Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dan’s been having nightmares again.

Herbert used to have a protocol for these things, the year following the Miskatonic Massacre. Were it four years ago, Herbert would stride upstairs with a warm drink and an orange pill bottle. Were it four years ago, Dan would already have the door open, bed sheets wrapped around himself, sitting in a rather pathetic pile on the floor. Were it four years ago, Herbert would sit next to Dan, half-listen to a strangled, interrupted recounting of whatever montage Dan’s brain had created, and then send him off to sleep again, this time with the aid of modern medicine.

But now? Now, things with Dan are on shaky ground. Herbert doesn’t know what exactly he should do about Dan, frankly. He tries not to be resentful about Dan leaving him behind in the collapse. It was sudden, yes. Dan was not in his right mind, maybe. Herbert is capable and tough to kill, besides, something that Dan has seen the evidence of. It was not necessarily cruel to leave him be; it’s not like Herbert has ever responded well to Dan’s occasional bouts of mother-henning or so-called good advice. All valid reasons to not have prioritized Herbert, for sure. But Dan hasn’t even tried to offer any of them. He’s been courteous and collegial for the past few months, yes, acting like nothing’s wrong, but it’s started grating on Herbert. Not like him trying to help Dan was ever appreciated, either. He’s been doing so much to keep Dan around, but now, he’s starting to admit that maybe it wasn’t entirely motivated by rational reasons.

So Herbert will stay in the lab. It’s still in the basement, but there’s no longer the luxury of square footage, no double-doors, no built-in cooling table. It’s just a regular basement, probably used to store potatoes or coal by the previous owners. The house has its advantages, though. Even if they’re currently presumed dead by the authorities, and there’s no clear charges against them, Herbert is glad to be so close to the Canadian border, just in case. The house is also far enough from the town limits that they’re not disturbed nor do they disturb the locals, but simultaneously close enough that the commute to work is not outrageous.

They still work together, in the clinic at least. They have new identities, shiny and unimpeachable. Herbert knows how to build a rock-solid alibi. For example, were Dan to ask why Herbert hasn’t gone up to check on him, Herbert would say that he’s trying to brew the re-agent on limited resources, so it’s a bit more of an involved process, and then sniff to imply that the country clinic they’re working at is not up to the level that he’s grown used to at university hospitals. He’s not going to ask, Herbert doesn’t think, but it’s good to be prepared. It’s good to know what’s coming.

Dan’s rejection of the bride has blindsided him. The tissue rejection, well, to a lesser degree. Herbert hardly expected the bride to be a long-term solution when he proposed her. He was scrambling for damage control after Dan’s moving-out declaration, and, so, the idea hatched. In retrospect-- Well. Perhaps the less that Herbert says about the mess, the better. The whole affair makes embarrassment slink into the marrow of his bones, stilts his movements. The bride--or Meg, or Gloria, or all the other pretty, braindead things that would keep Dan’s attention-- was bound to fall apart eventually, Herbert thinks. That’s what happens when you don’t know who you are and exist only to fulfill other people. But she would have fallen apart gradually; residual consciousnesses fighting against each other, struggling for dominance, limbs going sick and withering. He could work with it, replacing them as needed. Either with Dan’s help, obtained by playing into the pity he must’ve felt, or without, most likely in secret. Not like Dan would have noticed his new girlfriend having a slightly different hand or foot, not when he went through women quicker than Herbert did through white shirts.

Herbert felt like one of those discarded shirts while he was trapped under the rubble of the crypt, torn and bloodied and deemed garbage. Over the years, he has clearly twisted the professional relationship he and Dan had had into something delusional. He won’t take on the entire burden of poor judgement. Yes, he has mismanaged his expectations, overvalued his place. He can take responsibility for that. But he feels as though to lay the entirety of the blame at his feet would be unjust. Dan is not a subtle man. There are socially agreed-upon signals which designate these things. They are evolutionary advantageous, as humans are social animals. Discord over such misunderstandings would have sent humanity the way of the dodo, were it not for them.

Anyways, the new house is only one level, not counting the basement and a tiny, steep-roofed attic, so Herbert can hear Dan screaming. He’s doing this new thing, though, called non-intervention. Dan’s made it clear that he doesn’t want him in his life, at least not in any meaningful capacity. Fine. Herbert has enough dignity to not beg for scraps. Sometimes, fiddling with a wound will just leave it infected. Sometimes, it’s better to cauterize. Amputate, even, if necessary.

He’s prepared to do it. Leave, that is. He was going to, actually, once he had crawled his way out from underneath the collapsed tomb. Dan was still on the lawn, shivering in his dirt-streaked shirt, shining in the moonlight like bones risen to the surface of a shallow grave. He was staring blankly ahead. Herbert noted that while Dan had been ready to discard him as quickly as his women ---Meg being replaced by an array of short-term flings, short-term flings being replaced by Francesca in Peru, Francesca being replaced by Gloria, Gloria being replaced by a projection of Meg, and then, ultimately, by Francesca again--- with Herbert, he had not made even the placating attempt at help.

So while Herbert gathered what he could from the wreckage, half-delirious and bruised to all hell, he seethed. He made a plan while he packed the car, perfected it while he spread accelerant around the house. Once the blaze got going, Herbert was going to slide into the driver’s seat of Dan’s car and leave, but Dan was already there, turning his wet eyes on him, asking where they were going.

Herbert hates that he still loves him.

He loves Dan enough to get both of them new identities and to buy a shitty house in the middle of nowhere on the knuckle of Michigan’s thumb. He loves Dan enough to show up to  the job that Dan has found them. He does not love Dan enough to stay and wear that love around his neck like a yoke.

There are places he could go. Back to Canada, back to Zurich, back to New York. New places, further West ---he’s never crossed the Mississippi--- or maybe down South, hit Mexico. Maybe find a new place, somewhere secluded enough to not be bothered but still close enough to a population big enough to support his experiments. There would be other research assistants. There must be, he knows, and if not, even solitude is preferable over disloyalty.

The hatch to the basement opens, hinges squeaking. The stairs creak under heavy, dragging footsteps. Dan slinks into Herbert’s field of vision like a ghost, pale veil of bedsheet included, and settles himself at the base of Herbert’s workbench. It’s extremely unsafe lab practice, given that at least half of the substances that Herbert is working with can seep into the nervous system via skin contact and that there’s an open flame going on an unsecured Bunsen burner. Herbert steps around him to get to the spice rack he’s picked up at some garage sale, spinning a tale of moving in with his recently bereaved friend and hoping that a spice rack would remind said friend of his late wife’s cooking to get it for next to nothing. Besides, even if the story would never get back to Dan, Herbert in the moment was still stiff with bruising, and thus, he felt like spreading gossip was the appropriate punishment. The spice rack now holds chemical components.

Dan’s hand closes around Herbert’s ankle like a shackle. Not pulling, not tripping, just holding. Warm but trembling.

“I had a nightmare,” Dan says. His voice is hollow. The eyes that look up at Herbert are hollow, too. Herbert refuses to let himself be manipulated by the display ever again, and so, he shakes off Dan’s hand, and goes about his business. “It was about her. Asking me what I want, over and over again.”

Before, her would have meant Meg. Now, Herbert can put together the context clues, figure out that Dan means their girl.

“You wanted to bring her to life,” Herbert reminds Dan, gathering the necessary compounds. They clink together in his grip like ice in a glass. “It was hardly a spur of the moment decision.”

Dan doesn’t respond. He’s still curled up beneath his bedsheet. Herbert kind of wants to guide him towards the incinerator, burning the botched reanimation of roadkill. It turns out, none of the elements of the reagent can be skimped out on to achieve anything beyond a partial reanimation. It’s unpleasant, but it’s warmer there. The concrete of the basement can’t feel good, not with the first snap of winter already settling in.  

“She was so upset, Herbert,” Dan says. “I feel like I ruined her life.”

He doesn’t know which she Dan is talking about. He supposes it doesn’t matter.

“Hardly,” Herbert dismisses. He refuses to shoulder the blame for this, too-- anything that Dan could find himself guilty for, he usually found a way to put at Herbert’s feet, the worst kind of hunting dog. “She was dead already. No life to ruin, is there?”

“But she wasn’t,” Dan argues, something like conviction bleeding into his tone. He’s once again trying to grab at Herbert, but he’s still half asleep, so Herbert can slip out the leg of his pants easily. He moves to the other end of the bench, out of reach. “She wasn’t dead, Herbert. She was alive. She wanted me, and, well---”

Dan’s head thunks against the bench. He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“You didn’t want her,” Herbert summarizes, re-assembling the set-up. “I hardly think this is the first time you’ve had this happen to you.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees, tone low. “But I should have wanted her, no? We put so much work into her. Days of meticulous stitching, matching up blood vessels, arteries, the joints. I risked it all for her. God, Herbert, we both almost died because of her, almost got sent to prison. It was insane.”

“Well, you were never good at figuring out what you want, were you?” Herbert snarks. “You’re hardly known for your ability to commit.”

Herbert mixes the troponin in. His setup is crude. He’s not sure if this batch will be any better than hooking up a body to a car battery, letting galvanism take it for a spastic tango, but he can’t wait around anymore. His hands itch for work. He doesn’t know if he can do good work here, but he’s going to try.

“You should go back to sleep,” Herbert advises. “I need to work.”

Dan gives him a wounded look, wraps himself up tighter, but does leave. Herbert largely succeeds at not missing his presence.

***

The clinic is in the heart of town, in a building Dan described as charming and quaint, opposite town hall. Herbert was reasonable with their new identities ---only so many people were qualified as specialized surgeons, two appearing in the middle of nowhere would certainly raise eyebrows--- so they’re a neurologist and a cardiologist, perfectly suited to a town with an aging population, rife with degenerative disease and heart attacks. The work they do is almost menial. Herbert administers cognitive tests, fills out referrals. Dan refills blood pressure medication and tells people to quit smoking. They haven’t stepped foot in an OR in four months, a ticking that Herbert is as aware of as the fact that his last dose of the reagent was almost as long ago.

Their offices are on the opposite sides of the hallway. Herbert’s never had an office before, Miskatonic reserving those for attendings only and having the rest of the staff rotate. Whenever they’re between patients, Dan keeps the door of his office open. Herbert can see his silhouette behind his desk, backlit by the sodium-orange streetlight right in front of his window for most of the day, with the hours growing shorter. His hair and hands almost glow copper with it, but his face is a dark void. He’ll ruin his eyesight like this, working in the din, but Herbert is not interfering.

