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“This is the gayest thing I’ve ever done,”
He wasn’t completely comfortable letting his best friend get savaged and left to bleed in an alley just to prove a point. At least not this time.
He did things like this often. Checked to see if his memories were real.
They were stronger together; they were always stronger together.
Jack tried to hide it, tried to look away quicker and quicker, as if he could ever hide something from August—August knew Jack’s face like he knew his own.
He was pretty sure he was in some kind of abusive relationship, but “Angry Jack” was very fucking rare, so he’d decided to hold off on dealing with that for now, even if he still felt the echoes of pain in his scalp.
They were only seventeen. The world was so big and they were very small and there was no one around to stop terrible things from happening.
It was a rock. Gray. Plain. Nothing.
“What did you do?” “I fulfilled a promise.”
“Is anything ‘just’ anything? After all these months? Even dressed in my colors? Even with your favor at my feet? Even as the sky falls and the only thing I can hear besides your voice is the screams of the dying and the thundering of horses? You remembered to keep it when you couldn’t even remember to eat. It’s a lighter, yeah. But it’s also everything…”
“You burn things all the time these days,” Jack said softly. “Would you burn for me?” August stared him down. Stared into the gray of Jack’s eyes. So clear, they were—not a hint of delusion. Just fierce and grand as the day he lay with his back in the river’s mud. Ten thousand years ago. “You already know I’ll do it,” August said. You already know. You fucking know.
“You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.”
Codependency, they called it.
“Well, mostly because you’re not actually dealing with a serious mental illness. You’re a bit obsessive, codependent, and clearly possess a terrible sense of judgment. But regardless of what happened at court, you’re not criminally insane. Jack? Jack is actually ill.
Why can’t any of you get it into your fucking heads: He is my only constant. My fixed point.”
He missed the sound of silence.
I’m always going to want to be at your heels, fighting for you. Hurting myself because you tell me to. It’s fucked up and I’m fucked up now, too.
“I’m right here,” he said. “I’ve always been right here.”
“When we are free and have healed from this, will you stay?” he gasped. “Will you stay with me?”
