Aiden hugged him back, hard, careful of those little bird-bones but still tight enough to prove he was no spirit, no shadow of a boy. He wrapped those big tattooed arms around the tiny wraith and squeezed, kissed the top of the dark mop, exhaled shakily into the familiar scent of Wren.
Tiny, quicksilver. "Ssh," again, soft as kitten fur, more gentle than a man his size should be capable of being, and he kissed the hair again before resting his chin on it. The flutter of the heartbeat, the constant thud of the pulse. This was his Wren, the lifeline he'd clung to when the whiskey hadn't worked.
"Sing Sing," Aiden whispered, reminding him of their plan, a slow smile on his full mouth. Wren against all odds had kept to the plan and they were reunited because of it.
His hands moved over the picket fence ribcage, the lean hips, searching like some parts had gone missing. Was he injured? Had the muggers hurt him the way they'd taken Aiden to be hurt? He pulled back, touched the elfin chin, forced Wren to look, to see. "Okay?" An innocent question with so much meaning.