Archive of Our Own ^beta

Pangi hadn't dared sleep in the bed.

No matter how much he had wanted to.

No matter just how much he had wanted it all to go back to normal. Back to how it was.

Lukey and him side by side.
Like always.

Sleeping in one bed.
Existing in one place.
Breathing the same air.

Though Lukey won't be breathing any time soon.

He hadn't slept in it because he was scared.

He was scared that he would get used to it.

He was scared, and it felt like torture without Lukey there to calm him again.

Without Lukey always there. Always in this bed they had shared.

At the end of the day, no matter what had happened, he'd be there.

He doesn't want to get used to this.
He'd rather never sleep again than get used to a life without Lukey.

Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly useless, he sits by the foot of the bed and lays his head down on to the soft black sheets, the ones that haven't been changed once since that night.

He sits there almost like a dog, waiting for its owner to come back, whining and sighing in his absence. No one there to hear it grieve. No one there to tell it that he's never coming back.

Sometimes tears stain the end of the sheets. Pangi feels the wet cloth press against his cheek and he feels pathetic.

When Pangi feels too lonely, he stares at the creakings, the last addition made to the lab by Lukey. He stares at them and they stay still.

Sometimes his arms scrape against the bark of their torso in a sad approximation of a hug. They never hug back, but he doesn't expect them to.

The wood of their bodies is cold to the touch and Pangi feels like he's almost touching a corpse when he hugs them.

Though ironically enough, Pangi feels like he's the ghost haunting the lab whenever he walks through it's corridors.
It's so alone.
So cold.

Sometimes, Pangi feels pathetic.
Sometimes, Pangi feels cold.
Sometimes, Pangi feels dead.

So Pangi sits by the foot of the bed and lays his head down on the stained black sheets like a dog.

So Pangi chases the feeling of life in something dead.

So Pangi walks around haunting the world, without the world there to keep him alive.

So Pangi sits in the corner of the storage room, with a corpse he's too scared to get rid of, hand in hand with someone he loves.

And Pangi is scared.

Because he can't let this become normal, because it could never be, not without him.

Pangi lifts the hand he's holding in a vice grip, the bones and loose skin connecting it to his elbow breaking away.

He shakily presses a wet kiss to the palm of the hand, and puppeteers it to slowly, achingly wrongly, caress his cheek in a gross mimicry of someone who loved him.

He can't help but lean into the touch.

He's sobbing and he feels pathetic.

He's alone and he feels cold.

He's gone and Pangi can't stop wishing he wasn't