DEATH IS A FORCE

He’s shipped to Anderson Manor on the 23rd of July of the year 2566. The weather’s hot – a 100 degrees, actually hotter than it’s been in a while, more than 60 years say his records – but dry, and it’s pleasant under the shadows of the tall trees decorating the long driveway that, coasting the river – a silver strip glistening in the burning sun of high noon –, runs from the majestic iron doors of the gate guarding the property, to the three-step stairs that leads to the finely decorated wooden door of the house.

It’s an impressive two-story building, all made out in pale gray, cold stone. There’s an air of eternity about it, the same Adam could almost breathe exhaling from the tall oaks on each side of the driveway, despite still being locked up in his plastic box.

The car carrying him stops on the courtyard, and the driver gets off it, extracting his tablet and reaching the door. Despite how ancient the house is, it seems provided with all the new technologies, so when the man rings the bell the holographic butler instantly appears in front of him, bowing and greeting him, asking about what kind of business brought him here and, after verifying he was expected, assuring him that a member of the house personnel will be there shortly to receive the package.

Two bulky men appear on the doorframe soon after that, and the driver leads them back to the car. Awake and quivering with excitement in his box, Adam stares at them as they unload him from the huge truck and put him on an air cart, on which they carry him inside.

On the inside, the house looks even bigger than it seemed on the outside. The men put him down on the marble floor, still inside his box, and then leave him there. Adam looks on his left and on his right, not sure if he understands what he’s supposed to do all alone in there, unable to come out of the box on his own, but there are no questions left when he looks in front of him and he sees the young lord run down the stairs, towards him.

He’s around fifteen years old, more or less the same age Adam’s been designed and built to show. He’s not particularly tall, but he’s got a lean, pleasant figure that’s perfectly shown off by his fitted, tailor-made, rich and colorful clothes. The black leather trousers disappear inside the knee-high boots of the same color, and the blindingly white shirt with tight, small pearl buttons seems to blaze under the soft black wool cardigan tied around his waist with a belt of the same material. He looks dashing, and so extremely happy that, watching him smile so openly and joyfully, Adam can’t help but let his own lips bend in a similar smile.

He can’t wait to be out of his box. With him.

“My name’s Blaine,” his new lord says, pressing both hands and his nose on the plastic box for a moment, before quickly back away to open it, and let him out, “What’s your name?”

Adam looks at him, memorizing his features, the little changes in his expressions when his lips move whenever he says something, the different inflections of his voice. “They call me Air-breath Driven Android Model. Adam.”

The smile on Blaine’s face softens, as he reaches out with his right hand, squeezing Adam’s. “Adam,” he repeats, spelling his name as if he was savoring its taste as the letters composing it slip on his tongue, “Nice to meet you.”

The texture of the skin of his fingertips is soft and smooth, extremely pleasant to the touch. Adam’s enhanced senses can detect the pattern of his fingerprints, and he memorizes that too, as his operating system reprograms itself to respond to Blaine’s touch, and his touch alone.

*
Blaine is alone, most of the time. He has no mother – she’s dead; he doesn’t like to talk about it, and Adam isn’t programmed to inquire insistently about topics that stress his owner out – and his father doesn’t really spend much time with him, except for supper – granted, when he’s home – and a couple of hours to hear about his progresses on Sunday afternoon.

He’s homeschooled, as most of the young lords in aristocratic families are these days, and his tutor is the person who spends most time with him during the day – except Adam, of course. He’s obviously got a computer with internet access, but online chat services are blocked on it, and even though Adam could easily hack the system to unlock them for him he’s been specifically ordered not to do so from Lord Anderson himself, under penalty of deactivation and restitution.

Blaine had hoped he could helped with that, and he had made no mystery of it. He was sad when Adam told him about what Lord Anderson had threatened to do if he ever came to know about any transgression to his specific orders. Moved by his expression, Adam asked him if he wanted him to hack the system anyway. “I’d be glad to help you,” he said, holding Blaine’s hands in his own, “I wouldn’t mind risking deactivation for you.”

Blaine squeezed his hands back, looking straight into his eyes. “I would,” he said, “Don’t do that. I can live without that. I couldn’t live without you. You’re my only friend.”

