Work Text:
Darkness was the worst thing to come for Aoba at the end of his days. He hated how he couldn’t see anymore, how dry and tired his eyes got with only the glow of screens dimly illuminating his work, and the vacant face staring at him. He hated the blindness darkness brought, hated the silence that never got filled with song, hated having to accept he was going to have to go to sleep alone. But the minutes ticked and ticked by and he knew if he tried staying up through the darkness, it was somehow worse. It was scarier.
And this time, Clear wasn’t here to protect him.
Aoba clamped his eyes shut, trying to keep the moisture building up in them away. He told himself it was going to be okay, because he could do it, he was going to be able to make Clear good as new. Aoba sat there among his endless tools and screens and parts of Clear’s broken body, trying to make the pieces to an all-white puzzle fit together. It was tiring, but he’d be damned if he ever gave up. He was going to bring Clear back, and then...and then things would be fine again. Sometimes if he convinced himself enough, the memory of Clear’s beautiful smile was almost bright enough to quell his anxieties of the darkness.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Aoba shifted through the piles and piles of machinery and torn skin that covered his entire floor like stained flower petals. Aoba couldn’t even make out anything beyond the scraps, but he didn’t pay it any mind, how they always seem to multiply - endless - and he picked up some new piping to replace the broken one where Clear stabbed himself.
But Aoba couldn’t make out the wound. He frowned. He couldn’t make out Clear at all.
What was left of his skin was splattered with something. His moonlight-white hair and shirt were both caked with something pitch-black, and when Aoba touched it, it was thick and sticky, like tar.
“Wh...what is this?” Aoba panicked, trying to search for the source, but it was impossible in the darkness. When he went to pull back and turn on the lights, he remained stuck in place. The tar held fast to him, sucking him into the puddle that was growing and growing, spilling all over Clear’s body, onto the floor, drowning everything…
Aoba’s breath hitched. He wrenched his arm this way and that to get loose, and when that didn’t work, he tried to just grab Clear, to save him from the gross blackness. There was nothing else he could do.
“C-Clear! Clear, hold on!” he called. He couldn’t breathe. The tar was spilling out of his lungs and throat. He choked, coughed, crying hard and begging to be able to help Clear as he was swallowed away, just this once, just this once, I can’t lose him again, please, please--!
“Clear!” The shout took all the air from Aoba’s lungs. He thought he was still choking. There was still darkness, and for a moment he was completely paralyzed. But with his next inhale, he was sobbing, quaking his entire body with them, and the frightened tears wouldn’t stop falling as he laid in his bed. A body beside him stirred, and warm hands cupped his face. Aoba latched onto the connecting arm, the skin all stitched together, and he buried his face into the perfectly whole chest of his lover.
Gently, Clear petted through his hair, and it felt as though he was trembling too, as if they had the same dream just now. But his voice was steady when he hugged Aoba tight and said, “Aoba-san, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here with you, Aoba-san. Please listen to my voice right now. It’s alright.”
Aoba’s sobs were stifled now that he was suffocating himself in Clear’s chest, but still he called his name over and over. And every time he did, Clear just started pressing kisses into his hair. His loving lips and unwavering embrace kept Aoba whole, kept his broken pieces from falling apart. His voice got weak at some point, and he did what Clear said. He became aware that he was still in his room, but Clear was alive and holding him and talking to him and… And he was here.
Aoba’s cries dwindled down to hiccups as he clung to the warm body beside him. “You’re here,” he said finally.
“I always am,” Clear reassured, sounding like he might’ve been offering a smile.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to suddenly…”
“I told you, Aoba-san. I don’t mind it. I want to be able to comfort you. I don’t want you to be in pain anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Aoba felt the need to say again. “I thought visions like that would just...be gone by this point.” He didn’t usually apologize for such things, but he was vulnerable right now. He'd been vulnerable for a long time, and it took even more time to try and make sure the stitches in his heart were tight enough so that he didn’t bleed again. But true to his word, Clear put the pieces together again with a patient hand, giving Aoba a tender smile. He offered one now when Aoba looked up at him, but his eyelashes are a little wet. Had he been crying too? It wouldn’t be surprising - their separation had affected both of them after all. The gravity of how much time had passed since he died was not lost on Clear.
“It’s okay to be sad,” Clear said. “We just have to make sure to know that we have to keep living too, right? Because we’re here now.”
His words were a warm balm that soothed the last of Aoba's anxieties, and he cuddled closer to Clear, nuzzling into his collar and inhaling his subtle scent. Clear was here. He wasn’t going anywhere. And that was precious to Aoba, the most precious thing that he wanted to keep safe with their happiness.
“Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse. “I love you, Clear. And you’re right.”
“I love you too, Aoba-san. I always will.” Clear’s arms tightened again, but so did his voice at the end of his statement. “That’s why… Please remember that - okay, Aoba-san?”
Aoba frowned, shifting to look up at the faint glimmer of pink eyes above him. “Huh? Of course.”
