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muzzlemouths · 1 year

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You weather a storm... with some help.

Eclipse centric // Wordcount: 2640

Sun makes you your favorite warm drink. He does so wordlessly, first thing in the morning at the sight of you, which ought to be a bad sign on its own. He makes it just how you like it without having to be asked or told, and he carries the single mug to you from the kitchen to the bedroom, extending it with a weak and pleading smile.

“Sunshine, won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” The mug is placed to the side of you, hint taken that you aren’t going to accept the gift quite yet, it slides in between some knick-knacks and pens. “Let me help,” he bends to one knee, shortening himself to your height, and delicately takes one of your hands in both of his own, “it’s what I’m best at, you know.” It’s meant to be said with a kick of humor, and maybe he winks, too, but you aren’t looking. This makes him go still again. “Darling?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Your knees would have tucked into your chest were they not already bent over the edge of the bed, trapped between the mattress and him, “I already told Moon last night,” you don’t fight the hand-holding, but you don’t engage, either, and it remains limp in his hold, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

His face crumbles, a startling contrast to the usual. He squeezes your hand ever tighter. “Yes, Moon told me…” Though there wasn’t much to tell; another nightmare, same as the day before, and the day before that. You stayed up far too early and slept in too late in the day, and when you were awake it was in passing, like a ghost.

Moon brought you to rest each night as well as he could, and Sun worked tirelessly throughout each day to bring back your smile, to help you remember your energy. Neither dared overstep the line that had been drawn, nor say the word on everyone’s mind. They knew as well as you did – what depression looked like.

“I wish you didn’t care,” comes your response, bitten through teeth. It breaks Sun from his thoughts, the conversation he was inevitably having with Moon; they had been doing that more often, lately. Little conversations during the day. Problem solving in a place where the problem couldn’t hear them. That’s how it felt, anyway. “It’s not even a big deal. Why won’t you and Moon just drop it?”

“Oh, dewdrop, you know why,” His thumb rubs in soothing circles over your knuckles, voice strained as it fills the room, “you’re hurting. Are we meant to just ignore that?”

“I want you to.”

“We can’t do that.” He follows your eyes as they avoid him, “If you only let us help–”

“You can’t!” From your lowered gaze you see him shrink back an inch, your outburst alarming. Guilt rips into your stomach and joins the swirl of emotions already wreaking havoc there. “You can’t. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing Moon can do. I just–” you sniffle, the first sign that the dam is breaking, and try with twice the effort to get him out of earshot before that happens – “I just need to be left alone, okay? Is that too much to ask?”

Pointedly, you avoid his eyes. You can still feel their betrayal, regardless, the way you’ve hurt him clear in the sag of his joints. Still, patient to a fault, he answers you with a quiet nod and releases your hand, settling it on your knee with a gentle pat. “Okay, starlight,” he croaks – you don’t miss the change of nickname, nor the shift in his voice, “We’ll give you your space for now,” He says it with a stand, “let us know if you need anything, alright?”

You don’t answer beyond a subtle bob of your head and that, too, pains Sun, but he follows through regardless, offering you a final look before shutting your bedroom door behind him. You resist the urge to get up and lock it; that would make them hate you for sure.

Instead, you fall to the mattress and stare up at the chipped mug on your bedside table, not bothering to pursue a drink. Your knees take the opportunity to fall against your chest at last and it’s there that you stay, alone with your emotions, for an indeterminable amount of time. An hour, at least. Maybe two.

Behind the door, you’re privy to the sound of another of their meetings; you aren’t able to make out what’s being said, but Sun’s heavy pacing is hard to miss, and the back-and-forth of conversation is made obvious when it sounds like he’s just talking to himself.

You aren’t worried about Moon interrupting you. You knew he normally could – and had, once before — when Sun’s words weren’t convincing enough. But your room was illuminated by a ceiling light, the blinds drawn out. He wasn’t getting in.

So when the doorknob moved, you knew it had to be Sun.

You hear it rather than see it - your back turned to the door - but that doesn’t stop you from calling out when the door inevitably opens, “I told you to leave me alone,” your words come like a frog’s croak, the voice of someone fighting through tears. It makes you feel stupid. This experience is already embarrassing enough as it is, “Go away.”

