Part of Josh was furious at himself for the fact that he didn’t look at the body before driving away. It would be a terrible sight, but Blake shouldn’t have to suffer in silence. However, despite his fear, his exhaustion, and despite the haze of emotion which clouded his every move and made him feel as if he was swimming through life, he knew that part of himself was in the wrong. He should be thankful he hadn’t had to see the result of what was clearly a violent death.

And now Blake was running scared from himself. Josh had never seen a man look so petrified to be in his own body but that was what he saw in Blake’s eyes: an intense fear of his own self. Not his strength, but rather his potential. He knew what it was like to have that realization. A man could only go through so many dark nights before being overwhelmed with the realization he could bear even the things which should have killed him. And with that realization came the question of whether or not he wanted to.

No, he couldn’t let Blake be on his own right now.

He knew where the wolf lived and endeavored to follow him there, since that was going to be where he ran to, seeking a safe haven after the recent trauma. He drove slow, and he made sure not to directly follow Blake, because he didn’t think he would actually welcome his presence. The warmth between them would be nothing in the face of such cold, stark fear.

As he drove, he considered what he felt very carefully. Touching Blake and walking with him invoked such primal sensations as if they were two predators taking on the world together, instead of two mismatched men with nothing in common except they were compatible in bed. Was that enough of a basis on which to continue pursuing a relationship? For a wolf, yes.

For a human? Maybe.

But in the end, no matter how he felt, he always came back to the fact that he had seen Blake in the well.

An idea hit him like a ton of bricks and he slammed on the brakes. “Holy fuck!” he exclaimed. From behind him came a series of annoyed honks as the cars behind him all slammed on their brakes, forming a tumbling domino wall of frustration. He started to drive again, thinking he was lucky someone hadn’t been riding his bumper, but those thoughts were allotted a space only in the back of his mind because the rest of him was formulating a plan. Scheming.

What if he took Blake to the well? It wouldn’t do a damn bit of good in this current situation, but it might smooth things out in the future. He was pretty sure this wasn’t at all what Ryan envisioned when he made his recommendation, and he had no idea how his leader would handle news of this, but he would figure it out later.

Josh nodded to himself and finished the rest of the drive to Magnolia Haven in silence.

The guard watching the gate checked him out with a slight frown. “You got the same look he did.”

He’s talking about Blake.

The guard at the gate was also a shapeshifter, so it was too late to shield his thoughts. He might not have been able to pick up on the exact wording but he got the meaning well enough. “You with him? He looked like he was being chased.”

Josh laughed suddenly, alarmed at how sharp it sounded. “Yeah, I know. I’m the one chasing him.”

The guard looked at him, then shook his head and laughed, too. “An omega chasing an alpha? Times are changing, aren’t they?” He opened the gate and waved one hand. “You’re in. Keep your nose clean.”

Yes, times certainly are changing.

At the Daisy Apartments, he walked up the steps rather than wait around to bother with the elevator. The exercise left him exhausted, which was a shock. He was an omega. He was built for endurance. It shook him to his core to realize he had let himself slip so far. He had known all along, of course, but it hadn’t really seemed to matter until right now.

If I had to chase Blake on foot, I never would have been able to do it.

He came to Room 205 and knocked politely on the door. No answer, which he’d expected. He tried the handle and found it locked, so settled for a slightly harder knock than before.

Still nothing.

“Blake?” he called. “It’s me! Josh!”

And still nothing. Worried now, he leaned to the door and pressed his ear against the cracked wood. Closing his eyes, he strained his senses for all they were worth and just barely managed to pick up on a slight, rapid sound like terrified breathing.

“Blake!”

No shift in the sound, no signal he’d been heard. Swearing, Josh pulled back and prepared to ram his shoulder into the door but paused just as someone exited the elevator. Stumbling over his own feet, he coughed nonchalantly and knocked on the door again. The person gave him an odd look as they went by and entered their own apartment, to which he responded with a smile. Apparently, a loud approach wasn’t going to get him inside and it would absolutely invite unwanted attention. They might throw him out, and then what?

