Page 438 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

To recall the night he let Julian dance, gave him extra time and never held it against him.

To hold close the pain and the desperation and the kindness and the scar and the kiss in the bath and the first time he broke and the way he stayed silent outside that fucking door on Sable Key and how sad he looked when Julian dragged him out of that lake, and every single kiss and every single touch and all the love… every moment of it…

It’s worth dying for.

It’s worth everything to look and see and know.

‘There you are,’ he says, and Lachlan is crying. He’s holding him like glass, afraid to move.

The pain is such that Julian’s body gifts euphoria instead.

His heart is so full of all the days they had.

It’s been forever.

Decades. Moments. Lifetimes.

Julian is dying.

Death is waiting patiently for him behind.

Lachlan looks so afraid, so terrified.

Fate is cruel to let them have so little time.

Seconds. Days. Years. Eternity.

It’d never be enough, Julian knows.

He’s greedy for him.

Always has been.

‘I love you so much,’ he says, and when he goes to take another breath, his lungs say no. That was it. Last one.

The man he loves is dying too, but it’s not the same.

It can’t be the same.

Maybe… somewhere else.

They can try again.

Lachlan holds his face.

Not a single drop of his blood has spilled.

But some deaths don’t draw blood, he knows.

The world fades from the outside in.

Last look, he’s so glad it’s Lachlan.

He can’t hear him anymore.

Death has been so very patient.

Julian is sinking backwards into beautiful, glittering waters.