Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keralis

He’d never really fit, not above or below.

Metal-toed boots pounded the pavement.

He’d always kind of straddled the two worlds, seeking the in-between, afraid to make the commitment.

His hands were shaking; he was running while trying to see his phone screen, and he nearly tripped and fell.

Keralis had always kind of coasted by on the comforts provided by charisma and charm. It hadn’t been the hardest thing in the world. Not that aspect, at least. He’d had plenty of other things he’d had to work harder than hard for.

Things like purple orbs that made him think of faraway stars. The desire, the urge, the wonder of what was under the helmet, the gloves, the mask, but he never pried, and he never would’ve.

Four years.

It had taken him four years to have this.

He’d be damned if he let some stupid sealing of the bedrock rip it away.

“Keralis, I…!” The voice was smooth and edged with the tones he’d memorized after the first few months of knowing him, of rounding them in his mind and considering how they’d sound on a thousand different words.

He’d fallen so hard it wasn’t even funny anymore. And now they were together. Only for a few pathetically small months before all this had started happening.

He’d had four years. Yet he hadn’t had the nerve.

But he’d found it somewhere, between terrible pick-up lines and longing stares, and now?

“I am coming down there!” He spat it out before he could hesitate.

“What!?”

Xisuma’s voice was crackling through the speaker, the connection between under-city and over-city must’ve already been failing.

Keralis kept running. The ground kept shaking.

The world felt like it was tilting sideways, and yet, his feet couldn’t stop, not for a moment, not to risk this voice getting away from him again.

“Keralis, you need to think about this, you don’t want to be stuck down here and…”

“I am not letting anything take you away from me! Not after all this time I wasted!” His gasping pants probably didn’t do the intensity of his confession any justice.

It was the third day since the tremors had begun, and Keralis had spent much of the previous two locked into hours of nonstop shipping trying to get as many supplies below bedrock as possible before the rifts became inaccessible. He’d put off what he was going to do about himself as he worked, convincing himself it was less important.

Until he’d gotten back to his cramped one-bedroom apartment above his shipping company’s front, collapsed on his bed, and stared at the ceiling for about two minutes.

Then he’d been up and running with nothing but the clothes on his back.

I will figure out the rest later!

Go. For the starry-eyed wonder that tightened his chest every time he heard that voice.

A few moments quietly passed on the other end of the line. Keralis could hear Xisuma breathing through the speakers.

“I…I…”

Another shuddering inhale that crackled in the speakers.

“…I’ll meet you! Which rift, then!?”

“Ah! Shashwam!”

“Which rift!?”

“T-The one for shipment into the over-city relations I usually ride into! I will run down! There should still be enough space to get through!”

“Then go! I’ll…I’ll see y’soon!”

“I promise!”

Keralis hung up the phone and then focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

Xisuma

He’d been back at his little apartment, chiseled into one of the main cavern walls, close to the Labs. It was prime real estate, considering proximity, and also, the Near Surface close to the Labs was one of the safest places to live in the entire under-city.

Not that that was saying much, but still.

He’d been there, laying on his narrow loveseat couch with his helmet on the coffee table ringed with coffee stains. Staring at the ceiling.

I didn’t ask.

It had been haunting him.

He’d seen Keralis, his boyfriend of such strangely little time, so much the past few days. Crossing paths during deliveries, communicating frantically everything they needed brought below before the bedrock became impossible to navigate through anymore.

Keralis had made that trip again and again and again. Xisuma had watched him. And during that time, occasionally, they’d touch. Brush hands, steal a pecking kiss, Keralis pressing his lips to briefly to the temple of Xisuma's helmet, as they rushed past each other.

Everything had been chaos, and then he’d come home today…the last day rifts would be accessible.

Removed his helmet to rest…and just stared at the ceiling.

I didn’t ask.

Was it far to claim it was inactivity? Inertia? No, no, none of that fit.

Xisuma wasn’t so pitiful as to assign his hesitation to that. They were so new, in so many ways.

He’d never even seen my face.

Xisuma had considered, on so many occasions, just pulling his headphones off. Others around the labs had seen him without it…but with Keralis, for some reason, he’d shied away. Considered to maintain that boundary, as if it would defend the last vestiges of his heart that those big brown eyes hadn’t uncovered.

