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His hand hovered over the wound. Stopped. His fingers curled into a fist, then relaxed. Then curled again. Ashveil was counting. One, two, three. Like he was talking himself off a ledge. This wound is the new one. The one that hadn't been there yesterday or a few days ago or hundreds of it... The one that burned from within with a bleeding light of a dying star trapped behind ribs.
Ashveil watched his metal fingers press into the edges of the wet bandages, watched it flake away under the pressure, revealing more of that breathing redness. The air around it shimmered, and suddenly Ashveil felt it on his face, on his neck, on the exposed skin of his wrist where his sleeve had ridden up and the glove had been removed. The warmth was dry and intense, like standing too close to a forge. And it wasn't supposed to be here. On these parts or lower.
A car passed somewhere beyond the alley's mouth – tyres hissing on wet asphalt, the sound swallowed by rain before it could reach them. The city was breathing around them, indifferent. Ashveil let it be.
Blade didn't move.
Not a muscle. Not an eyelash. Not even his breath – though Ashveil could see his chest rising and falling, too fast, too uneven, the fabric of his already ruined bandages stretching and pulling with each shallow inhale. He stood with his back pressed against the rusted grate – through it, he could feel the low thrum of a train somewhere beneath the street, a vibration that travelled up the metal and settled in his spine. The city's pulse. Ugly and mechanical. Not so different from his own. His head was tilted down, chin almost touching his chest, and he stared at something past Ashveil's shoulder – at the wet asphalt, at the overflowing trash bin. A torn bag bulged out of the gap, spilling a grey rag – a shirt, maybe – that hung limp and heavy with rain. The air around it smelled of old vegetables, not loud, just there, like the alley had exhaled and never quite breathed out again.
...Anything but him.
The tension in Blade’s neck was unmistakable – cords standing out starkly beneath the pale skin, jaw clenched so tight the muscles jumped and twitched. His hands hung at his sides, fingers curled loosely, and one of them trembled – just slightly, a fine vibration that Ashveil caught only because he was close enough to see the way the air moved around it.
The wound pulsed. Slow. Measured. Like one that had no right to exist in the chest of a man who had forgotten how to want to live and only recently remembered what it was like. Each pulse sent a wave of warmth radiating outward, and the air rippled around it, shadows dancing on the wall like living things.
"Don't," Blade finally said, and his voice was sandpaper, rust, like something that hadn't been used in too long. His throat moved as he swallowed, and Ashveil watched his Adam's apple bob and the tendons in his neck pull taut with the effort of speaking.
"Don't what?" Ashveil asked, even though he already knew.
Ashveil's fingers – the real ones, warm and trembling – pressed harder into Blade's shoulder… The tension beneath his palm was knotted and rigid, muscle locked into stone, coiled for battle, for anything but this.
...Anything but standing in a dark alley in the rain and letting someone touch him.
"Too late," Ashveil said and gave a cornered man some time.
He pushed. Slowly. One joint, then another.
Inside.
He was inside him. Not metaphorically. Not in the way he'd imagined for centuries, lying awake in the dark. Actually, physically there. The warmth closed around the metal like it was welcoming him. The fact that Blade let him after all...
The finger sank deeper…
…and Blade's breath was punched out of him – sharp, like a blow to the solar plexus or an exacerbation of Mara. The sound was small, barely there, but Ashveil heard it. Felt it echo in his own chest, felt his own breath catch in response.
The warmth was immediate. It rushed up the metal of the prosthetic, not burning, but intense – like plunging his hand into water that was just short of boiling. It travelled through the joints, through the delicate wiring that Blade had once repaired with such careful hands, and settled deep like a second pulse that didn't belong to him.
Blade's hand shot out – not to push Ashveil away, but to grip the rusted grate beside his hip. The metal was wet, cold, flaking under his palm. His knuckles went white. Somewhere above, a window slid shut – a sharp, final sound, like someone closing a door on the world.
"Breathe," Ashveil said, and his own voice came out low and rough, almost a command. He could feel Blade's body was fighting itself – his ribs wanted to expand but he wouldn't let them.
"I am breathing."
"You're holding it."
Ashveil's thumb – the real one, warm and steady – traced along Blade's collarbone. Light. Barely there. A touch that was more question than statement. The bone beneath the skin was sharp and prominent, and the shiver that ran through Blade's entire body at the contact – starting at his shoulder and rolling down his spine like a wave – was impossible to miss.
