(A/N) I know, I know, it's a surprise upload several days before our regular upload day, but I think that leaving everyone on the bleakness of our last shot for too long might have been a touch cruel, so I've decided to upload this one a little earlier than we normally would. It's an unofficial second part to our last shot where me and TunelessLyric each attempted to cause one another pain with our writing, apparently. As it is, you may recognise part of this chapter from a scene from our flagship story, Phase Two: Betrayal and that's because it's the same scene from the other person's point of view. This scene, however, is extended both before and after it cuts off in Phase proper and that's because I actually wrote this before I ever put metaphorical pen to paper on that main Phase chapter.

It's still considered canon to the story of the Freelancer trilogy, just more of an uncut look at that scene in a way that I think wouldn't have fit the tone I was going for in that chapter. Consider these events what went down after the fade to black.

As before, I'll give this content warning: The following chapter contains references to and discussions about self-harm and suicide. I can promise that at the very least, it has a happy ending.

Deep Marks

Lucas 'Circuit' Thorpe

Written by BrambleStar14

"Your love has called my name
What do I have to fear?
What do I have to fear?
If You can hold the stars in place
You can hold my heart the same."

- Skillet, 'Stars'

Space was cold and dark and empty, he decided, staring out of the viewport into the wider galaxy beyond. He'd once stared up at the night sky with his mother, and he'd been amazed, unaware of the horrors that lurked in the dark gaps between them, horrors that he'd slowly become intimately familiar with over the years. Back then, it had been their thing, just the two of them, gazing up at the infinite above and losing hours at a time in the darkness.

There hadn't been anyone else. No siblings, not that he'd ever needed them, even if hours had passed by without company. No father, not that he'd ever needed him, wherever he'd gone when he walked out one day and never come back, leaving them with the echoes of his shouts of not good enough!

And Lucas had been without anyone to share his brilliant ideas with, even his mother, who'd simply nodded and smiled encouragingly, tried to understand one in every four words and told him that he'd be recognised one day for what he could dream.

How little they'd known back then. How little he'd ever expected that all of his dreams would become nightmares that kept him awake at night, screaming out into the silence until he had to cling to himself, wrap his arms around himself like a straightjacket just so that they didn't search out dangerous, gleaming silver.

He'd tried to throw them all away. All of those knives. Anything with a blade. He'd tried to purge his bedroom of them, but what about when he fell asleep in the lab, willingly burning himself out to exhaustion to try and leave the demons of his mind behind? Was that why he spent so long in the lab, deep down? Was he waiting for a moment of weakness, for the excuse to be close to metal that could so easily dig deep and find some shred of the dreams that he'd once had?

Lucas was never going to be free of them. Not while he woke up howling until the door opened and Mike rushed in, the two of them clinging to one another in the desperate grief, the connection between them, the ghost of a single phonecall that neither could ever forget, etched into Lucas's skin far deeper than the spiral of misery that he'd traced down his arm.

His greatest masterpiece. The wreckage of his own life. His greatest failure. His inability to join Isaac Harper.

It wasn't cowardice. He'd told himself that over and over again, cried it to himself in his sleep when the shadows pulled at the corners of his eyes, reflections catching the metal blades and shining blue and green eyes at him, accusing him, taunting him in the dark. He'd screamed it out, fists hitting the walls like Aaron hitting those punching bags over and over, trying to vent it, to see if his rage broke first or his fists.

His resolve was what had broken first as he collapsed, every time. He didn't know which of them had found him like that first, his knuckles streaked with red, the wall in front of him dented, the tendons in his neck standing out as he wordlessly screamed his pain to the uncaring sky above, those stars blinking maliciously down at him, just out of reach, the bright light forever out of his reach.

Lucas couldn't remember which of them had found him first, but he could remember Mike's reaction to the blood on his knuckles. He could remember the way that the man had clutched at his arm in horror, instincts and terror and pain and please not again not you too Lucas spurring him to wrench his sleeve back, to find the source of that scarlet like trying to find the origin of the cracks in his body, where all of that pain was leaking from.

