The days were hard. Sullen. Tiring. Till hated all of it, really—they didn’t even have jobs! They didn’t even need them! He’d say they were pawns in a chessboard, but at least pawn would have something to do, could be useful. He doesn’t understand why he isn’t allowed to stay in his room all day, why the aliens so badly want to drag him out of the only place he could be safe just to get into another fight.

So the aliens hate him, and so do the humans. Who doesn’t hate him?

He thought everyone hated him, anyway.

One day, he got in a fight to protect someone from an alien. He nearly died, of course; Till had nothing on an alien who was twice his size, but the other human was innocent. He couldn’t let that just happen. From then onward, he started to talk to the other more. At first just innocent friends, but at some point some words came out of his mouth and all of a sudden, the dull life of being a human in a crapsack world seemed much better.

He still agreed with himself, of course. Till would prefer to be in his room all day, away from aliens and dangers, but now there’s another reason, because apparently he had been missing out on something called affection his whole life.

Laying in his bed, Till stayed as close as he physically could to his partner—arms and legs wrapped around the other, face tucked against his partners neck, chest to back. "I won’t let them get to you, I promise," Till murmured, one of the rarer occasions of him being genuine. In conversation, anyway. He was a genuine, emotional man, and a very quiet, angry looking one at that.