Chapter Text
Eclipse woke with a jolt.
Something didn’t feel right. His systems were lagging and his HUD wasn’t loading correctly. It was also way too early for him to be waking up, if the glitching time indicator and his barely half full battery told him anything. He felt his fans quicken as he tried to turn his head to see if something external had woken him- only to find he couldn’t.
He tried again, thinking maybe he just imagined it but no. He couldn’t turn his head, and his limbs weren’t responding either. Every ping he sent to his frame hit dead space like there was nothing there, no connections for the input to travel along. What was happening?
Eclipse looked around as much as he could with his eyes, hating the delay in response to his commands. It was incredibly dark, the middle of the night, and he thought he was still in his bed but- he couldn’t feel it. His touch sensors were disabled. For all he knew he was laying strapped down to that cold, hard table he woke up on after he’d been shut down. Was he being shut down? Was he ever awake in the first place? He didn’t know. His memories always were fuzzy. Did he make this up? Surely if this was real he could move, right? There was no one to shut him down if he was in his room so why couldn’t he move?
Is he alone? Is Ruin still here? Was Ruin ever here? Did Ruin even exist? He tried to speak, but his voice box doesn’t take his input either. Eclipse’s mind races as he desperately tries to do anything. His battery is draining even though he knows- he’s pretty sure he’s currently plugged in. His fans are spinning at max speed, but he can barely hear them. Are his audio sensors malfunctioning? Is he broken? Is that why he can’t move? What happened?!
He tries again, sending ping after ping after ping after ping after ping- but it’s a futile effort and he knows it. He wants to scream, but his voice won’t let him. He tries to access the internet and all he gets for his troubles are error messages. It’s so dark. His vision isn’t normally this bad in the dark, and his room usually gets some light through the window from the moon, but he can barely see shapes around him. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Eclipse feels that cloying sensation fill up his hollow insides like tar, and he wishes he could cry. A pathetic chirp pushes past this horrible paralysis and he freezes, thoughts stalling. He makes the noise again, a tiny little cheep echoing from his internals, barely heard over his muffled fans. Did he actually make the noise? He has to be sure so he does it again, and again, and again. His nonexistent heart sinks in despair when there’s no answer that he can hear, and he feels another chirp escape through a wave of static stabbing at his mind like thousands of tiny shocks.
(Is anyone there?)
He calls, over and over, to no avail. No one replies, no one responds to tell him it's okay. He’s alone. Maybe he always has been? He can’t remember. Why can't he remember?
The chirps and cheeps escape him rapidly. He can’t do anything but keep calling out, desperate for anyone to hear him. He doesn’t care who at this point, he’s so, so scared. He can’t move or hear or see or feel or speak, only-
(Where are you?)
His gyroscope jolts as something impacts whatever he’s laying on, and were his voice box responding he would have whimpered in fear. Was it a human realizing he was still online, come to finish the job? He regrets his earlier thoughts of just wanting anyone, because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen now. Will he ever wake up again? Will he ever see Ruin again? He doesn’t want to believe it was all fake, but Ruin usually responds quickly when he calls, so the fact hasn’t doesn’t inspire much hope in his notoriously faulty memory. Did something happen to Ruin? Did Ruin leave? Is that why he's been abandoned?
(Please, I’m alone.)
Eclipse can feel the haze suffusing his processors as he attempts to recall what happened before he woke up, but he hits a multitude of error walls that he struggles to wade through so he can see again. It hurts, and he finds himself clinging to the sensation even as it slips away just because it was at least something semi-tangible.
(Are you there?)
A shape invades his dulled vision and he starts. He doesn’t recognize it, and it makes him panic more. He chirps frantically, desperate for something familiar. He can hear the calls overlapping into an incomprehensible string of pure noise that starts to lose meaning, but he can’t help it. He tries to call louder, maybe he was just being too quiet? That has to be it, he's already malfunctioning so maybe he just needs to try harder. He must not be trying hard enough.
(Where are you?)
His eyes dart around, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing but nothing helps. It’s still just as dark as it was before, but he can’t focus away from whoever is looming over him for long as his anxiety peaks. The colours and shapes don’t make sense, like a puzzle with the wrong pieces all jammed together. He feels his processors struggling, errors fizzing through him as he struggles to make sense of the face in front of him.
Then, he hears it.
It’s so faint he thinks he imagines it, and he forces himself completely silent, fighting the suffocating need to keep trying, keep searching for someone he knows isn’t there.
There’s a small chirp. It is slightly off in a way he can’t describe as anything but achingly familiar, but his memory recall is still malfunctioning and he can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not. Then it happens again, louder, more insistent, and it resonates with the hollowness inside him so strongly that he chirps back without thinking.
(Are you there?)
