Many thanks to Amielleon and Raphiael for advice and betaing.

I remember holding the hand of the skeleton prince
And he swept me into his arms
And he, he had tremolo deep in the back of his black eye sockets
And he said,
"Do you want to come away with me
Into the pitch black pool?"
And I said, "I don't know.
I don't know, I don't know..."
-Deerhunter, "Vox Humana"

I've always loved you. I've always hated you.
-FE8, chapter 18B

...

Ephraim had yet to lay eyes upon Darkling Woods, but the earth under his feet felt no less solid for it, and the cold wind cutting through his cloak wasn't any less biting. The endless stretch of trees took on a form like a memory, like a hidden patch of forest not far from the castle where he grew up. Plants he hadn't thought of in years, thin broad leaves that flourished in deep shade, caught along his legs as he passed.

The air was too bitter to sustain an infinite swell of healthy foliage, and no fractured shards of light peered through lofty branches. The canopy over his head might as well have been the roof of a cave. Anything more than several paces away dissipated into invisibility, erased by a moonless night.

None of it seemed strange. He walked on without wondering why, or how he got there.

Under an equally dark sky both near and far away, a fraying supply blanket slipped from a sleeping prince's shoulders. It lay uselessly to the side while Ephraim drew his arms close to his body and shivered.

He walked and walked, for what could have been minutes, hours, days or weeks. And when a slight figure tucked amongst enormous tree roots at last came into view, it wasn't surprising. Skinny knees folded into a familiar position, and pale hair cut into a downcast gaze. But all the tiny changes stood out the most: skin pulled tightly over gaunt hollowed cheeks, exhaustion-rimmed eyelids that quickly fell away. Words meant for Ephraim formed upon cracked lips, but were addressed instead to the surrounding shadows.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

He sat close by without a single moment's reluctance, among the uneven growth and decay and flaking bark, like everything was just as it used to be. His newly-revealed purpose felt entirely obvious.

"Why?"

Every shift in Lyon's face was inexplicably clear. His mouth upturned without a trace of humor.

"I can think of a few reasons."

Implications intruded where they weren't welcome, faintly letting Ephraim know he could come up with many more, if he so desired. He didn't want to.

"I had to. You said if I came, I could save you."

Lips twitched in the opposite direction. "I said a lot of things."

"Was that a lie too then?" The unchecked resentment slipped out before Ephraim could catch himself.

"Yes and no," Lyon replied simply, vaguely, and somehow, in the moment, Ephraim understood. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"That's..." Ephraim shook his head, protesting before he could even form a complete thought. "That's not true."

Several silent breaths came and went before more words met the invisible cold.

"You know it is."

Burdens long since compressed and solidified sprung from dormancy – hardened pain he noticed all too often upon his sister's face; the destruction of so many places and people, both dear to him and not.

In any other situation he would have felt guilty. Instead he was adamant.

"It's not. You're still-" Uncertainty, abrupt and peculiar on Ephraim's tongue, unraveled his objections, snaring them in their path.

"If it was true," he began afresh, "I wouldn't be here." It sounded weaker to his ears, despite not fully knowing what he meant to say in the first place.

They both stared at the short distance dividing them, where Lyon crumpled dry, dead leaves between restless fingertips.

"Maybe." Lyon shrugged; noncommittal, unconvinced. Ephraim waited, watching drawn features fumble for intent. Then finally, "But it shouldn't matter to you."

Bloodless skin wiped against an unstained hem, leaving behind dull brown bits of plant matter, and Lyon folded his slightly cleaner hands in his lap. One twisted slowly within the other, back and forth; an awkward, fitful habit that Ephraim had watched countless times past – a stark remnant of someone he once thought he knew so well.

"You should hate me by now."

Ephraim replied all too easily.

"I don't."

The readily unfurled words struck a wrong chord. Because of their significance. Because he absolutely meant them.

"You should."

"I don't,"he insisted. "I could never."

"Even after-"

Lyon hesitated, and Ephraim couldn't help but fill in the myriad blanks. He briefly closed his eyes, as though he could make every unspoken wound disappear against the backs of his eyelids.

