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Leif usually sleeps with his arm on. For a few days, Caspar didn’t even realize he could choose otherwise. Sure, on Earth prosthetics weren’t permanently attached to one’s person, but space is full of a whole host of weird shit. Caspar wouldn’t put it past Leif to give himself a permanent prosthesis for the simplicity of it all.
But that is not, in fact, the case, and after what seems to be a particularly achy day on a frosty planet, Caspar comes to bed to find Leif with his arm and foot neatly detached and being cleaned by a little robot that looks like it could be Peter’s little sibling.
He looks up, hair tucked behind his ears for once, grinning. It’s painfully domestic.
“Hey. Limbs were being bitchy again. Hope you’re glad to not have to deal with freezing metal tonight, because I prefer to avoid this when I can.”
Caspar doesn’t press. It’s not his place, and he’s tired.
He’s sleeping better now that he’s up on the roof, some of the chill of isolation thawed, tension resolved in more ways than one. But that doesn’t mean he’s sleeping well. He lies awake for hours at a time before finally succumbing to the pull of darkness, and Leif usually wakes him once a night thrashing from nightmares.
They say their goodnights, and curl together under the blanket, the chill forcing them closer than they’d otherwise start.
Caspar doesn’t fall asleep immediately, but his mind is merciful tonight and he’s able to stare at the texture of Leif’s skin blankly until he drifts off.
Probably four or five hours later – it’s hard to tell in the diner – Caspar wakes. It’s not to screaming or crying or fighting, which are all pretty common occurrences with Leif nowadays. In fact, it takes his groggy mind a few moments to figure out why he even awoke in the first place.
And then Leif chokes again, a desperate, tiny sound, and he realizes that the arm curled around his side is taught and so stiff it could be that of a mannequin’s. They’re both tangled up in the blanket, and he scrabbles to get them sorted so he can get a better look at Leif in the low light of the diner sign.
When he does, he freezes, confused and concerned. Leif’s arm tight around him isn’t the only part of him that’s tense; his entire body is rigid, his breathing quick and shallow, his skin clammy with sweat and lacking color.
The tiny noises he’s making are whimpers more than anything, reedy and muffled. He’s probably biting his tongue, because there’s a drop of blood sliding down his chin.
“Are you awake?” he ventures, because this isn’t usually what happens during a nightmare.
Leif doesn’t give a spoken response, but he nods, for all the tiny, painful-looking head movement could be called that.
“Shit.”
Something must be wrong wrong. Actually wrong. Caspar feels panic building in his chest, his heart skipping a beat. At a loss for what else to do, he feels for Leif’s pulse. Thankfully that’s normal, if fast, and Leif doesn’t react too much at the careful touch.
“What the fuck is wrong?” Caspar asks. His hands are buzzing, nausea rising in his throat. “Leif, what’s happening?”
Leif’s eyes, squeezed shut until now, flicker open to look at Caspar. His lashes are wet with unshed tears, and it’s hard not to pull him closer. It might not help, and he doesn’t know what he would do if he made this worse, so he doesn't, but it’s a close thing.
Really looking at him, Caspar can see minute trembles rippling through him, only bringing more discomfort as he whines every time another one passes.
Leif stutters, trying to speak, and Caspar stills so he can listen.
“H- hurts-” he grates out, “Arm-”
His good arm? His stump is achy often but it’s never been like this, enough to paralyze him. Caspar tries to shift him to his side, to examine his good arm first, but as soon as any more weight lands on his bad side Leif screams.
Caspar quickly corrects his mistake, but not before the tears pooling in Leif’s eyes spill over. He doesn’t even manage a sob through the paralyzing pain.
“I’m sorry,” Caspar says. He tries to keep the guilt out of his voice. It’ll only make this worse.
“Shit-“ Leif responds. “Fuck-“
Leif’s teeth are chattering. it’s chilly outside. The cold always makes him feel worse, now.
Caspar considers his options for a minute, coming up with only one thing. He doesn’t want to cause any more harm, but he doesn’t know what else to do, spare sitting and waiting it out.
He moves Leif into his lap, trying to shove the horrible noises he makes at any movement into the back of his head, and reaches out to lay his warm hand across the mottled mess of scarring and tissue that is Leif’s amputation site gently enough that the only pained noise he gets out of Leif is quickly quelled by a sigh of melty, unrestrained relief.
Leif keens, some of the tension dropping from his body as he leans into the warmth. Caspar, dizzy with relief that this is helping, pulls the blanket across the rest of his body. He’s glad he happened to sleep with one of his hands tucked under Leif’s body; it’s half-asleep still, yes, but it’s warm and that’s vital for the moment.
He doesn’t dare move as Leif begins to relax somewhat, satisfaction pooling at the base of his ribcage as Leif’s breathing evens into something easier than ragged gasps, his eyes opening languidly instead of squinted through waves of pain.
“How are you?” He asks. It’s a stupid question, given the context.
“Bad?” Leif replies, because of course it is, stupid question. “But… better than it was. Sorry. Not fun to watch, I know.”
Caspar cannot describe how much he doesn’t want to hear Leif’s self-deprecating bullshit. He’s just grateful to the universe – for once – that something isn’t seriously, life-alteringly wrong. They don’t need any more of that.
“It’s okay,” he breathes, in lieu of cupping Leif’s face and kissing him until he shuts the fuck up.
(The newfound company is doing something to him, he suspects.)
“I should get you something for the pain,” he suggests.
“Vodka?”
“I was thinking Tylenol.”
