Abel POV

You there. Yeah, you. Let me tell you something.

Dying? It sucks.

Way too much pain for this to be heaven, though guess it makes sense I'd end up in hell after helping kill so many. Seems a bit unfair though. I always prayed for Jesus. Maybe it was that one time I got a hard on staring at his painting in the art gallery. Or maybe it's what I did after the gallery.

"ABEL!"

Oh no. No no no, no.

"Let me in!"

No way. I died so Cain wouldn't have to, took his place. I turned the ship around! I took the bullet, there's no way that Cain died too.

"Let me in you asshole!"

I must be dreaming. There didn't used to be this much pain in dreaming, either.

"I don't give two shits what your fucking bullshit doctor has to say, he's MY navigator, let me the fuck in right now or I'll-"

I suppose it's some sort of sick joke the universe is playing on me here, like only once I was dead would Cain actually care about wanting to see me once he wasn't forced to be my partner. Or maybe this is my punishment. Maybe I'll be forced to spread my legs for the rest of eternity and let myself be fucked rough forever. If that is the case then I've clearly been giving the universe way too much credit for it's intelligence.

"Abel, wake the fuck up you idiot. Open your fucking eyes."

"Stop shaking him, moron! We barely know what kind of physical condition he's in, let alone what happened to his head, you could cause some serious damage!"

Are there earthquakes in the afterlife?

"Fuck off. Abel, I'll fucking kill you if you fucked up your brain."

Suddenly I'm too warm and someone's gripping my shoulders too hard and everything hurts and not again, it can't be Monday already -

"Iduhewaunskuhh"

"Holy crap. Shit, shitshitshit. Abel."

"We need some nurses in here! You, fighter, you need to leave."

Nurses? No. Mum. You quit your job ages ago. Remember?

"I don wanna gotuh school"

She loosens her grip. I snuggle back into the blankets, trying to ignore the galaxy exploding in my head. Ouch.

"What the fuck-"

"You need to get out of here."

"Make me"

"If you don't leave willingly, we'll have to use force. Nurse, check his pupils for dilation, if they're too wide we may have a problem. You, get out of here now."

Suddenly there's too much light and there's an open flame at my eye. I cry and grab out at it, but instead of a fire I knock at something hard and metallic and its lets out a wordless gasp of surprise. I grab out again to get the instrument of torture but a hand catches mine and it feels familiar so I cling onto it, some illogical part of my brain telling me that if I let go something terrible will happen, and then I grip it harder because there's that galaxy in my head again. Whimper at the pain.

"Shh, it's okay."

There's another hand touching me somewhere. My hair? My cheek? I think it's somewhere around my head. Can't tell which way is up or down, the only indication that I'm not actually made up of nothingness is the hand grabbing mine. Though, maybe stars have hands. Maybe stars explode into giant hands. I can't remember my star training properly, but I do know that this whole exploding business is lame.

"Keep your fucking torch away from him. Abel, it's okay. It's okay. Look at me. Open your eyes."

But it's not okay. I'm late for school and I forgot to do my homework on exploding because I think I'm doing it all wrong because it shouldn't hurt this much, should it?

I open my eyes.

And there's too much light again but this time I'm turning the Reliant around in terror because those are Colteron ships and they're trying to kill us and there's no one around that's still alive to help. I need to get us out of here before they kill us, and Cain is shouting but it doesn't make any sense so I fly towards the star because if it's blinding me then it'll blind the Colteron too and maybe we'll be safe.

"We need help in here! If you're gonna stay then fucking help and hold him down!"

"I am, argh! Are you fucking blind?! Kind of hard to- shit, Abel calm the fuck down!"

"Nurse, I need some sedative"

And then I see him, her, it, why am I worrying about gender again? The Colteron fighter aimed at us, no, aimed at Cain. And the world slips into a bottle of glue and everything slows down to a hault. I don't care if he'll never want me the way I want him. I won't let him die. I'll be damned if I let anyone die, especially not Cain.

"There, that ought to do it. Christ, some navigator you've got there."

In an emergency, they said, you'll know what to do; it'll be easier than breathing.

"The best there is."

They were right. Swinging the ship to get in the Colterons way was the easiest manoeuvre I'd ever made, considering it was going to kill me. And then I slammed launcher button and everything exploded sharply into darkness and breathing was the least of my problems.

"Sure he isn't part fighter? When he came in, he was as good as dead. Still surprised he isn't."

So I am dead. Or at least, I will be. But this, this is more like it, slow and painless and just like falling asleep. Cain's still holding my hand, breathing hard and steady. Well, if I'm going to die, might as well take one last look at something nice. I open my eyes, except only the right one goes and it's too heavy and the room spins so all I see is a whirl of dark hair and I panic because suddenly I'm not sure who's holding my hand at all. Cain never did. Never spoke about me that way.

"Cain?"

The world turns black.

A/N – apologies if anyone was offended by the gallery bit. Poor repressed Abel.