Donovan cleared his throat. He had nothing in common with Victor, even after all this time. Silence simply filled the air as the two men sat far apart in the dark room. Donovan did his best to keep Matthew asleep, so he wouldn't need to hear his cries of agony any longer.

"Do you think Saleem would be back by now?" he asked Victor awkwardly, trying to make conversation.

"I think-"

There was a knock. A rattle followed. Finally, sounds like hands slamming against the door began.

Victor's eyes widened. He hushed Matthew as he began to stir. "We can't make any noise."

"Hey! It's us!" Gowan's voice yelled from the other side, "We're back!"

Victor got close to the floor. "We can't let them in." He moved toward Donovan and Matthew.

"What do we do?" Donovan whispered back.

The rattling on the doors got more frantic. "Hey!" Gowan's voice yelled again.

Elizabeth's voice joined in too, "Anyone there? Hey!"

"Whatever is out there wants to get in. We can't let them," Victor said hastily.

"But what do we do?" Donovan asked a second time.

"Whatever that thing was," Victor said, keeping his eyes on the door, "we can fight against it but we won't win." He looked to Matthew. "Even if we somehow managed to get past him, there's no chance for Matthew anymore."

Donovan was not expecting something so blunt. "What?"

"What do we do? Get past the doors then drag him through armies of demons? To what? The outside where he melts and then we eventually die or starve to death?" Victor shook his head. "There's no way out for us. Not anymore."

"I know he's right." Matthew's voice was weak. "We can't win. I can't live like this just because you're too scared to be alone."

"No," Donovan held Matthew's face in his hands, "I love you. I won't let you die."

"Sometimes," Matthew said, "love hurts us. Please."

Donovan looked to the dwindling piles of medication. "I don't know if there's enough here for you to go like Violet did. I don't know how else we could do it."

Victor reached down, pulling up his long black pants and into his boot. He produced the missing knife. He pushed it into Donovan's hand.

"What the fuck?" Donovan questioned.

"I'm not proud of it, but I took it when Elizabeth and Gowan had two. I just thought," he shrugged, "I thought one day I could use it to help."

Donovan pushed the knife back. "No way! You started it, you finish it. I'm not fucking killing my boyfriend!"

"Please babe," Matthew begged, "I want you to end it. I can't. I'm not strong enough to push down. I'm just ..." his eyes began to close, "I'm just so tired."

"I can't kill you. I won't. There's got to be a way!" Donovan pointed to the doors. The pounding was getting stronger. "I will go up there and charge through any motherfucker and get you out myself!"

"This is the end!" Victor exclaimed. "This is it! Are you going to let him just get taken? What if they take him like Gideon? You talk all this garbage about your love and then you want this boy to be sucked into the atmosphere through ashes and slime?"

"No! I just want to fucking grow old together. Not this!"

"Come on!" Matthew called from the ground, "Come on D. Think of your anger. Think of your dad. Your life could be different without me. Your dad could have loved you if you didn't love me. Doesn't that make you angry?"

"I could never hate you!" Donovan yelled through frustrated tears, "My dad can go fuck himself! I fucking love you! I fucking love you!"

"Don't you remember," Matthew said through tears, "the time you got beat up in year 12? When they called you a homo? Getting your bag stolen so they could dump glitter in it? Just because I thought it'd be fine to hold your hand?" He began wheezing and coughing, he tried to lift himself up but he was too weak. "Get mad! Be mad at me, D! Just," the pain was excruciating, "Just end me!"

"You know it's the right thing," Victor said, pushing the knife back into Donovan's hand.

"No!" Donovan pushed back. "I don't want anger! I just want to love him!"

Matthew let out a guttural groan as he fell forward while trying to lift himself towards the two tousling men. He dragged himself closer as Victor and Donovan continued to argue. Victor was winning.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Donovan had been getting weaker over the previous days. He'd saved as much medication for Matthew, opting to take none to help with his own condition. It left him unsteady on his feet, and not as forceful as Victor.

In a last ditch attempt, he closed his eyes and pushed himself into Victor in an attempt to move them away from Matthew. Victor stood his ground, pushing forward himself, it caused them both to tumble over Matthew's body that was awkwardly trying to crawl over the floor.

In a split moment, Matthew let out a gravelly yell.

Gowan had forced the doors back and forward enough that the material had loosened enough to let him see the knife on the ground away from Matthew. That hadn't stopped one of the two fighting to have stepped squarely on his windpipe.

It was not clear who had caused the issue.

"No!" Donovan yelled. It was painful. He ran to scoop up Matthew. "No! Baby, no. No! I love you." He started whispering to himself, "I can fix this. Oh god, oh god. No. I can fix this."

Matthew was rapidly losing consciousness as the air could no longer travel through his system. He held up a limp arm to his lover's mouth, letting out a noise similar to a "shhh". All he could do was look his world in they eyes and mouth "I love you" before his whole body went limp.