Starry-eyed.

What did it even mean?

“Nothing…anymore…” He murmured aloud to himself in an apartment that, despite it’s little size, felt to big, to empty, to quiet, to…

Phone.

Phone ringing.

Conversation, a frantic spitfire, and then…

“I promise!”

Xisuma hung up the phone and pulled it close to his chest. His purple eyes shown with a burning fondness, the air felt thin as he drew it down. The sparks of glamor around his head weren’t as dense as other voidwalkers, which was why he needed his helmet in the first place.

He breathed hard, gripping his phone as if it were him, him, and he…

He’s coming down here to me…!

Xisuma stood up so fast his head spun. He snatched his helmet off the coffee table and frantically wound his hair up underneath it, long fine brown hair that he jammed up inside the helmet as he yanked it down and on. Fitted the seals around his neck with twin clicks and then felt the rush of the pressurized space it created allowing him to breathe comfortably.

Then he rushed for the door. Shoved his feet into his boots and rushed outside. His feet moved as he input the glamor lock to seal the door and then rounded. Down the rickety stairs, tight and twirling along the various apartments that climbed like ants in an ant farm along whatever usable space, usable walls, could be found when the near-surface was repairing itself after the battles it saw during the waning days of Anarchy.

Anarchy.

Shame the name was already taken, it’d apply pretty well to this day. Doc and Etho had kept it together so well, and yet…

The streets were packed. People rushed to and fro, their voices rising in a frantic cacophony. Xisuma dove into the fray without hesitation. He wasn’t far from the main labs, from the rift Keralis had been talking about. He ran against the crowd, everyone else moving away from the rifts, rushing to get home, wherever home was at this point. Faces strained, phones to ears, struggling with connection, with direction, with everything that had been forced upon them all without warning three days ago.

Xisuma ran.

He tried his best to thread through the crowd, hugging the stone wall along one side of the street, taking advantage of gaps where he could step into the edges of tunnels to catch his breath. Even with his helmet on, his cardio wasn’t great, but he had to keep moving.

Keralis is going to be there…!

What if the rifts were already sealed?

He’ll be there!

What if it were already too late? What if it was over? These strange weeks he’d had of gingerly holding hands, of having those eyes, that cheerful voice, the undisguised adoration Keralis showered him in…were done.

A relic of the past, of a time when things were still gray.

Xisuma leaned on his knees within a tunnel mouth, panting a few times before he straightened up. His eyes, purple orbs through the tinted visor of his helmet, beamed a brilliant purple that felt warmer than ever before.

Determined.

It didn’t matter what logic claimed right now, he needed to hold on, to believe it, because if he gave up on that, then he’d lose more than access to a sky he’d known for as long as he could remember that he’d never be allowed to stand under, anyway.

Believe. 

He promised!

Xisuma pushed his way back into the street and kept running.

Chapter Text

Keralis

His lungs had never burned so badly in his life, but he couldn’t stop now. The last time he’d come back up via rail cart, it'd already been dicey, and sure, he was going to a different rift now, but that didn’t mean it'd be any better.

What if it’s already sealed?

“Not the time!” He hissed to himself as he turned a corner and sprinted down the sidewalk toward a set of old cellar doors. This rift was close to the university, and Keralis hadn’t used it very frequently, mainly because it dropped you into a slithering series of tunnels above the Labs. It wasn’t on the Labs monitoring schedule due to its remote location, but the eventual output did land relatively close to the main Labs branch.

Keralis preferred the ease of riding down on one of the rail carts with his cargo…but that wasn’t exactly an option right now.

He rushed down the alley to the cellar doors and pulled one of them up, slipping beneath it and letting it clatter shut once again behind him.

It was dark and musty down here. Occasional winding footprints were visible from others, probably making use of the rift.

He flung himself across the darkened space. The change from the bright morning sunlight above to the near-darkness made his eyes burn momentarily, struggling to adjust.

He didn’t even think to wish it goodbye. To gaze back at the tiny crack between the doors and recognize it might be his last ray of sunlight, to take one more breath of this damp, musty air and qualify it as fresh.

Last breath. Last look.

None of it so much as crossed his mind.

Red was pulsating from the rift ahead of him, and he dropped to his knees, peering down as he gasped down a few quick breaths, trying to steady himself.

