Vanya

Three years ago, Kisa had led him across this fire escape for the first time. Three years ago, he'd knocked on Sally's door with his heart in his throat and his voice barely working and found Percy—found the missing piece, the other half, the someone he'd been dreaming of without knowing what dreams were.

That first day had stretched into a second. Then a third. Then a routine.

Percy would come home from school—regular public school, back then—and Misha would already be there. Sometimes in Percy's room, sometimes with Sally when she came home from work.

Misha thinks he loves her. Thinks that if mothers are supposed to feel like safety and warmth and the smell of chocolate chip cookies, then Sally Jackson is the closest thing he's ever had to one.

Percy would burst through the door most afternoons—loud and chaotic and trailing stories about his day like a comet trail. Misha would listen, curled up on Percy's bed or sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Percy would talk and talk and talk, filling the silence Misha carried with him like a second skin.

They'd do homework together. Well, Percy would do homework while Misha read over his shoulder, sometimes helping with math or Latin, the subjects that made Percy's dyslexia less of a nightmare. They'd play games, they’d nap, they'd watch TV with the volume low so Gabe wouldn't complain.

And at night, when Ivan's footsteps would echo up the stairwell, Misha would slip back across the fire escape like a ghost, back through his window, back into his four walls. He'd resettle into his life—the silence, the stillness, the waiting—and pretend he hadn't just spent hours breathing in a world that felt real in a way his apartment never had.

On the nights Ivan didn't come home, Misha would stay. Sleep curled up next to Percy in his too-small bed, Kisa wedged between them, purring. 

Then Percy went to Yancy Academy.

A boarding school for troubled kids, which Percy had explained meant he was problematic, which Misha had immediately hated on principle. Percy wasn't problematic. Percy was perfect. Percy was his, and Yancy Academy was taking him away for nine months out of the year, and Misha—

Well. Misha had not handled it well.

"It's not forever," Percy had said, the night before he left. They'd been lying in the dark, Percy's voice soft and careful like he was trying not to spook a wild animal. "It's just school. I'll be back for the holidays. For summer. It's not like I'm dying, Misha."

Misha had pressed his face into Percy's shoulder and said nothing, because what was there to say? That he'd learned to exist in the space of Percy's presence, that the hours they spent together were the only hours that felt like living instead of just surviving? That the thought of going back to his apartment full-time, of spending days and days with only Kisa and the flowers and the shadows, made something in his chest constrict so tightly he couldn't breathe?

He'd said nothing.

Percy had left anyway.

The first month was the worst. Misha had crossed the fire escape every day out of habit, stood at Percy's window staring at the empty room beyond. Sally had found him there once, pressed against the glass like Kisa used to do when she wanted to be let in, and she'd cried. Actually cried, tears sliding down her face as she opened the window and pulled him inside and held him.

"He'll be back," she'd whispered. "I promise, honey. He'll be back."

Misha had spent that day learning how to make blue chocolate chip cookies. Had spent the next day learning how to properly fold fitted sheets, which Sally said was impossible but Misha had figured out anyway through sheer determination. Had spent the weeks after that making himself useful—cleaning, organizing, existing in the Jackson apartment like a live-in ghost.

Gabe had noticed eventually. Had made comments—snide ones, uncomfortable ones—about the "weird kid from next door" until Sally had shut him down with a look so cold Misha had felt the temperature drop.

"He's welcome here," Sally had said, voice like steel wrapped in velvet. "Always."

So Misha had stayed. Had made the Jackson apartment his second home, his real home, the place where he learned what it meant to be a person instead of just a thing that existed in silence.

Percy had come back for Christmas break. Then spring break. Now summer.

And Misha is done with Yancy Academy.

He's tried to be reasonable about it. Tried not to let his hatred show, because Percy talks about his friend there—Grover, who sounds nervous but kind—and about Mr. Brunner, his Latin teacher who Percy loves in the way students love teachers who actually see them.

But reasonable has limits, and Misha hit his limit around month four.

Yancy Academy can burn. Respectfully.

The thought makes him smile as he crosses the fire escape, a small vicious thing that shows too many teeth. Percy would laugh if he could see it, he thinks it's hilarious when Misha gets petty, which only encourages him.

Percy's window is locked, but it's a cheap lock, the kind that jiggles open if you know the trick. Misha knows the trick. He slips inside, quiet as breathing, and stands in the dark room.

It smells stale. Unused. There are boot prints on the floor near the window—Gabe's, probably, from when he uses this room as his "study" during the school year. Misha wrinkles his nose. The whole room reeks of cheap cologne and cigar smoke, a smell he's learned to associate with discomfort and Kisa's low warning growls.

He should clean. Percy's coming back today—finally, finally—and the room should smell like him, not like Gabe.

So he gets to work.

He's learned to be domestic in the three years since Sally Jackson opened her door to him. Learned that cleaning is soothing, that the repetitive motions quiet the restless thing that lives under his skin. He opens the window wider to air out the room. Strips the bed—Gabe's muddy boot prints are on the sheets, disgusting—and digs out the clean set from the closet. Makes the bed with hospital corners the way Sally taught him.