The redhead had only felt worse as Phoenix's sniper had practically broken down at his side, silent tears wracking him with sobs and pulling the engineer close, the two of them temporarily one in their grief, arms intertwined and unable to verbalise the sheer depth of miserable loss.

The stars saw it all. They'd gazed down on Lucas his whole life. They'd been there for the small redheaded boy that had beamed up at them with such hope and so many ideas and a desire to see them all. They'd been there when he'd stood on guard duty at an ONI facility alongside the pale-haired man with the mismatched eyes, the two of them able to spend their entire shift either talking for hours without boredom or conflict and just… being there. Just the two of them, always able to know the other. And the stars had been there to frame the Covenant ship when it had detonated, a brilliant second sun that had drowned out the gleam of the other stars.

That very same detonation wasn't what kept him up at night, even if it was seared into all of their retinas, every Phoenix seeing it in the darkness overhead, filling in the gaps between stars with that piercing, glowing fireball. But he couldn't ever see the night sky the same way.

It was dark. It was cold. It was deep. An ocean of nothing, of pure emptiness. The perfect place to lose yourself and drown and float away in. Maybe that was what he'd done wrong the first time. Locked away in his apartment, he hadn't been able to see the stars, that final barrier between where Isaac had waited and where he could reach.

Those nights were the hardest. Ones where he looked at the bottle of pills and wondered how many it would take to experience the same haze that he had when all of his pain had gone, just for that brief moment, his life in Mike Baxter's hands, but not his own. Nights where he sat in front of the airlock for hours, staring out into the darkness beyond.

Lucas could have overridden the locks in his sleep. In fact, he was terrified that he would, one day, that he'd give in and leave all of them with the same pain as when Isaac had been torn away from them by the same star-filled void. Would Ian howl against the glass then? He rather doubted it.

But every time he sat there, his palm pressed to the glass, imagining that the reflection that he could see had eyes of two colours and paler hair, a gentler smile, mouthing the words back to him that he breathed to the window, he could see an image in his mind's eye.

Lucas could see Isaac stood where Ian had stood, clawing at the glass and screaming his name in agony, his own heart possibly broken at the loss of the engineer that had been his best friend, his partner in crime, not even realising what he'd wanted them to be until it was too late to do anything but force his way to Isaac to tell him, just once.

The first time he'd imagined it, he'd nearly picked up the blade again. Was it better to dream that Isaac had loved him, or a nightmare to give him the same pain mentally that Lucas felt every time he was left alone for too long, every time the caffeine wore off and he could slow down enough for the darkness to catch up with him?

But the pain that he could imagine Isaac holding for him was the only thing that kept him from throwing himself from the airlock and into the deep sea of nothingness.

He forced himself on because Isaac would have wanted him to. But he wasn't sure how to live without the other man. Was it really living if you were still waiting to die, deep down?

There had been a few days of madness, back in that townhouse that Phoenix had shared, a single moment of grieving, aching, devastated genius turned inwards and trying to fix a wound that could never close, couldn't even scar properly. It hadn't been difficult, to rig a holographic projector, to scan into it the best picture he had of Isaac, the one where the two of them had been lying in the grass on their backs, grinning without even needing to gaze at one another.

He hadn't had any idea at the time that Phil had captured the image, his arm raised upwards, pointing a constellation out to the youngest member of the team, giving yet another relentless lecture that everybody else seemed to tolerate but that Isaac Harper had seemed to find genuinely fascinating, able to listen for hours and ask questions that made sense and just made him want to spend even more of his time with the man at his side.

Ian hadn't even minded that Lucas had stolen his own childhood habit with Isaac for himself. He'd watched them a few times, when they'd sat away from the others, thinking they were far enough away that nobody else was noticing them, something younger in Harper's face, something a little more content, relieved, alive.

