“…and I can feel my body eroding.”

What torment would it be, to watch your partner and lover slowly dying before your very eyes?

To be helpless as he lays weak and sallow-faced in a hospital bed when the doctors tell you that there is nothing you can do. Nothing that anyone can do.

To hold him that night as he cries softly against you. Afraid. In pain. Always in pain.

A nagging, bone-deep ache in his hips and lower back, radiating down through his crippled leg on good days. On bad days, during flare-ups, he’s bedridden and feverish, unable to move without inducing a fresh throb of agony. Coughing fits wrack his ever-thinning frame, bringing bubbling blood to his pale lips as he struggles for breath and his back brace welds itself further into his spine.

It can only be called cruel, this life that must end in death.

You throw yourself into your work as a doctor and he into his work as a scientist, racing against a ticking clock to search for a cure, for a miracle, anything that might prolong Viktor’s suffering so that you don’t have to say goodbye yet. It’s selfish, and you know it.

But you’ve stopped caring, even as he begs you to just put down your papers and chalk and come lay down beside him. He’s so cold, always so cold, and you’re so warm and he craves your touch.

”It is late,” he says weakly, his voice rasping. His Fissure accent is always something that you have found to be beautiful. “Let us go and get some rest?”

You glance up from your equations and notes. “Go lay down. I will be finish up soon and join you.”

He has to choke back a broken whine at your dismissal. His hand finds yours, gently intertwining your fingers. “Please?”

You pull your hand away stubbornly. Trying to ignore the hurt that flashes in his sweet golden eyes.

He stands there, leaning heavily on his cane. It is not a good day. The pain is worse. It always seems to be getting worse, and he is so feeble tonight that he has to lock his knees just to remain upright. His vision is blurry with fatigue.

“Please,” he repeats softly. He sounds so very exhausted. So very alone.