Peter

The cold was eating into Peter's bones and his shabby clothing did nothing to stave it. He clung to himself and rubbed his arms. The park was quiet and the sun had almost completely set, the sky was lit with purple streaks. The bench was even frostier than the air.

As he'd left the apartment building the doorman had given him a curious look. Peter had looked down at himself. Yep he'd thought, I look like a hobo.

Peter let his thoughts wash over him completely for a moment. Frederic was dead. That was one less string tying him to a black fate. And he could feel each of those strings. One to Mamma Bella, another to the Gypsies, and the last to Roman. Mamma Bella would want her money, and soon. The Gypsies weren't going to be as easy to smooth over. He tried not to think about it, but they were ever present in the back of his mind, lingering. Each blessed moment Peter managed to forget, one of the strings would pull him back to reality, back to his approaching death.

A cyclist passed him on the path, a reflective sticker on the wheels spinning until it was a halo of orange. The few birds that had been chirping fell silent and a squirrel ran through Peter's feet with a feverous speed.

"May I?" Roman asked, pointing at the empty bench next to Peter.

Peter shrugged and sighed, pulling his legs away from Roman's. Childish maybe, but Peter didn't want to have any contact with the feral Upir.

"I'm sorry, about before. I thought- I thought I could get used to the hunger." Roman dropped his head into his pale hands. Peter couldn't get the image out of his mind. The glassy silver of Roman's eyes. His fangs. Actual fangs. But more than that, he felt Roman's hunger like only the beast could. He's seen that look on his own face before. It was more than hunger, it was desperation. Like he needed blood that very second or he might just cease to exist. What scared Peter the most wasn't fear of Roman himself, but his empathetic thoughts towards the Upir.

"Well that was pretty stupid," Peter said. "Lion doesn't stop wanting flesh just because the gazelle got away."

Roman grunted. At least he's still articulate, Peter thought with enough sarcasm to sink a ship.

"What're you doing in New York, anyway?" Peter asked.

"You're asking what I'm doing here? You're the one that showed up hanging outside my window covered in blood."

Peter finally turned to face Roman, his face pulling into a confused frown. "What? I was in the hospital."

Roman ground his teeth. "I found you, tied to my roof. Someone had left you there. For me to find, presumably."

"Then?"

"Then I took you to the hospital. End of story."

"How did you know I was at Frederic's?"

"I followed you," Roman said after a long pause.

"You saved me," Peter said quietly.

"Couldn't just leave you there to die. Shelly'd be pissed."

"You saved me so Shelly wouldn't get mad?"

"You want to be dead? I'll take you back, I'm sure by now someone's taken up the gang empire. I can addle your mind so you can't move and they flay you alive. That what you want?" The feral nature was seeping back into Roman's face.

"No." Peter felt the void of his wolf. Right now it should be screaming out, sending adrenalin coursing through his body. But it was silent. Absent.

"Then try not to be so ungrateful," Roman snapped.

"Still think it's pretty weird that you were following me…" Peter said with a grin.

Roman pushed himself to his feet in a blur and started to walk away in long angry strides. Clearly he wasn't ready for humour. Peter wondered if he'd ever been ready for humour. The reflected back to other times, better times. When Roman took them driving in his convertible, skipping school and smoking on top of the steel mill. When Roman had laughed. Before the visions, before Vargulfs and Leetha. Back when life wasn't quite so complicated.

"Roman wait!" Peter shouted. Roman continued walking. "Roman. Roman I need help," it came out as nothing more than a whisper and it burned Peter's throat. Asking for help wasn't something he'd been raised to do. Not from an outsider. Especially not from an Upir. But Peter was running out of options fast, and this was his last chance. Peter's head drooped and sagged.

Peter looked up as a lithe pattering of footsteps approached.