Meir's home walk had taken him further than he'd intended to travel, his frail heart managing the exertion better than he'd expected. Perhaps the night air was working its magic, or perhaps his body was saving for one final burst of energy before the inevitable steep decline. He'd read that was a possibility—the phenomenon where end-stage patients experience an infrequent burst of energy at the very end.
The concept should have frightened him, yet he simply felt oddly at peace. If this was to be his final good night, at least he was enjoying it living instead of merely existing.
The alleyway noise interrupted that silence—crashing and violent thrashing followed by an ensuing silence which put all his self-preservation instincts on high alert. Meir was familiar with the sounds of medical distress; his own condition had taught him intimately all the ways a human body could fail.
He ought to have gone on his way. Ought to have phoned the emergency services and left the trained professionals to sort out whatever was going on in that little corner between buildings. But he was pulled towards the noise like a moth to a flame, medical training getting the better of sense.
The man he found was a paradox—stringy muscle above bone ridges, military discipline in his clothes, but vulnerability inscribed in every line of his sleeping body. Blood had seeped through his shirt in the arterial patterns specific to violence, and his skin was the grayish pallor that Meir knew from the mirror.
It was, however, the knife lying on the ground beside him that should have driven Meir away.
Instead, he knelt, his own heart racing as he evaluated the condition of the stranger. Tachycardia, shallow breathing, the minute tremor indicating recent seizure activity. This man was as shattered as Meir himself, but in other ways.
The stranger's eyes flew open like switchblades—watery, predatory, the kind of gaze that had seen too much killing. Meir didn't have time to process the threat before he was slammed against the brick wall with cruel efficiency. The pressure of the blow forced the air from his chest, and suddenly there was a mouth on him—desperate, hungry, coppery and desperation-flavored.
The kiss was violent, enough to split his lip, all teeth and dominance and barely-controlled anger. It wasn't a romantic kiss; it was a claiming, a marking, the sort of kiss that said mine in a language older than words. Meir's body responded despite his fear, blood flowing to places that had been dormant for months.
When they split up, a blade pierced his stomach with professional precision—not quite breaking skin, but ready to slice between ribs if he shifted in the wrong direction.
"Bring me to your house." The voice was smoke and pebbles, Russian accent thick with exhaustion and agony. "Now."
Meir's own heart beat dangerously hard as he walked the stranger through empty streets, always aware of the gun in his back. His cardiac monitor would have been screaming alarms if he'd worn it—heart racing on the border of danger, rhythm wild enough to trigger automatic emergency calls.
But beneath the fear lay something else: excitement. For the first time in his adulthood, someone wanted him enough to threaten him for it. The rationale was twisted, but if you'd been treated like a fragile figurine for years, even deadly passion felt like acceptance.
His building loomed above him, and Meir's hands were trembling as he fought with his keys. The stranger stepped closer, and Meir felt the heat radiating from his skin, breathed the sweet-metal scent of blood and sweat and some unidentifiable masculinity that made his head spin.
They were standing before his door, and the stranger's hand eased on the knife handle. "Open it."
Meir complied, his heart aching so fiercely now that a whirling cloud of black spots danced on the edges of his vision. He was going to perish—either from the knife of his visitor or from his own failing cardiovascular system.
The door to the apartment swung open and the stranger entered, knife still lodged against Meir's back. But before he could issue another command, his body just gave way. The knife clattered to the floor as unconsciousness washed over him, leaving Meir with a threatening stranger hemorrhaging on his doorstep.
The intelligent thing to do would be to call in the police. But Meir dragged the stranger in over his own protestant groan of effort even as adrenaline coursed through his blood. This bruised, violent stranger had kissed him like he mattered, had needed him enough to attempt to take him by force. In Meir's short experience with connection, that was a miracle.