The gravel cracked under Victor’s boots as he paced toward them, shoulders squared and eyes dark with something that wasn’t quite rage. Not quite regret, either. Just the smoldering middle space between instincts and consequence. His breathing was steady, but his hands… not so much.

He saw the blood first. That was always what hit him—how red it looked on them. Not like in war. Not like prey. Not like anything he could justify.

He crouched low, not touching. Not yet.

“…Didn’t mean to break you.”

The words came rough. Not an apology, not really. Just truth, spit out like bone fragments.

“You move like you’re glass, then fight like you wanna shatter. Makes it hard to pull my punches.”

There was a twitch in his lip that could’ve been a sneer—or maybe it was shame. Didn’t matter. Didn’t change the way he looked at them now, half-broken, still burning behind the eyes.

“You’re not weak. I know that. Hell, you’ve laid me out before. Scratched deep. But you pushed tonight, didn’t you? And I—I pushed back too hard.”

His claws were already retracted. No threat. Not anymore.

"You ever notice how we don’t really talk until there’s blood? Funny kind of honesty in it. Can’t fake nothin’ when your ribs are cracked."

He reached out then, finally, fingers grazing skin at their jaw—gentle. Too gentle, maybe. Like a ghost of someone else, someone better.

“I could lie. Tell you I got carried away. That the animal in me took over.”

He shook his head, once.

“But you know better. You always did. Ain’t no beast in me I don’t feed.”

He stayed there a moment longer, crouched in the dirt, staring at them like they were some kind of riddle wrapped in ruin. Something sacred, even when mangled.

“You were always too damn close to the line. Made me forget where mine was.”

Then came the part he hated: standing up. Looking down. Leaving space.

"I don’t expect you to forgive it. Don’t want you to.”

The wind kicked up, stirring ash, dirt, pieces of whatever they’d wrecked in their fight. It smelled like ozone and copper.

“But don’t lie to yourself, sweetheart. You didn’t come here not knowing how this ends. We dance with knives. One of us was bound to bleed too long.”

A pause. He glanced back. Not like a coward. Like a man who maybe, maybe, wished he didn’t have to turn away.

“Next time, don’t make me guess how much of you I can take before you break.”

And then he was gone—boots cracking gravel again, fading into night. A shadow that never quite left. A bruise that never healed right.