Lucas had scanned that photograph into his attempted cure and watched as the projector displayed the desired image, the image of the man in front of him, smiling at him as he sobbed and tried to murmur everything he'd ever wanted to say to Isaac, no recognition in the still echo in front of him.

When he'd wanted to speak to Isaac, even for a moment, it hadn't been what he'd imagined. Every single word was met with silence, with indifference, the grave separating them even now, a ghost that was impossible to confess to. He'd had everything planned out, every word poured into the space between them until his hands were at his chest like he wanted to rip his heart out, to literally offer it to the blonde in front of him.

He'd fallen to his knees to beg, but hadn't found the words. It hadn't mattered. None of it had mattered. Isaac was gone and Lucas was still alone, even more alone than before. At least before, he'd been able to keep the words to himself. Now that they were out in the open, that silent, unspoken goal, that desperate, soul-deep desire to find Isaac again, to tell him how he truly felt, was unfulfilling.

It wasn't his masterpiece. It wasn't a cure for his pain. It was an infection that had only seeped more poison into his heart and drained him for those precious few hours, left him feeling like he was the one that was immaterial and broken and beyond saving instead of the spectre in front of him. He'd nearly wasted away in front of it and the void inside of his heart, hollowed out of its desperate desire for Isaac, was filled instead with loathing and shame.

There'd been a knife in his pocket, just a small blade, the tiniest switchknife, intended for turning screws in small devices, to provide the finishing projects, to give him something to be proud of.

He'd used it that night. Used it to dismantle that holographic projector, to watch as Isaac faded from view in front of him as he cried and sobbed and curled into himself in the suddenly dark workshop. He hadn't been able to hold the image, hadn't been able to feel it disappear, to feel it dissolve, to have something to help him realise that Isaac was gone again, that he'd never been back, that Lucas was wasting time trying to empty a grave when he needed to jump in alongside the other man instead.

Science had always dictated his decisions. He was a man of facts and theories and solid, scientific basis. He wasn't superstitious, he wasn't a Catholic like his mother had been, even if she accepted that he saw things so differently. He'd always been rational, followed the science, until Isaac died. And then he'd throw it all away and give everything he had if he could see Isaac Harper one more time.

Lucas Thorpe never told the rest of Phoenix about the hologram. He never told them what he'd done, what he'd considered doing in front of that ghost of a smile. But he never forgot. He'd persisted, scared of looking up. Scared of the stars looking back. Scared of the aurora that always seemed to shift into blue and green whenever he looked at it. Scared of seeing the dark ocean that he wanted nothing more than to drift forever in, to see if he could find Isaac at the bottom.

Or forget that Isaac made him hurt so much.

There had been Crane.

And Byzantium.

And the Crimson Sun.

And the Mother of Invention.

And Isaac…

And Isaac…

And Isaac…

It had been one final, twisted joke from the universe to him. The sight of Isaac Harper in the same oversized hoodies that he'd used to wear, the same purple hoodie that Lucas had given him when he'd complained about the cold without even thinking twice, his hair bleached to a colourless, snowy white, but his eyes the same. Those piercing mismatched shades of blue and green, an aurora caught in Isaac Harper's gaze as they found his own, found the hollow numbness that he'd felt, the pain that he'd buried so deep ripped back open again.

His arm burned. It always burned, now. Every time he saw Isaac, those scars lit up, felt like he'd opened them up all over again. They were a sickening reminder. You were weak. You gave up on him. You wanted to leave him behind. You selfish fucking idiot. Pick up the knife. Why don't you try again? He won't want you now. You've seen the way he looks at West Virginia. Give it another go.

He'll thank you for it.

