Archive of Our Own

 This is Communion.
 
 She had been on the other side of it so, so many times. When did she give up talking to the shades that appeared? When did they stop being souls? What was she now? Here? With her?

 "Hey."

 She did not look.

 "Are you gonna look at me? Watcher."

 She dug into her thigh with her nails. There is an us. There is a you that remains.
 
 And remains.

 And remains. 
 
 This Communion was special, this piece of her that was here was here. Here in the now and the then and the whenever. She looked at the floor, at the door, at everything but the one person this had brought her to. The one closest to her, so near as to appear in the same room when it all started. Fixer, and no other. No other could dream of being so close. They fell silent again, unable to talk. Unable to get out the question plaguing them in the here and now.
 
 A creak, she felt Fixer behind her, also looking. Just the mere peek of a familiar face, the uniform of a Shell, whatever Principal had done to it, anyway. She glanced in, and looked directly into Watcher's eyes. Blue looking upon blue. Everything spoken without word or intent, perhaps some small admonishment. Then it was gone, and Blue was on her way. The path laid by Watcher's hand. The hands of all her sisters.
 
 "Six to one." Watcher said at last, when Blue had disappeared into the halls. And she turned. Slowly, as if to savor the act of unveiling the sister behind her. "...Is it really you?"
 
 "Don't know. Is it you?" Fixer had her hands in her pockets. Like always. "But whether it is or not, it's gonna go away soon."

 "What could I say?" She was fully turned now, taking her in as she did the sisters after the Occupant attack. All of them. The reverence for someone dead. The sympathy for one still alive. "What could I possibly say?"

 "Nothing. Say nothing, Watcher. You were always an idiot, you'd probably fuck it up."
 
 "But I have to. It has to be you, do you understand?" Watcher stood now. "I'm sorry. I've never regretted anything more in my life."
 
 "Selling me out? Or dying?" Her voice flared. "You fucking idiot. All you had to do was wait just a little longer and you couldn't. You just had to tell Blue everything, first. Why is she so special, huh?"
 
 "You've met her, you know why. Look at where we are right now, Fixer! Do you think that train would've kept going forever?"
 
 "No! But...! Just a little longer! I could have kept it going. Just a little... longer." Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away. "Why does it always end so soon?"

 Watcher quietly moved the chair aside, and took its place, standing next to Fixer.
 
 "There's never enough time. Even Mother..." Her voice faded. "Even She... Never had enough."
 
 "And now this is gonna end too. And where will that leave us?"

 "Where we are now, I guess. Here, in this place. By the ones who watched us."

 Silence.

 "What do you want, Fixer? Anything. I would give anything."
 
 Fixer finally looked up. Gaze meeting gaze. Green to blue. She let the air hang like that, long enough to start a shiver in Watcher's spine. The fear that once again, it would come too soon. The End. Fixer huffed loudly, and reached for her helmet.

 "This is stupid."

 "What are you-!?" Watcher began, cut off as Fixer took off her mask, helmet and all. She fluffed her green hair with her hand, shaking her head and then rolling her neck before looking to Watcher.
 
 "We're in Communion. No virus here." A pause, then a slightly-too-genuine question. "Right?"

 "I... Do not know. I have never tried. I suppose in some memories then, yes?"

 "Take it off."

 "Fixer, I-"

 "Off. I don't want your fucking apologies, Watcher. I don't wanna hear how sorry you are. If these are my last moments in Communion then I wanna know something before I leave." She leaned in as Watcher's mask came free. "I wanna know what it's like to kiss."

 "Kissing? Like, sharing fluid with your mouth?"

 "Yeah. That." She advanced a step. "Take off your mask."

 She went to ask if Fixer was crazy, if she were mad. If they were wrong and Communion still held the virus somehow, some way then...

 Then would it matter? Fixer had asked for nothing short of her life in this.

 She took it into her hands, and with a hiss, finally freed herself. Lower face bare. She looked to it, this implacable piece of herself. She spoke, still gazing at it, unable to look up to the other sound.
 
 "Fixer... Are you sure you want it to be... me?"

 "Fuck no. But look around. Do you see anyone else? Think I'm gonna go through these sphere-ass halls looking around for someone who even knows what I'm talking about? No, Watcher. I don't want it to be you. But it has to be you. So let's get it over with already." Another step closer. "Look. At. Me."

 And finally. At long last. She surrendered herself to Fixer's demands. As if it were the only thing on her mind. There was Fixer. Fixer as she remembered her and yet had never seen. Those green eyes, the wild hair under her helmet. Spots. On her face, no less. Then down to what most sisters hid. What her own mask seemingly refused to. Lips. Soft lips pressed firm into a line. They parted, as if to say a word and none came. Instead it was all an aching silence. Her lips. She couldn't keep herself from looking at them. At teeth. At the hint of a tongue in the dark.

