Archive of Our Own

Zandik hadn’t been expecting anyone to come up to him. The other children tended to avoid him like the plague, in fact, finding his hobbies ‘disturbing’ and ‘creepy’, to reutilize their wording.

Not this one, though. This one got up close. This one seemed curious.

Zandik, in turn, felt the same.

“Why does everyone flee from you?” the other child asked, staring directly at him. Zandik shrugged.

“They find me weird. They’re probably right,” he replied, looking around at the other children in the playground. Most of them had left the second he’d arrived, and the few who remained did their best to avoid looking like they were listening in on their conversation.

Their attempts were futile, Zandik thought. No one ever spoke with him; this conversation was bound to get their attention, it only made sense.

The thought of said conversation helping the others see him as ‘normal’, despite himself, sent a rush of excitement through him. He knew he was different from the others in many ways, but the thought of having people around, people who liked having him around, was undeniably appealing.

Maybe, he thought, he would find such companionship in the younger child bluntly questioning him.

“I’m not scared of you,” said the other child, with a certain fire in his eyes Zandik, even this young, would recognize anywhere.

Determination. Having a goal, and being willing to reach it, no matter what.

Zandik knew that expression like the back of his hand; it was the one he so often noticed himself sporting whenever looking at any reflective surface, be it a mirror or a puddle.

He looked at the other child some more, noticing how his clothes seemed much too ripped for him to live in such a rich district. Noticing how he didn’t seem to care about the manners that were ingrained into his own head since his birth, despite not caring much about those himself.

Noticing how, undeniably, said child would make for an interesting companion.

“Good,” Zandik replied, looking directly into the other child’s eyes, “Partners shouldn’t be scared of each other.”

“Partners?” the child echoed, eyes squinting in what Zandik could only assume to be suspicion. He, however, simply nodded.

“Yes. Friends, if you’d prefer, but both mean the same thing, at the end of the day.” Zandik turned around, signaling for the child to follow him. “Come, I need your hands for something.”

A smile threatened to show on his face when he heard the other child’s footsteps follow behind him.

Over time, Zandik came to learn that the other child is named Feofan. He learned that he was indeed quite poor, and that he, too, was often ostracized, considering his lack of formal manners and wealth. He learned that Feofan came from a religious background, following the words of a God he did not believe in. He saw how quick he was to flinch, and just how important power was to him.

To his slight horror, Feofan, too, learned some things about him. How he isn’t appreciated by his peers because of his ‘insane’ tendencies. How he, too, lacks formal manners, finding them far too dull to have any worth. How he is undeniably lonely, having no one to talk to who actually respects him, instead of just finding him crazy or being afraid of him.

It was a strange thing, Zandik thought, to be known. It also was, despite his better judgement, something he quickly grew used to. Something he began to crave, in a sense.

Feofan, for the lack of a better description, was a breath of fresh air, when it came to Zandik’s relationships with the people around him. He was neither scared nor intimidated, simply… there, in the sense that he was a comforting presence Zandik unwittingly started feeling like he could rely on.

Whenever he thought of a new experiment to try out on some bugs, no matter how cruel it might’ve seemed, Feofan was there to listen and add in a few relevant ideas. The same was true whenever they decided to simply walk around together for some time, enjoying the sights around the city as Zandik calmed down from some event that had happened earlier in the day.

Inevitably, he, too, ended up becoming a form of comfort to Feofan, he knew. The other child would often ramble on about how unfair the world was, or how much he hated God. The times that stood out from the crowd, however, were those when he and Feofan stayed at the playground for longer than usual, waiting up until nothing but the moon and the stars in the sky accompanied them. Then, Feofan would stay completely silent, staring at the sky with an expression of longing Zandik never quite managed to find the meaning behind.

They became friends, well and truly. Neither would admit it, considering how prideful they both were, but as weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, a point of no return had been crossed long ago without either of them noticing it going by.

Which made it all the more ridiculous when Feofan, without warning, disappeared for three weeks.

It hadn’t been the first time he’d missed one of their daily meet-ups, or even multiple in a row, and Zandik didn’t blame him for that. In fact, whenever Feofan told him he’d miss a meet-up, stating how he would ‘sleep in’ for a day or two, Zandik was glad. Feofan’s eyebags were much too defined, he thought, and having his partner pass out on him would be unideal.

This, however? Disappearing for three weeks? Completely unheard of.

He’d already been worried on the first and second day, considering how Feofan, for the first time, hadn’t told him he wouldn’t be there, but as the time went by, the worry festered inside, Zandik imagining the many things that could have happened to his poor friend outside.

That was the time when he first realized he’d gotten close to Feofan. He had never felt such intense worry towards another human being, before, only ever his experiments’ results.

During that time, he wondered, scared to discover the truth, whether that meant he considered Feofan as an experiment of sorts. Whether it meant the only way he could care about others was if he turned them into a ‘successful’ social experiment.

He still went to the playground every day, during those weeks, waiting for Feofan to show up. When he finally did, the accumulated worry turned into an unfamiliar form of anger, not quite the explosive kind he was used to seeing from his peers. The feeling washed over him entirely as he spoke, tainting his words with unjustified vitriol.

“Where were you?”

“Elsewhere,” Feofan replied, avoiding Zandik’s eyes, which only served to make the rage within fester.

“Where?” he insisted.

“I don’t owe you an answer, Zandik.”

“Feofan,” he replied, unsure whether he wanted the word to serve as an order or a plea. It didn’t work, either way, as they stood there in tense silence for a moment before Feofan turned around.

He’d arrived quite late, late enough for the sun to start going down over the horizon. Fittingly, he was positioned right in front of it, making it difficult to properly look at his blurry figure.

“I won’t be coming back,” he whispered to the air, letting the words settle into silence before taking a step forward.

Zandik didn’t have the time to consider his actions before finding out that he, too, had stepped forward, clenching down hard on Feofan’s arm.

Feofan didn’t say anything, though his lack of effort in escaping Zandik’s grip told him enough. Still, what could he say? He didn’t even know why Feofan wanted to leave him, to abandon him.

And so, despite the instinct to plead, to beg, Zandik stayed rational.

“Why?”

It was a reasonable question to ask. A normal question to ask. Feofan would answer him, he owed him as much.

Then, Zandik would have to say goodbye. To move on. Digesting the thought felt like trying to swallow bile back down, and so he focused on his friend’s reply.

“Isn’t it enough just to know I’m calling off our partnership?”

Zandik didn’t reply. Feofan knew him well enough to be certain of the answer to that question; he would take it as an insult, were he to say anything.

As expected, after a few seconds of silence, he sighed.

“I’m… unhealthy,” he began, visibly weighing his words, “I won’t be able to go outside much, in the future.”

“I’ll come to you, then. Where do you live?”

Feofan shook his head.

“We’ve never spoken about such personal details before. I’d much prefer it if that didn’t change.”

“Because we would always meet here, before. You can’t just… walk out of my life. Not without explaining yourself.”

“I will.”

“...Explain yourself, you mean?”

“No. Leave without doing so.”

“I won’t let you.”

Feofan frowned.

“That’s not your choice to make.”

He shook the hand Zandik had grabbed. Not wanting to make him physically uncomfortable, Zandik let go, despite knowing he could’ve hanged on.

Once he was free of his grip, he walked forward some more, off into the setting sun, before pausing and turning back around, eyes settling on Zandik. It was hard to tell, what with how the sun blinded him from this angle, but he was almost certain he saw tears in Feofan’s eyes.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for this.”

And then, he wordlessly turned back around, walking off for real, this time.

Zandik spent a few long seconds there, considering what had just happened, what he’d just heard, before a single, all-encompassing thought took over his mind.

No.

Feofan was one to hold on to his word, it seemed. He had indeed not shown up to the playground since their conversation under the setting sun.

Zandik didn’t mind. After all, it was nearly impossible to be sad about being abandoned like so when elated by the prospect of soon getting to meet him again.

He had spent a majority of his time since then asking around the city for a child called Feofan, one who was poor in all ways but intellectually.

The people he knew, as well as the people who knew of him, outright refused to speak with him. Of the strangers who he asked, many didn’t care enough to bother with a young teen’s pleas. Of those who actually cared to answer, a majority had absolutely no idea who this ‘Feofan’ person could be.

It was a thankless, exhausting task. One with very little gain to be had, at the end of the day.

Still, the few times he struck gold made it all worth it. A general location. A vague physical description of where he lived. Movement patterns of seeing him walk in and out of certain buildings, or repeatedly through the week in certain spots.

He was well aware his current actions were morally dubious at best, actively illegal at worse, and yet he didn’t care in the slightest. Laws were merely guidelines as to how one was expected to act in society; if a reason to go against said guidelines presented itself, it was only natural to do so.

This, he thought, was a very good reason to do so. He deserved an explanation, at the very least, and he could hardly imagine whatever reason Feofan had to leave him was one he’d consider worthy.

In any case, Zandik’s efforts led him to the front doors of a hospital located in one of the poorest corners in the city. Multiple eyewitnesses had told him Feofan frequently came in and out of the building, sometimes even staying there for days at a time.

He hoped it was just a case of a close relative being stuck in there, but considering what his partner had said about not being healthy…

There was no use worrying before knowing the truth, he forced himself to reason. The concept of ‘worrying’ for another human being was one he’d grown used to, ever since Feofan had left. It was one he attempted to avoid or diminish whenever possible.

He stepped through the doors, ready to discover the truth.

“I don’t know why I expected you wouldn’t find me. You’ve always been weirdly determined in your goals.”

“I thought the same about you, before you left.”

“I assure you, I am just as determined as ever, my objectives have simply… shifted, I suppose.”

Zandik didn’t reply, knowing Feofan would probably continue explaining himself on his own, now that he’d been found out.

“I’m sick.”

“And?”

“Very sick. Sick enough that my life expectancy is ridiculously low.”

“How low?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“What condition do you have?”

“I’m not answering that, either. I’d prefer you never know.”

“How can I help you if you don’t tell me anything?”

“How could you help me, Zandik? I’m a dead man walking. Laying down, to be more precise.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I never took you for one to be delusional.”

“I never took you for someone who gave up when fate gave them a horrible hand to play.”

Feofan didn’t reply, eyes going downcast after Zandik’s reply. The moment of silence allowed him to look around the room some more, a part of himself satisfied now that he knew what had happened, despite an entirely new part screaming in rage at the idea of losing his partner in such a way.

