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Aoi was awake early- far too early. Her eyes ached like she hadn’t blinked in days, and she sniffled lightly as she caught a glimpse of light flickering from under the door of her room that wavered for a moment. Blinking, she squinted in annoyance at how dry her eyes were, rubbing them vigorously with a half-hearted grumble.
This wasn’t the first night she’d woken up with dry eyes and forced to wipe tears from her face, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. This time however something felt different, something felt off- Something, or someone, had stirred her out of one nightmare, only for her to wake up living in another.
Watching the brilliant blue light under her door crackle and vanish, a gnawing sense of urgency erupted in her chest and sent a shiver up her spine. Stumbling out of bed, she careened onto the floor, taking her pillow and sheets with her as she quickly tried to get to her feet. Rushing at the door, she hastily wiped her eyes one more time before aggressively swinging it open, only to find no one there.
“No.. no, that was.. silly. It-It couldn’t have been him.” She quietly lamented under her breath, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself more than anything.
It had been four months since Nyght had died.
The remaining members of the Hex held out hope that Arthur, Quincy, & Nyght would return after New Years, but much to everyone’s distress, none of them did. Apparently without Nyght’s void energy to roll back the loop & re-stabalize it, nothing had returned when the year rolled over. None of the civilians killed by Scaldra incursions, none of the supplies they were usually able to re-scavange from the abandoned houses, and most of all, NONE their friends had returned. Amir & Aoi’s love had been forever lost and in turn, they were both lost in their own ways without him.
Grief stricken as she was, Amir hadn’t been the same since that fateful evening when they failed to reach him and Nyght before the unthinkable happened. As the memory flooded her mind, Aoi hesitated and hovered in the doorway for a moment while her consciousness settled into it’s grasp. She was sure it couldn’t have been Nyghts void energy, but it could have been Amir’s lightning. As she swayed aimlessly, her thoughts wandered to the last time they spent time together several weeks ago, and her shoulders involuntarily tightened. The last time they saw one another and she tried to comfort him, he had made it abundantly clear that he felt like he was too much of a burden on her, when she was hurting as well, and vehemently refused to talk to Eleanor or Lettie. Remembering their fight, she frowned as she realized he hadn’t spoken a word to her since, despite her efforts to reach out to him.
If Amir had finally broken his silence and come to see her so early in the morning, it must have been important, if not dire. Moving the door as if to close it, she swiftly snatched the coat off the hanger on the back of it and wrestled it on as she leapt out into the pitch black music shop, quietly closing the door behind her.
As she walked through the darkened walkways of the mall, it eerily began to feel more and more like a ghost town, but not in the normal sense of the word. It wasn’t so much that it was abandoned, because it wasn’t, but it was more that Nyghts presence still seemed to linger everywhere she looked. Eyeing the benches, she smiled as she fondly remembered Nyght giving her a crude metal kubrow statue he had made for her. As she turned the corner towards the stairs, she was struck by a vision of Nyght sitting on the banister in his royal purple and gold Protea Prime, swinging his legs playfully while he waited for her to meet him for their mission that day.
Tears came to her eyes quickly and she shirked away, trying to ignore the ghosts of memories that seemed to stalk her as she made her way through the dark building. Her stomach sank as she realized Amir was probably going through the same thing, but on a catastrophically different level- after all, they should’ve been married a few months back. They had a plan to try and make a life together in this hellscape, and find some happiness where they could, and now that was gone.
Reaching the door to the roof at the top of the stairwell she had wandered up without even realizing, she hesitated for only a moment before swinging it open. The cold rush of air from winter stung at her face and she recoiled for a moment, only to open her eyes & find Amir standing precariously on the ice covered railing.
Registering the sound of the door, he turned towards her and stared with a mixture of fear, sadness, and terrifying determination.
