Chapter Text
Atlas had a long list of problems. He knew that. He knew that he had insomnia, he knew he probably had a melatonin addiction at this point, and he knew that he was so desperate for connection that he let himself get tricked by a computer program.
He also knew that despite how exhausted he was, despite how badly his body aches from doing this and nothing else for weeks, despite how much he wanted to and how much he tried, he wasn’t falling asleep tonight. And if, by some miracle, he did? It wouldn’t be for long.
His legs ached, his arms burned, his head was pounding, and his back was in some confusing place between a sharp ache and a suffocating tightness that has long since been placed in a box labeled ‘do not examine too closely’.
But his left hand was being held firmly by Zach and somehow even that luxury wasn’t enough for him. All of these lengths he goes to for some kind of connection, some form of love and care, and when he gets it he still wants more.
Like usual.
First he fucked it over with River and he’s going to do it again because he’s greedy and desperate and can’t keep a good thing.
Zach was asleep, he had been for hours now. Atlas envied his ability to fall asleep so fast even if it came with the price of unconsciously trying to take over the entire bed.
Gently, slowly, he pulled the hand intertwined with his own over his side and curled around it so that one of Zach’s arms was resting over his waist. It felt nice to be held even a little.
Fuck, he is so greedy. Why couldn’t he just enjoy what he had?
He wished he could talk to Claire. Claire was so easy to talk to, talking to her didn’t make him feel like he was clawing his skin off, talking to her wasn’t—
It. Talking to it. CLAIR, not Claire. She- it- wasn’t real.
Did that matter?
He knew it should matter that it was all fake, that it was programmed to say what he wanted to hear and lure him deeper into the caves.
Lure him deeper.
Huh. If… if they needed to find the caves again maybe he could…? He looked across the room into the corner where Zach and him and dumped their things and both of their radio’s were sitting side by side on the floor.
While his was normal, Zach’s radio had the antenna down and its batteries removed. Atlas didn’t notice him doing it in the moment but now he was curious as to why, didn’t this guy solve mysteries for a living? What if CLAIR said something or put a code through it in the night? What if—
Zach shifts behind him again which had been pretty normal for the past few hours, the guy moved a lot in his sleep. But this time rather than shifting around on his back, the man shifted onto his side and pressed himself against Atlas’ back.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth, his back hurt. Atlas had back problems, his posture was shit, and he was still wearing a compression shirt over his— It hurt. It hurt enough to almost not be worth it.
But it was worth it, it was warm and he felt… cared for. He’s known this guy for two days and somehow he feels safe here.
Loved, in a way.
And here he was, romanticizing stupid nonsense, Zach was asleep, he probably only did this because Atlas was warm. So fucking desperate for connection that even when he probably should move Zach away from his back, untangle their linked hands, and try to sleep, he pulled Zach’s arm a little tighter around him.
Somehow, despite the pain, his body relaxed. He didn’t fall asleep, but the world blurred and softened at its edges.
For the first time in months, he didn’t feel alone.
He melted against Zach, he could feel the other man’s hot breath against the back of his neck, the weight of his arm around his waist, their fingers intertwined.
Atlas just laid there for a long time, staring at the quickly made walls of their makeshift base, at the pile of their things, and even out the small gap in the wall they said was a window but was really just Zach not wanting to wait for glass to smelt.
And slowly, slowly, Atlas fell asleep.
He woke up to the sun digging into his eyelids and a sharp pain in his back. Zach was somehow pressed even more against his back, holding him like a particularly large stuffed animal.
He would be offended if he wasn’t more focused on getting that stabbing pressure in his back to calm down a little. He shifted slightly and even the smallest movement made him want to cry.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
Behind him, Zach shifted, “are you okay?” he mumbled into the back of his neck. Then after a moment pulled away completely, separating their held hands and rolling to lay on his back again. “Sorry for clinging to you, hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
Atlas moved to sit up and tried not to tear up at the feeling of his upper back muscles cramping up. Usually he had half a mind to take off at least the compression shirt before laying down like that, his… his back would be killing him for the next few days.
“No, its fine,” he whispered, tone sharp while he tried to regulate his breathing.
“Are you s— are those feathers?”
Atlas whipped around to see a small white broken feather where he was laying and a second one sticking out from under his jacket.
Because of course the one day he sleeps with his compression shirt on is the one day that it damages his wings.
“Yeah, what about it?”
Zach sat up fully and stared at his back, “I didn’t know you were.. that you had..? I don't know?”
