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Oh, my Clematis. Hope bloomed through the abyss.
The first time they met, Thomas was instantly captivated.
He stood there, dressed like a porcelain doll, eyes glazed over. Thomas' guardian was with him, guiding him through the white halls of the transport hub. He was dressed modestly--a simple flowy white shirt with short sleeve and shorts.
Compared to him, the white-haired boy was perfect. His dark-colored fringe the only splash of color on his otherwise pale facade. The frilly bonnet sat atop his head crookedly, like he had been trying to take it off without his guardian noticing.
Spindly limbs took hold of his head and turned it towards the transport cube in front of him.
Thomas blinked, feeling something twist in his gut but before he could do anything, his guardian was already guiding him along. Tentacle-like hands pushed Thomas towards his glass cube, another one holding up a silk handkerchief against what seems to be one of it's many eyes.
Thomas smiled at his guardian, it's curtain-sheer appendages coloring the entire platform pink as light shone through its transparent, jelly-like, appearance.
His guardian pressed one hand through the glass and with the training that he had endured, Thomas pressed his hand against it as well.
Feeling nothing but the sheer cold of the thick glass between their fingers.
Oh, my Clematis. Always be by my side.
The void beneath the glass cube was scary and anywhere Thomas looks, its an all consuming black.
But nothing is scarier than change.
Despite everything that has happened, Thomas was happy in his little glass tank.
No, wrong.
He had been trained to exist there. He had finally learned how to try and exist with that kind of life--already adapted to his surroundings where he doesn't have to fear if he's ever gonna see the sun shine tomorrow.
Now, he's getting transported to a new environment. And Thomas isn't sure if he can get use to the feeling of constant change. Of trying to adapt just to survive.
He clutched the bell-like blanket closer to his body as shivers ran down his arms. It's cold inside his glass. Feeling tears starting to form in the corner of his eyes, Thomas looks up and spots the boy from the transport hub in front of him--their glass cubes running parallel with each other.
They must be going to the same garden then.
Two little boys on their way to the slaughterhouse.
Thomas sniffled, already feeling the tears swelling up again. But before he could had the chance to fully cry, the boy's heterochromic eye moved towards where Thomas is and like a puppet on a tentacle-like string, Thomas moved towards him closer.
Crawling like he was desperate to finally feel the warm touch of someone warm blooded. Pressing his little hands against the glass in hopes to eliminated the thick material just to feel the pulse on the other boy's skin.
By pure happenstance, the other boy looks up at Thomas, back still flushed against the glass, as their eyes met.
And Thomas suddenly feels something akin to warmth brush against his limbs as the boy held his gaze.
His cube was empty, contrasting the way items from back where he was filled Thomas' own.
Thomas couldn't speak, mouth frozen in that motion between awe and introduction. The other boy was beautiful. Cold and aloof and beautiful.
Then something clicks and their cube started sliding away from each other.
Thomas felt the panic rising up his chest as his fist immediately collided with the glass. The boy was standing up now, pressing his own hand against the glass in his cube as well. Panic definitely visible in both their gazes. Thomas doesn't want to get separated.
He feels like he would never be able to forget how hauntingly beautiful this boy's eyes were.
It would haunt his every waking moment.
He pounds on the glass, little fists making no dents on the thick material. The tears he was holding back earlier now starting to fall slowly against his cheek.
For a single moment, their hands aligned on the glass before being pulled away again.
And as Thomas felt himself slowly giving up, waving goodbye to the boy as their cubes get separated further and further, he raises his hands slowly, waving a small goodbye at Thomas as well.
The despair in the pit of Thomas' stomach from their separation never died down.
Even as the intensely blue sky of the Garden opens up in front of him.
As if it was going to swallow Thomas' whole existence to smithereens.
Oh, my Clematis. Hope withered in the abyss.
"They're bickering again." Thomas says exasperated as he rests his head against Augustus' shoulder. The other boy immediately adjusts the way he sat against the tree, straightening his back to accommodate the slight difference between their heights.