Lucas had needed to get away from it all. From Phoenix, all of them broken and bleeding where nobody could see, where they couldn't let the Freelancers see, couldn't let the sharks smell blood in the water. Away from Mike, whose expression was something disbelieving all the time, one of the two ghosts on his shoulders brought back in front of him, fresh hope for something close to redemption in his eyes that Lucas couldn't bear to see. Had to get away from Ian, who looked too close to human, too close to what he'd been before that Covenant warship and for those brief months that he'd had Jason Shaw at his side.

He had to get away from West Virginia and Isaac Harper and the way that they so easily slotted together now, talking quietly to one another and filling the gap that he'd left behind. If he'd even left one behind. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he'd been lying to himself. Maybe he'd been dreaming. Like he always did. That was what he was, in the end.

Lucas Oscar Thorpe. Full of dreams and ideas. Never able to actually provide anything.

Isaac hadn't blamed him. He'd told him that. But he didn't need to throw the accusing words. He didn't need to tell Lucas that he wasn't needed anymore. Not that he would; Isaac hadn't changed a bit. But he'd spoken three words and they weren't the three words Lucas had wanted to hear, the ones that he'd dreamed that Isaac would say back to him in whatever came next after one quick cut and a few minutes of relief before whatever came after, whatever pain he'd endure for everything he'd done.

I missed you.

So close.

The redhead hadn't been able to handle it. Hadn't been able to handle hearing the voice again. Hadn't been able to handle seeing those eyes searching his. He didn't want to risk seeing if they were still compatible, if they could still fit together. Always a coward, at heart. Unable to take the chance that the two of them could be what they were.

How he'd found himself here, in front of the same airlock that he'd visited almost every night since they arrived on the Freelancer ship, he didn't know. He just needed the sight of the uncaring void, the stars twinkling with silent laughter as that last, cruel joke was played on him.

How was he supposed to finish the job now when it wouldn't bring him to Isaac?

They were both damaged now. That beautiful, pure, innocent soul had been damaged by his survival and Lucas was too fucking selfish to regret that Isaac had been hurt simply by surviving, too fucking selfish and too fucking grateful that the man wasn't dead, that he had something close to a second chance.

And yet he couldn't face him. The sight of Isaac sent his heart into overdrive, set his arm on fire, made him feel like he was drowning and gasping and clawing for air as his lungs filled with blood. The sound of his voice made him hear the familiar drip of red on the floor as he lay there, waiting for it to end, waiting to leave Isaac Harper behind without ever knowing.

Lucas felt the salt drip down his cheeks, running down his cheeks, falling from his jaw to splash against his wrists, slowly soaking them as he tried to hold back the scream of fury and pain and relief and triumph in his chest. It was all too much. It was like his synapses were all overloaded, his mind normally overflowing with ideas but now jammed, every sensation focused only on Isaac Harper.

"...Luke?" The voice was quiet, a tentative whisper, but it cut through his laboured breathing, the hisses of pain as he realised that his right hand was clamped around his left forearm, like he was trying to relive the pain of those cuts again, one more punishment just to remind himself of weakness.

Maybe his father had been right after all.

His shoulders tensed, gazing at his reflection as another image was overlaid on top of it. The hair was whiter, the face a little more hesitant and anxious than the open, innocent laughter that it had held before, but the eyes were the same, placed on top of his own as he gaped silently at the image. Carefully, very carefully, Isaac sat down at his side, not facing the void beyond the window, but instead gazing at Lucas himself. His eyes were searching, quietly hopefully, almost desperate for something there, anything, begging Lucas to come back.

Like it was the engineer that was beyond reach now, Lucas realised with a sudden surge of horror, a rush of guilt and grief and anxiety. He was the one pushing Isaac away, the one running, the one that had tried to leave him behind.

Afraid of what he'd see, he slowly turned properly, shifting to his knees like he was praying silently, taking in the sight of Isaac properly, not seeing any sign of the years that had separated them. The man was still so young. His eyes didn't hold the same smile, or at least, they hadn't with the eyes of Freelancers on him. Now, there was something softer there, a ghost of the past and this wasn't some hologram. This wasn't some nightmare or echo or desperate, useless attempt to get him back.