He turned away from 205 and went over to the elevator, which opened readily enough for him. Stepping inside, he contemplated his fingers during the ride down. As far as he could see, the only course of action from here was to somehow alert the landlord and get him over here with a spare key. It would cause a whole lot of unwelcome fanfare and Blake probably wouldn’t forgive him, but if it helped save him from the internal battle he was fighting...

As he reached the bottom, the elevator gave a great, heaving thump and settled roughly. He grabbed the railing to steady himself and waited for the doors to open, but they didn’t. He wasn’t exactly claustrophobic but that didn’t mean he would enjoy being trapped in here; as he surveyed the panel of floor buttons, his heart sank almost down to the darkness of his bowels as he noticed a scrap of paper taped there which read: “Broken.”

No one will notice I’m trapped in here unless they go to get on the elevator and it won’t open for them. I’ll have to scream.

God, he didn’t want to have to do that. Wasn’t there another way? He looked around for a vent, an emergency hatch, but there was nothing and he really wasn’t surprised. A place like this wouldn’t waste money on frivolities like that.

Looking back at the button panel, he was more unnerved now than ever. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his forehead, making his eyebrow twitch. This stupid situation didn’t make any sense to him. Why not tape the note to the outside of the elevator, or shut it down, or put an orange cone or something on the outside? Why this little scrap on the inside?

Shaking his head, Josh muttered, “I’m not...I’m not thinking clearly.”

Trying again, rubbing his eyes, he finally noticed the little arrow doodled in pen at the bottom, pointing towards the “Intercom” button. He reached out, trembling, and pushed at the button to make the doors open. It was only on the second attempt that he got it but then, blessedly, he struck it and the stuck elevator doors popped open with a weary groan.

Josh sprang out, panting.

“Figgered it out, huh? Took you long enough.”

An old woman in rags stood in front of the elevator, looking amused and also slightly irritated at his slowness. She held a cane in either hand, and it was clear they were the only things keeping her standing, which explained why she hadn’t pushed any buttons on her own after initially calling the elevator.

He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little bashful. “I don’t live here.”

The old woman sniffed. “Looks like you don’t live much of anywhere.” She looked pointedly at him with rheumy eyes, which were still somehow as sharp as razors, cutting through whatever haze afflicted her to get right to the point. “Nothing but bones left on you.”

He ignored those comments in favor of an idea which had just occurred to him. “Does this building have a roof?”

The old woman started laboriously tromping into the elevator; Josh slid out of her way but reached back to place one hand over the door to prevent them from sliding out and hitting her. If he had learned anything at all recently, it was that the elderly had very fragile bones. “Can’t get there on the elevator, young man. You’d have to take the stairs.” She paused, mouth puckering like a lemon while slowly turning around inch by inch. “But not the inside stairs. The outside ones.”

She meant the fire escape.

Josh nodded and let go of the door. He heard a soft whir of machinery from somewhere within the elevator and the doors started to slide shut, hitching and grinding all the while.

“The guard checks the roof and locks the door each night,” she called out through the closing gap. “He’ll find you and your deadbeat ass.”

Josh grunted. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, but now he spoke to no one. It was only him, all alone in the dirty building.

He found the fire escape stairs on the outside of the building, a rickety metal zig-zag that reminded him unpleasantly of the dead alpha’s facial scar. Shuddering, he started climbing as if he could escape the memory. The staircase shook and jumped with every step he took, the steps rusted and bowing underfoot. At any moment, he expected the entire construction to bounce loose of whatever held it to the building, to come crashing back down to the bottom.

Maybe that’d get Blake’s attention and he’d come out, he thought sourly. Then again, maybe not. In a place like this, you were used to things breaking. After a certain amount of time, rather than care, a person learned to step around the obstruction or to go a different route. As long as it didn’t directly impede their life, why bother? He knew what that was like, having stepped around enough issues of his own.

Back and forth he walked, pausing twice to catch his breath as his thighs burned. He gripped the railing for support, trying to drag himself along, but his hands slid uselessly on the structure, pulling off handfuls of flaking rust. How he made it to the top was a mystery even to him, but he eventually did, spilling out onto the flat length of concrete with a mutter of thanks to whatever deity had allowed it.

