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It's hard to pin down what exactly triggers him, why Aaron can't seem to walk into hospitals without collapsing around their nurses stations. He doesn't fall as much as he stumbles, his legs giving out from under him and as much as he sees the nurses rush to him, he shakes his head, and shakes and shakes until a familiar hand curls around the back of his arm, gentle, yet firm. Dave's, Aaron realizes when the other man's face gets into his blurry field of vision.
Dave doesn't force him to his feet, he doesn't even talk for all that Aaron can make out, he just rubs his hands up and down Aaron's arms and kneels with him. Aaron gasps for air, crimson pain in his lungs as he blinks back tears. He won't let them fall. He won't put on even more of a show.
It's only when a man in scrubs makes his way to the lobby and Dave looks up and Aaron can hear the others behind him get up from uncomfortable plastic chairs that Aaron focuses his breathing enough to hear— "He's out of the woods." He keeps talking a while longer, his eyes warm with a relief Aaron can almost taste, together with the so particular smells of the sanitized hallways and misery of the world, his own.
Dave's hands around his elbows tighten, Aaron looks back at him. "One visitor," Dave tells him, "You go, Aaron."
Aaron is stunned. He remembers now. Remembers carrying Derek out of that house on a stretcher with steel both molten and ice-hard slipping into his veins. Days of trying to find him, turning over every stone he could, losing himself as he'd lost him. He remembers the thought that finally pushed him over, the same one that had been nagging at the frayed edges of his self-control the entire time. He couldn't fall apart when Derek needed him. He couldn't kneel under the weight of it when somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a team of six were hurting the man he loved on contract-sanctioned sadism.
He couldn't remember their last kiss.
The thought had gnawed at him, louder and louder the more dead ends they got stuck in, head in the door and bodies too square for the round openings. It had been a whisper, it had been a scream, and now it's stolen Aaron's balance. He can't remember their last kiss. Was it before work that day? In the car as they separated, Aaron going back to the office for a bit and Derek hitting the store in preparation for their night back home? Was it in the hotel lobby or was it all the way back in bed before they even got the call?
He wheezes as Dave finally pulls him to his feet.
"Come on, I'll get you to the door."
Aaron doesn't have the strength to pretend he doesn't need it. He doesn't have it in him to even look at the rest of the team. He never loses it like this in front of anyone but Derek, it's a luxury, vulnerability, and he doesn't have it. Not in front of these people who count on him to be the cool head in the storm, to be a rock nothing can crack when the world crashes and burns.
They get to the door of the room Derek is now resting in, and Aaron doesn't know if he can get in, until Dave repeats the words the doctor said but Aaron didn't hear— "He's awake, lost, in pain," and adds, "He needs you just as much as you need him, Aaron."
He tries, so hard, to pull this monster of fear and helplessness back in, where it's invisible, where it cannot get its claws back into his flesh under the eyes of his friends and the very walls of this terrible place. When he gets inside though, he knows it was no use. Even if his eyes weren't so bloodshot they feel puffy, even if his lips weren't so swollen he can feel them catch the cold hair, making him shiver, even if Derek was under even more drugs, he would still see this. He always sees .
"Come here," Derek asks and Aaron can hear the sob in his voice and that's almost enough to start it all over again.
He doesn't even consider the chair next to the bed, instead he falls at Derek's side, heavy and just narrowly missing the IV drips and wires. His hands fall to his lap for all of two seconds before they find Derek's face and Aaron presses their foreheads together. His eyes close with new tears. Keeping his touch gentle is the hardest part— that, and seeing Derek here at all. His rock, his unshakable ground, lying in a bed of bravery, proving he bested the six assholes of the apocalypse. Aaron cries and Derek doesn't shush him, he cries with him.
There are whispered apologies and harsh, shocked rebuttals on both sides. Aaron pleads for forgiveness; he should have been with him, they should have gone to the store together, he shouldn't have left Derek alone, he should have found him faster. Derek's hands tighten on his hip and in his hair and he growls a no that is so much louder than their voices have been so far, louder than the terrible yet beautiful beep of the heart monitor Aaron didn't know he was holding onto until Derek's reaction cut through its music. He kisses him, split lips against bitten ones, brushing wet from tears more than saliva, painful in more ways than one and yet alive. So very alive.
"Marry me."
Aaron doesn't understand the words until Derek's hand in his hair slides to massage his neck, until he moves to kiss his cheek and his neck and lets him go when Aaron straightens up just enough to not go cross-eyed as he stares at him.
"Please, baby," Derek repeats, "Will you marry me?"
They've never even talked about marriage. It was like all the other ways other people used to tell their partners they loved them when they just knew, when words had never been necessary and yet Aaron doesn't even take another breath before he's answered.
"Yes," it comes out in the next exhale, and again as his sobs come back, terrible wrecks, tears in all of him, limbs and skin and psyche. "Yes, yes, yes."
They kiss again, Derek hissing when Aaron's arm brushes over the burn on his chest, yet pulling him closer anyway, despite Aaron's protests, glaring at him when he tries to pull his weight off the wound. They kiss, and Aaron commits each press, each slide, each suck to memory. He tastes Derek's lips and he licks into his mouth, he traces his teeth and he screws his eyes shut. He'll never forget another kiss.
"I love you," he whispers, raw, exhausted, and yet back to terra firma, because he's back where he belongs, because Derek's touch and warmth and gaze surround him once again. He repeats it, over and over, until He can feel Derek's energy winding down, the pain and the drugs pulling him slowly back under. He feels the drowsiness weigh Derek's arms down, until Aaron either needs to move away or commit and lie down next to him, the circle of their embrace undisturbed. He has no intention of moving away.
For the first time in days, Aaron closes his eyes and actually sleeps. It's a dreamless night, he drifts, he breathes, and more importantly, the movements of Derek's chest against his side carry him through the night. He's got him back. He's got him.