This was Spectrum smiling hesitantly at Circuit like nothing had changed between them.

Maybe that was why he couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop the tears running down his face and the way his voice shook, unable to control himself, on the verge of a total collapse but finally given a chance, finally given a way to make it right, to see if his hypothesis was true.

Say it.

Words failed him. The speech that he'd been able to give to that hologram of the man in front of him, the confession that had been torn so easily from chest to widen the wound couldn't be drawn back in now, couldn't patch the wound closed again. Every time he tried to speak, ice filled his chest, panic flooded his brain, terror at finding the words just out of reach. It only made him cry harder, want to scream and beat his fists bloody against that townhouse wall again.

Why couldn't he have Isaac and be able to tell him the words? Why did he have to have one or the other?

"Luke?" Isaac tried it again and the hairs along his arms stood on end suddenly, a shiver running down his spine at the name that nobody else called him, something nobody had said to him in years. It was just the static electricity, a power surge running through the ship, conducted through the metal and dissipated through so many conductors that it registered only as a brief awareness, a brief moment that the hairs on his arms stood on end, nowhere near enough power to prove fatal-

Lucas slammed down on his mind, so desperate to escape into one of those distracted anecdotes and forced himself to focus instead on blue and green, seeing the tears there for the first time, the way Isaac watched him with what he realised now was fear, not scared of him, and maybe not even for him, but instead for whatever was between them. Lucas had spent years grieving for what he could have had and now he was unable to even salvage what he had already had.

"I'm sorry…" It was the best he could manage. It was a rasp, so desperate and hopeless and trying to convey everything he had with two words instead of three. Crossing the distance between them felt like putting his hand in deep water, dragging it through an ocean just to reach Isaac's wrists, to curl fingers around them, to find that anchor that slammed his feet back onto solid ground, to finally stop him from drifting out of control, to save him from drowning.

"Lucas-" Whatever Isaac was going to say, Lucas couldn't let him. It was like the floodgates had been opened and he was unable to stop himself, unable to tear his eyes away from damaged blue and green like he could try and mend the both of them just by talking, by trying to refill his heart. Just so he could offer it to the man in front of him.

"I should have been there for you. Should have been there with you. I wanted to. I wanted to… for years… I should have…" He trailed off, swallowing hard as his voice cracked and Isaac blinked at him. His head tilted ever so slightly, the gesture so familiar to Ian's own particular quirk that it only made Lucas sob harder. They should have both been there all these years, both Harper brothers. He'd missed the Ian that he'd once known and he couldn't imagine how alone Isaac had felt, if those scars had found their way to the other man's wrists.

"I don't-" Isaac began, but was cut off again.

"I blamed myself. I know you wouldn't. You were too… too good." It was hard to get sentences out. His brain was misfiring and in his desperation he was missing it all, fumbling all the important parts and his hands wanted to move, wanted to gesture wildly, wanted to take the blade and just get it over with if he couldn't get the words out. "I wanted to be with you but…"

It was hard. It was so hard. His arm itched and burned and bled and he didn't want the blood to get anywhere near Isaac, didn't want to hurt him ever again.

"I'm right here. I'm right here with you, Luke." It was hesitant, careful, shaking as fingers found Lucas's own wrists, the two of them almost clinging to one another. It felt like the younger Harper was using him as a lifeline for just a second. At the same moment, those cosmic clouds that concealed the void beyond the airlock finally cleared for the first time, a burst of light cast through the windows.

A nebula cast its colours over the two of them, a shifting array of blue and green and orange and purple cast across Isaac Harper's face like the aurora of Byzantium that he'd never gotten to see, that Lucas had never been able to show him.

Maybe that was the reason why, when Isaac spoke again, that quiet and hopeful "I'm right here" filling the space between them, he broke.

"But I nearly wasn't."

