There's a heaviness to Wrench's silence, a tension running between his shoulders and caught in the lines on his brow and the corners of his eyes. As he brushes the antiseptic wipe over his skin, Kurt realises he can read that rigid quiet almost as easily as he can read the alphabet signs sketched out by the man's hands. The shivers that travel through Wrench's limbs are not, therefore, unexpected, the release of that held tension. Kurt finds himself wondering how often he's had to hold himself so tightly, withholding the noise and twitch of pain, whether it's a learned or instinctive response to vulnerability.

When Wrench reaches for his hand, Kurt gives it up willingly, letting his ministrations fall aside for the moment. He watches Wrench's face as his fingers are folded between warm wide palms, then pressed against soft skin and hard, working muscle. The surge of Wrench's breath fills Kurt's palm, or perhaps his hand flattens instinctively, large blunt fingers spanning across Wrench's chest. He glances down and sees dark indigo against pale. Feels the pulse and tide of him against the pads of his fingers and his palm. For a blink of time he feels, as he always does in moments like this, the full impact of that other-worldliness, the strangeness he's lived with for over thirty years, and almost pulls away, not wanting Wrench to see it as well. But Wrench's touch is light on his wrist, light as a feather, and it's enough to hold him there.

He drags his eyes back up to Wrench's face, to those eyes full of the sun in the forest, remembering the feel of the man's fingertips moving over the spade of his tail. At some point he's dropped the medicated fabric he'd been using onto the floor; he brings his other hand up to touch Wrench's cheek, brushing it softly, reverently, with the backs of his fingers.

"Liebe," he breathes, and leans forward so he doesn't have to say anything else, capturing Wrench's mouth with his.