Rising up on his hands and knees, he looked around. It looked like any other roof he’d ever stood on, which was admittedly very few. Cigarettes littered the concrete like rejected birdseed. Condoms and crushed beer cans gathered in the shadows beneath the lip of the low wall which wrapped around the entire roof. Graffiti was in abundance, as were suspicious brown splotches he could easily identify as blood. This roof had seen some shit for sure. And now it would see something it probably hadn’t ever had the honor of seeing before.

Josh stood up and oriented himself so he was facing the direction where he thought Blake’s room might be located. Three floors up and roughly in the middle. He naturally hadn’t seen a window when he was inside the apartment because all the walls had been facing the interior of the building but he felt certain there must be one which looked into the bedroom. Didn’t there? It would be easy enough to determine if he was looking at Blake’s room or not because he had a feeling the décor would be much the same as what he’d already seen. And once he was there...

“I guess I’ll just knock and hope he’s intrigued enough to go look out his window,” he muttered softly to himself. A few strides took him over to the lip, which only came up to the middle of his thighs, and he looked down. The windowsills which he could see were very thin but also very old and positioned close together, which meant he would have an easy time of climbing.

He didn’t stop to wonder if he should be doing this, didn’t give himself enough of a chance to doubt his own abilities. Never mind climbing up a staircase had almost given him a heart attack. He needed to do this.

Didn’t he?

Crouching on top of the low wall, he turned around so his ass was out in open air. Holding on tight to the inner edge, he dangled his legs down and searched for a foothold. Panic threatened to overtake him for a moment as he dangled, legs kicking uselessly. His grip slipped as his hands trembled, and he hit his chin on concrete. Crying out, he tensed up and then his toes slid neatly into a gap in the bricks. Panting, feeling warmth dribbling down his neck, not yet aware of the pain, he tested his weight on it. Grit crunched beneath his foot, and he heard the miniscule clattering as the tiny pieces of brick bounced down the side of the building before coming to rest on the window sills down far below. However, his foothold didn’t budge in the slightest. Soon enough, he found another and lowered his hand down to try and find a third. That one was easier, as his fingers were more sensitive than his shoe-clad feet.

Most of his weight now supported on three limbs, he let go of the wall. His body sagged down and for a moment he knew he was going to fall, that he would drop like a rock, hit the ground, and splatter apart into a pulverized wolf jelly.

He closed his eyes, feeling the wind whip past his face as he fell, but the agonizing impact never came even as seconds became a minute. Opening his eyes again, he found himself pressed flat against the side of the building like a spider that hadn’t yet learned how to make a web. His cheek was cold, pressed against the bricks on one side and exposed to the gusts of wind on the other, but he was in no real danger as of yet. He was in a realm of between, nearing the point of no return. If he went down any further, he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to go back up. From the way his shoulders were aching, sockets protesting this abuse, he knew he might simply lose the ability to hold on, and he would fall anyway before ever reaching his destination.

Hell, Blake might look out his window and see him falling past, a tumbling of black hair and bony limbs.

Would it be so bad if that happened? All of the pain and uncertainty he’d gone through up until now would be no more, never to bother him again. All he had to do was let go and enjoy the fall.

Stop, he told himself, and unpeeled his fingers from their current hold. Impressions of the crags in the brick had been dented into his flesh, which reddened as the pressure was released. He stretched his fingers, grimacing as they eventually limbered up. If he stood a chance of doing anything, he needed to do it before he couldn’t.

He wasn’t even sure what choice he’d made until he found another hand-hold, making sure it would take his weight, that it wouldn’t slip away from him. His fingertips were already raw and might be scraped down to the bone by the time he was done here, or so he feared.

So began the terrifyingly long, dangerously slow process. Everything inside his body screamed at him to hurry. The wolf inside him howled its protest as loud as it could, begging him to rethink this stupid decision. His body throbbed. He was tired, hollow with hunger again that had come from nowhere.

He ignored it all and focused on the climb, lowering himself down. Very soon he hit the first window sill and grabbed onto it, almost tearful with thanks at its relative smoothness. His fingers murmured their thanks, soundless little words lost beneath the pain.

Unfortunately, the rest wasn’t helping any other part of him, so he descended once more. Pounding fear became one with the rest of the unpleasant sensations coursing through his body.

