He was still sprawled there, staring dazed at the ceiling with jizz splattered up his stomach when Cain came out. He knelt beside Casper and pressed a long, slow kiss to his lips. Every inch of it, every painfully slow motion of the kiss and each ebb and flow of pressure came with purpose and aching love. Casper's eyes stung as he rose into the kiss, lips clinging to each movement of Cain's as if at the next, he'd lose him forever.

Probably made it worse that tomorrow, there'd come one where he would.

With lingering touches and little butterfly kisses that made Casper squirm, Cain pulled away. His eyes held all that wonder again, and that slow smile put such warmth in Casper's chest that he couldn't breathe.

A touch of cheek edged the smile and Cain held out a wad of toilet paper. "As much as you look absolutely delectably debauched like that..."

Casper snatched it out of his hand, heat touching his cheeks. Everything was gross and slimy as he mopped at the jizz. "Shut up."

Chuckling, Cain settled down beside him with a grunt, stretching his legs out on the bed. His arm threaded around Casper's shoulders, and he bent in to brush his nose against Casper's hair. His murmur was rich as sin. "What were you thinking about?"

A bolt of heat shot through Casper's gut. Shit. "You ripping my throat out with your teeth." Oh for fuck's—

A huff of laughter ruffled Casper's hair, and more followed as Cain tipped his head back against the pillow. "Me too. Isn't that wonderful?"

Casper sat up, another jolt running through him. The dim room tunnelled, a pulse of distance as he closed his eyes and focussed the vertiginous tilt of his brain. All he could do was croak a few words.

"No you weren't."

He couldn't be. Not Cain. Not when he was going.

Warm fingers trailed down the inside of Casper's thigh, Cain's outstretched arm brushing against his side. "Best I could do, my love. Those cuts are staying locked up for now."

Oh my God, he actually was. Fuck. Swallowing hard, Casper threw the jizzy tissue off across the room and wiped at the last of the stickiness with the far corner of the cover.

"I would like you to know that I did mentally fix everything just before you died," Cain said. "Just in case that's an issue."

For fuck's... That sounded like he got just as far as Casper did. Just. When his skin went clammy and his heart slowed right down and he breathed so shallow you could hardly tell it came and all of their entangled, sweaty bodies were drenched in crimson blood.

Casper clenched his fists, the black cotton of the covers knotting between his fingers.

Oh my god.

"You better shut up before I fuck off to the shower."

The bed shifted and cool lips pressed against his spine. "Sorry, Cassie." Another kiss, longer and firmer, and the words came murmured against his skin. "You looked beautiful, you know, laid out like that. So, so beautiful."

"I'm not beautiful."

"You're the most beautiful person in the world to me, Casper. Since I first realised I loved you, everyone else looks like ash trampled into the mud. In a dull, grim world, my love, you shine like a star turned supernova. Now come here."

And how could Casper do anything but melt, giggling and squirming, into his arms? Cain spirited him away into a kiss again, insistent lips and hands squeezing and rubbing over every inch of him.

How could anyone ever love him as much as Cain did?

How could he ever love someone as much as it felt like he loved Cain right now?

Once Cain finished kissing him, Casper got all nestled up in his arms. Cain called him his little bird and Casper had asked if he was a great tit and Cain had laughed and told him he was a coal tit, then laughed even harder when Casper told him he was a blue-footed booby.

The bedroom lay dim and dark around them, the silken hangings on the bed loose shadows cloistering them from the world. The darkness tasted of winter, and still giggling, Casper pressed his hands carefully over all of Cain's face and throat until there's was nothing but summer lingering beneath his skin.

Once they'd done all that, the perfect realisation of all the cute little almosts that they'd been doing every night until now, Cain quietened. Settled into it, that introspectiveness, stroking Casper's hair, his lips rested against his temple.

After a minute, Casper poked him. "What is it, booby?"

Cain laughed, a heart-breaking glow in his smile as he looked down, eyes bright and breathtakingly alive. "Don't you dare start calling me that."

"Tell me what you're thinking about then."

"I..." A sigh broke from Cain's lips, the expression fading, and he pulled Casper in tighter. "About your face. I know I got a little ... worked up—"

"A little?" Did he have to do this? Casper forced himself to grin. The canopy hung so close in the darkness it felt a breath away from drinking them up.

A wry smile tugged at Cain's lips, and he rolled his eyes away as if he couldn't quite look at Casper. "Alright, a lot. Regardless, I ... I wanted to tell you how..." He rolled the word around his mouth. Nice of him really. To take the time to pick the right one. "How empathetic I am towards you feeling like that."

Little fluttering butterflies lifted in Casper's stomach, and he rubbed his cheek against Cain's arm. Not what happened to your face. Because that wasn't the bit that mattered.

There was more too. There in the parting of Cain's lips and the small furrow between his brow. Casper pressed his hand against Cain's chest and let that soft smile onto his lips. Made his eyes all big and attentive, like nothing had ever mattered more to him than Cain's mulling. 'Cause right then, nothing really did.

"I..." Cain's eyes flickered down to Casper, and he smiled when he found Casper watching like that. Firmer, he continued, "I know how it feels ... to feel ... sick in your own skin. For looking in the mirror to remind you of every ... every foul thing done to you. I hope that these helped you escape some of the power he had over you."

Casper hiccupped. Pressed his hands to his mouth just in time to catch the next cry.

So that's what he'd meant. All along, every time he told Casper he understood. Every time he'd huddled around himself and Casper had mocked him - that smirking line in his own mind about which good little Lost Boy.

This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.

Casper heaved in a breath. His eyes felt all gummy and stinging and horrible. Really horrible. "But..." His fingers brushed over Cain's cheek, the perfect lines of it. "Cain, you're so beautiful. Did you—Do you still—"

Slow, Cain shook his head, that warm, weary smile on his lips. "No, love..." Cain tugged Casper closer, and he brushed his fingers through Casper's hair, gentle around all the knots. "I took the ... other path to you. I—I don't really want to talk about it now, but"—A roll of his tongue against his teeth and sighing, he pulled his hand back from Casper's hair and held it up, fingers spread—"you've seen that finger, haven't you?"

The crooked one. Casper nodded and then grabbed Cain's hand and kissed it, his hitching breaths huffing through the kiss. "I like that one. It's—It's more like you. The only not perfect bit."

"And that's the whole point, Cassie. It's the only real bit. I fixed everything else. It's ... why I'm like this. Cold. Only mostly human."

That awkward slur from the drunk night in the study whispered through Casper's mind, so vivid he could almost feel the burn of the fire in the place of Cain's cool skin.

It's something I have to do to myself.

Every time.

"Oh."

Casper dropped Cain's hand and flung himself into his arms. Right up on top of him, and after the breath shocked out of his chest, Cain grabbed him so tight it felt an inch from breaking him. In Cain's arms, the stinging and all the slow tearing turned to a tide. In Cain's arms, warm and safe and loved beyond measure, Casper wailed. Super gross and messy and snotty, but Cain didn't care, and he couldn't make himself stop.

Like the withdrawal would have done if he were awake, it was a purging. A cleansing. A purifying rite preparing his body for the afterlife. And the tears came so damn hard he thought he might die, but Cain was there to stop him floating away.

Casper wished he'd just let him float away. He wished Cain wasn't so kind, and he hadn't had these quietly horrible things happen to him and he wasn't so breathtakingly perfect. Casper wished he didn't have to hurt him, and Cain had never done this to him, and Casper had just told Jack to fuck off and gone on that stupid date.

But he hadn't, and this right here was their fate.

Casper breaking his heart over and over and over again. Just another lost boy that didn't love him right.