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“I’m fine.”
The words come too easily — like water spilling from cracked porcelain. Rehearsed a thousand times over. Calcified into pure instinct.
Because if he were anything but fine, he’d end up with more cuts than the ones he already earned in his recent fight with the Antaam — the kind meant to teach him he was better off keeping quiet than ever daring to complain about a minor flesh wound.
But the woman standing right across from him doesn't seem appeased by his 'I'm fines' the way Caterina would be.
The fire in her eyes isn't extinguished by his petty assurance.
It flares.
“You are not fine, Illario Dellamorte,” she practically growls, grabbing his hand and yanking him forward.
He stumbles after her, his lips parting in surprise. “Rook, I’m telling you—”
“You’re telling me lies,” she hisses, dragging him to her chaise and pressing a hand to his chest to urge him down.
He hesitates. “A few scratches to my face is nothing to fret over.”
“Those aren’t scratches, those are wounds,” Rook counters, before her voices softens. “And even if they were, they’re still worth tending to.”
You’re worth tending to.
She doesn’t have to say it for him to understand exactly what she means. And somehow, it’s enough — enough to make him lower onto the chaise, even as the voices in his head beg him to stand back up. To leave the way he came. To disappear through the Eluvian, untouched and untended.
Enough for him to surrender to a kind of care he’s always craved but never had the privilege of receiving — not without orchestrating it himself. Whether it meant unbuttoning his shirt a few buttons too low or reciting that slow, velvety drawl that lures people in like silk-wrapped snares — soft to the touch, but impossible to escape.
He always had to give a part of himself to receive.
But with her, she never asks for anything in return.
“Thank you,” she whispers once he’s seated — and it nearly makes him laugh, if not for the sincerity laced in between each syllable.
He should be the one thanking her.
For always reaching for his broken pieces with bare hands — unafraid of the sharp edges, unconcerned with how deeply they might cut.
But instead, he watches her in silence as she rummages through her drawer, pulling out whatever she can find.
A stretch of cotton. A flask of alcohol. A homemade mixture in a glass jar.
And then she returns to him — stepping close, bending at the knees as she begins to kneel in front of him.
His eyes instantly widen. His hands shoot out, catching her before she can touch the ground.
Instinct.
A Crow who kneels is no Crow at all.
He can practically hear his nonna’s voice in his ear, ringing like a clanging cymbal, echoing through the silence that hangs between him and Rook.
“Illario?” Rook asks gently.
“Perdonami.” He swallows, slowly releasing her wrists. “Please… continue.”
Though his words grant permission, his eyes betray him — tracking her every movement as she sinks fully to the ground, silently pleading with her to rise.
But she doesn’t notice. She only leans in, presses a soft kiss to his forehead, and begins — and he fights back a shiver.
She starts with the cotton. Wets it with alcohol. Then, slowly, cautiously, as if handling a relic, she lifts it to his face and smooths it over the cut beneath his eye. Like she's polishing rather than scrubbing. Each downward stroke too gentle, too precise, to be anything but intentional.
She doesn’t want to hurt him.
And he wants to tell her it’s alright if she does.
Her free hand lifts to his other cheek, applying the faintest pressure to tilt his face to the side. Then she begins cleaning the cut along his jaw.
Softly. Inch by inch. Like slowly peeling a bandage back in hopes of easing the pain.
How could she be so considerate? Even in this? Even in the way she wipes blood from his skin?
The alcohol stings against a particularly tender spot and he flinches ever so slightly — not enough for most to notice.
But Rook is not most people.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, letting the cloth fall from her hands so she can cup his cheeks, her forehead pressing gently against his. “Did that hurt?” she asks, scanning his face.
He reaches for her wrists, guiding them down between them as he swallows another thick knot in his throat.
“No. It didn’t.”
Not for the reasons you think.
Judging by the deep frown on her lips, she doesn’t seem convinced, but continues nonetheless.
She leans in and kisses the corners of his mouth — a silent apology he can’t deflect — before reaching for the jar of her mixture. It's a poultice of some kind that smells of elfroot and sage, with the consistency of butter left out in the sun.
She dips her fingers in, scoops a dollop, and begins spreading it across each cut.
He watches her, starry eyed, still reeling from her kiss — until her fingers graze that painful spot once again, and he winces.
Each time it happens, she murmurs another soft apology:
“I’m sorry, my love.”
“It’ll be over soon, I promise.”
“I’m here, baby. I’ve got you.”
And soon, he finds himself trembling. Trembling from words so sweet they might as well be nectar, injected straight into his veins — spreading through every empty crevice of his body, through the places in his heart that had been left to gather dust and cobwebs — now suddenly brighter, sweeter, soaked in honey.
He wants to tell her he’s faced worse. So much worse.
A cane to his back. A heel digging into to the back of his hand. A slap across his face.
But not at the risk of losing this — that gentle touch, those caring whispers he never had the privilege of hearing when he was hurt. Not as a child. Not ever. He’d always had to pick himself up by the bootstrap. Always had to bleed and heal alone in the dark.
He doesn’t even realize she’s finished until she’s twisting the lid shut on the jar, setting it aside.
“All done. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she grins.
“I suppose I am still breathing,” Illario replies dryly — though his eyes are locked on hers, glassy and on the verge of tears. Anything but dry.
She gives him a soft smile before rising to her feet. Then she leans in and presses a final kiss to his forehead — and that alone makes his eyes squeeze shut, in a way no sting of alcohol ever could.
She starts to pull away. To turn.
But he catches her wrist and draws her back in.
Instinct.
His lips crash onto hers — roughly, tenderly, hard and soft all at once. His hands move to her waist, pulling her closer into him, and her eyes flutter shut as she succumbs to his pull, her arms wrapping around his neck, her lips moving against his, desperately trying to keep up with each tilt of his head, every angle he kisses her.
They continue like that for a while, getting lost in the feel of their mouths pressed as one. Each kiss stretches longer than the last, until they begin to forget they were ever separate entities to begin with. Their tongues play a coy game of predator and prey — finding each other, pulling away, pressing in harder.
He's mesmerized by the noises that escape her — those soft little gasps when he tugs on her lip before yanking her back in with his teeth. The heavy breaths whenever they part for a split second to breathe something besides each other — before melting back into another kiss. The way her fingers scratch at the back of his neck, curling into his hair, making his eyes roll back even behind closed eyelids.
It isn’t until they’re both panting and shaking, their lips rimmed pink — thoroughly kissed and bruised — that they finally pull apart with a quiet pop.
He presses his forehead to hers. “Before meeting you, I never knew how soft a kiss could be. How sweet.”
And just like that, tears brim to the surface.
She can’t find the words to respond. Can’t find anything adequate enough to convey the warmth spreading through her chest — to show how much those words mean to her, especially coming from him.
So instead, she leans in and kisses him again. A chaste kiss to his lips — one that leaves his bruised mouth aching, swollen with her, yet not nearly satisfied. Then the tip of his nose. Then each of his cheeks.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too, preziosa,” he murmurs, never having meant anything more in his entire life.
Loving Rook’s the easiest thing Illario Dellamorte has ever done.
It’s natural — the way he pulls her into his chest without a second thought, the way he kisses her until she falls asleep, the way he yearns to feel her heart beating against his.
Loving Rook is instinct.