The room, quite clearly, belonged to a hospital with a lack of budget. While many machines were there, all around Feofan’s bed, the room itself lacked a lot of polish. The walls seemed grimy, the flooring tiles didn’t fit in with the rest of the room and the bed’s sheets were uncomfortable at best—Zandik knew; he’d just touched them.

Seeing that the conversation was quickly dying, Zandik spoke once more.

“Will you be moving anywhere else?”

“No, I won’t. I shouldn’t, at least,” Feofan replied, eyes still downcast, though a bit of melancholic mirth had returned to his voice. “This will be my deathbed, supposedly.”

Zandik scowled.

“Deathbed?”

“You know, just… until I die. I’ll be stuck in here until I’m gone, so ‘deathbed’ felt accurate.”

His scowl only grew bigger.

“I will save you.”

Feofan, predictably, rolled his eyes. He then looked back up at Zandik, whose expression had probably been serious enough to make Feofan believe him, if only a little bit. If only that he would try.

“You… you’re free to try. If anyone could do it, partner, it’s you. I doubt whatever divine presence lies above would be outdone by us humans, though.”

“I’ll become a God, then.”

Feofan laughed, which, in turn, also brought a light smile back to Zandik’s face. He’d missed Feofan’s smile, these past few weeks, he’d noticed.

“Don’t, please. I’d hate you, then.”

“Because I’d be a God?”

“Because you’d be a God.”

The conversation went on for some time, before night arrived and the medical staff asked Zandik to leave the room, considering he was just a visitor.

He dared to hope that everything would be fine.

Hope, too, was not a feeling Zandik was used to.

Still, it was one that, over time, settled within him. A core part of himself, as helpful to his mental state as his ribs were to his internal organs. He could never be entirely hopeful, of course, for that would simply be foolish, but, slowly, he did manage to gain a certain sense of normalcy from the situation.

He would walk over to Feofan’s room every single day, without fail, and harass his partner for more information about his disease. He’d spend what Feofan classified as an unreasonable amount of hours there, with him, before returning home and brushing up on his lacking medical knowledge nearly all throughout the night.

Zandik had never slept much to begin with—losing a few more hours was but a drop in the bucket. Especially if it meant saving his partner’s life.

Even beyond that, however, the idea of going against nature itself fascinated him. Saving a man fated to die… what an achievement that would be.

And so, time passed, Zandik slowly learning the path from the playground to the hospital like the back of his hand. Feofan stopped complaining about him showing up in his room and harassing him for a few hours every day, which Zandik liked to imagine was him coming to terms with how a partnership, their partnership, could not be broken by something as flimsy as a disease.

Said disease, too, was something Zandik slowly got used to and learned about, over the next year or so. Whenever he managed to make Feofan laugh, he would usually end up having a small coughing fit—of which the iterations, he noticed later, only got longer as time went by—and he seemed to be easily exhausted after any kind of physical activity, even something as simple as sitting up in his bed.

Passively, Zandik assumed the disease had something to do with Feofan’s lungs. He couldn’t do much with that information, however, as his knowledge of the medical field was still extremely lacking.

Hence, he continued his routine, alternating between his daily occupations, spending time with Feofan—both for entertainment and to study him—and attentively flipping through progressively more advanced articles associated with the medical field night after night.

…And if he barely skimmed over anything that didn’t seem to have the potential to help Feofan, then, well, that was simply him being time-efficient.

Said hope, however, was one that, despite usually recovering, could easily be shaken, Zandik discovered. Only temporarily, luckily for him, as it always seemed to quickly wash back over him once removed, but those few moments spent without were undesirable, to say the least.

The most common example, the main perpetrator of his worries, was whenever a trio of medical professionals arrived in Feofan’s room at once, doing what he could only assume to be a check-up of sorts.

He didn’t really know, considering how Feofan insisted on having him leave the room during the doctors’ presence every single time. After probably the hundredth time this had happened, Zandik ran out of patience, confronting his partner outright.

“Why won’t you allow me to stay, Feofan? Their tests could offer me crucial information for my own research.”

“Your research, which consists of flipping through magazines mentioning our continual progress in managing to cure cancer’s endless variants?”

“You’re avoiding the question. Also, no, I already know you don’t have lung cancer, you don’t fit the criteria for it.”

“Why mention my lungs, specifically?”

“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”

Feofan stared at him, something brewing in his eyes, before whatever it had been visibly dissipated, all fight leaving him.

“You’re insufferable.”

“If that’s what it takes to save you, I can live with such a label.”

“And dramatic,” Feofan added, probably wanting to roll his eyes, but holding himself back. Before Zandik could reply, he continued. “Making you leave the room is not as intentional on my part as you’re making it out to be, in any case. Visitors aren’t allowed to stay during such check-ups.”

“So they are check-ups, I see,” Zandik replied, appreciating the confirmation of what he essentially already knew, “You’re lying, however.”

Feofan lifted an eyebrow. Zandik continued.

“I asked them directly, a while ago. The second time they came by, I believe. In any case, you don’t want me to hear whatever they have to say; if you want to stay stubborn, fine, but let’s acknowledge the truth for what it is, yes?”

His partner sighed, though he held a small smile on his lips. Zandik decided to focus on its amused-looking parts, rather than its sorrow-covered ones.

“As I said, insufferable. I suppose we could do that, however, yes.”

“And would you suppose I could get a real answer as to why you won’t allow me to hear what they have to say?”

Feofan continued smiling, then, saying nothing more until Zandik left for the night, around an hour later, no matter how hard he pushed. His expression was noticeably more depressed during that time, and Zandik vowed to himself never to mention the subject in front of Feofan again.

Of course, he had no intention of letting go; whatever the doctors had to say about his condition would probably offer him crucial information in order to find a cure of some kind. He would simply have to go about collecting the necessary information to fulfil his goal in a less-than-legal manner.

Saving a life and attempting to defy life itself seemed like quite the justifiable reason to break a few laws, after all.

Still, however, he had other, less frowned-upon venues to explore before resorting to crimes to get his way, harmless as this one might’ve been. In the end, he put the idea on a mental backburner of sorts, opening yet another scientific review once he got home instead.

“You’re coughing a lot,” Zandik pointed out, flat. He saw how the mirth in Feofan’s eyes suddenly receded, leaving a clinically cold indifference behind.

Apathy didn’t suit Feofan, he thought. His partner was likely hiding his true feelings on the matter from him.

He didn’t mind, not exactly; having his partner’s trust was appreciated, but not necessary. As long as Feofan was still willing to have Zandik around in his life, he could proceed with the different tests he needed to do to find how to keep the other alive.

Still, a part of him inevitably felt like the expression sat wrong on his face. Like it shouldn’t be there to begin with.

“I was laughing just now, yes, choking on some saliva is only normal.”

“That saliva sounded strangely phlegm-like, I must say.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Zandik.”

“I don’t either, Feofan.”

“You were clearly implying something.”

“And you are clearly hiding something from me.”

“Can you really count it as hidden when you know the situation I’m in perfectly well?”

“If I actually knew your situation ‘perfectly well’, as you said, I could actually get onto developing a cure.”

“You’re still thinking about trying that?”

“Of course, you know me.”

“I do.”

A moment passed in silence between them, before Zandik spoke up once more.

“I refuse to give up.”

“I know.”

“You understand me, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Then why are you submitting to your fate like so, Zandik wanted to ask, holding himself back.

He was not nearly close enough to a cure just yet to risk such a statement.

Zandik entered Feofan’s room one day to find him holding a cigarette in his hands, an expression he could only describe as empty on his face. He, on the other hand, suddenly felt a certain outrage.

Feofan’s lungs had enough problems already; why was he smoking, now, of all things?

As he got closer to the bed, Feofan’s head slowly turned towards him. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten used to Feofan’s slight smile when first seeing him until it was suddenly missing, his expression staying completely neutral.

“Hi.”

“Why are you smoking, Feofan?”

He let out a huff of air from his mouth.

“Why not?”

“Because your lungs are already terrible. What kind of question is that? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Feofan stayed silent for a second too long, another rush of worry shooting through Zandik, before he replied.

“No. Why would I care to do it myself when life’s going to do it anyway?”

Zandik thought about the sentence he’d just heard. Rolled it around in his head. Dissected it piece by piece, each sharper than the last.

‘When life’s going to do it anyway,’ Feofan had said. It was a true statement, in a sense; everyone died someday, since time catched up to everything that is alive, one day or another.

The grim expression on Feofan’s face, however, indicated a fate much less peaceful than dying of old age.

Zandik felt that same numbness he’s seen in his partner’s expression wash over him.

“You’re…” he trailed off, feeling the words get stuck in his throat.

“Do you understand, now? Why it’s useless to try? Like you said, I’m not one to give up, but I’m also one to know when to cut my losses.”

Feofan took in another breath of his cigarette, before continuing.

“Hope is nothing more than the object of a gambler’s fallacy phenomenon, in my situation. I might as well enjoy life for what it is, and this,” he said, gently shaking the cigarette in his hand in the direction of Zandik’s face, “is the second most fun thing I’ve gotten to do since getting stuck in this hell.”

Zandik didn’t speak for a moment, trying to wrap his head around what he’d just heard.

Feofan would die. His disease wasn’t just a disease, it was one that would only get worse. Going off of how disturbingly calm he seemed, there was a high chance he’d just received some type of news related to his illness that had made him like this. Where would he have gotten the cigarettes, however?

Questions pushed, pulled and prodded at his mind, creating a cacophony of panic and worry.

Feofan was… everything, in a sense. An experiment. A partner. A friend. The only person who has accepted any of these roles willingly, as well as the sole human being who had shared more than one of them at once—nature itself was both an experiment and a friend of his, after all.

To see him go, to feel him slip from his fingers, to witness his breathless corpse on a cold hospital bed, dead, it—

No.

The exact same sensation from when Feofan had tried to leave him behind, a few years prior. How strange, for his partner to once again be the cause of its presence.

There truly was no better way to describe it. The ‘feeling’ was a concentrated reaction of disgusted refusal, more so than anything typical. He simply would not accept it.

Feofan would not die, no matter the cost.

“...The most fun being?” Zandik asked, after a moment, taking a second too long to remember what Feofan had just said.

“You, of course.”

Feofan’s sentence was spoken with a coy smile, as if Zandik was in on some kind of joke. He could only assume that said ‘joke’ was the fact that Feofan would soon die.

“In any case, the cigarette’s not going anywhere, I hope you can understand why. Refusing to temporarily let aside one of my favorite things for another… one could call me greedy, I suppose.”

Zandik felt like throwing up as he forced himself to copy the expression on his partner’s face.