Beyond his tears, flushed checks, and trembling hands coiled into fists, Aoi found a cold and disturbingly vacant stare. The usual light in his eyes was gone, now overshadowed by heavy, puffy eyelids that made him look more like a hollowed out doll than the sweet, fun loving, but deeply caring person she loved. Aoi could see it in his eyes, able to tell from his stance- he planned to jump.
“..Amir.”
His name fell slowly from her lips, and in a more concerned tone than she had intended. Grabbing her coat tightly through a frigid gust of wind that threatened to steal it from her, she took a step forward and he straightened up in an alarming manner as he spoke,
“Aoi...don’t. Don’t.. tell Eleanor..? J-Just.. tell her I slipped doing something stupid? Don’t.. call for her either? ..please.”
The sound of his deep, desperately soft voice made her stop in her tracks as her stomach sank, the realization that he had a plan ready for if he got caught sending it into tight knots. He intended to do it, whether someone had been there or not, but he was ready if someone showed up.
“I-I won’t? S-She’s asleep anyway..” Aoi’s breath became heavy as her heart pounded in her chest, not sure what to do, but knowing she had to try something, ANYTHING, to get him down of his own volition, “So.. why.. did you wake me then?”
The perfectly normal question in this extremely tense and unusual situation seemed to catch him off guard, and he looked away from her for a moment, staring out across the snow covered horizon ahead of him, before answering her back in a small voice,
“I-I don’t know.” Shaking his head a little he sniffled as his lips curled, trying not to burst out crying, “Maybe I was just.. l-looking for one last fight? Something to prove I don’t belong here anymore..? Something that’d prove to me.. that no one would miss me if I-” An unsettling smile crossed his lips and he let out an anxious, shallow laugh filled with confused sorrow.
Taking in a breath and letting it out carefully, Aoi slowly sat down on the frozen concrete where she stood. Curling into a ball for warmth, she purposely chose a posture that showed him that she wasn’t going to move suddenly, or try and force him down with her powers. The last thing she needed was him slipping and killing himself anyway if she startled him, or he fought against her, while he was in this ragged and increasingly fragile state of mind. Grinning lightly she shrugged, and joked,
“Well.. if you really wanted a fight, you should’ve picked Lettie to wake up at 2am. She’d be so angry.” That managed to get a small, genuine smile out of him and for a fleeting moment she thought she caught a glimpse of the man she remembered. Encouraged by his reaction to her joke, she nervously continued, “I mean.. you don’t even know if a fall from that height would do the job.”
Whipping his head around abruptly he stared at her in shock for a moment, seemingly taken aback by her unusually brash comment, then looked back to the horizon before glancing below him. His brows furled, annoyingly realizing she was right, as he imagined Lettie bandaging him up and confining him to the infirmary, all while swearing and keeping a close eye on him- treating him like a burden. Like the failure he always felt like. He couldn’t even off himself properly.
His upper lip twitched at the thought of Lettie’s harsh tongue snapping insults at him like a hungry piranha as he laid in bed bandaged and helpless, snarking back at Aoi loudly in a cold, uncaring tone,
“Lettie would be relieved to see me dead.”
“No.” Aoi looked up and arched her head to try and catch the corner of his eye, “I know you hate hearing it, and I know you don’t believe it, but she IS trying to help in her own confusing, somewhat mean, but oddly caring way. Do you remember her pushing you to participate in Día de Todos los Santos with her? She even made you a candle. She spent her OWN dwindling supply stash to make that.. for you.”
“It doesn’t mean she cares.. She probably just feels guilty.” He spat back as his eyelid twitched with barely held back fury.
“Honestly..? YEA.. She probably DOES.”
The recognition of Lettie’s guilt got Amir’s attention, and instead of biting back this time, he quietly listened as she continued firmly,
“She’s our medic. We ALL rely on her to save our asses and patch us back up when we bite off more than we can chew.. but she wasn’t the only one who failed that you two day.. I did too.” Sinking her head farther into her lap as she brought her knees in closer, she continued in a strained tone of voice, “We all blame ourselves in some way for what happened because we all love you both SO MUCH, when in reality, none of what happened was in our control.”