He ought not be obliged to watch it, though. But should Herbert try to close his for some privacy to get to actual work, pocketing any drug or implement that might come useful that is, or to simply get a reprieve from Dan’s shadow, Dan will appear, knocking politely, wedging his foot in the door. He doesn’t say anything, just gives Herbert a long, wounded look, and leaves, the door still open. Herbert can’t see it, not with the way the light folds, but he feels Dan’s gaze on him from across the hall, unwavering.

Dan has been doing a lot of that. Watching. It makes the muscles in Herbert’s neck spasm. Dan’s gaze is the buzzing of light bulbs, the shifting of atmospheric pressure, a care instruction tag against ribs. Herbert can’t shake it, can’t get away from it, really. He can feel it across the hall, through the brick walls of their home, across town. Were it not for the fact that he sees Dan interact with other people, treat patients and make small talk around town, Herbert would consider the fact that Dan has never dug his way out of the crypt, that whatever lingered in his home was just a trick of the anemic winter light, bouncing back from the snow, cast into the shape of a man by longing. Sometimes, Dan’s tongue unsticks from the roof of his mouth with a click, jaw and throat working, ligaments and tendons and bones shifting like pistons in a revving engine, and Herbert finds himself paralyzed, the clamp on his neck spreading like the warmth around his scarf, until it forms a chokehold. Herbert is stuck between fear and hungry anticipation, trembling, wishing that for once, Dan would explicate. Neither of them ends up speaking.

Three weeks before Christmas, a camping bed appears in the lab.

“You cannot sleep here,” Herbert objects, reasonably.

There are reasons why, good reasons, rational reasons. None of them will pass through his throat. He must send Dan away, this is a bridge too far. Dan’s taken to sitting by the bench while Herbert worked, blanket wrapped around himself, head tilted back, soaking into the concrete floor like an oil spill. Herbert doesn’t speak to him while he works. Any narration he does is for the tapes. But a camping bed? No. The lab is Herbert’s, and so is everything in it. Dan is not Herbert’s, therefore he does not belong in the lab, not on any permanent basis. Herbert won’t let Dan seep into his things, not like mold, with roots too deep and untraceable to eradicate upon moving.

Dan looks up. In the fluorescent light of the basement, the thin skin under his eyes is blue. His sclera are ever pinker for the contrast, delicate reddish spiderwebs of capillaries around his nose. He looks like he’s been crying, but Herbert hasn’t heard anything. Maybe the cold is getting to him. Maybe that’s why the bed is here. But no, Dan’s still on the ground. Maybe it’s some sort of self-flagellating penance, curdled dregs of Dan’s faith rising to the top once again.

“Let me help with the work, Herbert,” Dan rasps. “Let me.”

Herbert reels, thinks about bringing the bride to life, Dan’s focus all on him, the syringe rolling off and shattering after. He wants to say no, but, well, why is he still here, then? What other reason could he give, should Dan ask, that he’s still here, still at the miserable clinic, in the miserable house, bleeding himself to death one thimble at a time? Herbert clenches his fists so his hands don’t shake.

“I have never stopped you from working,” Herbert says. “You were the one who stopped showing up.”

Dan hangs his head. His hair is getting long, long enough to breach some imagined standard of professionalism that still rattles around Herbert’s brain. It curls around his nape, parts around the knob of his spine. Herbert smothers the instinct to poke at the jut of the bone.

“Gloria---Meg---” Dan hesitates, stumbles over the names, drops another few. He’s muttering the litany into his knees, going down every part he can name, stuck in some cycle. Herbert watches, mute, until Dan’s head snaps back. “Her. She was a mistake, Herbert.”

“If you feel this way,” Herbert sniffs. Yes, clearly, she was a mistake. A bad gift. Well, Herbert hadn’t kept the receipt, he’s sorry to say. “Were I to approach it again, yes, there are things I would have done differently.”

“I couldn’t love her,” Dan continues, ignoring Herbert’s words. He’s speaking slowly, chewing the words, really, or maybe the reverse: hacking them up how a cat does a hairball. Spastic. He’s not thinking about the bride as an experiment, a great work. The girl was a failure because he couldn’t love her, no other reason. Does this make Herbert a failure, too? “You know, I keep on seeing her. I think. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s her face I’m seeing. For a moment there, I really did think she was Meg.”

Herbert scoffs. He sincerely doubts that. Dan has a naive streak, that is true enough, but he has enough soberness in himself to balance it out, settle somewhere around optimistic caution. He sees the details that Herbert might miss in the rush of an experiment, tempers Herbert’s hastiness, steadies his hands. When Herbert gets caught up in the work, everything else falls away, fat trimmed and flesh rotting off till the bone-white facts of the matter are all that’s left. In science, there’s no opinion, no haziness, and Herbert can see the goal, shimmering on the horizon, a miniature to be plucked in a promethean theft. Dan is here to remind him about the liver-hungry eagles.

“I did,” Dan repeats. His voice wobbles, head hanging again. He sniffs. “She loved me, Herbert, so much--- I don’t know what to do with that.”

“I suppose everyone who loves you could be mistaken for Miss Halsey, then,” Herbert interpolates. “Or any woman, really, given your track record. Did you think Francesca was Meg, too?”

Dan sobs. The sound cracks across the room like an ice floe chipping open, bad enough to startle Herbert. The beaker he was holding shatters on the floor, crystalline shards flying across the concrete, glittering in the light. Herbert swears, rushes to get the broom. At least it was empty, he thinks, no materials wasted. He tries to wrestle the handle from the bucket of tools, but it keeps on getting caught on the shovel, or on the baseball bat, or god-knows what else Herbert has shoved in there. Dan would usually tidy the tools, keep them ready. It finally breaks free with a clamor, Herbert stumbling a few steps back. He twists around, ready to fix at least this mistake, but Dan’s already there, plucking out the biggest pieces, shoulders still shaking with sobs.

“Dan--” The call breaks out of Herbert on instinct, before he can remember the non-intervention policy. Well, he’s already broken the rule, so might as well go for it.

Herbert crouches next to Dan, at an angle, so the glass is still plainly visible. He tsks at Dan, scrapes the dustpan across the concrete until it’s below Dan’s cupped hands. Dan won’t let go, instead curling in tighter, wailing, until the glass bites into flesh, sending a rivulet of blood dripping down.

“Drop it,” Herbert says. “Come on. Dan, drop it, you’re hurting yourself.”

Dan is shaking his head, muttering something. The words are too low to be comprehensible though; maybe it’s another of Dan’s litanies. An irritated sigh hisses out of Herbert. He can’t help with this. He starts sweeping the rest of the glass up.

“Why couldn’t I have just loved her, Herbert?” Dan asks. “The only thing we’ve ever made that did not hate us. Oh, god. She did not deserve this. I’m sorry.”

“My creations didn’t hate me,” Herbert protests, sweeping around Dan’s sprawled legs. “The mutt you brought from Peru was more amicable post-reanimation. And the eye-puppy didn’t point any accusing fingers at me.”

There are probably other examples, but nothing else comes to Herbert. Hill hated him, certainly, but Hill already hated Herbert when he was alive. Herbert is pretty sure that Hill would have hated him no matter what, given Herbert’s association with Gruber. The cop hated the two of them long before he ever had a good reason to. Halsey. Truthfully, the fact that the reanimated were able to retain the hate from when they were alive was a win in Herbert’s opinion, proof of higher consciousness returning, even if in the form of moth-eaten memories and flashes of feelings. Herbert doesn’t want an obedient army anyways, not like Hill did, so what does it matter if the reanimates hate him? Plenty of alive people hate him, too. It’s never stopped him before.

“I need the work to do something good,” Dan pleads. “Not just succeed, not make another monster. I want to help. Let me work with you, Herbert.”

He looks completely deranged like this, snotty and red-eyed. Herbert feels tired and worn-out. What can he possibly say? Dan’s no good as an assistant now, anyways. He needs steady hands, a cool mind, the drive of ambition. Not apologies, not tears, not a childish temper tantrum. Yes, he’s seen Dan half-gone before, right after Meg died: blind-drunk, raging at shadows, hyperventilating through sobs. He’s always assumed that Dan wanted him to do something about it, that maybe, if Herbert figured out the right solution to the puzzle, Dan would stay. He no longer has the luxury of deluding himself so.

“Let go of the glass, Danny,” Herbert sighs.

Herbert crouches down again, trying to catch Dan’s eyes. Getting Dan to unfurl his fists without hurting him is like untangling a knot of Christmas lights, but his hands are warm, pleasantly human. Herbert can pry his fingers open one by one without the worry of snapping the rigidity of rigor mortis. Dan’s nails are trimmed short and clean, so they just scrabble uselessly at Herbert without much conviction, finally curling into Herbert’s palms, like some remnant of an infant’s instinct to grab.

The glass clinks in the dustpan.

“I don’t think you want to work, Danny,” Herbert says, tone low. “Not in any real sense, that is. You want to assuage your own guilt. That’s not the same thing. I can’t help you with that. The work can’t help you with that. I need an assistant, not an atoner.”

“I still believe,” Dan says wetly. He clears his throat, untangles his hands enough to wipe at his eyes, then nose, leaves a bloody smudge there. “I still believe in the work. I still believe in you.”

He sways into Herbert’s shoulder, puts his chin on the jut of the bone. Herbert closes his eyes. He shouldn’t have reacted. He should have let Dan do as he wished. Nothing good ever came from Herbert trying to guide him, has there? Dan would always do as he wished, come up with a justification post-fact. But now, Herbert has kicked off a pebble with the graceless yelp, and so, an avalanche will follow. He can’t cut himself off now.

“Science is not a religion,” Herbert disagrees. He will not dislodge Dan, that much he knows. He can’t. He doesn’t want to, which is more important perhaps. He sits on the cold concrete, wraps an arm around Dan’s shoulder to bring him closer. The closeness strangles him, makes the yoke close up. Dan is unbearably alive under his arm, warm and shaking, breathing, sweating. Herbert can hear his sniffling, the occasional aborted sob. It’s too close; he can’t make his words swell with self-righteousness, can’t thunder down from an imaginary pulpit. “Faith is not enough. Changing the address of your prayers from god to a nebulous medical science won’t make them more effective. I won’t give you absolution.”