Slightly manic, one night, running on little-to-no sleep, Zandik thought about how useful having Feofan’s doctors’ notes on his condition would be for his own research.

This was far from the first time this had happened. In fact, it represented what happened a majority of the time.

The main difference was that the idea simply wouldn’t leave him be, trotting around in his head endlessly. He wanted to help, and in order to do so, he needed to have knowledge, to know more, and yet he was clueless. It felt impossible to continue working on anything substantial when his head was undeniably elsewhere.

Which is why he found himself standing in front of the hospital he visited day after day, a full array of homemade lockpicks situated safely in his pockets and a crow mask settled on his face.

The only things Zandik thought of as he stepped through those glass doors were the relief his mind would soon get to enjoy as well as a genuine bafflement that it had taken him this long to commit a crime graver than petty theft.

The hospital was quite poor, all things considered. This was a realization he had first had a while ago, when first stepping through the door, but he hadn’t exactly cared to look around, back then, focused on finding Feofan. Therefore, he hadn’t gotten the opportunity to see just how bad it was, in some places.

Now that he had to search for the place where the personnel kept the patients’ personal information, however, he was forced to. Comparatively speaking, Feofan’s room might as well have been spotless.

While the main halls were all fairly clean at a glance, about as much as Feofan’s room, anything that wasn’t the first thing in a theoretical patient’s line of sight was topped by a considerable layer of dust, far too much for the air to be truly healthy to breathe in. The paint on the walls was chipped in many spots, too, and some of the lights in the less-traveled corridors were flickering, managing to give off an eerie atmosphere.

Luckily, this all made Zandik’s search for the correct room easier; no sane person would want to go through such a hall in order to reach an important location. Using that logic, he managed to trace back a path of doors—other than patients’—that were used often, seeing as they looked cleaned and more cared for.

From then, it was just a matter of looking through the glass in every door, peeping inside of the room and trying to guess what could be inside. He ignored those that just seemed to contain fridges, or special machines, and instead focused on all of those that seemed like boring, empty rooms with tons of drawers.

Admittedly, he did get distracted when he peered into the security room by accident, finding a sleeping security guard with a video playing on their phone. Looking over their shoulder, Zandik could see the entire hospital from various angles, even himself, where he was currently standing.

The crow mask he’d just bought did wonders for his silhouette, in his opinion. It also did its job well; he wouldn’t have known the masked figure to be himself, had he not already been aware of it for obvious reasons.

With a bit of luck, as well as down a few lockpicks, Zandik finally opened the right door, discovering what he’d been trying to find since the beginning, a physical data-bank of information revolving around everything related to the hospital’s patients’ reason for ever being here.

Considering the hospital didn’t have the money to keep itself clean, instead focusing on buying necessary machines for various treatments, they were probably short on funds. Transferring their clients’ sensitive information into digital data was probably the last of their considerations when it came time to plan around their budget.

The fact he could see the doctors come in and out of Feofan’s room with papers in hand every single time only further confirmed what he already knew.

In any case, Zandik started digging through the folders he’d found, making sure that his mask was still properly covering his face before staring straight into the security camera’s lens every few minutes or so.

It served no actual purpose, Zandik simply hoped it would later creep out some poor soul forced to rewatch the scene of the crime.

Despite the files being ordered alphabetically, which should have allowed him to easily find his partner’s, he had never actually learned what, exactly, his last name was.

After pausing for a second, he determined that the best course of action forward was simply to guess.

He wouldn’t guess blindly, though, that would take ages; most files were covered with dust, while he knew for certain Feofan’s was still often moved around, and he remembered there being a purple sticker of some kind on one of the edges.

Fittingly, it ended up being the first one he grabbed, before the ‘A’ section of the files even began. It was logical to keep often-used files in hand’s reach, Zandik supposed, though it made him question what was the point of storing the active files here with what was essentially an archive of every past patient.

Well, the strange decision was perfectly fine by him. He would’ve been searching pointlessly for a while, otherwise.

Grabbing the file and skimming through to find Feofan’s picture within, he thought about simply grabbing it and going before thinking about how suspicious that would be, on the camera’s end of things; Feofan would probably end up questioned, should his file be the only one a robber would consider of interest.

Instead, he decided to steal some more. About three-hundred and forty-seven files, in fact; he stole all of those who had that same purple sticker on the side. This way, Feofan would only be ‘one among hundreds’, rather than the sole victim, making him much less likely to be questioned or side-eyed.

It would, in turn, potentially have more consequences on Zandik, should he get caught, but he was fine with that outcome. He didn’t plan on ‘getting caught’ in the first place.

With one last time staring at the camera, smiling gently in its direction and waving his hand creepily before turning around, Zandik left the hospital, files in hand, dropping all but one in a shredder the moment he got home.

Not all at once, of course. He had much more interesting things to do for the next few hours than work on unjamming a shredder

Zandik’s new reading material revealed itself to be quite fascinating.

Sadly, it wasn’t exactly in the way he’d been expecting; Feofan’s doctors, despite indeed having written down some symptoms Zandik hadn’t been aware of—which he, too, noted down elsewhere to keep. Instead, what made it interesting was just how personal the file truly was.

When thinking of a medical file on a client, Zandik had imagined a straightforward and efficient document, one stating various symptoms, trying various conclusions and considering how to move forward with solutions.

What he hadn’t expected was for the many, many handwritten notes contained within to fly out all at once when opened, along with a few pictures of Feofan. He looked at the mess for a moment before beginning to read through the most recent one, on top of the pile,, immediately noticing the blatant lack of professionalism throughout.

Feofan seems quite depressed, nowadays. I long for a world in which we have the budget for child-licensed therapists, though I suppose me and my team will have to do in this reality.

He was such a joy, when he was younger. Before we realized what would eventually happen with him and his sickness. Before we told him. I still wonder if that was the right thing to do, despite it being expected out of us, according to the Hippocratic Oath.

Ruining a child’s life with such news, isn’t that cruel? Especially after we had to keep him in for the first time in forever once his sickness flared up. I wonder how that other kid he always spoke about fared off. Oh, who am I kidding; if he caught Feofan’s attention, he must’ve been quite determined as well.

Looking back, I think that was what really made me feel for Feofan, at first. All of us, really. A cute little thing, abandoned and anxious, yet still foaming at the mouth for an opportunity to do anything worthwhile. I mean, offering to work at the hospital at the grand age of four just to make some money… I don’t know what else I’d call it, he really always has been hard-headed.

I still wish we could all legally adopt him, sometimes. As is thoroughly described in the older letters (they would be letters if we had the budget for it; sticky notes will have to do) contained within this folder, the math didn’t ‘math out’ when it came time to see if we could afford to pay for his treatment out of pocket, forcing us to assign him as one of our terminally-ill patients for funding instead.

From there, though, actually going through the motions for adoption became nearly impossible, especially with the biological parents completely out of the picture, and now that he is also having more and more flare-ups…

We thought it best to stay silent. We’ll keep him alive before strangling each other over who gets the right to legally adopt him, haha. Any of us dying before him would feel far too strange, anyway.

After so much time spent trying to figure out what was wrong with his lungs, and no progress beyond a lot of stored information over time, I think we all started getting used to the idea that he wouldn’t survive past us. Especially since he seems to have taken a liking for cigarettes, which could only ever do more harm to him. Hence why I just wrote that seeing him liv-

Zandik watched the last note fall from his hands, having no memory of consciously deciding to let it drop back down. The last words he’d read there continued to bounce around in his mind, nearly bringing out that feeling of sheer refusal from within him.

He took a deep breath, before slowly picking up a random bundle of notes from somewhere in the middle of the pile.

I’m not usually the one who writes these simile-letters, but fuck, man, I need an outlet after this shit. A smoke, too.

I hate this shitty fucking world and shitty fucking capitalism so much. And laws, fuck laws. We had to sign this kid into being the legal equivalent of a charity case just to be able to give him treatment without getting fired.

Worst part is, I’m sure the more fortunate hospitals would have the shit necessary to actually cure the brat. Or, at least, develop a treatment. We’re stuck with fucking drags and a dream to keep a kid alive for as long as possible before he inevitably dies. What a fucking joke.

Shit like this reminds me why I never could take my family seriously whenever they went on about religion for too long. If God was a truly good being watching over us from above, why did I end up working in this dump? I don’t even like being a doctor, I just need cash to feed myself and afford living somewhere with a good roof over my head.

Oh, yeah, and there’s the matter of the terminally ill kid in the other room that looks like a kicked puppy. Fantastic job with that one, God, you truly mastered the look of desperation in his eyes with that one. At least I get to ‘learn from my experiences’ and whatnot, continuing with the gratuitous religious slander, Feofan, him, will just…

I don’t even want to write it down, it seems too cruel of a fate.

Look, God, buddy, I don’t particularly like you, but if you’re really all that powerful, mind doing something about his case? I’d appreciate it. I might even believe in you, then.

…Yeah, unless you decide to grace us mortals with your physical presence, that one is not happening, but a miracle would still be really fucking appreciated, in this case. Feofan deserves more than a shitty hospital room being reserved for him alone.

Anyway, yeah, do your thing fast enough and I’ll try not to poison the kid against you, God. No promises, though, we’re his parents in all ways but legally—again, fuck that stupid charity case clause—so he’ll probably take after us.

He’s already gotten to the point of questioning why you put him in such a situation, and he’s, what, eight? Kid’s smart, you didn’t fail him on that, at least. Hopefully he finds a way to keep some hope in him, despite how grim his situation truly is.

Not sure how to end this bundle of notes, Janani’s always been better at this type of stuff. Signing off.

The note, Zandik found, had been ever so slightly ripped in his grasp. He’d felt his hands clench a few times throughout his reading, and distinctly remembered the paper being in near-perfect condition before setting his hands on it, so he was undoubtedly to blame for its worsened condition.

Zandik allowed the sticky note to fall to the ground, just like the previous one, looking down at what must’ve been hundreds of other notes.

He considered, for a moment, shredding them all.

He then sighed, accepting his fate as he began reorganizing them in chronological order.

Hours later, his internal clock informing him of how he’d definitely just stayed awake through the night, he had a much better idea of Feofan’s condition, as well as a few ideas on what might work to help him.

“What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?”

Feofan looked at him with an annoyed expression. Zandik was only halfway sure he knew its cause.

“You miss two days in a row of coming here to see me when I’m bed-bound, which you have quite literally never done before, and you come back asking very specific questions about different substances that, very conspicuously, are often used for different treatment options for various lung diseases.”

His implied guess was correct, clearly. The reminder of progress towards his goal made a smirk appear on his face.

