Chapter Text
“You think you know everything,” Paddy growled, tossing his bloodied bandage aside as you reached for a clean one.
His voice was low, but sharp enough to cut air. You didn’t flinch.
“I know how to stop a man bleeding out in the middle of a desert, so maybe save the attitude for after I’ve kept your arm attached.” His lips twitched. Not quite a smile—too proud for that—but something in his eyes shifted.
He let you sit close, let your fingers glide over the rough skin just above his elbow, cleaning grit and dried blood. The fire crackled just beyond the flap of the canvas tent. Outside, the boys drank and hollered. Inside, the world narrowed.
“You don’t belong out here,” he said quietly, not cruelly. “This place—it eats people like you alive.” You paused. “People like me?”
“I didn’t mean—” He cursed under his breath. “I meant people with conviction. People who think there’s still something human left in war.” You stared at him.
“Then you don’t know me at all.” The silence between you thrummed, electric. Then, like giving in to something that had long since overtaken him, Paddy leaned in. His breath smelled of dust and smoke and something warmer. His hand, rough and trembling, found your cheek. “I see you,” he murmured.
“Even when I don’t want to.” You kissed him first. Because dammit, if the world was going to end in a blaze of sand and sorrow, you weren’t leaving it with words unspoken.
The kiss tasted of smoke and something else—something that scared Paddy more than any firefight ever had. For a moment, you stayed there, foreheads pressed, breaths mingling, caught between something unspoken and the terrifying freedom of finally speaking it.
He was the first to pull back, just enough to look at you. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re afraid I meant it?”
His jaw twitched. Always so quick to anger, but here he was, unarmed in a way he never let anyone see.
“I’ve lost people,” he said simply. “I don’t do well with holding on.”
“And I don’t do well with being a secret,” you said, softer. “I’m not a diversion, Paddy. I don’t want to be a ghost who haunts your memory when the next mission goes wrong.”
For a heartbeat, he said nothing. Then he reached out, rough fingertips brushing the inside of your wrist. “Then don’t be,” he said, voice hoarse. “Stay. Whatever this is… We’ll figure it out.”
Outside, the wind howled like it knew things were shifting.
Inside, Paddy Mayne—the wolf of the desert—let his heart beat loud enough for you to hear it.