Herbert swallows, rights his glasses. Detangling himself is painful, stiff limbs protesting. But the glass needs to be taken care of. He needs to finish brewing the reagent, hoping that this version comes close to what he had. He can’t fix this. He doesn’t even know if he wants to, anymore. Maybe Dan is just incompatible with the work, better suited to be a country doctor filling out prescriptions and giving out brave patient stickers. There are worse things to be. It’s not disgraceful to try to plug a leak. Palliative care has its uses, as does prevention. One can eke out a nice life like this, feed the ego through a thousand tiny swallows, decorate the cage of mundanity with everyday accomplishments.

But Herbert can’t starve himself like this.

***

In the morning, Dan brings him coffee and a bowl of sugary cereal. His eyes are unsure, shifting around Herbert’s room aimlessly. Herbert hasn’t decorated. He already had to get everything new: scratchy sheets to actually sleep in for once, new clothes off the rack, not tailored and snug just the way he liked, cheap plywood furniture. It’s sparse, maybe, but it does its job. This time, if Herbert has to burn it all down, there won’t be anything to miss.

“I moved the bed back,” Dan says, passing Herbert the cereal. He seems faintly embarrassed about the whole affair as he settles on the edge of the bed, hands fidgeting with the mug. There’s a bandage across his right palm, self-adhesive and wide. At least he can still perform basic first aid. “It was stupid, you’re right.”

“I tend to be,” Herbert says between the bites of food, managing to even sneak some shrewdness into it. He misses being on the reagent, the lack of a sucking pit in his stomach that appears after a couple hours, but this is calorie dense, and enriched. Calcium, vitamin C, god knows what else. At first, his bruising after the collapse wouldn’t heal, scratches still bleeding sluggishly. He had apparently given himself scurvy. “Thanks for breakfast.”

Dan inclines his head in acknowledgement, hair flopping forward over his brow. It’s still overlong, but he looks more put together otherwise. Freshly shaved, less sallow-faced, in a nice red sweater. He looks more like the Dan Herbert remembers.

“I do want to work with you again, though,” Dan admits. “It’s not repentance. The reagent can save people.”

“Yes,” Herbert agrees, putting the empty bowl on his nightstand. Dan passes over the coffee. His hands are scorching on Herbert’s, almost as hot as the mug. Herbert hisses as his grip wobbles, dribbling coffee on the white sheets. “Thinking that does not mean you want to work on it, though.”

“Who else, then?” Dan chuckles, hands folding out. “You know I’m capable. I can help. I’m here. What, are you going to ask Zack from work instead? I don’t think he can handle it, Herbert. His heart is fragile.”

“No, not him,” Herbert dismisses. Doctor Zachary Warren is an elderly pediatrician. The thought of asking him to help out in the venture has never even occurred to Herbert. He wraps his hands around the mug more securely, inhales the coffee. Real, good coffee, probably from the ancient moka pot left behind by the previous owners. Dan is putting in effort to butter him up. The thought is both flattering and insulting. On one hand, Herbert likes that Dan is vying for his attention for once, not the other way around. On the other hand, does Dan think he’s stupid? It’s not the first time that Dan has brought him food, but it usually was done triumphantly after Herbert had a minor fainting spell, brows raised, mouth quirked with tight corners. Herbert wonders which perceived failure on his part Dan’s gloating about now.

“I can work alone,” Herbert says. Dan swallows, eyes going wide, panicked. Herbert raises a flat palm up to stay whatever plea is coming on, continues: “Being alone means I can account for everything. Having my assistant run off time again and again, prioritize flings over work, decry it the second it becomes inconvenient… Dan, I’m sure you can see why it’s risky. You were going to leave me to die. How can I know you won’t do it again?”

The words ring out. He shouldn’t have said that last part. He can’t know it for sure. Perhaps it was head trauma that struck Dan frozen, or maybe shock, or maybe Francesca babbled something to him as she got away. Dan has always been easily swayed in those fragile moments. Hell, Herbert can’t fault Dan’s women for jumping at the chance; he’s done it too, just in the service of a higher goal. He sips his coffee to not say anything risky again, lets it steam up his glasses.

“I wouldn’t let you die,” Dan says weakly. Something warm winds its way around Herbert’s free hand --a hand, Herbert thinks, thick palms, prominent knuckles slotting themselves between Herbert’s. He wants to worm his way out of it, but Dan’s grip is strong and secure. Another shackle. “God, Herbert, have you been thinking it this whole time--- How could you have let me come along?”

Herbert is glad that he can’t see through his glasses. Dan’s eyes are probably doing the same trick he pulls on patients, going wide and liquid, deep with some feeling that one could project anything onto: concern, care, love, even. Too bad, Herbert’s wised up.

“It would hardly be the first time I cohabited with someone who couldn’t care less if I lived or died,” Herbert drawls. He takes a long swallow of coffee, hopes that it kicks something in his brain awake, brings forth clarity. “You’re always quick to discard me. Isn’t it so? In any case, I can hardly expect more out of you. But I don’t want to let my life’s work hinge on it anymore. I think you can understand that.”

“Put the damn coffee down, Herbert,” Dan groans, strangled. “Please. Jesus, have I--- Oh, god. Put it down.”

Herbert hardly puts the mug next to the bowl, twin clinks of porcelain against wood and ceramic, when he has an armful of Dan once again. Dan’s trying to wind himself closer, butting his head against Herbert’s chin in his wriggling like a cat, practically crawling under the covers, too.

He’s crying again, Herbert notes, but doing his best at keeping quiet.

“I didn’t want you to die, God, how can you---” Dan grabs a fistful of Herbert’s shirt, shakes it a bit. “Jesus, Herbert. You went too far. It was madness. But you don’t deserve to die. I don’t want you to die. I would have crawled back into the pit for you, looked for you-- I promise. I don’t know, please. Please, you can’t think of me this way.”

Herbert doesn’t respond. What’s the use? Dan thinks that he can’t have let Herbert die, that he would have come back, despite the facts of the matter. He left Herbert behind during the massacre, albeit at Herbert’s request. He didn’t even turn back to look for Herbert in the collapse, though, didn’t even turn a single stone. In Peru-- Yes, in Peru Dan grabbed him, tried pulling him to safety, but there were people that would have noticed had he not, no?

But Herbert’s work is madness. Herbert is the one who goes too far. Dan is here to be a savior, not to dirty his hands with the actual minutiae of progress. Perhaps, Dan wants to work with Herbert again just so he can put his name on the patent, so he can crow about being the one to finally save humanity for good. Perhaps, Herbert will be discarded once he’s no longer useful --- again, that is.

“You’ve never really needed my help before, but I would have come back for you or I would have buried myself right alongside you,” Dan tries again. He’s shifting again, trying to smother Herbert almost. Herbert is stuck between repulsion and revelling in it. It’s everything he wanted years ago, pining after a man in love with a ghost. “I don’t know how to live without this anymore. Please. Stop shutting me out.”

“You can have a life without me, clearly,” Herbert says. He doesn’t want to look at Dan, but his glasses are clearing. He looks up at the ceiling instead, bathed in the pink light of sunrise filtering through the curtains. “You’ve pursued it more doggedly than anything related to the work. What did you imagine would happen with Francesca? That you would marry her and I would, what? Live in your basement? That me and your shiny new wife would tolerate each other? Or, perhaps, you would sneak away in the middle of the night from your white picket fence, go across town, and just hope that you can wash your hands clean before morning?”

Herbert tries to imagine it, and the laughter dies in his throat. Yes, perhaps that is what Dan thought would happen. Herbert has certainly never made him think otherwise, has he? No, he let Dan sneak away for dates, charm patients, chuckle awkwardly at Herbert’s within his women’s presence. Now, the proportions would just be reversed, though Herbert sincerely doubts whether any spouse would tolerate this stepping-out.

“I don’t know,” Dan whines into Herbert’s neck. His tears are soaking through Herbert’s pajamas. “God, we could have taken a research grant. Went legitimate. Split it somehow. Adjoining houses, or, hell, yes, you in the basement. I don’t know, Herbert. God, I clearly don’t know anything, huh?”

The self-deprecation is not making Herbert feel any better about it. He does appreciate that Dan cares about Herbert’s opinion of him, but what is he supposed to say? Agree that yes, apparently Dan doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life? How is this supposed to convince Herbert that Dan is a worthy assistant? Herbert sighs, looks down at Dan’s head, tucked in, rakes a hand through Dan’s hair, feels the heat radiating from his skull, and manages not to roll his eyes. Poor Danny, always so conflicted. God, Herbert couldn’t live this way.

“Maybe.” Herbert settles on a non-answer. “You can’t do two things at once, you’ll end up betraying one cause for the other or tear yourself apart. You’re a good man, or at least a better one than you are a scientist. Perhaps I made a mistake, right at the start. I should have never involved you.”

“No, god damn it,” Dan protests. “Don’t say that. You know it’s not true.”

His head snaps up, eyes wide, lips bitten, hair mussed. It’s a shame how lovely he looks in the morning light. Touchable, pliable, soft. Herbert can almost delude himself into thinking that Dan is here because he wants nothing other than the closeness. But Herbert knows that what he said is true, at least the first part. A man cannot serve two gods, and Herbert has made his vows to progress too long ago to give them up for a possibility of a fling.

“...Do you think I’m useless now?” Dan asks, tone turning accusatory, eyes slitting. “Herbert, I lost my life. I have to start over. Yes, I could have never loved her, probably couldn’t have loved Francesca or Gloria either, god damn you, but it still hurt to lose. I’ll recover, but let me take  a breather. We can’t all just roll with the punches.”

“You’re not useless,” Herbert says. He starts untangling himself. Yes, he doesn’t think that Dan is useless, but he won’t be made into a factory overseer, forcing productivity, nagging Dan to focus. That’s not a good use of his time, he’s realizing, five years in. “But I did make a mistake by involving you. Excuse me, I have to get dressed. We have work.”

It’s easy to slip away, even if Herbert does have to do the humiliatingly childish ritual of hiding under the covers first. He rips his wardrobe open. An undershirt, dress shirt. Tie. Underwear and socks. His slacks are hanging over the door, a belt already threaded through the loops, easy to snatch.