The silence was deafening. He was scared to look into Isaac's eyes. He didn't want to see whatever was there, so he continued, his tears running freely down his face and falling to soak his sleeves like crimson, feeling his wrists suddenly wet where Isaac had held them close to his own body.

"I missed you, Isaac. So damn much. I wanted to… I had so much to tell you. I didn't ever realise it and I could only say it when…" He sobbed audibly. "Every day took you further away and I didn't want you to think I'd left you behind. I wanted you to be okay. I wanted to see you again and just… I don't know. I wanted you to see…"

He couldn't say it. He couldn't say it as he looked up and saw Isaac silently crying back at him, expression twisted in grief and horror and realisation but not pity. Never pity. Because Isaac understood, somehow. Lucas could see something there and he didn't know what it was, but it was the reason that he pulled his sleeve suddenly back, exposing his sins to the only man that he was truly afraid would judge him for them.

Lucas's scars were faded by now, even against pale skin, but they looked red and raw and angry now, a railroad of his failure and selfishness and grief and just how far he was willing to go for Isaac Harper. That long line, the one that truly mattered… it pointed right at Isaac, an arrow aimed directly at the place that his heart had been for all these years. Those mismatched eyes traced them all, still leaking his own pain but unable to respond when faced with the depth of how much Lucas cared for him.

Maybe he'd never realised it after all. But Lucas thought he might know now.

A finger traced his scars, so hesitantly, running not against the long, near-fatal one that marked Lucas's agony, but the ones that hadn't been successful, hadn't been there to really do the job, the ones that he'd made when he'd clung to life. Clung to Isaac.

His touch was warm, his face close enough to Lucas's now that he could feel the body heat against him, a memory flashing in front of his eyes of red leaking from those wounds, a dizzy and confused floating sensation and a warm body against his own. His heart clenched suddenly, his accent thick even with his voice so quiet and small and scared.

"You're real, right, Isaac? Please, God, tell me you're real… I don't want… I don't want this to be all we say to one another forever…" He didn't want to know that it was all just some mad dream, that he was still in his apartment as Mike's ambulance rushed to find him, that he was still bleeding out and that Isaac wasn't really back.

He didn't want to be so close and then to lose it all again. He didn't want this touch to be a ghost guiding him into the light. Just for once, could the universe give him this? Just this once?

Please?

Arms folded around him and he froze, warmth against his chest, quiet sobbing against his neck. He nearly asked it in his terror, in his half-renewed grief, nearly closed his eyes and nearly croaked out a small, scared "...Mike?" convinced that when he opened his eyes, he'd see a hospital bed, that final moment that his heart forever broke into pieces that could never be fixed.

"I'm real, Luke. You're real. You're here. We're here. I promise." Isaac's voice trembled, and Lucas could finally close his eyes to try and stem the flow of his tears, his own arms folding around Spectrum, the two of them clinging to one another, the only anchors in a storm of misery and loss and pain and regrets and lost time that they could never get back but maybe make up for.

A heartbeat was pulsing against his own, steady and so very alive but when Isaac pulled back, just enough so that their faces nearly touched, that innocent face was so torn with his own misery. He didn't speak, didn't say much, but Lucas could already see his pain, could already feel them sinking back into… into whatever they were, really, at heart, whatever they'd always been building up to.

The sleeve of that hoodie was pulled back and Lucas cast his eyes down, his heart dropping in terror. It wasn't visibly the same. The scars weren't the same. They weren't the same uneven slashes and cuts and attempts to unearth whatever he needed to to cement his connection to Isaac. But they were rough, dotted up and down his forearm, the countless marks of syringes roughly and uncaringly jammed into place and tracing previously flawless skin.

Like Isaac had done for him, his finger came up, running over them, unable to miss the way Spectrum shuddered under his touch, years of absence between them leaving them practically aching to just… feel that connection again. He didn't ask, just waited even as he let his tears fall onto those marks, like his grief and the reminder that he was there would be enough to help Isaac heal, like Isaac's own tears were enough to finally stop that relentless burn in his own scars.

