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It happens in the rush of a moment. Quicker than a blink, harsher than the sharp breath you couldn't brace yourselves to take, there is light in the shuttle; rather, more than there should be.
Panic doesn't have the chance to set in properly before you're pulled back, your movement only faintly brushing by the sudden awareness of heat by the camera's eye. Something sits in the palms of his hands before you're quickly taking it into your grasp, and it's only once the shock of cold metal makes itself known to you that the light of the shuttle finally starts to come to a flicker.
The extinguisher sits heavy in your hands as you blink, eyes not daring to shift away from the scene for long should your sight be proven wrong. You only feel your shoulders start to relax when you catch the shaky huff of a breath that leaves the man behind you. There's an exhausted, aching steady to him that carries over to you, despite the weight of your circumstances, and it's perhaps the closest sense to calm you've felt in a time longer than you care to admit.
Not right now, you won't try to find that answer just yet. Instead, the extinguisher drops from your grasp as you let yourself breathe. The breath that leaves you as you lean closer to him is something almost unfamiliar to you in the present moment, and it's only once you bring a hand to wipe the sweat from your brow that you register the fact that you'd been shaking.
It's his hands on your shoulders, gently turning you to meet his gaze, that truly makes something in your chest ache. Relief. It was relief you'd felt just then, it's the same thing you see etched into the small, almost overwhelmed smile that greets you now. Has it really been that long…?
That realization alone, something that only makes the sensation in question along with the ache swim through you deeper, is enough to make you fall against him, head resting close to the center of his chest. There's something sturdy, almost grounding despite everything, to this contact alone, and it only grows once you register the warmth of his hands leaving only to rest steady against your back as his arms envelop you.
You can feel the way he shakes against you, the gasp of a breath he has to make himself take as his head settles against the crook of your neck, and it's something that leaves you breathless, agape in your search for words. You find yourself lost in something as dreamlike as it is grounding, something that forces your mind to stop from reeling and finally, simply and truly, observe. The weight of something as simple as the tremble of his hands against your back brings forth an awareness of your senses you hadn't realized you had been missing since…since…
"You're okay…" The words were meant to leave him as a question, but there's something to how his voice trembles, how his words leave him so faintly that it makes something in your chest jolt. There's a relief hidden in his voice that nearly makes you sway, hesitant yet steady, like something he almost can't dare to believe.
"I'm okay." The sentiment leaves you in a gasp, breath tearing through your throat in a rasp that makes you sink, that brings forth the sensation of something warm across your cheeks. You wonder, faintly, if you're finally now letting yourself feel the traces of the ocean that have gradually dripped into the shoddy interior of the shuttle, before you feel him pull back just enough--it's cold, the space between you then, and in the sweltering humidity you're surprised to find you miss that particular warmth already--for his hands to settle back to your shoulders.
You nearly miss the way his knuckle brushes against your cheek, a notion gentle in such a manner that it steals what little breath you'd managed to gather for yourself. There's a deep, vulnerable sense of ache that sinks through you then, a feeling you barely have the chance to fully grasp before his hand pulls back like it's been singed. Your gaze finally meets his own at that, finally catches the exhaustion prevalent across his form and the vulnerable light to his eyes.
He makes a start to pull back fully, eyes closed as he wills himself to take a breath before he starts, "I'm--"
You don't give him the chance to finish his sentence before your hands are already reaching for him again. You catch the way his breath hitches when one of your hands reaches to card through the hair at the back of his neck, a small test of the waters, before they pull him back to you. There's something aching, a wounded sort of craving, to the sigh that leaves him as his head rests against your shoulder, hands shakily resting along your back as he finally lets himself sink.
"It's just--" His hands tighten in their hold, almost trembling as he steadies his voice. "You're really something special to me." The words leave him in a rushed hush of a breath, like it's a secret he shouldn't dare to harbor. Even still, there's something to it that steals the breath from your lungs, something only heightened when you feel him sink further against you, feel the pinpricks of something wet sting your shoulder as he adds in a shaking whisper, "I hope you know that."
There is an old sense of yearning that reawakens in the pit of your chest at the words that leave him, something that cuts your thoughts to a halt with a hiccup of a gasp. An old want that you thought had been long buried surfaces itself with a skip in your chest at his earnest tone, and it's this that finally shatters the dam you hadn't realized you'd been holding.
You had wanted more time. You had wished you had more time, you wished you could've had another chance somewhere else across the stars. Did such a place even exist now..? Would the stretch beyond the veil even have the chance to grant such a mercy? It was a thought you'd considered selfish back then, caught under the unwavering eye of the C.O.I.
Here, however, is the closest place to sanctuary you could've ever had the chance to dream of. It's this small realization that draws a breath that morphs into a heavy sob as your head sinks into his chest. There's too much that rushes through you then, too much that words could never fully express in confessions in apologies, but caught in the weight of his embrace, you simply decide to let yourself sink, to let yourselves feel the force of all you'd been longing for.
Fuck the C.O.I. Fuck their expedition--their execution--and their pyrite promises. What those people wanted would come to fruition when you were ready to give it to them. In what little stretch of an eternity the pair of you have been given, in the sanctuary of each other's arms, you will spend every last second you have left as indulgent as you had never been allowed.