Two days passed, and Blair was always next to the Duke's bedside. Flemings had prepared a chair for him, but Blair preferred the floor. He sat there, head against Charles's hand, and there he watched him. Occasionally he ate on the chair, or napped, head on the bed, but he never left.

Charles only ever furrowed his brows and rolled his eyes about beneath his eyelids, and they fluttered, occasionally, but never opened.

Blair's throat had ran dry and his eyes had grown tire of tears, so now he simply watched Charles. He thought of that night he said he loved Blair, and wondered if the feelings were still there; if he still had the right to profess his feelings for him when he woke up.

In the middle of the night of the third day since Blair's arrival, Charles finally stirred. He woke up, groggily surveyed his surrounding, and tried to sit up, but felt a weight on his arm.

He looked down, to see a mess of a familiar chestnut color, like a Welsh pony's coat.

Charles slowly pulled out his hand from underneath, and then touched a finger to the hair. It was soft, so soft. He combed through it, and realized how soothing it was, like having a loyal dog sleeping next to his bed. He rested his hand on the soft down, then suddenly groaned.

There was unbearable pain in his head, like something had hit him repeatedly, and only now was it returning. Then he remembered, the morphine, and falling, and Flemings's fingers in his mouth, and the two maids whacking his back and Ethan's cries. His staff were such busybodies, he thought.

His groaning, although not particularly loud, roused Blair from his nap, and he opened his still stinging eyes to realize the hand was gone. In a hurry, he sat up; and met with Charles's eyes.

His nostalgic hazel eyes.

Charles clammed up once he saw the boy, but Blair didn't waste a moment, and cried out before wrapping his arms around the Duke's neck.

"Charles!"

It had felt like an eternity since he heard that name, directed to him, of all things.

He closed his eyes, Blair's familiar smell, of ink and the unique smell his jacket always had, and gripped his hands onto his back. He couldn't hold it in anymore—they had only been apart for barely more than a month, but he had felt so awfully lonely. The last week they were together, they had kept their distance, and there had been such tension. He had kept from holding him when he came close, and he had thought Blair disliked him—feared him.

But the hug proved otherwise.

"Charles—I'm so sorry!" Blair pressed his eyes onto his shoulders, and his tears soaked through the crisp nightshirt. Charles inhaled sharply, and then pulled Blair tighter. He rose on his knees, and sobbed into the crook of his shoulders, the bone against his chin. There was pain, but it was warm and familiar.

"Blair—" Charles croaked out, voice like an aging instrument. "Why are you here?"

"I heard from Ethan—Flemings sent him to where I was," Blair said.

Charles didn't know how to feel, what to say, so he slapped away Blair's hand. "And you returned? For what? Don't tell me you think we'd go back to before like everything?"

It was what hurt Blair the most. He shook his head.

"It's my fault. I know I hurt you—"

"Oh, wonderful. I thought you didn't know." Charles laughed, turning away and shaking his head sarcastically.

"No, Charles, I don't hate you!" Blair grabbed his shoulders, but when Charles faced him, his face was blank.

"You don't hate me, and you don't love me. You are here because you feel responsible."

"That's true." Blair stared into his eyes, earnest.

He had been afraid all this time, when he felt unable to look away from Charles. When he felt upset when he spoke to Christopher and ignored him. He had hated it when he could not not be alone with him when Laurence was there. And most of all, he hated himself. Why had he rejected him?

"I'm so sorry." Blair couldn't say anything besides it. "I hurt you, that night. I hurt you, and left you. I abandoned you."

Charles wanted to cry, too, because it had hurt. The few days he was alone without Blair felt so strange. He had grown so used to his existence that it felt even worse than before when he was alone in the house.

But Charles didn't want to seem weak. He wanted to be strong, to reassure Blair he was not weak.

"Why did you not publish the story?"

Blair finally drew away, and there, crouching besides the bed, he looked up at the Duke, eyes big, like a child's.

"I've decided," he said. "I will not publish it."

Charles thought he would've being mad, upon hearing this. He had lived for years just thinking of the day he'd shed light on the truth, embarrass the Waterhouses, the previous Duke and Duchess of Thornton, and his despised siblings, but he didn't have much feelings. He thought of his brother, Emmanuel, and then Blair.

"Why?" Charles leaned forward to him, face dark. "You know how important it is to me. I have planned for it all my life!"

Blair gripped his hands, again, and spoke.

