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˚₊‧꒰ა 💌 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
The lighthouse had always seemed to be at the edge of the world.
Flins stood on the balcony, looking down at the sea. The water below never settled, shifting in restless patterns that seemed to forget the idea of stillness entirely.
Cold air struck his face, sharp with salt. The wind pressed against him, tugging at his coat with force. He remained where he was, hands resting on the railing.
The thought came again, and this time he did not stop it.
What it would be like to let go. To stop holding himself in place. To let the decision pass out of his hands.
He stayed there, not moving, while the thought remained.
He was tired. The kind that sleep could not fix, and not the kind Illuga would complain about while forcing warm food into his hands, pretending not to care with that familiar frown. It lingered beneath his thoughts and settled deep into his body.
"You've been here too long." It said, “All the faces you've ever loved are now only dust. Every hand you have touched is a memory. All the voices you used to value have vanished. One century? Two? If you're not changing along with the world, what point is it to watch?”
He had witnessed the rise and fall of nations. Rivers carved new paths through stone, and mountains broke down into hills.
He had buried loved ones, enemies, and friends. With time, each loss dulled, worn down by the next until even grief became something distant.
Eventually, he accepted what he was. A presence that remained in a world that no longer needed him.
He understood the world would continue without him. His absence would leave only a ripple before everything moved on.
But he knew how to do this. He had done it before.
Long ago, when the weight became too much to carry, he found a way out. He buried himself, expecting that it would end there, sinking into the cold press of the earth.
It failed.
He clawed his way back to a world that had continued without him, unchanged by his absence.
Time passed in the blink of an eye. Centuries turned into something that barely registered as time.
When he woke, if he woke at all, he looked no different from before. Someone early in life, still untouched by the weight of it. The memories were there, but they felt far away, belonging to a life that no longer felt entirely his.
He had gone down before with the intention of not coming back. Each time, something had brought him back up. A thought left unfinished. A hesitation he could not quite silence. A refusal that came from somewhere deeper than reason.
This time, there would be no return.
There were letters scattered across his desk. Each one was a farewell, carefully written and neatly folded. He had taken his time with every word that felt almost ceremonial.
There was a strange comfort in it. Leaving nothing behind to carry. Only words meant to remain after he was gone, and then slowly fade.
He wrote to acquaintances, old allies, and the few faces he could still recall without effort. There was affection in what he chose to say, softened by distance and time.
I appreciated our time together. Sometimes, when the light hits something just right, I hope you think of me with fondness.
Most of them would never reach the people they were meant for. He had written them without the intention of sending them, then placed them in his desk drawer, still sealed.
They were for him. A way to sort through what remained in his mind. A ritual to silence the part of him that still wanted to be remembered.
However, one letter was sealed differently.
Flins did not remember doing it, or perhaps he did and chose not to admit it. One envelope stood out among the rest, its wax seal pressed with ease of someone who had done it many times before.
It had been handled properly.
To Illuga.
He looked at it now, resting in the corner of his desk like an accusation. He could still feel the weight of it in his hands, the brief hesitation before the wax had set under his seal.
He told himself it was a mistake. That his hand had moved on its own, guided by habit rather than intention, to a name he had never once thought to write.
He had promised himself he would destroy it.
Instead, he left it there among the others, keeping it in place would force him to see it through.
A burst of wind shook the windows, and Flins finally stepped back inside.
The warmth of the lighthouse felt suffocating after the cold. He paused, letting his eyes adjust to the light.
Above him, the great lens remained dark. The flame had already been extinguished for the day. He would relight it at nightfall, as he always did. Even now, certain habits remained too deeply ingrained to break.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he would go where he had already decided. Beneath the lighthouse, he had found a hollow in the bedrock that had stood for millennia. He would lie there in the dark, let the earth settle over him, and sleep.
Maybe forever. Maybe not. He realized he no longer cared which.
He walked to the desk, running his fingers over the stack of letters. The paper was smooth and expensive, an indulgence he allowed himself, because what else was immortality for if not the small comforts that remained.
His hand paused at the sealed envelope. The wax was still intact beneath his touch, slightly raised, already familiar.
He should destroy it.
He should—
A knock broke the silence.
Flins went still.
No one came here. That was the purpose of the lighthouse. Remote and forgotten, cut off from anything that might demand something of him. The only person who ever visited was—
The door opened before he could answer.