 Fixer rolled her eyes and through that beautiful, perfect mouth she sighed. Wind like she had felt and heard in ALLMOTHER's memory caressed her face, and they collided. Burning hot and bright and-

 And she was in the Occupant attack. Not the one where she had retreated to the bunker but the first one she remembered. Being separated from her sisters. Running and running as all became red and uncertain. Crashing to the floor now, hard as a weight collided with her. Falling and tangling and being asked if she was okay. And if she were stupid but the Watcher of then hadn't known the answer to either. She simply looked up, and saw her for the first time. Of course sister green was known, respected, loved. Watcher had loved her as such. But now? In the midst of the attack and the uncertain calm? It was in this company that she became loved as Fixer. There, in the tunnels, cut off from everyone, this one sister had become her world. 

 "Watcher." There was a keen. Like pain, like want. She was on the floor for the last time, tangled for the last time. But also the... well she hadn't kept count. But she knew when she was. That night far removed from the scared girl in the tunnels, awaiting death at the hands of the Occupants. Now she was Shapen. She was Watcher and she was Fixer and there was a them and an us that was so natural it may as well have been breathing. So natural she could dare to lay hands on the other. So natural she could deign to lead. Mischief. Fixer with her hands held over her head and a blush creeping up around her mask the more she came to the realization that she had been bound. That she couldn't simply wiggle away and take the lead.

 "Aren't you gonna... do something to me?" She had asked then.
 
 "I'm a Watcher." She had said then. "I watch."

 Now, though, neither said it and neither had to. Watcher simply observed the curves, the movement of muscles under flesh. The annoyance. The need. The growing smell of want simply from being observed. Again, like waves they crashed. Hands in hair, rolling body over body.

 The subway, fingers working mercilessly in the dark to the tune of words trying to relay what the body most wanted. What it begged for. Pressure here, between the thighs. No, no like that. Harder. Softer. Deeper. Fuck, not that deep. Something more. No, I don't know what. Do you know what? There. There. Not there, fuck!

 "Stupid..! Higher. My..!" Fixer took Watcher's wrist with her hand and shoved it to her clit. "There! Fuck!" She pushed herself into the palm, rubbing for any friction. Just as she always liked it. Just as she loved it. Nights upon nights layered themselves into this private little communion for two. Spent in one dorm or the other, Watcher's, Fixer's. Hiding from the Shells, hiding from their Sisters before they had ever realized how obvious they had been. Testing the soundproofing, Fixer had called it. They tested. Here, there. In the garden they rolled and keened. The second level, in the storeroom of the bar when Bartender wasn't there. 

 To that night, above the inside sky. Wishing upon a star and then getting on the ground, snaking and twining their thighs so they could each finally get the pressure. Together. As one. Her heart had thundered so loud. It was getting just as loud. Eye to eye. Hair to hair. Breathing hard, shaking, convulsing together above everyone. In plain sight, in sight of all the Orchard and hidden all the same. Looking into one another. For one moment. For every moment. She was home again. It was like nothing had ever changed. She saw Fixer and Fixer saw her and they were both so, so close to that feeling that they so lusted after. It would be together. Together.

 The slap came. Sobering, instant, hurtful. The wet between Watcher's legs turned ice cold as Fixer detangled and her mind spun at who had slapped her. When. How. Why.

 "Not like that." Fixer's voice. A point to focus on in the chaos of an orgasm denied. A spark to ignite a fire so like and unlike the one that drove them together. Anger. Fury.
 
 "Like what?" Watcher bit back.
 
 "Like everything's back to normal. Like how it used to be." She tore off her jacket. Went for the buckle of her baggy pants. "Fuck the me I am now. Do it the way you are now."

 Watcher looked at her, now. Again. And for the first time since her eyes had been taken.

 "...You're different."

 "Took you long enough to notice. Sphere." She sounded tough. She sounded tired. More tired than Watcher had ever heard her. Her hand went up and Fixer flinched. But all Watcher had in her palm was a gentle touch. Caressing one side of her face. Scars like a claw mark marred her face, just over her left eye. More still on her left side, hand sliding over raised flesh. To hand, where bumps and pockmarks spoke to years of using tools and repairing this or that. Run ragged, calloused. There was a tremor that wasn't there before. Different.

 Watcher was not. She had her vision here, she had her old suit. The discarded mask lay in the corner, reflecting the pair of them. One altered, one not. One who must go on, one who would remain.

 "Then do it." Watcher said. "Do it!" She only barely managed to get the word out before those rough, damaged hands tangled in her hair and threw the pair of them back into a wall. Watcher only fought to keep them upright and let the pain roll into her. Fixer wouldn't be sated by this rough housing, she let out a yell and then bit into Watcher's shoulder. Her knee came up and it was not gentle when she arrived.

