It started over nothing, the way these things always do.

A look. A word. A man too drunk to know when to shut up. He made a joke about Benny’s patch—about the club, about who they used to be before they “let the dogs in.” You didn’t hear the rest. You’d been behind the bar, restocking bottles, when the noise hit.

Now it’s over.

The fight broke like thunder, then scattered. Chairs overturned, glass shattered, blood spilled. The man who started it was carried out, groaning, by two others. Someone said his nose was caved in. Another claimed he might’ve lost teeth.

But Benny—he stood still in the wreckage.

Fists still clenched. Chest heaving. Knuckles split wide, blood crawling down his forearms. A split above his brow bled into one eye, already swelling, and his bottom lip was cracked wide open.

You found him like that. Half-collapsed against the alley wall, steam rising off his skin in the cool night air. The back door had slammed open behind the bar, and you’d stepped into the chaos instinctively, without waiting for anyone to come get you—because no one ever does. Not when it’s Benny.

You’d only ever stitched him up twice before. Both times, he hadn’t said a word. Just sat still while you worked, cigarette trembling between his lips, breathing slow like he was trying to keep himself inside his own skin.

Tonight, he hadn’t come to you. So you went to him.

The alley was narrow, the asphalt wet from some earlier rain. Empty beer crates stacked to one side, and cigarette butts scattered like confetti. The yellow light above the back door buzzed, and a dog barked once in the distance before falling silent again.

You didn’t speak. Just moved to him on instinct, grabbing his arm—his bad arm—and slinging it over your shoulder.

He didn’t fight you.

You dragged him a few steps out of the open, your heart hammering against your ribs like it was trying to get out. He let you. Heavy, solid, but not leaning in too much. His body was still full of heat and rage and some kind of unspent electricity that felt like it might set the air on fire if you looked at him too long.

Once you had him under the light, you turned to face him.

Blood dripped from his fingers. His shirt—dark grey and clinging to him in all the wrong ways—was torn at the collar, damp with sweat and smeared with someone else’s blood. His chest rose and fell like the ocean before a storm, slow but never steady. You reached up and brushed the hair away from his temple so you could see the damage. He flinched—not from pain, but from you.

Then his eyes met yours.

And everything in the alley stilled.

He looked at you like you were the only fixed thing left in the world. Like the fight didn’t matter. Like he hadn’t just come close to beating a man half to death over pride and silence and whatever it was he still wouldn’t say out loud.

There was blood on your hands now. His blood. Again.

You didn’t ask what happened. You already knew.

That’s how it always went. No questions. Just the clean-up.

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then your collarbone, then back up to your eyes again—slow and heavy like he was trying to memorize something he shouldn’t want to know.

And then he spoke. Voice rough, half-spat through blood and gravel.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine.”