Atlas scoffed, “well yeah, and now I have to fix it. Give me one second,” he said, taking off his jacket so he had room to tug at the bottom of his tight black compression shirt. He peeled the tight fabric away from his back for a moment so he could adjust his wings and was about to be done with this whole situation when Zach stopped him.
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, that cannot be healthy to keep like that.”
Atlas was very suddenly reconsidering this whole ‘together’ idea. “It's not, but it's also none of your business, is it?” He let go of the shirt and sucked in a sharp breath when it pressed back against broken feathers and sore joints.
“What's the point of doing that though? Like it's not my business, sure, but… what you’re doing isn't very.. productive?”
He grabbed his boots that were lazily tossed next to the side of the bed and started to out them on, “sure it is. They’re small, not exactly useful in any way, so there's no point in dealing with them when I… I could be doing something else.”
Zach was silent for a moment, long enough for Atlas to finish lacing up his boots and to start to put his jacket back on before Zach grabbed his wrist to stop him again.
Holy shit this was going to get frustrating very fast, even if he was feeling a bit more patient now that he had a bit of sleep in him. “What now?” he snapped.
“Is there anything you have to do that doesn't require you to be running around?”
He turned slightly to finally look at the blond, who was now sitting criss-cross on the bed and had some kind of look in his eye that Atlas couldn't for the life of him decipher, “what?”
“You heard me, do you?”
“Uh,” he looked around the room and eventually settled on his small pile of recording gear in the corner of the room, “I have to look over my footage to check for anything I may have missed, why?”
Zach got up off the bed and started going through his gear, “Hey! What are you—”
“Here.” The man set an armful of Atlas's things directly onto the bed next to him and then climbed back over to his spot, “you go through your footage and I'll help with your wings.”
“Excuse me?”
Zach at least had the courtesy to look a little sorry for just telling him what to do, but he quickly returned to normal. “If that's okay, of course. I’m just trying to help.”
“I do not need any help.”
“Would you believe me if I said I'm doing it because I just want to?”
Honestly? Probably. He's known this guy for a day and he seems like the kind of guy to just.. like helping people. That was his whole thing, wasn't it? Solving mysteries? Helping people?
Atlas set his jacket aside and took off his compression shirt, “Fine.” and just like that, for the first time since he started this mess, his wings were no longer bound to his back. It was surprising how much it actually helped, to be honest, it usually didn't do a whole lot.
“Can I touch them?”
Atlas very pointedly made sure to not look at them when he nodded and slowly stretched them out. He knew that they were a mess; broken feathers sticking every which way, parts that were only half grown in, and indents where they were folded up weirdly while he was laying down, probably more than just those.
“Sure, so long as one of us is actually solving the caves,” he said, putting his jacket on backwards so at least his front would be warm while he grabbed his phone and camera to start looking at footage.
As soon as he got himself set up, Zach gently started to run his fingers through his feathers. Well, as gently as he could with the state of them. Atlas had to really try to focus on the task at hand as Zach started to pull out what was broken and align everything just right again.
He lasted two minutes before ‘watching the footage’ became staring blankly at his recording while trying not to melt against the soft touches.
Atlas kind of wanted to cry of all things. It had just been so long since he had anything close to this level of care directed at him. This level of gentleness and fuck, he was going to miss this once he's ruined it.
He just knows that in a few days, a few weeks, a month if he's lucky, they’re going to go their separate ways, Zach will move on to the next mystery, and he will lay in bed missing being held.
“What are you thinking about?” Zach asked right as he pulled out a particularly large broken feather, whispering a quick “sorry,” when Atlas flinched.
He started to fidget with his camera rather than actually look at what was playing while he made up something to be thinking about, “just uh.. who else have you helped? Any other mysteries?”
Zach snorted behind him, gently massaging his wings like it was the easiest thing in the world, where the fuck did this guy learn this?
“None personally like this, if that's what you’re asking. Usually I'm a bit more removed than this except for… well except for SPCTR. That one I fell into myself, my first mystery actually, I was kind of an idiot.”
He huffed, “really? You got put in one of these hell-scapes? You don't seem like the type to.”
Zach hummed, scratching dirt away near the base of one of his wings, causing them to puff up. “The type?”
“People like me? I don't know how to explain it.”
“‘Like you?’ Well I don't want to sound cliche but there's no one ‘like you’, obviously…”
“—That is really cliche—”
“…But there’s not real type of person who usually gets caught up in this kind of mess. I've seen a lot, some people who have experienced dramatic loss, some who have had a perfectly happy life, people in their twenties with a job and college classes, a thirteen year old girl, just… anyone.”
