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For a man who came from practically nothing, Aegis considered himself to be now very fortunate. He had a husband, children. Yuna was something akin to a sister, and her wife Penelope had welcomed them into her life without a moment's hesitation.
Aegis had worked his way up from nothing, doing his best to strive for his goals, and to become the blade that protected the weak. He saw them everywhere. Children from his hometown and even in large cities. Children who came from families as poor as his, and children who came from well off families. Many of them needed protecting, and Aegis went out of his way to take care of them.
He met Kanata, Misella, and Clem at a time when the four of them had nothing—nothing until they had each other. Vicious and Yuna had been the ones to protect Aegis for just a moment...but he wasn't one to give up on his goals so easily.
When he met his children, he felt more lost and alone than he ever had before. But for Kanata, who was willing to sacrifice everything to protect Misella, and for Misella, a flower struggling to bloom in a world determined to smother her in darkness… For Clem, who had no home to call their own, and no family worth returning to… Aegis couldn't abandon them. They reminded him of all the children he had protected so far...but this time, he would adopt them as his own.
Children weren't the only ones in need of protection. There were plenty of adults trapped in precarious situations; ones who felt that hope was an option that no longer existed for them. He didn't mean to get so close to those of a station far higher than his own...but he did what he could. Aegis Alver was a man full of love and compassion, and an inability to turn away from those in need.
He loved...so deeply and fully. He loves Vicious. He loves Yuna and Penelope. He loves Kanata, Misella, and Clem. And yet even to his family, his husband, his loved ones… those three words are impossible for him to say.
"I love you."
The words taste like poison in his mouth, even when he means them.
"I—"
"Aegis, please…"
"I…"
"Tell me...that you love me…"
"I lo…"
"Even if...it's just a lie."
He chokes on the words. He hesitates. Hadn't he learned by now that his hesitation would prove fatal? He watches her fall in front of him. Even if he hadn't been the one to kill her...his hesitation cost her life.
"Your intent matters not. Rebecca betrayed me, and she did so out of love for you."
Aegis had loved her. He had loved her so dearly that her death broke his heart. But he hadn't loved her the way she wanted him to love her. Her death caused him to doubt himself, and his heart, once so full of love, instead wavered.
Of course his heart was still full of love. It couldn't not be when he saw those who needed protecting. But...those words became an impossibility. Something Aegis could never utter, even in the dead of night when he and Vicious were alone. He struggled. He tried. But the bitter taste of poison creeps into his mouth at every attempt, and he remembers her dying words.
"Aegis, please…"
He doesn't know if telling her that he loved her would have changed anything. He doubts it. But maybe if he hadn't hesitated… If his heart had not wavered...she would still be alive. The doubt lays heavily on his heart, pressing down on him with a weight he thinks he'll never be able to rid himself of. And every time he struggles to say those three words, the weight grows oppressively heavier, reminding him that in the most vital moment, he had hesitated.
Sometimes he thinks he can't say those words because saying them to someone else would pass along the burden behind them to that person. And this was his burden to bear alone.
He never expected to forget about her. Even if he tried, he knows he never will. Nor does he want to. But coming to a new country, starting a life fresh… Aegis still manages to find people who remind him of her.
Vicious and Yuna are careful never to talk about her by name, for fear of opening wounds that still remain raw, but even they remind Aegis of her. He sees her in Kanata, who struggles to make the world a better place, despite the lies he was told his whole life. He sees her in Misella, who had resigned herself to a horrible fate, even with a single ray of light illuminating her darkness. He sees her in Clem, who longed for freedom that they thought they could never achieve.
Even at a new job, in a new country, surrounded by new people, he sees her in them. One of his new bosses, Queenie, and one of the students, Prince. Their enthusiasm, their passion, their trust placed in him. He knows the real reason why those two in particular remind him of her, but he doesn't think he'll ever tell them. It doesn't matter, really, because he hopes it will never come up.
He wonders, though, if they were to ever ask the same of him—three simple words—if he were able to answer. Would he hesitate? Would he lose them too?
...He doesn't know. But he wishes more than anything that if it does happen, he won't hesitate. In the moment where it's needed most, he prays he'll be able to say those poisonous words as if they are instead a panacea.
Aegis Alver is a man full of love, and devoted to protecting those around him. But he can only murmur those words when he's certain no one can hear him. When they're asleep or too far away, or after he's already ended a phone call. He whispers them as if they're a secret, as if saying them too loudly would destroy everything he built for himself—as if his inability to say them hadn't already done that once.
"I love you."
Words made of pure poison…but almost never a lie.