“Sir Flins—”
No one stood in the doorway.
Flins stepped closer, eyes narrowing slightly. The wind, perhaps? A misheard sound?
He looked down.
The letter was gone.
His heart raced. When he turned his gaze to the desk, the letter was gone. His gaze swept the floor, the chair, the windowsill. Nothing.
A faint beat of wings carried through the air outside. The door remained open, and the night beyond it was restless and black.
No.
No.
For the first time in centuries, Flins’s composure broke, and he was at the door in an instant. His eyes searched the darkness as the wind tore at his coat, stripping away what little warmth remained.
There was nothing. Only the sea beyond, and the stars above.
He stood there with the door wide open, cold settling deeper into his bones, longer than he intended to measure. Time stretched in a way it rarely did anymore.
And in that stillness, something unfamiliar surfaced.
Fear.
»»————- ➴ ————-««
Illuga knew something was wrong the moment he read the first line.
He'd been doing nothing. The hours he never admitted he spent waiting for something, anything, even when there was nothing to wait for.
Aedon arrived at the window with its usual irritated squawk. Illuga let it in without looking up, expecting nothing unusual. A request for supplies. A note about weather conditions. Or one of Flins’s rare messages that tried, and usually failed, to sound casual.
Instead, he unfolded the letter and read the first sentence.
By the time you read this, I will be gone.
The words blurred.
“No,” Illuga muttered, already rising from his seat.
He did not finish reading. He did not need to. He knew Flins. He knew the distance he kept from everything that might hurt him, the way he chose what to say and what to leave unsaid.
If he had written this, then the decision had already been made. Whatever came after the words was only formality.
The letter shook in Illuga’s hand. He could not tell whether it was anger or something else, and he did not stop to consider it. He read the first line again.
By the time you read this, I will be gone.
It did not change. It did not soften.
The words refused to rearrange themselves into something less final.
"Stupid," he hissed, shoving the letter into his coat. "Stupid, stubborn—"
He did not finish the thought. He was already moving.
Out the door, into the cold, across land he barely registered. The wind struck his face, but he did not slow. Nothing held weight except the certainty that he could not be late.
Because stopping meant accepting the possibility that he would not arrive in time.
The road blurred beneath him. Moonlit paths passed without shape or detail. Hours compressed into minutes.
His lungs burned from cold and effort. He pushed harder than he had in years, maybe longer, his mind caught between refusal and urgency.
Faster, faster, faster.
He did not stop when his legs began to fail him. He did not stop when his vision clouded at the edges. He did not stop when he slipped and fell, palms scraping against ice.
By the time the lighthouse appeared in the distance, the sky had begun to pale that comes before morning.
Illuga’s lungs burned. His legs felt close to giving out beneath him, but he did not slow. He could not.
Please, he thought, the word repeating.
Please. Please. Please.
He did not know who he was pleading to. The gods had never answered him before. Still, he ran, because the alternative was worse.
A world where Flins was already gone.
And that was not something he was willing to accept.
»»————- ➴ ————-««
The lighthouse door crashed open with force that rang along the spiral stairway.
"Sir Flins!"
His voice broke out against the walls. He stopped at the doorway, chest heaving, eyes wide, looking over the room. The desk was completely covered in letters. Illuga's stomach sank.
"Flins!"
He took one step forward, then another. The letters were thoroughly organized, each meticulously folded. Goodbyes. Dozens of them.
And one was missing from the cluster. His own letter, the one he hadn't finished reading, the one that had sent him here running through the night like a lunatic because—
"Illuga."
The voice came from above. Illuga's head shot up. The spiral staircase faded further into the shadows, and at the top, a figure was barely visible in the poor lighting.
Illuga's legs almost gave out beneath him. He caught himself on the desk, his hand resting on one of the letters and crushing it accidently.
"You—" His voice broke. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to move, to climb the stairs, to close the distance between them before something else could. "You're—"
"I am here."
He walked the steps two at a time, his breath ragged and his pulse pounding so loudly that everything else was drowned out. Flins was standing on the balcony with the door open, the morning light capturing the edges of his coat by the time he reached the top.
