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whatisthatmelody | Talon AU
Harold Winston is a geneticist.
His work was never meant to be used to hurt people nor would he have ever thought he'd be working for people actively trying to cause chaos in the world. Working probably wasn't the right word, forcefully blackmailed into helping Talon was more like it. It was exactly what it was. They didn't have anything against him when it came to his work or things he'd done in his life, no, they used the only family he still had left against him, because Talon had no morals.
As far as anyone knew Dr. Harold Winston was dead, which after surviving the Horizon Lunar Colony incident was a slap in the face. To his peers, to his mother and father, to all the work he'd done in his life. Now he was used to try and keep Gabriel Reyes in some semblance of one piece, his body a nightmare of genes and molecules fighting to stay together. Moira was always doing tests and injecting him with new things, but at the same time expecting him to have some input at the same time. She didn't think working with him would help at all, it would, but it wasn't like he saw her as a colleague, but he had to do his best to work with her like he did.
For years now if it wasn't working on Reaper it was helping Moira with her own work and continuing keep up on their resident sniper. A poor brainwashed ballet dancer they'd tortured into becoming a heartless murderer. Among other things. Harold can't look at himself in the mirror anymore, not that he likes what he sees anyway. A shadow of himself, hair much grayer than years ago before his disappearance and assumed death by mysterious means. He looks tired, sad, his crows feet much more defined and dark bags under his eyes from having many restless nights. Plenty contemplating ending his own life, but he couldn't. Whether he was a coward or he feared Talon truly would go and murder his parents, who deserved to live the rest of their lives in peace...
All of it snaps so strongly into focus when Moira is explaining a new asset to him, leading him to the room they have them in. Apparently they have great promise, but are extremely volitile and dangerous, so of course they're going to have him, their fairly expendable scientist, expendable as he's not loyal to Talon, try to fix things. She hands him a thick folder of information on their asset, Subject Sigma, before guiding him into the room and gleefully in that deep silky voice of hers chuckling.
"Do play nice gentlemen." And she'll leave him then, alone with this man who's in some sort of straight jacket and has a mask covering the bottom half of his face. The room is mostly bare beyond a seat for Harold to sit in, it's more like a prison cell in here then anything else. It's inhumane that they haven't given this man a bed, that he's strapped up like some mad animal, but flipping the folder open as he comes to take a seat he realizes exactly why things are as they are. It's also when he realizes he has a ghost in front of him on the cold floor of the room.
"Siebren?" Spoken soft, unbelieving, but it's there in the folder, a picture of Dr. Siebren de Kuiper, a folio on him and a full report on what happened years ago on Horizon Lunar Colony when his work went disastrously wrong. There's more of course, countless reports on his quarantine in the government facility Talon had broken him out of, but right now he doesn't care about that. He doesn't consider anything beyond that the man he'd thought long dead and never got to say goodbye to so long ago was right in front of him, his gray eyes the only thing of his he could see as he knelt down in front of him.
"Is that really you?" There's a lump in his throat, his chest feels tight. What in the world is he supposed to do?
His work was never meant to be used to hurt people nor would he have ever thought he'd be working for people actively trying to cause chaos in the world. Working probably wasn't the right word, forcefully blackmailed into helping Talon was more like it. It was exactly what it was. They didn't have anything against him when it came to his work or things he'd done in his life, no, they used the only family he still had left against him, because Talon had no morals.
As far as anyone knew Dr. Harold Winston was dead, which after surviving the Horizon Lunar Colony incident was a slap in the face. To his peers, to his mother and father, to all the work he'd done in his life. Now he was used to try and keep Gabriel Reyes in some semblance of one piece, his body a nightmare of genes and molecules fighting to stay together. Moira was always doing tests and injecting him with new things, but at the same time expecting him to have some input at the same time. She didn't think working with him would help at all, it would, but it wasn't like he saw her as a colleague, but he had to do his best to work with her like he did.
