i feel i am sinking and sailing to swim

by Asairayn

Summary:

Everything hurt.

It wasn’t exactly a new feeling, but one that had been slowly escalating in the months since that alternate Sun had broken something in him.

Eclipse was used to it by now, surely, but sometimes it still… caught him by surprise.

Notes:

I wrote this in less than a day. I had no plans. It has some kind of plot now. How did i do that. The title of the google doc is "listen i just want to write eclipse with chronic pain okay i'm projecting what do you want from me" so i think that says enough. Hope you enjoy!

title is from "over & over" by rio romeo

(content warnings in end notes)

Everything hurt.

It wasn’t exactly a new feeling, but one that had been slowly escalating in the months since that alternate Sun had broken something in him. 

Eclipse was used to it by now, surely, but sometimes it still… caught him by surprise. 

He was trying to work on blueprints. One of the simplest things he did– Eclipse was more intelligent than Moon, blueprints should have been easy.

And yet… it was harder than it should have been. He kept getting distracted by the aching through his body, and even when he wasn’t he couldn’t focus. It was getting far more irritating than anticipated. 

Pain was an inconvenience he could deal with. He’d experienced much worse before, hadn’t he? Being electrocuted was certainly worse than some dull aching, although it only lasted a second, and he’d certainly been through worse before–

But he hadn’t, had he? The original Eclipse had, but he was a dull copy. He could remember experiencing worse, but it was from an outside perspective, disconnected from the reality of the agony.

Fighting Bloodmoon, being beaten nearly to death, must have hurt. The slow decay of the body he stole from Solar Flare, star power burning through his veins as he fell apart from the inside out, must have been agonizing. Getting blasted directly with star power and then disintegrated by a giant laser in space must have been excruciating.  

But he never experienced any of it.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter any more than the aching through his limbs, the shaking of his hands, the fog in his head. 

He just needed to finish these damn blueprints.  

Somebody needed to invent painkillers that worked on animatronics. Maybe he should do that. It certainly didn’t seem like Moon was going to– this inferior version barely created anything useful, and with how erratic he’d been recently he wasn’t likely to create anything sane at all. So it was up to him. 

Whatever. He could deal with the pain. Creating painkillers would be an interruption to his plans that he could not handle.

 

— — — — —

 

Eclipse was starting to regret not inventing painkillers.

He couldn’t tell if the pain was getting worse, or if he’d merely become worse at handling it. Either way, it was getting very disruptive.

He was restricted to lying down. It somewhat reduced the inferno of pain, dousing it in ice that hurt nearly as much, and the reduction of the fatigue that weighed on his thoughts and endo was instantly noticeable. 

Unfortunately, it had the unforeseen consequence of making it harder to breathe. 

He didn’t need to breathe, not in a human way, but the fans that cooled his internal workings were equivalent enough to lack a need for proper terminology, when terminology was drifting just out of reach of his thoughts.

Laying down made that harder.

It shouldn’t have. His body was designed as well as any Daycare Attendant model, perhaps even better, despite the fact that it was made almost exclusively out of arcade machine parts, despite the fact that he could feel Ruin’s hands on every component when he thought too hard about it.

Laying down should not have made any part of his body less functional. And yet.

Was it purely subjective? Dark Sun only added something to his head, that shouldn’t cause this sort of damage throughout all his functions. 

But it couldn’t be subjective. It was far too real to be subjective. Even if the scans and tests all turned up normal, even if he couldn’t even find any modifications in his head, it couldn’t be subjective. A modification to his pain sensors, anything that would cause him to feel pain when there was nothing there, still wouldn’t explain the non-functional fans. 

How ironic was it, that the only position that reduced his symptoms caused a brand new one?

It wasn’t a new symptom, exactly. He’d had trouble with his fans since he first met Dark Sun, and perhaps even before then. He was accustomed to manually resetting them, the distant terror that came from a few seconds without them. He was accustomed to having to take breaks in the middle of activities, pausing against a wall or on a bench, just to wait for his fans to catch up.

But now they whirred deafeningly any time he laid down, their motion heating him nearly as much as the airflow cooled him. It took an unreasonable amount of his focus just to make sure they were still moving– it felt like if he stopped paying attention they’d stop, and never start again.

He wasn’t able to fix them. Even if he could work, could think for long enough to fix something, his fans were inside his body. He wouldn’t be able to fix them on his own. It’s not like anybody would help him.

 

— — — — —

 

Eclipse had plans.

For once, he had plans that weren’t about harming someone or a secret project. He was going to ‘hang out’ with Earth. 

Her persistent overtures of friendship were… fascinating. Something he’d seen from a distance, but never expected to receive. 

He was starting to enjoy his time spent with her. 

Unfortunately, he couldn’t go.

He was in so much pain. He still hadn’t gotten around to making painkillers, and he’d made absolutely no progress on his real plans, because it took everything he had not to collapse every time he stood up. Even when he managed to make it to his desk, he couldn’t remember what to open. He’d stare at his blueprints, he’d stare at any blueprints, and he wouldn’t even be capable of processing what he was seeing. 

He was supposed to be better than this. 

But all he’d been able to do today was lay on the floor. 

He didn’t have a bed. There’d never seemed like any point– he didn’t sleep, there was far too much work to do, he always plugged himself into the wall next to his desk and charged there, but… it was starting to seem like a worthwhile investment, given how much time he was spending laying on the ground.  

The dirt that kept accumulating on his body was disgusting, yet he couldn’t even gather the energy to wipe himself off for days at a time. Pathetic. 

Any time he did anything it got worse. If he experimented with one of his projects for an hour he was left on the floor for a day. If he left the lab to collect supplies he couldn’t think for a week.