"Just ignore them at this point. It's not worth it stepping in between those two morons." Augustus says, still reading the sheet music of their song together. He continues humming beneath his breath and Thomas could feel himself getting lulled to sleep.
A week from now, they're going to sing together.
A week from now, Thomas' world would end.
He closes his eyes, wills himself to forget everything he knows, wills himself to think that its just him and Augustus and their song and the entire universe doesn't exist. That in the void that is space, only he and Augustus matters.
"Thomas?" Augustus calls him, Thomas could feel the cold metal of his name digging against his cheek. His heart breaks.
"Hmm?"
"I really like our song." He says, voice hiding behind apathy. Thomas knows what Augustus is thinking, he knows what he is planning. But how can he stop him when he knows Augustus had already made up his mind.
Whatever Augustus wants, despite the heartbreak it would mean to Thomas, he can never say no to him.
A mere devout follower against the will of his god. His whole universe.
"Yeah?" Instead, Thomas asks. Eyes blinking open and finding two figures in the distance blurring against the blue of the Garden's vast sky. One figure chasing, the other skipping away. Despite everything, Thomas feels a smile climb up his lips.
"Yeah." Augustus sighs, melts down next to him and places his head on top of Thomas'. The sheet music fluttering down his lap as his hand finds Thomas' own--fingers curling against each other. Immediately, Thomas' thumb swipes against Augustus' skin, the action both calming him down and making his heart race.
"The song perfectly suits you, by the way." Thomas says, curling his fingers around Augustus' own tighter. The feeling of not wanting to let go eating him up from the inside. Like a black hole had suddenly appeared in the pit of his stomach and once that day comes, Thomas will for sure implode.
He calms his breaths, and continues to let himself savor this moment. All of their memories together piling up in a box, sealed with a lock only Thomas knows the key. The emotions he feels every time he's with Augustus hidden away for only the two of them to know.
No one else matters.
Laughter, as beautiful as the notes Augustus had sang the first time they met again after transportation day, echoes around them. Whispers gently against Thomas' cheeks as the shoulder under his head shakes slightly.
"What are you even talking about?"
"You." Thomas answers, slowly sitting up straight and making Augustus follow him up with his soft eyes. Eyes that haunts Thomas' every waking moment. Dreams and beyond.
"You are my Clematis." He confesses, wraps every feeling inside his chest in those four words and hands over his heart to Augustus. The other guy blinks slowly, mouth slightly agape as Thomas bare his soul. "You know, I read somewhere that Clematis' are climbing plants."
"That despite some of the harshest conditions, they still continue to grow, flowering against all hope. So, you, Augustus, is exactly that." He ends his roundabout way of giving his everything to Augustus with a small bop on the tip of his nose. Augustus blinks, eyebrows scrunching slightly before laughter takes over his body again.
"You are an idiot." He says in between small breaths. "That just means, by some convoluted way, all of us are clematises."
Thomas could only join in on his laughter. Because yes, in some way, every pet human is a clematis. Everyone blooms despite being in whatever fucked up situation they are currently. Everyone in this damned Garden will always be a lot stronger that they think they are.
But Thomas, he will always, always associate those special flowers with Augustus. The way he would always carry Thomas' heart with him wherever he goes, they way Thomas will always find him even in the abyss because his heart knows where Augustus is.
Every nerve ending inside his body is always yearning to be next to Augustus.
His own blooming Clematis against the yawning void.
The warmth inside his ribcage despite the freezing cold.
His desire to keep Augustus against his skin ever growing to consume him whole, teetering on the edge of the cliff of his sanity waiting for it to snap. Waiting for him to succumb to the gnawing feeling of wanting Augustus.
"Fuck off!"
Augustus was immediately rolling his eyes, the shouts from accross the garden reaching their ears at the same time. Slowly, he was standing up, dusting off debris from the artificial grass and offering his hand to Thomas.
"Come on. Before those two somehow asphyxiate each other."
"I think one of them would like that."
Augustus makes a disgusted face before schooling it to neutrality. "Ew." Thomas' answer was a loud laugh.
He takes Augustus' hand, and then never lets it go.
The night before they get on stage, Thomas would know exactly how warm it would be when he finally indulges in his desires.
