“Hey! Someone call the cops! Get him off,” someone shouted, and someone grabbed onto Lev’s arm pulling him back. He struggled, of course, ripping his arm away and when someone decided to punch him, as if that would subdue him or make him change his mind about things, Lev rounded on them as well.
But that was fine. If the cops came and threw him in jail for the night, that was better than letting Seth see just how torn apart he was. How broken hearted he was. He wasn’t himself, and he knew it. He was bitter and jaded and angry, and he would probably never be the man Nikolai knew ever again.
Lev would have been ashamed of himself, too, had he known two years ago what he would become.
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He had nothing left. Not anymore. He had his cushy, extravagant life and his varying bed partners, none of which had been capable of filling the gap that Lev had unknowingly left behind. Or rather, that Seth had carved out of his life, a gaping wound that had yet to heal properly. Time had made it easier to bear, but it had never truly been easy, and he had never really been able to forget.
And for a brief, shimmering moment, he thought about Lev grinning at him as they’d skidded across an empty parking lot together, pelting from the cops. He thought about Lev putting an arm around him when they were kids, sheltering him from the rest of the world and his father. He thought about those blue eyes that always seemed to know him better than anyone.
The moment held, briefly, and then shattered.
Pain exploded along the side of Seth’s face, a violent, crushing blow that had him staggering to the side, sparks flying in his vision. He let out an instinctive gasp, a hand flying up to touch his cheek, which felt like fire under his finger; he’d been hit before, by various Order side people still trying to be impressive, but never like this.
Never from Lev.
It took Seth a moment to realize what was happening. Seth had rounded on the man that had interrupted, and now there were shouts and yells coming from all around, the two of them scuffling. Seth heaved a breath, wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and tried to resist the urge to run, to use this as a distraction and get the hell out of here before Lev could turn on him again.
He was always running, always.
Seth lurched forward, arms slinging around Lev’s waist, and it was with a momentous effort that he hauled him back, or tried to, at least. Seth was no lightweight; he was a capable man who had spent years fighting, and while he instinctively knew that Lev was both larger and stronger than he was, it didn’t mean that Seth was incapable.
”Stop,” he said harshly, and stumbled back a few steps, the man that had interrupted bellowing furiously, something along the lines of ”this shitty b*****d - “ and ”I was just trying to help - “
“Stop,” Seth said again and let go of Lev, chest heaving, his eyes glittering with adrenaline, his heartbeat too fast to his own ears.
“Do not fight. He is - “
He sucked in a sharp breath. The sentence fractured, but he felt the rawness of the moment around him, the bitter taste of it in his throat.
“ - he is my husband. Stop.”
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Lev was cursing and spitting in Russian as they scuffled, and at some point, a fist or elbow or something hit him in the face and jaw, teeth cutting into his bottom lip. And in that moment of suddenly being dazed, he was being drawn back, arms wrapped securely around his waist and hauling him away from the man he’d been fighting.
For a moment, Lev thought that it was another one of the people who had been standing at the entrance pulling him back, and he was ready to whirl around to punch them too.
But the sound of Seth’s voice, so close to his ear saying to stop, both to him and the others, had him freezing in place.
Only for that moment, though.
As soon as Seth pulled his arms away, Lev jerked away as well, placing a few feet between him and the others, the back of his hand pressed to his bloody lip. He’d deserved it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t regret getting himself injured.
His chest was rising and falling with each heavy breath, his eyes going from Seth to the other men and back. He could have laughed when Seth admitted their relationship, and almost did, but his anger was still on high and it was going to take a while to get him to calm down, if at all.
“Трахать тебя,” he growled lowly, eyes on Seth. His movements had turned into pacing, as if not sure where to go, too restless to stand still. There was still muttering among the others about calling the cops, to which Lev finally laughed. Cold and bitter and full of simmering hate and anger.
He would love to see how that would turn out for Seth; everything coming to light that he had a husband that he abandoned two years ago without a word.
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It felt like such a wrong term, now, after two years.
It had been that long since he’d even seen Lev, a little longer still that they’d signed the papers. Seth could still remember the thrill of it, the gleeful, giddy joy of rubbing it in his father’s face, of deliberately mailing him a card to crow about what he had done.
And all the while, everything had slowly, slowly been coming to a head. All the while, the world around him had been fragile enough to collapse at any moment, and was steadily doing so, except Seth hadn’t noticed until it had been too late.
