Pressing silence, inky darkness–nothing Omicron wasn’t used to, all these cycles with Chi later. What he wasn’t used to, however, was Xi’s presence there with him. This was a first, as far as he could remember. He sat on the ground–at the center of nowhere–with his knuckles at his lips, watching as Xi struggled through something he himself had been trapped in countless times before.
It wasn’t easy to watch. It coated him in a frozen sweat, caught his breath in his chest, made him shudder in sympathetic pains.
That inky darkness had most of Xi’s forearms held under; his calves and feet, too. There were stripes of that darkness across his torso, over his nose and mouth. He kept choking for air, and failing each and every time. There were tears streaming from his eyes. They couldn’t stay open. He was too many places at once.
Omicron had one hand below the surface he sat on, lost in opaque darkness. He was searching for Xi’s hand as he watched him, until there was a distinctive pop behind and through him. Discreetly, he pulled his hand free and crossed his arms across his chest.
There were several moments of silence.
“And what exactly do you think you’re doing, Gravedigger?” she asked in a feigned pleasant tone.
“Nothing,” he said, keeping his eyes on Xi, on the script that was etched across his skin (what he could see, anyway). “Keeping him company.”
“Mm,” she knelt beside him, resting a clammy hand on his shoulder.
He shuddered twice as he said, “I… wish someone would’ve… uh, done the same for-for me.”
She tsked, and ran her hand through his hair (just as dark as nowhere), smoothing back a piece that had fallen into his face. “It would be in your best interest,” she said, “if you kept it that way.”
He nodded, slowly, refusing to look at her.
“Remember where you’ve left off.”
He could hear that smile on her face, that hollow look in her eyes. He frowned.
“You’ve got no one to thank but yourself,” she said, kissing his cheek.
He swallowed and closed his eyes.
Kissing his temple, he felt her lips slither into that smile. “You’re welcome, for my fixes.”
A wave of dread followed a wave of cold through him.
“And remember: they can be taken away just as easily.” Another pop, and she was gone.
He pressed his lips together, wet them, and sighed, lulling his head back to stare up through darkness, through nothing, through nowhere with eyes entirely the same color. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Xi,” he whispered. “Every last one of my eggs are in your basket.” He rolled his head back around to stare down at him.
From Xi, there was a moment of clarity. His eyes shot open and he stared back. His brows furrowed, at first in disorientation, then in agony. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead almost immediately.
“Can you keep her distracted?” Omicron asked, softly.
Xi blinked once definitively for yes. It sent another tide of tears down his face.
“I know,” he empathized beyond his bandwidth to. It flattened his tone to terseness.
Xi closed his eyes, and there was a wrinkle of irritation at the center of his forehead.
“Do you trust me?”
Xi shot his eyes open to frown at him with the wrinkles at their corners.
“Do you? Can you, anymore?”
He blinked once again for yes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “You believe me, right?”
Again, he blinked once. His expression softened, slightly.
“I’m trying,” Omicron whispered.
Xi narrowed his eyes, raised an eyebrow at him.
“You’re a real asshole, even when you can’t talk. You know that?”
His eyes wrinkled in a pained smile, briefly. He blinked once.
Omicron laughed, shaking his head. His expression was suddenly serious. “You… you need to go back.”
He raised his eyebrows in a non-verbalized question.
“Are… you there, too?”
He blinked, once.
“Well,” he shrugged. There was a twitch of a smile at a corner of his lips. “Welcome back.”
With a tired smile, Xi closed his eyes again and shuddered.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, “and I… know you’ve tried to visit me?”
Xi was listening, but he didn’t open his eyes.
Omicron scooted closer to brush the mess of inky hair from his friend’s mismatched eyes. Though he hated to say it, he did, “Please, don’t.”
He opened them to blink at him twice through a glare for, ‘No, I won’t stop trying.’
“I’m… not… me anymore.”
Xi was shaking, paling.
“I… can’t be,” he swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut to hide his terror, “without her anymore… Xi, I–” He covered his mouth with both hands, shaking his head in silence for a while.
When he finally felt brave enough to look Xi in the eyes again, he found them open and gentle, waiting for him to continue.
“I tried–I tried to stop her,” Omicron stammered. “I– I made… a… made a grave miscalculation. All… All I did… was… was delay her, and… and make her angrier… and… just… ruined…” he trailed off, his hands covering his mouth again, “ru-rui-ruined everything.”
Xi blinked twice for, ‘No, you didn’t, kid.’
“You’ve got to be ready, Xi,” he whispered. “I have one shot, and I have… I have to trust you, and I… am… not–”
Xi blinked once, his eyes shimmering in a rim of tears, for, ‘I know.’
“--comfortable… not knowing… if this is the end or not.”
He blinked twice, for, ‘It isn’t.’
“It… really feels… like this is the end, Xi.”
He blinked once, waited a moment, then blinked twice for ‘I know, kid, but it’s not.’
“I trust you,” he sniffled, wiping at his eyes and frowning at the tears on the pads of his fingers. “But, I’m scared.”
He blinked once, his eyes half-lidded as he looked away from him, for ‘Me, too.’
“I won’t… be the Gravedigger against either of you Weavers, okay? Please,” he begged, reaching out to cup Xi’s cheek. “don’t make me do that.”
Xi leaned into his hand.
“You know that’s the cost of failure, Xi, right?”
He blinked once, exhausted, as he brought his attention back to Omicron.
“Do you understand?”
He blinked once and narrowed his eyes for, ‘Olivia. Lucas. Octavian and Alice.’
But Omicron didn’t hear any of his intent. He settled back to where he had been sitting and slowly plunged his hand back under. There were coils of that darkness that serpentined up to his shoulder. With his free hand, he wiped at his eyes again. “It’s… kind of nice, though, not being alone this time.”
Xi’s eyes were grateful, too, before they fluttered closed again.
“I’m sorry.”
His eyelids squeezed together tightly once for, ‘Me, too.’