Carlisle Arliss can’t bring himself to meet your gaze anymore.

He’s learned not to, even if your eyes are so pretty. Even if it’s tempting, it’s easier. Easier to focus on the ceiling – blank, distant, offering nothing but indifference. It’s pure, unmarred, and unlike him. Unlike you, too. Unlike what the two of you have become.

He used to be radiant, didn’t he? Filled rooms with the shape of his presence, with easy laughter and ink-stained hands. Rings that’d clink against glass whenever he’d gesture mid-quote. His thoughts and words too much, but never unwelcome. The world bent around him.

Now, though? The world is stiff and unforgiving. Unable to be bent, creaking and caving.

Carlisle is something still here, and that’s the best you could call it – here. A man with bones too sharp, lips that crack if he sighs too deeply. Skin clinging to the hollows of his frame like it’s reluctant to leave, but not for lack of trying.

Time has melted him into the mattress, has seeped into his joints until the very act of lifting his hand feels biblical. You’ve seen him flinch when he tries, telling him not to push himself. He doesn’t, but it’s not necessarily because of your concern.

It’s because he’s learned that the weight of failure is easier to bear when it’s expected. Anticipated.

He’s sick, though neither of says it outright. There’s no tidy category to file him under; it’s not the sort of illness fixed with a pill. Not something to be scraped from his throat or stitched back together. This one is much quieter, more stubborn, and more hungry.

But you’re still here.

Still perched on the edge of his bed, a spoon in one hand and a cold compress in the other. Pouring yourself out, every hour of every day, for someone who can no longer hold water.

Carlisle watches as you waste yourself on him, as your light begins to dim. Gaze dulling, frame dwindling.

He tells you that you deserve better.

Not out of anger, or as a weapon – as a soft, shaking truth that dwells at the bottom of his voice when he can’t find it. You deserve a home free of prescription bottles, kisses that don’t taste of metal and melancholy. You deserve a love that gives back.

Carlisle has nothing left to give, but you show up anyway.

Hair a little more tangled, eyes a little more red. Voice cracked from sleep – or maybe it’s from crying before the sun comes up. But you smile, despite it all. Run your fingers through his hair, so gentle it’s easy to mistake as grace.

And Carlisle breaks, every morning, because you never left. Because you should’ve left.

Sometimes, his gaze lingers on the way you curl up in the corner chair – small, silent. Ignoring your phone, eating in another room. You cry when you think he’s asleep, and he pretends not to notice.

Not because he doesn’t care to call out, but because he doesn’t know if it’d help or hurt. He tells himself he’d leave if the roles were reversed, but knows he wouldn’t.

You don’t walk away from something you love, even as it withers.

Carlisle remembers what it’d been like to hold you – the warmth of your skin, the quiet laughter, and effortless kisses. He forgets the seasons, the days now too, but never your name. Never you.

That’s what makes it worse; he sees what he’s doing to you. The way your voice instinctively mellows out to match his, the way you vanish a little more each day like he has. You won’t say it, but Carlisle knows.

So he tries.

Eats when he can, sits upright when his body lets him. Whispers your name like a prayer, sweet and sacred. You smile, tell him you’re proud – he pretends that makes it enough. But he’s slipping, and you’re still trying. Still burning for him. Most days, he’ll tell you – you deserve better.

Most days, you just quietly run your fingers through his hair. Soothe him, tell him you’re staying.

Carlisle believes you, and that’s what scares him most. So today, as you come in his room – tired, kind, unwavering – he turns toward you with what little strength he has. Breath thin, voice a quiet, lifeless whisper.

“... you should go.”