You don’t hear an answer. That’s out of character for Sun – not so much for Moon, but again, his presence wasn’t possible – so their silence is nearly alarming enough to make you turn over. Almost. You remain firmly on your side, however, not having the energy for whatever it was that they’d come up with to get you out of the episode this time.

The hand to your shoulder makes you flinch, yet still, you remain, burying your face into the blankets so they won’t see you like this. Their other hand brushes through your hair, soothing, careful, while another, still, falls to the small of your back and drifts up your spine, then tucks around you, pulling you in close. The mattress dips beside you where another hand rests for balance.

It takes you a few breaths to realize; one at your shoulder, one on your head, another along your back, then by your waist, and a final resting beside you. Four hands.

“Oh,” it’s enough to finally make you look over your shoulder, “it’s you.” Eclipse stares back.

This isn’t the first time you’ve met them. It had been a couple times before, just once or twice, when things got bad. When they needed a togetherness that couldn’t be achieved through conversations alone.

Their hands change direction. Eclipse carries you the rest of the way onto your back.

“What happened to Sun?” You ask, wiping your palm over your face, “I didn’t upset him that much, did I?”

“Nothing he could do.” Eclipse echoes your words back at you. It stirs the guilt in your belly again, drawing more tears from your eyes, and you do your best to get rid of them as soon as they arrive. Two of Eclipse’s hands lift at once to help, thumbs sweeping beneath your eyes to wipe the streaks away, “Here to help instead.”

Another sniffle. You don’t fight them, but it’s hard not to with how they’re staring. “I already said I didn’t want to talk about it,” you insist, but it’s obvious they aren’t listening.

Especially when they shift, bringing themselves up onto the bed with you, and forcibly cram their way into the spot behind you; something akin to a big spoon. It’s awkward, as they take up most of the mattress and you’re practically smooshed against the wall, and the bed creaks beneath your combined weight like it might give out any moment.

You try to argue with them – you really do – but Eclipse’s arms wrap around you like a warm cocoon, their fourth reaching around to pull a blanket over you just before, and you fall victim to the trap of comforts. It doesn’t make the pain any easier to bear, or the ache in your stomach go away, but it’s warm, and like this you don’t feel so exposed. “I know what you’re doing,” you tell them around another sniffle, “loosening my tongue so I give in and tell you what’s wrong, and you can say something textbook worthy back and it’ll solve all my problems. Well, I’m telling you right now, it won’t work.”

They bring you in closer. Close enough to feel your heartbeat against their own chest. Close enough that you can feel the warm zap and whir of electricity as it moves through their frame. “Nothing to say.” they hum, ever soft, against your head. Had they any breath it would have stirred into your hair. “Won’t listen, after all. Nothing to say that you want to hear.”

It’s true. Painfully and regrettably so. That doesn’t mean you have to admit to it. “There’s really nothing you have locked and loaded for me?” You try to fight the bitterness in your voice, but each word is laced with venom - that of a snake on its last leg (irony unmissed) - wounded and cornered with no where to go, the bite is all it has left. You’re more angry at yourself than you are with them. They always had something to say; words of comfort or encouragement, a way of telling you it was all going to be okay. “C-Come on, there’s an entire library of therapeutic tools in your code. You’re telling me you aren’t even going to try?”

“Won’t listen.” Eclipse repeats. Voice soft, they’re sure to keep themselves from sounding confrontational, “There are many things to be said, but only if you listen. So, what is it that you want to hear?” They wait, and wait, but you don’t answer. You can’t think of anything to say. So they continue, “It will be okay, yes. You know this, already, you’ve heard it before. You want proof–”

“But you can’t give me that.”

They go quiet, if only for a brief moment, arms tightening around you. “Are you so sure?” They ask, “You want to see it in yourself; for the bad days to end, for the hurt to stop, but it isn’t so easy. Regardless, you will be okay.”