He's wiping down the windowsill, humming something wordless under his breath, when he hears it.

The front door slamming. Hard.

Voices—Gabe's, low and sneering, and then—

"Where's my mom?"

Percy.

Misha's heart does a flip on his chest.

He drops the rag. Moves to the bedroom door and presses his ear against it, listening.

"Working," Gabe says, voice thick with his ever-present cigar. "You got any cash?"

There's a long pause. Misha can picture Percy's face—the way his jaw tightens when he's angry, the way his green eyes go flat and cold when he's trying not to show it.

"I don't have any cash."

Misha hears the exchange that follows—Gabe demanding money, Percy's bitter compliance, the way Gabe shouts about his report card as Percy storms toward his room. Misha barely has time to step back before the door swings open.

Percy stops dead in the doorway and, for a moment, they just stare at each other.

Percy looks—older. Taller, maybe, though it's hard to tell. His hair is longer, messier than Misha remembers, and there's something different in his face. Something tired. Something that looks like it's been worn down by nine months of trying to fit into a place that doesn't want him.

Then Percy's face breaks into a grin—wide and real and so bright it makes Misha's chest hurt.

"Misha."

It's barely a whisper, but it lands like a shout.

Misha moves without thinking. Three steps and he's there, colliding with Percy hard enough to make them both stumble. Percy catches him—has to, because Misha's legs have decided they're done holding him up—and they end up half-collapsed against the doorframe, arms around each other, breathing in sync.

Percy smells like bus exhaust and something sour—Gabe, probably, from having to deal with him—but underneath is the familiar salt-and-ocean scent that Misha's been missing like a lost limb.

"You're here," Percy says into Misha's hair. His voice cracks on the words. "You're actually here, I thought—I wasn't sure if you'd—"

"Where else would I be?" Misha's voice comes out rough, hoarse from disuse and emotion. He hasn't been talking much lately. Hasn't had anyone to talk to.

Percy laughs, a wet sound that might be hiding tears. "I don't know. I don't know, I just—"

He pulls back enough to look at Misha properly, hands still gripping his shoulders like he's afraid Misha will disappear. His eyes are doing that thing they do, going impossibly greener, and there's definitely moisture gathering in them.

"Nine months," Percy says. "That was—that sucked. That really, really sucked."

Misha nods. His throat is too tight for words, so he just presses his forehead against Percy's collarbone and holds on.

They stand like that for a long moment, swaying slightly, neither willing to let go first. From the other room, Gabe's voice rises in complaint—something about bean dip—but it feels distant. Unimportant. The only thing that matters is this: Percy's heartbeat under Misha's ear, steady and real and here.

They separate reluctantly after what simultaneously feels like an eternity and not enough. Percy drops his suitcase on the bed and slumps down next to it, looking exhausted, wrung out. Misha climbs up next to him, cross-legged, and waits.

It's Percy who breaks first. He always does.

"I got expelled."

Misha blinks. "Again?"

"Again." Percy scrubs a hand through his hair. "Not my fault this time, I swear. Well—mostly not my fault. There was this field trip, and Nancy Bobofit was being her usual awful self, and I might have accidentally pushed her into a fountain, but—"

He stops. His jaw works like he's chewing on words he can't figure out how to say.

Misha waits.

"Weird stuff happened," Percy says finally. "Like, really weird. Weirder than usual. My math teacher turned into a—into this thing, and she tried to kill me, and Mr. Brunner gave me a sword—a sword, Misha—and then everyone acted like she'd never existed, and—"

The words are tumbling out faster now, tripping over each other. Percy's hands move as he talks, gesturing wildly, and his eyes are wide with something between fear and confusion and the desperate need to be believed.

Misha listens. Doesn't interrupt. Doesn't question. Just listens the way he's learned to do over three years of Percy's stories, absorbing every word like they're precious.

When Percy finally winds down, breathing hard, Misha says, "A sword?"

Percy lets out a startled laugh. "That's what you focus on?"

"Well… yes."

"It was terrifying." Percy's hands are shaking slightly. He clasps them together in his lap. "And then there were these old ladies with yarn, and Grover was acting weird and—I don't know. I don't know what's real anymore. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I imagined all of it."

"You're not crazy," Misha says firmly.

"How do you know?"

Because Misha sees things too—flowers that shouldn't grow, shadows that move wrong, dreams that feel like memories from someone else's life. Because he understands what it's like to question your own reality, to wonder if the world you're experiencing is the same one everyone else lives in.

He doesn't say any of that. Just reaches over and takes Percy's hand, threading their fingers together.

"Because you’re not," he says simply. "And if you are then I am too, so it’s okay."

Percy's throat works. He squeezes Misha's hand hard enough to hurt, and Misha squeezes back, and they sit there in the quiet until they hear the front door open and Sally's voice calling out.