For years now if it wasn't working on Reaper it was helping Moira with her own work and continuing keep up on their resident sniper. A poor brainwashed ballet dancer they'd tortured into becoming a heartless murderer. Among other things. Harold can't look at himself in the mirror anymore, not that he likes what he sees anyway. A shadow of himself, hair much grayer than years ago before his disappearance and assumed death by mysterious means. He looks tired, sad, his crows feet much more defined and dark bags under his eyes from having many restless nights. Plenty contemplating ending his own life, but he couldn't. Whether he was a coward or he feared Talon truly would go and murder his parents, who deserved to live the rest of their lives in peace...
All of it snaps so strongly into focus when Moira is explaining a new asset to him, leading him to the room they have them in. Apparently they have great promise, but are extremely volitile and dangerous, so of course they're going to have him, their fairly expendable scientist, expendable as he's not loyal to Talon, try to fix things. She hands him a thick folder of information on their asset, Subject Sigma, before guiding him into the room and gleefully in that deep silky voice of hers chuckling.
"Do play nice gentlemen." And she'll leave him then, alone with this man who's in some sort of straight jacket and has a mask covering the bottom half of his face. The room is mostly bare beyond a seat for Harold to sit in, it's more like a prison cell in here then anything else. It's inhumane that they haven't given this man a bed, that he's strapped up like some mad animal, but flipping the folder open as he comes to take a seat he realizes exactly why things are as they are. It's also when he realizes he has a ghost in front of him on the cold floor of the room.
"Siebren?" Spoken soft, unbelieving, but it's there in the folder, a picture of Dr. Siebren de Kuiper, a folio on him and a full report on what happened years ago on Horizon Lunar Colony when his work went disastrously wrong. There's more of course, countless reports on his quarantine in the government facility Talon had broken him out of, but right now he doesn't care about that. He doesn't consider anything beyond that the man he'd thought long dead and never got to say goodbye to so long ago was right in front of him, his gray eyes the only thing of his he could see as he knelt down in front of him.
"Is that really you?" There's a lump in his throat, his chest feels tight. What in the world is he supposed to do?

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Harold's revelation hits him like a ton of bricks. He'd assumed a few...two or three...five at most...but ten? Most likely more than ten? It felt like someone had pulled the floor out from under him.
It has been too long...he's so far behind...lost so much time...over a decade of his life was just gone...held against his will, falling from memory to memory...hearing that elusive song...those whispers that no one else seemed to....
The air around him thrummed..and his face seemed to fall, losing all traces of warmth and replaced with a hardness that was unlike the man Harold had known...almost like it was someone else entirely. Whispers filled his ears and the edges of his vision began to blur.
No...No! Come on, hold it together!
"Hold it together." he whispered to himself.
Harold was here...if he lost control....Harold could be hurt. The last thing he wanted was to come back to his senses and find out he'd injured Harold or...or worse.
His head suddenly shook, grey eyes blinked back into focus and Siebren de Kuiper was there again. The energy that had filled the air fizzled out of existence.
Siebren stared at his sandwich and then at Harold, shaking slightly...not quite sure what had happened.
"Th-thank you...for being honest. You were always honest with me."
It is true , he was.
"I'm not well, Harold. Something happened...in the experiment. It failed and...I don't know what happened or how I left that lab on Horizon...how I got back to Earth...I don't...can't remember any of that."
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"Siebren?" He's talking to himself, his stare is so far away and he's not sure if what he should do to help. Reaching out to touch him, Harold doesn't quite get there before those gray eyes suddenly come back into focus and that feeling goes away.
Guilt makes him lose his appetite, staring down at his own plate, the half eaten sandwich no longer touched. Harold wished he could be fully honest with him, tell him everything, but he couldn't. Not now. He'll swallow the lump in his throat down, pushing his glasses up.
"I'm here to help you, Siebren. It won't be easy, but together we'll push through this. Okay?" He has to force the reassuring smile onto his lips, "... I wish I knew all the details too, when your experiment failed it made a black hole, for the briefest moment. You only were subjected to it for seconds, if that." Harold just knew he never saw Siebren after that experiment, they'd all been quarantined away from the accident until Siebren could be removed and the area shut down and sectioned off. The fluctuations in gravity too dangerous.