“I’ve been upfront about my desire to find a cure, have I not? I don’t know why I didn’t think you’d realize.”

“Please,” Feofan replied, rolling his eyes, "Consciously or not, you just wanted me to know, hence how indiscreet you were. What I’m mostly curious about is to know where this progress is coming from. I still haven’t answered any of your questions,” he said, twirling his cigarette between his fingers before pointing it at him.

“Perhaps I simply decided to do without.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You seem quite confident about that fact. How ever would you know such a thing?”

“Simple. I know you.”

“Then I’m sure you can figure out this mystery on your own, detective.”

Feofan chuckled, which, in turn, brought a smile to Zandik’s face.

At times, Zandik was a little glad the hospital was as poor as it was.

Emphasis on ‘at times’ and ‘little’, of course; were it not for how poor this place was, Feofan would’ve probably received treatment that did more than merely slow down his death, and the space Zandik stayed in day after day, his partner’s room, would’ve been much more pleasant to be around, considering he wouldn’t have to be the one to clean it.

Still, it sometimes, very rarely, offered him some advantages he wouldn’t have had otherwise. The opportunity to go against nature itself, for example, by saving Feofan’s life.

The ability to tamper with the other’s IVs, too, was quite the boon.

Considering how quick it was to fill up an IV bag, Zandik had assumed that even this hospital would fill them as needed. He was wrong, however. One day, while Feofan was sleeping beside him, he noticed a few pre-filled pouches hidden within a cabinet nearby.

An idea came to mind, then. An unsafe, foolish idea.

He immediately brushed it off, at first. It was stupid. Dangerous. It would kill Feofan before he’d even gotten a chance to try curing him. He would become the cause of his partner’s death.

And yet, as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, Feofan’s condition began taking a turn for the worse. While he’d previously been able to leave the hospital a considerable amount of time, only being slightly out of breath when walking continuously for a minute or so, that was no longer the case.

Even sitting up from his bed seemed to take a considerable amount of effort, now, and the idea of walking around on his feet was one that he’d brushed off the second Zandik had brought it up.

Feofan’s doctors, too, were getting more frantic. They had already given up on saving him, continuing the same old ‘maintenance’ operations they were legally allowed to do.

Cowards, he couldn’t help but think. They had all of the knowledge necessary to try something, and they were just accepting reality for what it was, no matter how terrible.

A wave of disgust coursed through him, then, as he realized he’d been doing the same thing for the past few months. He’d explained it away as needing more time to perfect the formula, or trying to gather more information from Feofan, but those were nothing but excuses.

He would shape the future he wished to see for him and his partner by his own hand, no matter what.

That determination filled him once more with that terribly risky idea, the one from months ago, which he’d been avoiding since. He brought a syringe of the concoction he’d made with him, keeping it safe throughout the day.

It was an inconspicuous liquid, nearly transparent, with just enough of a cyan coloring to almost look like water from a pool. He brought it with him inside of Feofan’s room. Only one of his doctors saw it, and he explained it away as an avant-garde water bottle.

The doctor—Janani, going off of the not-letters—clearly didn’t believe him. She wasn’t stupid.

Still, she nodded in his direction and turned away, leaving the room.

Zandik appreciated the gesture. Maybe his judgement of them had been too harsh, a coward wouldn’t allow him to do what he was about to do.

He grabbed one of the prefilled IV pouches, inserting the needle within and pushing down. The invasive liquid was only visible for a few seconds before mixing into the saline solution, leaving no trace of having ever been there, other than the bag being ever-so-slightly more blue than the others.

Knowing he didn’t have to be discreet, considering Janani had seen him, he shamelessly pressed Feofan’s help button, watching as both she and one of the other doctors walked in. He had the decency to hide the needle before then, but not much else.

Zandik handed her the filled pouch directly.

“He’s due for an IV switch.” He wasn’t.

“Of course,” she nodded, an amused smile on her face shining for a second before her gaze fell on Feofan’s sleeping corpse, quickly turning serious. At the same time, the other doctor that had just entered the room watched from the back, shooting a confused look over at Janani.

“Janani, he… he really isn’t due for one? The pouch is full, you changed it ten minutes ago.”

“No harm changing it again, then, is there?”

“Our resources are spread thin enough as—”

“Zaman. Please.”

Zandik watched as the doctor’s eyes gained a sudden look of understanding, eyes flicking between the IV bag in Janani’s hands and Feofan’s sleeping presence by her side.

He sighed, any and all fight visibly leaving him. Zandik, meanwhile, wondered how a single word could carry that much meaning.

The needle pressed against his behind, hidden within his pants, the entire time he stayed there, watching as the modified saline solution slowly entered Feofan’s veins.

After standing up in silence for a few hours, merely thinking, Zaman came by and sent him home for the night.

It took a few days for his concoction to kick in properly.

‘Concoction’ was quite generous, he found; ‘prototype’ was much more accurate. Now that he was no longer desperate, it was much easier to make the distinction, as well as much easier to be self-critical about all of the things that might have gone wrong.

They were plentiful, to say the least. He could’ve killed Feofan.

He tried to ignore how excited he truly was at the idea of lording over life and death. To dive deeper into that terrified, normal feeling at the realisation that his partner might’ve died.

Zandik didn’t quite manage it.

“You look happy,” Feofan commented, the indent of the cigarette in his hand still present on his lips.

“Thank you for noticing.”

“Too happy.”

“I wonder why.”

“No, it’s not obvious,” Feofan replied, continuing to impress Zandik with just how perfectly he understood him, “You wouldn’t be this happy about me suddenly feeling way better. Well, you would, but not this kind of happiness.”

“Oh?”

“You’d feel relieved, and you’d then be confused at how relieved you’d be to see me be fine. This is more manic than that, in a sense. As if you had just accomplished something you…” he trailed off, a look of realization passing over his eyes.

His eyes moved back to Zandik, who grinned shamelessly in his direction.

“Figured it out, have you?”

“You didn’t,” he said, stated, despite just how clear the question behind it was.

“Didn’t I? Let’s talk tonight.”

“Despite Janani suddenly liking you, I doubt she’d allow you to stay the night.”

“Whoever said she had to know? It’s been a while since we saw the stars together, you know.”

“...It is a full moon tonight. Did you plan this?” Feofan asked, incredulous. Zandik, meanwhile, simply shrugged, saying nothing more.

No, he hadn’t. Making his partner believe he had was far more entertaining, however.

“You made it,” Feofan said, throwing his cigarette to the floor. Its orange light contrasted sharply against the ambient lighting of the full moon.

“Always.”

“That is true, looking back,” Feofan acknowledged, “You were always available, back then. Always here.”

Zandik nodded, sitting down beside Feofan, on the floor, looking at the stars above. The position was far from comfortable, but Zandik presumed Feofan had only taken it so that he could stop using his wheelchair for a time—his legs’ muscles were too atrophied for him to walk longer than a few dozen steps. Going off of the expression Feofan had made when Zaman spoke to him about it, it was safe to say he hated the machine.

Strangely, Zandik found that that was reason enough for him, too, to hate it. Empathy, what a curious sensation.

“I hated you, you know? Back then. Not anymore, obviously.”

Zandik didn’t respond. He understood the feeling. He was nearly certain he had felt the same, at some point, though he could no longer tell what his child self had believed.

“There was this religious guy, back then, who liked taking homeless kids under his wing, raising them with ‘proper’ values. He tried doing it with me, after I escaped from the institution my parents sold me to. I’m sure he had good intentions, but it… it didn’t work out. How could an all-loving, all-knowing God do this to me? What did I do to deserve such suffering?”

“Nothing,” Zandik replied, genuine. Feofan nodded.

“Exactly. Nothing. It’s reassuring to believe in a well-meaning figure above, guiding us from somewhere beyond our mortal lives, I understand that. We all crave guidance, in a way, be it that of others or our own, but still, such a view on life seems so…” he trailed off, fully resting against the ground, staring at the stars.

“Boring. I suppose it doesn’t matter, now. Not to me. Us. Forever different, ostracised. We’ve always done our own thing, haven’t we? Reaching for the stars, despite the world dragging us back.”

Zandik nodded, allowing himself to fall back beside Feofan. He spoke for the first time in a while.

“No amount of chaining us down will stop us from reaching them. We just need to try.”

“We could, but for what? To delay the inevitable?”

“At minimum. We would not be having this conversation here, had I given up. Had you given up.”

“And yet, I’ll still die all the same. There’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

“I did. You guessed correctly, back in your room. I’m the reason you’re alive, Feofan.”

“You just got lucky. I wouldn’t have died just yet, anyway.”

“Why aren’t you happier? I allowed you to live, isn’t that what everyone wants? You in particular, of all people.”

“Why would I be happy about getting to suffer longer before the inevitable comes? Were I to be dead, I at least wouldn’t need to suffer needlessly until a long-foregone conclusion comes to pass.”

“You’d abandon our partnership?”

“There are many things I’ve abandoned, Zandik, none of which I’m proud of. No matter how much you mean to me, I would not hesitate.”

Zandik stayed silent for a moment, trying to find a way to make Feofan understand. He landed on the simplest, most straightforward method he could think of.

He explained everything. How he managed to track him down, back when they were still young. How he prodded for information time after time. How he illegally snuck in and stole Feofan’s doctors’ files on him. How he spent countless nights experimenting with various substances to find something that would finally help. How he inserted that syringe’s content into Feofan’s IV pouch, and how Janani knew of everything.

Feofan didn’t say anything throughout, but Zandik could tell he was listening. Once he was done with his explanation of everything, an hour later, throat beginning to ache from how much he’d spoken, he heard a sigh from beside him.

“Why? Why do all of this?”

“Because control over life and death is fascinating to me. Because you deserve to have a chance. Because you’re my partner. Whichever one is more likely to convince you is the one I’ll say is my true answer.”

Feofan snorted beside him.

“As honest as ever.”

A moment passed.

“I lied, earlier. I didn’t hate you, at first. I hated you later down the line, when I tried to stop our friendship.”

He rolled on the side a little, looking directly at Zandik instead of the sky. He mirrored the motion.

“You were… lucky, to have someone to guide you. To have me. You were clearly growing far too attached, far too fast, and I got to be the one to help you by cutting things off before they got too deep. That didn’t end up working, obviously, it was too late by then, but at the time, I thought I’d saved you. I sacrificed myself to help you, despite there being no advantage for me in doing so.”

He stretched his hand out, grabbing Zandik’s own. The position was extremely uncomfortable, the both of them pressed against the cold hard floor in the night breeze, and yet he had never felt this warm. Going off of the expression on Feofan’s face, he, too, felt the same.