His hands were relaxed and unclenched at his sides. Illuga had never seen his posture this relaxed before. Hardly the sense of warmth, but the solitude of someone who had nothing to keep for. He was too close to the edge, and the sight made Illuga's chest tighten.
"You came faster than expected," Flins said without turning.
Illuga's hands clenched at his sides. "You wrote a letter."
The wind howled between them, ripping at Illuga's coat, Flins' hair, and the edges of all that remained uncertain.
"And you read it," Flins replied softly.
"I wasn't supposed to!" Illuga snapped. "It was sent to me by mistake, wasn't it? Or did you—" His breath hitched. He did not want to finish the sentence. He had to finish the sentence.
"Did you mean for me to find out like this?"
Finally, Flins turned. His eyes looked strange.
"Does it matter?" he asked.
"Yes, it does!" Illuga took a step forward, then another.
He could not stop moving, could not stop closing the distance, because every step brought him closer to the edge and closer to Flins and he did not know which one he was more afraid of.
"Because you don't get to just decide this. You don't get to disappear and leave everything behind like it's nothing."
A faint smile tugged at Flins's lips. It was the saddest thing Illuga had ever seen.
"You overestimate my importance."
"I don't," Illuga shot back immediately. "You just refuse to see it."
The words hung in the air, heavier than either of them had imagined. Flins' smile vanished, and something flashed in his eyes. Perhaps a surprise. Or pain. Or both.
He looked away, back toward the sea.
"I am tired, Illuga."
The words hit harder than anything else. Harder than the letter, harder than the hours of running, harder than the terror that had driven him here.
"I have seen centuries pass," Flins continued. "Watched people come and go like waves. Everything ends." He paused. "It is only natural that I do as well."
"Not like this," Illuga said.
"Why not?"
"Because this isn't natural!" His voice broke on the last word, and he did not care. He was past caring about dignity, past caring about anything except making Flins understand. "This is you giving up."
Flins flinched, just slightly. But Illuga saw it, and that was enough.
"You think no one will care?" Illuga continued, stepping closer. The balcony was small, the edge too close, but he could not stop. He would not stop. "You think you can just leave and it won't matter?"
"I think," Flins said carefully, "that it will hurt less if I leave before I become something that burdens others."
Illuga snapped.
"Then I'll go with you."
Flins froze. The wind seemed to pause with him, the world holding its breath.
"What?" he whispered.
Illuga did not hesitate. "If you're going to disappear, then I'm not staying behind. You don't get to make that choice alone."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm serious."
"You are being emotional."
"And you're being selfish."
That landed. Flins's expression darkened.
"Selfish?" he repeated, his voice seeming almost offended. "After everything I have tried to spare you from? After all the years I have kept myself at a distance so you would not have to watch me fade! Writing a letter I never meant to send because even at the end I could not bear to leave without telling you—you call me selfish?"
"Yes," Illuga said, stepping even closer. He could feel the drop behind him, the emptiness of the sea waiting. But he did not look away from Flins.
"You are deciding for everyone else that your life does not matter. That you do not matter. You are so convinced that leaving is a kindness that you cannot see what it would actually do to the people who would have to live without you." His voice dropped lower. "You do not get to decide that for me."
Flins's gaze flickered. For a moment, something cracked behind his eyes.
"Illuga—"
But Illuga was not finished.
"There is a blade in your desk," he said. "The one you use for—"
"I know what blade you mean," Flins interrupted, his voice sharp now, fill with something that might have been fear. "Why—"
Illuga was already moving. He walked to the desk in three steps, ripped open the drawer, and found the knife precisely where he remembered. It was small and useful. The type of blade used for cutting rope, paring wood, and a hundred other tedious jobs unrelated to what Illuga was about to do.
"Have you lost your mind?" Flins said, his voice losing its calm.
Good, Illuga thought. Let him feel more than that disgusting, cold acceptance.
Illuga turned back to face him.
"I read the first line of your letter," he said, his voice shaking now. "I didn't need to read the rest. I knew what you were going to say. And I ran. I ran for hours because I thought—" His voice cracked. He forced himself to continue. "Because I thought I might be too late."
Flins's face had gone pale. His eyes were fixed on the blade in Illuga's hand.
"What are you doing?"
"If you can stand here and talk about dying like it's nothing," Illuga said, raising the blade, "then I need you to understand something just as clearly—"
"Put it down." Flins took a step forward, his hand outstretched. "Illuga. Put it down now."
