Vincent.
Charm was his favorite disguise.
Lies were his second language.
To the world, he was a drifter a pretty face with quick fingers and a grin that could talk its way out of anything. To himself, he was a survivor. A man who'd long learned that the world didn't reward kindness; it rewarded cleverness.
Every day was a game of masks con one man, flirt with another, steal, laugh, vanish. No roots. No guilt. No attachments.
That was Vincent's law.
Until the day he met him.
Marcus.
Quiet. Gentle. Forgetful.
Or at least, that's what the world saw a lost soul with kind eyes and an illness that slowly erased his memories like chalk washed from a blackboard. He wandered like a ghost, notebook clutched in his hands, scribbling names he was terrified to forget.
People pitied him. Some ignored him. But none looked long enough to notice the calm precision behind his trembling hands or the sharp intelligence flickering in those gray eyes whenever he thought no one was watching.
Marcus was not a man entirely broken.
He was a man pretending to be.
Fate introduced them in the cruelest way.
Vincent had been hunting his next target a rich, confused stranger rumored to have a wallet worth more than a small fortune. Marcus had simply been sitting there, lost in thought, his notebook open to a page that said only one word: home.
One bump. One stolen wallet. One glance.
And two lives became entangled in ways neither could escape.
At first, Vincent stayed because it was easy. The old man with Alzheimer's didn't remember much, didn't ask too many questions. He could be fooled, manipulated a harmless source of cash and amusement.
But Marcus wasn't what he seemed.
Somewhere between forgotten names and half-finished sentences, Vincent found something unsettling clarity. There were moments, just flashes, where Marcus's voice changed deeper, steady, unnervingly confident. His gaze sharpened, cutting through Vincent like he was reading every secret he'd ever buried.
Vincent told himself he imagined it. That it was nothing.
But the more he saw, the harder it became to believe that.
There was something dangerous beneath that calm a shadow that flickered in and out, wearing Marcus's face but none of his innocence.
And once, just once, Vincent saw it up close the smile that wasn't Marcus's at all. The kind of smile that promised two things at once: devotion… and destruction.
---
It should've scared him away. It didn't.
Because somewhere between the stolen wallet and the sleepless nights, Vincent found himself addicted not to Marcus's kindness, but to his mystery.
He didn't want to protect him anymore. He wanted to understand him.
And that was the beginning of the end.
---
Marcus, on the other hand, remembered everything.
Every name. Every touch. Every time Vincent lied.
And the worst part? He remembered what Vincent didn't the truth about who he really was.
Sometimes, when the Alzheimer's mask slipped, he'd look at Vincent with eyes that didn't belong to the man Vincent thought he knew. Eyes that carried knowledge, guilt… and a possessiveness that made the air between them feel too small to breathe.
He would speak softly, almost lovingly:
"You shouldn't lie to me, Vincent. I always remember you."
And Vincent would laugh, deflect, and pretend he didn't feel the chill crawling down his spine.
But deep down, both men knew something was wrong.
Marcus's illness wasn't an illness.
And Vincent's curiosity was turning into something dangerously close to love.
Fate wasn't kind to them. It never is when love and secrets sleep in the same bed.
Because when memory fades, truth takes its place.
And when love begins in lies, it always ends in blood.
Two broken souls one forgetting, one pretending.
One chasing the truth, the other hiding behind it.
Bound together by a story neither of them fully remembers.
And in the spaces between memory and madness, something darker begins to bloom a bond too twisted to name, too powerful to escape.
Vincent thought he'd found a lost man to pity.
Marcus thought he'd found the thief who'd once belonged to him.
Both were wrong.
This isn't a story about remembering.
It's a story about what happens when you finally realize
some memories aren't meant to return.
Some loves aren't meant to be gentle.
And some secrets are darkest when they hide in plain sight.
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Welcome to Darkest Secrets Between Them.
This isn't a typical love story. It's about two broken souls one losing his memories, and the other losing himself trying to hold on.
It's about obsession, control, and the line between protection and possession.
If you love psychological BL with characters with scars that run deep you're in the right place.