“You did the same. For some godforsaken reason, you were crazy enough to do the same.”

“We’re partners. It’s only to be expected.”

Another moment passed in silence, the two of them turning away from each other and back towards the sky.

Zandik could hardly imagine a world in which he’d see the stars’ beauty from afar and simply accept that he would never get to reach them. The same applied when it came to Feofan’s situation; how could one possibly accept death before having tried everything? He would rather suffer, be it physically or mentally, than die.

Death was terrifying, he found. Among the many things that should’ve scared him over the years, it was the single concept which had made him feel truly uncomfortable in his own skin, as if it were looming around every corner.

Death was an end, and he refused to see his bond with Feofan end.

“You want to die,” Zandik stated, factual as can be, before continuing with a question he had had on his mind since Feofan’s confession, “Is that why you continuously refuse to give me the data I need for my experiments?”

“Yes,” he replied simply, nodding slightly as his hair rubbed against the floor in the silence surrounding them, “In a way, I am still trying to sacrifice myself for you, needless as you certainly deem it to be.”

“Is that the main reason?”

“I… don’t know. It’s one of them.”

A few more seconds of silence.

“Should you have the certainty that you could live normally, that you could stay, would you want to live?”

Feofan let out a sigh.

“Of course. I have many things left to do, I just—”

“Then let me help you. Answer my questions when I ask them and let me tamper with your IV some more, that is all I ask.”

“What for?” Feofan asked, still looking at the sky, despite Zandik trying to catch his gaze once more.

He was so close, and yet felt so far. He didn’t manage to keep down all of his frustration as he replied.

“To save you. I won’t allow you to die when we still have options we can try, that’s illogical. That’s foolish.”

“It’s not your decision to make. Plus, this partnership of ours is clearly unhealthy for you.”

“You just went on about how you appreciated the fact that we both sacrificed ourselves for the other. Are you taking that back?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then I fail to see the problem here, Feofan. We have always been ‘off-putting’, who cares if our bond with each other is as well? If we’re both overly reliant on each other, be it to live or to stay sane, then so be it. Let’s live, partner, together.”

Feofan stayed silent for a moment. Zandik could tell he was mulling the idea over.

And then, finally.

“You’re the absolute worst,” he began, a shark-like grin immediately appearing on Zandik’s face, who recognized Feofan’s tone of voice, “You win. Let’s try.”

“Thank you,” he let out despite himself, a rush of relief coursing through him. He’d managed to create a medicine that worked wonders without Feofan’s collaboration; there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that they would find an actual cure now that they would work together.

“I don’t know why you’re thanking me; you’re just going to get some extra workload.”

“I’d cut off a limb, should it allow you to live,” he replied, fully serious. Feofan shook his head.

“There will never be a point where cutting off your arm would save me, let’s not think about pointless hypotheticals.”

“Understandable. Talking about hypotheticals, however, any chance you’ll finally stop smoking?”

Feofan groaned.

“That would help with the whole ‘keeping me alive’ thing, wouldn’t it?”

Zandik just stared in lieu of answering. The message was quite obvious, clearly, as Feofan sighed, sitting back up and shoving a hand into his left pocket, bringing out a few cigarettes.

“For the record, these were never about trying to kill myself prematurely,” Feofan said into the silence, spinning a cigarette between his fingers, as if Zandik would ever believe such a thing in the first place, “It was a way to be a control of my lungs, in a way. Also, I do actually like smoking, the nicotine is nice.”

“Will you be able to drop it?”

He shrugged. “I’ll manage.”

“Good,” Zandik replied, before reaching his hand out, palm pointing towards the stars, “May I?”

Wordlessly, Feofan handed him the cigarettes. Zandik waited a second before taking pleasure in crushing them, feeling the ashy, sand-like texture of shredded tobacco leaves against his skin.

“You had far too much fun doing that,” Feofan commented.

“You know me too well to have expected anything else,” he replied, to which his partner looked pensive for a second before nodding.

“On the topic of knowing each other well, can you guess how many hidden stashes of cigarettes I have in my room that we’ll need to clean out?”

Zandik hummed theatrically, thinking back to all the spots he remembered Feofan looking at weirdly.

“Five?”

“Close. Six. The biggest stash is hidden on the underside of the fourth cabinet starting from the side of my bed, thanks to some tape; I made sure never to look in that direction whenever you were around.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound like an accessible hiding spot.”

“It really isn’t,” Feofan replied, smiling, “Grabbing one and putting the others back was a task far too dexterous for my abilities, most days, and the other hiding spots were much more convenient, speed-wise.”

They spent the remainder of the night talking under the starry sky, basking together in the moonlight for the first time in years.

“I don’t know what you did,” Zaman began, one day, as Feofan was undergoing a few tests—at Zandik’s request—in another room, accompanied by Janani, “but thank you.”

Zandik looked at him and tilted his head sideways, prompting him to go on.

“Don’t look at me like that, you know damn well what I’m talking about. Feofan hasn’t looked this happy in years. Whatever it is you did, keep it up. Also, somewhat unrelated, but while his lungs definitely appreciate it, you sure you couldn’t have kept one or two of his stashes around? Stealing from them had become a routine of mine,” he laughed, looking at him, probably expecting an answer of some kind.

Zandik simply nodded, before turning his attention back to the vial in his hands. While he acknowledged Zaman’s appreciation of his actions, he didn’t really care.

After all, he’d only done what he had for both Feofan and himself. Any other effects his actions had, positive or not, on the people around him were mere causality, nothing he considered he should be thanked or blamed for.

Nonetheless, a deeply-buried part of him appreciated the encouragement. He was not one to care much for bonds, but he was still human. Fatally so, in fact; life would be so much easier if he could care about nothing but his experiments.

And yet, such an idea seemed less and less enticing the more he pondered upon its implications; a surprising conclusion, seeing as his younger self would’ve been over the moon from it.

A world without his humanity would be one where he would feel no strive towards defeating fate. One where his experiments served naught but his own entertainment and curiosity—the latter which he would no longer have, should such a world come to pass.

It would be a world where he had never gotten to meet his partner, or, even worse, simply didn’t care about him.

In short, a terrible existence. He, who had once scowled towards the binds his peers tethered themselves to the world with, now held those very bonds dearer than anything. How ironic.

Happiness was always in reach for him, it seemed, and he had been the biggest obstacle towards its obtention.

Zandik smiled, thinking about his unconscious usage of the past tense in his previous thought.

“So?”

“You won’t even ask me the questions anymore?”

“I ask them daily, I trust you know them by now,” he lied.

Feofan sighed.

“My lungs are continuing to get slowly better, my mucus is the same color as yesterday, I don’t feel like I’m dying, my heart is beating fine by my standards, the leg atrophy is getting a little better, though recovery is unpleasant at the best of times, and I don’t feel like I’m about to pass out any second. Did I miss anything?”

Zandik pretended to clap, all the while checking various boxes on the sheet of paper held within his hands, collecting the data his partner was willingly offering.

“All of those are among the questions, though you missed a good thirty of them, approximately.”

“You’re the worst. Now speak, ask your questions so we can get them over with for today.”

He’d missed this, he realized. Collaboration. The very terms of their friendship implied such a connection, what with it being called a ‘partnership’, but they hadn’t worked together in quite some time. Ever since Feofan tried to call off their friendship, he had had to work around and against his partner at every turn.

It was nice, he thought, to go back to this. It reminded him of the time before, when they were still children playing together, ostracized by the others yet satisfied in their own little world.

He did a lot of reminiscing, these days. Having nothing to worry about, clearly, helped a lot with that.

Or maybe it had to do with the fact that, despite no longer needing to stay up quite as late to work on a cure for Feofan, he still refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. According to his partner, such existential thoughts were quite typical when one was staying up without actively focusing on a task the entire time.

He would’ve continued working on his research, but it felt like a waste of time, by now.

Through some miracle—one incredible enough that even Feofan began having hope for his future, according to his own words—he seemed to be recovering, almost.

He was still sick, undeniably so, but everything was either staying stable or looking up. For someone whose disease tended to wildly differ between good and bad, such stability with an occasional betterment was a fantastic sign of things to come.

And so, he allowed himself to relax a bit, when it came to furthering his research on Feofan’s condition. While he had no doubt his findings would potentially help others in a similar situation, down the line, he didn’t see the point in wasting his time if it didn’t end up helping his partner directly.

He didn’t destroy his research, obviously; that would be a waste, and there was always the chance he’d need to dive back into it, should Feofan’s current healthy-seeming state be temporary. Still, other than continuing to ask his daily questions, he put his research aside, focusing instead on a few personal projects of his. His favorite among them was working on the design for a more elegant pointed mask, like the one he’d worn while digging through the hospital’s patients’ files.

Of course, he also focused on Feofan. It was, in fact, much more accurate to say that he focused on his partner first and foremost, with his research and personal projects falling in line behind him.

It felt easy to be with him, to exist in his surroundings. He chased after the feeling, and he was fairly certain it was shared with the other concerned party.

Time passed by like this, hope binding itself around his heart.

Slowly but surely, its wings settled around the organ, making it feel warm and fuzzy.

“Say, you’ll be getting kicked out of the hospital soon enough, at this rate, right?”

“Yes. Assuming I continue getting better, my muscles won’t be atrophied enough to continue justifying keeping me there.”

“Any idea on where to stay, then?”

“I wish, but no. I generally dislike when Janani gives me handouts, and a place to live is far too big of one, despite her insisting it’s fine. I’ll be homeless for a while before finding a job somewhere, I assume.”

“Why do you dislike handouts coming from Janani? She would be happier helping you than not.”

“We are both quite prideful, are we not? Surely you understand my thoughts on the matter.”

“Is it merely a matter of how substantial the handout is?”

“You seem quite hung up on this, Zandik. Any reason why?”

“Well, Feofan, my apartment just so happens to have an unutilized second bed, at the moment. I am merely trying to gauge just how much I’d need to request out of you for you to willingly come over.”

“I’ll assume you mean that as ‘living with you’, rather than merely ‘coming over’ once or twice.”

“What do you think?”

“I think that I could be convinced, should you make me pay rent.”

Making it feel comfortable and seen.

“A phone? Weren’t all the clothes already supposed to be my delayed birthday gifts?”

“Don’t look so surprised, you clearly needed one.”

“Did I?”

“Undeniably. I’ll make you pay for it, if yo—”

“How so?”

“What, you needing it? You know why, we couldn’t manage to reach each other in an emergency mere days ago.”