After what felt like too long of a silence between them, Amir took in a short and sharp inhale as his eyes glanced down at her,
“..This can be.” Gasping as he tried to keep his composure, he held his breath as if he was about to take a dive into the deep end of a pool, “If my story is going to end without him.. then I should at least get to choose when it ends.”
“Hey! No!? NO-!”
Aoi moved to stand, but found her legs were too cold and shaking, making them unable to bear her full weight as she started to cry. Tears blurred her sight as she helplessly watched his hands curl into fists again, realizing she pushed the wrong way, and needed to resort to more drastic measures. She needed to say something that she had promised herself she’d never utter, or watch him leap to his demise right in front of her.
As his heavy breaths condensed and swirled away with the increasingly violent swells of chilly winter air, she inhaled sharply and fell forward onto the frozen concrete, clawing at it as she pushed herself up against the brisk wind, like an animal fighting for it’s life.
She watched him raise his arms up slowly and shouted at him aimlessly, her veins pulsing with a stinging heat as her powers practically begged to be unleashed. They beckoned her to let loose and save him, but she held herself steady and shouted again into the wind that whipped painfully against her face,
“AMIR! PLEASE..! DON’T LET HIS SACRIFICE BE IN VAIN!?”
Turning back to her, his eyes widened and glazed over with a swiftly building rage as his arms dropped back down to his sides, but she didn’t give him the chance to interrupt her. With tears freezing to her cheeks, she continued to shout fiercely in a defiant tone,
“We both know he WOULDN’T want this!! He wouldn’t want us blaming ourselves, fighting one another, or throwing away the lives he fought and DIED to protect!! He loved us; he loved YOU.. You are LOVED by so many, even if he’s not here anymore!!”
Loudly sobbing now, she slammed her fist into the concrete, fighting back the fire coursing through her veins that threatened to overwhelm her, feeling the techrot within her writhing underneath what little was left of her skin.
“You literally told me NOT to tell Eleanor what you were doing!! ..because deep down, YOU KNOW it would DESTROY her. You KNOW we care about you!”
A loud inhale of a sob escaped Amirs lips and his stance faltered against his sorrow and the rough wind. Quickly catching his balance, he cautiously kneeled downwards and stared out over the edge, grabbing hold of the rail with a shaking hand as sweat froze to his temples. Now staring face to face with the ground several dozen feet below him, he shook his head in alarmed confusion, looking like Aoi had finally managed to bring him back to his senses,
“I-”
The reality of the situation seemed to finally overwhelm him, his eyes starting to swim with tears, as his whole body began to shake and his breath quickened. Aoi nervously watched as he awkwardly hopped down from the rail onto the safety of the roof, only to topple over into a sitting position, staring at the railing, horrified at what he had almost done.
Without another word, she mustered her strength and leapt over to him against the harsh wind, collapsing around him in a firm hug as she gently stroked his hair, trying to help calm him down.
“Aoi.. I-I-”
“You’re alright. It's ok. Just breath.” She spoke shakily through heavy tears, letting out the breath she had been holding as she squeezed him gently. Through his fit of uncontrollable sobbing, he barely managed to speak with a shattered, jagged yowl to his voice,
“I-I miss him SO much.. EVERYWHERE I look.. I S-SEE him, I FEEL him.. I’ll be here FOREVER Aoi.. w-without him-”
“Shhh.. I know.. I know.” She leaned her head down against his, her tears turning to ones of joy that he was safe for the moment as she kissed his hair over and over lovingly, “..oh Amir. I wish.. I wish you had told me sooner. I wish you asked to talk to me.. I didn’t know it was this bad.. I’m SO sorry I didn’t see it..”