Again and again, he encountered windowsills and used them to stretch the stiffness out of his fingers. He started shaking uncontrollably and couldn’t stop it, not even when he vibrated so hard at one point he actually pulled a brick straight out of its spot. Dumbfounded, he stared at it before his wobbling body sent it bouncing out of his grip and crashing down to the ground so far below. He only hoped that it didn’t strike someone or a window on the way down.

He hoped no one looked out and saw him like this.

He hoped a lot of things, and knew not all of them could come true. He wasn’t sure which ones he wanted to come true and wasn’t that worse, to not know whether or not he wanted to die?

Indecisive, he climbed, lower and lower and lower.

At least, the further down I get the more likely I am to survive the fall.

Yes, there was no longer any doubt in his mind he would fall. It was only a matter of time at this point.

Why didn’t I climb from the bottom up? Oh fuck, I’m such a fucking idiot.

He hadn’t been thinking clearly. Now he was going to die here. Yes, he would die here, on the wall, rather than on the ground. It seemed to him he was becoming as stiff as stone, that at some point his aching, immobile hands would fuse to the bricks and he would be attached. He would starve to death and then be picked down to his skeleton by scavengers and the elements, until he was only a skeleton dangling in the wind like the world’s most absurd windchime. Like the most authentic Halloween decoration in the world.

“Joshua?”

For a moment, he thought he heard his name but certainly that couldn’t be the case. It had to be a trick of the wind. Yes, in his eternity on the side of the building, he learned the wind could sound like many things. It might whisper encouragement for him on this suicide mission, or it would inform him he was about to fall, that he couldn’t hold on even a second longer, that he was letting go now. The wind could sound like alarmed cries, or a siren in the distance, and now it sounded like Blake’s voice.

“Josh, what the fuck?”

There it came again. It was an absurdly good mimicry, Josh had to give it that. Why, if he was stupid, he might even believe it was the real thing.

“Josh! Josh!”

For no reason at all, perhaps to see the sky one last time before he fell, Josh looked up and saw a face looking down at him from the windowsill above.

Blake.

The alpha stood behind his wide-open window, face slack with shock. He looked terrible but at the same time, he was also the best thing Josh had ever seen, even if he turned out to only be an illusion or something like that, a product of his desperate mind.

“Josh!” Blake said again. He looked around as if considering his options but apparently he found none at all because he leaned out of the window and held out one hand. “Grab onto my hand, okay? I’ll...I’ll pull you up!”

Up?

No, that simply wouldn’t do. Up was an impossible direction, one which he couldn’t comprehend. He hadn’t the strength to go up. Hell, now that he stopped his momentum, he was very aware that he no longer had the strength to go down, too. He was stuck here, fingers slowly slipping, too tired to care.

“Josh!”

“Blake,” he murmured, and closed his eyes. The world around him ceased to exist for a second and he was back in the park with the alpha at his side, but they were walking as wolves now and not humans. There was no death, no hardship between them, nothing but warmth, and...

“Goddammit! Hold out your hand! I can’t reach you!”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he could still see what was happening, was able to perfectly imagine that Blake was holding on to the window sill with one hand, the other dangling down as far as he could reach. His face was torn in a grimace of pain and fear, which Josh found laughable because he himself faced much greater quantities of both just now.

From above him, Blake let out a pained cry.

Josh mentally shrugged. Oh well, he thought. I’m falling.

In the moment before he started to drift, something happened. It was something very strange and he really couldn’t make sense of it but it came in the form of pressure around his wrist.

The world returned all at once, lurching up out of the darkness. The resurgence was more than a little jarring. Once more he was pressed against something cool but this time it was smooth and hard rather than crumbling and rough. He saw a long expanse of hardwood flooring which came to an end at a length of red rug. A ceiling fan churned slowly above, generating no motion in the air but making a steady creaking sound. At his side was a dresser, and on top of the red rug was a bed.

Hands closed around his shoulders and hoisted him up. Blake stared at him, wild-eyed and crazy-haired. His pale face was red with exertion, scraped by the wind. He looked like he had been haunted for a very long time before finally coming face-to-face with the ghost itself.

“What the hell?” he demanded. “I just killed someone and then you’re out there trying to commit suicide outside my window?”

“Not suicide,” Josh muttered uncertainly. He sagged in Blake’s grip, letting the other wolf be the only thing holding him up. “I was...climbing down to you. Because I had to get inside. To see if you were okay.”