"Percy?"

Percy's whole body relaxes at the sound. "In here!"

The bedroom door opens, and Sally appears. Her Sweet on America uniform is rumpled, her hair escaping its ponytail, and she's carrying a huge bag of candy samples. When she sees them—Percy and Misha on the bed, hands still linked—her face does something complicated, as always.

Then she's moving, crossing the room in three strides and pulling them both into a hug that smells like chocolate and vanilla and home.

"Oh, Percy," she says, and there's so much love in her voice it makes Misha's chest ache. "Look at you. You've grown since Christmas."

She's hugging them both, one arm around each of them, and Misha leans into it without thinking. Lets himself be held. Lets himself be included in this, in the way Sally loves her son, because somehow over the past three years she's decided that love extends to him too.

When she pulls back, her eyes are shining. She cups Percy's face, then Misha's, like she's checking to make sure they're both real.

"I missed you," she says to Percy. Then, softer, to Misha: "Both of you."

They settle on the bed—Sally perched on the edge, Percy and Misha sitting cross-legged like kids at story time. Sally empties the bag of candy samples, and Percy dives in immediately, going for the blue sour strings while Misha hoards the chocolate.

Sally asks about Yancy. Percy answers, spinning the year into something almost positive—made some friends, did okay in Latin, fights weren't that bad. Misha can hear the lie in it, the way Percy's putting a good face on something that clearly hurt him, but Sally seems to believe it. Or maybe she just wants to.

Until Percy's voice cracks when he mentions the field trip.

"What?" Sally asks. Her voice is gentle but insistent. "Did something scare you?"

Percy's hand finds Misha's under the edge of the bedspread. Their fingers tangle together, hidden.

"No, Mom."

The lie is so obvious that even Sally can't pretend she doesn't see it. But she doesn't push. Just watches Percy with those eyes that see everything, that love him even when he's lying, especially when he's lying because he's trying to protect her.

"I have a surprise for you," Sally says finally. "We're going to the beach."

Percy's head snaps up. "Montauk?"

Misha's stomach twists. He knows about Montauk—the cabin, the tradition, the place where Sally met Percy's father. Percy talks about it a lot, this perfect place where everything is blue and beautiful and the world makes sense.

Misha has never been. Has never been anywhere, actually, except the inside of two apartments and the fire escape that connects them.

"Three nights," Sally says, smiling. "Same cabin. As soon as I get changed."

Percy whoops, pure joy breaking across his face, and then he turns to Misha.

"You're coming," he says. Not a question. A statement.

Misha's heart starts pirouetting again. He wants to. God, he wants to. Wants to see the ocean Percy dreams about, wants to watch the sunset over water, wants three whole days of Percy's undivided attention without the weight of Ivan's apartment pressing down on him.

But.

"I can't," he says quietly.

Percy's face falls. "What? Why not?"

"Daddy's coming home. Tonight, I think. Maybe tomorrow." The words taste like ash. "If I'm not there—"

He doesn't finish, doesn't need to. Percy knows about Ivan, knows about the rules and the locks and the careful dance Misha has to do to keep existing in both worlds.

"Misha—"

"It's okay." Misha forces a smile. It feels wrong on his face. "You should go. Tell me about it when you get back."

"That's not—" Percy looks at his mom, desperate. "Mom, he has to come. Please, can't we just—"

Sally's eyes are sad. She looks at Misha the way she sometimes does, like she's seeing all the broken pieces and wishes she could fix them.

"Honey," she says gently to Percy. "If Misha can't go, then he can't go. We can't—" She stops. Swallows hard. "We can't make that choice for him."

The words hang in the air, heavy with everything she's not saying: that she knows, that she sees, that she wants to help but can't, because Ivan is Misha's father and what happens in apartment 5B is none of her business even if it breaks her heart.

Percy looks mutinous. "This is stupid. He should be able to come if he wants to. We could just—"

"Percy." Misha's voice is soft but final. "It's okay. Really."

It's not okay. Nothing about this is okay. But okay is relative, and Misha learned a long time ago to accept the world as it is, not as he wishes it would be.

From the other room, Gabe bellows about bean dip. The moment breaks.

Sally sighs. "I should—"

"Make him the seven-layer dip," Percy finishes. He's still holding Misha's hand. "I know."

Sally leaves to deal with Gabe. Percy and Misha sit in silence, the unspoken disappointment thick between them.

"This sucks," Percy says finally.

"Yeah."

"I'm going to find a way. Next time. Next summer. I'm going to figure out how to get you out of here for real."

Misha doesn't point out that next summer is a year away, or that Ivan will never let him go, or that wanting something doesn't make it possible. He just squeezes Percy's hand and says, "Okay."

They spend the next hour like that—talking quietly while Sally cooks, Percy filling Misha in on all the details he'd left out of the story for his mom. They stare at each other. Something is shifting between them, some understanding that neither of them has words for yet.

Then Sally calls Percy to help load the car, and the moment passes.