There were tendrils, strands like woven starlight that were scarlet rather than silver. They were reaching across the rift, weaving back and forth like stitches about to ease a bleeding wound shut.

But it wasn’t shut yet.

Keralis sat back, swinging his metal-toed boots over the edge, and dropped down. He had to squeeze through several sections, pushing so hard against the rough stone around him that his callused palms felt scraped, but he wasn’t bleeding.

The city was not, either…but we’re stitching it shut anyway.

“AH!” A sharp cry escaped him as he went tumbling down through the last of the rift and landed off-balance, toppling onto his rear and rolling to avoid hitting his head.

Keralis lay still for a moment, still gasping. He held his hands up over his face to check he hadn’t cut himself while struggling to squeeze downward.

No cuts. Ok, that was good. He sat up slowly and looked down the tunnel toward the under-city.

More red.

“Ohhh, no no no no no!” He forced himself to scramble to his feet. His longish dark hair was nearly free of it’s ponytail, the plaits he kept it in the sides of his head were frizzed, he might’ve caught the edge of one on the rock coming down and pulled it partly out of the style. His flannel was only half-way buttoned since he’d rushed out, his metal-toe boots were not made for this kind of running, and yet, and yet.

He started moving again, rushing toward the pulsating red, hoping that a path through was still there, or else he might find himself trapped as this horrible red closed in all around him.

A shudder rushed up his spine, but he ignored it and just moved faster.

He had to make it through. It wasn’t optional. He’d made a promise, and he didn’t intend to start a habit of breaking those.

So he kept running.

Xisuma

Is this what I used to be like?

Gasping. Wheezing. Struggling to keep moving, to see even as his vision tried to blur around the edges. Having to stop every few seconds to let his glamor collect, get down at least one proper exhale before continuing.

Is this how I lived?

He remembered that time, but of course, his parents had been so overprotective…understandably so. Not to mention the Anarchy had still been going on for the first couple years of his life. So that had complicated things further.

Gasp. Wheeze.

Xisuma’s fingers curled tighter around the edge of his helmet.

It had happened so fast that he had barely even registered it. The crush of people moving away from the Labs and the main station were like a tide he was fighting against, and that tide was unpredictable. Someone had clipped his shoulder as he was trying to get around them. He’d moved to catch himself, but another foot had been in the way. Whoever it was must’ve been in a rush, because they didn’t try to catch him or block him from a one-way ticket face-first into the cavern wall.

Crack.

Xisuma’s helmet had probably saved him from a bloody nose, but that wasn’t the main issue. A chunk of his visor cracked from the impact and fell out, shattering on the near-surface street.

And Xisuma stared with one purple eye no longer behind glass at the way ahead of him. One eye staring out through a gap that shouldn’t be there as his helmet rapidly depressurized and his breathing went short.

I ‘ave replacement visors back at my place…like a’dozen a’em.

But he’d reached up.

If…when…when Keralis makes it, he’ll call me. The under-city connections should be ok, and his phone is wired ta do both.

Released the clasps holding his helmet on, with no accompanying hiss of pressure escaping like their usually would be.

I don’t need ta meet him there.

His fingers had gripped under the edges.

But I said I would. I need ta see him.

He’d pulled his helmet off, long brown hair spilling down past his shoulders, and taken a deep rattling breath with the glamor sparking only around his mouth and nose, not reaching into a complete enveloping effect like most other voidwalkers.

Xisuma, without his helmet, could still breathe. It wasn’t like he was completely doomed without the thing. The issue was he couldn’t breathe well. His glamor was so weak it wasn’t capable of maintaining void density air around his head the way other voidwalkers did naturally. It was enough that he could be perfectly comfortable while he was sleeping, or resting on the couch, or eating a meal, or just very carefully, slowly, moving around his home.

While he was trying to run against a frantic crowd?

Less ideal. Much less ideal.

But he kept moving.

His hair was a wild mess down his back, long brown locks that probably hadn’t seen the outer cavern roofs since he was a child being taken to the labs for his first helmet fitting.

He panted. Gasped. His eyes burned, but he kept moving.

Kept moving.

Was this a run? More like a wobbly jog if you were being generous. But he was moving. He was clutching his helmet in one hand like some kind of paling protection.

