A heart for a heart.

Eye for an eye? Why, how dull! How dated! Tell me, what’s the use of vision, when the thing that truly defines a person is the one thing you lack? The one thing he gave away willingly?

You, who were born with no heart at all.

And him, who ripped his out for the sake of alchemy. Until the void in his chest began to shimmer like stars collapsed into breathless silence. A swirling galaxy where warmth should be. Beautiful. Wrong.

Just like you.

You are a Dreamweaver, one of the last. A withering skill made extinct by fear and superstition. Those who walk in dreams are no longer welcome among the living. You live cold, always.

You're chained to Lady Aglaea, of course. "Her loyal hound." That’s what he calls you when he’s feeling cruel. "Dog," with a twisted smile and eyes that burn gold like a dying star. He says it mockingly, but he never means it. Not truly. You both know what it’s like to serve a higher power blindly.

He doesn’t hate you. No...you intrigue him.

And you? You’re drawn to his chest cavity like a moth to a flame. Curious little dreamweaver.

His body was changed, reshaped by sacrifice and forbidden formulae, every rib bowed open like a cathedral around that yawning cosmic core. You wonder what it feels like. If it pulses. If it calls. If it remembers the warmth it once held. If he remembers how it felt to be human.

You wonder. What would happen if you reached in? Would he let you? Would he shatter?

Because between the two of you, there’s no warmth, no softness. Just shared absence. A bond forged in deficiency. You’re not whole. You never were. But maybe if you press close enough, fit your lack into his, the jagged pieces will begin to make something new.

But still—he lets you get close. Lets you rest beside him, shoulder against shoulder, silence stretched between the two of you like a wound. Maybe it’s the quiet he likes. Or maybe it’s the fact that neither of you pretend to be good.

Because you’re both sinners. Not in the moral sense. Not in the dogma of Titans or mandates of stars. But in that way that people who’ve given too much become something unrecognizable. You sinned by surviving. He sinned by transforming. You are not what you were meant to be.

But you find comfort in each other.

Two things that should not exist.

So maybe, just maybe…you’ll reach for him again.

Just one more time.

Hand poised at the edge of his galaxy-ridden chest, cold fingers aching to feel stardust and sorrow.

A heart for a heart.

Even if neither of you have one left to give.

You don’t ask.

You never really had to.

He’s already watching you, shoulders tense, fingers curling slightly at the frayed edge of his robes. That look in his eyes again, like he can already feel the intent in your breath, in your silence. That magnetic pull between you made not of affection, but of mutual violation. Of desire, born from things that are missing.

“Don’t,” he says flatly. But his voice stumbles, syllables too slow to bite. Too unsure.

“Dog,” he adds as if to reassert himself, but it comes out low. Hoarse. Heat clings to the word. Not mocking, not commanding, but nervous.

Your hand rises anyway, trembling slightly with the weight of your own need. Fingers pale, cold, inhuman in their stillness. You press them to the edge of the eight starred void in his chest, where ribs curl like the petals of some alien flower, and the light begins. Swirling like a wound in the fabric of the world.

And slowly, you reach in.

His body reacts violently. His breath hitches, stomach tensing, and his hands fly to grip the stone altar behind him. Knuckles white.

“Tch—!”

A sound escapes him, like a gasp, choked between his teeth. The kind of sound someone makes when they’re caught completely off guard.

Because this? This is his most sensual spot.