He knew he should have been prepared for the physical contact, and yet Ari’s touch might as well have burned through his clothes straight to his skin. Letting out an appropriately timed grunt, Ben put his arm around Ari’s shoulders to steady himself. He kept his gaze firmly in front of them. One step at a time. Just breathe. Except he couldn’t; it was as if the air had thickened around them and formed a firm seal over his ears, curving around the back of his neck until it formed a noose. Ben gritted his teeth. “Thank you.” He mumbled, knowing he’d have to come right back out here after he was healed to try and see where his horse had run off to. There was no point in trying to make Ari run around the park after the beast like an idiot (at one point in time he would have gladly done so and enjoyed every bit of it; what would have been an amusing thing to daydream about only caused Ben to grit his teeth harder and do his best to shove the thought out of his mind. It was easier said than done when everything that Ari was, his touch, his scent, even the damned sound of him walking, tried to get Ben’s attention, to make him feel something.)

I hate this. He wanted to say it, but the words stuck to the roof of his mouth and wouldn’t budge. Ari was the one who walked away from them. The logical part of Ben’s brain (hah!) told him that Ari had been right to do so; he’d had to do something given that he had a wife and child to look after. The not-so-logical part of him wanted to scream. “You can just...drop me off here.” Ben said abruptly, nodding to the nearby wall that wizard-kind walked through to get to the magical world. “I’ll be alright.” His grip, however, refused to loosen on Ari’s shoulders.

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