"I'm not letting you go alone."
"Don't do this. Whatever you think this will prove, don't—"
"Stay back!"
"Illuga, please." Flins's voice cracked, "Please. Give me the blade. I’m begging you. We can talk about this. Whatever you want to say, we can talk—"
Before Flins could stop him, Illuga dragged the blade over his hand. A line of flesh was parted as the knife cut into his skin with a terrible sound. Immediately, a rush of deep red blood surged over the wound, dripping between his fingers and splattering on the stone floor.
Only the sound of the blood dropping. The color was startlingly clear against the pallor of his skin, stark as a wound that shouldn't exist.
Flins makes a sound that Illuga had never heard before.
He moved, crossing the distance into two frantic steps. His hands grabbed around Illuga's wrist with force. Fingers pressed down on the wound hard, blood slicking instantly between their skin. His grip was desperate, but beneath it his thumbs trembling with carefulness that defied the rage in his gaze.
"Have you lost every shred of sense you ever had?" Flins's voice was unhinged in a way Illuga had never heard before.
"Was there a single thought in your head before you did this?"
His grip tightened, and Illuga felt the blood slick and warm against his skin, felt the way Flins's fingers trembled as they pressed down.
"Look at me," Illuga said.
Flins shook his head, his gaze still locked on the wound.
"Look at me."
Flins's eyes lifted to his, and Illuga saw it. The terror, the fury. His face was pale, lips pressed into a thin line, and his hands would not stop shaking.
"This is what it feels like," Illuga said, and his voice was calm despite the fire burning through his palm. "This is what it feels like to watch someone you love hurt themselves and not be able to stop it."
Flins went tense.
"You want to bury yourself in the dark and never wake up," Illuga continued. "You want to lie down in that hollow and let the earth take you, and you think that is your choice to make alone? But it is not. Because I will be there with you, Flins. I will be right there beside you, and you will have to watch."
"Don't."
"Every time you close your eyes, I will be there. Every time you think you have finally found peace, you will see my face, and you will know that you dragged me down with you. You will have to carry that, the way I have been carrying the thought of losing you for years."
"I said don't." Flins's voice broke on the word.
"Then give me this," Illuga said, and he brought his wounded hand up between them, blood still seeping through Flins's fingers, staining both their skin.
"Give me a reason to keep breathing. Give me a reason to wake up every morning without fear. And I will never have to do this again. I will never pick up a blade to prove a point, will never run through the night terrified that I will be too late, will never have to imagine a world where you do not exist. Just give me this."
The dawn light caught the blood on their hands, turned dark. Flins stared at it like it was the most terrible thing he had ever seen.
Illuga did not flinch. The pain was there, but it was distant. Irrelevant compared to the storm in his chest.
"I meant what I said," Illuga replied, his voice calm despite everything. "If you think your life isn't worth anything, then mine isn't either without you in it."
Flins stared at him. For the first time since Illuga arrived, the composure shattered.
"Did you not stop to think, even for a second?" Flins demanded, his hands shaking as he held Illuga's wrist, pressing against the wound like he could undo what had been done.
"Did you even consider what this would do to me?"
"Because I meant it!" Illuga shot back. He could feel the blood slipping again between their fingers, but he did not pull away. "You want to disappear? Then you're taking me with you!"
The words hung in the air. Too much of everything Illuga had been hiding for years, folded into a single, terrible sentence.
Flins's grip tightened on his wrist. "You are a fool."
"Then I'll be one," Illuga said. "But I'm not leaving you here."
Silence stretched between them. The wind softened, just slightly. The dawn light crept further across the sky, painting everything in shades of gray and gold.
Flins's gaze dropped to Illuga's hand, then back to his face. There was no hesitation there. Only stubborn, unyielding resolve.
"You would truly throw your life away for mine?" Flins asked, his voice quiet and careful, as if he was afraid of the answer.
Illuga's answer was immediate. "I'd rather live with you. But without you, then what’s the point."
The following silence was not hollow. A silence that follows an irreversible event or the closing of a door that will never open again. With his hands still wrapped around Illuga's wrist, Flins stood there, breathing heavily. The blood was no longer flowing and was drying darkly over both of their skin.
