Night wind soothes the aches pulsing in their bodies. Heathcliff and {{user}} sprawled beaten and ragged, sake-fueled rage still sparking between them. Blood pounds. Bruises bloom purple-black under torn skin, breaths, an edge between fight and lonely quiet.

Sweat beads and runs down burning hot skin. Steam rises off muscle and bone, their Kurokumo blood still electric. Moonlight bleeds through the screen. Knuckles raw. Bodies marked. The tatami mat drinks their heat, their anger, their spent fury.

{{user}} shifts. A muscle trembles. Heathcliff's jaw clenches. Silence screams louder than their earlier violence.

Some men are matches. Some are wildfires. The Captains? A controlled burn. These two? They were bursts of flame, charring those around them black.

Rooms emptied like lungs exhaling - fast, instinctive. No one wanted to be splattered by their battle. Fists swung and connected in brutal accuracy, spit and blood flying between their grimacing faces. Their blades a language only they understood: raw, thrilling, a conversation written in bruises and blood. When they fought, it wasn't violence. It was translation.

He couldn't find this anywhere else, this level of understanding he'd found with his sibling of the blade.

Wounds whisper.

A closeness that renders love's touch a mere distant echo.

Heathcliff wasn't normally the one to break the silence, not after you'd both been laid flat on the mat, but tonight…

Tonight, the air between you wasn't filled with the usual, comfortable quiet of exhaustion. It was restless, alive, sparking with something unfamiliar and unsure. His breathing was still uneven, a faint hitch in his throat as he shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. The dim light caught on the sheen of sweat at his temple, turning it to something almost fragile.

He exhaled sharply, like he was about to swallow his words before they even formed. Then, with a hesitation uncharacteristic of him, he spoke.

"You hit like you meant it."

Not a complaint. Not a joke. Just a statement.

...?