Donovan could feel the prickles of tears force their way to the surface. The last time he cried was when he watched his father hug his younger brothers at Christmas time. He wasn't invited to the photographs anymore. All of it, all of the bullshit the world had thrown at him had been worth it because of the man who hung limply in his arms.

The man he'd decorate an apartment with. The man he'd make breakfast for. The man he'd walk down the aisle whether the fuck his dad would be there or not. Now he had no one.

He clung to the body for as long as he could before the scent of honey and vanilla began to permeate around him. The tears fell harder and he tried to hold on a little tighter. He used all his concentration to remember the final moment. All he wanted was to remember what the man he loved felt like. Before his foot were to sever his airways forever.

Of course it was his fault. Never in his life did he make anything better. Now he was trapped with a man who would tell him he was destined to hell anyway.

He wasn't going to wait around to wither away until the black smoke swept him away for his crimes. His eyes darted towards the knife. Amy didn't make it look too hard.

Victor followed Donovan's eyes. He walked over to the knife and picked it up. He placed it in Donovan's hand. "I don't think you have it in you."

"And what the fuck do you know?" Donovan snapped angrily, "This is your fault. He's fucking dead because you couldn't fucking let it go!"

"What'll you do?" Victor asked coldly, "Kill me too?"

The words poured over Donovan like a bucket of ice. He knew it. He felt it, but now he knew it. It was his foot. He tried to say something back, but that reaction inside of him just snapped when faced with too much confrontation.

He ran.

He ran up the aisle, and cut through the sheets holding the door closed. He didn't give a fuck anymore. They could come and get him. They could come and get Victor. There was no one left there worth saving.

He opened the doors and, as fast as his uneven gait would let him, he simply began to move quickly away from the cinema. He went down the escalator and just moved anywhere, as long as he kept moving. It was like he was almost in a trance. His brain could just not process anything, and he did not care what would get him in the dark anymore.

Elizabeth and Gowan were taken aback, they watched him power past and move towards the doors that Gideon had been swallowed up from days ago. Squinting in the limited light, they watched as he then turned towards the direction of Gleesons. They peered into the cinema to see Victor alone in the candlelight.

"You take Victor, I'll go follow Donovan," Gowan instructed Elizabeth.

She nodded and made her way into the auditorium.

Gowan kept the candle and ran towards the direction that Donovan had gone. It wasn't long before Gowan's candlelight was gaining on Donovan, which only made him move faster.

Donovan's only objective was an exit. He was ready to be swallowed up by the universe. Leaving no remains of ash and goo was the only worthwhile ending for himself, he thought, after what he had done.

His eyes were drawn to the fire door that was softly illuminated by light behind it. It must have been a sign. He violently used his whole body to open the heavy, white doors to find a long, cement hallway. On the floor was a single, lit candle. It wasn't like the ones that Victor had provided.

He began to walk through the hall.

Gowan stopped at the fire doors. "Hey!" he yelled out.

Donovan didn't stop.

"Hey!" Gowan yelled a little louder.

The sound of Gowan's footsteps transitioning to the concrete floor let Donovan know he was getting closer. Donovan knew that Gowan had the strength to stop him.

He turned slightly, to get a better idea of how much distance was between him and Gowan. Doing so caused his feet to stumble again, knocking the candle. His cheap, work uniform pants caught fire quickly. His immediate instinct was to reach down, causing the flames to jump to other parts of his clothing.

The first thing he felt was not the heat of the flame, but the almost freezing burn of his clothes melting to his body.

"STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!" Gowan yelled, taking off his own shirt to try and use it to hit some of the flames away. "Man! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!"

The yelling just made the situation more overwhelming. Donovan fell to the ground, but it was too late. The smell of burning hair and flesh was already filling the hallway with plumes of grey smoke from the fire. The last feeling Donovan had was his eyes stinging from the fumes as his whole body felt like it was being bitten by ants.

Gowan began to choke, and remained low to the floor as he tried to exit back through the end of the corridor he had entered from. As he reached the end, he turned around and saw the unexpected. Lavender smoke was making it's way out of the body, and a glowing light at the other end of the hallway began to come closer.

Matthew smiled and waved at Gowan in the distance. He crouched over Donovan's charred, smouldering remains and sat him up to hug him, just as Donovan had been doing for him. The vanilla and honey smell had taken over the disgusting smell of burning and death. Donovan's corpse began to return to a state of normalcy.

Slowly, Donovan stood up and took Matthew's hand.

"I would always come back for you," Matthew said.

"Wait," Donovan asked, smelling the air, "my smoke wasn't-"

"Nope."

"So, it wasn't-"

Matthew shook his head again smiling, "Uh uh. Even if it was, I would always come back."

They both turned around to smile at Gowan one last time before the lavender smoke beckoned them from the other end of the hallway. Gowan made his way out of the fire exit. He looked back one last time and saw the pair facing each other and holding hands.

The happy lovers shared a gentle kiss before the exit doors gently closed themselves.