Eclipse had gone on a supply run the day before. 

He couldn’t go and spend time with Earth. 

He wanted to. It was a new feeling for him, leaving him pathetic on the floor, but he did want to. He’d started to enjoy spending time with her, even when they were merely talking about nothing.

And having those experiences made the lack so much harsher. 

But he couldn’t. He could barely sit up, left dizzy and fumbling through basic sentences when he did. He didn’t have the energy to teleport, even the thought of using magic made his head hurt, and he wouldn’t be a very interesting conversation partner even if he did manage to make it there. He could barely string a sentence together. 

He could barely think.

But he didn’t want to ghost her without warning, so he’d have to call her. Hopefully she wouldn’t be able to tell how pathetic he’d become. 

Eclipse propped himself up into a half-sitting position, leaning against the wall– the drop in his processing capacity and increased pain were worth it when it reduced the volume of his fans, and called Earth. 

He was so lucky they were animatronics. It would be a nightmare to keep track of a phone.  

She answered on the second ring with a cheerful, “Hi!”

“Hello, Earth,” Eclipse replied, trying to keep his fans to an inaudible volume. He couldn’t tell how well it worked. 

“How are you?” She asked, sounding happy to hear him. Absurd. 

“I’m… alright,” He lied. She didn’t need to know. His head hurt. Everything hurt. “I was calling to talk about our… plans today.”

“Oh, yes!” Eclipse could practically hear her smiling through the phone. She was so strange. “I’m excited to see you today!”

“Unfortunately…” He paused, trying to come up with a proper excuse, which was difficult when his head was filled with fog. “I won’t be able to come today.”

“Oh…” Earth sounded dejected. Guilt filled the empty spaces between his thoughts. “Why not?”

“I… forgot about a project.” As an excuse, it was pretty terrible. His memory was good, back when he was able to think, and most projects could be postponed– he always had projects. “I’ll be too… too busy.”

“That’s a shame…” She sounded sad. She wasn’t supposed to be sad over him, but if she chose to care about him that was her loss. “Do you think we could meet tomorrow instead?”

He paused to think– could he? No, if he was this broken today, he wouldn’t be capable tomorrow. “Tragically, no.” It hurt to breathe. His voice, unsurprisingly, was turning even raspier than usual. “I’ll be busy still, but perhaps… we could meet next week.”

“Ah, alright!” Earth sighed, before pausing. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” He insisted, digging his fingers into his palms. It was a shame this body didn’t have claws. 

“If you’re sure…” Earth hummed doubtingly. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

“Sure.” Eclipse scoffed and hung up. 

Even if he needed help– and he wasn’t stupid enough to refuse to acknowledge that he needed help– it wasn’t a kind of help that Earth could provide. 

Maybe Moon could have, once upon a time. Moon’s always wanted him dead, though, since before he was even alive.

It didn’t matter. Nothing could be done. 

 

— — — — —

 

Eclipse had given up on finding a cause for his symptoms. There wasn’t much point anymore.

Dark Sun did something, and if he found it then maybe he could fix it, but it didn’t matter. This was his life now– if he couldn’t function through the pain and fatigue, he just had to deal with it. 

Maybe it would kill him. 

He’s not sure that he would be opposed. 

Would he still come back? Maybe he would. Ruin was never particularly clear about whether or not he still had backups left.

He should probably go find and destroy those. 

It was a good day, all things considered. He could stand, he could walk, he wasn’t in too much pain or too exhausted to think. 

It was a good day, but he was still in pain. It was a good day, but he could still feel the exhaustion weighing him down. 

Was this his life now?

If so, he really should work on those painkillers. If he was in less pain, he might be able to complete his project. 

It was a good day. He could make progress. 

Sitting at his desk increased the pain he was in, but it was a good day, so he was able to work through it without too much difficulty. He was still plagued by dizzy spells and loss of focus and the exhaustion trying to drag him to the floor, but it was manageable. 

It wasn’t too hard to make painkillers that would work for him. Normal ones might have worked anyway, were he bio-organic, but he refused to believe he could be. Why would anyone want that?

All he had to do was create something that could dull– not shut off– his pain sensors, as well as the part of his programming that interpreted the signals sent from those sensors. It was ridiculously easy, on a day when he could think. It only took him a couple of hours. 

Even the parts were already there, and he didn’t even have to put them together himself– he had a variety of automated constructors. 

It… was disappointing, to realize that he could have done this months ago. And it was more disappointing to realize that he couldn’t have done it for the past weeks.

 

— — — — —

 

The painkillers worked. 

They weren’t perfect. Even after taking them, he could still feel the lingering aches through his body, leaving him wondering if they worked at all or if he would have been in less pain anyway, but they worked.

It was… overwhelming, in a certain way. He’d forgotten what it was like to not be in a near-excruciating amount of pain, and the reminder that he should still be in even less was unfathomable. 

He was still exhausted. It was still hard to think. His fans still whirred far faster than they should. He had to take more painkillers every eight hours as they wore off unless he wanted to return to being in pain, and there was likely a risk of addiction and side effects, but he was in less pain.  

When he stood he was still dizzy, with a high risk of collapsing if he moved too fast, but it didn’t hurt. He could handle dizziness.

It was still hard to focus, it was still hard to think, and if he did too much he was still left lying on the floor exhausted and in pain.

Some days were still worse than others, and some days he could still barely sit up– he should probably invest in a bed– but he could cope. 

He wasn’t cured. But he could exist. 

He could live like this.

Notes:

cw: some internalized ableism; descriptions of various symptoms (pain, fatigue, difficulty breathing); very very minor suicidal ideation

8/15/25: finally edited the formatting so it doesn't have such big gaps. and also so that it isn't missing one period on the end of one sentence