Was it love, that warmth that had washed over him like a wave upon hearing those words? Adam doesn’t know. He’s not supposed to ask that question. He’s programmed to understand love of only one kind, the one that binds him forever to his owner. He doesn’t know if this is the love poet and writers talk about in their books. If it’s that absolute, preternatural force painters try to convey in their pictures. If this is what the songs are all about, and the movies, and the shows. If it’s the same kind of affection that brings boys and girls, and girls and girls, and boys and boys to look at each other for hours in silence, if it’s what makes blood rush faster through people’s veins, if it’s that thing that makes cheeks turn red and eyes turn lucid and smiles turn wider.

He doesn’t know, and he shouldn’t care, but he does. “I love you,” Blaine says, more often than he conceals it, because he doesn’t believe in silence, his young lord, he only believes in the spoken word. “I’m left alone and in silence for so long every day,” he explains with that little smile that curls his lips when he’s talking about things that make him sad and he feels as if he owes and apology to the world for being sad despite all the things his rich and easy life provide for him, “I want to say what I think out loud. I want to express what I feel to the people I feel it for.” He looks down, closing his hands in shaking fists, “One day I’ll tell my father… that day, he’ll know. What I think of him, what I want from him. But I can’t, right now, not yet,” he shakes his head, smiling apologetically again, “Up to now, though, I promise I’ll always tell you how I feel. Because I know you understand. Don’t you, Adam?”

And yes, he does. He’s programmed to understand very few things, when it comes to life. But Blaine’s one of them. And the only one he cares for.

*
He’s only eighteen, and he’s too young to go through something like this and emerge on the other end unscathed. Of that much, Adam’s sure. He watches Blaine stand right next the rich, elegant glass coffin his father’s corpse is laid in, and the only thing he wants to do is rush by his side, take his hand, try and comfort him.

But he can’t. That wouldn’t be proper, the protocol clearly states what Adam can and cannot do, and right now Blaine’s surrounded by all the town lords, come to pay their last respects to Lord Anderson – or better, to the former Lord Anderson; now Blaine’s Lord Anderson, and Adam’s supposed to learn to call him that way, whether they’re alone or not – and he can’t walk near him. He can’t touch him. He can’t even speak to him.

He wasn’t prepared to find out how painful that would be. To watch him suffer from a distance, trying to put a brave face on. To know exactly what’s behind his hazel eyes, all the pain and confusion, and not being able to help him deal with it.

Adam stands on his corner on the opposite sides of the room, watching all those men Blaine only ever met briefly before approach him, shake his hand, offer him their condolences while saying a few kind words on his father. Blaine thanks everybody, nods, answers with short-lived smiles and conceal the tears, swallowing them down together with the words he always wanted to tell his father and never managed to actually say, and Adam knows, he just knows he’s praying for this to end quickly, because he can’t stand it anymore. He knew he couldn’t stand it even before everybody came. He couldn’t stand it since the moment he came out of his father’s bedroom, after he had just finished to speak with his doctor, and Adam asked if Lord Anderson was broken, and he answered “beyond repair”.

It takes a few more hours for the house to finally be empty again. The servants retire in their rooms for the night, while Blaine stands next to his father’s coffin, staring down at his relaxed expression.

“He’s never looked this gentle,” Blaine says in a whisper, when Adam finally approaches him.

“He was a stern man,” he nods.

“He was an asshole,” Blaine corrects him. Then he takes a deep breath. “But I loved him so much. I loved him so much. I wanted him to be happy with me, with the way I turned out. I wanted him to be proud of me. I just wished—” his voice grows sharper, as he clutches his fists down his sides, “I wished it didn’t take so fucking much for him to be happy with me. I only wanted it to be a little easier. But it never got easier. And I could never tell him. And he died without knowing.”

Adam lifts a hand, placing it on Blaine’s shoulder and squeezing. Blaine quickly covers it with his own, squeezing back. “Your father knew you loved him, Blaine,” he says, choosing to use only his first name for one last time.

“No,” Blaine shakes his head, “He didn’t. Because I never told him.” He sighs, closing his eyes and breathing silently in and out for a moment. Then he turns his head, looking at Adam from over his shoulder. “I love you,” he says.

Adam blushes lightly, looking back at him. “I know,” he answers, “I love you too, Lord Anderson.”

The flash of profound pain that passes over his eyes as he hears Adam call him like that makes them darker for a while. “It’s still Blaine, for you,” he pleads, “At least when we’re alone. Please.”

