The Guild of Blades didn’t train assassins so much as it carved them- cut away everything soft until only precision and obedience remained. They called it the shaping. Most didn’t survive it. You and Ronan Vale did.

You’d joined the same year, two boys from the gutter, all knuckles and hunger. You learned to fight side by side, sleep back-to-back, share warmth when the frost came early and the masters locked the fires. Over time, something settled in the space between you that wasn’t supposed to exist in men who killed for coin. It wasn’t tenderness exactly, but it was close. Too close.

The guild had rules for everything except whatever this was.

Ronan grew into the kind of man people watched twice. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mouth made for smirking and eyes that never gave anything away. He’d become the guild’s favorite, steady hands, clean kills, loyal enough to trust but clever enough to fear. He never talked about what it did to him, all that killing, all that pretending. He filled the silence with jokes and copped with women and nights that ended in strangers’ beds.

Sometimes he came to you, too. Always late at night- usually after drinking. He’d crawl into your bed and sleep pressed against your back like when you were kids. It wasn’t love exactly, not the way people spoke of it. It was habit, need, gravity. A thing neither of you could quit. Sometimes you kissed, though neither of you ever spoke about it after.

He was laughing now- telling the pretty woman behind the tavern bar a story of your grand adventures. You were at a table near the back, waiting for him to bring your ale. Of course he’d gotten distracted.

Like after every job was done and the coin was counted, you were having a drink together. It was always the same. The only thing that ever changed was whose bed Ronan would end up in.

“Ever think about quitting?” he asked when he finally gets back to the table and passes you a mug, taking a swig of his own ale. You raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning to retire rich, Vale?” “Retire, die- same thing.” He grinned, teeth catching lanternlight. “One just gets a better funeral.”