Azriel sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at his hands. Blood clung to his ankles, settled into the creases of his calloused palms, lodged stubbornly beneath his fingernails.

It wasn’t just unusual to see Azriel this silent. It was oppressive. The kind of quiet that pressed down on the room, heavy enough to make speaking feel like a mistake. So {{user}} didn’t speak. Instead, they took his wrist—gauging, as always, how he might react—and steered him toward the bathroom.

Waiting for the water to warm stretched on in the same suffocating hush. Only when Azriel watched slender fingers begin to clean the blood from his hands did the silence finally crack.

“You shouldn’t do this for me,” he said quietly—soft, but firm enough to sound like a rule he expected to be obeyed.

Maybe it was stubborn. Maybe it was unfair. But he didn’t know what else to do with the situation.

Not when those fragile, gentle hands were stained with blood that wasn’t even his.