"The government took care of everything, it was all confidential. I was told you died shortly after you were taken away..." He hadn't even been able to try and gather anything from Siebren's room or office. All of it, everything. Confiscated. Taken. All of a sudden it was like Siebren de Kuiper never existed.
"Once you're better we might be able to find more detailed information on everything. I just don't think you're ready for that right now I'm afraid." Mentally, Siebren was still to broken and fragile. One day he might be able to let Siebren see the file on the Horizon incident that he had in his room.
Right now he had to keep it from him. For his safety. Their safety.
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"But...but I was not dead, Harold."
It made sense why no one had come to see him...why he had never heard from Harold or his family...everyone had been told he had been killed in his experiment. His work had been taken...so he could not even have it to work from. He could not even begin to see where it had gone wrong-there was no way to trace the source of the error.
It did not matter anyway. Harold had just said it had been over a decade...he was so far behind current studies and ideas. His work was most likely not even relevant.
He shook his head again.
Now was not the time to think of that. He had to get better before he could even begin to examine whatever pieces Harold had found. He took several deep, steadying breaths before slowly nodding.
"Yes. When I'm better...when I'm ready. I know that we can do anything together. I...I don't want to get lost again."
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This isn't the future he wanted fir them.
"I thought about you... every day, for so long." Harold wants to lament, to tell him so much, but it feels wrong to make this about himself. Siebren is the one who's been wronged. He might be in a bad place when it comes to Talon, but at least he's still his own person. What happened to Siebren, what the government did to him...
"I'm glad we could be together again." Though it could never be the same, could it? Back then it had been a question between them, what would become of their relationship when Siebren went back to Earth. They never got that chance.
"It seems difficult now, but I promise you, I won't let you go, Siebren." He's not going to lose him again either.
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"Thank you."
He smiled softly.
"I'm glad we are together again for the first time."
Again.
This was new again. The treatment he had been given had kept him mostly grounded. He was able to actually exist in the proper moment for multiple days now...it was the longest he had gone without an episode. Baby steps, it seemed.
Warmth and happiness swelled in Siebren's chest for the first time in a long time. He felt safe...secure...comforted. He nodded.
"I won't let you go, either."
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It had been years, while time hadn't really moved for Siebren, it had for Harold. Not that he had ever gotten over him in that time. Probably sad to most people, but how could he forget a man like Siebren de Kuiper? He was a perfect half to his own and it had all be taken from them.
"I know-" And dangit he wasn't going to do this, or he'd tried not to, but the wetness stings at the corner of his eyes and with one hand he pushes his glasses up to rub at them, shuddering out a heavy sigh. He can't do this. It's not fair to Siebren.
"After um, after we're done eating we should work on your physical therapy. It's your legs today." They go back and forth each day, focusing on his lower body then his upper. His legs had atrophied the worst, but pushing them too hard every day wouldn't be good either.
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"It does. Like gravity."
When he looked up, Harold was crying, trying to hide it by going back to business, rubbing his eyes to keep from crying. It hurts him to see the other man in such pain. He reached out but then stopped. He wanted more than anything to comfort him, to pull him close...and he reaches out with a hand.
"Harold?"
He's not going anywhere. They can do his physical therapy in a bit. He wanted to comfort the man, the one he had been absent from for so long...longer than he thought...the man he had held so close...now that one he loved so much was in pain. All he wanted to do was hold hm again...stroke that grey hair of his soothingly and do his best to assure him they could do anything together.
The thrumming was suddenly back, but it was softer, more focused specifically on Harold. There were whispers in Siebren's ears...and he waved his hand softly towards himself, willing it...and Harold Winston lightly lifted off the side of his bed and was pulled into his arms. Siebren was careful...so very careful to hold Harold so as not to crush him. There was faint music in his ear...but it was softer than usual...and it faded when as Harold landed in his lap. It was very hard for him not to squeeze Harold tightly...but he lacked the strength to do it...and he feared that his powers might suddenly rise up again and crush the man...but they did not...so he sat there with a startled Harold in his lap. It seemed no one escaped gravity. The two of them just kept being pulled back together. He pressed a kiss onto the top of Harold's head...into his thin hair.
