“Come on, Xander!” Yuuta shouts, his eyes filled with tears as he tries to shake Xander awake. “Didn’t we promise? That we would never say goodbye?” It’s already been a good thirty minutes, he thinks. Shouldn’t the medicine I gave him already begin to work by now? “Xander,” Yuuta whimpers as he leans over Xander’s chest. “Xander, please. Please don’t leave—” 

Xander’s eyes flutter open. “Y-Yuuta?” he croaks. “What…” He reaches for Yuuta and holds onto his wrist. “What’s going on? What happened to me? Where are we?”

Yuuta gasps. The warmth of a lingering hope fills his chest. His palm slides over Xander’s knuckles. He gives Xander’s hand a squeeze. “Xander,” he echoes again. “You fainted. I…” Yuuta traps his lower lip between his teeth. He does not know why, yet, even if Xander is all right now—he still wants to cry. “We’re in the infirmary,” he says as he looks up to meet Xander’s gaze. “How do you feel?”

Xander’s eye twitches. His brows arch up as if he were in pain. Yuuta parts his lips to ask him if something is wrong, but the words never make it past the stage of mere thought as Xander tugs on his arm and pulls him in for a hug. As they lay there, silent, on blankets in the middle of the room filled with shards, Xander whispers, “Thank you.”

Yuuta nuzzles his head in the crook of his shoulder. “I have to get up and clean up the glass,” he says, despite leaning in closer to the heat of Xander’s skin. “Before the station does something weird again.”

Xander hums a positive response. 

As Yuuta pushes up against his elbows and forces himself to rise once more, he notices his friend has closed his eyes again. “Xander, do you need anything?” he asks.

Xander’s reply comes as a shake of his head, more silence. Soon, his breaths are heavy as his chest heaves up and down. Yuuta kneels and rests his lips against Xander’s forehead. His skin is warm, though not as much as before, he notes, before standing again. “Rest well, Xander. I’m glad you’re all right.”

Yuuta puts away the last shards of glass he finds into a nearby bin and pauses to catch a glimpse of Xander’s figure. He smiles, tells himself, God, I don’t know how we got out of that mess, but I just hope it won’t get any worse.

“Yuuta?” Xander mumbles after a long moment that had left Yuuta thinking he’d long dozed off.

“Uh, yeah?” Yuuta replies, while wondering if Xander caught him staring, or if it’s just a weird coincidence.

“It’s going to sound stupid,” he says, “since we both know times are dire, however I…truly want to survive this and make it out alive with you.”

The phrase is enough to break Yuuta’s heart in two, but Yuuta doesn’t let it. For if he starts getting sentimental now, he might as well throw away their wishes to live alongside the junk he just got rid of minutes ago. “Don’t say that, idiot,” he mutters as he crouches by Xander’s side and presses a palm to his forehead. “You’ll jinx us.”

Xander laughs. “So, how hot am I today?”

Yuuta’s tempted to play along. Fuck it, he eventually thinks, I might be dead in an hour, might as well compliment the fool while I still can. “Your temperature has gone down yeah.” He gulps, then says, “You’re…still as good-looking as ever though, don’t worry.” 

His comrade’s eyes widen. “Yuuta, you—” 

But a rumbling coming from the vent above causes them both to pause.

“Oh, come on,” Yuuta groans as he smacks his head with his free hand and grabs his arc with the other. “Again? Really?”

Xander takes a step closer to him and reaches into Yuuta’s back pocket.

“Xander…” Yuuta furrows his brows. “Are you seriously touching my ass while we’re under attack?”

“Nope.” Xander whistles as he pulls away and twirls Yuuta’s handgun around his finger. “Just stealing this, since I know you never use it.”

The sound of something making its way over to them through the ventilation system continues to approach. “Hey,” Yuuta hisses, “want to bet on what it’s going to be this time?”

Xander rolls his eyes. “Sure,” he says, his tone deadpan. “A tentacle.” 

The grid from the ventilation system is propelled across the floor and smashed to pieces. As Yuuta glances upward to meet his latest enemy, his skin grows cold. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”