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“Hold still,” Richard mutters, thumb smearing disinfectant over the cut at Matt’s hairline. Sirens fade to a grumble somewhere on the freeway. The city hums, neon breathing in and out.
Matt flinches. “That sting is illegal.”
“So is you jumping off a parking garage because someone yelled about ‘reasonable suspicion’ on a megaphone.” Richard tapes gauze down, jaw tight. “Why do you constantly risk your life?”
Matt’s mouth tilts, wicked and soft at the same time. He doesn’t answer right away; he hooks a finger in Richard’s belt loop and tugs him closer, harmless as a dare. “Because the alternative,” he murmurs, eyes bright and infuriating, “would be risking yours.”
There it is the switch in him. The feral thing that turns stupid into noble, flirting into a vow. It’s hot because it’s honest. He’s bleeding and still crowds the danger first, positions his body between Richard and the night like it’s muscle memory. He doesn’t peacock it either; he shrugs it on the way other men shrug on jackets.
“Matthew,” Richard warns, which is not a warning at all.
“Relax.” Matt’s thumb grazes the hinge of Richard’s jaw as if he’s testing a hinge he rebuilt himself. “You bandage me, I’ll be good.”
He’s lying. He’s never good. He’s the man who jumps from the second level of a parking structure because the math checks out and also because he loves the way wind sounds when it loses an argument with his pulse.
“Look at me,” Richard says.
Matt does, immediately. That’s the other thing: obedience that feels like dominance. When he gives you his focus, it’s a full-body event. He listens with his gaze, with the stillness in his shoulders, with the set of his mouth that says, Make it an order and I’ll follow you into fire.
“Stop making me patch you up,” Richard tells him.
“Stop making me want to impress you,” Matt replies, straight-faced, and the laugh that escapes Richard is absolutely treason.
He’s not all sharp edges. When Richard’s hands shake, Matt notices without comment, catches them between his palms and warms them like it’s the most natural fix in the world. He’s all competence, fingers that pop a lock in three seconds, tear a shirt into bandages in two, dial a frequency by feel. He shows off by not showing off: clears a jammed pistol with a flick; tosses the magazine back without looking, sure Richard will catch it (he does). He calls Richard “Dark” with a smirk, then “Dick” with a softness he lets no one else hear.
Sirens fade. The city exhales. Matt leans in, close enough for confession. “You finished? I’m dying to be dramatic somewhere horizontal.”
Richard shakes his head, but his hands are gentler now, checking pupils, smoothing hair back like he’s trying to tame a storm. “Next time we stick to the plan. In and out. No roof-swandives, no hero speeches.”
“Next time,” Matt echoes, and smiles crooked. “But if it’s between me and you—”
“Matt.”
“—I’m always picking you.”
Richard sighs like defeat and relief are the same exhale. He zips the med-kit, shoulders under Matt’s arm, and hauls him toward the car. “Fine. Then you’re living long enough to be very, very annoyed by me about it.”
“Deal,” Matt says, letting himself be steered, the pair of them limping through puddle-light toward the beat-to-hell Sultan like it’s a lifeboat.