Misha helps Percy pack, folding clothes while Percy rambles about what they're going to do at Montauk, how they're going to swim even though the water's cold, how they're going to eat blue food until they're sick. Misha makes appropriate noises, tucking Percy's favorite shirt into the suitcase with careful hands.

When everything's ready, Misha follows them out to the living room. Gabe is sprawled on the couch, his poker buddies around him, the TV blaring. The smell of cigar smoke is thick enough to choke on.

Misha stays in the bedroom doorway, Kisa in his arms. She'd appeared while they were packing, threading between their legs and purring, and now she's watching Gabe with her ears flat back.

Percy helps his mom carry bags down to the car. Misha watches from the window, tracking Percy's movements the way Kisa tracks birds. When Percy comes back up for the last load, Gabe makes some comment about the car—"not a scratch, brain boy"—that makes Kisa hiss. She hates Gabe. Has made it her personal mission to torment him—knocking over his drinks, leaving dead birds on his pillow, yowling outside his room at 3 AM. Misha is proud of her.

Percy returns to his room one last time. "You sure you'll be okay?"

Misha nods. "Go. Have fun. Swim for me."

Percy's smile is crooked. "I'll bring you something, I promise."

Percy hugs him—quick and tight—and then he's gone, thundering down the stairs after his mom.

Misha stays at the window. Watches them load the last bag. Watches Gabe lumber to the doorway to give Percy one final warning about his precious car.

And then he sees it.

Percy makes a gesture—a clawed hand over his heart, then a sharp shoving motion toward Gabe. The screen door slams shut with such force that Gabe goes flying, stumbling up the stairs like he's been shot from a cannon.

Misha's eyes widen. His breath catches.

Percy did that. Misha knows he did, even if Percy probably doesn't realize it himself. Did it the way Misha makes flowers grow, the way he moves shadows—instinctively, without meaning to, when his emotions run too high.

Something warm blooms in Misha's chest. Something like recognition.

You're like me, he thinks, watching Percy scramble into the car. You're different too.

The car pulls away. Misha watches until it disappears around the corner, and then he's alone in Percy's room with only Kisa for company.

He should go back to his apartment. Ivan might be home soon, but the room smells like Percy and the bed is soft and he's so, so tired.

Misha curls up on Percy's bed, Kisa tucked against his chest. Closes his eyes. Tries not to think about Montauk, about ocean waves and blue food and three days of freedom Percy gets to have while Misha stays here, locked in his four walls.

He fails.

The storm starts just after midnight.

Misha is in his apartment—has been since Ivan came home around eight, tired and smelling like metal and smoke. He had checked the locks, made them both dinner, and gone to bed without much conversation.

Misha had gone to his room. Had tried to sleep.

Couldn't.

The storm is loud. Thunder shakes the building, lightning turning the world white-bright through his curtains. Rain hammers against the windows like it's trying to get in.

Misha sits on his bed, Kisa in his lap, and stares out the window toward the fire escape. Toward Percy's dark apartment. Toward Montauk, somewhere east and far away, where Percy is probably sleeping in a cabin by the ocean.

Kisa is restless. She keeps shifting, meowing, pawing at Misha's chest like she's trying to tell him something.

"I know," Misha whispers. His voice sounds strange. Distant. "I feel it too."

There's something in the air. Something building. It makes his skin prickle and his teeth ache and his bones feel like they're vibrating at a frequency just slightly wrong.

The flowers are growing again.

He can see them in his peripheral vision—white and pink blooms pushing up through the cracks in his floor, spreading across the walls in vines that twist and curl like searching fingers. The moldy corner by his closet is completely covered now, transformed into something that looks almost beautiful if you don't think too hard about what's underneath.

Misha doesn't look at them directly. If he looks, he'll have to acknowledge them. If he acknowledges them, he'll have to accept that he's doing this, that the flowers are his and the shadows are his and he's not normal, has never been normal, will never be normal.

The storm gets louder.

Thunder crashes so close the building shakes. Lightning illuminates his room in stark flashes—white flowers, dark vines, Misha's pale face reflected in the window glass.

He looks like a ghost. Feels like one too.

Percy, something whispers. Not a voice. Not exactly. Just—a knowing. A certainty. A pull.

Percy is in danger.

Misha's hands still in Kisa's fur. His heart is racing. He doesn't know how he knows, only that he does. Percy is in danger, and Misha needs to go to him.

His hands are moving before he's made the decision. Setting Kisa gently on his pillow. Standing. Walking.

The vines grow faster, spreading up the walls and across the ceiling, covering his room in green and white and the sweet-rot smell of flowers blooming too fast. Shadows pool in the corners, deeper than they should be, reaching toward him like they're trying to push him forward.

Misha walks past them, down the hall, into his daddy's room.

Ivan is asleep, face slack, snoring softly. There are new scars on his hands. New shadows under his eyes. He looks older than he did last week. Tired.

