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He crawls into the clinical lab and is still amazed, having to look up to Karis, this time with no glass between them. He quite literally can’t stand the pity in that gaze. A lifetime ago, he would’ve done anything to elicit a smile, chuckle, or affectionate sigh. A lifetime ago, he muffled his cries into a pillow the night his partner told him he was leaving. Clutched his shoulders in an embrace so warm and tight that the asteroid base felt like home for the last time.
He can’t get lost in memories now, clicking his tongue, reaching out for his first human touch in months. He tries to ignore Karis’ sharp intake of breath, having to pick out his deltoid between sharp bones and pale skin. He wishes he could drown as the needle shoots the serum into his muscle, believing that this may be the last thing he ever feels at all.
There was a time when his icy hands snaked underneath his partner’s gingham button-up shirt. A sudden inhale and slight retreat as Cynte traced his stomach to his heart to the trail of hair above his cock. Biting his lip in a silent plea for the end of torturous teasing. Reaching out for Cynte’s hair and neck and arms and sharing his warmth. It was a beautiful time.
And then there was nothing but vials and numbers and rats to keep him company. And then there was waking up and feeling no one and nothing.
He scrambles in the darkness with a pair of hands far too close to his neck, this is the end, with a skeleton breathing into his face and–sighing. No clicking or screeching. His hand touches no teeth or bones–just lips. He blinks. Karis awakens with that same drowsy smile, as if the last few years and months were some twisted dream. “Cynte.” He has no right to make Cynte’s heart flutter with a simple utterance of his name, said so easily with such affection. “You’re alive.” Pure joy, as the morphine and electrolytes drip into his veins. He wonders if this is another dream and, for the first time in a thousand moons, he cries.