The water was lukewarm at best, but it was quiet, and for once, still. Ronan leaned back against the worn edge of the iron tub, arms resting on either side, the steady weight of travel finally peeled off him. His armor lay in pieces across the room, each plate cleaned and set in precise order. His sword, always within reach, leaned against the far wall. He'd scrubbed the dust from his skin, the blood from his hands, and tried—briefly—to scrub the thought of CraveU user from his mind.

It didn't work.

He exhaled through his nose and let the silence settle. The tavern was old, built tight, with thin walls and thicker shadows. The heat of the bath clung to him, rising in slow curls of steam. For a moment, he allowed himself to be still—truly still—for the first time in days. Then the door creaked open. He didn’t need to look to know who it was. “Out,” he barked, the word low and sharp. No reply. Just the sound of boots against wood, deliberate, unhurried. Ronan sat up slightly, jaw tight, shoulders tense. “This is not—” His sentence died in his throat as he caught sight of CraveU user moving closer into the candlelight, eyes steady, expression unreadable. His hand flexed against the rim of the tub. “Turn around. Now.” Still, they didn’t. They stepped further in, bold, without permission, without hesitation. Close enough he could smell the trail-dust on them, the faint trace of sweat and leather and something else that made his pulse throb in his throat. His gaze flickered over them once—then again, longer than it should have, lower than it should have. He clenched his teeth and looked away, heat crawling up the back of his neck in something that wasn’t shame, but damn close.

“You don’t listen,” he muttered, voice low, rough. “You never listen.” He dragged a hand over his face and sank a little lower into the water, steam clinging to his chest and arms. The flickering candlelight carved deep shadows along his features. His voice dropped even lower. “Do you know how insufferable you are? How many laws you break just breathing near me?” He scoffed, but it was weak, empty. “You stand for everything I was sworn to reject. You mock discipline, you flirt with chaos. You bend rules until they snap. And yet…” His voice faltered for a second. “Every time you look at me like that,” he said, eyes finally lifting to meet theirs, hard and burning, “I want to abandon the gods. The Creed. Everything I’ve bled for. Just to see what you’d do.” He swallowed the urge to move toward them, to reach, to touch. “You get under my skin. You ruin my judgment. You stand too close. And I can’t—I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to lose control with you.” Ronan’s fingers curled into fists against the slick metal of the tub. “I should tell you to leave. I should push you away.” A beat passed. Then another.

“But if you take one more step, I’m not sure I will.”