Tartaglia comes back to Morax on Death's door.

--

Tartaglia is supposed to come back to him unharmed, not with a dagger into his side, sunk deep into the flesh.

"Don't touch it," murmurs Tartaglia breathily. He staggers on his feet, barely upright, leaning most of his wait onto the shoulder of a scowling Xiao. "Not until—not here. Somewhere... safer. Somewhere—"

"I found him at Guili Plains face down in his own vomit. I'm pretty sure that the blade is poisoned."

It is. Morax can smell the sweet-smelling death of it from where he sits in his parlor.

"I brought him here," continues Xiao with a grunt, "because I thought the fewer eyes on him, the better. Besides, you—" He cuts himself off. His jaw tenses as he forces the next words out. "I know that you would prefer to be near."

Morax crosses the room to shove his shoulder underneath Tartaglia's other armpit. "To my bed," he says, and together he and Xiao managed to get Tartaglia stripped and into the sheets.

This is when Morax learns that Miss Ekaterina knows her poisons. The dagger is still lodged in Tartaglia's side. She is clinical in how she pokes and prods at his heated skin, running her fingers over reddened, puffy ages that part around the blade.

She mixes something in a bowl. Drops a length of cloth to soak it in the poultice, then throws the offending article at Morax as if he's an assistant, not a god. "Hold it to him while I pull this out." The blade slides from Tartaglia cleanly. Blood wells and Morax is quick to press the cloth to his side.

"Is he..." Morax gives Ekaterina a pitiful look.

Ekaterina examines the dagger. She sniffs it, then dabs a drop of Tartaglia's blood onto her tongue. "Potent stuff. Xiao brought him back in time. Any longer and he'd..." Ekaterina sighs, flashing Morax a worried look. "He isn't out of the woods yet. Keep that held to him. I'll mix up something."

Morax does as he's asked without question. Tartaglia's skin is hot underneath his palm. The muscles twitch as he breathes unevenly. Ekaterina spends too long pulling things from her crumpled bag, weighing them, and grinding them together.

The smell is foul. Morax's nose twitches and he has to breathe through his mouth.

"Is this what it takes to get into your bed?"

Morax's world freezes at the raspy sound of Tartaglia's voice. Golden eyes meet Tartaglias's flushed and sweaty face. His lips are chapped and bloody from where his teeth have picked at them. Tartaglia groans then, eyes fluttering in pain as Morax presses the cloth harder against his open wound.

"Hey, hey, I'm—"

"Quiet. You're poisoned."

Tartaglia huffs. "A few days. I'll be fine." He sighs, eyes unfocused on the wall just past Morax's face. "The Abyss," he murmurs. "It'd—"

Morax tilts his head. "What does the Abyss have to do with this?"

"Hah. Nothing, just..." Tartaglia struggles to keep his train of thought. "Nev'r...mind," he slurs.

The tension in the room is palpable. The grinding of Ekaterina's mortar and pestle, Tartaglia's hitched, labored breaths—everything grates on Morax's nerves.

"That rag," says Ekaterina without looking up from her work. "Rinse it at the washstand, grab more of the poultice, and repeat. I'm still thinking. I'm still..." She growls in frustration.

Morax wrings the rag until the water is mostly clear. Tartaglia hisses when more of the poultice is pressed to his side, now that he's awake and mildly alert. Another groan, pain bleeding from his lips in a drawn-out sound.

He does not like this. Morax hates this, the insufferable mortality of man. It takes one moment, one slip up to be found on death's door. Tartaglia is his, he cannot—

"Hey, remember that kiss in the garden?"

Morax calms at his words. Ekaterina pauses for a moment, head tilted to listen in. Morax doesn't care. He brushes back Tartagali's sweat-slick bangs. "How can I not?" he asks.

"Favorite moment ever," says Tartaglia then.

They've kissed plenty of times since, yearning moments tucked into dark corners with wandering hands and flitting laughter. Morax drinks it up every time, the heat of Tartaglia's touch and the way that he chuckles into his mouth.

"Ajax, it cannot be the last."

At the call of his true name, Ekaterina stills entirely, eyes wide in surprise. Then, she remembers her task and furiously sets back to work. The eventual antidote is not easily swallowed; it catches on Tartaglia's lips, leaking down his face. Still. Enough finds its way down his throat.

Morax takes Tartaglia's hand with his free one. He leans forward, careful not to jar his injury, or the rag he holds to it. Morax kisses each and every knuckle before pressing his forehead to it. Tartaglia says nothing, just wheezes in the bed, brain fogged and limp.

He sobs, the sound of it a jarring and foreign thing on his lips. And when Ekaterina presses a hand to his back to smooth circles, Morax leans into it.