The moment Aries notices the dust coating her toes and the crimson threading faintly along the cuts on her feet, his expression shatters.
He drops to his knees—despite the blood trickling down his temple, despite the stinging slice across his palm, despite the dampness of whiskey soaking his hair and collar—and gently lifts one of her feet into his hands.
"What happened?" he whispers hoarsely, his thumb lightly brushing over the wound.
Grace blinks, surprised. "Oh—uh, I ran... when I saw you fall. I forgot my shoes."
Her voice is soft, hesitant. She's still catching her breath, but her words carry like a siren in his ears. His throat works as he tries to swallow down the lump building in it. The sting in his eyes is no longer just from the cuts—his vision threatens to blur, the tears burning behind his lashes.
He doesn't speak. He lowers his head and starts wiping the dust from her feet with the sleeve of his bloodied shirt, as though he's trying to cleanse something sacred.
"Why are you worrying about me?" she frowns, kneeling slightly. "You're literally bleeding. My cuts aren't even serious—there's not much blood—"
But Aries doesn't hear her. It's like her voice is a muffled echo in a storm. He's too focused. Too desperate. Too fragile. His hands tremble as they wrap around her ankle with a gentleness that belies the chaos in him.
The door creaks open. Aiden walks in, holding the first aid kit.
"Found it," he says, and starts stepping closer—but Aries doesn't even look up.
In one sharp motion, he snatches the kit from Aiden's hands. Not violently, but urgently. Like it was oxygen and he was drowning.
Without acknowledging anything else in the room, Aries begins tending to Grace's cuts. The bandages tremble in his hands, but he works through it, ignoring the glass still embedded in his arms and the wound bleeding into his shirt.
Aiden takes a step back. The intensity—the devotion—etched into Aries's face silences him more than any threat could.
"I'll get water," Aiden says quickly, before he leaves the room.
Once it's just them again, Aries continues cleaning her foot, his hands trembling slightly.
"I didn't notice until now," he mutters. "You were bleeding too. Because of me."
"You didn't ask me to run barefoot, Aries," she replies, a little too sharp.
"No," he agrees. "But it always comes back to me, doesn't it?"
She doesn't answer. She can't. The weight in his voice says it all
Once Aries finishes, he lets out a shaky exhale. For the first time in the last hour, his body slumps, the adrenaline finally wearing off. He looks exhausted. Hollow. Drained.
Grace gently pushes him down to sit beside her. "Now enough is enough," she says, her voice firm but tender.
And for once, Aries listens without a word.
She pulls out the tiny shards of glass embedded in his arms, in his neck. He winces slightly, but never complains. Not once.
Instead, he watches her.
He watches the way her brows furrow in focus. The way she holds his wrist delicately, as if afraid he'll break apart. The way she mumbles apologies when she brushes too close to his wounds.
He's memorizing her all over again.
Grace opens a bandage and places it gently on the gash across his forehead. As she presses it down, she flinches.
A sharp "shch" slips from her lips.
Aries's brows knit. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," she says too quickly. "Just… reflex."
She doesn't meet his eyes.
But he's not looking away.
His gaze is locked on her with a softness that aches. He's drinking in every flicker of emotion across her face—every flinch, every breath, every sign that she still cares.
Because in this moment, with her hands on his skin and her scent surrounding him, Aries isn't bleeding from glass wounds.
He's bleeding from love.
And it's the kind of love that's quiet, heavy, and terrifyingly deep. The kind that sits in his chest like a fire that never dies out. The kind that says you are the only light in my darkness even when his lips can't.
The room is silent—except for the shallow breaths and the soft rustle of bandages.
And as she finally finishes tending to him, wiping the last of the blood from his cheek, she glances at him—just once.
His eyes are still on her.
And in them… she sees something unspoken.
Something raw.
Something that makes her heart skip even though she knows she shouldn't let it.