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"Sieb-" He really shouldn't be doing these sorts of thing right now, his focus isn't that good yet, it could be dangerous... but once he's in his arms he can't argue or say much else. He'll shift a little to wrap his arms around his neck, sighing softly at the kiss pressed against his head.
"... I'm sorry, I know this can't be easy for you."
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"It isn't."
It was true. Nothing had been easy. He had not been himself in more than a decade. Screaming himself hoarse while falling through memories where no one acknowledged him...where he could not control things...he just lived through them over and over all the while aware he was held down. The music...the voices were incessant...always screaming in his ears...but since Harold and Dr. O'Deorain had been working on him...he'd gotten to at least...perceive time normally again...to not have to be tied down....to not utterly destroy everything in the room with him.
"But it is easier with you here."
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There's so much he wanted to tell Siebren, but couldn't, he hoped one day he could. Whether that ruined his trust in him or not, he deserved it.
Things physically have been progressing a little slowly, at least with Siebren's legs, but he was getting stronger and his upper body strength was leaps better than it had been. Today Harold brings a bunch of foam balls with him and a tablet. The balls are for Siebren to practice his focus and control, they're light and if things go awry neither of them could be hurt.
The tablet is to take notes and video on Siebren's progress.
"Start with one at a time, we can work up to more." They had a dozen there, but it would take some time for him to be able to control them all at once.
"You already seem good at lifting things, but it's being able to keep that control while you move things around. Especially multiple objects."
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Sure enough, the other man entered the room with a tablet and a collection of foam balls. He nodded as he listened to Harold's plan.
"Yes. I think that is a good proposal for improvement."
Leave it to Harold to think of something so simple but so effective.
He focused on one of the balls...the thrumming vibration began to reverbate around them. The small foam orb lifted up. Siebren focused on it...visualized it moving, even moving his hand a bit...the foam ball faltered for a moment, but regained its position, rotating, then dipping up and down...yes...yes...that wasn't too hard at all.
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Would he be able to handle it? In his little room with no windows it was easy to contain things. It was quiet and there were no real distractions. Better to test that out before he's sent on a mission and reacts poorly.
"You're already doing well, Siebren." Harold smiles, finger tapping on the tablet screen to enter in some basic information.
"When you're comfortable try adding a second one, but only go as fast as you feel you can."
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"Harold? Can you hear that music?"
He asked in a hushed tone, as if even mentioning it loudly would cause it to stop. It was so simple...but he could not make it out. He...he wasn't imagining it...was he?
A sixth small ball....and a seventh were drawn into his spiraling collection.
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That's never a good sign.
"... there's no music, Siebren." He says it carefully, not trying to insinuate that he's hearing things. Perhaps Siebren does actually hear music. Maybe it's real, but because of what he went through only he can hear it.
But not in like... a crazy way. Though it always seemed to herald a bad reaction. Harold keeps calm, it wouldn't help to be otherwise.
"Maybe we should take things a little slower-" Doing so much at once could be stressing him out without realizing.
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He unfolded from his reflexive cringe.
Harold couldn't hear it...but that elusive piano-esque melody sang in his ears...the more he tried to listen to it...the harder it became to make out. ...so he stopped trying to hear it...let it flow through his head...its melody became more apparent.
"No...I can do it."
He turned his focus inward...felt the music in his very bones. He looked up at Harold and smiled...but it was not his usual, warm smile...it was something else...something slightly unhinged.
"Harold...the universe...sings for me."
The thrumming returned...but Siebren focused inward so that it would not touch Harold...or the limited amount of furniture would be unaffected. He was tired of this...tired of being held back...tired of being an invalid. Weeks of physical therapy to deal with a forced imprisonment that should never have happened...should have never been forced on him. He could do THIS. Bit by bit, he willed himself off the bed...off the ground...one hand still swirling his collection of foam balls, the other clenched into a fist as he focused, keeping himself levitated a few inches off the ground.