"I'm trying."
"I know."
Ashveil pushed deeper carefully. His eyes never left Blade's face – watching his lips part further, his brow furrow, his breath come faster, hotter – short, sharp bursts that misted in the cool air of the alley.
The wound now burned. Inside, there was no blood. No flesh. Just that red, pulsing glow – bright and alive, like the heart of a star that now refused to die.
"It's there," Ashveil murmured. "It's like touching a heartbeat."
"And I hate this," Blade said, and for a moment he looked like he was trying to make himself small.
"Which part?"
"All of it. You seeing this... Like I'm something worth—."
He didn't finish.
And in that unfinished note, something in Ashveil's chest snapped – not into pity, not into a question, but into something sharper, almost angry. He felt his own hand tremble inside the wound, felt his fingers twitch – not tighter, no, just reflexively, like they were trying to hold onto something that was slipping away.
The silence stretched.
Too long.
And Ashveil couldn't take the silence anymore. Not as a "healer". Not as a therapist. As a man who suddenly couldn't breathe. "You think you don't deserve it?"
"I stopped thinking about it a long time ago. Deserve has nothing to do with it."
Slowly. Very slowly. Fingers tightened on the grate. The wound swallowed another inch of metal.
"Does it hurt?" Ashveil asked, and his voice was softer now, almost tender.
"No."
Blade looked up then. Red eyes, dark circles beneath them. Exhaustion carved into every line of his face. His cheeks were hollow, his cheekbones sharp, his lips cracked and dry. He looked like a man who had been fighting for centuries and had finally run out of reasons to keep going. And yet – beneath it all, there was something else.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Oh, what should I say? Because I can?" Ashveil said. "...Because you let me, Yingxing. And because I've wanted to touch you like this since I first saw you in that workshop, bent over your workbench, with your sleeves rolled up and your hands covered in soot. Because I watched you work and I wanted to know what it would feel like to have those hands on me. Because I've waited hundreds and hundreds of years to stand this close to you."
Blade's gaze flickered. Something passed across his face too fast to name.
"I don't let anyone," Blade said.
"And yet?" Ashveil leaned closer, close enough that his forehead almost touched Blade's shoulder. Close enough to smell him – something that smelled like old grief and even older hope. Not rotten. Just tired. Just human. Ashveil felt it hit the back of his throat and swallowed anyway, because it was real, because it was him. "What do you feel, Yingxing?"
"Your fingers."
"And?"
"Inside me."
"Is that bad?"
Blade shook his head. A small movement, almost shy. His hair brushed against Ashveil's forehead, soft and smelling of ash.
"No."
Ashveil's lips brushed Blade's neck – the lightest touch, barely there, again, a question more than a statement. His own breath fogged cold against the damp skin, and he felt the fine grit of rain-washed city dust beneath his mouth. And the wet clothes stuck to the body unpleasantly.
Blade let go of the grate and grabbed Ashveil's coat instead.
"Don't stop," he exhaled.
He pressed himself forward into the contact, chasing it, and Ashveil smiled against his jaw. His teeth grazed the bone – gently, barely a pressure, but Blade's whole body shuddered in response, hips pushing forward, instinctive, unthinking, pressing against Ashveil's thigh.
Ashveil wanted to bite him. Wanted to sink his teeth into that pale throat, wanted to taste Blade's pulse against his tongue, wanted to leave marks that would last longer than the wounds that healed too fast. Damn his curse. His fangs ached with the effort of holding back, of keeping his mouth soft and gentle instead of hungry and desperate. A sharp, reflexive clench that travelled up to his temples, where a vein pulsed against the bone. His hands shook with the need to grip, to hold, to take.
"Can I touch you…" Ashveil murmured instead, "…until you forget what it feels like to be dead?"
Blade's laugh was short, dry, almost bitter.
"You can't fix me, La Mancha."
"I'm not fucking trying to fix you."
The air between them held — not empty, but full, like a breath that neither of them dared to finish, like the space before a blade falls or a name is spoken for the first time in centuries.
Ashveil kissed him then. Gentle. Careful. Like he was afraid Blade might break. The hat fell into a puddle.
But the moment their lips met, the contact spread like fire through dry grass. It ignited nerves that had been dormant for centuries.
