Page 34 of Death’s Gentle Hand

The question hit deeper than Damian expected. When was the last time? He could count on one hand the moments of genuine comfort he'd received in the past twenty years—most of them recent, most of them connected to Cael in ways that made his chest tight with longing and terror.

“That's what I thought,” Corrin said when he didn't answer. “You've spent so long being the strong one, the reliable one, the one who fixes everyone else's problems, that you've forgotten how to be vulnerable.”

“Being vulnerable gets you hurt,” Damian replied automatically.

“Being closed off gets you isolated. There's a difference.” Corrin reached out and touched his hand, their fingers warm against his cold skin.

“You've found someone who makes you feel seen.

That's terrifying, but it's also miraculous.

Don't let fear talk you out of the best thing that's ever happened to you.”

Before Damian could respond, before he could process the full weight of Corrin's words, their conversation was interrupted by urgent knocking at the clinic door. Not the polite pattern of a patient seeking help, but the sharp, demanding rhythm of someone with official authority.

“Time Exchange Authority,” called a voice that carried the crisp consonants of someone used to being obeyed immediately. “Open this door for mandatory inspection.”

Damian's blood turned to ice. He'd been expecting this moment for weeks, but the reality of it hit him like a landslide. His protective wards, his careful anonymity, his years of flying under the Exchange's radar—all of it was about to be stripped away.

Corrin was already moving, gathering the most incriminating evidence of illegal healing practice with the swift economy of someone who'd prepared for this contingency. “Back exit,” they whispered. “The tunnels. You can disappear into the Underspine before they?—”

“No.” The word came out harder than Damian had intended. “I'm done running. I'm done hiding from who I am and what I do.”

“Damian, they'll arrest you. They'll Hollow you or worse.”

“Maybe. But if I run now, I'll never stop running. And I'm tired of being afraid of my own shadow.”

The knocking came again, more insistent this time. “This is your final warning. Open the door or we will breach the premises by force.”

Damian walked to the door with steady steps, his white cane tapping against the floor with the calm rhythm of someone who'd finally made peace with an inevitable choice.

Behind him, he could hear Corrin's sharp intake of breath, could sense their terror and admiration warring in the charged air of the clinic.

“I'm opening the door,” Damian called out, his voice carrying clearly through the thick wood. “Give me a moment to secure my medical supplies.”

He used the time to center himself, to find the calm core of strength that had sustained him through twenty years of healing others' wounds.

When he opened the door, three Exchange officials stood on his threshold, their uniforms crisp and their expressions carefully neutral.

The lead officer’s presence filled the room—her footsteps measured, her voice sharp and precise, every word weighted to pin people in place.

Damian had heard the rumors about her: a woman whose reputation for reading people and finding their weaknesses was nearly legendary.

He could feel her scrutiny, like a scalpel searching for the softest spot.

“Damian Vale,” she said, though it wasn't really a question. “You are under suspicion of practicing unlicensed temporal medicine, harboring fugitives from Exchange justice, and conspiracy to undermine civic temporal stability.”

“Those are serious charges,” Damian replied mildly. “Do you have evidence to support them?”

The woman smiled, and the expression was sharp enough to cut glass. “We have testimony from multiple sources placing you at the center of an underground healing network. We have records of your magical signature at sites where illegal temporal manipulation was performed. And we have this.”

She held up a scrying crystal that hummed with a faint, unnatural energy, sending a chill down Damian’s spine.

He couldn’t see what played across its surface, but the sudden hush in the room, the sharp intake of breath from someone nearby, told him enough.

Memories—his secrets—were being laid bare.

He heard his own voice echo from the crystal, fragments of conversation in candlelight, the soft brush of movement that could only be Cael arriving at the clinic, the rooftop air thick with choice and promise.

“Consorting with cosmic entities is a crime against the natural order,” the officer continued, her voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. “Binding Death to the mortal realm destabilizes the fundamental laws that keep our society functioning.”

Damian felt something snap inside his chest—not his heart, that was still intact, still beating with stubborn hope—but his patience.

The careful restraint he'd maintained for decades, the quiet acceptance of being useful rather than valued, the willingness to make himself smaller so others would find him tolerable.

“Fuck your natural order,” he said, his voice carrying across the narrow street with enough force to make windows rattle. “Fuck your temporal stability and your social functioning and your goddamn bureaucratic definition of what's allowed.”

The words felt like liberation, like twenty years of suppressed rage finally finding its voice. Behind him, he could hear Corrin's sharp intake of breath, could sense their terror and pride warring in equal measure.

“You've built a system that treats people's lives like currency,” Damian continued, stepping out of his clinic and onto the street where neighbors were beginning to gather.

“You've turned time itself into a commodity that only the wealthy can afford.

You've created a world where children sell their futures to pay for their parents' medicine.”

“You are under arrest,” the lead officer said, but her voice carried less conviction now. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in Exchange proceedings.”

