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clxckwork-sun-n-moon · 9 months

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slides in here smh smh cant believe u asked for offers of a toolbox prompts after i went to bed. i feel like 28 feeling for each other in the dark has some nice potential, hit eclipse with mechanic being extra vulnerable and still reaching for him

I am Looking Directly

@naffeclipse tagging for the bloodstain fool

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Nightlight (1.8k words)

The mechanic didn’t normally do house visits. Generally it was safer for themselves to remain in the workshop, despite their infrequent little scouting trips over the rooftops on the lookout for animatronics in need of a helping hand. Without being able to know fully what they’d be dealing with when called over to deal with a problem, then they wouldn’t be able to properly prepare what tools to bring, and they couldn’t always rely on their pocket-sized pouch to be enough to fix whatever situation they found. Not everything could be fixed with a screwdriver and piece of cloth.

Eclipse, as with many other occasions, proved to be a special consideration. If anything because he knew exactly what the issue was - he’d caused it, after all. When he’d come by and asked for them to come with him to follow through to a safehouse to deal with a ruptured oil pipe in someone’s leg, his mechanic had given him a concerned look but packed accordingly, asking questions throughout. How was the injury caused? Was there other damage to wiring? How much of the pipe was damaged? Eclipse calmly responded to each question, watching another tool and wrench and solder kit drop into their duffel bag, until finally they were being shepherded out the door and under Eclipse’s guide as they followed him along the streets.

There weren’t often animatronic bounties to collect. But when they had enough blood on their hands to start rivalling Eclipse, then the problem had to be dealt with, and the payout was suitable enough. Maybe he was more lenient towards these ones because there was no satisfaction found in spilling oil rather than spilling sanguine. But also if he brought in animatronics with damage, then he knew deep down that they would be left in that state, no matter the severity. He would make sure his animatronic targets arrived at the precinct whole rather than holey.

It meant, this time around, he needed smaller and steadier hands to deal with the unwelcome opening in this particular bounty’s leg.

He hadn’t missed the way that the mechanic had stiffened up when they looked at the bounty, handcuffed to a pipe with a shoddy tourniquet sealing up the worst of the leak. He hadn’t missed how they hadn’t looked at him once during the process of talking with the bleary animatronic, soldering up the split oil pipe and rejoining broken wires. Even when Eclipse crouched down to hold the bounty’s leg when one of the wires sent spasms through the limb, his mechanic didn’t look up from their work.

It was a long hour.

“Okay. Okay, the fix is holding,” the mechanic said quietly, sitting back on their knees as they shut the leg panel. “Can you flex the leg for me?” The bounty stayed quiet, still on occasion glancing back to Eclipse as if expecting some sort of twist, but regardless stretched out the leg before pulling it back in close. The mechanic watched in silence, eyeing the panel for any beads of oil from a new leak. But none appeared. They were too good at their work to allow for any faults.

Nodding their head, they rocked back up to their feet, lifting their duffel bag along with the rise. Eclipse stretched out a hand to steady them, and while they didn’t pull away, the gesture wasn’t directly acknowledged. Instead they finally looked back to him with a stoic, blank face.

“He’s fixed. Can you walk me home…please?”

A favour for a favour. Eclipse gave his bounty one more look over, a glance that had a glower returned in kind, before keeping his hand on the mechanic’s arm and guiding them off towards the door.

Night had sunken well into the city, a blanket of darkness broken by street lamps and emergency lighting that pinpricked a few of the backstreets that Eclipse knew very well. With the neon buzzing overhead, his shadow stretched out over the walls and pavement, swallowing the presence of his mechanic who walked at his side. A space, imperceptible to some but cavernous to him, had formed between them.

“Are you scared?” Eclipse didn’t want to finish the sentence fully, but he asked nonetheless. For a minute, there was no reply, and the silence started to pick its fingers into his wires with a painful ache. A desire to pull them close, to immediately reassure them that there was no need for fear.

“Look, I knew you were involved in messy business from the day I met you,” they replied quietly, words matching pace with their stride as the pair followed the street. Two steps for every one of Eclipse’s. “I’ve known for every time you come in with another shot injury or buckled knuckles with blood on them. It’s…different seeing it in person.”

“Much messier than you imagined.”

“Yes.” They exhaled a sigh. “I don’t…tend to think too much about the rest of the city. I have patients to fix, paperwork to redo so my funds don’t get frozen, people to worry about. A lot of things go past me. Including the worst parts. I don’t like to be oblivious, I just…don’t have the capability of filling up my plate with things I can’t control.”

Eclipse turned his gaze away. Now it was his turn to be silent and ponder. The pair worked on two very different sides of the city’s coin. He cleaned, they watched. He broke, they fixed. He clenched a fist on things he desired control over, they stepped away to focus on what they did control. No ambition. Only helping hands covered in oil.

