These battle scars, don't look like they're fading
Don't look like they're ever going away
They ain't never gonna change

"Battle Scars" -Lupe Fiasco, Guy Sebastian

Cassian leads her up a flight of stairs and into Rhys' door shuts behind them with a decisive snick, and Nesta's surprised at how well the soundproofing blocks out the din from the club below. She can barely feel the deep reverberations of the base through the soles of her feet. He sets her on the couch with a gentle request for her to stay there while he fetches supplies to treat her wounds, and then ducks into what she assumes is the adjoining bathroom.

His rage barely mastered, Cassian sets about finding whatever medical supplies Rhys and Feyre have stocked in the cupboards. They keep the office well stocked, almost a second apartment, in case any of their makeshift family needs a place to crash after a rough night of drinking, and the Mother knows that Cassian's seen his fair share of drunken bar fights. Started them, and finished them. He can't remember if Nesta's bleeding, or if that good for nothing bastard only left bruises on her body and on her psyche. He should have done something. Something more to protect her, defend her, to show him that no one treats his…

It's not until there's a soft clearing of her throat that Cassian realizes he's been growling to himself.

"Cassian," she calls softly and he turns to see her standing in the doorway. There's something in the way she's holding herself, hands clutching the tattered remnants of her shirt closed in front of her. The bruises, already a deep purple, on her exposed collarbone. The wash of unshed tears shimmering in eyes, the ones she refuses to let fall. She radiates such fragile vulnerability that his heart breaks all over again.

He struggles to swallow the lump that's formed in his throat, before answering with a hoarse "Yeah?"

"The cops—the cops," she says, flinching at the words, "They'll want a thorough inventory of my injuries."

It takes a moment for the words to process. Long enough that it catches him off guard when she reaches for his hand. The touch of her fingertips on his palm, the instant eruption of flames, startles him. Its infinitely too brief as she slips her phone into his palm, camera app already open and ready to go. He stares down at the device and the way that her hand lingers over his.

"Cassian?" she says in a whisper when he still doesn't respond. He looks up to meet her gaze, unwavering determination shining in those blue grey eyes, but beneath that an undercurrent of apprehension. She shouldn't trust him, barely knows him and yet here they both stand.

Cassian nods dumbly, and she sheds the scrap of cloth that used to be a shirt. It, along with the last bit of her dignity, falls to the floor, the lightest fluttering of fabric. Yet another sound that will echo in the nightmares to come.

The shutter sound of the camera echoes though the room as he documents the utter horror of her wounds. The angry cut that runs from chest to naval bleeds sluggishly. He moves slowly, catching each injury from multiple angles, and adding them to the list of injuries he'll need to repay.

He sets the phone down on the counter, and gestures for Nesta to join him further in the bathroom so he can clean and dress her wounds. He fumbles for a second, trying to leave enough room for Nesta to move comfortably though the space. She glides to the counter, setting herself down with far more grace than he expects. But once on the counter, a distinct hollowness creeps its way into her posture, a defeated slump to her shoulders that she can't shake off. Cassian doesn't know how to fix it, how to help, and the more he thinks about it the more he begins to panic until words flow out of him.

"I just turned eighteen when I fought in my first battle," he says, his words at odds with the gentle brushing of his pads of his fingers against the bandage. She tenses, back going ramrod straight at the realization that she's trapped herself in the presence of another unfamiliar man, and an even more dangerous one at that.

But something, some still quiet part of her that grows stronger with every passing minute, whispers to hear him out. An ache in her chest to ease the growing hysteria she sees in his eyes, that she can feel radiating from him. Feyre trusts him, and after Tamlin, Feyre still lets very few into her inner circle.

"Rhys had a little sister, you know?" he says. It's technically a question, but he's not really looking for an actual answer and though Nesta didn't know the right answer, doesn't understand how it all connects, she nods, if just to get rid of the shadows that have suddenly slithered in Cassian's eyes. "Cutest thing ever. Coal black hair and she had these eyes. His mom's eyes. Rhys has 'em too. Sometimes he'll look at me a certain way and I'lll be back in the kitchen laughing with them over some prank Az and I pulled on Rhys that day and his mom's smiling at me with those eyes."

Cassian scrapes a hand through his hair, strands left hanging in his face, and Nesta itches to brush it back. She restrains herself though, balling her hands into fists in her lap.

"A couple months before school ended, in the dead of night, the three of us, Az, Rhys and me, snuck out. Thought it would be fun to sneak into the club to hit on girls. We were supposed to be there. We couldn't have known." Cassian shakes his head, trying to clear away the memory. "Drive by shooting. No way to identify who it was, but we knew. Of course we knew."

An odd sort of haunted note commingles with a smoldering rage.

"Rhys' dad was working nights then, here at the club, and he just went ballistic. Told us that we should have known. Should have protected them. That it was our job and we'd failed. Rhys was his heir, the one who'd inherit his empire when he died, and Az, well Az's dad was his friend and he couldn't rightly just abandon him, but me," he laughs. It's manic and sends chills down Nesta's spine.

"The Prythian army will take kids when their seventeen, if they have a guardian's consent, and of course he was more than willing to consent. The ink was barely dry on the paperwork when he told me I could get the fuck out, and wasn't allowed in his presence until I'd proven myself a man."

"So there I am, in the middle of the first conflict with Hybern, barely eighteen and didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. I get separated from everyone else. Didn't realize it til it was too late and I was already cornered in a back alley by an enemy solider. If you could even call him that," he chuckles, running a hand through his hair. "And the kid, Mother above, he was just a kid, a fucking kid, and we were at war and it was either him or me and there was no way that I wasn't making it back home. Rhys and Az had lost too many people and I wasn't about to be another one, but he and I knew what would happen if he didn't kill me and I wasn't about to die there in some Cauldron-forsaken alley in Hybern.

"And after that day, after my moms, and sister, and that boy in that dusty alleyway I swore— I swore— I would never let any one hurt another innocent, not when I had the ability to stop it. That I could think of no better way to end my existence than to defend those who need it most."

A.N. Yes I realize that Rhys' mom and sister aren't his actual mom and sister, but whatever. I'm allowed to take creative liberties. Anyone who wants to argue with me can eat it. They're the mom and sister of his heart.