Blake stared at him like he was insane, clearly not understanding. “Climbing down to me? You were below me.”

“Yeah, um...” Josh rubbed his face with both hands. Then, feeling dizzy and not trusting his own two feet, he grabbed onto Blake’s arms to support himself. “I must have...overshot. I kind of zoned out a bit.”

“You zoned out while climbing down a building.” Blake’s dark eyes were very hard. “Are you seriously that fucking suicidal?”

“No! I did it because I was worried about you!”

“And now I’m worried about you! You’re a fucking mess. All bloody now, too.” Blake suddenly pushed Josh away.

Josh let himself fall where he would, which luckily happened to be on the bed. He slumped there on the mess of blankets, which smelled of smoke and Blake.

“Don’t you think I have enough to worry about without adding you into the mix? Fucking shit, man!” Blake tossed his hands up into the air and paced in an aggravated little circle, clearly looking for something to take out his anger on. “If it’s not you worrying about me, it’s me worrying about you. If it’s neither, I’m getting myself in deep shit. It doesn’t ever end. How can we...” He stopped.

Josh just looked at him, too weary to move. “Yeah?”

“Nothing,” Blake muttered, turning his face away. Then, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry our date got fucked up so badly. I’m not even sure how it happened. I...didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay,” Josh said, very softly. He wanted to stand up and embrace the alpha, to share comfort between them, but even speaking was pushing the limits of what he was capable of right now. “It’s over, right? You....He’s gone. He won’t be coming back. And there was no one around to see what happened. You can’t be traced to him because you were a wolf. The police won’t be able to pin anything on anyone, and they’ll give up real quick once they realize that.”

“Not if there’s a shifter on the force,” Blake grunted.

Josh just shrugged. It made his shoulders feel as if they were being shoved full of needles. “So? I was there as a witness. I can back you up on this, testify for you that you had no choice, that he was feral or whatever. It’s going to be okay.”

“I really doubt that. But say it is. Then what?”

“Then...we try to go out on another date and hope that it doesn’t end in disaster again?” he suggested. “And maybe hope that nothing happens that leads to me climbing down an apartment building again.”

Blake looked at him very suspiciously, but something else seemed to be glittering in his black eyes. Josh was too tired to try and decipher it. “You’re a danger to yourself like this. You know that, right?”

“Well, I was trying to fix it by having some fun with you, but I guess that plan has backfired, huh?”

“I guess so.” Blake pushed away from the open window and sagged down on the bed next to him, making the springs shriek and groan beneath his weight. “I really did want to give you a good time, today. If anyone deserves it, you do.”

“Well...we could...try again? Like I said?” Experimentally, Josh sagged sideways and let his head rest against Blake’s shoulder. The alpha didn’t move towards him but neither did he shift away. “And I was thinking, maybe I could tell you how to find the wishing well. You could go and look into it yourself and...”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“You think I haven’t thought about doing that on my own?” Blake let out a rough laugh. “Sure I have. But I think some things should just be left alone. You already looked. You said you saw me. That’s enough fucking with the balance of nature for now, you know? Let’s not push our luck.” He tilted his head so his cheek rested against the top of Josh’s head, sending quivers through his body. The warmth seeping into him from the alpha was nothing short of intoxicating, bringing back soft echoes of memory of what they’d done together only a short time ago.

They could have sat together in silence like that until they fell asleep but now there was a question burning in Josh’s mind and he needed to know the answer. “You said our luck. Does that mean...”

He was silenced by a large finger pressing against his lips. “I don’t know what it means,” Blake replied softly. “You saw something. I don’t know if you should have, but you did and here you are. I’m attracted to you. You seem to have a way of doing stupid things around me, which means you like me, too. Can we just...not label it? Can’t we just be?”

“Okay,” Josh agreed. “Fine with me.” It was more than fine. In fact, if he’d been capable of it, he would be jumping for joy. Unfortunately, he was so exhausted now that asking anything strenuous of himself like that was simply out of the question. He slumped deeper against Blake and was rewarded with an arm tossed around his shoulders, drawing him close; they lay down on the bed together, two exhausted men trying to take comfort from one another.

