MASSIVE CW: See tags and read at your own discretion! Brief summary in description for anyone unable to read the chapter <3

Henry didn’t often venture out into the heart of the city. It was a convergent site, sure. But down here, the quiet scent of nature died at the screaming hands of filthy city sludge.

Rain cried beneath heavy clouds this eve, coating steel and glass towers in sleek waves of pouring water. Mucky fog rose at its touch. Destroying the sweet, petrichor smell that sprung from the foliage of the surrounding forests, sludge peeking from within dark alleyways.

Choice was not what brought him here, of course. A silent cry. Pleading that spoke without speaking. Begged without being heard. Acknowledged even. Henry couldn’t ignore it even on the off chance he wanted to.

Cabs hugging the curb sloshed a murky slush that tugged at Henry’s ankles. Sank beneath the fabric of his joggers and touched his skin with frigid fingers that cooled his blood. He groaned but continued on. Towards the pleading cry buried somewhere nearby.

Bitter moods bit at him as a few stray wanderers bumped shoulders or avoided his purposeful, speedy walk. He ignored them, trudging on. For him, they were nothing more than ants. Barely worth his rationed energy.

Sudden panting drew him to an abrupt stop. It was audible to his ears, but an inaudible scream accompanied it. One that only few could hear. One that he’d been tracking for the last several hours.

The sound echoed from an alleyway just a few steps behind him. Already, the stench of human filth assaulted his nose. Threw jolts of dull pain between his eyes. Still, he moved forward. Careful not to spook the already fearful soul.

Obscuring most of the alley was a rickity old dumpster. Overflowing with bile from the stomach of the city. A dock in a sea of ooze. Henry crept up to it. Observing the scene beyond, the weeping soul cradled by leaking trash bags and brick walls.

He recognized those two, auburn scars immediately. Paint strokes against ghost-pale skin. Eyes narrowed by furrowed brows glimmering like two pools of the night sky. Beautiful in any other circumstance.

Shadowed hands reached out from the shadowed walls of the alley securing Logan’s hips in place as the man anchored him to the grimy brick walls. He dealt harsh blows, one after another, that left Logan trembling in pain and exhaustion.

Rage grew. A fire that shot through Henry, thawing his rain-soaked clothes and frigid limbs. It took everything he had to keep still. To hold that fire behind steel walls. Growling fury sounded behind him. He haltingly waved it off, waiting in drenched horror for a more….human chance of intervention.

Only a few minutes had gone by. He knew that. But it felt like an insufferable decade before the man tossed a few hundreds to the ground, leaving Logan quaking as he was. Face pressed hard against the wall as it was the only thing holding him up.

Henry didn’t move as the man passed him. Deep, velvet darkness concealing him with ease.

After the fucker rounded the corner, Henry moved from his position, just in time to catch Logan as he fell towards the hard concrete below. His pants still hanging low, legs slicked with pornographic slime. Logan groaned in pain, barely registering the fact he’d been caught. Spared from even more pain.

Fabric laying over clothes to keep Henry dry was removed as quickly as his hands could work the finicky zipper. He cleaned up as much as he could without violating the young man in his arms.

“I'mma get your pants pulled up, yeah?”

Logan’s head rolled towards Henry. His coal eyes made it difficult to distinguish pupil from iris, but Henry managed to recognize the thin, barely-visible line of the light-touched color. New dopey curves lifted his lips despite fresh tears springing from his reddened lids.

“You wan’ an-round two? Fair…. warning, you’ll-I can’t stand up. You’re pretty-hiccup-strong guy?”

“Not here to stick ya, lad. Here to help.”

Logan’s faux smile fell. Lips quivered as he watched Henry with a disbelieving gaze. “No one…. wants to help f-for free. So,” he asks around a hiccup, “what is it that-that y-you want?”

Frigid spider legs dragged chills over Henry’s skin. “Oh, lad…. How you’ve suffered….”

Logan surprised him by laughing. “Bro, you-fuck, you have n-n-no idea.” With that, Logan’s eyes fluttered shut. Long lashes spreading through the damp tears peppering his cheeks.

Henry didn’t think he had a heart. But he must have as he felt it drop. A trenched agony gouging his core as he slipped Logan’s threadbare jeans back over his bony hips and lifted his limp form away from the wall.

Hugging Logan close to his chest, Henry walked back the way he came. No one spared a glance down here amongst the poor and those that preyed upon them. No one cared about the terrifying deathly look of the limp body in his arms. It was good, in that way, sure. But terribly tragic all the same.

Henry didn’t have money, yet. Or, at least, not much. So he begrudgingly stepped into a shady hotel. No matter he could have slipped into something better without refute. But his preserved power needed to last him if he was to be of any help.

“I’ll be needin’ a room ma’am,” he asked the woman behind the desk.

Her vibrant purple lipstick hugged a cigarette. Like Logan, her light brown eyes were but thin rings around enlarged pupils. Doped out of her mind.

“Sure thing, cutie,” she said with a surprising amount of control as she tapped at an old keyboard. “That’ll be twenty-seven, thirteen,” she stated. A small smile touched her lips. “Make it an even ten for a quickie.”

Henry handed over the money and grabbed the key she’d set on the counter before she could protest. “Thanks love. Maybe next time,” he said with his own, charming smile and a quick wink. “Keep the change.”

Without sparing another moment, Henry exited the lobby and walked to his room. The door shuddered open, hanging precarious from a broken hinge. Walls stained sludge brown left much to be desired. He wasn’t even going to chance the bathroom. But the bed was clean. Well, clean enough. Gentle hands maneuvered Logan’s limp body onto the stiff bed.

“Lad. Lad,” Henry urged, gently patting Logan’s cold cheek. “C'mon now.”

