The night is dark with a sky like rich velvet that keeps all the stars snug on the other side and away from prying eyes of anyone wandering around below. There’s a late chill in the air. The kind that seems to creep in through invisible cracks in the window pane and renders all attempts at heating useless. There is heat in his bedroom, though. He’s the only source of it, huddled under numerous blankets because one or two isn’t enough to hold the warmth in. One or two of these ratty, worn down, going on thread bare pieces of cloth wouldn’t be able to keep the rats warm that occasionally scurry along the floor in search of crumbs.

For all he knows though, he shouldn’t have them. No, he doesn’t deserve their attempt at keeping him warm enough to live when he knows deep inside that he won’t need it much longer. He shouldn’t have these sheets wrapped around him like a cocoon as he sits up on his knees atop his just too small bed. He should take the sheets and bring them to his father. He knows the man is sleeping just a room away under less and it just doesn’t seem fair. His father is probably freezing, his father must be shivering as he sleeps, his father must be dreaming because that’s what people do when they have plans.

When they have lives.

The moon is making its way across the sky, climbing ever so slowly to its peak. When the moon reaches its highest point. That’s when time is up.

“It knows,” he says to the silence of his bedroom. Despite no word spoken back, he knows his words were heard. “Now is the best time. Otherwise…”

He can feel the stretch of lips from across the room—sense the way the skin pulls back a bit to reveal teeth that urge him on. Go on, finish.

“You just might have lost,” he concludes and there is another shift in the air about him. It gets heavy just at the edge of the bed behind him, hovering in an almost silent challenge to anything that might try and make that statement true.

A strong, familiar set of hands work their way to the front of the sheets wrapped around him, a wordless command that has the protective nest dropping away in a matter of seconds. The bed dips behind him and the hands find their way down the sides of his neck to move smoothly over his shoulders. “You’ve grown so much, dearest,” the other voices at last and he does his best to hold in the retort he wants to make by staring resolutely out the window at the sky. “We both knew it would come to this. I never lose—especially not to that thing. Besides, the prize here is far too lovely.”

He finds nothing new in this tone, no comfort, no distaste, just the smooth familiarity that comes with it as if listening to one’s favorite lullaby. This voice has been a constant for so long that he can hardly believe that in a few minutes time it’ll be gone. He’ll never hear it again. He can’t decide on if that feeling pooling in his gut is disappointment or elation. A strange mix of the two.

“What’s the matter? You almost seem…sad,” remarks the voice with a hint of almost concern, “You did say your goodbyes, right? Got everything out of the way?”

“Weren’t all the others like this too?” he asks—tone resigned but only to suppress the way it wants to tremble at the prospect, “Sad when they realized? But for them it must have been a quick realization. I’ve known. You’ve known. It’s known. For a while now.” He has known. That all that time, all those nights and whispered words—pleas gone ignored, nightmares had, tears shed and fear lived through time and time again. Not only at the hands holding him, but at the hands that he expects to come pounding at the window. Hands that could shatter the glass, pull him through the opening and into yet another form of oblivion.

To his surprise, his questions get him little more than dry laughter. “None of the others were like you,” the voice says with an edge, “In any way. You’re different. Special. You know that.”

He blinks as he finally drops his gaze from the window, he’s sure the moon is at its highest now and he’s just been thrown a bit. “How? How am I special, different from any one else? Other then the obvious? I’m just another one for you to—it’ll be done. No more. I’ll have nothing left to give. I knew that in the end no matter who won, it would be the same for me.”

A scoff, followed by a roughness that warps the smooth tone he’s so used to that it nearly has him jumping if not for the firm hands keeping him in place. “No. The results—between that and this—are completely different,” the other grinds out in a way that leaves absolutely no room for argument. The hands on his shoulders turn him around so he can see the other again for the first time tonight. The creature before him has the same defined features, light skin, and flawless air that draw him in just like the very first night so long ago. “Why do you think I’ve waited this long? For some game? For you to be something quick that I could have taken at any given time? No, precious one, no. I did this for you, and for me.”

“I don’t understand—” he tries before being cut off by the distant sound of the bells ringing to signify that it was in fact midnight and the moon had reached its highest point in the sky.

A grin spreads across those seemingly perfect features in a way that borders on just this side of being warped. “You will, don’t worry. But first,” the other leans forward slowly, pushing his own body backwards atop the messy heap of blankets. There was the smallest twitch of jaw before their faces are mere centimeters apart.

“Happy Birthday, Kurt.”