“You’re running away from the conversation,” Dan accuses. Herbert doesn’t want to look back, but he must. That’s how the stories go. Dan’s glowing pink on the sheets, still reclined, eyes shining, hair messy. It seeps through Herbert’s skin right into his bones, and he knows that he will never forget it, no matter how hard he tries. He won’t regret keeping his priorities, he’s almost certain, but just like walking to safety on a broken ankle, it will never heal right, either. Dan has a way of forcing ghosts onto people.

“What’s the point of this conversation,” Herbert says, “if you still don’t know what you want? Other than another creature to rip itself apart for you.”

He leaves to get dressed with a slam of the door.

***

“Dan has left a note for you,” Alma, the receptionist, informs Herbert as he’s getting ready to leave for the day.

She’s an older woman, not altogether incompetent, although Herbert supposes that her job is hardly testing. She’s been sniffing around Herbert and Dan from the second they popped up in town, as she has a single niece she’s dying to shove off onto any man. Herbert ought to be glad that the spice rack story has made wide circles already, or Dan would have probably already settled down with said niece, moved by the same instinct that made him take in a flea-ridden black kitten. Pity, what a strange motivator.

But it’s the same pity that moves through Alma. Herbert wonders what story she has concocted to make the pair of them make sense. Perhaps, Herbert is a kind college friend or cousin, putting his life on pause to make sure that poor Danny doesn’t go the same way his wife has. It would certainly align with the response Herbert gave to questions about what happened to Dan’s wife: a curt she was unstable let people come to their own conclusions. Or, perhaps, Herbert is instead the evil meddler, covetous, isolating Dan from any normal support network he would have to deal with the grief. Or maybe she’s imagined a dead wife for Herbert, too.

“I see,” Herbert says. They haven’t been talking for the past few days, which altogether isn’t entirely different from what was going on before. The silence is good. Productive. Herbert can focus for once, see things more clearly. He has already purchased a one-way ticket to Toronto, due at the start of the new year. He wasn’t able to get anything closer, the increased travel over holiday season getting in the way. It’s soon enough, in any case. He hasn’t figured out what he will do after, yet, but if silence has done him this much good already, he can’t imagine what distance will bring. He winds the scarf tighter around his neck, nods at her. “Goodbye.”

“You know,” Alma calls after him, fiddling with the folded-up sheet of paper, stopping him in his tracks. “It’s no good to fight before Christmas. It seems to me that you’ve had a rough life, the two of you. When I lost my husband and moved in with my sister, well. Every day I thank God that she had the grace to put up with me. Maybe you can find a little grace in yourself, too?”

“We are not fighting,” Herbert says. It’s not a lie, even if he has no obligation to be truthful to this woman. Perhaps he has found that grace already, then. Too bad the reserves are being used up on her. “And even if we were, we certainly would not let that impede our professional relationship. We won’t be an issue.”

Defending his job is pointless. He’s not going to stay much longer, and, well, he’s sure that Dan will let his opinion of Herbert be known once he’s gone. Dan was always good at separating himself from Herbert in front of other people when it was convenient. Yes, Dan can keep his job in this sleepy town, he can keep the house. Those, Herbert has already written off. He can keep the formula for the reagent, let what could have been haunt him. Herbert has serious doubts about whether Dan would even attempt a reanimation by himself, given his distaste towards the grim necessities around subject acquisition. Were he to swallow his objections for once in his life, well. Herbert can’t do anything about that, can he?

“Ah, well, honey, I wasn’t implying that,” Alma clucks. She mimes unfolding the note and taking a peep, blue eyes popping behind her owlish glasses, laughing a bit. She has lipstick on her teeth. Herbert manages to smile back, close lipped, and swallow his revulsion. “It’s just, ah, he seems so sad sometimes, standing at your door. You know how men are, they won’t know what they did wrong until you shove their nose in it, like a puppy. Hear him out.”

“I was under the impression that I was living with a friend, an adult man with a medical degree, not a dog that pees on the carpet,” Herbert snipes. He sighs, rubs at his forehead. Why is he getting into it with this woman? Their relationship does not concern her. He misses the frosty clarity of the reagent, the focus a concrete, actionable goal provides. “Alright. I’ll read it.”

He doesn’t need to, because Dan is waiting outside of the clinic, nose and cheeks gone a reddish pink in the cold. He’s holding two takeout cups of something steaming, grinning like an idiot.

“Herbert!” He cheers. “They’re selling hot chocolate by the ice-skating rink.”

“Is that so?” Herbert asks, a little waspish already. The note stays folded up in his pocket, crumpled between the gloves Dan had shoved onto him back in med school. They would have gone up in flames, too, had Herbert not discarded them in the cup holder of the car the previous winter, annoyed at Dan’s meddling. Wool gloves were impractical, impeding fine motor movements. Besides, on the reagent, the Atlantic-tempered cold didn’t get to Herbert. Here, Herbert was going to put the hideous things on just to survive the trip down to his car, but he refuses to do it within Dan’s sight. Instead, he just lengthens his stride. “How fascinating. A hot chocolate stand by an ice-skating rink, in December. Will make the papers for sure.”

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that,” Dan cajoles, easily catching up. Damn those long legs of his. “We could check it out. Here, I got this one for you.”

It’s warm, so Herbert takes it. Overly sweet, even for Herbert’s tastes, milky but thin, probably prepared from powder. Herbert wills himself not to think about the sanitary conditions in whatever seasonal stall propped up next to an ice-skating rink, and takes another gulp. The quicker he chugs it, the quicker this interaction will be over.

“I don’t skate,” Herbert scoffs. Dan shrugs, puffer jacket squeaking, as if to say, well, there’s a first time for everything. Herbert hates that he can still read him so well. He hates that he dreads losing this ability, too, little gestures washed soft by memory, congealed into a watercolor smear. There have been very few people that Herbert got to have an encyclopaedia on like this. “Do you even know me? I’m not one of your floozies that will jump on the chance to fall on you.”

“You wouldn’t have to fall, I would catch you,” Dan promises. He leans on Herbert’s car, elbow propped on the roof, hip against the driver’s side door. His profile gleams in the orange lamps, eyes bronze and keen. “Honestly, bruising is not a great start to a date, who do you take me for?”

“Maybe in your circles,” Herbert mutters, downs the rest of his hot chocolate. It radiates warmly from his belly. That’s it, that’s what the feeling is, nothing more. “Well, I’m done. Excuse me, you’re in my way.”

“We could take a walk?” Dan tries again. “There’s a trail near our house, winds around the lake. It’s pretty, not too windy. We could talk it out on neutral ground. Herbert, I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Are we fighting?” Herbert asks. “Please move.”

“We very clearly are,” Dan says, eyebrows pinching together. He looks genuinely upset by it, but Herbert doesn’t really get why. It’s hardly the first time they’ve fought, if you can call it that. Not like Herbert has energy to fight. “Look. I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about what you asked me, you know.”

“I wasn’t aware that I asked you anything,” Herbert seethes, “other than to move.”

“Fine,” Dan sighs, finally dislodging himself from the car. He throws his hands up, meanders over to his own car. That’s the end of it, Herbert thinks. He fumbles with his car keys to unlock the door, nearly drops them when Dan calls after him again:

“I’ll be waiting, just in case you change your mind.”

Herbert, graciously, does not tell him to catch hypothermia.

***

It’s dark out. Of course it’s dark out, it’s a week before the shortest day of the year, it’s seven in the evening; the sun dipped below the horizon before Herbert even left work. It’s been snowing, dry, powdery stuff, soft as down feathers, but it also means that visibility is poor. The closest street light to their porch is nearly a mile away. Herbert originally viewed it as a pro, the darkness would make moving bodies nigh unnoticeable, but now the same darkness has lodged itself in his stomach.

Dan’s still not home.

There are good reasons why he would be out. Maybe he needs space, just as Herbert does. Maybe he never even left town in the first place, content to hole himself up in some bar. Maybe, once it started snowing, Dan realized that the road would be dangerous, so he talked up some woman at the ice-skating rink, charmed her into letting him stay the night. Maybe the offer was just thrown out in defiant anger. Even if not, Dan would not be the idiot who gets stuck in the wilderness during a snowstorm. They’ve treated frostbite as med students in the free clinic, toes and noses coming clean off. Dan would not let himself be caught like this. Even if he did wait, well, he would have realized that Herbert is not coming. Herbert said so himself, did he not? How long would Dan wait before turning back to town?

Herbert couldn’t focus on the work since he got home, hands at first jittery with anger, then tight with bitterness, and finally, limp with confusion. The whole interaction felt like missing a step on the stairs, Herbert thinks. He spent years learning the beats of interacting with Dan, memorizing what made him tick and what made him laugh, how to approach him after a meltdown, how to spin a partnership into friendship. Dan’s shtick, whatever it was, did not match any of the patterns.

And now, Dan’s missing.

Maybe he realized that whatever it was that he tried to do, it was a mistake. Maybe he’s running, too. After all, Dan doesn’t have much more holding him here than Herbert does. A house and a job, yes, but they’re not exactly the white picket fence type, and with a resentful roommate to boot. Maybe the hot chocolate and ice-skating offer was like a nice last day, the way people treat dogs to a cheeseburger and chocolate before they’re supposed to be put down. Maybe Herbert was wrong once more, maybe Dan can’t survive this lean season, either. Maybe they’re more alike than he’d thought.

The thought sends Herbert barrelling into Dan’s room. It’s messy, messier than Herbert’s ever seen it; dirty clothes on the floor, crushed cans of beer around the bed, notes scribbled on lined paper, some crumpled, some shifting in the draft. But there’s nothing obviously out of place, no sign of Dan having packed up his life in the middle of the night. Would it be visible, though? Herbert doesn’t know. He doesn’t think his room shows any signs, but then again, Herbert has always travelled lighter than Dan.

“The note,” Herbert mutters, aware that he sounds half-crazed. “The note. He wouldn’t have the guts to tell me that he’s moving out again, would he? No, impersonal would have been easier. Of course.”