"I've gave it lots of thought, too. I can't say I don't understand your feelings for revenge and release, but if I publish the novel you'll be a criminal. You will have no choice but to go to trial, and later to jail, and I can't be by your side anymore. I don't want that. I don't want you to—" Blair held Charles's hand to his soft, cool cheeks. "I don't want to leave you."

"You're a terrible person," Charles whispered. "You play with my heart, again and again."

And it was true. Charles had thought Blair would never return, be gone forever, writing in a different town, stories he would never read. He had thought he would wake up, day after day, to his hollow room and heavy heart. That morning he tried to die, he realized how he had being affected by Blair, so much that he could not bear the loneliness of being alone.

"You've hurt me more than anyone, did you know?" Charles bent down, tears dripping onto the fabric. One drop, two drops, three. "I was so angry when Emmanuel died. So angry at my family. I was so sad when Christopher left. I was so scared when I went outside, and when all those eyes were on me—but when you left, it was different. My heart was so terribly pained. It all came down crashing, it all gathered and finally broke under the pressure. I saw your face everywhere and heard your voice, and our conversations repeated again and again in my head, but I could not find you anywhere!"

Blair held his cold hands, his fingernails so delicately shapes, wrinkled, and veins like cracks on a marble. He brought them to his cheeks.

"I love you, Charles."

"You do not understand love!" Charles tried to pull away, but he was weakened, and Blair was insistent. He gripped his hand and held them to his lips. He kissed them, skin so soft and smooth, paint washed off and yet the hands of an artist's.

"I might not know love, but I know this is the closest I'll ever feel to it!" Blair bit his lips, then shook his head. "No, Charles. I know it. This is love."

"You're afraid of me," he continued.

"No. I was afraid of myself." And he smiled, at least managed to try. "I love you so much, Charles, that I was afraid of myself. I thought I had became sinful, for I wanted to kiss you. I enjoyed our kisses. And I thought that was wrong. But you see, Laurence told me it wasn't. He allowed me to realize I didn't feel like kissing just anyone, doing things with anyone, any man. It was only you."

Charles watched him, and he didn't know how he felt. Maybe extremely bothered by how Laurence was mentioned by Blair like a friend.

The boy's face was cherubic, under the glow of the lantern, and his eyes were sincere. So awfully sincere it hurt—it reminded him of Emmanuel's, his mother's, and even Cynthia's.

They had a childish charm and innocence, but the unwavering faith and earnestness of a man's.

It made his hand limp, and he wasn't sure what he wanted anymore.

"I need to publish the story," he said softly. He was begging, but who was he begging? Was it his faltering heart, or Blair's oppressing honesty?

For the first time, he didn't want to follow up on it. He was scared, suddenly, of leaving the house, leaving Blair—and most of all, he didn't want to die.

"I will not publish it, no matter what. I've decided."

"I—I have always decided that I would die." Charles didn't know why he was admitting it. "I have always decided, I would recede my property to the government to spite my family. I would let the world know I was Charles, the murderer, and Emmanuel was innocent. That he, Emmanuel, deserved to be buried under his name, as a free and innocent man."

He couldn't speak, and as hard as he tried, he began to wept.

Everything he had kept to himself, since the death of his brother, since the murder of his father, betrayal of his family, stabbed him at once. He felt the wounds, his flesh being torn apart, his skin pierced and bleeding, and he bent forward, droplet after droplet landing on his bed cover.

"I have lived with this guilt for years. Night after night, I see their faces, my father, Cynthia, and Emmanuel. I wake up hearing screams and cries. I relived my childhood and my sins. I can never forgive nor forever the students at the academy, the headmaster, the duchess, the duke, and my siblings. I try so hard! I go to church, too, but I leave feeling worse each time. I go to beautiful places, but I think, why isn't it Emmanuel standing here! I eat, and drink, and I think, why isn't it Emmanuel!"

And Blair mourned, with him. He had felt his love for him, his guilt, through writing the story. No, he had felt it through listening to it. Charles loved his brother, and that's why it hurt all the more, that he lived while he had died.

"Emmanuel is no longer here," Charles said. "But I am. And I shall be, forever and ever, whether I lie or not. Die or not. Cry or not. I will always live."

"You will live," Blair whispered, "and I will live, too. We will live, our loved ones gone, but we will live."

Charles fell into his chest, sobbing, feeling the weight of surviving, the weight of life crushing it. It hurt, more than anything.