He glanced down at their hands. Due to the leak fix, they were monochrome black and grey, a sheen glinting over the skin whenever they passed under a street light. He would have to make sure they cleaned up properly once back at the workshop.

A hiss and pop sounded overhead. Both stopped in their tracks as one of the lamps let off sparks before going dark. All around in a wave without motion, lights blinked out from every lamp and window in the area. Nighttime flooded through the street, encompassing every space and form, swallowing everything in sight.

“A blackout,” Eclipse muttered, adjusting his optics. Nothing that would cause him issue - he could easily see without external light. He took a couple steps forward when a hiss of his name stopped him.

The mechanic had flattened themselves against a wall, leaning against the solid structure while they stared around. All of their sensibility and professionalism had gone out the window, leaving blind panic in its wake.

“Eclipse?” they whispered again. “Clip, I can’t see.”

Ah.

“I’m over here,” he spoke, and the response was immediate. Their head snapped up towards his voice and their hand reached out, patting at the air as they slowly moved away from the wall and their last point of security.

Despite everything they’d seen, they still trusted his voice to walk into darkness and find him.

Unwilling to let them continue with flailing around blindly, Eclipse reached back out and took their hand, letting them attach fully to his arm.

“I’ve got you,” he said quietly, taking their hands and moving them closer, up to his hip where they latched on once again. Even their head pressed up against him as they sank into his side. Though the gesture wasn’t necessary, he adjusted his coat, letting it wrap around them in a safer level of darkness. One hand clung onto his waistcoat, the other held onto the edge of his coat. Shaky panic breathing began to calm to something slower.

“Is this the part where you say that you’re scared of the dark?” he asked.

“No. The dark doesn’t scare me,” they replied. “It’s the helplessness that does it.”

That much was painfully true. Eclipse found the top of their head through the coat and rested his hand over them, prompting them to lean up against him again.

“Good thing I’m with you,” they said, and he could hear the smile in their voice. Another light tenderness ticked over in his servo.

“I’m not going to be able to walk with you like this,” he commented, thinking about their small gait and the awkwardness of having them attached to his hip like a child (and that thought prompted unwanted memories for certain). With about as much grace as possible with one person seeing and one person holding, he lifted them up into one arm, tucking up against him with their grip tight on his coat still. After a soft back and forth, repeated “Are you balanced?” and “I’m okay”, Eclipse continued down the route towards the workshop.

Sure, he could have walked with them until their sight readjusted to the lack of light, however long that would have taken. But now he held them close, and he could see how they kept their face turned against his shoulder, a hand flat against his collar instead of hanging on for dear life.

They were scared of helplessness and they leaned into him with the comfort of a lifeline.

His other arm wrapped up around them, a hand encompassing their shoulders, and his mechanic made a small sound of reassurance. The alleyways fled away under Eclipse’s strides, confident in his direction. No-one was around to see the pair, any humans having fled indoors with the lack of light driving them to the security of four walls and candles. It was just them in the darkness.

Soon he found a familiar door, and he set the mechanic down on the ground, for they had the key. But as they fumbled it out of a pouch, Eclipse knew that there was a much easier way about this. Crouching down just a bit, he wrapped his hand around their’s, the key teeth still visible. Although they glanced back blindly with an expression of surprise, they didn’t complain, letting him lead as he fed the key into the lock and let their hand turn the rest of the way.

Ushering them both inside, Eclipse locked the door behind with the right bolts and then continued his shepherding, settling the mechanic down on the sofa. Next was the fireplace, pulling sticks and logs out to feed into the engine’s maw, his lighter’s flame catching on the edges of newspapers to start feeding the fire proper. As the warm light crackled into existence, the mechanic drew in closer, drawn closer with a moth’s desire. Sitting down next to Eclipse, they once again leaned against him, and this time he quietly wrapped an arm around their shoulders. His precious raven.

“Thank you,” they said quietly.

“You asked me to get you home. So I did,” Eclipse replied. Favour for favour, that was how they worked.

“I don’t know, I think I owe you for this one,” the mechanic said, giving them a side glance. Not wary, only curious.

Eclipse mused, prodding the fire and prompting more of the twigs to fall into the flames, consumed into the light.

“I’ll think of something,” he finally murmured. His mechanic hummed in understanding, head tilting to rest on his torso. The fire crackled, light spread across the pair as the fire devoured all that Eclipse placed into it. To him, a maw. To them, a beacon. To both, a respite from the past evening.

#clockwork writings #bloodstain fool #offer of a toolbox #bounty hunter!eclipse #hehehehe enjoy the drabble snack~#answered #lavenoon #friendly neighborhood mutual

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