Misha bends down. Presses a kiss to his daddy's mouth—gentle, barely there, a whisper of contact.

"I'm sorry," he says, though Ivan can't hear him. "I have to go."

Ivan doesn't wake and Misha leaves.

The front door is locked—all twelve locks, secured the way they always are. His hands work through them mechanically: top lock, second, third, fourth. Each one clicks open. By the time he reaches the last one, vines are growing through the gap under the door, spilling out into the hallway in a wave of green.

He steps into the hall.

Behind him, the vines continue their growth, spreading across the walls and ceiling of apartment 5B like they're reclaiming it. Misha doesn't look back.

He walks down the stairs, past the sleeping apartments where normal people live normal lives, out the front door, into the storm.

Walks past the familiar streets of his neighborhood, past the bodega on the corner where Ivan sometimes buys cigarettes, past the park where children play during the day. The city is empty at this hour, everyone sensible huddled inside away from the storm.

Misha walks through it like it's not there. Like the rain isn't falling and the wind isn't screaming and the thunder isn't shaking the ground.

Cars swerve around him, horns blaring. People shout from doorways—"Hey! Kid! Watch it!"—but their voices sound distant, muffled, like he's hearing them underwater.

His feet hurt. The pavement is rough and littered with broken glass and sharp things he doesn't care for. He steps on something that cuts deep—feels the warm bloom of blood, the sting of pain—but it doesn't stop him. Nothing stops him.

He walks through intersections without checking for cars. Walks past closed shops and dark windows. Walks and walks and walks until the city starts to thin out, buildings giving way to trees, concrete to dirt.

He doesn't know where he's going. Doesn't need to.

There's a thread tied around his ribs, pulling him forward. The same thread he's felt his whole life, the phantom ache of something missing. It's pulled taut now, vibrating with urgency, and Misha follows it without questioning. 

It’s dark but lightning illuminates his path in stuttering flashes. Time stops meaning anything. He might have been walking for hours or minutes or days. His legs move. His feet bleed. The rain washes the blood away.

Eventually, the trees get thicker. Taller. The path beneath his feet changes from asphalt to dirt to something that might be grass. There's a smell in the air now—salt and ozone and something else, something that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Magic. Old magic. 

The forest opens into a valley. Even through the rain and dark, he can see it—a sprawl of buildings scattered across the hillside, a large house with a porch, tiny cabins dotting the landscape. There are strawberry fields, neat rows visible in the lightning flashes. A big pine tree on the hill, standing alone.

And at the bottom of the hill, just at the edge of the valley—

Percy.

Misha's heart stops. Starts again. Beats double-time.

Percy is standing—barely. He's soaked and swaying, covered in something that looks black in the darkness. There's gold dust in the air around him, glittering even in the rain, and the smell of something dead and animal and wrong.

Their eyes meet across the distance.

Percy's face shifts quickly. Shock and relief and confusion and something that might be recognition, like he knew Misha was coming even if he didn't know he knew.

"Misha?"

The word is barely audible over the storm. Might not have been audible at all. Misha might just be reading Percy's lips, or hearing it in his head, or making it up entirely.

He takes a step forward.

Percy takes a step toward him.

They meet in the middle—or maybe they don't meet at all, maybe they collapse in the same moment and just happen to fall toward each other. Either way, they hit the wooden porch of the big house at the same time, their bodies folding together like puzzle pieces.

Misha's vision goes gray at the edges. He can feel Percy's heart beating against his ribs—too fast, panicked, alive. Can feel his own pulse matching it, syncing up the way it always does when they’re this close. 

A ceiling fan circles above them, dizzying and hypnotizing. Moths fly around a yellow light and a blur of faces surrounds them. The deep, stern voice of a man rings in their ears before the world fades to black.

His name is Mikhail. He is eight years old, and he has never been outside.

He has never been to school. Never ridden a bike. Never spoken to another child. He has never stood in a grocery store aisle deciding between cereals, never waited in a dentist's chair counting ceiling tiles, never felt grass between his toes or rain on his face. He doesn't know the texture of pavement, the smell of asphalt after a storm, or what it's like to run toward something without fear lodged like a stone in his throat.

His world is four walls wide. A window he's not allowed to open. A locked door he's not allowed to touch. A bedroom barely bigger than a closet, a kitchen with a floor he sits on because chairs feel wrong—too high, too far from the ground where safe things live. There's a couch that sags in the middle and a television that only works when you hit it just right, and Misha knows every crack in the ceiling, has counted them so many times the numbers have lost meaning.

His body tells its own story. Ribs like ladder rungs beneath skin so pale it's nearly translucent, blue veins mapping routes to nowhere. Hip bones jutting sharp enough to bruise. Wrists thin as bird bones. There are bruises that bloom and fade and bloom again—fingerprints on his upper arms, shadows along his ribs. His hands shake sometimes for no reason at all. He wets himself when the air gets too tense, when his father's footsteps get too heavy, and the shame of it sits in his stomach like swallowed stones.