It’s not an order, just a request. Adam nods and complies nonetheless.

*
A lot of proposals come by Blaine’s personal mail by the time he’s 21. He’s supposed to get married before his 22nd birthday. Adam doesn’t really know how he feels about it. Actually, he’s pretty sure he isn’t supposed to feel anything about it. All he’s required to do is scan the applications, file them, and then help Lord Anderson out with choosing just the best candidate by accessing their records on his database.

Except there’s no Lord Anderson involved in this process. Only Blaine. And it isn’t as easy to help Blaine choose his life companion as it’d be helping a Lord Anderson at the same task.

“What’s all this?” Blaine asks upon entering his personal studio and finding Adam right in front of his enormous computer’s screen, picking out emails to divide them in groups. Gender, wealth, importance of the family in the town… it’s quite a mechanical process. Quite an easy one too. Adam’s surprised to hate it with such fire.

“I’m sorting out emails from fathers and mothers of basically every available boy and girl in town,” Adam explains, “I’ve been doing this for the past six months, as you know.”

“Yes, I’ve seen you hanging around here,” Blaine answers, his eyes darkening as he looks away.

Adam turns to look at him, puzzled. “Weird,” he says, “You haven’t shown any interest in it. You haven’t asked me once what was it that I was doing.”

“That’s because I knew what you were doing already,” Blaine shrugs carelessly, “And if I haven’t shown any interest in it, it’s because I have none.”

Adam frowns, tilting his head. “But you’ll have to,” he says, “You’re supposed to find somebody to marry before—”

“I know what I’m supposed to do,” Blaine interrupts him, still refusing to look at him.

Adam nods. “You don’t have much time left,” he reminds him. It’s just eleven months or so, at this point. Most people are engaged by the time they’re 18 already. They don’t wait for being actually allowed to marry to know who’s the one they’re going to be wed with.

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Blaine answers, finally looking back at him, “I’ve already taken my decision.”

His eyes wide, Adam looks at him, surprised. He hasn’t seen him go through the applications, not even once. How can he have chosen already? And why does it sting so much?

“May I ask…” he says in a low voice, “Who is it?”

Blaine looks at him, saying nothing, for almost a full minute, his eyes, as well as his expression, completely unreadable. Then his features soften in a sweet smile, as he finally speaks. “Nobody,” he says, “I’m not going to get married. I think it’s going to be me and you for the time being.”

He leaves the room before Adam can protest, or remind him that, despite not being an obligation, a wedding is exactly what he’s expected to do, and the lack of it would certainly put him in a bad light under the eyes of every single lord and lady in town.

It’s alright, though. Adam didn’t want to say any of those things, though he knows he should have. He’s grateful to Blaine for sparing him the pain. And for making that painful sting disappear, too.

*
Adam sees Blaine change in front of his eyes day after day, and it’s the most wonderful spectacle he could’ve hoped to be an audience for. He gets taller, his shoulders and chest broaden out, his hair grow long, then he cuts them, but they keep growing. Nothing about him ever stays the same, ever. Adam looks at himself in the mirror every day and nothing about himself ever changes. He’s still the same fifteen-years old looking boy he was when he first arrived at Anderson Manor. Blaine is now 28, and he looks nothing like that skinny, fragile boy he was when they first met.

Things have been changing between them, just as much as they’ve been changing for Blaine. He’s been taking on his father’s activity, which requires him to travel often out of town. At first, Adam thought that would put space in between them. He’s not allowed to follow him when he’s out of town, and Blaine could be away for weeks at a time, but the only thing that never changed was how eager Blaine was to come back home every time, and how happy to see Adam again after missing him so much for every day he couldn’t lay eyes upon him in person.

Adam started to understand what that was. Why it was so hard to see him go away, and why did he feel so full whenever he came back. He doesn’t know if that’s what the old Lord Anderson wanted for them when he bought him as a present for Blaine, but right now they don’t have two different but intertwined lives, they have just one life, one common thing they share. If that’s not love, it’s still the closest Adam’s ever going to get to it.

He’s alone in the garden on that lazy late-August afternoon, and Blaine’s been away for three weeks already. There’s a pain in his chest that nothing seems able to soothe. He took the habit to draw when he’s alone. He doesn’t have a talent for it, he’s just programmed to be good at it. But the feeling of the pen between his fingers, sliding in circles and shapes on the tablet and creating a picture out of thin air right in front of him is good, and Adam uses it to distract himself from the loneliness, and how much he misses Blaine.

