Cecil smiled despite himself, despite the situation at hand. It
was a tired smile, but a deep one, fond and full. He breathed in slowly
and felt a little bit more alive for Carlos’s ministrations, a little
less like… like a corpse. Like a vampire.“You may be a scientist,” he whispered lovingly, “and a great scientist, the smartest there is… but you’re also my husband.”
Carlos’s pain and fear for him still cut Cecil like a knife
into his cold white skin, but the radio host was also warmed by that
love that Carlos had for him that was greater than Science, greater than
life and all that filled it. It was the love that Cecil had for Carlos,
too, impossible to contain, keeping him alive (pretty literally, to be perfectly honest).“Yeah, I guess I am. I think you’re right… Thank you for taking such good care of me.”
Carlos glanced at Cecil. “Oh –– absolutely, honey!”
He reached out and grabbed a couple of the stones from the table before turning back to Cecil.
“I would absolutely do anything for you. I may be very uncertain with what we are dealing with at the moment, Cecil, but there are two things that I know: I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Cecil replied softly, his smile deepening further still, even if it did not widen, did not quite light the tired pink eyes turned towards his husband. The breath he drew in was soft but audible as he asked, “What’s the other thing?”
Carlos smiled at him, gentle and loving. “You just said it,” he said. They’d had this conversation before at least a couple times; Carlos was still trying to decide if this was now a ‘thing’ for them, or if Cecil genuinely forgot the two things that Carlos knew.
He held a stone out for Cecil. “Um… try sucking on it first… see if that does it. I don’t want you to try hurting your teeth right away.”
The Perfect Scientist 