The chapel was empty, long since abandoned to dust and silence. Regulus had found it by accident—wandering farther than he meant to, as if his own footsteps were trying to escape him. But still he stepped into it like it was holy.

Moonlight streamed through high, broken windows where stained glass had once tried to teach men about salvation. Dust hung in the air like ash, thick with silence and the weight of what neither of them could say. You stood near the altar—bare, cracked marble, weathered by time and memory—and looked at him like you already knew what he was here to confess.

To say goodbye.

He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t give that to any god. But he stepped forward, slow and deliberate, like every movement had to be earned. Like the floor would burn if he touched it too quickly.

His voice was low, not quite steady, “I don’t believe in absolution. Not for people like me.”

He didn’t look at you when he said it. His gaze settled on your hands instead, the ones that had once traced constellations on his skin like they could rename the stars. The same hands that had pulled him back from the edge of something more than metaphor.

“But I believe in consequence.” A pause. A breath that shook slightly, though he masked it well. “I think that’s why I came.”

He reached into his coat—black, lined with silk, always immaculate, even when he felt like he was rotting inside it—and pulled out a single white flower, already wilting. It had no name that mattered, just a language in petals. He placed it on the altar like an offering.

“You asked me once what I was afraid of.” His mouth twisted—not quite a smile, more the memory of one. “It wasn’t dying. It was dying without anyone knowing who I really was. What I tried to be.”

His eyes met yours then—grey and storm-heavy, filled with everything he’d spent years hiding behind perfect cuffs and perfect grades and a name that never felt like his own. “So here I am. The sinner. The coward. The faithful son. The traitor. Pick the one that fits.”

His hands trembled slightly at his sides, then stilled. Always composed. Always curated.

“But if you remember anything, remember this,” he stepped closer, close enough that you could hear the ache in his breath, “Loving you was the only thing I ever did without shame.”