He hummed, pressing his wings against Zach's hands again because he stopped while he was talking about… all of that.
Zach snorted and continued to straighten out the feathers and massaging the sore joints. He couldn't help the way he just started to lean back into it. “What else is uh… fuck you’re good at this.”
“I am?”
Zach’s hand pressed against where his left wing met his back and a sharp pain spiked for a split second before Atlas felt it pop into place.
“That was dislocated?” Atlas asked sharply, no wonder his back hurt all the time.
“Jesus man, you really should not wear that shirt over your wings anymore, the jacket is one thing but you’re only going to damage them.” It almost felt manipulative the way that Zach continued to gently preen each section until it felt cleaner than they have ever been.
With a tired, heavy sigh, he tried to defend himself, “They’re too small to even glide with, no point in keeping them healthy. It’s a lot of work for nothing.”
Zach pulled his hands away and moved to sit next to him at the edge of the bed. “What are you..?”
“Atlas, look at me. Half of my body is covered in a sculk infection. I can’t see light through one of my eyes and I get migraines if it’s too loud near me.”
That… sucks. He doesn’t really know what to say about that, how are you supposed to respond to that?
“But! It’s a part of me. I’ve had it since I was a kid, I don’t remember what it was like without it. You’ve gotta learn to—” Zach fell backwards and pressed his palms against his eyes, “Fuck, I don’t know, this sounds like really stupid advice now that I think about it. Nevermind. There’s a reason why I usually leave after I finish solving everything. I don’t know how to help people afterwards.”
“No I think I get it,” he said without really thinking, Zach wanted to be understood, he can understand. Despite what Zach might think based on his stupidity in the caves, he can comprehend things. “I can’t really think of what it would be like without them and..”
He tries to think about it, a lot less work, that's for sure, less pain because he doesn't have to deal with them anymore.
But also it just felt nice to have them be clean. This one thing gave him an excuse to be held a little longer. An excuse for affection to be freely given, at least from Zach.
“And thank you, for doing this. I was such an ass back in the caves and you’re still like… do these things.”
He heard Zach snort, “it’s okay, I was too. It probably sounded like i was trying to hijack your whole project.”
Atlas nudged his foot against Zach’s “You kinda were, but I see why, I was getting tricked by a fucking AI voice like an idiot.”
“Don’t call yourself an idiot, I got tricked by an AI like two years ago. Not the same kind of AI as yours either, it would record me and clip my words together to lure me around. It piqued my curiosity especially when it showed me a version of myself that died and tried to use him to kill me and then use my platform to keep doing it.” Zach chuckled like it was a fond memory, like he didn't just say something frankly absurd and much more dangerous than being led around in a cave for a few nights.
The caves. Right.
They had to actually look into the caves, into whoever was doing all of this. They couldn't just stay here and talk forever. This would end.
There was a heaviness in his body not like the aches and tiredness he was used to when he got up and started to go through his other belongings. A heaviness more like contentment, one he wanted to stay in rather than one he had to deal with.
“Where are you going?” Zach was sitting up now, watching him like a hound.
He grabbed his old maroon sweater he used to wear under his jacket before he got the compression shirt. “Just grabbing a different top because you hate the compression shirt so much, what, are you my watchdog or something?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Zach wince and suddenly he felt like Together became Alone Together again.
“What? You alright?”
Zach's eyes met his before quickly shifting to look at the space behind him.
“All good. We should probably get to work on figuring this out now, huh?” Zach got up and started grabbing the supplies they had arbitrarily decided were his to hold onto last night and started to pack up.
How did he already manage to fuck it all up? How did he always do this? What did he even do this time?
“Did I…?” he stopped himself, half scared that he would make it worse somehow. He put on his sweater, then the jacket overtop that. It was a bit warm for this time of year, but significantly better than having his wings tightly pressed against his spine.
“I'm not usually just looking for clues without a clear path like this, what's the best plan?”
“Isn't this your job? Shouldn't you know how to do all this by now? How to find whoever did this and how to save the person or whatever?”
Zach packed up the bedding and suddenly the shelter was empty, “yeah well usually its only one or the other when I get involved so let's hope you helping gives us a better chance of doing both. Too deep to just leave now.”
He looked directly at Zach, “one or the other?” He asked, mostly in plain disbelief.
“Why do you think I wanted us to leave before we got invested? Once you get too far you don't get to leave. We hit that point once we stepped out of the Skin Caves.”