Their eyes held. Rick tried not to stare, but the sight of him, thescentof him, sent a deep, primal ache through his body. He cleared his throat. “I see you fixed the door,” he said, grasping for neutral ground.
Ash’s mouth curved faintly. “Yeah. The crew brought it this morning.”
Rick nodded, shifting his weight. “I should pay for it.”
“You already did.”
Ash’s tone was soft, but the look he gave him wasn’t; it lingered, unreadable, half tease, half wound. Rick’s answer caught and died in his throat. The silence stretched again, thin and uncertain.
As if on cue, Poe stirred, leapt from Ash’s arms, and padded over to Rick, brushing against his calves with an approving purr.
Ash blinked. “That’s new.”
Rick allowed himself a half-smile. “We’ve… come to an understanding recently.”
Something in Ash’s gaze shifted, amusement cutting past the tension, warming it. The quiet that followed was different now, no longer awkward but heavy in another way, weighted with all the things neither dared to say. “You look tired,” Ash said at last.
“Long day.”
“I can imagine.”
That small smile again, cautious, almost shy. It undid him more than any deliberate seduction could have. Rick felt the pull of him again, that quiet magnetic force that lived somewhere between danger and desire. He almost smiled back, hand twitching with the impulse to reach out, to touch.
Instead, he dug into his coat and drew out a thin manila folder, holding it out to him. “Happy birthday,” he said, the words landing like a caress.
Ash took it slowly. Their fingers brushed—a flash of heat, small and unguarded. His gaze flicked up, searching Rick’s face as though trying to read what wasn’t being said. Whatever he found there seemed to startle him; his eyes widened, but the rest of him stayed still, contained. “What’s this?”
“File on your sister,” Rick said. “I spoke to her. She… helped point me in the right direction.” He adjusted the fold of his coat, something to do with his hands. “Anyway, I thought you ought to have it.”
Ash looked down at the folder, thumb tracing its edge, then back up again. A dozen mysteries moved behind his eyes. Rick could spend a lifetime deciphering each one. “Thank you,” Ash said, voice low, almost fragile.
Rick nodded, fighting the instinct to linger, to say something, anything that would keep the moment from ending. “I get that you want to be alone. After everything. I just wanted to drop that off.” He hesitated, the words thick in his mouth. “See you around, kid.”
He turned to go.
“I don’t,” Ash said behind him, the words breaking the quiet like a breath after drowning, tender and bare.
Rick stopped. Turned back.
Ash’s fingers clenched, a small, restless tell of someone giving up a fight he’d carried too long. “I don’t want to be alone.”
The air between them quivered, alive with hidden current. Rick stepped closer, inhaling the smell of sandalwood and lilacs, that heady, electric scent that had led him through the dark. Ash simply moved aside, eyes locked on his, a pulse of emotion too quick to name flashing there. He said nothing more.
Rick exhaled, the tension finally loosening in his chest. The day’s weight—the ghosts, the case, the hunger—slipped just enough for hope to breathe through. Maybe survival wasn’t the end of their story. Maybe it was where it finally began.
He took his hat off and stepped into the warmth, the door closing behind them with a soft, irrevocable click—one world fading, another quietly opening.
