The code of medical ethics prevented doctors from treating their partners but there was no one else qualified on the frakked up mudball of New Caprica to treat the colonel, carried in unconscious with his eye socket oozing pus and teeming with infection.
Even if there had been Cottle wouldn't have trusted anyone else with Saul.
As he carefully irrigated the wound and scraped out the socket, he tried not to think about the fact that it had been Saul's deep, intense eyes that attracted him thirty years ago in that fleet dive on Tauron.
When Saul woke up he was surprised to find the man who'd always hated mushy stuff curled at his side on the flimsy cot.
"You should have let me die, Sherman," he said, his voice slurred from morpha.
Cottle cocked an eyebrow.
"Couldn't do it, old friend," he said grumpily, "frakking code of medical ethics wouldn't let me."
He dropped a gentle kiss on Saul's cheek and the other man pulled away quickly.
"Don't touch me out of pity. You deserve better than a frakked up monster."
Cottle rolled his eyes.
"You ending up with more hair on your back than on your head was far worse than this and we made that work."
Saul glared at him and Sherman was surprised to find himself getting hard at the intensity of emotion Saul could still convey with just one eye.
The colonel looked down at the slight bulge under the white coat and back up at Sherman's face.
"You got a pirate fetish I didn't know about, you sick old frak?