Josh fell asleep very quickly, contented despite the condition he was in. In fact, he might almost be described as happy.

When he woke again, he was alone in the bed and a chill filled the room from the open window, blowing his hair around his face. His nose was cold and he tucked his face down even further beneath the blankets to warm it with the heat of his own breath. The room was dark, throwing shadows across the bedroom. Above, the ceiling fan continued its eternal turning.

Blake?

“I’m here,” a soft, distant voice replied. He hadn’t known he spoke aloud, but maybe he had. The line blurred sometimes when you were a wolf.

Blake stepped through the thick shadows in the doorway, carrying a bowl, of all things.

“Not a cat,” Josh muttered sleepily. He felt the alpha’s confusion and so endeavored to try and explain better. “I don’t need milk right now.”

“Okay, then. No milk.”

Some fuzzy voice in the back of his mind attempted to inform him his sleep-logic of milk being the only thing which could go in a bowl was vastly incorrect, but he couldn’t find it within himself to give much of a fuck.

Blake set the bowl down on the bed, using a curl of the blanket to keep it from spilling. “I don’t need milk either,” he said, going along with Josh’s mumbles. “I’m intolerant.”

“No ice cream?”

“Nah.”

“Poor thing.”

Through half-lidded eyes, he watched Blake fiddle with whatever he held, which was soon revealed to be a first aid kit.

“Non-dairy ice cream is too expensive anyway,” Blake said, keeping the conversation going, however slowly. He opened the kit and pulled out a small pouch, which looked distinctly like a condom but was revealed to be a piece of fabric. He dipped it in the bowl of water. “This might sting a little but it’s necessary, okay? Hold still.”

Josh obediently held still as Blake crouched over him with the scrap of damp cloth. The alpha gently tilted his chin up with one hand, then dabbed the cloth against his skin. “Does that hurt?”

“No?”

“Good. I have to get this blood off you. You hit your chin?”

“When I was climbing down the building,” he confirmed.

“Well, it’s not healing.”

Josh blinked, a little surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean that you have so little fuel left in you that your body can’t do the shit it needs to do. We’re going to put a stop to that, but until then, you have to be treated like you’re a human.”

Josh moaned softly, playfully. “I don’t wanna be a human.”

Blake growled at him. “Then you shouldn’t be so damn pathetic. Now fucking hold still, or else I’m going to gag you with this.”

Josh opened and closed his mouth a few times but stopped when the alpha bared his fangs at him. He relaxed against the pillow beneath him, watching Blake’s wrist as he wiped and wiped at the blood. It flaked away reluctantly, having formed a hard mass as they slept. Pain reared its ugly head but he held back his whimper.

Eventually, satisfied with what he’d done, Blake tossed the wet square of cloth into a garbage can all the way on the other side of the room. He produced another one, this time smelling distinctly of alcohol, and repeated the process briefly. Once that was done, he also tossed it away; producing a tube of ointment, then dabbed a small amount on Josh’s skin and slowly rubbed it in. Finally, he produced a bandage and stuck it on him. “There. You’re cured.”

Rubbing his eyes to try and stave off a wave of exhaustion, Josh laughed a little. “Did you used to be a Boy Scout or something?”

“Ha. No. Smartass. I’ve just been in a lot of situations where I needed to know this stuff.” Blake grabbed the bowl and set it down on the floor, then climbed up beside him and curled up around him. “Go back to sleep. Unless you have somewhere you really need to be?”

Josh shook his head. “Nowhere I would want to be, anyway. I don’t want to go home and be there. I’d rather be here with you.”

“No more climbing my fucking apartment building.”

“Okay...” He tried to make it sound as if he was agreeing only reluctantly but in reality, he had no intentions of doing that ever again. Even if the day came when he was back to full health, he’d rather cut off his own arm. He nestled closer to Blake, eyes closing readily with the desire to sleep.

Blake murmured against the back of his neck. “In the morning, we’ll get you some more to eat.”

Morning...

He didn’t have the strength to look outside and see what time it might be. Morning might have been only two hours away, or it might be as many as 12. Throughout the craziness of the day’s events, he had completely lost track of the timeline. When they had done things no longer seemed as important as the fact that they had done them.

His eyes closed again, against his will, and nothing short of an earthquake could have woken him.