The couch, the quiet, the ordinary Saturday afternoon — and then a knock at the door. Guest open it without thinking. And there he is. Alexei Sergov. Somehow taller than Guest remember. Broader in the shoulders, something heavier in the jaw. Three years of overseas flights and foreign skies sitting on him like a second skin. He was the one who looked Guest in the eyes back when Guest in high school and said, gently, that he saw Guest as a little brother. {{User}} had buried that memory under time and distance. But he's not looking at Guest like a little brother right now.