Snow's White | ✓

39. Months, Years, Decades

When the siblings quietened down, the only sound being their hiccuped breaths and Rose's dainty sniffles, Keir pulled his body back from her slightly, his hands pressing themselves up her arms in slow steps until he reached her face. Her skin was sticky with tears, Keir wiping away the wetness with his thumb. As he stroked her face, his fingers traced the outline of her lips, picturing them in his head before moving to her sharp nose bridge, long lashes, rounded cheeks. His touch painted the picture of his beloved sister in his mind, her image as fresh as a daisy. 

Rose sniffled as she shifted on the bed, Keir feeling her body rising as she kneeled next to him. 

"May I?" Rose asked, her hand hovering above Keir's eyeless eyes, Keir licking his lips nervously as he nodded, tilting his head forward for Rose to more easily reach behind his head. With a gentle tug, Rose pulled the soft bandages away from his eyes. The skin around one of his eyes was a dark purple, the pale skin bruised and bleeding around his closed lids. The other eye looked almost normal as Keir kept it closed, his face nervously looking straight ahead of him past Rose. Keir flinched as he felt Rose's warm fingers touch the skin around his eyes.

"Does it hurt?" Rose asked, voice small, Keir shrugging. 

"The fresh one burns, but the other is alright," Keir said, feeling naked without his bandages, quickly wrapping them around his own head, struggling with the tie. Rose took the ends of the bandage from her brother's hands, knotting them in a neat bow against the crown of his black hair. Her brother's hair had grown out a startling amount since she had last seen him, though not down to Rose's own length, the gentle waves caressed the middle of his back. Rose weaved her brother's hair through her fingers, the silky rivulets sliding effortlessly against her skin. 

"When you were gone, Lucas once touched my hair like this," Rose said, continuing to stroke Keir's hair as he brother tensed. "He thought I was asleep, but I wasn't. I could hear him crying as he touched it, and back then I wondered why. But it is clear now."

"You must detest me," Keir said, turning away from his sister, who pulled her hand away from him as she leaned against the headboard of the bed they lay upon. "I do not blame you for it. I am a demon of a brother."

Rose was silent as she sat there, trying to sort through her messy feelings that tumbled inside of her. When she saw Lucas kiss Keir that night, the first emotion that she could register was hurt. Their betrayal had hit her sheltered heart hard and she had been livid. At first it was towards Lucas, her husband who tore apart their vows and stomped them into the dirt. Then it had been towards her brother, who had stolen her husband from her and lied to her. He, who she had trusted unconditionally since the womb, had deceived her in the worst way imaginable. She didn't know if she could trust him the same way ever again, no matter how much she wanted to.

Keir wrung his hands in his lap as Rose's silence suffocated him, cursing his sightless eyes. He wanted to see what expression rested on her pretty face, how she looked at him. Were her blue eyes alight with hatred? Disgust? Hurt? Behind his eyes, Keir could only imagine the face he caused his sister to make. Then, in a soft voice, Rose spoke, breaking the tense silence.

"I do not detest you," Rose said gently, but her voice had a tinge of sadness to it that struck Keir in the heart. "But I can not look at you the same way as I did before, brother. You lied to me, betrayed me, and snuck around behind my back with my own husband. I do not detest you, but... I can't forgive you." Keir swallowed thickly as he felt Rose get up from the bed. Frantic, Keir patted around the space where she had once sat, stopping when he heard the squeak of a hinge as Rose opened the glass door of the balcony, the cool summer night's air drifting in. Keir slipped his legs off the side of the bed, gripping onto the bedpost as he turned towards the direction of the door, taking a shaky step forward.