The morning after a chalk high is always a toss-up for Apollo. Some days he wakes up, the morning light soft and gentle, and he has a great time. Other days...he prefers not to think about.

Unfortunately, he's about to.

The first thing he registers is a darkness. Then he feels the pressure on his torso, and his body reacts before his mind does.

"Fuck!" Apollo hollers, throwing the person straddling him off. His body tenses into fight mode as he wakes up, vision focusing on...oh. Fuck.

It's Valoren. Well, more specifically, his blasphemy: Apollo knows he never would have reacted that way if Valoren had been himself. Shit, he'd forgotten that it was Valoren's first chalk high. It must be bad for him to have transformed.

"I...gods, I'm..." Apollo holds his head, trying to center himself. His chest heaves as he reminds himself over and over again that he's safe to avoid a panic attack. He's at home. No one here but himself and the love of his life.

Valoren.

The blasphemy skitters backwards as Apollo leans forward, in a way that just about breaks him. "Love...?"

Valoren hadn't realized how easily he'd slept until he woke up, and every lingering trace of that ease was gone. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply, horribly wrong about that fact. There had been no nightmares, without any Beetle intervention to prevent them. There had been no tossing or turning or waking up before the sun in an adrenaline-fueled rush. When he went to sleep, he had felt so incredibly, perfectly safe. And now, he feels none of that, and it terrifies him.

Apollo is still sleeping soundly, and Valoren can't bring himself to ruin that. Carefully, slowly, he moves away from his beloved. I'm not safe. I'm not safe to be around. He's not safe. He's not safe with me. Valoren feels the panic rising in his throat. He's paralyzed with fear and something deeper. Colder. Familiar.

Valoren doesn't have the presence of mind to set an intention for this transformation, which means it's going to be a bad one - and knowing this only sends him further down into that spiral of horrified despair.

He can't remember being this cold, but he knows it's not the first time. He's always been alone in his pain, but he knows there's others he cannot see. He's never seen a night this dark, but he knows that the Sun is waiting for him - if only he can reach it.

But when Valoren extends a frozen, trembling hand towards his Sunlight, it burns him.

Valoren shrinks back, withdrawing dangerously far into the darkness. Why did it burn? His light, his hope, his world, his heart? Why did it hurt him so? He doesn't know, he doesn't know, he doesn't know.

—

“No, no, no…” Adrenaline is still pumping through Apollo, which isn’t helping his rising panic at Valoren’s condition. He’s always been enough to bring Valoren down from one of these nightmare-induced transformations. But now he’s clearly fucked it, and he’s choked with terror at what it means. Surely he will turn back. Like he always does. Right? If he considers the alternative, Apollo will truly go off the deep end.

He tries to move closer again, tries to make himself nonthreatening and friendly. But it’s clear nothing he does can unfuck this mess as a terrible black smoke envelops the blasphemy’s form.

“I’m sorry,” Apollo says, not knowing if his words are reaching his love. For the first time in a long time, he feels helpless, and he hates it with every fiber of his being.

He should go. He needs to go. It’s clear his presence is no longer a comfort.

Apollo stumbles out of the room, haphazardly pulling on a pair of sweatpants while closing the door behind him. Every part of him screams to go back in there and be with Valoren. But he forces himself to move away from the door. Away from the only place he wants to be right now.

The kitchen counter is a cold substitute for Valoren’s touch.

It takes Apollo a while to feel normal again, to gather himself and recover. He can’t afford to make another mistake and let his own fear poison Valoren. He still remembers how to recover from a bad come down: something he never thought would be useful to him. Now, he thanks his lucky stars that one of the worst times of his life can be put to some use.

Apollo knocks on the door of the bedroom, straining his keen ears to pick up anything, any indication of what’s going on inside.

—

Valoren doesn’t know what’s worse: the searing threat of the sunlight or the frozen abyss that’s left in its absence. He sinks, falling deeper into the cold sea. Valoren doesn’t bother to fill his lungs with what he knows will only be stinging saltwater. Instead, he lets the air go stale in his chest, growing more toxic with each moment. He wonders whether whatever comes after this will have sunlight.

He still hopes so.

————————

Valoren wakes up curled in the corner of the bedroom, shivering and alone. He gasps for air and immediately starts coughing out black smoke.