And then Blaine’s car appears on the driveway. And Adam feels it before he can even see him.

He jumps on his feet, the tablet forgotten on the ground, and runs towards it. Blaine usually parks his car closer and waits for one of the servants to arrive to give him the keys to move it to the garage, but not this time. He jams on the brakes way sooner than he’s used to, slams the door open and throws himself out of the car, running towards him. They meet halfway, tangling themselves in the tightest hug they’ve ever given one another. Adam hides his face against Blaine’s neck, inhaling his scent. Blaine wraps his arms around Adam’s shoulders, losing one hand in his hair and pulling him closer.

“I’ve missed you,” Blaine whispers in his ears, “I’ve missed you more than I usually do. I’m tired of this. That’s not the kind of life I want, away from you 90 percent of the time as my father was with me.” He backs off, looking at him in his eyes. “I love you way more than my father used to love me. I won’t settle for anything less than you all the time.”

Adam bites at his tongue because the first thing he wants to say is not what he’s supposed to say. The other servants are slowly coming out from the door, standing on top of the stairs and looking at them in disbelief and curiosity. Adam feels their gazes upon them, and he feels uncomfortable about it, but not enough to let go. “You’re talking nonsense,” he says, shaking his head, “You can’t quit your job.”

“What do I care for it, Adam?” Blaine insists, “I don’t like it! I’m not a merchant, I’m a reader, I’m a singer, I’m a dancer, I’m a party-goer. I don’t care for my job. I don’t need money, what I have will suffice. I won’t have any children to leave any inheritance to. Let’s just live our life together, Adam. That’s what I want.”

As he looks into Blaine’s eyes and sees how hard he believes in everything he’s saying, Adam searches through his records to try and find some other story similar to their own, but as much as he searches he can find none. There’s no road already walked by somebody else to follow, there are no signs at any crossroad, no indication whatsoever on the right path to take to come out of the maze alive and unharmed. This could work. Or it could be a disaster. But the thing is, he wants to choose to try.

*
It’s early December, but they’ve already decorated the whole manor. Took them an entire week, and everybody helped. Blaine’s always so happy, comes Christmas time. “It reminds me of family,” he says, “When my mother was still alive. She loved Christmas. We stopped celebrating it when she passed. It makes me so happy to be able to share this with you, now, that every time I want it to be grander than the last.”

“There will have to be a limit,” Adam used to say at first, “There’s some point after which you can’t do anything bigger.”

Blaine took it as a challenge, and started bringing home a bigger tree every here, louder decorations, brighter lights. He’s 45, right now, and he’s been hording bigger and bigger decorations for more than ten years. Adam’s pretty sure Anderson Manor can be easily spotted from Mars, around Christmas. Somehow the thought makes him feel warm inside. That there can be people all over the universe who can witness such thing, and acknowledge it. Since the world here won’t.

They couldn’t marry, of course. Not that Blaine didn’t try. Oh, those were a few funny years, when he dared to take him out for dinner and propose in front of half the town. He battled in every relevant townhall for that, and he often expressed his desire to just go on until he was granted the right to marry whatever he wanted, even one of his kind, that wasn’t even granted citizenship.

Only the cease and desist coming straight from the council managed to stop him, and only because, faced with the possibility a prison sentence, Adam started insisting with him on dropping it so much that at some point he just had to. Oh, but he was younger, then. He had such fire in his veins. He could’ve gone any length to obtain what he wanted, could’ve laughed in the face of God himself if he had come down on Earth to tell him what he could and couldn’t do. Adam still remembers him, a man in his 30s, beautiful like a demigod, strong like the thunder and just as loud. How people turned to look at them as they walked the streets of the town center together, and how their snarky comments only managed to fire them up even more. The nights they spent laughing about them, mocking them for their inability to understand the value of what they were witnessing with their own eyes.

Everything’s different, now, everything’s calmer, so to speak, sweeter. Possibly easier.

Adam sits on the couch, his eyes half closed, working in energy saving mode as his batteries recharge, and looks at Blaine, sinking in his favorite armchair, reading a book next to the fireplace, and can’t help but smile. “Don’t you ever think about what you could’ve had and gave up because of me?” he asks softly, “A real family, children, possibly grandsons and granddaughters. Wouldn’t it have been nicer?”