He is used to hunger. To the hollow ache that lives in his belly, to the way his stomach stopped asking for food and learned to survive on air and the occasional chocolate bar his father leaves on the counter like an apology. He has a sweet tooth—it's one of the few things that brings him genuine pleasure, the way sugar dissolves on his tongue, brief and bright and almost like happiness.

He is alone. Profoundly, consistently, devastatingly alone.

Except for the cat.

Her name is Kisa—kitty, in his father's tongue, the language Papa stopped speaking except in nightmares. She is black and fluffy with orange eyes and a bushy tail, and Misha thinks that if she ever leaves, he might disappear entirely. Might fold in on himself like the flowers that sometimes grow through the cracks in the kitchen floor—the ones that bloom white and pink when he's alone, that curl toward his breath like they recognize something in him, that wither to nothing when Papa comes home.

Misha doesn't understand the flowers. Doesn't understand why they appear or why they die or why touching them makes his fingertips tingle with warmth that spreads up his arms and pools in his chest. He thinks maybe he's seeing things. Making them up. Going crazy the way Papa sometimes seems to, eyes distant and hands trembling as he checks the locks—once, twice, three times, four.

He doesn't understand the shadows either. The way they pool in corners even at noon, thick and tangible and almost alive. The way they stretch toward him when the light hasn't changed, cool and gentle when he reaches back.

There are things wrong with him. He knows this the way he knows his own heartbeat—intimately, inescapably. He sits wrong. Moves wrong. His voice comes out hoarse and cracking when he uses it, so he's learned not to. He goes barefoot because shoes feel like cages. Wears his father's old t-shirts that hang past his knees because real clothes constrict something vital. He doesn't understand why these things are wrong, only that they are, in some fundamental way he can't articulate.

Ivan Sidorov is not a bad man. Not exactly. Not on purpose.

He was once a hero, or something like it—a warrior, a child soldier forged by war and hardened by worse. He'd fought in battles Misha doesn't have names for, faced monsters Misha can't imagine, survived things that should have killed him. He has scars everywhere—on his hands, his arms, one that runs from his collarbone to his navel that Misha glimpsed once and never asked about.

Now he is broken in the way old statues are: beautiful, unreadable, missing pieces that used to hold him together.

He says he is protecting his son. That the world is full of monsters—real ones, not the kind in storybooks, things with teeth and claws and hunger. That to know too much is to paint a target on your back. That the only way to keep Misha safe is to keep him here, hidden, a secret the monsters can't find.

And Misha believes him, because he feels the monsters too.

But protection, when warped by fear, becomes a cage.

And love, when twisted tight enough, becomes something else entirely.

Papa loves him. Misha knows this like he knows his own bones. Knows it in the chocolate bars, in the way Papa checks on him at night, in the careful way he smooths Misha's hair after the bad times. But Papa's love has sharp edges. It comes with rules: don't go near the windows, don't open the door, don't make noise, don't ask questions, don't, don't, don't.

And when Misha breaks the rules—when he forgets, when he's too loud, when he asks about the scars or the locks or why they never leave—Papa's hands shake and his jaw goes tight and sometimes those hands grip too hard, leave marks, push Misha into walls or down onto the floor where he belongs.

Papa always apologizes after. Brings candy. Speaks soft. Kisses Misha's forehead like he's something precious and breakable.

Misha forgives him every time. Because what else is there to do? This is the only love he knows.

He does not know that this is not normal. That fathers should not leave bruises. That eight-year-olds should not spend their days sitting cross-legged on kitchen floors, staring at walls, counting their own heartbeats just to prove they're still alive. That isolation is its own kind of violence, slow and silent and devastating.

To him, this is just life. The only one he has.

But something is changing.

It begins with the flowers—stubborn things that push up through the linoleum by the radiator, white and pink and shivering like they're afraid to bloom. Misha crouches beside them for hours, bare knees on cold floor, and watches them grow. Whispers to them in the hoarse voice he barely uses. They curl toward his breath like they're listening.

Then come the dreams.

He dreams of places he's never seen—endless green fields that roll like ocean waves, silver seas that whisper his name, warm hands holding his that feel like coming home. He dreams of someone else, shadow-shaped and familiar, and wakes up with his chest aching like something's been carved out of it. Like he's missing a piece of himself he can't remember losing.

He doesn't tell Papa about the dreams. Doesn't tell him about the flowers or the shadows or the way sometimes—just sometimes—he can hear a heartbeat that isn't his own, layered underneath his pulse like an echo.

Because deep down, some part of him knows: the life he's living is not the life he was born for. He knows the silence is no longer enough. That he wants more. That someone is out there, pulling at him like a tide, like gravity, like a thread tied around his ribs and stretching into the dark.

That spring is coming.

And soon, the vines curling up through the floorboards will no longer be content to stay buried.

"And if yearning had a shape, it would look an awful lot like me"

―rêve brisé

Part II. You are the garden and the grave.