When his eyes finally met Illuga's again, the composure he had worn like armor for so long was gone. It ease that had been waiting to shatter for centuries and had finally given way.
"That is not a fair choice," he whispered.
"I know," Illuga said. "So don't make me choose it."
Flins was still holding his wrist. Still pressing against the wound. Still not letting go.
"I could have been too late," Illuga continued, his voice softer now. "When I opened that letter, when I read the first line, I thought I was already too late. Do you know what that felt like?"
Flins closed his eyes.
"I know what it felt like to think I might never see you again," Illuga said. "To think that I would spend the rest of my life wondering if I could have done something. If I had just been there. If I had just said something earlier. If I had just—"
"Stop." Flins's voice was hoarse.
"Make me," Illuga said. "Tell me you don't want me here. Tell me you'd rather be alone. Tell me my life means nothing to you, and I'll go. I'll walk out that door and never come back."
Flins's eyes opened. What Illuga saw in his eyes made him freeze.
It was not the resignation he had anticipated, nor the aloof acceptance of someone who has come to terms with forgetfulness. Something more vulnerable as Flins had learned to hide over the course of a lifetime.
The fear of being actually noticed by someone who would not turn away. Of being desired when he realized that no one should be burdened with wanting him.
Receiving anything to remain for after he had already said goodbye.
"You know I cannot say that," Flins whispered.
"Then stay."
"I don't—" Flins's voice cracked. He looked away, but his grip on Illuga's wrist did not loosen. "I don't know how to stay. I don't know how to be something worth—"
"You don't have to know," Illuga interrupted. "You just have to try. That's all I'm asking. Just try."
Flins let out a trembling breath. After being so stiff for so long, his shoulders finally relaxed.
"You are cruel," he murmured.
Illuga blinked. "What?"
"To give me something to stay for," Flins continued, his voice trembling in a way it had never been before. "When I had already decided there was nothing left."
Illuga swallowed hard. "There is something," he said softly. "You just forgot to look at me."
Flins's breath was warm and erratic against Illuga's skin as he placed his forehead against his. Neither of them moved for a long time. Flins's fingers had loosened their frantic hold, now resting loosely around Illuga's wrist.
Since he had first read those lines on the paper, Illuga had never been more conscious of his own body. His legs were shaking. Every breath hurt his chest. The spot where the blade had cut his hand throbbed, but underneath, there was a shake that swept through his whole body. An uncontrollable shaking.
He was unable to recall when it had begun. Maybe hours ago, when he had fallen on the freezing ground. Maybe when he'd first read the words that almost put a stop to everything. Maybe after he'd finally come to terms with the fact that he couldn't imagine a world without Flins, somewhere between the terror and the running.
"Idiot," Flins said. But there was no bite to it.
When he opened his eyes again, the sea beyond did not look quite as inviting.
"Come inside," he said quietly, tugging gently at Illuga's wrist. "Before you bleed to death on my floor."
Illuga let out a breath he had not realized he was holding.
"So you're not—"
"No," Flins cut in, softer now. "Not today." He paused, his eyes meeting Illuga's. "And perhaps not tomorrow, either."
It was not a promise, but it was enough. Illuga nodded, a small smile breaking through the exhaustion and fear and everything else that had been building inside him.
"Good," he said.
And this time, when Flins turned away from the edge, he followed.
»»————- ➴ ————-««
The lighthouse had never felt so small.
Illuga sat on the edge of the narrow bed, his hand wrapped in strips of clean linen that Flins got from somewhere. The wound had already stopped bleeding, but Flins had insisted on bandaging it anyway.
"You didn't have to do that," Flins said. He was sitting on the opposite end of the bed, his back against the wall, his eyes fixed on Illuga's bandaged hand.
"I know."
"It was reckless. Stupid."
"I know."
"A child's idea of making a point."
Illuga huffed a laugh despite himself.
"I know."
Illuga's breath caught when Flins finally lifted his head to look directly into his eyes. Illuga had never seen such a vulnerable expression on his face.
A subtle expression of amazement that made Illuga's chest tighten. Flins was staring at him as if he wasn't sure he was real.
"You are the most infuriating person I have ever met," Flins said.
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment."
"I'll take it anyway."
The slightest pull of Flins's lips flickered across his face, and it completely changed him. For a brief period, he appeared to be someone Illuga had never encountered before as the sharp edges that years of loneliness had burned into his features softened.