He rushes into the hallway, digs through the pockets of his coat. Used tissues, a half-empty tube of chapstick that still didn’t stop his lips from cracking, a couple quarters. The other one, then. Gloves, yes. Fuzzy things, striped. Green-on-green, zigzagged on the cuffs with yellow. It should be here, Herbert knows. He shoved it deep, it wouldn’t have just fallen out, but there’s nothing. God. He tears at his hair, tries to think. Guts the pocket, turns it inside out. Still nothing. Things just don’t disappear into thin air.

But if it has fallen out already, then where? In the car? Maybe, but no, Herbert would have noticed it sticking out. He did not tolerate trash in the car, back when he and Dan still shared a car, he has argued with Dan many times about empty to-go cups being left behind or gum wrappers in the glove compartment. Anything could be grounds for a search, they did not need to push their luck. Then where? He had it when he left the office, of course. Maybe on the way, then, but then it’s as good as gone, thin paper buried under what’s looking to turn out to be two feet of snowfall.

Herbert stares blankly ahead, feeling the cold which had wormed its way between the gaps around the entrance worm its way between his ribs, too. Maybe he’s just never going to find out what happened. Maybe he needs to find a way to be okay with that. After all, isn’t this what’s going to happen in three weeks? Herbert is going to leave. He probably won’t give Dan even the courtesy of a note. He won’t be traced. Dan can barely remember Herbert’s new name. How would he even look Herbert up? It’s not like Herbert’s in the phone book. In three weeks, not knowing where Dan is will be the norm.

But then, he notices something. A rip in the gutted pocket, a dark void in the shiny polyester of the lining. He feels around the bottom of the coat, yes, there’s something rustling stuck there. It catches on the scratchy wool of the outside, gets stuck on the batting, but eventually, with deft enough fingers, Herbert manages to feed it through the gap. Wrinkled and fuzzy with down; who said that it was hope that was the thing with feathers?

I’ve figured it out. Please, talk to me.

Herbert looks through the window into the white expanse. The snowstorm has raged into a blizzard.

***

It’s a good thing that Herbert earned his field training amidst an active warzone. He gathers supplies quickly; map of the trails, a compass, first aid kid. Snow shoes, dug out from the back of the closet, two sizes too big, another remnant of the previous tenants. A headlamp, a strong flashlight, and a lightweight shovel, almost like his graverobbing supplies.

He steps out into the snow, and nearly keels over with the wind. Dan wasn’t wrong, the nearest trail starts maybe half a mile from their house, but even this distance seems insurmountable now. Dan’s out there, though. He probably was too stubborn to give up, figured he’d wait out the snowfall, head back. God, Herbert could boil alive with anger. Stubborn as an ass, about all the wrong things. In the dim light of the headlamp, Herbert keeps track of the compass and the map. Heading North-West, he thinks.

Herbert can’t see more than a few feet ahead, which he anticipates becoming a problem. His glasses are collecting snow at an alarming rate, but at least it dislodges easily with a good shake. He thinks he will give Dan a good shake once he finds him. What did Dan figure out? That what he’s always wanted was to die in a snowstorm and be eaten by a wolf? Well, too bad, that’s just another dream that Herbert will get in the way of.

He can’t even formulate a proper tirade, though, because his brain keeps on getting stuck on the idea that Dan is dead. Herbert won’t accept guilt for it. Dan is a grown adult, well familiar with the dangers of snowstorms. There were many points at which he should have realized that Herbert wasn’t coming, slinked home with embarrassment burning his face, got back to his car, anything. His brain won’t listen, though, choosing to serve up yet another image of Dan, keeled over and half-buried in snow, face pallid, lips blue, crystalline frost around his nose and on his eyelashes. What can Herbert do, then? He doesn’t have a working batch of reagent. He won’t risk it with something half-formed, not with Dan. He can’t bring him back.

Herbert can see the treeline now, a dark smudge like an ink blog amongst all the white, but when he looks over his shoulder, the house is gone, lost in a white haze. Herbert swears. He will find his way back, with Dan in tow, if only to warm up Dan enough for coherence, and then yell at him. The longer he thinks about it, the more Herbert can’t believe how stupid Dan acted.

A weak beam cuts across the flurry of snowflakes.

Herbert hopes that it’s Dan, or else, whatever lost hiker he encounters will get strangled instead. Maybe Herbert will test the faulty reagent on them. Appropriate punishment for luring him, he thinks. His nose has gone numb even with the scarf wrapped around his face. God, all of this, for what? Just because Dan has decided to be dramatic about his life choices? A quarter life crisis usually resulted in a career change, not deciding to freeze out in Midwestern wilderness.

“Herbert!”

Herbert’s heart defies all anatomy and falls somewhere to his feet with relief, almost toppling him. He trudges on, pushing through the denser snow. It’s more packed by the trees, probably shadowed from the fresh fall somewhat. Dan is underneath a tree, huddled close to the ground, scarf wrapped around his head and face, barely visible, but the flashlight holds strong.  

“You idiot!” Herbert screeches despite knowing better, stomping through the snow. The air burns his throat and lungs, but he needs to get the words out. “You absolute fucking moron!”

“Save your energy,” Dan advises, once Herbert is close enough to not have to raise his voice. The slit of skin around his eyes visible between the scarf is pale, eyebrows crusted with snow. Herbert stuffs the map into his pocket, brushes the snow off with hands shaking with rage. Pupils reactive to light, good, he’s not in shock. Speech a little slurred, a little wobbly, but not as bad as it could be. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to risk getting lost. I didn’t expect it to get so bad.”

“You save your energy,” Herbert seethes. He dusts Dan’s shoulders’ next, careful not to jostle him too much, just in case there’s damage to his skin. It’s well below freezing. How long has he been out here? An hour? Two? “God, you-- you imbecile. Didn’t you leave your car nearby?”

“Herbert, I can’t see three feet in front of me,” Dan defends himself. He sounds absolutely miserable. His voice is shaky, teeth chattering, Herbert notes. He holds out his hands, also shaking, motioning for Herbert to help him up. He’s dead weight, and Herbert stumbles back with the force of the pull, Dan falling forward into his chest. Even through all the layers, he feels cold, the breath misting Herbert’s cheek like the damp inside of a cooler. “You didn’t have to wait so long, either.”

“Don’t speak,” Herbert advises, partly because he wants Dan to actually conserve energy, partly because he’s not sure that he won’t give into the urge to strangle him if more words pass through Dan’s lips. “Can you move?”

Dan nods, the movement barely visible beneath the scarf he has wrapped around his face. Herbert dusts off the snow on the back of Dan’s puffer, notes that his slacks are soaked through. They need to hurry. He consults the compass again. South-East, now. His tracks have been snowed over, but he can manage. Probably. He walked for, what? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Even with some circling around, they won’t be out much longer. Dan grips his hand as they walk; he’s unsteady on his feet, probably because he’s wearing the same shoes he wore to work, leather boots that go up to his ankles, made to look more outdoorsy than they are. Some ridiculous attempt at fitting in with rural masculinity, Herbert is sure, because their soles are smooth, no lining in sight.

“I hope you slip and fall on your ass,” Herbert grouses, pulling Dan after him. His snow boots give him some purchase, but Dan keeps on sinking down up to his knees. “God, what possessed you?”

“Herbert---” Dan tries, grip tightening. At least he can still move his fingers, even if it’s more of a spasm.

“Don’t---” Herbert cuts him off, fires off a warning look over his shoulder. “God, I hope your toes are frozen off. I will delight in stitching them back on, no anaesthetic. In the blizzard! You could have checked the forecast. Was your dream to freeze to death?”

It’s easy to keep warm with the rage boiling inside of him. Dan’s slow, swaying with every step, worryingly so, perhaps, but the way back feels shorter anyways. The house glows a warm, buttery yellow in the night. Herbert has to shovel out the snow from the door before they get in, but once the way is through, they practically collapse inside.

“Strip,” Herbert commands. “There’s a blanket on the hanger.”

He keeps his gaze averted while Dan, obediently strips out of his wet layers. He needs to do an assessment, see if Dan has actually frozen his stupid toes off or done any damage to his tissues otherwise, but he doesn’t want to look at Dan, not now. If there’s permanent damage, done out of sheer stupidity, some need to prove himself… Herbert tries to smother the fear rising up in his throat. It’s not helpful, not right now. Dan has the same medical training as he does, and besides, they can’t do anything about it. The roads will be impassable soon.

Instead, Herbert focuses on wrestling out of his own damp layers, shucking the coat and shoes, socks and shirt, scrunching his hair dry with a towel.  

“I think,” Dan says, voice still shaky, “I think most people do this in the bedroom.”

Herbert’s head snaps back from where he’s focusing on getting his stiff fingers to cooperate with his belt, hand raising up as if puppeteered by an outside force, accusing finger already cocked. Dan’s face is beet-red, maybe with the rush of blood returning now that he’s back in warm safety or with embarrassment for having the words come out of his mouth, but his cracked lips are crooked in a smile, eyes glimmering. He’s wearing the blanket like a toga, muscular arms and one shoulder out, still a pallid, nearly violet hue.

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Herbert seethes, grabs a towel and wraps it around himself. “Warm up properly, this isn’t a fashion show. Doesn’t your skin hurt?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Dan says. He does adjust the blanket, though, throwing it over his head like a cape. His shins peek out from beneath the edge, going paler and paler on the way down, finishing with sheet-white toes. “I mean, I wouldn’t expect anything else. But I don’t think there’s deep damage”

“Bathroom,” Herbert barks. He can’t form proper sentences, not yet. He just pulls Dan forward by the edge of the blanket, makes him sit right by the water pipes, runs the shower on hot to get the room warmer.

“I don’t think I should get in,” Dan protests. It’s remarkable how he insists on talking despite still slurring his words. “I-- I think my veins might collapse.”

“It’s to heat the room,” Herbert explains through a tight throat. It’s just the heat that is making his nose run and his eyes water, nothing more. “Do you really think you need to explain first aid to me? Where did you put your hair dryer”

Dan holds up an apologetic hand, the other one pointed at the medicine cabinet. Herbert rummages through the cabinet, finds the hair dryer that Dan, buoyed by his newfound vanity brought on by being single, insisted on buying to deal with his longer hair. Once he turns back around, Dan has propped up his feet on the side of the tub, hissing at the temperature.

