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"It's alright." And he meant it. Richard offering a reassuring squeeze to Ignacio's fingers with his own. It'd been a rough day for both of them, honestly. It had seemed like everything Richard did at work earlier went wrong, and he'd only narrowly avoided serious injury when executing a dance maneuver he'd done a hundred, a thousand, a million times before. As it was, he still sprained his wrist and elbow, but the student was completely unharmed, and that was what mattered. It was a freak accident, and normally he would brush it off, but as the day had gotten longer, his mood had gotten lower. He was more than competent as a dance teacher, he knew this, but that didn't stop the nagging in the back of his mind that only luck had kept him from injuring one of his pupils.

He was a very competent dance instructor, but... was he really?

Really really?

"With my luck today, I'd probably stumble and hurt myself worse." It was supposed to be an attempt at humour, Richard lifting up his wrist in its brace and wiggling it with his tongue sticking out.

Richard's face was already colouring, heat and redness rising to flush his skin. He was going to point out that he didn't favour a hand for that, but the pull on his arm sufficiently distracted him. His brain didn't process the input from his eyes at first, Richard staring dumbly at the ice on the building. He was wearing only a light jacket, himself, so the idea of ice just... straight up did not compute for him. It wasn't like Richard was super cold hardy, either. He needed a light lap blanket when the thermostat hit 67 Fahrenheit.

It wasn't 67 out, but it sure as hell wasn't less than 32, either.

He shifted so that he could lean over to look more closely at the ice on the building. "Weird..."

Richard's hand was also out to touch the ice, and it also froze before it reached the ice. However, he froze before he touched the ice, seeing how Ignacio's hand had frozen. There was nothing in the back of his mind screaming danger, nothing warning him away from the ice on the building except for the fact that it was weird and there was an unfortunate precedent for weird things in the city.

Weird, more often than not, meant bad. Danger. Stay away. Stay away unless you want to be kidnapped, knocked unconscious, robbed... Or taken to the ICU in a strange coma, seemingly never to regain actual consciousness again.

That being said, the suggestion that maybe they not touch the ice never made it to his lips, and Richard had something else to say when Ignacio froze like that.

"...Ig? Are you okay..?"

Richard whispered Ignacio's name, concerned, reaching out to pull Ignacio closer to him. Tucking him close was harder now than it had been then, Ignacio was taller, more muscular now, but that same impulse was there. Richard murmured Ignacio's name softly, stroked his hair gently. He didn't know what it was, but something about the way Ignacio had gone so utterly, completely still reminded him of back then. So, he kept up the contact, kept up calling to Ignacio in a low, even tone, "I'm here. I'm here."

[['I'm here'. Richard didn't come much closer than the hand on Ignacio's shaking back. He didn't dare to. If he came too close, he might scare him, might make Ignacio worse, might make him run out into the night again. Richard would follow, of course he would, and follow until he could find Ignacio and bring him back home again, bring him back to himself, but if he could avoid frightening him worse in the first place, that was the best course of action for him to take.

''Nacio, I'm here.' He didn't know if his voice actually reached Ignacio when he was like this. When Ignacio was overtaken with nightmares, and he shook and retreated so far into himself that Richard wasn't sure he'd ever come out... When his eyes went distant, and his body tense, and there was that look that told Richard that Ignacio had gone away again, far away, and left Richard there, gone where Richard could not follow...

Not for lack of trying on Richard's part, of course. As Ignacio's breath came too fast, too hard, ragged and rough and terrified, Richard murmured his name over and over. 'Come back to me,' was layered behind the words.

'Please.'

'Please come home.'

Ignacio was gone, gone where Richard could not follow, could not do anything about the shadows and the monsters that Ignacio saw, believed were there. For all he wanted, there was nothing Richard could do to calm Ignacio's breathing that quickened more and more. He was helpless, useless, able only to sit there, a hand on Ignacio's back and not daring to come any closer. He had tried once, and he had gotten a black eye for his trouble when he scared Ignacio.

Ignacio had blamed himself even after the bruise had faded, no matter how many times Richard reassured him that he wasn't angry with Ignacio. That he didn't blame him, that he understood why it had happened. Richard knew better now. He couldn't--wouldn't--overwhelm him again.

He couldn't help Ignacio with his demons. He could only sit and rub his back if Ignacio let him come even that close. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes, the nightmares were so bad that Ignacio could scarcely stand to have Richard in the same room.

On those nights, Richard slept in the living room, trying not to let the loneliness and useless feeling eat at him.

It ate at him now, and Richard took a deep, steadying breath to try and calm himself down. It wasn't Ignacio's fault, Ignacio wasn't doing it on purpose, and he knew that. It hurt, but he knew that it could hardly be something personal when Ignacio didn't even recognize him when he was like this.

If Richard could just do something about those demons, he would. If he could force them away from Ignacio, he would.

If he could just be useful, he would...]]

When Ignacio stumbled back, with Richard's hand still on his lower back, the jostle pulled Richard out of his own trance. "Ignacio," he whispered, moving to brush Ignacio's hair out of his face. "Ignacio, please, look at me."

*Please look at me. Please see me.*

Ignacio didn't see him. Richard could tell by that far away, lost look in his eyes. When Richard came around to the front of him, Ignacio looked right through him. Richard may as well not be there.

Richard may as well be standing there by himself.

Alone.

"Ignacio, please," and there was a little bit of desperation in his voice if someone knew just what to listen for.

Richard caught Ignacio when his legs gave out, sweeping him up with ease gained from years of being a dance instructor and keeping him from injury. Richard lowered Ignacio to the pavement, but held his upper body up, leaning him against a bent knee. One of Richard's hands rested on the back of Ignacio's head, ready to keep Ignacio from smacking his head on the ground should he start thrashing.

That had happened, sometimes.

Frustration welled up in him, making his chest tight. The nightmares hadn't taken Ignacio in a long enough time that it had been easy to pretend like they might never again. Like Ignacio was finally safe from them.

It had been bad enough to find out that Ignacio was now fighting those nightmares in a very tangible and dangerous way.

This was almost worse, when he couldn't *do* anything.

What he would give to be able to do something, anything, anything at all that could take the darkness out of Ignacio's eyes, the stiffness out of his spine, the ragged edges of fear out of his breathing. But what could he do? What would make him of any use at all?

Richard did not take this kind of ineffectiveness well. He had not then, and he did not now. Something stung at the corner of his eyes and he brushed it away with a rough motion. He did not notice the way the back of his palm remained wet after it left his face and his glasses slightly askew. He did, however, notice a feather that fluttered to the ground nearby. The absurdity of this feather appearing with no bird nearby took him by surprise. He barked a short, humorless laugh and reached for it.

Oh, it was *cold*. A sudden shiver rolled through his body starting at shoulders that felt woefully underequipped to deal with the temperature. ...In fact, they were bare. He stared dumbly down at one of his arms, attempting to process how he could be wearing an entirely different outfit, now. He shivered again at the sudden loss of insulation from his sweater, swearing softly as he looked around for it.