Cyril wrinkles his brows. "You wouldn't have stayed on the plane otherwise."

"But I could've stayed away if ya wanted me to," Aeton rebuffs. "Ya didn't even give me a chance!"

A strange twinge goes through Cyril's heart at the words before his gaze grows uncertain. "I was wrong," he admits, "But—mmph!"

Aeton drowns his sentence in a sudden kiss. It's furious and desperate, almost suffocating Cyril in its intensity. The whiskers from his unshaved face scratch against Cyril's skin, rough but ticklish at the same time. He opens his mouth to gasp and Aeton's tongue enters to entwine gently with his own.

"No buts," Aeton murmurs between breaths, "Jus' don't do this...again."

Cyril relaxes and gives in, hands wrapping gingerly around Aeton's back. "...okay."

He sees them when he peeks past Aeton's shoulder.

Men in black carrying guns spot them down the street and raise their weapons. After all this time, Cyril more or less expects them. He belatedly realizes that wearing a lab coat paints him as a target in the wake of the bombing, but there's no time to worry about that now. With seconds to spare, Cyril wrenches Aeton around so they trade places and shields him with his body. He'll be fine since he's already armored up.

But fate plays her card in funny ways. The shooters are only amateurs with shaky aim, so their bullets nick past Aeton's arms or miss the targets entirely. A couple manage to bury themselves in the bulletproof vest, knocking the wind out of its owner.

Bang!

The last one rips a hole through Cyril's brain.

—

Once again, Cyril wakes up to a world of white. This time, Older Cyril simply materializes in front of him.

"I miscalculated," Cyril sits up while cradling his head. It's still throbbing with pain even here. "Ow."

Older looks down on him expressionlessly, hands in his pockets.

"You don't have anything else to say?" Cyril arches a brow at him.

"Welcome to the club," Older tosses out a line. "Seems like we're both terrible at looking after others."

"Huh. So that's it, then," Cyril sighs. "Do I die together with him this time?"

"The shooters didn't know what they were doing," Older replies. "Most likely they fled after you took their bullets. He...should have survived."

Cyril's eyes gleam. "You think so?"

"He's too tough to die unless he wants to," Older is certain of the fact.

"That's true..." Cyril rests his cheek on his knees. "This headache is killing me."

"It is."

"Very funny," Cyril rolls his eyes. "What happens next? We fade away as my life winks out?"

"You're not dead yet."

"It's only a matter of time."

"Do you love him?"

The sudden question throws Cyril off before he remembers. "Does that matter at this point?"

"Do you?"

Cyril's lips draw into a thin line. Finally he admits, "I don't...not love him."

"That's more than I can say."

Cyril studies his older self, but his expression is inscrutable. Instead he sighs and goes on, "Whatever that means, there's no chance of finding out now."

"I don't remember myself being such a pessimist."

"It's pragmatism."

"You're not dead yet," Older repeats, then crosses his arms. "Go back. I'll clean up things here."

Cyril only winces while cradling his head. "What's there to clean?"

"You were shot in the head," Older prods him. "Where do you think we are now?"

"A dream. Or the subconscious, you tell me. Ow."

"We're in your head." Older explains, and launches into a long-winded explanation about pocket dimensions, time-space travel, and dual existence paradoxes that make Cyril's headache worse. The point, as Older finally concludes, is that he can mitigate some of the brain damage Cyril suffered from his near-fatal injury by absorbing it in this space. But in exchange, the pocket dimension would collapse and Older Cyril would disappear.

"Did you have to explain everything in such a convoluted way?" Cyril complains while massaging his temples.

Older only leans back with his hands in his pockets. "I'm only stimulating your brainwaves."

"Huh?"

"You're in a coma right now," Older finishes. "Unless you regain consciousness, you'll be stuck here with me."

"You're really doing this?" Cyril blinks.

"The one thing I won't accept," Older's tone is crisp, "is failing at the same thing twice."

He snaps his fingers and the white space around them starts crumbling away again. Beyond them lies darkness, but it's still and soothingly quiet.

"What about the answers you wanted?" Cyril asks.

"Our data is already too different," Older Cyril rests his hands inside his pockets as he begins to fade away. "You pushed him away but he came back to you. I kept him by my side but he left of his own accord. There is nothing of statistical value to compare between our separate scenarios after all these deviations. I may even need to formulate a new hypothesis..."

Despite the fact that Older Cyril's legs have already disappeared, he remains cool-headed in careful thought.

"Even if you do, how will you test it?" Cyril demands.

"In person," Older doesn't waver. "after I meet him on the other side."

"Can you really find him?"

"If that fool could travel 3,000 miles just to run into you on a street corner at the perfect moment—" Older pauses to smile wryly, "Then I refuse to believe that my superior intellect won't be able to track him down in the afterlife."

And then, darkness.

—
The first thing Cyril senses when he regains consciousness is droplets of liquid splashing against his skin.

Rain?

He changes his mind five seconds later when he sees Aeton holding his hand while crying. Cyril wants to tell him to stop soaking the sheets, but the breathing mask over his face makes it hard to talk. So he settles for moving his fingers and squints when Aeton zeroes in on him with all the intensity of a heat-seeking laser.

Aeton yells loud enough to wake the dead, then knocks over a vase of flowers to the floor while trying to call for a nurse. Measurements are taken, questions asked, and a dustpan and broom produced to clean up the mess before they finally get the breathing mask off him.

"How ya feelin'?" Aeton's still cupping his hand between his rough, calloused ones. "Yer head, does it hurt?"

Cyril opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He tries again and only produces a garbled mix of noises and half-formed words.

"Nurse?" Aeton looks anxiously at the uniformed hospital worker beside him. "Is his throat bad?"

The nurse doesn't know but goes to call for a doctor. In the meantime, Aeton helps him to some water before thrusting a pen and paper into Cyril's hands. "Ya can write it down if speakin's no good, Cyril!"

The slender pen feels familiar yet awkward in Cyril's fingers. He presses it against the paper and ends up spiraling into a fantastical scribble of loops and scrawls. In the end, the pen slips out of his fingers and clatters off the bed.

"S'ok, ya just woke up," Aeton quickly picks it up and gives it back to him. "Take yer time, there's no rush."

With difficulty, Cyril applies pen to paper again. A, thinks his brain. A for Aeton.

"Not bad!" Aeton consoles him five minutes later. "I couldn't write my 'H' half as good whe' I was littler."

Cyril despairs.

—