A light giggle blew on Aoba’s forehead. “Ah yes. I just wanted to make sure, because I do get worried about Aoba-san sometimes. Oh,” his voice got lilted again as he smiled at Aoba, “would you like me to sing you a lullaby to sleep?”
Having just the melody in mind, Aoba relaxed. “Yes please,” he said, closing his eyes with a smile. And once more, he got lost in sleep in the arms and gentle cascade of Clear’s voice that brought him to tranquil ocean depths. Aoba immersed himself in the sounds just like a soft blanket, knowing he had no reason to hate the darkness anymore.
His sleep felt like it didn’t last long enough though when his peace was interrupted by the electric beat of his alarm. It pierced into his consciousness with such a force, Aoba felt as though he just fell from a cloud. Aoba groaned, searching for his Coil and turning the annoying sound off. Geez, why did Ren insist on his alarm being so early? It didn’t help that Clear was on his side…
Aoba suddenly felt very awake. The silence in his room was oppressive somehow. Something - something was off. Aoba turned over, his stomach dropping. His room looked more-or-less the same as he always kept it. The morning light fell crookedly into his room as it always had. Ren was asleep at the foot of the bed. Nothing unusual. Then what was this uneasy feeling? Aoba blinked, and felt over the covers, looking under them too for good measure, but there could be no mistake.
The space beside him was empty and cold.
"R-Ren... Ren!" He brought the little bundle of fluffy dark fur to his lap, turning him him. He could hardly wait for his eyes to open. "Ren, where's Clear?"
The benefit to being a machine was that Ren didn't need to slowly blink at him in sleepy confusion, or not be able to understand right away what Aoba was talking about. But even then, Ren took in the situation with such immediate attention and concern, Aoba couldn't help but wonder - was this a position they'd been in before? Had he asked Ren that question before? It felt like he'd been sleeping for a long time, and he couldn't get his memories in order.
Ren's ears dropped a fraction. "Aoba. Clear is not here."
"I-I know," Aoba babbled shakily. "So where - where is he?" He listened out for any commotion downstairs, or even in the bathroom, but the house remained in its silence, as if keeping a secret from Aoba.
"Aoba." Ren took the grounding tone of someone trying to gently reason with another. "Clear is not here. He has not been here for three years."
Aoba blinked rapidly, not realizing it was to bury the tears overflowing his eyes. "Oh," was all he said. His voice choked in his throat, the word no more than an echo. "Oh. Right. That's right. Of course..." Numbly, he put Ren down on the bed. He started to pick at the lint on his blanket with an air of obsession. That was right. It had been - a very long time since the fall of Oval Tower, since Clear died in his arms, since Tae finally convinced him there was nothing that could be done. It had been - years. Clear had been gone for years.
Then why could he still have dreams like that? Why did he still fall asleep and just see Clear, feel and hear Clear so vividly that he confused it for reality? The first year of depression was very distinct in Aoba's memory, a black void to match his intense grief. But the months after that? How had Aoba been going on? If his earlier inkling was right, then he must've done this before - waking up, wondering where Clear was, like he'd been fixed.
But he never had been. Clear was never here.
"Aoba." Ren patted a sympathetic paw on Aoba's knee. "I'm sorry."
Shaking his head, Aoba sniffled, trying to smile. "N-no, it's fine! Um, it's just - I h-had I dream, I thought he was h-here, so..." Aoba's bottom lip quivered uncontrollably, and he couldn't talk anymore. He hugged Ren to him, starting his sobs once more, tears that felt like they never stopped falling staining his cheeks.
How long had he been doing this? It had been years. Clear wasn't here. Yet still Aoba's mind was tormented by memories of their happiness that had been stolen away. The dark nights of that first year still shadowed Aoba's heart. keeping him in endless repeat even as his floor and closet were empty. And right now he was sitting in his room, holding Ren as his heart broke once again in the morning light.
The morning light. The same he saw the dust motes dance in like fireflies in a glass bottle.
It was another day. Somehow, Aoba kept waking up even after the deepest sleep. Even after the nightmares, and the beautiful dreams, Aoba was still waking up. With or without Clear, he was still opening up his eyes to that sunlight as bright as rose-pink eyes. It seemed so unfair to still be here while Clear was - wherever he was. Was he anywhere? While Aoba had been convinced Clear had a heart, he wasn't so sure about a soul. It was just - funny how Aoba was here with these memories, keeping Clear alive only like this. One would think it'd be the other way around, right? His body was human and Clear's wasn't. Maybe if Clear had gotten fixed, their roles would've been reversed. Maybe Clear would've slept again. The impossible thought pained Aoba.
It didn't matter now. Every bit of Clear was gone. Every bit. Yet in the middle of trying to keep himself together, Aoba remembered what the Clear in his dream (but so convincingly Clear) said to him:
"I don’t want you to be in pain anymore. It’s okay to be sad. We just have to make sure to know that we have to keep living too, right? Because we’re here now. Please remember that."
"Okay, Aoba-san?"