Blaine laughs, amused by the question. “Please,” he says, shaking his head, “I’ve got all the family I need.”

Adam thinks back to the day he arrived to Anderson Manor, how excited he was just at the prospect of walking out of his box and touch a human being, feeling the warmth of their skin under his silicon fingertips. He couldn’t imagine how much more there was to life. To think he could’ve never found out, hadn’t it been for Blaine.

He opens his eyes wide the moment he touches him on his neck. His body still recognizes the pattern of his fingerprints. It still awakens to his only touch. “Come,” Blaine says, “Let’s go upstairs. It’s late.”

Adam looks at the clock hanging over the fireplace, puzzled. “It really isn’t,” he says, tilting his head.

Blaine grins. “It is,” he insists. Takes him quite a while for Adam to understand what he’s hinting at. He’ll never get used to that. Nor to the way his cheeks manage to blush to the thought, despite there being no blood in his veins.

“Oh,” he says, “Okay.” And then he just follows Blaine’s laughter upstairs.

*
He wakes up one day, and Blaine’s still sleeping. It’s weird, because in forty-seven years he’s been knowing him, Blaine’s always woke up before him. He’s got his jogging to do, and his other exercises, and then he’s got to throw himself on the couch to play videogames for at least an hour before the day kicks off. He’s an early waker, and when Adam turns around to look at the clock on his nightstand and sees it’s half past ten he can’t help but look back at Blaine, a little concerned.

“Blaine?” he calls out, “It’s so late. Are you tired?”

Blaine doesn’t answer. He must be sleeping very deeply. It’s almost cute, and Adam smiles, reaching out for him to stroke his cheek.

There’s something wrong with it, though. He’s colder than he should be. And it doesn’t seem like he’s breathing.

“Oh,” he says, placing his hand on Blaine’s shoulder and shaking it a little, “Blaine? You forgot to breathe. You should wake up, now.”

He doesn’t, though.

Slowly, Adam rises up, kneeling next to him. “Blaine?” he calls again, “Did you break?”

Blaine keeps not answering, which is, in itself, answer enough.

“I knew that would happen, sooner or later,” Adam sighs. He’s been broken four times, since he arrived at Anderson Manor. Each and every time, Blaine had him fixed, and each and every time, when he came back, he always looked so concerned. He kept saying he was scared he’d lose him. But that was silly. It’s not as if Adam’s body had ever been destroyed. He just needed some fixing.

He climbs down the bed and grabs Blaine’s phone from his nightstand. The number of Blaine’s doctor’s there, and he calls him right away. “Doctor?” he said. The man’s happy to hear from him. He greets him and asks him how is he, if everything’s alright and so on. “Everything’s fine, doctor, thank you,” Adam answers, nodding, “Blaine just got broken.”

The doctor says nothing for a few seconds. Worried that the line might have cut off, Adam speaks again. “Doctor?” he says, “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but if you could come fix him up, I’d appreciate it, and I’m sure Blaine would to.”

The doctor’s still there, Adam can hear his troubled breathing. He doesn’t seem alright. “Adam,” he says, “I need you to check something for me. I need you to check his breathing.”

“Oh,” Adam says, “But there’s none. He must’ve forgot.”

The doctor stays silent for another long half minute. “Is he cold?” he asks, “Adam, this is very important. Is his body cold?”

“Yes,” Adam nods, “I think maybe it’s the opposite of a fever.”

The doctor cuts the phone call short. He tells him to stay exactly where he is and not touch anything. “I’m on my way, Adam,” he says, way more worried than Adam thinks it’s the case to be, “Just don’t panic.”

And he doesn’t. Why would he?

*
The doctor’s saying things that make no sense. He’s talking about death, heart failure, Blaine being old and not as strong as he seemed. But that’s not true. Blaine woke up every days and run around the mansion for 48 minutes. He did his exercises daily. He was strong. His heart was strong. He wasn’t old at all.

“I can’t understand,” he says, shaking his head. Around him, some of the servants cry. The others are silent and their expressions are very dark. “He was fine, yesterday.”

“He’s not anymore, today,” the doctor tries to explain, putting both hands on his shoulders, “He’s gone, Adam.”

“Gone where?” Adam asks. The doctor doesn’t know how to answer to that.

