Dr. Elias Varen had stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago.

Some things in the universe were variables—chaotic, shifting, unpredictable. And some things were constants. Unchanging. Unshakable. Immovable.

And for some reason, he was one of them.

Elias sat in his dimly lit laboratory, a converted loft space filled with tangled wires, half-assembled machines, and notes covering every available surface. The air smelled of metal, burning circuits, and old coffee. On his desk, the device hummed softly, its screen flickering with data from another world—another version of reality where he had found him again.

He adjusted the dial, and the static resolved into an image. A city skyline. A bookstore. A shadow moving past the window.

There. Him.

Alive.

Elias exhaled sharply, gripping the edge of the desk. His hands trembled, not from exhaustion, but from something deeper—fear, hope, desperation, all tangled into one unbearable knot.

He had seen him before, in a thousand different worlds, in a thousand different ways. Sometimes as a stranger passing him by on the street. Sometimes as a lover who didn't remember him. Sometimes as a corpse before he ever got the chance.

No matter the reality, their paths always crossed. And no matter the reality, something always tore them apart.

Not this time.

Elias reached for the secondary switch on the device, the one he had never dared to use before. Observing had been safe. But intervening? That was something else entirely.

The machine sparked as he activated the tether. Reality blurred, the edges of his vision distorting like ripples in water.

Then-

He fell.

The impact was like crashing through layers of glass. The world shattered and reassembled around him, colors bleeding together until they solidified into something real. Solid ground. Night air. The smell of rain.

Elias stumbled forward, bracing himself against a streetlamp. The city was unfamiliar yet familiar. A parallel version of a place he knew well. The same buildings but with different names. The same streets but in a different pattern.

And then he saw him.

Standing at the entrance of a bookstore, flipping through a worn paperback. The dim glow of a streetlight cast soft shadows on his face. He looked different from the last world. Different clothes, different hair, but the same eyes.

The same person.

Elias' breath hitched. He felt the weight of every lifetime crashing down on him at once. The countless versions of this moment that had gone wrong. The memories of every time he had lost him.

Not this time.

He moved before he could think, his body acting on instinct.

"Excuse me," Elias said, his voice betraying the storm raging inside him.

Elias hesitated. What could he say? "I've loved you across a thousand worlds, and I refuse to lose you again?" Insanity. He couldn't say that.

But then, as if the universe itself was mocking him, he saw it-

A car speeding down the slick street, headlights off, unnoticed by the pedestrians. It was heading straight for him, who was standing dangerously close to the curb, unaware.

Elias didn't think. He acted.

He lunged forward, grabbing him and yanking him back just as the car screeched past, barely missing him. The gust of wind whipped against them, and for a moment, everything stilled.

Elias' arms were around his shoulders, their bodies close. Too close.

Elias swallowed hard. This was it. This was the moment.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice quieter now.