You don’t understand - maybe you don’t want to, or you aren’t trying hard enough. Maybe you’re actively fighting it. The dam breaks when you aren’t looking, wires snapping, emotions coming undone. You break into a sob. “It’s not fair. Everyone else is happy,” you breathe harshly through the words, tears abound in between, and you do nothing to stop their path, “I can’t even handle the little things anymore. I keep forgetting things and messing up. I can’t sleep because then it’s the next day, and the next, and the next – and that’s just more mess-ups. I want it to stop!” Your chest heaves with the effort it takes to keep going, “It hurts, everything fucking hurts all the time. How can you tell me that I’ll be okay?”

Their hands envelope you fully as you break into a thousand and one pieces. They don’t immediately say anything, it isn’t the time too - standing in the way of an oncoming wave does nothing but drag you underwater - instead they wait it out, allowing you the time to grieve. Their thumb traces the skin of your hip, drawing circles over the bone. Their other hands do not let go.

“We can’t promise happiness,” they whisper, at last, the words almost smothered beneath the labor of your breath, “just as you cannot promise the sun that it will always shine, or that the sky will never see rain. But the proof you seek is there.”

You choke back another sob, feeling yourself growing tired of this act already. Tears will take whatever small piece of energy you have left. You wipe them away bitterly and do your best not to blow your nose in Eclipse’s arm. “You sound like a psychiatrist,” you grunt, “Are you going to tell me I should look on the bright side, next?”

You don’t see it, but you can feel it; the way Eclipse’s body sighs, falling heavier against you, like they’re exasperated with your lack of effort. They aren’t, though, no matter how much you want them to be. No matter how badly you wish they would be mad at you, they are patient, still, and they keep going. Trying where you, yourself, no longer have the energy to. “To see the bright side…no,” they begin, “hard to look at the sun when it’s storming. But you have an umbrella.”

It catches you off guard. “An umbrella?”

They nod, hand stilling on your hip, “You can watch the rain pass from beneath it. Weather out the storm until it passes. Won’t make the rain stop, no, but it’ll keep you from getting wet.”

You sniffle, “I guess…”

“And you have a jacket to keep the cold away. Gloves to keep the chill off your fingers.” their faceplate tilts, a gentle kiss planted to your temple, “Kinder weather can feel distant when it’s cold, and wet, and raining, and you want to make it go away – many do, especially when the rain is never-ending – but you have ways to wait out the storm until the sun returns.”

You’re silent, not quite ready to hear the words. You force yourself to listen anyway.

“Sometimes, it’s all you can do. And when the warmth returns, if only briefly, it brings the birds, and the bugs, and puddles for you to splash in,” their body shifts to lean over you, finding your eyes, “that’s the proof you’re looking for. Don’t you think it’s worth the wait?”

You don’t answer just yet, but you want to - you’re struggling for the courage to. All you can muster, for now, is a nod, and a sniffle, this one quieter. Easier to bear.

With a smile, they tilt your face to meet theirs, “We promise it will be. And we will help you wait out the storm, each time. No matter how bad the weather.”

You wipe your nose on your sleeve and offer the barest of laughter. “I think my umbrella has holes in it.”

“Then we will patch it.”

“And the worms always come out after a storm, you have to avoid them on the sidewalk–”

“They take stride in the rain,” says Eclipse, tapping a finger to your forehead, “and maybe in time, you will too.”

Maybe. Just maybe. Your eyes don’t feel so much like they’re burning, now, the weight on your chest coming loose. You reach forward and take the edge of the blanket around you, untucking it and stretching it over, so it covers them, too - at least as much as it can. The drink on your table has long since gone cold, but you have a microwave to fix that, just as you have an umbrella.

“Thank you,” your body sags with exhaustion. They reciprocate by tucking more of your weight against them, carrying the burden for you as best they can. When you return their gaze it’s with tremendously less grief. “It’s hard to remember what it was like to be happy, before all of this,” you admit, and they nod, knowing the feeling all too well, “but if you’re sticking around, I’ll do my best to wait it out. I think I can do that.”

Their chin tucks over your head, two hands in yours, two keeping you near. “You always could, star,” they reply, “but rain is easier weathered together.”

You nod, relaxing in their hold at last, allowing yourself to be soothed by the thought.

“For now, we play in the puddles.”

#i'll tag this later #drabbles #hurt/comfort #fnaf eclipse

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