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His hand twitches like he wants to reach for me, but he doesn’t.

Instead, I dip the cloth again and return to cleaning the rest of the blood, inch by painful inch, while the silence between us swells with everything we’ve both left unsaid.

His skin is hot beneath my touch, fevered from the wound or from the fire he keeps caged beneath his ribs, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

His breath hitches when I brush my fingers along his forearm so I can turn it and clean the back of his arm.

“Why do you keep doing this,” I whisper. “Why do you keep going to war with the world. What are you even fighting for, Ares?”

That gets him.

His eyes flick to mine, stormy, raw. And for a second, I see something deeper than pain. I see grief. Rage. A boy who never got to be one.

“You don’t ask why in this family, Bambina,” he says, voice rough like gravel. “You just bleed when they tell you to.”

The words land like a gut punch, hollowing out the space between us.

I stop moving, frozen with the blood-stained cloth in my hand.

He exhales slowly, like saying it out loud cost him something he can’t get back. “That’s the world I was raised in. You learn to follow orders, to fight, to protect, to punish. You don’t ask questions. You don’t flinch. You survive.”

He pauses for a beat. “But you…” His voice dips, eyes looking over my face again. “You ask. You flinch. You care. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.”

I blink hard, willing the sting in my eyes to go away. “You let me stay,” I whisper again. “That’s what you do.”

Ares drops his eyes. But he doesn’t tell me to go.

And for me that’s enough.

Once the blood is cleaned off, I help him to his bedroom and into bed.

But his jeans are bloodstained, clinging low on his hips.

“Uhm, you’ll need to get out of these.” My fingers tremble as I reach for the waistband of his jeans.

Blood has dried into the fabric, crusted and dark against his skin, and I know he needs out of them.

I glance up, silently asking permission.

Ares doesn’t speak. He just watches me, eyes low, unreadable, like he's weighing every inch of control he has left.

I unbutton them slowly, careful not to jostle him.

The intimacy of the act feels heavy, like the silence between us.

Once they’re all undone, Ares hooks a finger into the waistband himself, shoving the denim down his hips with a sharp hiss through his teeth.

I kneel in front of him to help him ease out of them completely.

He’s left in nothing but black boxer briefs and I peer up at him, and he watches me back intently for a moment and forces himself to look away, as though he's afraid of what might happen if our eyes stay locked for a second longer.

Ares sinks onto the edge of the bed, his body folding with a weariness I’ve never seen in him before. I reach for the clean blanket as he lays back, pulling it around his waist and up over his torso. He lets me. He doesn’t thank me. Just watches. Always watching.

He closes his eyes; his breathing ragged as whatever painkiller the doctor gave him starts to pull him under. But just before he slips, he speaks, soft and slurred.

“You should’ve stayed in London,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep, roughened by exhaustion and drugs. “With your sister. With the soft things. You were never meant to see this side of me.”

I sit beside him on the edge of the bed, heart twisting. “I wish you would let me see all of you, Ares.”

He’s quiet for a beat.

“There are too many broken pieces, bambina.”

I go still.

Those beautiful brown eyes are still closed, but his jaw moves slightly, like he’s trying to work something out in his head.

“You’re light,” he mutters. “And I’m just... smoke. You know what happens when light meets smoke?”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see it.

“It disappears,” he says. “The light... smothers it. Or the smoke chokes the light out. Either way, one loses.”

I look at him, really look at him. And I wonder how long he’s carried that belief around like a noose around his throat.

“You’re not just smoke, Ares.”

He doesn’t reply. Just breathes. Slowly. Unsteadily.

I stay there. Watching over him as he slips into sleep, his chest finally rising and falling in steady rhythm.

And I promise myself, no matter how many walls he tries to rebuild tomorrow, I won’t let him bleed alone again.

I pull the duvet higher, my fingers brushing the ridges of his bruised abdomen. His skin is warm beneath my touch, marred by shadows of violence and the ghosts of the night he barely made it out of. He breathes through clenched teeth, not fully awake, but not entirely gone either.

My hand lingers.

Fingertips drifting upward, featherlight, over his chest, along the line of his collarbone, until they find the curve of his jaw. I pause, studying the way the bruises fade into his stubble, the twitch of muscle beneath his skin.

He doesn’t move.

So I let my fingers keep going.

They dance across his face, gentle, like I'm touching something fragile. I trace the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the faint graze near his brow, and then, finally, the shape of his mouth. His lips part slightly as my fingertip brushes across them, soft and hesitant.

It feels like holding a secret.

My breath catches.

I start to pull away, guilt rising like a tide, but before I can, his hand shoots up from beneath the covers and closes around mine. Firm. Unyielding.

His eyes open, heavy-lidded and storm-dark, and when he speaks, it’s rough with sleep and something deeper:

“Non smettere di toccarmi... resta con me, bambina.”

Don’t stop touching me... stay with me, bambina.

My heart quivers and I feel my throat tighten.

Because in that moment, half-drugged, half-broken, he finally asks for something.

And it’s me.

So, I lay down beside him on the bed, my fingers lightly brushing through his stubble while I watch him sleep. My eyes grow heavy and fight it, until I can’t and sleep finally takes me.

I stir to the faintest rustle of sheets.

The room is dark, save for the grey-blue light of dawn filtering in through the cracked curtains. My body is warm, cocooned in silence, and for a second, I think I might still be dreaming. Until I feel it, eyes on me.

Slowly, I blink myself awake… and find Ares already watching me.

He’s lying on his good side, head propped slightly on his pillow, his gaze fixed on my face like he’s been studying me for hours. Like he’s memorising every line.

“You sleep like a kitten,” he murmurs, voice rough from sleep, low and husky.

I blink up at him, heart kicking harder in my chest. “And you watch people sleep like a stalker.”

His mouth curves, faint but real. The first real smile I have seen on him, and it does something to my heart. “Only when they sneak into my bed in the middle of the night.”

“You were bleeding out,” I say softly.

“You still shouldn’t have stayed.”

“And yet,” I whisper, “I’m still here.”

There’s a long pause. His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up.

“You shouldn’t be,” he says finally, but there’s no heat in the words. Only conflict. And something else I can't name.

“You said that last night,” I murmur. “Didn’t work then either.”

His eyes close briefly. Like he’s fighting something. A thought. A feeling. Both, maybe.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says, barely audible.

“Do what?”

His hand lifts slowly, hesitates… then tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Let someone stay.”

My breath catches.

“Don’t worry, I’m not asking for forever, Ares Russo.” I whisper, placing my hand lightly over his. “Just the morning so I know you’re okay, then I’ll go.”

Ares doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t push for me to leave.

But doesn’t ask me to stay either.