Across the hall in Apartment 5A, another boy is trying not to drown.

Percy Jackson is nine years old, and he is tired of trying.

He's tired of being the problem child—the one teachers look at with that specific kind of disappointment, like they'd expected better and are personally offended he didn't deliver. The expulsion kid. The weirdo with bad grades and worse luck and a reputation that precedes him.

This is his third school in two years. He doesn't even remember what the first one was called.

He doesn't understand why the world seems hell-bent against him. Why his teachers hate him before they even learn his name. Why words swim on the page no matter how hard he concentrates. Why he can't sit still, can't focus, can't be normal no matter how hard he tries. Why things happen when he gets angry—water fountains exploding, windows cracking, that one time a door flew off its hinges and no one could explain how.

His mom says he's special. That he's got a gift, even if he can't see it yet. But Percy doesn't feel special. He feels tired. Feels like he's fighting a war everyone else is watching from the sidelines, shaking their heads, wondering why he can't just be better.

He knows how to fake a smile. How to dodge a punch. How to make a joke at his own expense so no one else gets the chance. How to laugh it off, shrug it off, pretend it doesn't hurt.

But it does hurt. And beneath the noise, beneath the bravado and the quick jokes and the troublemaker smile, he is so goddamn lonely he could scream.

His mom tries. Sally Jackson is the best thing in Percy's life—maybe the only good thing. She works doubles at the candy store, comes home smelling like chocolate and exhaustion, and still finds time to sit with him at the kitchen table, helping with homework he doesn't understand, telling him stories about heroes and gods and people who were different too, who struggled too, who won anyway.

She believes in him even when he can't believe in himself.

But she can't be everywhere. Can't be at school when the other kids laugh. Can't be there when he eats lunch alone, when he walks home alone, when he lies in bed at night and wonders what's wrong with him, why he can't just fit in.

So Percy comes home to an empty apartment most days—mom at work, Gabe not back yet from whatever Gabe does—and sits in his room with the window open, watching the fire escape and the city beyond, feeling like he's waiting for something he can't name.

There are days when he prays.

Not the way his classmates do at school assemblies, heads bowed and hands folded like they've been taught. Not kneeling beside his bed, not to a god he's supposed to believe in. He doesn't even know who he's praying to—just the universe, maybe. The ocean he dreams about sometimes. The father he's never met who his mom won't talk about except to say he loved them, once, before he had to leave.

Percy just whispers into the quiet. Into the air. Into whatever might be listening.

Please. Just one person. One real friend. Someone who sees me. Someone who gets it.

He doesn't know that what he's asking for is already there, separated by drywall and distance and a door with twelve locks. Doesn't know that just a few feet away, someone else is dreaming of him too—of green eyes and warm hands and the feeling of being whole.

Doesn't know that fate has already wound them together, two threads tangled so tight they'll never come fully apart.

Doesn't know that the loneliness is almost over.

"And the sound of the sea colors everything"

― Louise Glück, A Village Life; from 'Marriage'

Part III. Here I blur into you.

It happens on a Tuesday.

Papa has been gone for three days. The apartment is too quiet, the silence pressing against Misha's eardrums until they ring. He's been sitting on the kitchen floor for hours—maybe longer, time moves strangely when there's nothing to measure it against—watching Kisa groom herself in a patch of shadow that shouldn't exist.

Then Kisa stops. Her ears swivel forward. Her tail flicks once, twice, and she stands abruptly, body tense with purpose.

Misha pushes himself up on his elbows, curious.

Kisa trots toward the window—the one that looks out onto the fire escape—and makes a sound Misha has never heard before. Low and urgent and insistent. She paws at the frame where the window doesn't quite close, at the gap Misha has never noticed, has never tested because he was a good boy.

Before Misha can move, before he can understand what's happening, Kisa slips through the gap and vanishes onto the fire escape.

Misha's heart stops.

"Kisa." His voice comes out hoarse, barely a whisper. "Kisa, no—"

But she doesn't stop. Doesn't even look back. Just pads across the metal grating like she owns it, tail high, and disappears through an open window into the apartment next door.

The apartment where light spills out warm and golden. Where someone is home.

For a long moment, Misha can't breathe. Can't think. There's a roaring in his ears and his hands are shaking and every instinct is screaming at him to stay inside, stay safe, be good, don't break the rules—

But Kisa is gone.

Kisa, who sleeps curled against his ribs every night. Kisa, who is the only warm thing in his world, the only living thing besides Papa who knows he exists. Kisa, who is his.

He's on his feet before he makes the decision. His legs don't work right—shaking, weak—but they carry him to the front door. To the twelve locks that stare back at him like eyes, like warnings, like Papa's voice saying don't, don't, don't.

His hands move on their own. Top lock. Second lock. Third.

Each one that opens sounds like breaking, like something irrevocable.

Fourth, fifth, sixth. His fingers fumble, shake so badly he has to try twice. Seventh, eighth, ninth.