“There was no emergency, need I remind you.”

“You went off the grid for three entire hours, without me knowing about it. It is only logical to give you a phone, if only so that it doesn't happen again.”

“Like I said, I was merely walking around and watching the stars, I was fine. From what I can tell, it sounds like the reason you’re giving me this phone is because of you being worried about me.”

“And if I was?”

“Then I’d appreciate that quite a fair bit. Still, you could’ve just bought me an old phone, or a used one; splurging on the newest model was wholly unnecessary.”

“I disagree.”

“And I disagree with your disagreement.”

“Well then, it would seem we are at a standstill, in that case. I’ve already bought the phone, though; no point in wasting money by refusing to use it, is there?”

Making it feel protected and safe.

“Janani, Zaman and the others wanted me to show you something.”

“Oh? What did they have to—That’s a lot of sticky notes, somewhat impressive. They look weirdly familiar, too.”

“You’ve probably seen one of your doctors running around with them on their clipboards.”

“Ah, right, that’s the place. Although, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Read them. There are a few hundred of them, in total, so get to it.”

And then, like a cruel joke, that same hope began falling down to his gut, tearing apart his insides on the way there.

The fall began with a simple text message.

There’s something we need to talk about. See you tonight.

Zandik didn’t see the message until he was already on his way home. Luckily, that meant he hadn’t been worried throughout the day.

Unluckily, it meant he was very worried now. Still, he believed in Feofan’s judgement, doing his best to keep calm. There was no point in worrying about something he didn’t yet know, especially since Feofan had stated they would be talking about it later.

There would be no secret. And there would be no reason to be concerned.

Now, if only his heart could catch the memo and stop beating so fast.

“You’re… returning,” Zandik echoed, unsure of what he was feeling.

“To the hospital, yes. I am mostly fine now, in a state adjacent to having a cold, I’d say, but I know my body. I’m… it doesn’t look good, being honest.”

“Doesn’t look good,” he echoed again, mind still going a mile an hour.

The moment he’d entered their apartment, he’d seen Feofan sitting on their couch in the small living room, waiting for him. His eyes were red, likely irritation from rubbing them, and he had the most crestfallen look Zandik had seen on him in years.

The look still hadn’t left his expression as he spoke.

“Well, you studied me so much over the years, surely you remember? My disease alternated between good periods and bad periods. Considering how long this ‘good’ period has been, as well as how good it truly was… I doubt I’ll make it through the ‘bad’ period that’ll follow. They’ve always been proportional to one another.”

“Right,” Zandik replied, nodding to himself, “Right, this is fine. We can fix this. I still have all of my previous research, plus the data from the questions you answered. I should’ve continued asking them daily, looking back, but fine, fine, we can do with what we have.”

He looked up at his partner, his friend, his world.

“I’ll save you. I promise you, I will.”

A weak smile appeared on Feofan’s face, then. Unfittingly with the seriousness of the situation, Zandik thought he looked beautiful, then. Emotionally exhausted, but true. Unhidden. Himself.

“Let’s try.”

Zandik, as far as he could remember, had never enjoyed noise. More accurately, he’d always enjoyed silence, the peace that came with a quiet setting. This was not a fact about himself he had ever considered would be able to change. Even after years of knowing Feofan, of enjoying his presence and his commentary, Zandik had still felt relief when exiting his hospital room, knowing he could go back to the quiet.

It was a little deliriously, then, that he noticed how he only realised he’d gotten used to having someone share his space along with him when there was no longer anyone there. Other than him, of course, but living with oneself wasn’t anything unusual.

What was unusual, however, were the many little quirks he’d come to integrate into his routines. Ones that were no longer applicable, what with Feofan officially returning to the hospital for a stay of an undetermined duration.

Zandik found himself needlessly leaving the bathroom lights on, as his partner would’ve usually gone inside right after him and turned them off when he was done, or forgoing the usage of music as ‘silent’ background noise, as Feofan used to fulfill that role instead, for example. Every single time one of these things happened, without fail, Zandik felt a pang of longing in his chest, his heart collapsing on itself just a little more.

The incident that truly made him break, however, happened a week after his partner’s departure from their previously-shared living space.

Zandik had woken up ridiculously early, going to his room and working on finding a cure for Feofan—his most common activity that entire week, taking up more time than even sleep had.

Some time later, about three hours, he’d started getting a little too hungry to continue focusing on his research. Knowing he’d be less efficient if distracted by his own grumbling stomach, he reluctantly left the room and went to the kitchen, bringing out a few ingredients and making a simple meal. Some lavash bread covered with apple jam and feta cheese, nothing particularly fancy.

And still, two minutes later, he found himself sitting at the table, alone, staring at the second plate he’d made unconsciously, now used to doubling his portions so that Feofan would eat something as well. He didn’t end up eating his food, any and all sensations syphoned away by the void within, including hunger.

From then on, silence became suffocating.

Soon enough, Zandik found himself lacking enough space in his wardrobe for all of the clothes he had to store.

With only his own garments, he had plenty of space, and with his partner’s thrown into the mix, they were still fine as long as some clothes always continued going through the cycle of being worn and then cleaned, as they didn’t take up space in the wardrobe during that time.

Now that Feofan was no longer here, however, they piled up, quickly leaving him with a filled wardrobe and a dozen more shirts of his left behind, with no space to hang them up.

Still, he refused to prioritise his own clothes over Feofan’s. It felt symbolic, in a way. Other than his partner’s very few remaining items, as well as Zandik’s own changed habits, there was no sign of Feofan ever having lived here.

He much preferred the slight inconvenience of wrinkled clothing over what felt like the symbolic equivalent of rejecting Feofan from his home. He would always be welcomed here, after all.

Zandik woke up one day, noticing just how much dust had accumulated over every surface of the house.

He questioned its presence for a moment before remembering Feofan had been the one to volunteer to clean up, something about ‘paying back his debts’. Zandik remembered arguing with him, saying that the dust and cleaning products couldn’t possibly be good for his lungs. Feofan had said he would wear a mask.

Zandik sighed as he picked up a duster. He truly despised cleaning. Ever more than usual, in fact; it took a fair bit of time, and he still needed to continue experimenting with his newest formula for a cure.

Zandik sighed, looking at his screen. He’d been… avoiding Feofan for months, in a sense.

As much as he really wanted to see his partner, he was also terrified to do so. It was so much easier to contact him through text messages only, to bury his head in the metaphorical sand.

Plus, he knew his actions were justified. Despite refusing to go and see him, he truly did use that time to tirelessly experiment and search for a cure of some kind. In fact, he believed he was very close to a solution; the current formula he had seemed promising, but was clearly lacking one or two minute touches, ones over which he was certain he’d lost some hair already.

Researching for a cure was both a noble and logical goal, in theory, sacrificing one’s time with a loved one in order to save them. To have more time with them in the future.

He knew, however, that mere rationality and goodness were far from the core of his motivations. Losing himself in sleep deprivation and piles upon piles of research papers was simply so much easier than having to deal with whatever hellish situation he was stuck in with Feofan.

Zandik wore the weight of Feofan’s world on his shoulder twice over. He was the one who could save the life. He was one of his only connections with the world, as well as the deepest, most profound one. Both of these were true at once, and neither of them wished to focus on the same aspect.

He, of course, prioritised the first option. It allowed both for Feofan to live and for him to avoid confronting the idea of his friend’s premature death, to stay shut inside and isolate himself from life itself in the haughty brandishing of his goal of saving a life.

Feofan, clearly, cared more for the second option. One which Zandik had entirely neglected for the past few months.

It was quite obvious his partner had been wanting to see him again, seeing as he had plainly stated such a desire repeatedly, but Zandik had always hoped it to be nothing more than a passing desire. While he truly did think staying home and working on the cure was the best option for them, he was also terrified of having to confront Feofan now, of all times.

Still, it had to be done. Sleep-deprived and exhausted, he replied.

Feofan never replied.

Zandik didn’t know what to feel. He mindlessly continued trying option after option, desperate to find those last few necessary touches for his current formula to work.

The message came in the late evening, after Zandik had gone a full day and a half without a wink of sleep, far too distressed by Feofan’s lack of reply—and his own manic experimentation with variations on his formula—to even consider resting, let alone manage it. His eyebags were prominent and defined as he rushed through the doorway, carrying as much of his equipment as he could carry without falling over, not bothering to check whether or not he’d locked the door, or if he had his keys.

Zandik hadn’t even read all of Janani’s messages. All he knew was that he’d seen ‘urgent’ and extrapolated to the only logical conclusion.

Something was wrong with Feofan.

Despite having avoided him for the past few months, terrified of being confronted with his current state, Zandik hadn’t hesitated a single second before rushing outside.

Soon, with both his legs and arms exhausted—from running and from carrying his experiment set-up, respectively—he barged through the door, finding the room to be filled with doctors and concerned, urgent-sounding whispers.

What inevitably caught his attention, however, was the rhythmic beeping that resonated throughout the room. This doomed sanctuary of theirs, usually either completely silent or filled with his and Feofan’s chatter, was now invaded by an obnoxious beeping.

He almost wished for it to stop.

Of course, his conscious mind quickly caught up to what was happening, the previous thought becoming one he hoped to never come through, but it was just enough of a shock to destabilize him, undoubtedly.

Even if it hadn’t been, however, the room still held one more surprise for him. As the doctors surrounding his partner’s bed shifted around, looking at various screens and writing things down, Zandik saw a fleeting figure between two arms, one of a man he knew all too well laying down, eyes closed, with dozens of wires connected to his body in every which way.

Unwillingly, he dropped what he was holding to the ground, the telltale sound of broken glass freezing the room for a moment as he rushed forward, shamelessly pushing one of the doctors out of the way in order to see better.

And see he did.

Feofan looked absolutely terrible, with sunken cheeks and a complexion far paler than Zandik had ever seen him with. His nose was red and his muscles looked more atrophied than before, despite how he continued his exercises to counteract his previous muscle loss during his entire stay at Zandik’s apartment.

Zandik had known this was happening, too. He’d just consciously blocked out the implications of Feofan’s answers to his daily questions.

His partner had continued responding to him every single day, bar that very morning. The progressive decline had, in fact, been the catalyst to Zandik finding a solution, since having knowledge of multiple points in that line allowed him to narrow the possibilities as to what was happening, and therefore as to finding a cure.

The sight in front of him made him wish he’d done more, however. He had no clue what else he could’ve done, but to see Feofan in such a state…

He just hoped it wasn’t too late. With just a little more time, Zandik was sure his current formula would be perfected. With just a little more time, Feofan would make it.