Logan didn’t move. Henry’s head fell, shoulders sloping in defeat. Deciding he preferred to ensure Logan’s comfort, even if it brought on the young man’s rage upon him, to leaving him in this state, he set to work.

By the time he was finished cleaning the film from Logan’s already-bruising body, it’d fallen into the early morning hours. Henry had redressed Logan in his clothes, tucked the blankets over his shivering frame. Rain lightly spackled the window and a strong breeze howled just outside the door. Rattled loose hinges.

Henry took up space in the cardboard-weak chair tucked in the corner of the room near the feeble door. Tiredness often evaded him, a stroke of luck as he stood a silent guard over Logan’s sleeping form. Thoughts wandered. Ireland and the man that first picked him up. Speaking of a land to the west, America. How much opportunity laid bare within the country’s rich bossom now that it’d picked itself up after total economic and political collapse….

For a long time, Henry debated hopping countries. Sailing across the large ocean before realizing that he could afford the energy to smuggle himself onto an airplane. The problem laid within the unknown. Henry felt nothing. What if he didn’t find what he was looking for when he got there? He didn’t have an unlimited amount of resources. Only the spare amount he brought for him and his accompanying companion.

“Mmph.”

The sound struck Henry’s train of thought off its rails. Calling him to the bed where Logan’s brows were furrowing. His eyes moving beneath closed lids as his body began to wake.

Henry chose to keep his distance. Standing a few feet away from the bed, but blocking the door. He needed to ensure Logan was alright before he let the kid leave.

“Who are you?” Logan’s scratchy voice mumbled as his knuckles rubbed at his puffy red eyes. The coal depths were void of any emotion. Slated with nothing more than a reminiscent trace of doped out bliss.

“Name’s Henry,” he answered honestly. “You had a….a rough night, eh?”

Logan barely nodded his head, sitting up in the bed and wincing with every slight movement. “An understatement,” he muttered. “So, what do I owe you?”

“Owe?”

He turned a sparking flame upon Henry in the form of a scowl. “Listen, I don’t remember much about last night. But I remember enough to know that it was you who hauled me out of that alleyway. Brought us here. And,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m assuming you took something while I was out. Considering how clean I am.”

Henry’s brows arched in surprise. “What? No, I—”

Logan held up a hand. “It’s alright. Not like I’m worth much anyways. But I’m assuming you want mo—”

“No,” Henry interrupted, his voice sharp with a sternness that surprised Logan. “I-yes, I undressed you to get that filthy muck off of ya. And I-I’m sorry ‘bout the invasion. Really I am. But I don’t want anythin’ from you.”

Logan’s gaze stayed unwaveringly skeptical. Traveling over Henry like some kind of detector. Waiting to find lies woven between lines of sweet words. When there were none to be found, he sighed. Hand straying to the crook of his elbow where bruises engulfed darkened pinpricks. “Alright, well, uh…. cool. I guess.” He looked at Henry, mild confusion breaching in the waves of his dark eyes. Finger nails itched at the inflamed wounds beneath them.

“Lad,” Henry murmured, looking at the reddened fury growing with every scrape of nail against flesh.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Haven’t had someone lookin’ out for me for…. a while.”

Henry sighed, taking slow steps towards him. “It’s-That’s not what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

Logan looked from him to the raw flesh beneath his fingers. “Ah, right,” he muttered. Eyes returning to Henry, he continued, “Sometimes it just gets to be too much, you know? And I-it does the trick. To numb everything. Black out the, uh…. worse parts.”

“It’s not good for ya,” Henry retorted, squatting down before Logan. Meeting his dark stare without flinching. “Maybe it’s best to-can I bring you…. somewhere? To get…. help? Maybe?”

Logan scoffed, swinging his legs over the bed and standing to his feet. Pain rolled over every wince and stiff movement as he stretched. Ribs peeking from beneath his thin shirt. “I mean, sure? If you want to? Kind of seems arbitrary if I’m just gonna turn to it when everything becomes too much again. But, if it’ll make you—”

“I’m not doing this for me.”

Logan dropped his hands, aggravation pulling his lips into a deep frown. He turned to look at Henry. “Listen, no one does anything just because they feel like it. Gratification always comes. In one way or another. You feel like I-I’m your responsibility. That getting me help is what’s best,” he explained, drawing nearer. “It brings you this…. self gratification. When you heal or fix the broken thing you’ve found.

“I’m not addicted to it, really. I go months without it because I’d rather eat than stone myself into oblivion.”

“Isn’t that what they all say?”

“Sure. I guess. But not all of them care about starvation like I do. And a lot of them do it because they like doing it.”

“And you don’t?”

Logan stepped back, tilting his head in contemplation. “No,” he breathed. Eyes wandering an unseen world. “No. I don’t have a lot of control over, well…. anything. Every time that needle touches my skin, I’m handing over the last bit I actually have. And I hate it.”

Mirrors hung crookedly on the western wall reflected his exhausted, malnourished state. He cringed just as hard as Henry did.

“At some point, I just can’t take the pain. The memories. Everything that comes in this…. line of work. The drugs. They help me forget. Drown me in something pleasant, even if it’s only for a single, brief moment.” His eyes flicked back to Henry. “I’ll go if you want me to.”

Henry didn’t hesitate in his answer. “Right,” he said with a sigh. “Come on, then. Let’s getcha some place with better sheets.”

Relief washed over the gentle curves of Logan’s upturned lips. Maybe his addiction was worse than he was letting on. Maybe it was as he said. Nonexistent. Either way, Henry was going to see to it that the kid got somewhere safe. At the moment, that was all he could do. Even if the heart he’d found screamed for him to do more.