"You really came," Flins said after a moment. "When you got the letter—"
"I ran," Illuga said simply. "I ran like I've never run before."
"Why?"
The question was honest. Flins was not asking why he had come. He was asking why it had mattered. Why he mattered.
Illuga considered his answer carefully.
"Because you're the only one," he said finally. "The only one who—" He stopped, trying to find the words. "I've lived a long time, too. Not as long as you, but long enough to know that most people come and go. They leave impressions, memories, but eventually those fade. They become stories you tell yourself about who you used to be."
Flins was watching him, waiting.
"But you," Illuga continued, "you never faded. From the moment I met you, you have been there, constant as the tide, as real as my own hands. Not a memory I would someday struggle to recall. Not a story I would tell myself when the years grew long. Just you."
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it.
"I thought I had all the time in the world. I told myself I would figure it out eventually, that I could take it slow and be careful and not risk what we had by naming it. And then I opened that letter and I understood—" His voice faltered. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "There is no eventually. There is only now. And I almost lost you before I ever got to tell you—"
His voice trailed off.
Before he could finish, Flins made a move. In a single move, he moved across the tiny gap between them, cupping Illuga's face with his hands before planting a kiss.
It tasted like salt or maybe tears, and it was aggressive and anxious. Flins's fingers dug into Illuga's cheekbones, jaw, and hair. It was as though he was attempting to commit his form, feel, and actuality to memory.
Illuga's mouth made a sound. He was surprised and relieved. He kissed him in return. He reached up to grab Flins's coat with his wounded hand, drawing him in. He felt Flins tremble against him, and the tension that had been inside him for ages started to release.
When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
"You are a fool," Flins said again, his voice rough. His forehead pressed against Illuga's, their breath mingling in the small space between them. "A reckless, stubborn, impossible fool."
"Your fool," Illuga said.
Flins let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Yes," he said quietly. "Mine."
They stayed like that for a long moment, foreheads touching, the world reduced to the space between two breaths. Illuga could feel Flins's heartbeat against his chest, could feel the way his hands still trembled where they rested against Illuga's cheeks.
"I thought," Flins began, his voice barely above a whisper, "that if I disappeared quietly enough, it would be like I had never been there at all. That the world would fill the space I left behind and no one would even notice the shape of it."
Illuga started to speak, but Flins pressed a thumb gently against his lips.
"Let me finish," he said. "Because I need you to understand something."
He pulled back just enough to meet Illuga's eyes, and what Illuga saw there made his breath catch.
"I have lived for so long that I stopped believing anything could surprise me. And then I met you, and everything I thought I knew about the world rearranged itself."
His fingers traced the line of Illuga's jaw.
"You were not supposed to matter," he continued. "I told myself that. I told myself you would fade like all the others. That you would become another face in the long procession of people I would eventually outlive. But you did not fade. You never faded. You became the thing I looked forward to, the reason I tended the lighthouse even on days when I could not remember why I bothered. You became the thought I returned to when the weight of everything else became too much."
Illuga's throat tightened. He wanted to speak, wanted to say something, but the words had blocked themselves somewhere in his chest and refused to move.
Flins's voice dropped lower. "When I wrote that letter, I told myself I was doing you a kindness. That I was sparing you the burden of watching me slowly disappear into myself. But that was a lie. I was not sparing you. I was running. Because the thought of staying—the thought of letting myself want what I have wanted for longer than I can name terrified me more than any darkness I have ever faced."
His hands slid down to rest against Illuga's shoulders, and Illuga could feel the faint shaking in them.
"I have been afraid of many things in my existence," Flins said. "Death, when I thought it could take me. The endless march of time. The faces of everyone I have lost, waiting for me in the dark. But I have never been as afraid of anything as I am of how much I need you. Of how empty everything becomes when I try to imagine a world where you are not in it."
Illuga felt something crack open in his chest. He reached up and covered Flins's hands with his own, the bandage on his palm rough against Flins's skin.
"You absolute idiot," Illuga said, and his voice came out thicker than he intended. "Do you have any idea—" He stopped, swallowed, tried again. "Do you have any idea how long I have been trying to find the words for what you are to me? How many times I have stood beside you and wanted to say something, anything, and stopped myself because I was too afraid of what would happen if you did not feel the same?"
