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King looked so peaceful. His eyes closed, his belly moving up and down rhythmically, warm air coming out of his muzzle after every inspiration; Collie liked this sight, it was calm, tranquil.
It must've been late, but Collie kept looking at him, unable to fall asleep so he just laid there, facing him. They wanted to hold him or, more so, they wanted him to hold them. But would he be comfortable with that? Would he want to at all? Has he even thought about it? All these questions they had wanted to ask for ever so long, so why didn’t they? Even though there were no physical barriers keeping them from asking, those words had never left their mind.
Despite this, he reached towards King with his hand in what felt like a pointless attempt at intimacy. He stopped midway, their mind telling them they didn't deserve to be this close to him. With a sigh, they let their hand fall back on the bed, at an arm's reach of King but never further.
A soft, yellow-ish glow came out of King's skull, he had opened his eyes and they were directed at Collie’s hand. Without a word, he reached with his own to hold Collie’s gently and the latter watched him do so in stunned silence. If not for the distinct feel of King’s claws on their fingers, Collie would’ve thought this was a dream.
King stared at Collie and it felt as if their soul stared back.
“You’re so cold.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” He looked at their fingers, intertwined with each other, “Heat doesn’t work exactly the same with me as it does with you.”
“Star-being thing?”
“Star-being thing.” Collie said, guilt and doubt in their eyes. Maybe this was a dumb idea, it’s a lovers thing to do and they weren’t that. They weren’t like Luz and Amity or Ray Ray and Eda, he doesn't even want to be like that, but expectations of how friends should be feels like another mirror they're trapped in.
King leaned in their direction, an arm crossing over them to land at the back of their head. Collie didn’t move; although his eyes were wide open, it seemed like they didn’t see what was in front of them. After a bit of poking around, he found it, the little hole hidden under their hair, he blindly pinched at the little blob inside of it, making Collie jolt back to reality.
Yet another star-being thing and one of their most well kept secrets; no one else on the Isles knew about it and the constellations in the sky had no voice to speak of it. King and Collie had decided to name it his soul blob, a small mass of concentrated stars, space and energy with a crescent face, in the image of its owner. The physical incarnation of their mind and soul, of their essence.
“You’re doing the bad thinking again.”
Collie chuckled, wondering how King always seemed to know what they were thinking.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
King pulled back his arm and layed closer to Collie; his eyes fell down onto the child of the stars’ hand and he rubbed their fingers with his claws. Sometimes he’d imagine what having fingers made out of flesh would feel like and melancholy would overtake him thinking about how frigid his claws must feel to his loved one's hands. He lightly squeezed Collie’s hand and looked back up at them.
“So, why are you cold?”
Collie liked that about King, he was the most genuine person they'd ever known and he always tried to learn and understand everything about them without making them feel like a weird experiment being studied. What struck them most was the lack of fear in his eyes; when they were around him, Collie never felt like the dangerous godlike creature many others saw in them. They were just a child hanging out with their best friend. Collie hoped he made King feel the same way.
“I can’t create heat, my body just doesn't do that, and I can't store it from stars, maybe because we’re made of similar stuff, it’s kind of like if I consumed myself.” He wiggled their fingers a bit, still keeping them close to King’s, “So I'm always cold.”
“Can I help?”
Before Collie could answer, King had clasped them in a warm embrace, his arms tied behind their neck and his legs wrapped as much as they could be around their waist. Their mouth agape, Collie let out a sound he didn't remember ever making before and they sealed their lips the following instant. they didn’t move a finger, as if frozen in place; maybe this really was just a dream, he didn’t want to wake up.
After collecting himself, Collie reciprocated the hug, their hands gripping on King’s shoulders, the titan’s fur caressing their skin. It had been so long.
They buried their face in the curve of his neck and could discern in the darkness the slow, wavelike movements of his tail.
Collie absorbed King’s touch like he was sure he’d never feel it again, he imprinted King’s position and every part of their body that met on his mind as a way to never forget. Their bodies were pressed together as tightly as they could be yet Collie wished they could be even closer.
The star-being’s hand slid from King's shoulders to his back, they were almost clawing at him but they made sure to not hurt him in the slightest. Wondering how long this could last, Collie caught himself being scared that this would ever end, maybe King felt it too because he held onto his friend ever so tighter. Oh, what they’d give to live in this moment forever.
Collie tried to form some sort of cocoon around King by bringing his bent legs closer to his body, a moon crescent enveloping its hidden face.
Around where Collie’s hair stopped and their neck began, King slowly and tenderly stroked with his claw in circular patterns; Luz did that to him sometimes and he hoped it would feel good and soothe Collie as well. At first, a shiver ran through Collie’s body upon feeling King’s claw on their neck, but he quickly found himself leaning into King’s touch even more after a few seconds.
It was warm, so warm. To Collie, King was warmer than the heat of every star he had ever been to and they relished in this warmth, letting it invade every part of their body, he was defenseless in front of this warmth and didn’t care for the world. It could scorch him and still, they’d come back to it again.
How long had they stayed like this, they didn’t know. It felt like minutes but could have been hours, neither of them cared about losing track of time if this was how they did so.
Maybe he heard it in Collie’s sigh, but King sensed the sadness that filled them at the prospect of this never happening again; until he finally raised his voice, the silence had only been interrupted by the sound of both their breathing, “You’re lucky that I am the warmest creature that has ever lived.”
Collie smiled, “You are?”
“Yeah! Titan thing!” King was lying through his teeth, but if it brought Collie some comfort, he didn’t mind bending the truth ever so slightly.
“Oh, titan thing, of course.”
King continued, his voice growing softer, quieter, “Yeah, so if you ever need a recharge uh, don’t hesitate.”
In their position, King couldn't do so, but if he looked in Collie’s eyes, he’d see the immense glee barely hidden in them upon hearing those words. What he could see was the orange glow that came out of the back of their head which only confirmed how they felt.
Collie finally closed their eyes, knowing that the warmth they had longed for all these years and that he now felt running through his fingers like a magic he wasn’t used to would, for once, persist. It would be there when he’d wake up and he would cherish it for as long as he could until it would inevitably run out, but, for now, he could fall asleep smiling, knowing that the person that mattered the most to him across every galaxy would be there to warm him up again and again and again.
“I am lucky, thank you.”
King squeezed a little tighter.