How warm it would be to finally feel Augustus beneath him.
Oh, my Clematis. Please, stay by my side.
Sweat runs down the side of his neck as his eyes never left Augustus' own.
The wry smile of Augustus' lips after they fought earlier sitting behind his eyelids, superimposing on everything on Thomas' vision.
He could hear how the glass inside his chest is shattering to millions of tiny shards, never going to be whole ever again.
Thomas' ears are ringing, the howls and hoots of the Segyeins around them muffled by the roar of blood against his veins. Their stage is perfect, floating lights around them in soft warmth that made Augustus look ethereal.
They kept their gazes on each other, never once looking away. The others are seated somewhere to the side, probably waiting for their own turn for the hammer of unjustified violence to fall down over one of their heads.
A snapshot of both Thomas and Augustus' face floating above them, with a number beneath it. Thomas wills himself to pay it no mind.
To keep looking at Augustus and Augustus only.
Because after this day, after this song, his world, his tiny little bubble, will burst open.
Memories of the two of them together floods his brain and the sweat clinging at the back of his nape feels like the first onset of hypothermia.
Thomas is cold. His fingers are shaking, yet his gaze on Augustus never wavered.
Augustus wants this, practices for this every night. Thomas knows, but still he's afraid.
Augustus wants this, fought him for the first time ever to silence all of Thomas' protests even before it comes out of his mouth.
Augustus wants this, and Thomas could only give Augustus his everything.
His god. His universe.
Thomas' voice shake visibly as Augustus makes him sing the lines he had dutifully highlighted all those nights ago. Giving him more. Making Thomas sing more.
He wants to stop, to take his hand and run away. They'd be killed even before they could step away from the stage but at least they'd be together.
But Augustus was strong, stronger that Thomas could ever be because there was resolution in his gaze. And in those warm, soft, gentle eyes, Augustus tells Thomas to keep singing.
And so, Thomas sings.
Feeling so hopeless, his own feet delivering himself to the edge of his demise. Stepping one foot in front of the other slowly until he is on the precipice of the abyss. The darkness wrapping its cruel tendrils around his ankles before pulling him down, down, down.
Letting his sink on pitch black darkness, trying to stop him from breathing.
Because his universe will end in seconds before--
A sharp ring reverberated on Thomas' bones and he chances a glance above them, seeing his number one above Augustus'.
His eyes find Augustus, smiling ever so fondly at him and Thomas can't help but smile back before a loud gunshot rings through the air.
One second Augustus was standing, the next, he was laying down on a pool of his own blood.
Thomas could feel the sound of the bullet whizzing past him etched into the recesses of his brain. A nightmare he would never wake up from. He steps back, reeling from the reality that its all over now. Stumbles over his own feet and falls to his knees as he takes in Augustus still warm body in front of him.
He can hear someone banging on their pod, trying to tell him to get up.
But Thomas can't.
How could he when he just watched the love of his life die?
When he knew what would happen but can do nothing to stop it?
When the trellises of his own clematis has been torn away from him. Letting him fall into his own demise, his brittle bones shattering against the impact.
Thomas could only sit there, staring at Augustus.
Because despite Thomas knowing this would happen, there is nothing more shattering that seeing your universe implode in front of you.
He had no faith in whatever his humanity had dictated all those years ago. Never once did he believe that some higher power was responsible for every suffering he had been through, with every happiness he had ever felt.
But Augustus had been there, had held his hand all throughout every thing. Despite being human himself, Augustus had embodied what god was for Thomas.
His own little universe shaped by the hands that are now growing cold in front of him.
His own little god, snuffed out like a flame of a flickering candle.
And for the first time, since they first met, Thomas feels the wet streak of his tears against his skin.
The despair in the pit of Thomas' stomach from their separation never died down. Even at the prospect of saving every human in this goddamned planet. As if it was going to swallow Thomas' whole existence to smithereens.
It already did. And no one did anything.
Thomas is going to implode and he's taking every thing down with him.
He presses the key and keeps the laptop close to his chest feeling the fire warm him up once more.
No one else matters.
My Clematis.