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As soon as the door is closed and sealed, Zolf is at Wilde's side. He touches him unthinkingly, running his hands down Wilde’s arms and over his chest, fingers hovering over the blood on his shirt, the fresh and livid scar tissue over his heart.
There is so much to do, and he can feel the cold edges of shock at the edges of his senses. It's so quiet, but the noise unfurls as the seconds tick. Hamid's hitching breaths as the enormity of what he'd missed hits him, Skraak's hisses of rage and loss. Cel is muttering in quick, ragged words to Ada, and he can hear Azu pacing the room.
He should be healing. He should be preparing. He should be drawing on that well of distant focus which he has worked so hard to cultivate.
He doesn't even try.
"I almost lost you," he says, the words breathless, harsh with thwarted grief and a searing anger.
Wilde looks pale and so human that it hurts. No more masks. Not between them. They don't have the heart for it. Not now. "I'm-"
He drags a hand through his hair and when his hands drop, Zolf takes one in his, clings to it like Wilde will vanish if he doesn't hold on.
"I'm here, Zolf. Thanks to you."
Zolf lets out a harsh laugh that is more than half sob. He can still feel the weight of those seconds, when the blow had cut into him and for one horrifying moment, he'd nearly lost the warp and the weft of the spell. Nearly lost Wilde.
"I couldn't keep you safe," he says.
Wilde shakes his head. "Zolf... Zolf you saved me. We always knew this was going to be dangerous.”
It's not enough. It's just... it's not enough. Or maybe it's too much. Too much bottled up, too much unsaid, too much in his heart and head and on his tongue.
He should stay distant. Complete the mission. That above all else. But in the heat of the moment...
Fuck it. Doesn't he deserve something to hope for too?
He reaches up, and tugs Wilde down towards him.
Wilde has a startled look on his face, but not displeased, and god, he's beautiful, even like this, bloody and exhausted and scared in a way that Zolf has rarely seen him.
He presses his lips to Wilde's forehead, then against is temple, his hair, the curve of his jaw, desperately, before he presses their lips together.
It isn't a good kiss by any measure. It's hardly romantic. Wilde tastes of blood, and Zolf has never been much for kissing. It's more need than passion. It lasts forever. It doesn't last long enough. Zolf lets out a breath and presses their foreheads together, a hand curling against Wilde's neck. Wilde's eyes are closed tight.
He can feel Wilde's breath. He's alive. He's alive.
"I'm here," Wilde says softly. A promise.
"I need you," Zolf says, his voice harsh with emotion. "I need you. When I thought I'd lost you..."
In that moment, he would have damned the world to save him. It's a strange thing to realise about himself. When had one person become more important to him than the world?
When had he stopped caring about that?
Wilde wraps his arms around him then, pulling him close.
"When I thought I'd lost you-" Zolf repeats, trying to find the words to convey what he means when his own thoughts are the confused mess of adrenaline crash. “It’s not enough. I don’t want things to end without us- without-”
Wilde kisses him again. It's softer this time, a lingering press of lips with the weight of the world behind it.
"I know," Wilde says against his lips. "I know."
Zolf believes him.
They stay like that for a long time. As long as they can anyway, breathing each other in, passing that vital, living breath between them.
"I dreamed of you," Wilde says. "We had a house. It was so green outside. Somewhere quiet. A comfortable place."
Zolf's breath hitches at that. It's so different to what he remembers of when he'd found Wilde last time, the Parisian apartment.
"Yeah?" he asks.
Wilde hums his agreement. "It was... lovely. I don't think I've ever felt so happy."
Zolf frowns and cups Wilde's cheek, meeting his gaze squarely. "Not yet. But we could... if you want to, we could have that. Afterwards."
A house to share. A future that he's never quite let himself believe in. People like him don't get the happily ever after. That’s for people who aren’t bloodied and broken. But now...
"I'd like that, Zolf," Wilde says, and he gives a small, wan smile. It's a shade of the smiles he's seen from him before, but it might just be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
Zolf nods, and gives him one last kiss before he turns back to the others.
A future. Not just a world for other people, he has a future to build for himself. For them. He tucks that thought away, deep inside himself, where it banks the embers of stubborn hope.
He has a future to fight for.