"I know," Carlos said. His hand curved around Gael's cheek as he looked down at him. "I know you do. I know." He knew too well, he thought. He hadn't ever spiraled as far down as Gael, but there had been too many times when he'd been consumed by emptiness. Times when he understood Hadyn a little too well, and times that he'd hidden from his best friend as best as he'd been able. From everyone else, too.

In that, maybe, he and Gael were more alike than they'd imagined before they'd begun this thing. Carlos had hidden behind a stoic exterior that was nothing like the charming, laughing Heart that Gael had been. There had, even, been times when he wondered if that's what he'd fallen in love with - that sparkling, charming whirlwind who'd pulled him out of morose moods without ever asking why. But that wasn't true, Carlos thought as he slipped onto his back to lay with Gael, pulling him close. He was in as deep with this Gael Shaw as the one who'd made him laugh as they'd tangled in the sheets.

"I love you," he said as he wrapped his arms around Gael. In a story, the words themselves would be healing, but in real life he knew they were just words. "I want to make it stop. I don't want you to hurt anymore, darling. But we can't make it stop by ourselves." They couldn't make it stop if Gael pushed away everyone who loved him out of some misguided sense of protecting their happiness.