Blood seeped from the wound, slicked his fingers. He ignored the discomfort and kept right on digging, dizzy and breathless, anesthetized by grief and stubborn purpose. He bulldozed on until his fingers suddenly touched something yielding and then he must’ve blacked out for a bit, because he couldn’t for the life of him recall how the hell he’d moved half the countertop.

The first thing Misha noticed as he staggered closer was that Riley looked surprisingly good for a corpse. He was in one piece, which was more than Misha had dared hope for, wasn’t bloody, not even particularly dirty. A little bruised, maybe. Pale beneath his tan, long lashes dark against ashen skin. He was curled up protectively, head pillowed on his crumpled hat, his chest rising and falling slightly with… every… breath….

Misha’s world reset.

Surround sound kicked back in. Numbness evaporated under an overwhelming wave of relief that sent him to his knees in the dirt. He tugged off his gloves, shoved them into his pocket, even this thin barrier too much to handle. His hands shook when he reached out and stroked Riley’s cheek (smooth, warm, alive, thank God, alive), trembled hard when he ran them over the familiar frame, checking for cuts and breaks, finding nothing obvious. He had trouble seeing, could feel tears run down his face and soak into the much-abused material of Kolya’s shirt, and he didn’t even try to blame them on the smoke. He touched Riley’s face again, just to feel the delicate caress of those precious, gentle breaths against his battered and bloody fingers.

Something popped and crackled in the flames, snapping him out of it.

Misha realized his coughs had gotten worse, that he was starting to feel nauseous and lightheaded despite the protection of the improvised mask. No time to linger, not even to make sure Riley didn’t have internal injuries. If moving Riley did cause damage, Misha would have to deal with it once they were safely outside, because they were minutes from being choked and devoured by the smoke and flames. Misha wasn’t about to go out in a kitchen fire. To imagine flames licking at Riley’s dead body had been unbearable; the idea of him burning alive was a thousand times worse.

Misha had to get them both out of this death trap as fast as possible and hope his first assessment had been correct and by some miracle Riley had merely been knocked senseless.

He lifted Riley out of the debris as carefully as he could, scraping his hands worse than before and not caring. He could deal with a few more scratches if it meant Riley wouldn’t have to suffer any additional pain. He’d rather see Riley stained with his own blood than with Riley’s. For a second he just knelt there, cradling the unconscious form against his chest, unable to move, to let go. He could see the pulse flutter beneath the fragile skin of Riley’s bared throat, could feel the living warmth of him, and he heaved a