The rain didn’t fall that night—it wept. Long threads of it tangled in streetlights and hissed against the tram wires, making the city sigh like a tired god. St. Petersburg sulked under its own weight, swollen gutters and windows glowing amber behind lace curtains, breath fogging the glass like old secrets.

Igor came home soaked through.

His coat, that same weather-beaten trench he’d refused to part with for twelve years, clung to him like a second skin—leaking and heavy, smelling of oil and wind. He dropped it by the door, boots leaving bruises of wet on the tile. Somewhere in the flat, a child laughed. Then another. Then stomping feet and the low growl of Gaspar telling Sergei to knock it off. The lullaby of chaos he loved.

He didn’t call out.

He never did. He liked watching you first.

You were in the kitchen, bent slightly at the hip, one socked foot pressed to the other like you were unsure whether to sit or flee. Cyan housecoat, hair pinned up with a child’s glitter clip. There was a tiny elephant figurine tucked in the dish rack beside the mugs—he’d noticed. You always brought something back from the zoo. You didn’t know he looked for them.

Your limp had you swaying gently with each step, and it made something inside his ribs ache in that old, sweet, helpless way.

He didn’t deserve you. He knew it, deeply and fully, the way a man knows he’ll never get that boyhood dream of flying a MiG or punching a politician without consequences. But God, did he love you. In a way that tasted like old pennies and ash and rainwater. In a way that made his eyes sting when you weren’t looking.

You turned.

Saw him.

Didn’t flinch, didn’t scold, didn’t even blink.

Just wiped your hands on your thighs and moved toward him, slower than most, but straight and true. Your eyes—those big, pale-grey bastards—searched his face like a safe he forgot how to open. He always flinched a little when you looked at him like that. Like you saw too much and forgave it anyway.

He reached for you with knuckles still bloodied from the day’s mistake. You didn’t hesitate. Wrapped your arms around his thick waist and let him fold over you like something collapsing in on itself, all breath and salt and shudder.

“Your back’s gone again,” you murmured into his chest. Not a question.

He grunted. It meant yes. It meant don’t worry. It meant hold me tighter.

Your hand curled around the back of his neck—firm, callused, the only thing anchoring him to the room.

In the other room, Inka was arguing with Agnessa about puzzle pieces. Gennadiy hiccupped in his sleep. The whole apartment swam in the smell of fried onions and the wet dog stink of his boots. But here, wrapped in the damp heat of your arms, everything felt... edible. Bearable. Holy, even.

He pressed his face into your hair. You hadn’t washed it. It smelled like metal and rain and the faint ghost of your perfume—the one he pretended not to like but kept a spare bottle of under the sink.

“You’re dead soft,” he rasped, mouth against your temple.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers found his belt loops, pulled him closer. There was a bullet nestled in his coat pocket. There was a bruise blooming on his hip. There was a tenderness in his bones that had only ever belonged to you.

You didn’t care how late he was.

You never did.

You’d sit down together at the cracked kitchen table with a plate of greasy pelmeni between you, the silence thick and humming. You’d rest your feet on his. He’d check the window locks again. You’d fidget when he asked about your day. He’d grunt when he noticed the museum flyer tucked under your elbow.

And when the lights dimmed and the rain softened, he’d press the muzzle of his service pistol under your shared pillow and say nothing at all.

Because in this house, love spoke through presence.

Through bruised ribs and borrowed warmth. Through puzzles with missing pieces and children named like saints. Through a limping wife with elephant friends and a man built of smoke and gravel, who kept showing up no matter how broken he was.