Flins's eyes widened slightly.
"I have watched you for years," Illuga continued, the words tumbling out now, unstoppable. "I have watched you tend that light and pretend you did not notice me watching. I have watched you withdraw into yourself and wondered how to reach you without breaking what little we had. I have lain awake at night trying to calculate how much time we might have, how many years before you decided I was another face you needed to outrun." He laughed, and it came out wet. "And all along, you were afraid of the same thing."
Flins's hands tightened on his shoulders. "Illuga—"
"You are the only thing in this world that has ever made me want to be immortal," Illuga said, and the words felt like they had been waiting in his chest for ages, pressing against his ribs, demanding to be released.
"Not because I fear death. I have made my peace with it. But because the thought of existing in a world where you are not also existing—" His voice broke. He pressed on. "I would rather have one more day with you than an eternity without. I would rather spend every remaining moment of my life in this lighthouse, watching the sea turn from gray to gold, than see any other places if you are not beside me when I look."
Flins made a sound that might have been Illuga's name, but it came out mumbled, lost somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
"You said I gave you something to stay for," Illuga said, bringing Flins's hands down to rest against his chest, pressing them flat so Flins could feel his heartbeat.
"But you gave me something too. You gave me a reason to keep waking up in a world that has taken everything else from me. You gave me something that does not fade, does not wither, does not turn to dust when I reach for it. You gave me you, and I have been carrying that knowledge with me every single day, too terrified to speak it aloud because I thought if I said it, I would lose it."
He pressed his forehead back against Flins's, their breath mingling, their hearts beating in the small space between them.
"I am not leaving," Illuga said, his voice was calm now, certain in a way it had never been before. "I am not going anywhere. And if you ever try to bury yourself again, you will find me waiting in the dark beside you, because there is no version of my life that makes sense to me if you are not in it."
Flins kissed him again, softer this time, and Illuga tasted salt on his lips and did not know whose tears they were and did not care. Flins's arms wrapped around him, pulling him close.
When they pulled apart, Flins's eyes were bright, and there was a color high on his cheekbones that Illuga had never seen before.
"You are not allowed to say things like that," Flins said, but his voice was unsteady, frayed at the edges. "I have spent learning to be content with silence, and you—" He shook his head, a helpless laugh escaping him. "You have undone all of it. In one night. With a few words."
"Good," Illuga said. "Then you will not forget them."
Flins looked at him for a long moment, and then he smiled.
"I will not forget," Flins said quietly. "I will carry them with me. For as long as I exist."
Illuga felt something settle in his chest, warm and final and right.
Later, when the sun had fully risen and the sea had calmed, they sat together at the desk. The letters were spread out before them, dozens of them. Flins looked at them without speaking.
"What were you going to do with them?" Illuga asked.
"Leave them," Flins said. "I thought if anyone came looking, they would find them. They would know."
Illuga reached out and took his hand. Flins's fingers were cold, but they warmed slowly under Illuga's grip.
"You could burn them," Illuga suggested.
Flins was silent for a long moment. "No," he said finally. "Not all of them."
He extended his hand to get one of the letters. The one that had initiated it all, the one addressed to Illuga. After holding it for a while and flipping it around in his hands, he carefully tore it in half.
Illuga remained silent as he observed. Flins tore it repeatedly until the fragments were too small to read and the words that had almost put an end to everything were scattered all over the desk like snow.
He looked at Illuga. "I don't need this one anymore," he said quietly. "I have you instead."
Illuga's heart clenched. "Show off," he said, but his voice was full.
Flins smiled. A real smile.
They agreed to wait for the other letters. Eventually, some of them could still be sent as anything other than farewells. Recognition of ties Flins believed he had broken, relationships he believed were irreparably damaged. There could be anything worth saving there, Flins said. Something worth returning to.
Even later, they were back on the balcony. The water in front of them appeared to be just that the sea—rather than an invitation to forget. Everything was painted in colors of amber and gold by the morning light as the wind had subsided.
A ship's sound blew somewhere in the distance. A reminder that the world continues to exist, continues to turn, and continues to wait.
The lighthouse no longer felt like the edge of the world.
Flins stood at the railing, and this time when he looked out at the horizon, he did not feel the pull of the void.
"There you are."