"After everything I've done. And everything I've said." Lyon's voice quavered like a long note on a stringed instrument, like wind whipping harshly through the trees. But when he turned to Ephraim at last, the set of his eyes was stony, statacco. "I meant all of it. Every bit of it."

Ephraim waited for some hint of a softening change, like the variant frequencies of Lyon's wavering tone. It never came.

Dilated pupils swallowed his frivolous optimism, like night engulfing innumerable branches. Something Ephraim saw there made him want to flinch and look away. Not quite in fear, but something else – something more akin to nausea. Something which sapped lingering hope from his very core.

Something else made him remain still.

"I know," he admitted. He didn't think to question why it felt so simple, so perfectly natural, to concede what he would never dare before. "I know you did."

He felt fingers, smooth and sparse as bare, withered bone, slide across his palm.

"As long as you know."

The light pressure enfolding his hand felt perfectly natural too.

Seconds turned into minutes, or maybe longer, and passed uninterrupted. Intertwined fingers loosened a bit. He wanted to squeeze back, as tightly as he could; cling to reassuring, tactile solidity, and maybe never let go. He didn't.

An increasingly frequent sense of dissonance made his head unbearably heavy. He began to consider, tiredly, leaning upon the narrow shoulder so close to his own. But Lyon broke their mutual lull.

"As long as you know-"

Air, more direct and temperate but still far from warm, grazed Ephraim's cheek, his lips. The grip around his hand clamped down like a hard-set jawline.

"-that I meant everything."

Lyon's mouth parted against his own, and a rush of surprise, muffled though it was, splayed over his skin like gooseflesh, for the first time in what felt like ages.

He let out a sigh he didn't realize he'd been holding. He let Lyon lean over him, and into him, until his back met the ground, their fingers still laced together.

He had never imagined clinging so desperately to Lyon's waist and shoulders, only to find them more pronounced and skeletal than he expected. He never imagined himself pressed to cold earth, damp soil slowly soaking to his scalp.

He had always thought it would be his own strong arms guiding Lyon into soft bedding, his calloused fingers brushing away stray hair with a fond touch, his even tenor murmuring gentle assurances into an intricate, sensitive shell of an ear.

But mostly he imagined it would never happen at all.

Teeth caught somewhere inside of his mouth, too hard to be anything but deliberate, spreading a metallic tinge across his tongue. He had never imagined that either, but immediately decided he liked how it felt, how it heightened every bit of contrasting pliancy.

They shifted together, in a tangle of yielding limbs and nearly-flat planes. Some sound, slightly louder than a breath, caught in the back of Lyon's throat, and his name poured from Lyon's mouth into his own.

Ephraim opened his eyes to stare, unafraid and unflinching, into pitch black.

"Tell me," Lyon spoke, both a command and a plea.

He knew without question what Lyon meant. What Lyon wanted.

"You already know."

A hand reached to cradle the side of his face, lean and unmarred but decidedly firm.

"Tell me anyway."

Leaning into the light touch lain across his cheek, he realized that he wanted the very same thing. He wondered if he had ever wanted anything else so completely. If he ever would again.

"I-"

...

...

...

Ephraim blinked, and too quickly inhaled a massive measure of freezing cold air. He stared dumbly at the discarded blanket by his side, felt the sharp cold piercing his lungs, and tasted iron coating the inside of his mouth.

He brought fingertips to and from his lower lip, trying to detect any trace of bright red. He squinted at them in the dark, unsure if they were clean, or if he merely couldn't see well enough to tell.

The second time he lingered longer than necessary, grasping at what had already started to fade into the recesses of night and memory. His battle-worn hands weren't so different in texture from the rough kisses of a ruined wraith, yet so unlike all the nervous smiles and furtive glances he once knew to be real. He pulled away again, before long, at the sting of his bitten lip and various words forever left unspoken, reaching for the blanket instead. It all hurt.

He tried to recall the last time raw searing moisture building at the corners of his eyes was anything more than an idle threat, and couldn't. His face remained as dry as last autumn's leaves.

He lay awake, silently awaiting sunrise, and dared to hope. Not for futile salvation, not for the impossible – but for the world of dreams.