Lev had wrenched himself away, presumably to keep himself from slugging Seth again. They weren’t that much different when it came to height; Lev was a little broader in the shoulders, a little more filled out, but for the most part, they were relatively similar, close enough in size, at least, that it had never really been a competition, except for when they had been kids and Seth had started off as the taller one. Their ages too, were nearly the same, only off by a year or two.
Everything else was different. From his blond hair and blue eyes to the way he dressed to the entire rest of his life, it was a stark and obvious contrast. A contrast that had only deepened the growing fissure over the years, until everything had fallen inward.
“What sort of ******** relationship are you even in,” the man was muttering. Seth spared him a brief look, the rest of the onlookers shifting, some showing annoyance, the others showing wariness. Lev’s hate filled insult was ringing in Seth’s ears, reverberating around and around and around again, though he was fastidiously ignoring it.
“Ve are fine. Ve do not need any of you,” said Seth, and then, when the man showed every sign of interfering again, Seth stepped towards him, all smiles and relaxed attitude, his hair in sleek black waves down to his shoulders.
“Please let us discuss this - family matters,” he added, by way of explanation, even if the word family hurt more than he could stand.
At long last, the man turned, shaking his head, clearly thinking they were delusional, or abusive, or perhaps both. The rest of the people that had spilled out as well were now walking away, muttering or jabbing each other in the sides. Seth watched them go, and then slowly turned back to look at Lev, his expression shifting.
“Are you going to hit me again?”
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He was too high strung. He’d reached the point where if he wasn’t careful, he would only get more and more angry and frustrated and violent. Every nerve felt like it was fraying. Every pulse of his heart too heavy against his ears, and all he could see was red. He drew in deep, steady breaths in an attempt to calm himself, pacing from one side of the alley to the other, slowly placing more distance between himself and the others. Between himself and Seth.
His hand hurt, but he couldn’t feel it. He was too deep underwater to truly recognize any poor decisions he might make. He hated getting to this point, but knew he just needed time to simmer down, to slowly cool off without instigation or antagonizing comments.
When it came to fight or flight, he was the exact opposite of Seth. At least in recent interaction. While Seth had done everything to run, Lev was revved up to fight. Which meant he needed to keep his distance.
“It depends,” he said lowly, still obviously on edge as his eyes locked onto Seth’s, and he took another step back as he saw the red of his cheek from where Lev had punched him.
“You asked before if I was done. If you could go. Leave. Run,” he practically snarled, not because he was necessarily being pushed to anger, but because he couldn’t help himself. Even if he wanted to have a normal conversation at this point, it wasn’t possible.
And really, if he thought hard about it, he didn’t know what he wanted to accomplish by approaching Seth that night. Maybe he just wanted to let him know that he knew he was alive.
“I want nothing to do with you.”
And he didn’t really want to hit him again.
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He didn’t want to be here.
He didn’t want to be here, the sole focus of Lev’s fury and hatred, the object of all of his current rage, knowing that each step that Lev took was just another step away from him.
But Seth had been the one to walk away first - to run away first, and they both knew it.
The side of his face was throbbing painfully, already beginning to redden and bruise. Talking hurt, his jaw aching, and Seth’s hand was still raised, fingers pressing lightly against the injury, feeling the heat of it radiating outwards. Slowly, it fell away, both of his arms at his side, Seth’s gaze rising to meet Lev’s.
There was so much there. He couldn’t understand any of it and wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to.
I want nothing to do with you.
It took the wind out of him. He knew it was true, knew it was what he had expected, and yet it still felt like a javelin to the chest, like something was trying to crawl its way out of him, desperate and furious and wanting so much and never being able to have what it was that he wanted more than anything.
He couldn’t say the things he needed to say. Or wanted to say. They stuck in his throat and were swallowed down before they left.
“Fine,” said Seth, and took a breath, glancing away. “I think it is long past time for me to leave, anyway.”
He took a step back, then another. His chest was aching, too, but not because anyone had hit him there.
”Я никогда не хотел причинить тебе боль,” he blurted, and the words tore at his throat, painful and raw and honest, more so than they’d been in a long time, not tinged with laughter or slyness for once, but just - there. Open and truthful in the face of an ending.
And it was so much easier to lose himself in the rolling syllables of his - their - native language. So much easier to express himself when he didn’t have to think so hard about how he sounded.
”Прости,” said Seth quietly, and then he was running, running away, because it was all he was ever good at anymore.
Guine