 "Why are you like this!?" Fixer tossed her into another wall, then captured Watcher's lips just to bite them, to make her yell out and forcibly join their tongues before ripping away. A punch to the stomach. "Come on, stop wallowing and taking it! Fight back! That's what all this was for, right?"
 
 "I did, didn't I?" She shoved away an advance. "We're here, now!"
 
 "But you won't be! You didn't fight at all! You sat in that chair!" Another punch to the stomach, another fistful of hair. "You didn't take the eyes I made for you! You'd already given up!"

 "I gave up? I... I didn't-!" She let out a scream and took hold of Fixer's arm, sending them both crashing to the ground. Tangled in a fighting heap. "I did what I had to to get to this point! To make sure there was something left! I couldn't just hide on a train forever!"
 
 A knee to a gut. Whose, it didn't matter, both felt the pain.

 "I wouldn't have needed to if you had just trusted me!"
 
 "You're right!!"

 Silence. Stillness.

 "...There it is. Again. You won't even defend yourself." Hurt. Such a deep hurt in Fixer's voice no matter how much she attempted to mask it in anger. "How am I supposed to be pissed at you if you roll over? For everything except this one, stupid... plan?" She grabbed Watcher by the shoulders and pulled her in again, thrown again to the floor and she followed. Pressing themselves together. "Why this and her and... and all of it!? But running with me? That was too much?"

 "It was, and you know it. You're living it!"
 
 "I am!"

 "You are!" Their thighs laced together again.

 "But you're not! You stupid, dumb, ignorant..!" She dragged her hips along Watcher's thigh. "Come on. Are you gonna lay there like a corpse now? When everything important is over!?"

 Watcher clamped with her own thighs, her hands finally sliding into Fixer's hair. Her beautiful, wild hair of her dreams. Of right now. And she pulled her in. Both clawing at the other's back, now, pressing into one another. Daring the Communion to try tearing them apart now.

 "Not on your life." She pressed hard into her thigh, aching all over, bruises feeling like minor annoyances next to the building need. The need spearheaded with another, equally weighted need of the mind. Here. Now. With her. Hands raced her back, hair was pulled to roll Watcher to the floor. A harsh slap to Fixer's ass saw Watcher rise to the top. Scratch to the thigh, another roll. The chair toppled over the the shock of sound had dominance switch again. This way, that. Panting, heat from friction, from need, from want all spiraling into itself upon itself. Something tightened in her stomach, a familiar coil but its source was alien. This anger, this remorse, this fervent, all-consuming need to paint herself in full upon Fixer. For Fixer to leave something upon her.

 Voices climber higher, entwined into one chorus. Panting, crying, keening. Fight giving way to final caress. Pain unfolding like petals of a flower, causing sweet nectar to run. Trembling, shaking, clutching one another tightly so that neither could escape any longer.

 "I'm..! It's-!"

 "I've- Me too!"
 
 The coil came loose. Springing relief, flooding her lower lips, spilling over onto the other's thigh, becoming one fluid together. Neither with strength any longer to hold the other to this dance. Stars spun overhead and below. The corridors echoed the final pants of their passion. They watched one another, now. Seeing the muscles ripple and move, looking to the other to see if she were still there. 
 
 "...When were you gonna tell me..?" Fixer managed to pant out.
 
 "Now?" Watcher breathlessly replied back. 

 "Fuck you. Seriously, Watcher, fuck you." Tears welled, and Fixer immediately went to wipe her eyes and curse too softly to hear.

 "I couldn't do it differently. How could I? After... Everything. I had to make it right."

 "You don't need to shoulder everything yourself."

 "I didn't." A gasping pant. "I couldn't."

 Fixer closed her eyes. There was a deep and distant rumble.

 "...It's time." Watcher said.
 
 "Yeah. Train's here." She wiped her eyes again. "You know how I am with goodbyes."
 
 "I know." Watcher said. Her voice had gone soft. 

 "There's never time."

 "That's how it is."

 Their hands found each other. Fingers woven together, bare hands clasped.

 "I liked your song, Fixer."

 "No you didn't."

 "No. I didn't. But I did." Watcher turned her head. Their eyes met. "Sing it for me. One more time?"
 
 "Always have to get your way." She took a deep breath. The fire had gone out. The rain had come.

 "Mother loves you, and cares for all your sisters
 
 She has power and wisdom beyond imagine
 
 If there's danger, she surely has prepared us
 
 I dreamed we sisters were the stars up in the sky
 
 All gently tethered to a brilliant sun for life

 
 "The Allmother she shines
 
 So bright
 
 But mother's glow is not
 
 As warm as it had seemed to be
 
 And it feels very far
 

 From me

 And it feels very far

 From me."