There was no protection. Not anymore.

RUMBLE

RUMBLE

RUMBLE

People were crying out. Xisuma heard the voices all around him, murmurs of terror at what was happening. Wings and claws and blaze-rods and fur and all else that was banned from the sunlight. Denied the brilliant blue.

What does it feel like?

Xisuma didn’t often even feel the cavern air on his face, much less a fresh breeze.

What does it look like?

Sunlight filtering through the trees.

Maybe he was crazy.

Maybe he was absolutely, utterly insane.

But Xisuma stopped again, leaning on the wall as he swallowed down breaths one after another. Lifted purple eyes toward the street, along the stretch where yellow light buzzed, and redstone circuits gleamed along the walls, along the cheeks of people passing by, in the crush of those cramming back down here, seeking safety in a prison of bedrock because they had no other choice.

I don’t care. I don’t need ta see it.

He’d like to. He’d really like to, someday.

But I don’t need ta see it. All I need is to see him.

One foot in front of the other.

One breath in, one breath out.

Keep moving, for the sight that was promised somewhere at the end of the street.

Chapter Text

Keralis

His lungs burned, his hands were shaking, it was dark, dark aside from the red pulsing from the artificial bedrock sewing the rifts together, tearing the city in half.

“AH!” A scream cut from his lips as he saw the way ahead blocked by more of the tendrils, and he dropped to his knees. Hands callused from work in the smuggling business scrabbled against rough stone as he crawled beneath the red, red, red.

I promised!

Something he’d said in a surge of emotion as he shoved his phone in his pocket and sprinted for the door just minutes ago, but it felt like hours.

Keralis’ eyes burned, fear and adrenaline pumping in his veins as he dragged himself to his feet. His hands felt hot from scrapes, his knees were achy and bruised, but he kept moving. Eyes darting along the walls, searching for any other obstructions, swallowing down breaths as he raced through his descent.

So close. Almost there. Just.

RUMBLE

RUMBLE

RUMBLE

He stumbled, his weight pitching forward at being so close to the bedrock as it shook, and he shot his arms out, hands pedaling against the ground a few sets as his metal-toed boots scratched against the stone.

He pushed himself up, kept propelling himself forward, looking up, and saw more of the red.

But he knew this had to be the last of it.

Past here is the chute down!

He realized it even as his body screamed for a rest. He’d been running all this time, his hands burned as he forced himself forward. Knees pumping, eyes stinging as several tears slipped.

The world was getting torn apart.

Shades of gray were forced into a stark black and white, stabbing into them and threatening everything.

In his mind, he saw purple that reminded him of starlight, and heard a voice he knew he could live with all his life.

All his life.

I promised!

Keralis rounded the slope of a tunnel and slammed into the wall from the momentum. His shoulder throbbed as his boots skidded down the stone; he nearly tripped but kept his feet beneath him, metal-toes catching, running, running, running.

Desperate to keep that promise, regardless of whatever the puppeteer proclaimed, had to be the truth. It wasn’t for him. He’d always been between two worlds, and now his choice was made.

He saw the last gap, the pulsing red, and there was still space, it was closing, closing, but there was still space, he could still…

“…make it!” The words rasped from his chest, shredded in his throat, as he jumped and threw himself feet-first forward. His momentum from the downslope sprint carried him halfway through, his top shoulder almost clipped the red, red, red, but he flung an arm out to catch himself against the bottom like a brace.

Pulled.

Forced.

Flew threw.

“AGH!”

Keralis hit the ground, rolled twice, and then fell about a yard through the final gap.

Hit the ground with a force that momentarily stunned him.

He lay there staring up at the stone. At the…

Redstone circuits.

Yellow lights.

He was lying in the back corner of the rail station near the labs. He knew that rift he took had a tunnel that snaked further along, but he’d ended up through one of the cracks that must’ve been made in the stone beneath the bedrock by the shaking.

“Ha…!”

The noise bubbled up from his chest.

“Hahaha…! Hahahaha! I made it!” He kicked his feet up into the air a few times, almost right above him, as tears of relief finally poured from his face. There were people, under-city folk, rushing away from the station entrance, the flow of people all descending, it seemed so panicked as he rolled his head to the side.

