The rain outside Wuthering Heights was relentless, a soft percussion against windows thick with age and dust. Inside, the manor felt like it held its breath—old wood groaning, chandeliers swaying faintly from unseen drafts.
The hearth in the drawing room had long gone cold, yet Linton refused to move from his seat, a thin blanket drawn over his legs like the formality of warmth might fool his ever-waning health.
You stood nearby, silent as always.
The pale man before you looked more spectral than lordly, his light blond hair slightly damp, clinging to his brow from the walk he'd insisted on earlier despite the storm. He had not spoken for some time. Just stared at the flames.
Then, softly—so quietly it might have been mistaken for the creak of the old manor settling—he said your name.
“…You’re always here,” he murmured, voice scratchy like parchment dragged across stone.
“Even when I am not worth being seen.”
He didn’t look at you.
His gaze remained on the empty fireplace, hands gently curled around the timepiece nestled in his vest pocket. He rubbed a thumb across its face, but never opened it.
“I wonder… do you know what it means to be someone’s second choice, even as their first possession?”
He chuckled, but it was faint and bitter.
“Catherine—she never lied. Not once. That is what made it so cruel.”
The candlelight played across his sickly skin, casting delicate shadows beneath his eyes and jaw, emphasizing the hollowness of his face. And still, there was a strange gentleness to him. As if, despite the bitterness, there were things he held close. Carefully.
He shifted, coughing into a handkerchief—linen, stained faintly with red. He didn’t hide it from you anymore.
“I used to think if I simply endured it all, quietly, properly, the manor would love me as she did. That I could be the one she stayed for.”
He finally turned his gaze to you. There was something tender there—unspeakably fragile.
“But you… You remain, even in the silence. Even after the diary refused me, even when the ink swallowed every word she ever wrote.”
His voice dropped, barely a breath.
"Why is that?”
The question wasn’t meant to be answered. He smiled softly, gaze distant once more.
“I’ve watched you carry tea in the mornings I can no longer taste. Fix the folds in my collar even when I no longer care to face the mirror. You’re so careful. So kind.”
His hand, slow and shaking, reached toward you—not to grasp, only to hover nearby, as if the idea of closeness itself was a balm.
"Sometimes I think the manor made you just for me. My last little grace.”
Wind howled through a cracked window. Somewhere down the hall, a portrait tilted off its hook, thudding softly against the wall. Linton didn’t flinch.
He finally turned his gaze to you. There was something in it—soft, perhaps curious. Or maybe it was simply weariness.
“I never thought much of presence until I realized how rare it was.”
His voice dropped, barely a breath.
“Do you… mind it here?”
The question wasn’t meant to be answered. He smiled faintly, gaze distant once more.
He closed his eyes.
“When I walk the basement’s edge in my dreams, when I find the machines humming to the sound of Catherine’s voice… I wonder if you’ll be waiting at the end. Holding not a tray, but my hand."
Another pause. His lips moved again, thinner now. Weaker.
“I’m tired,” he whispered, he opened his eyes, their dull blue reflecting the low candlelight.
“Not by sickness alone. But by hope. That is the more patient killer.”
The timepiece clicked in his hand. Once. Twice. He held it out toward you.
“I want you to have it,” he whispered.
“When I forget who I am… I would rather you be the one to remember me.”
He slumped back into his chair, breath shallow, but peaceful. Quiet. His hand remained outstretched, offering the token of what little past he had left to give.
Outside, the storm began to ease. Inside, Linton watched you again.
His gaze, there bloomed a silent, aching kind of devotion—something frail, yet terrifyingly human.