Vodka wouldn’t be a bad option, he thinks, spare the fact that Leif gets all warbly and sad when he’s drunk and it wouldn’t help the pain to be crying his eyes out.
Also they may not have vodka. Who knows. He should ask the new guys.
“Also works, sadly,” Leif groans. “Less satisfying.”
“You’re an alcoholic,” Caspar jibes. Leif… takes a second too long before refuting it.
Fucking hell, he’s a mess.
“Can I get up? Or do you need a few moments?” he asks.
“Moment,” Leif gasps, after attempting to shift out of Caspar’s lap and ragdolling. Caspar readjusts the blanket around him. “Grab me a hot towel or something too? For my arm. I know it’s not- there, obviously, but it feels like it’s fucking freezing.”
“Sure.”
Absentmindedly, Caspar runs his fingers through Leif’s hair, gently tugging at the knotted roots. Leif’s hair has been a bit of a wreck since he got back. Leif whines into the sensation, stirring feelings that Caspar will not — cannot — name at the back of his throat. His eyes, glazed not only with pain but with something else, stare up at Caspar like he’s something beautiful, and not a rather clammy asshole with eyebags and shoddily cut hair.
“Fuck are you looking at?” He asks. The answer, he knows, will be painful.
“You,” Leif replies. He’s enough of a natural flirt for it to sound just as horrible and wonderful as Caspar had expected, yet instead of the romantic undertones it’s, well.
It’s the thing. You know, the thing. The thing where Caspar and Leif are together and nobody else is there and holding each other feels a little too right.
“I hate everything you stand for.”
Leif rolls his eyes.
Eventually, though, Leif musters the energy to move and Caspar gets up to retrieve the things he needs.
After slipping into the diner quietly enough to not disturb its residence, he takes the lift back up to the roof, so as not to risk spilling the mug of hot chocolate.
It’s one change he really doesn’t mind, what with Leif’s new pain and the general convenience of it all. And the man who made it seems nice.
Leif’s managed to sit up in the time he was gone; in the dark, Caspar struggles to make out much more than his shape, but he’s trembling something awful. He probably should have stayed laying down.
“You look miserable,” he murmurs, sitting down. Leif quits any airs he was putting on, immediately shoving his face into Caspar’s neck and leaning most of his weight on him.
“I am in so much fucking pain,” he admits, still breathless from it.
“I made you hot chocolate to drink with the meds,” Caspar says, offering the mug. He didn’t tell Leif that beforehand, but he’s shivering so hard…
Caspar has never had a sweet tooth, but even he can acknowledge the soothing powers of a cup of hot cocoa.
It’s in more of a tumbler than a mug — but a tumbler of hot chocolate doesn’t have the same ring to it, so it’s going to be called a mug, dammit — so Leif can’t spill it so easily.
This is clearly the right move, with his shivering.
Leif takes a couple small sips, another whine leaving his lips, unbidden, as he swallows it down. He takes the pills with the next swallow, grimacing at the effort.
Caspar has been in some pretty intense pain recently. It hasn’t been fun. But his pain tolerance isn’t even half of Leif’s. Whatever he’s going through at the moment is unthinkable.
Caspar gently moves an arm around him, holding the hot compress to the stump of his arm.
Leif keens, some of the tension melting from his muscles. His face, shifted away from Caspar’s jaw for the purpose of drinking, moves back as he hides against his skin.
Moments later, Caspar has to suppress his own tiny noise as Leif presses feather-light kisses to his jaw and neck, grateful and sweet.
These touches, late at night, fix something in him he felt sure would never heal. Every time they happen he feels painfully whole, just for a moment, just enough to long for a time long-past and a time that never even existed all at once.
Leif lingers for another few moments, the last kiss ending in a nip that Caspar knows won’t bruise but he rather wishes it would, before going back to his hot chocolate.
“Thank you,” he mutters brusquely.
Caspar breathes a sigh. “Just doing my job,” he says. What that job is, he really couldn’t say.
Leif continues to sip at his drink, and he gets steadier, some of the weight loosely slumped against Caspar shifting back into his own grips.
“Sorry for making you deal with all this bullshit,” Leif says, staring up at the stars streaming past.
“You deal with mine 24/7,” Caspar deadpans, if only to make Leif chuckle.
“That’s different,” he says faintly, sounding far away, a telltale sign of him drifting off again.
It really isn’t, but arguing would only keep him up.
“Lay back down?” He offers.
“Hurts too much.”
Caspar’s muscles will certainly have complaints to lodge tomorrow, then.
He doesn’t mind it. He takes the hot chocolate from him so it doesn’t tip as Leif begins to lean more heavily against him again.
He hopes the others will be back soon. It’s both frustrating and embarrassing how fiercely he misses them, now that he’s back home.
Leif completely ragdolls against him, asleep once again. It speaks to how exhausted he must be that he’s out this fast — the Advil, despite being marked “Extra Strength”, won’t have kicked in this early.
Caspar balances, relaxing as much as he can. Once Leif is more solidly asleep, he’ll try to lay down.
That can wait, though; Leif needs sleep, and if this is the best way to get it, Caspar can take the strain on his body.
(Gloria’s voice whispers, annoyed, in the back of his mind, “you also need sleep,” but he ignores it for now.)
Leif is warm.
He missed this, despite all the shit that had to happen to put him back here. Not only the diner, or sleeping near someone, but Leif specifically.
It’s been a while.
It’s easier to sleep than it has been in years, though, despite the nightmares that accompany it; as soon as he can lay down, Leif still curled against him, he’s utterly knocked out.