The mechanical beeping droned on in the background, thankfully uninterrupted. Its very presence, however, implied it could stop at any time.

“He’ll make it through. He always does,” Zandik heard from beside him, Janani’s voice reaching his ears. He nodded.

He better survive, or else…

Well, there was no point lingering on undesirable hypotheticals.

Zandik shamelessly dragged a chair up next to Feofan’s bed, sitting down and waiting for him to wake up. He was distantly aware of a few doctors trying to push him away, but they quickly gave up, relenting and working around him instead.

“Zandik?” said a hoarse voice from beside him, immediately waking him up.

It had been a few hours since he’d first come here, and, sleep-deprived as he was, he’d ended up falling asleep, it seemed. Someone had put a small cover over him—Janani, probably.

Unconsciously, his hand went forward, grabbing Feofan’s own. It was slim and cold, with him easily able to feel the many bones and ligaments beneath the skin. The sensation, what it implied about his partner’s health, made something uncomfortable lurch in his stomach.

“Finally decided on coming to visit, mh?” Feofan teased. In normal circumstances, Zandik knew he would’ve at least smiled at the jab, but it was hard to find mirth in jokes when the voice speaking into existence sounded so tired. The loud machines all around, too, didn’t help with the auditive component of a humorous setting, what with how they were nearly drowning out Feofan’s words entirely.

“I was doing research,” he replied instead, slightly defensive. He thought they had gotten over this debate a while ago. Feofan had agreed to collaborate.

“Let’s not fight now, Zandik. It would be a waste of the time we have left. Of the time I have left, rather.”

“Stop speaking as if you were dying,” Zandik nearly growled back, unable to help himself. “You are not going to die, plain and simple. Stop thinking about it.”

Feofan scoffed, indignant, though all fight visibly left him as a coughing fit suddenly took over, only freeing him about a minute later, throat likely hoarse by now.

The sight, inevitably, had also made Zandik calm down, indignation at Feofan’s pessimistic opinion turning into worry.

With a sigh—one more theatrical than not; Zandik was pretty sure little to no air had actually been used for it—Feofan slowly brought a hand up, making sure not to detach any of the wires plugged into his arm, rubbing at his throat.

“See what I mean? I am dying, ‘plain and simple’, to reuse your wording.”

Zandik didn’t say anything for a moment, staring at his closest friend, his only friend, on what seemed more and more like his deathbed second after second.

“Why aren’t you fighting this?” he tried, unsure of what else to ask. To say. He was fairly confident he knew the answer already, and yet…

“Because there would be no point in doing so. Not any further than I already have.”

“Do you not trust me? I have something that I know will work, I just need a little more ti—”

“Of course I trust you. And I trust your work. The only reason I’m still alive is because of a formula you created.”

“Then why give up now? I don’t—We’re right there, Feofan, it’s barely a matter of days,” Zandik argued, desperation clinging to his voice, “I have a new formula almost ready, I just need to perfect it and figure out how to make the last part work.

Feofan went silent for a moment. Zandik knew him well enough to be aware that he would’ve turned to look away from him, had he been able to move his neck properly.

“I… don’t have a few days in me, Zandik. Don’t ask how, I just know. This is my body, after all, and the last time I started feeling like this, you had whatever miracle cure you created on hand,” he said, pausing as he took a breath.

Even talking seemed to exhaust him.

“I’m well beyond ‘starting to feel like this’, currently, and your miracle cure isn’t ready, this time around. I don’t see myself living beyond the end of the week.”

It was Wednesday.

Zandik had nothing to say. He stared at his partner, face blank. Why couldn’t he…

Feofan stared back, a weak smile on his lips, teary-eyed.

“Still, thank you for coming. I’ve missed you, these past few months. You’ve made yourself scarce.”

“I was researching,” Zandik replied neutrally, automatically. Feofan nodded.

“I know. I’m not blaming you for it, either, I just… I just wish I hadn’t spent most of my last days waiting in this room, doing nothing. We have a day or two to catch up, however, it’s not all bad.”

Zandik’s eyes slowly drifted from Feofan’s face, looking down at his own hands.

All this time he’d spent away from his partner, this time he’d invested into saving him, turned out useless. He’d left him here, alone, in this place they both viewed as a premature tomb, for months on end. Day after day, his condition had only gotten worse, and Zandik had only ignored an increasing quantity of his messages.

And now, he couldn’t even feel sad for him, let alone cry. He just felt cold. Numb.

He was inadvertently reminded of his childhood, then, thinking about how abnormal his reaction was.

Back then. Zandik was treated as an inhuman monster, unfeeling and uncaring, by those around him. Someone who one couldn’t rely on, because they were unpredictable and different. Feofan had been the first to see him for who he truly was, the human behind the layers of strangeness, unafraid of Zandik’s pointier edges.

He couldn’t help, in that moment, but feel like he’d been wrong, all the way back then. Like the human Feofan had seen behind the gaping maw and razor-sharp teeth had been nothing but an illusion, a lure. Like the people calling him monstrous were right all along.

For what human stayed cold in the face of a loved one’s death?

“Not all bad,” Zandik repeated mindlessly.

“I know, I know, you certainly disagree. Still, as I’ve said, I got used to the idea of death, over the years.”

Zandik stayed silent for a good minute or so, mulling the statement over in his head. Feofan had repeatedly told him he was fine with dying, but it still felt wrong—death was an end, nothing more.

“And you’re… happy?”

“I probably wouldn’t say happy, no, but I’m satisfied with this outcome. In no small part thanks to you, in fact. Before we met, I’d already gotten familiar with the idea that I’d die alone, so to have you here, by my side, it’s… well, it’s more than I ever expected I’d get, really. More than I ever thought to deserve.”

He paused for a moment, taking a breath as he brought his other hand to the one that was already holding onto Zandik’s.

“Plus, your experiments allowed me to live a normal life for, what, half a year? Those six months were the most joyous time of my life, and they allowed me to live a dream I thought I’d never get to live. I couldn’t be more satisfied.”

Zandik didn’t know what to say. He didn’t move, both of Feofan’s hands still holding his own.

The cold dread engulphing him tightened around his chest with every beep coming from the heart monitor, strangling him, as time passed.

“I know I said it before, but thank you, Zandik. For coming. For everything, really.”

“Why are you speaking as if you won’t make it through the night?”

“Because, for all I know, I won’t.”

Zandik woke up the next morning to find that, luckily, he did. Feofan’s hands, cold as they may have been, still held the distinct warmth of blood pulsing within.

He didn’t dare to wake him up, allowing Feofan the rest his body clearly needed, despite what his partner would’ve probably wanted. Instead, he discreetly slipped out of his grip, making sure not to interrupt his sleep, before returning to the research material he’d brought.

Zandik passively remembered dropping most of it on the ground, yesterday, when he’d first seen what state Feofan was in; he was also pretty sure at least one of his vials had shattered from the impact, considering the noise of broken glass that had initially silenced the room.

Someone had cleaned the mess up, of course, seeing as having glass shards scattered about in a room, let alone a hospital one, was a terrible idea. The meager amount of equipment Zandik had been able to carry stared at him from the top of a nearby drawer, the almost-ready concoction staying perfectly still in its vial, luckily unaffected by the fall thanks to the plug on top.

He had never felt so useless. So close to an answer, yet unable to find that last ingredient, that last step.

Zandik mindlessly tried option after option as he let his mind wander, which, inevitably, led back to the man laying in the bed beside him.

Feofan was… satisfied. By all of this.

The concept felt wrong, bouncing around in Zandik’s head as he tried to compute how such a conclusion was possible.

Even his initial hope, the one that his partner would die happy, was a silver lining far too thin to compensate for the horror of their predicament. To know, then, that even it wasn’t accomplished, and that he was instead merely satisfied, only fed the abyssal void clouding his every emotion.

It was unfair, plain and simple. Life didn’t care about fairness, he already knew, but he’d never seen its total neutrality doom someone in such a way before. Doom him, too, although indirectly.

Logically-speaking, he thought, all the while throwing yet another chemical component into the mixture, his best course of action from here would be to do just as Feofan had done. To come to terms with the inevitability of his partner’s fate, despite how much he dreaded doing so.

He tried, for a while. He went through every fact about the situation step by step, letting logic guide his way the entire time, and though the final result was obvious, he still couldn’t manage to see the logic through. Not for a good reason, no; for a selfish one, rather, one which truly had no grounds to be mentioned in a rationalization of the inevitable, and yet one which Zandik couldn’t manage to remove.

Feofan had said they would try.

They had done so, yes, but to give up right before the finish line, despite how unbeatable the odds seemed, wasn’t that simply giving up? He supposed it had to do with how vague their combined promise was, what with how the act of ‘trying’ hadn’t been given a quantifier, yet Zandik couldn’t help but feel like accepting this fate was no different from giving up.

Feofan woke up with an intense coughing fit, one that only began to alleviate after Janani rushed in with some water.

Knowing that it was what his partner would want, Zandik let go of his current attempt, returning to Feofan’s side and falling back into meaningless chatter, as if nothing was wrong.

Later, after much deliberation with himself, Zandik gave in and spoke.

“Do you remember your promise?"

Feofan looked at him curiously, tilting his head to the side. The movement was much less lively than Zandik was used to seeing it, yet it still thawed the glacial cold within, if only for a moment.

“The one about trying to save me, yes. Is this your way of accusing me of going back on it?”

Feofan had always understood him so well, looking back.

He nodded.

“Well, beyond the fact neither of us had offered any specific parameters as to what ‘trying’ meant, I could say the feeling is shared. While I do not mind you thinking I broke my promise, I’d prefer if we moved on to ano—”

“You could say the feeling is shared,” Zandik echoed, confused, before continuing, “What do you mean?”

“While it hadn’t been the intention, at the time, I thought a lot about the usage of ‘we’ in that promise, during the months you left me behind. ‘We’ didn’t really try, you did, and I barely even got to watch you do so, despite only wishing to have a friend by my side during my last few months. Just as I don’t blame you for feeling like I broke our promise, I hope you don’t blame me for feeling like you broke it as well.”

Zandik didn’t reply, though he also didn’t leave.

He grabbed Feofan’s hand into his own, silently sitting there beside him as the emptiness within grew.

Right after midnight, Friday morning, Zandik was woken up by loud, obnoxious beeping that filled the room. It was different from the heart monitor’s repetitive noises, sounding much closer to an emergency alarm.

Feofan, too, was awake. Zandik doubted the alarm had been the thing to wake him up, however.