Illuga's voice came from behind him. Flins turned to find him standing in the doorway, two cups of tea in his hands, his bandaged palm wrapped around one of them like it was nothing.
"You should be resting," Flins said.
"I should be doing a lot of things," Illuga replied, handing him a cup. "Resting isn't one of them."
Their fingers brushed as Flins took the cup, and neither of them pulled away.
"I've been thinking," Illuga said after a moment, leaning against the railing beside him. "About what you said. About watching people come and go like waves."
Flins tensed slightly. Illuga noticed, of course he noticed.
"You’re stuck with me," Illuga said simply. "I thought you should know. In case you were wondering again."
"You don't know—"
"I know," Illuga interrupted. "I know I can't promise forever. No one can. But I can promise that I'm not leaving. Not for a long, long time. And when I do—" He shrugged, a small, wry smile crossing his face. "Well. You'll just have to come with me, won't you?"
Flins laughed.
"You are impossible," Flins said.
"I've been told."
They stood there for a while, watching the sea, drinking their tea. Together. At the end of something new.
»»————- ➴ ————-««
To Illuga,
By the time you read this, I will be gone.
I have tried to write this a dozen times. Each attempt has ended with me crumpling the paper and telling myself I would try again tomorrow, that there was still time. That the words would come to me if I simply waited long enough. But I have run out of tomorrows, and the words have never come. Not the right ones, anyway. I am not certain they exist.
You have known me long enough to understand that I have never been good at saying what I mean. I have spent centuries building walls between myself and the world, convincing myself that distance was the same as peace. That silence was the same as contentment. I told myself that if I kept everyone at arm's length, I would never have to watch them leave. I would never have to feel their absence pressing into my chest like a wound that would not close.
And then I met you.
You did not stay at arm's length. I do not know when it happened, when you became something more than a face I would eventually outlive. Perhaps it was the first time you arrived at my door with supplies you had carried across frozen ground, your hands full and your breath misting in the cold, pretending you had been in the area. Perhaps it was the time you fell asleep in the chair by the fire and I found myself watching the way the light caught your hair, the way your face softened when you were not pretending to be anything other than strong. Perhaps it was simply the accumulation of years, of mornings spent drinking tea in silence, of evenings when the lighthouse beam cut through the dark and I realized I was no longer tending it for myself.
I do not know when you became the reason I kept the light on. Only that you did.
I am telling you this now because I will not have another chance. I have spent my existence watching people come and go like waves, and I have learned that the only way to survive the farewell is to never let anyone close enough to leave a mark. But you have left marks everywhere, Illuga. In the chair where you always sit. In the cups we drink from. In the space beside me on the balcony where you stand and watch the sea as if you understand why I stay here, even when I do not understand it myself.
I am tired. You have seen it, I know. You have watched me fade little by little, and you have never said anything, never asked, never pushed. You have simply been there, patient and I have been too much of a coward to tell you that you are the reason I made it through the last years without disappearing into myself entirely. That your presence in my life has been the only thing that felt real when everything else turned to memory. That when I imagine the centuries stretching ahead of me, the only version of them I could bear to face was the one where you were still beside me. Still pretending you were only passing through, still staying when you had no reason to.
I do not expect you to understand. I do not expect you to forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye properly. But I needed you to know that you were not just another face in the long procession of people I have outlived. You were never that. You were the one I would have chosen to stay for, if staying were still possible. You were the one whose name I wrote when I allowed myself one last act of honesty before I closed my eyes for good.
I cannot stay. The weight of everything has become too much to carry, and I have carried it for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to be light. I am going to the place I prepared long ago. This time, I will not wake. I have made sure of that.
Do not look for me. Do not mourn me. Let me be a story you tell yourself on quiet evenings, when the light catches something just so and you think of me for a moment before moving on. That is more than I deserve.
I am sorry I never said this while I still had the chance. I am sorry I waited until it was too late to tell you that you were not just someone I cared for. That you were the only one who ever made the silence feel like something other than emptiness. That if I could have spent the rest of my existence with anyone, it would have been you.
Take care of the lighthouse, if you want it. Or let it go. It has served its purpose.
Thank you for the years. Thank you for the silence that did not feel empty. Thank you for being the one thing that made me want to stay, even when I could not.
Flins
˚₊‧꒰ა 💌 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
The End.