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Punk can't resist the Eye. He knows he can't, he knows it's inevitable, but the skin-crawling disgust he feels for himself whenever he indulges, gluts himself on someone else's thoughts, dreams, fears, doesn't make it easy. The first time he dips into an(other) avatar's psyche - Kingston, at least it's Kingston, who for all the hopped up snare drum-heartbeat aggression of the Slaughter is unbothered enough to cast a lazy wave and tell Punk to hang out or whatever while they both blink blood out of their eyes - he pulls himself out with a desperate gulping gasp and ice water rushing down his spine, and then immediately pukes on Kingston's shoes. Kingston's gracious-ish about it, at least, and Punk buys him new Timbs as a thank you.
It happens again and again - the thick darkness of Black, the squirming under his skin from Abadon and the rotten teeth of their grin following him in his dreams, the interlocking patterns that drill into his skin while either of the Bucks talk him over and around and under. There's respite from it all, Punk knows, but he tries not to indulge himself there, either.
There are nights that he can't help it.
Another city, another show, another hotel, and through it all never-ending pulses of temptation. A tasting menu of terror placed before a man on a hunger strike. Punk retreats to his room and sits under the spray of the shower like that will drown it out. He falls asleep, exhaustion finally catching him and weakness pouncing on him while he's down, and comes to fighting off the cobwebs of a nightmare from the woman three rooms over - her house burned down when she was a child, and she dreams nightly of the dark shapes moving within calling her name, and running in fear and confusion, the pain of the heat scorching her lungs, and she still has the cough - he chokes along with her until he realizes where he is and what he's done. He holds down his dinner this time thanks to too much unfortunate practice, but he still feels dirty. Hot water and soap doesn't rinse away the grime of violation, and he turns off the water and runs to the only salvation he knows.
Darby doesn't seem surprised to see him, not that Darby ever seems surprised by anything. His clear blue eyes have the same quality to them as always - not dead (I came from death, I'm dead) but more like missing, absent - that Punk finds so comforting. He doesn't hug the man in relief, but it's a near thing, and slips past him and into the room. Here, everything else feels dulled by the null and void that is Darby Allin.
Punk doesn't even really have to say anything at this point, just watches Darby close his eyes and breathe deep and -
They're falling. Everything is dark, a solid void of absolutely nothing pressing around on all sides, but Punk can still feel the wind whistle harsh through his ears, the rush of terminal velocity against his skin. His stomach swoops instinctively, but this isn't a place of fear. There's no blood pumping too fast, no tension or brace for impact - just the surety that it will come when it comes, and nothing else. He reaches out, and Darby takes his hand in his, and they fall together.
Punk wakes to sunlight - fear has less power in the brightness, so the inescapable roar of the night before is tempered to a dull ache in the back of his neck that he can manage. Darby is curled over his chest, ear to his breast and hand draped over his shoulder.
"The Vast, Darbs?" he asks. "Cheating on me, now?"
Darby snorts. "You don't like falling?"
"No one likes falling."
"Plenty of people do, actually. It's the impact no one likes." He lifts his hand lazily and brings it down with a low whistle until he can slap it down low on Punk's belly with a wet noise. "That's what people should be afraid of. But there's no Fear of splat."
"Terminus, literally."
Another snort. "Hardly. The End is too noble for a puddle of guts."
"You'd know."
"Yeah." This time, Darby's voice is quiet. "Your heart stopped beating."
Punk makes himself take a breath, and his lungs burn as they inflate after so long. "Sorry, did it scare you?"
Darby chuckles, not with any particular mirth. "Nothing scares me, Punk. Just letting you know."
He crawls out of bed, and Punk watches the shift of tanned skin over lean muscles, the white pinpricks of scar tissue from where tacks and glass and barbs have pierced him deep enough to wound. Darby rolls his neck and looks at him over his shoulder with those absent eyes, then jerks his chin towards the shower. Punk follows him, leans against the sink when Darby pulls the curtain back and turns the faucet on to warm up. The water rushes through the pipes and thunders into the tub, filling his ears with a roar like wind. He closes his eyes and tries to remember falling, the freedom of weightlessness and fearlessness.
A hand curls around his in the darkness, solid and warm and real. Punk smiles.