“Can I just say what I wanted to?” Dan asks. He’s a pathetic heap on the floor, damp hair curling over his forehead and around his ears. “You know, if you just agreed to hear me out in the first place, we wouldn’t be---”

Herbert turns on the hair dryer, points it right in Dan’s face until he shuts his mouth, eyes squeezing tight.

“Sorry, can’t hear you,” Herbert deadpans. He does move the stream of air out of Dan’s face and gets to drying his actual hair. “You lose so much body heat through your head. It’s crucial we deal with this.”

Dan glowers, but lets himself be dried, not even complaining about Herbert leaving his hair a mess. He patiently lets himself be checked over for frostbite, obediently puts on a scratchy pair of wool socks and clean, dry pajama pants. Healthy color is returning to his cheeks. He settles in his own bed without protest, covers drawn up to his chin. Doesn’t try to follow Herbert into the kitchen, just waits patiently for Herbert to come back with two steaming mugs. He really must be tired to not gripe about it.

Dan cracks a yawn, nestled between pillows, sets down his tea on the nightstand. Mission accomplished, clearly. He’s going to be fine. Herbert is no longer necessary here. He makes to leave, but Dan’s hand closes around his free wrist, gentle. Herbert could shake it off, slink back to the basement or his own bedroom, spend the night recounting the ways the evening could have gone terrifyingly wrong, but something in Dan’s expression stops him.

“I really do want to talk,” Dan repeats, hand gently pulling Herbert down. “I didn’t mean to fuck this up. I had a plan, Herbert. A thermos in the car, a flask of brandy. An early Christmas gift in the trunk. We could have taken a nice walk.”

“When have we ever gone on a walk?” Herbert asks, begrudgingly settling on the bed, bouncing on the soft mattress. He peers into his mug, looks at the half-dissolved sugary sediment at the bottom. He hasn’t had time to eat dinner, so a sweet tea will have to suffice. It’s not altogether unpleasant, even if the grit lingers on his palate. He sets it down next to Dan’s in hopes of communicating that he’d rather the conversation be over sooner than later, but still can’t help harping on the idea more: “Or gone ice-skating, for that matter. Is this what you figured out? That you’ve been missing winter activities?”

“Okay, enough with that,” Dan protests. “You need to pick a lane when it comes to picking on me. You set me a task, I did it. Isn’t this what being an assistant is?”

“What task?” Herbert mutters, but at Dan’s grimace, he waves Dan on. Alright, perhaps he’s being unfair, letting emotions cloud his judgement. Besides, Dan will dig himself a hole with words, do Herbert’s job for him. “Go on, then, explain.”

“Well.” Dan clears his throat, shimmies his shoulders a bit. “Actually, get under the covers, I feel like you’re going to run.”

“That does not fill me with optimism about whatever you have to say,” Herbert grouses. Dan lifts the corner of the duvet, pats the bedsheet. Herbert eyes the crumbs he can see with doubt, but does oblige. Body heat is one of the recommended hypothermia treatments, after all, and, well. It’s not like he will get another opportunity to do this again. Dan sighs, wriggles his feet under the leg of Herbert’s pajamas immediately, toes still cold even through the socks. Herbert, graciously, does not complain that he’s still cold, too, and lets Dan curl himself towards his body.  

“Well. I know what I want. You’re right, I’ve been unfocused. It’s only human to be unfocused after your life collapses, I will not apologize for it. But it’s also not fair to you. I believe in the work. I think we can do it. Call me cautiously optimistic, I don’t know,” Dan reiterates. He’s settling himself in, trying to find the optimal position to leech warmth without smothering Herbert or crossing some line, probably. Herbert puts him out of his misery, rolling closer, until their arms are touching. His hands itch with the instinct to reach out, so he focuses on the comment instead.

“Of course it’s possible,” Herbert scoffs, letting the use of we pass by without comment. “I don’t dedicate myself to useless pursuits.”

Dan makes a face, scrunched up, the laugh lines around his eyes popping, sways his hand in a so-so gesture.

“We were never going to convince Halsey,” Dan starts listing off, “we were never going to bring back Meg as she was. Bringing Hill back was idiotic, sorry, I still don’t understand why you did it. He hated you, literally told you he was going to frame you for murder. Well, I don’t know if frame is the right word, but---”

“Do you have a point there, somewhere, or is it just mental confusion from the hypothermia?” Herbert snarks. He doesn’t want to go down Dan’s list of his sins again.  

“I do,” Dan says, far too smug for Hebrert’s liking. “We’re both fuck ups.”

“...Amazing,” Herbert sighs, already up on his elbows to flee. “Is that the extent of your revelation?”

“No,” Dan rushes in to assure, hand wrapping itself around Herbert’s, reassuringly warm, “of course not. But I think it summarizes my point nicely. Neither of us can stop being a fuck-up. Hell, I don’t think we want to stop being fuck-ups. I will never get you to stop committing atrocities.”

“Truly, what a great speech, maybe PR would have suited you better than medicine,” Herbert seethes. “Did it take you long to come up with?”

“I will also never extricate myself from them,” Dan adds. “It’s been miserable being locked away from it. Locked away from you. You know, I haven’t missed Francesca at all? Or Gloria, for the matter. Or even Meg. You ruined my priorities.”

“Yes, commitment isn’t your strong suit, is it? At least you drop your women as quickly as you do work,” Herbert mutters. Dan mumbles an offended hey, swats lazily at Herbert’s arm, curls his chin over Herbert’s shoulder. Herbert’s breath turns shallow, as if letting his ribcage expand properly would dislodge Dan.

“This isn’t commitment,” Dan sighs. “Not a traditional one, anyways. It’s, I don’t know, a compulsion. Addiction, maybe, hell, I’ve probably inhaled enough reagent fumes to get hooked, too.”

Herbert frowns, looks at Dan’s face. There’s something strange there, ill-fitting for another one of Dan’s guilt-litanies. It’s not the first time Dan has said that Herbert ruined some part of his life, but it’s usually accompanied by more tears or yelling, or at the very least a scowl. Now, Dan’s face is open, eyes dark and sparkling, once again a perfect canvas to project care and hopefulness onto.

“What I’m saying,” Dan emphasizes, “is that you changed my life, irrevocably. You say it was a mistake; well, you can’t undo it now. Reversing the course of nature and defeating death seems easier than going back to how I was. I can’t formulate how, exactly, I picture it working out. Not now, anyways.”

“Yes, that does seem to be our modus operandi,” Herbert sighs. He closes his eyes, swallows. He can’t help but miss the days when it was just him and Gruber, a clean, well-funded lab; structured goals to hit every week, reports and lab animals delivered on a timely schedule. He knows he’s smart and hard-working, capable. But he is no better organized than Dan is. They’ve been running circles around each other on thin ice, and the bride was the breaking point.  

“I mean, who even has a grand plan, anyways?” Dan complains. His left hand creeps to Herbert’s ribs, starts drumming a pattern there. Herbert sighs, tucks it underneath his tee shirt to warm it further. Honestly, he should have made Dan take that hot shower, vein collapse be damned. At this rate, Herbert might start to think that Dan’s bullshitting him with sweet words just to leech more body heat. “The first time I proposed, I didn’t even have a ring or an MD or own my house. Well, I guess I still don’t have a ring now, but you need to be bare elbows-down in the OR, anyways.”

Herbert’s head snaps down, spine turning to ice.

“What?” He croaks.

Dan frowns up at him.

“What?” He echoes.

“You want… a ceremony to go back to work?” Herbert can’t really process it. “A formal title? Are you talking about a grant application? I don’t think that’s a good idea, not now. We don’t have anything to show for it.”

It’s damnably easy to switch back to we, to imagine Dan working alongside him again, this time no whining. The moments when they clicked in the lab, when Dan voiced the thought that had just crossed Herbert’s mind, passing tools voicelessly, just eyes meeting over the surgical masks --- Herbert could have sworn he was flayed then, skin gone, nerves unfurling like a web, tangling with Dan’s into a knot dense enough to triumph past reason, one closed system of shared breath and anticipation.

Yes, perhaps Dan is right. Perhaps it is not just commitment to a shared noble goal. Perhaps it’s just an addiction, sustained by the desire for the shared high. Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t been able to break that final barrier, make that leap, too caught up in relishing the process. After all, meeting the goal would end it. Herbert never took himself to be the one to self-sabotage, but maybe he was missing the forest for the trees. The bride was a success, for all objective measures: conscious, alive, not hostile. Carrying some sort of memory of feeling from way back when. And yet, he was so quick to discard her once Dan deemed her faulty, burn it all down once the high of work was coming to a crash.

“What?” Dan scrunches his face. “No, not a grant, I don’t wanna go to prison, Jesus Christ. Herbert, I’m saying I love you.”

Herbert freezes again. He swallows, looks at Dan: at the open, trusting face, the dark eyes, glimmering with hope. Herbert is no expert at reading people, but he does know Dan. He knows what Dan looks like when he’s lying in a variety of situations: the nervous twitch of his hands when faced with authority, the compulsive laughter to his girlfriends, the sudden explosion of self-righteous anger when he’s lying to himself. He knows Dan in and out, lately has spent more time memorizing his quirks than on anatomy or pharmacology or anything useful.

Dan doesn’t think he’s lying.

“How is that relevant?” Herbert asks, baffled.

“I’m all in,” Dan emphasizes. “The good, the bad. In sickness and in health. Isn’t this enough?”

Herbert doesn’t know. He really doesn’t. He wishes it was enough, that he could just take it as the vow Dan is trying to sell it as. The want twists in his chest, stupid and desperate and juvenile, twists into a rope for Herbert to hang himself with. He wants it to be true, but that’s no way to go about life. His brain, unfortunately, still remains in his head, working overtime.

There’s smart, sharp things he could throw back at Dan. How quickly he was ready to abandon those he said he loved before, usually to throw his lot in with the work--- How romance complicates work, blurs the boundaries past anything dissectable and healthy, and how they don’t need more of that--- How, even if they don’t crash and burn, the complications would transfer over to being respected in the field---

He doesn’t want to say any of them, not now. If it’s an addiction, he should get to have at least one last good hit, make the comedown bad enough not to crawl back to it.

He kisses Dan, gentle and slow, half-expecting Dan to flinch back, explanation already at his lips--- confusion from the hypothermia, a misunderstanding of what kind of love he meant, something that hasn’t even crossed Herbert’s mind. But Dan’s kissing back, easy as anything, eager and warm. His touch scorches, almost too much to bear even when sedate. Herbert has to separate himself, breathe through it, nose against Dan’s, sharing breaths again.