He was sitting up in his bed, coughing loudly into nothing. Splashes of something—Zandik couldn’t tell, the lights were too dim—were launched forward onto his bedsheets with every hack of his throat, his own hand held up to his throat as if struggling to breathe.

Zandik, panicking, forced himself past the inertia of having just woken up and rushed forward, hammering the ‘help’ button by Feofan’s side. The action soon revealed itself to be useless, as doctors came rushing into the room seconds later, far too quickly to have truly been called over by the button.

The beeping alarms had likely sent a warning of their own.

An urgent one, clearly, going by how panicked the people rushing into the room seemed. In fact, their faces made Zandik’s own panic feel tame in comparison.

Something was wrong.

When a doctor put a firm hand against his shoulder and pressed relatively hard, Zandik didn’t dare stay in the way, lest he stop them from properly doing their job. He reluctantly let go of Feofan’s hand and stepped back, the spot where he’d been quickly filled out by a new machine, one which was immediately plugged into his partner.

He saw Zaman standing in the corner in the room, watching the chaos go down. Zandik had never been the best at reading his expression, but it was clear something was wrong.

Not that the many alarms hadn’t already informed him of that, of course. Zandik had simply been hoping it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

The cold feeling within grew as he remembered Feofan’s words from two days ago, the ones about how he didn’t think he’d make it through the week.

A few minutes later, when the sudden spew of doctors backed off, supposedly satisfied with their work, Zandik got to have a look at Feofan once more.

He immediately noticed the oxygen mask newly placed over Feofan’s nose and mouth, freezing in place.

Zandik distantly registered how the doctors left the room, as well as how one stayed behind for a bit to talk with Zaman before her, too, leaving. The only people left in the room were himself, Feofan and Zaman, with Janani entering a few minutes later.

Still, Zandik couldn’t bring himself to move. It felt as if the cold within had frozen his limbs solid, stopping him from moving. Whether he wished to grab Feofan’s hand once more or leave the room, he had no clue.

In the end, Feofan was the one to ‘unfreeze’ him, in a sense. Despite the mask over his mouth, he managed to speak loud enough for Zandik to hear, if only as a nearly inaudible whisper from such a distance.

“Zandik. Come.”

Zandik’s legs moved forward on their own, sitting him back down next to his partner. Feofan motioned for him to grab his hand, and he did.

“Finally. I’ve been trying to call you over since they left.”

“I didn’t hear,” Zandik replied, unsure of what else to say.

“I assumed so, yes.”

They stayed silent for a short time, before Feofan started coughing again, his hand clenching around Zandik’s. Once he’d stopped, he turned his neck to the side.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Well, as fine as a dying person can be.”

“So you’re dying,” Zandik asked, though it ended up sounding more like a statement than anything else. Feofan’s face shifted into a downcast smile.

“We both know I am. We have both known this for a while.”

“We have,” he acknowledged.

“Then why do you still look so…”

Feofan trailed off, but Zandik understood all the same.

“You shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. Had I been more efficient in my research, or had I not relented when everything seemed fine, you would’ve—”

“This is not your fault,” Feofan interrupted him, using an off-putting tone of voice Zandik wasn’t sure he’d heard him speaking with before.

“Isn’t it?” he asked, entirely genuine. The cold within thawed just enough, in that moment, to allow what he could only describe as sheer sorrow to course through him.

Feofan shook his head.

“I have always been doomed, Zandik, there is nothing you could’ve done. In fact, you’ve already done more for me and my health than I had ever thought possible.”

“I don’t exactly care about facts, currently, I must admit. You’re about to die, Feofan. You’re going to die and I could’ve done something to help.”

“If you truly want to see it that way, feel free. Know that I disagree, however.”

“Your disagreement is noted.”

“And promptly discarded, I assume?”

“Of course,” Zandik nodded, before the smile on his face—of which he just realized the presence—turned back into a frown. Feofan, noticing this, clenched around his hand a little tighter.

“You’ve been a wonderful friend, all these years, Zandik. I know partners aren’t supposed to abandon each other, but you’ll have to pardon me, this time. You already have, in a sense, back when I got hospitalized full-time, but that one was much less…”

“Permanent,” Zandik completed. Feofan smiled.

“Exactly. Permanent.”

A moment passed.

“...I’ll miss you,” Zandik admitted. Despite just how much they knew about each other, and despite how much they had gone through together, they still very rarely talked about their feelings.

The death of his partner seemed like justification enough to break the status quo.

“It might sound cruel to say,” Feofan began, “but I am more so glad that you will, rather than sorry you’ll have to live with the grief. Being remembered by loved ones, as mundane as it might sound, was a dream of mine, at one point. It still is, although much less intensely than before.”

“What changed?”

“You,” Feofan replied, smiling in his direction, “Or rather, ‘you’ coming into my life. You were the first person who cared for me out of your own volition, as well as the last person since. Thanks to you, I got to experience what it felt like to be wanted. That, among other things, is something I will be grateful about until my last breath.”

“Your last breath is coming too soon for that statement to have any profound meaning,” Zandik pointed out, ignoring the pang of grief aching in his chest from acknowledging such a fact.

“Dark humor is a wonderful thing, wouldn’t you say?”

They continued talking for a few hours, going from mindless banter to reminiscing about the days of their youth. Zandik ended up switching to the other side of the bed, opening the blinds for them both to watch the stars together.

When Feofan closed his eyes for the final time, the telltale sound of a flatlining heart filling the air, he did so with a smile on his face.

Five hours after midnight, Friday morning, Feofan died.

Notes:

And so, the cold abyss fully thawed, tears forming within Zandik’s eyes for the first time in as long as he could remember.

No.

In a single moment, incomprehensibly, the intense sorrow washing over him shifted into this estranged feeling. For the third time in his life, this all-encompassing sensation of sheer refusal overtook him, guiding his hands before he could tell what was happening.

Feofan would die. Feofan was dead. His heart had stopped beating.

And yet, his brain wasn’t gone quite yet. He still had time.

His partner had helped him to accept the fact that he would die, sure, but that didn’t mean Zandik had to give up. He’d accomplished a miracle once; what stopped him from doing it yet again?

Probability. Logic. Most importantly, however, was himself.

If he didn’t try, then failure, death, loss, was the only possible outcome.

Barely cognizant of the many doctors that had rushed into the room, likely called over by Zaman and Janani, Zandik walked directly over to where he’d left his research equipment, pushing past the few people, obstacles, that blocked the way there.

He had tried every obvious solution. He had tried every plausible solution. Hell, he had tried many unlikely ones, even, although unable to try them all from the sheer quantity of them.

Hence, continuing with his nearly-completed solution might’ve been a red herring of sorts. If no single ingredient or step he’d tried could fill out the metaphorical hole in his method, then there was a chance for said extra addition not to exist in the first place.

With a bit of bitterness—although much less than it would’ve probably been, had he been in a normal state of mind—he flipped most of his vials over, watching the product of months, if not years of work end up seeping between the cracks in the floor.

Zandik took a bunch of entirely new chemicals, opening every drawer in the room and grabbing everything he could reach that vaguely seemed able to help.

In the span of the next few minutes, Zandik fought against doctors trying to stop him, passively noticing Janani and Zaman helping him do so, as he committed what could only be described as multiple instances of medical malpractice, mixing various chemicals together without protection in the desperate hope of doing something to help his partner.

He ended up with a few concoctions, none of which he felt confident would actually work, yet, desperate, he rushed past the doctors once more, unceremoniously getting them inside of Feofan’s veins, be it through a needle he’d found nearby or by directly pouring it inside of Feofan’s IV bag.

Zandik knew he had likely broken nearly every rule of safe medicine with his actions, but he couldn’t have cared any less. He was no doctor; he only wished to save his friend. Seeing as said friend was dying on the nearby hospital bed, the blood he’d coughed up earlier already beginning to turn dark brown against the white sheets covering him, medical malpractice was the least of his worries.

The moment Zandik stopped moving, having successfully done all he could, he was slammed against the ground by various doctors, who suddenly looked very relieved they had managed to ‘stop’ him in his rampage.

He couldn’t care any less. Feofan was already dead, after all.

Feofan was… dead. He’d died.

He was gone.

For the first time in forever, Zandik cried, tears streaming down his face.

And when the heartbeat monitor’s droning beep suddenly stopped, shifting back into a rhythmic, although slow, beating, he continued crying, this time for the completely opposite reason.

Feofan sighed, placing the phone Zandik had bought him back in his pocket. To his chagrin at the idea of letting his partner win, it was indeed quite useful, though it ended up inevitably tainted by the memories of his ‘last few months alive’ spent waiting around in a hospital bed with nothing to do.

He couldn’t help but find the situation hilarious, looking back. Leave it to Zandik, one so commonly seen as an unfeeling monster in his youth, to defy fate twice over for the sake of a loved one’s continued survival.

Although Zandik’s last gambit had been unbelievably risky, going off of what he’d heard about it from Zaman,

Inevitably, Feofan felt quite touched to be deemed worthy of such efforts. Still, being as close as he was with Zandik also meant being involved with… well, all of him.

Feofan watched as he walked through the hospital’s front door, carrying a few boxes in his arms—he’d volunteered to grab the personal items Feofan had kept in his rooms, likely to snoop within and satisfy his curiosity. He didn’t mind.

“You don’t have a lot of things.”

“How could I?” Feofan replied, shrugging, “Most of these are either stuff I had before being hospitalized long-term, stuff from when we were living together or various trinkets you brought me over the years.”

Although Zandik didn’t reply, Feofan could tell his expression meant something along the lines of ‘I am well aware of that.’

“Say, did you end up getting banned from the hospital?”

Zandik nodded.

“Janani made sure I would still be allowed inside as a patient, in case of an emergency. I am not, however, allowed to go inside as long as I’m still conscious and breathing properly, even as a visitor.”

Feofan snorted.

“Good thing I won’t have to go back there for the next nineteen years, then.”

“I still would’ve preferred for the cure to work entirely. Also, nineteen years is the hopeful estimate, it’ll likely be a few years less. ”

“Good thing a certain somebody helped me have hope again, then. You have nineteen years to figure something out, you’ll manage.”

Zandik sighed beside him as Feofan stared up at the night sky, smiling. He was glad he’d get to enjoy this view for the many years to come.

Still, it was getting quite late, and he hadn’t magically obtained a house while flatlining in the hospital.

“I hate to have to ask this of you, but would you mind us living together for a while longer?”

Zandik rolled his eyes, not saying anything. Feofan understood the gesture.

The answer was, after all, quite obvious.