The tenth lock sticks. Misha makes a desperate sound—animal and small—and wrenches it hard enough that pain shoots through his wrist, and finally it gives.

Eleventh. Twelfth.

The door swings open.

The hallway gapes before him like a mouth, like the throat of something vast and hungry. Misha stands in the threshold in his bare feet and his father's shirt hanging off him like a shroud, and the world is too big, too bright, too full of smells and sounds and possibilities that make his head spin.

He can't do this. He can't. Papa will know, Papa will see, Papa will—

But Kisa is gone.

And Misha's world has always been four walls wide, but Kisa has been the only warm thing in it.

He steps into the hallway.

Three steps to 5A. They feel like miles. His legs shake with every step, threatening to give out. His vision swims. Shadows pool at his feet, darker than they should be, spreading across the carpet like spilled ink.

He lifts his hand. Knocks.

The sound is too loud. Everything is too loud—his heartbeat, his breathing, the distant hum of life happening behind other doors. The world is so full it's crushing him.

The door opens.

A woman stands there. She's soft-looking, with dark hair pulled back and eyes that go wide when they see him. She smells like cinnamon and sugar and something baking, and the warmth that rolls out of the apartment behind her makes Misha's chest ache with wanting.

She has flour on her hands. There's music playing low inside, something gentle. She does not look dangerous.

But she's looking at him like he's something that hurts to see—shock and concern and something almost like heartbreak flickering across her face too fast for Misha to understand.

"Oh," she says, and her voice is so warm, warmer than anything Misha has heard in years. "Oh, sweetheart."

Misha's voice came out hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "My cat."

The woman blinked. "Your cat?"

"She—she came here. Through the window. I need—" His breath hitched. "Please."

The words tangle. He's spoken more in five seconds than he has in weeks and his throat hurts with it.

The woman's expression does something complicated that Misha doesn't have the vocabulary to name. She doesn't ask about the twelve locks visible through his open door. Doesn't ask why he's barefoot and drowning in a shirt three sizes too big. Doesn't ask any of the questions her eyes are clearly screaming.

She just steps back, gesturing him inside with a kindness that makes something crack in Misha's chest.

"Come in, honey. Let's find your cat."

"Mom?" a voice calls from deeper in the apartment. "Who is it?"

Then a boy appears in the doorway to what must be his room.

He's around Misha's age, maybe a little older, with dark hair that sticks up in messy angles and eyes so green they look stolen from the ocean. He's wearing pajama pants with cartoon characters on them and a t-shirt with a faded logo, and in his arms—curled up like she's been there forever, like she was always meant to be there—is Kisa.

Black and fluffy and purring so loud Misha can hear it from across the room, her orange eyes half-closed in contentment. The boy's hand is buried in her fur, petting her with careful reverence.

Kisa looks up. Makes eye contact with Misha. And if a cat could look smug, she's managing it.

The boy blinks at Misha, green eyes going wide. His mouth falls open slightly, and for a moment they just stare at each other—two boys separated by ten feet and a lifetime, connected by something neither of them understands yet.

Something clicks. Deep in Misha's chest, in that hollow place that's always ached, something slots into place with an almost audible sound. Like a key turning. Like coming home.

His hands start shaking again.

"Is this your cat?" the boy asks. His voice is clearer than Misha's, easier, but there's something uncertain in it. Something that says he doesn't want to give her back.

Misha nods. Tries to speak. Can't.

"She just—she came through my window," the boy continues, speaking to fill Misha's silence. "I've never seen her before. I didn't know anyone had a cat." He pauses, then adds, softer, "I didn't know anyone lived next door."

"Percy," the woman—his mother, must be his mother—says gently. "This is our neighbor. From 5B."

Percy. The name settles into Misha's bones like it's always lived there.

"I'm Sally," the woman continues, still using that kind voice that makes Misha want to cry. "Sally Jackson. This is my son, Percy."

Percy waves awkwardly with his free hand, still holding Kisa. He's staring at Misha with those ocean eyes, taking in every detail, but there's no disgust in his expression. Just curiosity and something warm.

"What's your name?" Percy asks.

"Misha." It comes out barely louder than breath. "Mikhail. But—Misha."

"Misha," Percy repeats, testing it on his tongue. Then he smiles—small and crooked and real—and something in Misha's chest cracks wide open. "Your cat's really soft. I think she likes me."

Kisa purrs louder, as if agreeing.

"Would you like to stay for a while?" Sally asks gently. "I'm making cookies. Chocolate chip. You could have some, visit with your cat." She pauses, and her voice goes even softer, careful. "I think she's comfortable here. I think maybe you could be comfortable here too."

Misha's first instinct is to say no. To take Kisa and run back to the safety of his apartment, to lock all twelve locks and pretend this never happened.

But Percy is looking at him with those impossible green eyes, and Kisa is purring, and Sally's smile is so warm it makes something in Misha's chest ache.

"Okay," Misha whispers.

And for the first time in his short, small life, he stays.