He needs to say it back, he thinks, even if it’s not enough. Even if he still leaves, Dan ought to know. The words are tangled up in the hope coiling around his neck, though. Once he says them, he can’t take them back. Dan will know; Dan can use it. It took Herbert years to quit cigarettes after taking the habit up in undergrad, nicotine hounding him through sleepless nights, right up until he switched to the reagent. If he says it, what will he replace Dan with?

“Dan,” Herbert chokes on the phrase, some survival instinct making him swallow the words down. “Danny, I-- I have to tell you--”

“I know,” Dan reassures, already chasing his lips.

Herbert would want to chide him for being cocky, but he can’t get the words out, too busy pressing his tongue against Dan’s. It’s not the time to be cautious. He should worry about Dan knowing, maybe, a previously undetected vulnerability, but all he can think about is the slide of lips, Dan’s hands on his chest, the need to get closer.

He rolls on his side, throws a leg over Dan’s hips, uses his weight to press Dan into the mattress. Dan bites down on Herbert’s lip, maybe in surprise, maybe on purpose, but either way, it sends electricity coursing through Herbert’s veins. In retaliation, Herbert winds his hand into Dan’s hair, licks deeper into his mouth, tries to etch the taste of bitter tea and spit into his memory.

There’s more to map out, though. The angle of Dan’s jaw, easy to bite, the thin skin right behind his ear, sensitive enough to make Dan spasm when Herbert sucks on it, faint salt to lick over Dan’s carotid artery. Time gets gooey, measured by the pulse Herbert can feel under his lips and stuttered breath. Dan keeps on making little noises, barely audible, but palpable through their connected chests, buzzing in Herbert’s brain until they drown out everything else. The twin flames of his hands roam over Herbert’s back, rucking up the t-shirt, trying to press them even closer together, skin on skin.

Herbert obliges, sits up enough to shuck the shirt off. He doesn’t make a production of it or anything, but Dan still whistles, or at least tries to, but the sound is spoiled by the smile creeping onto his face. His hands immediately start running over Herbert’s ribs, swipe down over Herbert’s hip bones, sticking out above his waistband.

“Being off the reagent is doing you good,” Dan mutters, eyes roaming. “God, you’re so warm. So alive.”

“Hm,” Herbert hums dubiously. He tries not to feel irritated at the comment, he knows Dan means it sweetly. But being off the reagent is not doing him good, clearly, not if he’s willing to do this, but there’s no use in self-flagellation over it. He’s made his choice.

Herbert settles across Dan’s hips, half to feel his arousal, half to pin him down. He scratches at his own jaw, watches the reddened skin he’d marked bloom into bruises. He wants to see how long they stay; note how the severity of suction impacts longevity, how the use of teeth gives itself to preservation, how often the treatment should be reapplied for optimal results. He licks his lips. “How do you want this to go?”

“I---” Dan swallows. He frowns, hands slipping to knead at Herbert’s thighs, pulls Herbert forward and then back, tries to get him to start rocking. Herbert stays firmly put, eyebrow raising. “Well.”

“I thought you had a plan,” Herbert teases. His thoughts are syrupy slow again, but this time, he doesn’t fight against it. There will be time for clarity later. “That you figured everything out.”

“Herbert--- What, do you wanna hear my thought process?” Dan jokes, eyebrows raised. Herbert considers it and decides that, yeah, actually, he wouldn’t mind. “Ah, Jesus, I don’t know.”

“Figure it out then,” Herbert snarks. He leans over, smacks the drawer of Dan’s nightstand open. Empty blister of cough drops, tissues, more crumpled notes. God, did Dan actually draft his grand speech? Warmth bubbles up in Herbert’s chest, but the twitch of Dan’s hips brings him back to the task at hand. “Lube?”

“Um--- Second drawer,” Dan corrects. His face gleams pink in the pale light streaming from the window. Herbert snickers at his embarrassment, but does retrieve the bottle.

“I’m thinking,” Dan complains.

“By all means, do continue,” Herbert obliges, tone indulgent. He’s in no rush, not right now. He looks around the room, eyes caught on the discarded clothes, one of Dan’s hideous ties flopped over the backrest of a chair like a dead tropical fish. “I have a suggestion.”

“Yeah?” Dan sighs in relief. “That’s great. Fantastic, really.”

Herbert gets up.

“No, wait, I don’t like this suggestion after all,” Dan calls after him. “Come back.”

“I think you don’t have any patience,” Herbert observes. Dan groans, exasperated. Herbert plucks the tie. He debates staying away to explain, but there’s something anxious about the glint of Dan’s eyes in the dark, so he compromises, sits on the edge of the bed. “You tell me what, precisely, you’ve figured out, and I reward you for it. You like being rewarded, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Dan’s nodding, hair flopping into his eyes. “Very smart plan.”

“Wrists up, then,” Herbert says. He hasn’t tied up a living person before, but, well, the principle can’t be that different from securing a corpse, can it? The tie is silk, more slippery than the rope they use on re-animates, but he manages to get it secure, enough slack to maintain blood flow. Dan getting off scot-free from the risk of frost only to lose his fingers to this would just be embarrassing. “Good.”

Dan sighs, looks up at Herbert sprawled over him, jaw angled up. Herbert leans down, kisses him, sweet and short. He’s never really considered kissing something to crave, not beyond what it signified --- closeness or some kind of ownership, maybe --- but he thinks he’s starting to get it.

“Go on, then,” Herbert encourages. “How did you figure it out?”

“You were right, I haven’t exactly committed to anyone after---” Dan swallows, widens his eyes meaningfully. Herbert purses his lips. He could make Dan explicate it, but he supposes talking about past partners in this situation might be too much for Dan’s sensibilities, so he just nods in understanding. “Well. I think the difference in how losing you and how losing, I don’t know, Francesca, made me feel made me realize.”

“It’s only natural it’d feel different. You barely knew her.” Herbert shrugs. Dan stares up at him again, beseeching. Herbert clucks his tongue. “No, do better.”

“Losing you felt like losing a limb,” Dan says. “Like I could no longer see color, like I was concussed. Shit, working with you sometimes feels like you can read my mind. Being cut off from that--- It’s like I was cleaved in two, half my soul outside my body.”

“You did always have problematic boundaries with your colleagues,” Herbert snarks. He does return to marking Dan up, though. The sides of his neck should match, at least. Now, the skin of his chest, flushed though it may be, looks pitifully blank. Herbert bites at Dan’s clavicle, bruises up his pecs. Dan makes a strangled sound, throws his head back, breath going shallow. “I suppose this isn’t all that out of ordinary collegial behavior for you.”

“Herbert---” Dan hisses. His hands flex uselessly in their bindings, Herbert notes with pleasure. “I don’t sleep with our coworkers. It was one time, maybe. I’ve already said sorry for taking my time to figure it out.”

“I am merely observing,” Herbert protests, thumb pressing into the bruise he left on the center of Dan's chest, in the valley between the muscles, close enough to the heart to delude himself that the claim extends there. “You took your time, and now you get to tell me about it. Isn’t that wonderful? Had you figured it out quickly, this would be over so much sooner.”

“I’m not stupid,” Dan pants out.

He’s flushed, arousal chasing off any lingering paleness, but Herbert doubts that this particular treatment plan will become standard practice. Herbert sucks another hickey, this time on Dan’s hip, ignoring the erection on the edge of his vision. He toys with the elastic of the pajamas, pillows his head on Dan’s thigh, feels the muscle flex under his cheek. He wonders if it’s instinctual, a spasm, or if Dan is trying to show off.

“Obviously, I knew you were important to me. I moved houses with you.”

“Twice,” Herbert agrees. It’s trite, maybe, but he likes hearing that he’s important to Dan. He yanks Dan’s pajamas off in reward, strokes over his thighs, watches the twitch and flex of flesh. “But that’s just economical. Aren’t you glad your student debt is gone?”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Dan gasps out between giggles, and Herbert can’t help smiling back. “Jesus. The mortgage, too, my god. But I wouldn’t move in with just anyone, you know.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Herbert says. He reaches over, slicks up his palm with lube, watches Dan’s breathing speed up. “You weren’t exactly meticulous with the screening process.”

“There was something about you, though,” Dan insists. “Like I knew you were going to be important to me. I don’t know. It felt like serendipity.”

Herbert thinks that Dan is lying about this, so he sits back, stares him down to puzzle it out. Either he’s lying directly to Herbert, in hopes of moving things along, talking for the sake of having words leave his mouth, peddling whatever he considers romantic and devoted, or he’s constructed a narrative that makes sense to him. Herbert’s leaning towards the latter. Dan despised facts unattached to stories, refused to accept that sometimes things just happened in a random order or through factors so distant to be untraceable. Dan likes a clean cause-effect chain, anchored as far back as it can go, a story with good and bad actors, a place to point an accusing finger. They had to fall into bed, because Dan took a shine to a transfer student, no active choice made, a domino trail falling in spite of his wishes.

Herbert doesn’t like it at all.

“No,” Herbert says. “It didn’t happen like that. Think again.”

“Herbert,” Dan whines, leg kicking out in frustration. Herbert grabs his still-socked ankle with the clean hand, and feels his face pull into a nasty smile. “Baby. Please.”

“Stop confabulating for narrative sake,” Herbert chastises. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

Dan sighs, expression tortured.  

“It feels like that’s how it happened,” he complains. “Please touch me.”

“Well, if that’s how it feels,” Herbert mocks. “No. Don’t be lazy.”

Dan frowns, runs his tongue over his teeth beneath closed lips, sending a thrill over Herbert. Whenever they studied, Dan would chew on pencils, go through packs of gum like a quitting smoker, once notably chipping his tooth on a glass baguette in the lab. They’re both twitchy people, but Dan’s usually better at directing the energy into non-objectionable behaviors than Herbert, whose nails only recently stopped being bitten jagged. Either way, Dan is thinking about it for real.

“It felt natural,” Dan says, slow. “Defending you, defending the work. Instinctive. I didn’t like how automatic it felt, like I was unable to control it. I thought moving out would fix it. Starve it out, I don’t know. I was sick of asking myself why I did something and coming up blank, of the regret of thoughtlessness.”