Through his gasping, his electricity arced around them, and he pressed his face against her chest while trying to control it, wrapping his arms around her tightly. After a few heavy breathes, it died down a little and he answered her with a more steady, but still deeply broken tone,
“N-No.. I pushed you away.. I-I just.. went around pissing you all off so that you would leavemealone… So I could have S-SPACE.. because I THOUGHT that was what I needed..? B-but.. all I was doing was just digging a hole.. deeper.. and deeper-”
“-until you couldn’t see the light..?” Aoi finished his sentence softly and he sat up, raising his head off her chest to look down at her, giving her a singular, solemn nod. Raising her hand up, she touched his face fondly, and rubbed her thumb against his cheek tenderly, “I know what that’s like. I really do. You know I do. There’s a reason.. he fell for both of us- we’re more alike than either of us care to admit.”
Swallowing hard and trying to catch his breath through crying, he nodded fervently at her as he closed his eyes and pressed his face against her hand. After a few seconds his lip began to tremble and he opened tear filled eyes, speaking to her quietly,
“Y-You’re going to tell.. Eleanor?”
“..yes.” She could see his eye twitch as she answered, but the only thing he did was look away from her for a moment as if he was trying to hide his eyes from her. Pressing her hand on his cheek a little to force him to face her again she continued in a careful, soft manner, “I care about you too much to watch you torture yourself like this. You can hate me if you want.. That’s ok.. I can live with that. I wouldn’t blame you, and I would never hold it against you.”
Shaking his head swiftly in a back and forth motion, he caught his breath as more sobs tried their best to escape from his chest. Raising up her other hand she cupped his face and tried to clean off some of his swiftly freezing tears with her thumbs gently.
“No.. no. I could- I could never hate you. Notyou.. especially not after everything you’ve done for me.. not after.. everything.. I’veputyouthrough.”
Closing his eyes he took several short breaths, tears still flowing freely down his cheeks as if they were racing one another across his scars while the temperature outside continued to drop from the snowstorm.
“Amir.. Look at me.”
Furling his brows, he shook his head lightly in refusal while his lower lip trembled, but suddenly felt warmth against his forehead. Aoi had leaned forward and touched their foreheads together, much like Nyght used to do with both of them before heading off to a dangerous mission. The gesture set him off again and squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he started to cry quietly, letting Aoi continue to hold his face in her hands like a precious object. Whispering softly to him she rubbed his cheeks with her thumbs,
“Ok.. then.. just listen.” Hearing him make a small whimper, she reached her fingers into his hair and stroked it soothingly. “Everything I’ve been through.. with Nyght, with you, with.. us..? It’s because I wanted to be there. I was never an unwilling participant.”
Holding back his tears as best he could, he opened his eyes only to be greeted by hers mere inches away. They stared into each others gaze, holding it for a moment as she kept murmuring lightly, her voice starting to tremble with fear,
“I’ll always be here for you- Always. And I need you to know that, and I need you to believe me when I say that. I want you to talk to me when you are slipping down the mountain so I have enough time to give you my hand.”
Nodding with to her silently, he watched as she leaned up and kissed him softly on the forehead and saw her demeanor straighten out in an increasingly serious manner as she started to cry again,
“I don’t care if we had been fighting hours earlier. I don’t care what or who you need to talk about. You come and TALK to me. Ok? Promise?..Please?”
The desperation and pleading of her cracking voice made him wince a little and he carefully cleared his throat, mustering what little confidence he could scrap together, answering with an equally trembling voice,
“O-ok.”
Leaning forward and up, she reached over his shoulders and hugged him tightly, starting to speak through tears with a quivering voice,
“I know that.. forever is a long time to miss someone. Maybe-” Squeezing him tightly she breathed in deeply and stroked his hair as her voice cracked, “-M-Maybe.. there’ll come a day.. looooong off into the future.. w-when.. you’re tired. If that day comes for you.. give me a heads up..? At least so I can give you a kiss goodbye?”
Softly nodding he let out an unsteady breath, not saying anything as he tried to keep what little composure he had regained through talking to her. Before he could say anything though, she released him from the hug, and tenderly ran her hand down his face,
“But not today.. not.. anytime soon.. ok? Let’s live for now.. For him.”