“Good,” Damian replied, his voice growing stronger with each word. “I want it used against me. I want it on record that someone stood up and said this system is wrong. That love is worth more than temporal stability. That some things are more important than cosmic law.”

As the officers moved to restrain him, as reality began to shift around them in response to his emotional state, Damian felt the air grow cold in a way that had nothing to do with weather.

Shadows deepened despite the afternoon sun, and the quality of silence changed from mundane quiet to the profound stillness that came before cosmic intervention.

Cael materialized between Damian and the Exchange officers with enough force to crack the cobblestones beneath his feet.

His form was more solid than ever before, substantial enough to cast real shadows and displace air with audible movement.

But there was something different about his presence, something that spoke of fundamental change rather than simple manifestation.

“You will not touch him,” Cael said, his voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself seem to listen. “You will not harm him. You will not take him from me.”

The lead officer stepped backward, her hand moving instinctively toward the temporal weapons at her belt. “Stand down, entity. This is Exchange business, not cosmic concern.”

Cael's response was immediate and devastating. “Everything about him is my concern. Everything that threatens him becomes my enemy. Everything that would harm him will learn what it means to face Death without restraint.”

The threat hung in the air like a blade, sharp enough to cut through every pretense of civilization.

For a moment, Damian saw what Cael had been before their connection began—not the gentle presence who'd learned to laugh and cry and choose, but the inexorable force that ended all things without mercy or hesitation.

“Cael,” Damian said softly.

The words seemed to reach through Cael's rage, reminding him of what he'd learned, what he'd chosen to become. His form flickered between states—sometimes the terrible avatar of Death, sometimes the being who'd learned to want morning light on a lover's face.

“They want to take you,” Cael said, his voice rough with emotions that had no cosmic equivalent. “They want to cut our connection and use your death to bind me to someone else. Someone who won't care about mortal suffering.”

“I know.” Damian reached out without hesitation, his fingers finding Cael's hand and intertwining with supernatural calm. “But if we fight them with their own methods, we become what they are. We become the things we're trying to change.”

The simple touch of skin against skin seemed to anchor Cael more thoroughly than any cosmic law ever had. His form solidified completely, breath creating small clouds in the suddenly cold air, heart beating with rhythm that matched Damian's own.

“Then what do we do?” Cael asked, his voice smaller now, more human. “How do we protect what we've built without destroying it in the process?”

Damian squeezed his fingers gently, feeling the warmth of mortal flesh where there had once been only cosmic cold. “We trust that what we have is stronger than law. We choose each other, completely and publicly, and let the universe decide whether that's worth preserving.”

Around them, the gathered crowd watched in stunned silence as Death itself held hands with a blind healer on a cobblestone street in Veil Row. The Exchange officers seemed frozen, uncertain how to proceed when cosmic authority and mortal defiance presented a united front.

“If you arrest me,” Damian said, his voice carrying clearly in the charged air, “you lose your best chance of controlling him. If you try to force a new binding, you'll discover what an unrestrained Reaper looks like when everything he cares about has been destroyed.”

Whatever she saw in their joined hands, whatever she read in Cael's transformed features, made her step backward with visible reluctance.

“This isn't over,” she said finally. “The Exchange has long-term plans that extend beyond your temporary arrangement.”

“Then the Exchange will discover that some arrangements become permanent,” Cael replied, his voice carrying the weight of cosmic vow. “Some choices become unchangeable. Some love becomes law.”

As the officers retreated and the crowd began to disperse, as reality settled back into its familiar patterns around them, Damian and Cael stood together in the afternoon light. Neither spoke immediately, both processing the magnitude of what had just occurred.

“We just declared war on the cosmic order,” Damian said finally.

“We declared independence,” Cael corrected. “There's a difference.”

They stood in the growing twilight, hands joined, hearts beating in synchronization that spoke of connection deeper than magic or law.

Around them, Varos continued its eternal struggle with time and death and the basic human need to exist with dignity.

But here, in this moment, two impossible beings had found something worth fighting for.

Corrin emerged from the clinic, their face pale but determined. “The Underspine has safe houses,” they said quietly. “Places where the Exchange can't easily reach. If you're going to make this stand, you'll need allies.”

“We’ll need more than allies,” Damian replied, turning toward Cael’s voice, hearing the subtle new warmth and vulnerability that had crept into it over time. “We’ll need to change the fundamental rules that govern this city. All of them.”

“Then we change them,” Cael said with absolute conviction. “Together.”

As night fell over Varos, carrying with it the promise of challenges that would test everything they'd built, Damian finally understood what Corrin had meant about being vulnerable.

Love wasn't about finding someone who wouldn't hurt you—it was about finding someone worth being hurt for, someone whose presence made the risk of pain feel like a small price to pay for the chance at joy.

Standing in the street where he'd just defied cosmic law for the sake of love, Damian smiled for the first time in days. Whatever came next, they would face it together. And that simple fact made him feel invincible in ways that twenty years of healing others had never achieved.

The war between love and law was about to begin in earnest. But for the first time since it all started, Damian felt ready to fight.