the pause between breathing

He steps out of the shadows a bit more and she lets her gaze dance over his face, marking the patterns of exhaustion, of tension, of being there but not. It's something, Isla realises, that she's seen before in the soldiers she used to treat on the field, where they can't fully bring themselves out the battle. "I see," she says, stepping in closer to slip tentative arms around him, watching him closely in case he'd prefer the distance. "Is it like before? Or worse?" she asks, referring to their previous dalliance with the knife that had buried itself beneath his ribs, and his state of mind back then. She doesn't reach up to remove his mask - not yet, anyway - instead glancing over his shoulder and down the streets; it's opposite to the direction of her house, and yet it might be a decent plan to burn some time and energy. Isla the flesh is weak