He drove Honeydew nuts, Xephos did. It's not like they lived an easy life, but the guy was so overly cautious until the exact moment when he needed to be. Then all pretense of preparation and carefully kept distance blew away and down into the face of death he ran. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if the man wasn't so fucking fragile. Sure, he hadn't died yet, but his body was living artwork displaying how close he had come on so many times.

Honeydew remembered the first time he had seen the spaceman, lying in a hole with his mind still up in space, his clothing ripped and singed, hanging in tatters about long limbs. The human's body had been so strange to the dwarf, the porcelain skin untouched by time or error.

Absent were the white flecks and light red lines that peppered dwarven skins almost from birth; present only was a pale expanse of blank canvas, an invitation for a picture neither wanted to see painted. But painted it had been, beyond the point of gruesome beauty and on to a cratered and slashed area filled with blobs of memories of despaired suffering.

There were many times where Honeydew wished he could start over, to see that blank space of possibilities again, but he knew it would only be quickly refilled. The enemies they had made, willingly and unwillingly, all held paint brushes eagerly dripping with red and overflowing buckets of colour ready to fill the frame till it could hold no more.

It shocked Honeydew, how easy it would be for Xephos to die. Soft human skin split far more easily than stubborn dwarven hide. It scared him to, knowing that death could navigate the map of his friend's life just as easily as the dwarf could navigate his tunnels.

It was easy to want to save him, easy to want to protect and hide away. But it was difficult to step in front of someone who was always stepping in front of you. Dwarves can heal from what humans can't. It's a simple truth that screamed from every fold of Honeydew's brain, but Xephos had never listened because who cared about comparative healing when only one life mattered?

Honeydew knew how much each scar, each new stripe hurt, even long after the physical pain wore away in the tide of time. Whether Xephos was periodically eidetic or his mind was making up for lost time by cramming the new important bits, the guy couldn't remember his glasses on his head, but every moment of pain was pressed roughly but permanently into each jagged wound.

Honeydew knew what Xephos thought. He knew of the nightmares, the trauma, the fears that returned at the drop of a hammer. He knew the guilt, the passion to do more that was held down by the impossibility of turning back time, and giving life to those already dead.

And he knew that what had been done had never been enough. Xephos had strived over and over to create the perfect creation, paint the perfect picture. But he failed every time. Because the world is imperfect and that is its beauty. And because he failed to realize, his image was already beautiful.

Note from the authors: In no way is this a slash story. Only a close and extremely strong brotherhood formed under the strain of unfortunate circumstance, coincidence, and struggles. We say this because of confusion during the editing process and want to avoid further problems.