2019-03-28 - There's no place like home.

A quick text - she was going to hit the library for a little bit, would be home later - set Emily's feet into motion. She preferred walking to and from work whenever she could, let her mind wander down familiar streets, cracks in the sidewalk she had known since childhood. The pharmacy where Mary eyed her warily, the hardware shop with the permanent chip in the front window, the florist with the sign out front:

Emily tripped on the uneven sidewalk, felt her stomach lurch even more than her steps. It's nothing. Coincidence. But she veered off-course anyway, turning onto a side-street, following an old woman with a little white dog that desperately wanted to sniff the contents of a trash can. The woman cooed at it, "Come on now, Rosie, behave yourself, we've got our walk to finish." And Rosie the white dog growled at Emily, and Emily growled back. She spun into an alley, searching for her breath there, seeing only the vase of flowers in a dingy window, smudged white petals blurring in front of her eyes, and she ran. Her nose was full of the smell of them, the awful, unreal, choking, cloying smell, every breath an agony of perfume that dissolved her from the inside.

Something nipped at her, took a little bite, and she ran harder. Careening out of the alleyway, she didn't even check the light, and heard brakes squeal loudly, felt a hard hand grab her by the bicep and yank her back onto the sidewalk. Reflexively, she shoved at its owner, reached with her mind to grab the nearest anything - a trash can lid - to bring it around and slam against the owner of the vice-like hand, but the lid wouldn't move. It was rooted to the spot. The hand didn't move. It bit into her bicep like a vice, even when she shoved both hands again, and a thousand year old voice came out of a craggy face, "Whoa there, sister, no need for all that."

Emily looked up into watery brown eyes, bloodshot, set inside a face made of leathery skin and deep, dirty wrinkles masked by thick eyebrows and a frazzled beard. He smelled awful, unwashed and liquory, but the smell was real, and it chased the roses from her nostrils with its unclean thickness. There was uncanny brightness in those eyes, and waves of it cascaded off him, hit her with all the force of the truck that narrowly missed her on the street: grief, loss, pain, anger, confusion, madness. "Bad today, innit?" She answered with a nod, and he withdrew his hand, and she followed him like a moth to his bright, bright flame, found herself sitting on the edge of the curb, drinking from his bottle.

The story spilled out of him wordlessly. A life he had lost, wife, children, job, all of it, nibbled away till this was all that was left. It was easier, in the end, to just let go, let them bite and bite and bite till there were only a few tidbits left. "You're not ready to just let go yet, though." She shook her head, and he patted her hand as gently as he could with his calloused, greasy fingers.

"That's okay. You still gotta home?" His regret tumbled out of him along with the soul-deep sigh when she nodded, wrapped her up in sorrow that clung to sanity with fingertips, slipping and slipping. He wanted a companion, and she wasn't there yet. The word home rattled around in her head, chased by phantoms. She thought about the building, that house she hated, and she felt herself crumbling from the inside, but he put his hand on her shoulder and said, "You still got a home." And she thought about Logan instead, not the house, the person.

"It's easy to let go, though. When it's bad. Like today. If you want to, you can." They sat side-by-side for a while, watching traffic hiss down the street, till the nibbling faded and was gone, and they sighed together at the same time. "Go on home now."

Peeling herself up off the curb, Emily took half the tips out of her pocket and pressed them into his greasy fingers. He smiled at her, the empty glaze over his eyes, saying thank you and God bless you. Even dizzy, even dazed, she knew the way home from here.

The walk was uneventful, and she came into the house while Logan was in the kitchen. She thought he'd be fixing something, but he was cooking something. For a minute, she thought she'd leave him alone and go get a book and disappear, nursing the little bites they'd taken out of her today, the itchy remnants of pieces they'd nipped out of her. But that sounded lonely, sounded like letting go, so she wound an arm around his waist from behind him, leaned her head against his back, and caught her breath. He was her home now.