There’s a response again. There are wide eyes staring at him, but that’s about all he can make out. Nothing else makes sense except that sound. He should be able to feel something but everything remains disconnected, and his panic renews when the face shifts slightly to the side. Are they leaving? Please, no, he doesn’t want to be alone again, he’s scared. But he can’t move, can’t make them stay, make sure they’re real-
(Don’t leave me.)
Eclipse cheeps frantically, speed picking up with every response to the point he’s not actually getting a response to each call, but he can’t slow down. The lack of response just makes him more frantic. Every call is supposed to get a response, he knows that. It’s one of the most basic parts of his code that even all his malfunctions and errors couldn’t hide it from him.
His battery continues to drain instead of charge as he overtaxes himself and his internal temperature rises as his fans struggle to keep up, and he grows exhausted. Mentally, more than anything. He can hear the responses from the still unrecognizable face better now, and he finds himself slowing as he calms- partially from exhaustion, but mostly from the faint buzzing against his programming that feels distantly comforting. His system clock has frozen, so he doesn’t know how long he’s been trapped like this alone- not alone?
He feels himself fading, gaze focused not on the darkness suffocating his unmoving body, but the face he feels should be familiar that hasn’t moved since the first time he’d been convinced they were about to leave.
(Please stay.)
He chirps again, quieter, and feels warm at the answering chirp that doesn’t quite match in pitch. His systems slow and his tired fans don’t need to work quite so hard. He still can’t move, and every errored ping sends a trembling shot of anxiety and terror through him, but with every little sound he calms faster, able to refocus his limited processing capacity on nothing but the comforting hum filling the gaping hole in his code. His battery ticks ever lower.
(Are you there?)
Eclipse powers down to the unfamiliar familiar face and the continuous reassurance that he’s not alone, even after he stops asking.
(I’m here.)
Eclipse woke with a jolt.
Something didn’t feel right. His systems were bombarding him with a crash log of epic proportions. Apparently, he’d severely malfunctioned at some point in the night. He struggled to remember what happened, but like most of his memories, it was hazy. He remembers the fear though, and he feels claustrophobic just thinking about it.
Eclipse tries to sit up, and finds he can’t. The feeling explodes into panic within the few seconds it takes him to look down, realise he’s not actually still trapped in his body again, and that he can still move his arms even if his legs and torso are weighed down.
Ruin is fast asleep, curled right on top of him with his arms latched tightly around his torso and tail looped under his knees in a secure coil. Eclipse blinks, looking to the side to find his sheets have been quite violently ripped off of him and shoved to the side. There are claw marks shredding holes into the fabric, and Eclipse is so confused. What happened?
He checks the crash log of his reboot and tries to make sense of the system errors and the logs of what he thought was dead code appearing frequently for seemingly no reason he can make sense of. He dismisses the log, feeling his head spin at the sheer enormity of the thing, focusing instead on the unusual situation he’s found himself in. It’s not uncommon for Ruin to sneak into his bed, but this is the first time he’s woken to the mer laying on top of him like this.
It… it feels nice. It’s a lot, but it's surprisingly nice.
But he’s still so, so confused. There's an undercurrent of anxiety swirling around his processor, making him feel jittery with the need to move, just to make sure he can.
Gently, he rests his arm over Ruin’s back, intending to begin trying to extract the mer without waking him, only for Ruin to suddenly snap awake. Eclipse startles, a burst of static punched out of him.
Ruin shoves himself up on his arms and chirps at him, staring intently with his large, mismatched eyes. Instinctively, Eclipse responds with a small cheep of his own, feeling more than a tad bewildered at the whole situation. Ruin immediately relaxes, and Eclipse feels the tail ensnaring his legs loosen and fall to rest against the side of them.
“Are you feeling better?” Ruin asks, tilting their head to the side.
“Uh, yes?” Eclipse replies, a bit uncertain. Was his malfunction really that bad?
Ruin smiles at him, before snuggling back down and squishing his face into his chest with a happy sigh that rumbled in the back of his throat like a purr. The tattered yellow frills around his head press up against Eclipse's chin and force him to readjust his head so Ruin would be more comfortable- well, as comfortable as one can be when laying against his hard casing.
“Good, because I’m quite tired and you’re comfortable.”
“I- what? Ru, what’re you-?“ a chirp interrupts the start of Eclipse’s indignant retort, syntax tripping over itself as his focus snaps to the hollow gap inside him the sound pulled at.
(You’re safe.)
Eclipse feels the fight leave him, slumping back against his bed. His battery is mostly full, but he is still tired. His system must still be finalizing the fixes for whatever malfunctioned. And, well, this is kinda nice. It’s still a lot, and if he thinks about it too long and focuses on all the points of contact he feels himself growing anxious, but it is nice. Nice to know for sure there’s someone there.
“Fine, you win,” Eclipse sighs, unable to muster the energy to be truly annoyed. He cautiously lifts an arm and rests a hand on Ruins side, feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest expanding with each lungful of air. He chirps back, closing his eyes.
(You’re here.)