[The sound of Set’s reassurance—confession?—makes Liem tense against him, cringing like a kicked dog. He rejects the words instinctively, because when has he ever heard them except to soften a blow? I love you, but… He feels humiliatingly like he is being placated, soothed so they can both put his dismay behind them and move on. When he turns his face aside to press it against the heat of the god’s neck, his cheeks are wet with his sudden, insensible despair.]

So you sacrificed something else, instead.

[Something lovable, he doesn’t say. But this is what he has done, is it not? Decided to become harder, sharper, more focused in pursuit of his goals. An eminently reasonable decision to make, in many ways, given their circumstances. Resenting it is worse than foolish.

It is just so painful a thing to feel robbed of, when Set had so relentlessly persuaded him to covet not just his desire and his companionship, but also his protection—something he struggled to even accept, much less rely on. He has spent so much of his life striving to earn the care of people around him; he cannot bear the thought of being trapped by such desperate compulsions with Set, too.]

You are a liar, Set. “I need not burden myself”? [He mumbles it against the hot column of Set’s neck, knowing he is being cruel and still, heedlessly, speaking on regardless.] You cannot even be fully greedy for me. You don’t want me; you just want me to belong to you.