“Gotta call..S-Shashwam…” He murmured to himself as he forced himself to sit up, an ache shooting down his spine from the hard landing.

“Aiiiie ow ow ow ow…” He groaned as he shifted, forcing himself to one knee.

Then there was a stumbling gait, he heard it echo against the deserted station walls. This place, usually so bustling, had been abandoned, one of the first stations to go out once the initiative had begun.

Keralis looked up.

For a singular instant, he didn’t recognize him.

This man had long, unkempt brown hair, frizzy with split ends, a round face with soft cheeks and pale skin, wearing a fitted green shirt tucked into black baggy pants. Gloves. Gripping in one hand a…

“Helmet.” Keralis breathed, his eyes darting once to the helmet and then up again.

The man's breath was rattling hard, harder than Keralis after his sprint for the under-city, his eyes, his eyes, his…

“Shashwam!”

“YOU MADE IT!”

The helmet hit the stone floor of the station. Keralis wrung out of himself the last of his strength and threw himself upward.

Xisuma crashed into him. Keralis could feel him shaking. He flung his arms around the voidwalker's waist and hefted him up. His hands scrambled for purchase against his back, his hips, his shoulders, anything, anything, he just needed to feel him.

Feel him, because…

“You’re here!” Xisuma’s voice was shrill against his ear, wheezing, and Keralis buried his face into his boyfriend's shoulder.

“I promised you!”

“But it…!”

“I do not break promises! I am…here! I…you…”

He broke back just enough to see him.

Xisuma’s eyes looked exhausted, his chest was heaving, and he had small flecks of beautiful purple glamor floating around his face, but not at the same density as Keralis had seen from other voidwalkers he’d met.

“…your helmet.” Keralis breathed, and Xisuma flushed the most gorgeous shade of pink Keralis thought he’d ever seen.

“Ah. ‘Bout that. S’alright…it…um…got a bit bumped around durin’ my run over to meet’cha…broke m’visor…but it’s ok. I’ve got spares back at my place.”

Protectiveness flared in Keralis’ chest as he shook his head. “You did not need to keep going, you could’ve called, I would’ve met you somewhere else, you…!”

“I said I’d meet’cha.” Xisuma cut him off. His gloved hands rose to cup Keralis’s face. His eyes were bright, so bright. Keralis had always figured they had to be, since he could always see their outline through the dark glass of his visor, but to see them? Truly see them?

Truly see this man he’d loved for so many private, desperate years?

“…and I said I would be here,” Keralis murmured, exhaustion pouring through him now, all he’d held back during that run flaring painfully. His badly scraped hands, his bruised knees, his back from falling into the station.

But he didn’t care.

Stars, I don’t care about anything else right now.

“Shashwaaaaammy..?” He drew the silly little nickname for all he could, and Xisuma’s eyes lidded, turned so fond Keralis could forget all that hurt him.

“What is it, then?”

“Can I give you a kiss?”

Purple eyes shone bright in the abandoned station, and Keralis knew he’d have chosen them in a million different realities, wherever their fate might take them, he’d still have done anything to have this.

“…I suppose you can,” Xisuma replied, and Keralis didn’t wait a moment longer before crashing his lips into his. Xisuma made the most delightful squeak of surprise as Keralis tightened his arms around his waist, as if he couldn’t stand to have any space between them. Pressed the kiss as far as he could, till the pressure nearly hurt, and Xisuma didn't pull away from it either. He seemed just as desperate for it, tilting his head to try and make more room, make it possible to get even closer. 

Closer. Closer. 

Being apart suddenly felt unbearable when they’d almost lost it all. He’d hold him close through the sharpness of black and white, through every shade of gray; he’d spent so long being a coward about his feelings that he didn’t want to cut corners anymore.

They broke apart, and Xisuma’s hands dragged from cupping Keralis’s face to clinging around his neck.

“I…was terrified you weren’t goin’ ta make it…!” He whispered into the heat of his breath, the sparks of violet around them.

Keralis shook his head. “I promised. There was no other option but to make it after that.”

It was bravado at its finest.

Love at its simplest?

We may be too complicated for that.

But Keralis, in this moment, didn’t care if he never saw the stars again.

There were stars in his eyes, and a star in his arms…and that was enough.