"I got injured in the escape… my ribs… it hurt to breathe for so long…" Isaac sounded so young, sounded like Lucas had in that hospital bed when he'd met Phil's eyes, that shared realisation that he'd been… that he'd had… that he'd cared about Isaac so damn much. Green and blue met seafoam green. "I pretended the painkiller was for them, but I wanted to stop feeling empty. Wanted to stop missing Phoenix. Ian. You."

His breath caught in his throat, something dangerously close to hope in his chest, desperation, balancing literally on a knife's edge.

Say it, Lucas. Tell him. If you don't do it, just get it over with.

"Sometimes when I took it," Isaac continued, still sobbing, his voice ragged, a confession that he'd never made to anyone else, couldn't make to anyone else, given freely now. "I imagined that I could see you. Talk to you again. I wanted you back. But once…" He closed his eyes and bit back a whimper. "...I gave myself too much."

"Isaac…" It was a breath, an exhale that was so close to the other man's lips.

"It wasn't an accident, Luke. I wanted it to stop. I wanted… I don't know. I couldn't handle it. I didn't think I'd see you again. I wanted to go to the one place that I knew you'd eventually be able to find me. I was selfish…"

Something tight was around his chest, the two of them there, their scars exposed, their secrets laid bare, their souls on silent offer to one another.

Just fucking say it, Lucas!

Fingers curled around Isaac's, his forehead pressing to the other man's, his breath shaking. "No you weren't." And maybe Lucas hadn't been, either… "Isaac… I would have found you eventually, no matter what… I would have… could have said…"

Say it!

That face was familiar, the features so close to Ian's, the one eye identical to the elder Harper's. The two of them had sat like this once, a week after Crane, when Ian had found him, come to him like he'd been slowly visiting all of the others, something close to pain in his eyes again. They'd been like this, together in their grief, Harper's fingers tracing his scars in the exact same way as Isaac's, shared grief for the youngest Phoenix binding them together.

Lucas had never seen Ian Harper cry. Even when that detonation had ripped Isaac away from them, it had been agonised howls and screams of pain and defiance but an empty, hollow, desperate expression, a hole ripped into everything that might have been Ian's soul.

But when he'd seen those scars and felt them, felt the devotion that Lucas had even then for Isaac, he'd cried with him, his voice a whisper that shook and trembled.

"You would have been good for him." It was all he'd said. All he'd needed to say. It was enough.

Maybe that was what made him say it, made him nudge Isaac's head up to face him again, to face those tears and those raw emotions that mirrored his own. Maybe it was that last hope that his dreams might actually come true after all.

"Isaac Matthew Harper. Phoenix gave me wings. You made me feel like I was flying." He hesitated, just for a moment, before leaning in, brushing his lips against Isaac's. He could feel the tears from both of them on his cheeks, could feel Isaac's out of control heartbeat in time with his own, feel the fingers clench around his own.

After just a second, Isaac pressed back against him, desperate, just as much hope in every tiny motion, in the way that they kept that contact lingering, bathed in the nebula of shifting colours. It wasn't passionate, or fierce. It wasn't an explosion of emotion. It was slow, and raw, and bleeding everything he had.

It was him offering his heart to Isaac with everything that he might be able to get back.

"I love you, Isaac. I want you to know. Can't wait anymore. Won't risk it." He couldn't stand the idea that he'd never say it to Isaac. He needed him to know. Just this once. He didn't care if it was some dying fantasy, or a ghost coming to guide him to whatever came next. He didn't care in that moment if he woke up in a hospital bed.

He'd told him. He'd said it. He was never going to carry this regret again.

There wasn't even a hesitation before the voice that he'd dreamed about every night for years returned those three words, offered them and gave them to him freely, breathed into his lips.

Just this once, his dreams came true.

"Love you too, Lucas."