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"I know you can, but we don't want to overexert you." Siebren was the kind of man who could do anything he wanted if he put his mind to it, Harold had no doubt in him.
He hates the spike of fear that runs up his spine when that strange feeling fills the room. The hairs on his arms stand up and it's not Siebren he's afraid of, he's not afraid he'll hurt him, he hasn't yet after all, but it's that smile. That smile that is nothing he's ever seen from him before.
Harold is afraid of the universe and what it seems to be telling Siebren. He can only gape as the other man rises, hovering over the bed as he still controls the foam balls with one hand. It's amazing, truely, but a part of him dreads what this means for Talon.
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Now, he's trying to keep his grip on what was happening...it seemed easier to keep those small balls in motion...if he kept himself up. It should have frightened him, but it did not. He'd spent the last decade being horrified more often than not.
It felt different. It felt powerful...Harold was right. He could do it. The universe sang to him...didn't it? It chose him. Horribly so, but it did.
His concentration on hovering up made everything else in the room fall away. There was a dull hum in his ears, the melody played on beneath it. Harold could not hear it, but it was there. Grey eyes lost their manic glint and they flitted to Harold. He had seemingly popped back into Siebren's field of vision all on his own. Nothing else in the room, just Harold.
And just like that, everything collapsed.
A momentary lapse in his concentration made him drop...those little foam balls went flying...but he managed to catch himself before he hit the floor. With a deep breath, he slowly lifted himself up into a standing position...inch by inch, he eased up until he was "standing," albeit hovering a few inches off the ground.
"Ah...crisis nearly avoided."
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It feels more normal again, this is his Siebren he's sure of it.
"Are you alright?" You scared me, is there in his tone, but he doesn't voice it. Looking up at him now is even more if a task than before. Siebren was already tall, now he was floating off the ground!
"Look at you, your head is further up in the clouds than before."
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Was he alright? He felt alright. He could flex his toes and fingers. His breathing was steady. The melody had gone quiet...but he could still feel it...the aftershocks of it...and here he was...still floating. He was focusing on it still, of course, but not nearly as much as he had before. It was more like...focusing a muscle. He'd been doing that a lot lately, so this was similar...even if there was no muscle to focus on.
"Yes....Yes, I think so."
He cautiously willed himself to the left...then to the right...just by inches...but he did indeed move, still hovering an inch or two off the ground.
That little joke caught him by surprise. It should not have, but it did. His life had been so horrible for the last, well...decade, it turned out that he had not anticipated the impact of one of Harold's cute flirtations. He laughed...his real laugh, from deep inside him. It rocked his body so hard small tears eked out of his eyes. After a few moments, he sniffed and wiped his eyes.
"Caught me off guard a bit, Harold. But my....still always know what to say to get me weak in the knees...so to speak."
He bristled for a moment.
He hadn't meant to overstep his bounds. It had been a decade for Harold after all, surely...surely he had moved on. He hadn't asked because he did not want to be upset in front of Harold any more than he had to be. It was only fair that Harold did move on, after all. Harold had thought he was dead. Harold Winston had had a life before he came into it and would after he..."died." He didn't have ill will toward Harold at all...it was just so colossally unfair.
"I'm sorry...I...hope I did not overstep."
He's defying known physics and he's not concerned with that at all...only that he hadn't done something inappropriate at this point in time.
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They couldn't predict anything when it came to Siebren and his powers. How could they? What Harold also doesn't expect is the laugh that comes from him, so genuine and happy. Truly happy. He can't imagine that's easy for Siebren to feel at all now. For a moment it feels like before, before the Horizon incident, before he'd lost him and he can't help the warm smile that tugs at his lips.