“Good,” Herbert praises. They’re getting somewhere, so he gives in, grabs Dan’s dick. Dan sighs in relief, makes a noise once Herbert starts sliding his hand along the length. Herbert licks his dry lips, tries to focus, note the reactions. Swiping a thumb over the head makes Dan’s toes curl, twisting his grip makes his breathing stutter on the inhale, the optimal pace is slightly slower than what Herbert prefers. Useful data. “Good thing that we’re working on remedying the thoughtlessness then, isn’t it?”

“You’re such an asshole,” Dan sighs, half fond, half resigned. He tries to wrap a leg around Herbert but the movement lacks any sort of direction or confidence, just a forlorn blind seeking. “Come here, please.”

Herbert gives in, sprawls himself over Dan’s warm skin, kisses him again. It’s more difficult to focus like this, between the way Dan’s sucking on his tongue and the pressure against his front and the way Dan’s nasal breathing turns sharp and rapid and the feeling of scorching hot flesh, pulsing veins in his grip. Herbert rolls his hips into the mattress, presses his face closer, Dan’s nose digging into his glasses, scrapes his teeth on Dan’s tongue. Herbert almost misses Dan’s breath hitching again, his muscles going tense, but he manages to snatch his hand away before Dan can come.

“Jesus.” Dan draws himself away to huff in Herbert’s face. “Come on, please.”

“But we’re having such a nice conversation,” Herbert coos. “You were going to tell me how you walked around in circles for months.”

“It wasn’t months, okay,” Dan protests. He licks his lips, sighs, closes his eyes. “I mean, I’ve been avoiding thinking about it for that long, maybe, maybe longer, I don’t know. These aren’t optimal conditions for a detailed recounting. I didn’t take notes.”

“Shame,” Herbert sighs. “Poor lab assistant practice, but I’m willing to overlook it.”

Dan stumbles through an explanation, slightly too polished to be completely off the cuff: not knowing what he had until he lost it, that he thought Herbert was hot but it didn’t exactly mean much by itself, some rather incongruous poetic descriptions of fluttery feelings that Herbert is fairly sure were first drafted on the notes strewn about the room. As long as Dan keeps talking, though, Herbert keeps on touching him: right hand around Dan’s cock, sometimes slipping down to paw at his balls, the other free to roam and pet at the shivering, oversensitized skin. Each time Dan’s words get too breathy, stomach flexing too hard, Herbert slides his hand down to the base, squeezing, not letting Dan come. Instead, he lets his hands learn the coarse hair below Dan’s navel, the narrowing line of his hips, thigh muscle slightly padded over with fat, soft skin over the hard bumps of ribs.

“It seems pretty obvious to me,” Herbert summarizes, once Dan’s out of pretty words, mostly reduced to monosyllabic ones that he stretches and pops like chewing gum bubbles. He’s trying not to let the flattery go to his head, stay grounded enough to have a leg up on Dan’s increasingly incoherent ramblings, but it fizzes along his skin like celebratory champagne. He tries to ignore the ache between his legs, to instead zero in on wringing pleasure out of Dan, on the power he has in his grip. “I don’t know how it could have taken you so long.”

Dan whines out a Herbert, glassy eyes rolling back in his skull. He’s damp again, hair curling on his nape and forehead in the frame of his arms, muscles trembling. Herbert licks his lips.

“How are your arms?” Herbert asks.

“Fine,” Dan groans. “It’s my dick that hurts. But you can untie me, I don’t think I have much more to say. I could touch you back. Show you what I’ve been thinking about.”

“Hm,” Herbert hums through the heat roiling through him. It’s a nice idea, maybe, but it’ll be over the second he does it. Dan’s exhausted, clearly, even if enthusiastic. Herbert doesn’t know how long he can keep this up. If this is to be his only indulgence, overeating to survive the lean season that the rest of his life is going to be, he doesn’t want it to end. “No. Not yet. I have another idea.”

He slicks up his hand again, winds Dan’s leg high up around his waist, trails lower, below Dan’s balls, brushes against the furl of his hole, pauses to check in. Dan’s eyes are still closed, chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Yeah,” he groans. “Please.”

He’s burning hot inside, almost too scorching to comfortably touch, but it’s worth it for the way Dan’s jaw falls open, noises leaking out of him aimlessly on every inhale, brow creased. Herbert pushes in deeper, tries not to let his mind run with the way the tight heat would feel around his dick. At the first sign of friction, he adds more lube, readjusts his wrist.  

“This is helpful, isn’t it?” Herbert rasps, adds another finger, twists. Dan’s face screws up, eyes flashing behind closed lids. “Clarity despite lack of concentration. You know what you want now. ”

“I want to come,” Dan whines, high in his throat, words tight. Herbert’s glasses got smudged, he’s not sure when, but if he squints, it almost looks like Dan’s tearing up. “God, please. Herbert. I’ve done what you asked, please.”

“Five years,” Herbert drawls, crooks his fingers, and starts seeking the firmer bump of Dan’s prostate. “For five years, every time I felt like we were getting somewhere, you would pull away, start having doubts. Distract yourself with a new fling, moral ruminations, a hopeless case at work. Anything but me and the work. Why should I let you have what you want now?”

Dan sobs once Herbert’s fingers hit their mark, rubbing relentlessly. The leg over Herbert’s waist is twitching, his untouched, nearly-purple dick drooling against his stomach. Herbert knows that his own resolve is going to break, but letting the threat edge his words sets his blood on fire. Even if he could steel himself somehow, he doesn’t think he can stop Dan from coming.

“Because I need you.” Yes, there’s tears there, Herbert notices, slipping down Dan’s face. He swallows frantically, tries to peel his eyes open, but Herbert doesn’t think Dan can see him, not with how glazed over his gaze is. “Because I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

Herbert leans over, not caring about how he forces Dan to contort, how his wrist starts to ache, just needs to smash their mouths together again, lick the salty trail of tears off Dan’s lips. It burns through him, even when he tries to push the spark out, feed it to Dan, let it dissipate somewhere amidst the spit and friction. Dan can’t really kiss back, not with how all of his mental energy seems to be going towards just breathing, and even then, it stutters.

“Go on, then,” Herbert mutters into Dan’s mouth, fingers still working.

Dan’s silent except for a whimper on the inhale, and then the tension breaks. Herbert can’t decide where to look: at his face, jaw slack, tears rolling down his face? at the way his body spasms, at the cock kicking and leaking against the flexing stomach? He doesn’t know how to prioritize, what to salvage and store away for later, the moment slipping through his hands.

“Ah, enough,” Dan pleads. “Enough. God.”

Herbert doesn’t want to stop, wants to steal more of this weightlessness, but Dan’s moans turn pained. He withdraws his hand, wipes it on the sheets, pulls the knot holding Dan up free. Dan’s hands are shaking, boneless, but moving. Hardly do they dip into Herbert’s waistband, barely brushing Herbert’s erection, and Herbert is coming, biting his lip almost clean through, white sparks popping behind his screwed-shut eyelids. He collapses across Dan, shaking.

“There’s tissues in the second drawer, too,” Dan mumbles. “But you need to get them. I can’t move.”

Herbert makes a displeased noise, but relents. He shucks off his sticky and rapidly-cooling pajamas too, before the feel of something cold and slimy sends him freaking out, and tries to gently mop up Dan’s stomach with a tissue.

“Good enough,” Dan assures. “Leave it. We need to shower later anyways.”

So Herbert crawls back, wraps them in the sweat-soaked covers, tries to ignore the crumbs sticking to his back. Instead, he tries to focus on Dan, on the way his breathing is evening out, growing deeper, on how he snuggles closer, on the scent of his skin. Before Herbert has settled in, Dan’s already asleep, head pillowed on his shoulder.

Herbert’s seen Dan asleep before, of course, not just right after a nightmare. Being the nocturnal roommate, it was inevitable that Dan would be the first one to drop off during study sessions or movie nights, or, on a few occasions, even in the lab. They shared living quarters in Peru, cots mere inches apart. He’s grown well-familiar with Dan’s sleeping form: the way his face goes slack, how his breathing deepens, how he shifts enough to make even the sturdiest bed frame creak, nevermind a rickety cot. The sleep-talking and the occasional snore, too, sometimes leaking through the walls.  

This is a whole new experience, though. Dan’s arm is heavy across Herbert’s ribs, but not altogether unpleasantly, warm and solid. Herbert can not only hear the mumbling, but feel the strung together nonsensical vowels vibrate out of Dan’s chest and soak into his collarbone, Dan’s breath tickling his neck. Herbert sighs, contended, luxuriates in the soporific warmth for another minute, watches the pale shadows move across the ceiling. Just another moment. He deserves that much.

Finally, he untangles himself, inch by painful inch, repositioning Dan as carefully as an open-casket corpse with rigor mortis. He creeps out from underneath the covers like a thief. First order of theft: in the first drawer of the night stand, eased open carefully, making sure it doesn’t stick, the notes. He picks up the one that seems the longest, folds it in his hand like a card up his sleeve, hoping that even if Dan were to wake up, he wouldn’t notice. Again, carefully, the drawer gets slid shut.

The house feels cold now in comparison, empty like something not born that way but hollowed out afterwards to make space for the crisp dark. The floorboards are cold beneath his feet, but mercifully silent. Herbert doesn’t even know why he’s being so quiet, Dan was never a light sleeper, but his heart is lodged in his throat, high enough to battle with logic, insisting that it’s necessary.

He shivers in his own room. There’s the remains of the mess from the morning and the hurried supply gathering, a thousand traps laid out by a hasty hand. He doesn’t need much, though, just a straight path forward to his desk. Step by step, he creeps forward, until he’s there, gripping the thin plywood. There’s just one drawer, but it sticks, needs to be lifted and pulled to only make a whisper. Pens, notebooks, other detritus of an attempt at focus; he knows that what he’s looking for should still be there, things don’t vanish into thin air no matter how much it might seem like it sometimes. He doesn’t want to turn on the lamp, so he works in the pale moonlight streaming through the window: fake licenses, passports. The deed to the house. He’s hidden it well, out of some panicked instinct, maybe buried it too deep---

But no, it’s there. Herbert swallows as he re-reads his ticket. Three more weeks. He gets to waste three more weeks, and no more. It’s good to remind himself of that.