The warmth from the wound poured between them. It pooled in the spaces where they weren't touching. Made everything around thick and heavy. Made it hard to breathe.
Blade answered by tilting his head, pressing closer. His thumb brushed Ashveil's cheekbone, stroking the skin there, and Ashveil felt it everywhere – in his spine, in his stomach, in the way his breath caught and stuttered. He tasted ash. Smoke. And underneath – something very, very dear to his heart. Something that hadn't been killed yet. The man who once stood in a workshop with soot on his hands and fire in his eyes, before the world took everything. It was the taste of everything that had been lost – centuries of silence, of hands that never reached out, of words that stayed locked behind teeth. And it was the taste of everything that was finally being found – this breath, this mouth, this body pressed against his through layers of ruined fabric in a dark alley under a dying sky. The taste of it was unbearable and perfect, and Ashveil wanted more.
Their breath mingled in the narrow space between them – his own, ragged and desperate, and Blade's, uneven and raw. They shared it like a secret, like a prayer, like something that had no right to exist but did anyway.
A siren wailed somewhere across the Dovebrook District – distant, lonely, bleeding into the rain. Neither of them flinched. The world could burn. It already had. This was the only thing that mattered now.
"I never got to touch you like this," Blade said, pulling back just far enough to speak. His lips were wet, red. "Back then. I wanted to. But I didn't."
"I know," Ashveil said. "I wanted you to."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Same reason you didn't. Fear. Stupidity. Time. I was… afraid that if I touched you, I wouldn't be able to stop. That I would want too much. That you would see how much I wanted you and you would pull away."
Blade was quiet for a long moment. The only sounds were their breathing and the distant hum of the city and the drip of water from a pipe somewhere above them.
"I'm not that person anymore," Blade finally said.
"Neither am I. So what?"
"Then what are we now?"
Ashveil's prosthetic moved one last time and stopped right there. Thinking. Deciding. Waiting.
He didn't move. Didn't pull out.
"We're the people who waited too long," Ashveil pressed his forehead to Blade's. "And now we're making up for it… Tell me it's not too late."
Still inside. And Blade hadn't asked him to leave.
"I don't know how to stay. I only know how to walk out. That's the only trick I ever learned."
Ashveil didn't answer. He waited.
Blade's hand tightened in his coat. His voice dropped lower.
"I don't know if I can learn."
"I’ll teach you, Yingxing. Slowly. Until you stop flinching."
Oh, well. That smile and that laugh of the broken-legged wolf…
This time the reaction and everything was hungrier. More mixed and chaotic. Ridiculously disgusting. Desperate as if Blade was drowning, as if Ashveil was the only solid thing in a world that had been nothing but quicksand for centuries. Every point of contact was an anchor – the press of their chests, the metal fingers still buried inside the wound, the real hand splayed across his back, feeling every tremor, every shudder.
Ashveil answered in kind. Like a man who forgot how to pray and was trying to remember. He pressed his hand against Blade's chest – right over the wound – the warmth soaking through his palm. And beneath it – something that now felt less like a heartbeat and more like a question: are you still here?
All hot and wet.
Every instinct screamed at him to bite. To sink his teeth into that pale shoulder, to mark that unblemished skin, to taste the iron and salt and something darker. Ashveil's jaw ached. His hands shook with the effort of holding back. His lips stayed soft against Blade's, his tongue gentle, his teeth carefully controlled.
"Tell me something, Yingxing," Ashveil whispered against his skin. "Tell me you'll stay."
Blade was quiet for a long time. Through the alley's mouth, the Dovebrook District stirred – a truck rumbled past, someone shouted a laugh that faded into nothing, and the rain began to fall harder, drumming against the corrugated iron above them. The sound pressed in, reminding them that the night wouldn't last forever.
Then his arm came around Ashveil, pulling him tight, holding him like he was something precious. "I'll try, La Mancha."
He didn't say "stay".
Ashveil felt it land somewhere deep – not hope, not yet. Something rawer. He believed Blade would try. And that was worse than if he'd just walked away. Because trying meant failing. And failing meant coming back. And coming back meant Ashveil would have to watch him leave again.
"You don't believe me," Blade said.
"I want to," Ashveil answered.
"That's not the same thing."
"I know."
The rain kept falling.
Neither of them moved away.