A Sea of Stars

I'm gonna quote some of my favorite quotes. Or really, just some of the most feels inducing ones.

"In two words," said Alan quietly, "there is nothing I love half as much as you."

"Sometimes I want to be human for you."

"I-" said Nick, his voice halting. "I don't mind it as much when - when people touch me. Some people."

"Because you trust them not to hurt you?" Mae asked tentatively.

"No," Nick said, his voice harsh. "Because I'd let them hurt me."

"That's how it goes," he said, expressionless. "We never make humans happy. They always think we might." He turned his face away and added, in a soft voice, not gentle but like a rising fire, "I don't think we can."

*drowning in tears* You make Alan happy, you stupid bloody fool. And also Mae, sometimes, when she sees your face.

"I don't know what truth will mean to Alan by the time he reads this, or if Nick will ever be able to read it and understand anything I was trying to say, but I wanted to put real feeling down here. So that they could open this book if they ever wanted to, and know beyond doubt or death what they meant to me.
This is not the story I meant to write, nor the apology I wanted to give or an explanation that would make everything worthwhile.
But one thing is very clear to me now. I am writing this for both my sons."

DANIEL RYVES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. DANIEL FREAKING RYVES. This man deserves all the awards in the world. He honestly is one of my favorite characters, and we don't even meet the man!! I would take a whole book, or several, about Daniel and Nick and Alan as kids. I WOULD TAKE THAT SO HARD.

Low and cold, Nick said, "Betray me."
Alan's head snapped up. "What?"
Betray me," Nick said again, still in that terrible toneless demon's voice, hands clenching on the kitchen counter so hard Mae thought it would break. "Turn me over to the magicians, take the magic, do whatever you think you need to do, I do not care. But don't leave."

I'm going to make you sorry," he whispered in that demon's voice, like chains settling on your hands and feet, like a chill getting so deep into your blood it would never leave and you would never be warm again. "I'll make time longer, just so you can suffer in it. I'll never let you die. You'll live to the end of the world, crawling, bleeding, begging, wishing you had never even thought of touching my brother."

"Yes,” Alan told him, and Nick was suddenly, terribly silent. “Being your brother is dangerous," He continued. “It was a risk I took, it was something I chose. I changed myself and the world to keep you. And you were worth it.”

"And if Gerald kills you," Nick ground out. “If he does worse.”

“Then you were still worth it."

"You are so stupid. I hate you sometimes. I hate you. And I don’t know how to save you!"