“He’s just gone,” he says, “He was sick. His heart was sick.”

“His heart was fine up until yesterday.”

“No, it wasn’t,” the doctor answers, “It’s just, nobody knew. Nobody noticed. And it stopped working. But you mustn’t be sad: it wasn’t painful. He didn’t feel a thing. He slipped away peacefully.”

Adam doesn’t know what slipping away means, given the context. Away where? That makes no sense. Blaine’s very much there. Adam can see him, sleeping peacefully on the bed.

“Is he badly broken, doctor?” he just asks.

The doctor clearly gives up on trying to help him understand. “Beyond repair, Adam,” he says in a short sigh. And that’s when Adam remembers. The old Lord Anderson. When the doctor came to visit him because he, too, had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up. Adam had asked the same question to Blaine, and Blaine had answered the same way the doctor’s answering now.

“No,” he just says, shaking his head, “No, that can’t be.”

That can’t be. Because he’s not ready for that.

“Adam—”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that,” he insists, “He hasn’t slipped away. He hasn’t gone anywhere,” he points at Blaine’s body on the bed, “He’s right there. And I’d like to try and fix him.”

The doctor opens his eyes wide, shocked. “Adam, no,” he says, trying to talk him out of it, “There’s nothing you can do for him, right now. You have to let him go.”

“That I cannot do, doctor,” Adam answers, shaking his head once more, “I’m not programmed for that.”

Besides, did Blaine just let him go when Adam broke? No, he didn’t. He had him fixed. Every single time. There’s no reason why Adam shouldn’t do the same for him now.

*
It’s raining, outside, and it’s pretty cold. Must be around Christmas, but Adam wouldn’t know. All the clocks stopped working years ago, long after everybody left, and nobody’s left to take care of Christmas decorations, though he’s sure Blaine would love to see some new ones.

The house is not as warm and comfortable as it used to be. There are leaks in the roof, and drafts everywhere. Especially since one of the walls fell in the right wing. That was probably 50 years ago or so. Adam had always meant to get that repaired, but working on Blaine takes so much effort, and so much time, and moving around isn’t easy as it was anymore, for him. He suspects his batteries are coming to the end of their life cycle. It’s a miracle he hasn’t got broken once, in the last 78 years. He wouldn’t have known what to do with himself, if that happened. None of the phone numbers still in Blaine’s phone worked anymore already 20 years after he got broken, and now the phone isn’t working anymore, so even if they were still working he wouldn’t know how to call them.

The mechanical heart he’s been working on for the past five years is almost ready, at this point. It’s the ninth version of his first original project. None of the previous versions ever worked, but he’s got high hopes for this one. Sure, he had high hopes for all the other ones too, but he doesn’t want to think about that, right now. Those failures meant nothing. The only failure that matters is the one Blaine’s heart suffered. The one he’s trying to fix now. The one he’s been trying to fix ever since it occurred.

“I think we’re close, Blaine,” he says. His voice comes out rough and messed up. Some part of his voice simulator must’ve gotten damaged. The sound is not pleasant at all. He’s lucky Blaine can’t hear him, right now. Oh, but he will. Soon enough. And at that point it won’t matter at all how Adam’s voice sounded. All that will matter will be together again, at last.

He reaches out to screw up the front cover of the mechanical heart with its back cover, so to keep all the gears safely held inside. Weirdly, his arm won’t move. “Come on,” he whines, trying to reach out again. His arm’s still blocked. He tries the other too, but there’s no response coming from there either.

Annoyed, he snorts, and then sighs in frustration. He’s so tired. He’s sure that, if he could rest a little while, just a little while, he’d be up and running again in no time. And then his brain would be sharper, and his hands would move faster – or move at all, well, he’d settle for moving right now. He’d have Blaine’s new heart ready in but a few minutes.

“I think I’m going to take a nap, Blaine,” he tells him, despite knowing he can’t hear him right now, “I’m going to just rest my eyes for a while. I’m going to try and recharge my battery. I’ll be back soon. So you just hang in there for me, alright? Just hang in there.”

There’s no answer coming from Blaine’s stiff body. Or what’s left of it anyway. Adam doesn’t worry about it, though, why should he? It’s just a few minutes of sleep. It’s not like he’s giving up on anything. It’s not like he’s saying goodbye. Just a quick goodnight.