"Hm? Overstep...?" Confusion furrows his brows, but of course. Right. He knows how long it's been, probably assumes he's found someone else, or he no longer feels that way for him. Maybe if they'd stayed together, maybe they would have drifted apart at some point, but life had torn Siebren away from him.
It had left a gapping hole I his life, his heart. For years he'd tried his best to move on, to get over it all, but he couldn't. Harold didn't want to.
"God, Siebren-" Harold gives a little laugh, taking his glasses off, a rush of feelings he's has to push down for so long coming back up. Shaking his head he can feel the welling of tears trying to sneak out of the corner of his eyes.
"No, no you were never one to." He folds his glasses up and hooks them on his shirt.
"There's nothing to overstep, I promise." He just hadn't been sure if it would be okay to talk about their relationship, to... to expect anything. Siebren's mind and his perception of reality were so fragile at times, was it fair to even consider?
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"Harold?"
His voice was gentle, tentative. He willed himself closer to the other man, reaching out to softly place a hand on Harold's shoulder...but it traveled up to cup Harold'cheek as the other man continued to speak.
"Harold...I know...I'm not well...I'm not who I used to be....there are times when I don't know what is happening...I can't remember...but I always remember you."
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"I know, I know and that's why I can't..." But he wants to, "Your perception of time and reality is still so fragile, I would be taking advantage of that, of you, if I- if we..." If the past became the present again. Maybe it would be good for Siebren, maybe not. Harold seemed to be the tether to some sort of baseline for Siebren.
He just doesn't want to make things harder or more confusing for him.
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His lower lip trembled, but he forced a smile and ran his thumb across Harold's cheek.
"You do. You deserve the world and more. I...I don't think I could stop loving you if I tried."
He sighed shakily.
There. He'd said it. For the first time in a decade he'd said it out loud to Harold himself.
"And that's the truth....but this..."
He gestured at himself.
"This isn't normal! I don't even know what this is...where I am...I haven't seen a god damn tree in ten years...haven't felt the sun or the wind on my face. That's no life for you, Harold."
He understood his isolation to a degree. When his powers fluctuated, he was a danger to others...but why lie? Why the cover up? Why say he was dead? Why had he been held without anyone explaining to him why?
It made his head and his heart hurt.
He sank an inch or two, but still hovering off the ground, looking deflated for a moment before taking a deep breath and forcing a smile.
"You were never one to take advantage. All you did was give."
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Besides he hadn't had much of a life since Talon had scooped him up.
Then those three little words, it hits harder than he could have imagined. Harold can't be sure if his heart swells from pain or happiness, maybe both. Siebren keeps talking, airing frustrations he has every right to have and it's only when he reigns himself in, smiles down at him that Harold steps close, pressing his face into Siebren's chest, arms wrapping around him.
"There's so much… so much-" His voice hiccups a little as he holds back tears, he wants to tell him everything. He can't. Not yet. Siebren is still too unstable, Talon still too powerful.
"I love you." His voice wavers, but he means it. By God does it feel good to say, not to a headstone or a goddamn memory. To the man he thought long dead. Maybe Siebren wasn't the same man he'd known before, but it didn't matter. His heart didn't care.
"You're not some burden, helping you isn't something I don't deserve." Harold sniffs, pulling back to rub at his nose, the heel of his hand wiping at the corner of his eyes.
"You didn't deserve this, we didn't deserve to any of this." And he takes, Siebren's hand, presses it to his own cheek, smiles sadly as he nuzzles into it, turning his head to kiss at his knuckles.
"I couldn't do anything for you back then, they can't take me away from you now." Talon would have to take his life to stop him. Not that he didn't doubt they would.
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He was flabbergasted.
He'd been so fond of Harold...but the time they had together was relatively short. After learning just how long he had been gone, he had not wanted to even mention it. Surely Harold had moved on...surely...but surely not, it turned out.
"Oh...."
His eyes stung and his throat burned. Siebren audibly swallowed and hugged Harold back tightly.
"After all this time...still."
And Harold nuzzled his hand...kissed his knuckles.
Siebren shook his head.
"No...they can't."
Whoever they had been.
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