“Apollo?” he croaks. Though the world is grey and blurry, he can’t see the love of his life. He needs Apollo like an anchor is needed by a ship in storm. Untethered, he finds the tempest dragging him cruelly out to sea. Apollo. Valoren isn’t sure if the last word was a whisper or only a thought. And then he sinks below the dark waves once again.

—————————

Valoren doesn’t know how long he’s been like this, flickering in and out of his blasphemy form, when there’s a soft knocking at the door. He recognizes the knock instantly as Apollo’s.

Unable to muster words around the painful lump in his throat, Valoren can only choke out a sob. He wants to cry out, to reach out, to beg for help, but he can’t do anything but let the sea-salt tears stream down his face.

Please come back to me, Sunlight. I don’t want to be alone anymore.

—

It’s like he’s being cleaved in two, the feeling Apollo gets hearing that tiny, broken sob. He can’t wait another moment, he decides, pushing open the door.

Apollo’s never found Valoren’s size to be a problem. Small, but swift and powerful. But now hes small in an awful, heartbreaking way, curled up and sobbing by himself.

Apollo’s at his side in an instant. “Can I touch you?” he asks quietly.

—

Valoren nods. Then, not wanting to wait any longer, he reaches out and grabs Apollo, clinging to his shirt like a life preserver. He’s shaking. From fear or sobs, it’s unclear.

It’s a long time before Valoren is able to physically form words, and longer still before he knows what to say. When he finally speaks, his voice is a trembling whisper.

“I missed you.”

—

Apollo crumples up like paper, holding Valoren so close that he can’t tell whose breathing is whose. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you,” he says, his words coming out in a rush. “You know I love you so much, right? I didn’t mean to. I feel awful.” Apollo presses his lips to Valoren’s skin over and over again, as if the touch could make him forget the terrible ordeal.

—

It might not erase things, but for Valoren, just being near Apollo again makes it all worth it. He’d gladly burn for a thousand years if only it meant not being left in the dark ocean again.

But Apollo’s warmth is so full of love now that Valoren wonders how it could ever have hurt in this first place.

“I forgive you,” he says, his words almost inaudible against Apollo’s chest. “I love you, too. And I’m grateful you—” Another hiccuping sob consumes the end of his sentence, but he has to say this. Apollo has to know. “I’m so grateful you came back.” —

“I’ll always come back,” he murmurs. “I would crawl home to you if I had to.

“As long as you still wanted me,” he adds. “I swear, that had nothing to do with you. I panicked. Just…being in that position with something unfamiliar…” He buries his nose in Valoren’s hair. “Sometimes your body remembers things your mind would rather have lost.”

—

“I understand,” Valoren nods. “All too well. You don’t need to apologize for that, love.” His physical scars are far from the only ones left by his family. They just happen to be the most visible. But he gets the sense that Apollo is referring to something slightly different. “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asks softly. “You need not shoulder this alone, my love.”

—

Apollo picks at a loose thread. "I haven't really talked about it because to be honest, I don't know how to. I feel embarrassed and ashamed of it, but at the same time I know I shouldn't. I go back and forth with my feelings about it." He sighs and takes a deep breath.

"Back when I was constantly on somnus, I was lucky to have friends who were always looking out for me. Even when I was determined to destroy myself, they were there for me. I didn't deserve them. But they couldn't always be around, and on the one night they weren't..." Apollo's eyes become unfocused.

"There were three of them. Garlean purebloods, who looked down on the rest of us. Even if I had been sober, I didn't stand a chance." His voice is audibly trembling now. "I've made a lot of progress since then. About the way I see myself, and about handling physical touch...but sometimes I get caught off guard."

Apollo squeezes Valoren just a little tighter. "It wasn't your fault. Please never think that."

—

Valoren covers Apollo’s hand with his own, gently stilling his love’s restless fingers. He's quiet for a moment as he thinks about what Apollo has said, and how to respond to it.

"I know how hollow it feels to hear someone say they're sorry for what you went through. For what is their teardrop of pity to your own ocean? So I'll save my tears, and instead, I will tell you this: I love you, Apollo. I will always love you. Nothing could make me love you less, and in fact, the more I learn of you, the more I find to love."

Valoren leans into Apollo, allowing his beloved to lean his weight to him in turn. Together, supporting each other so, they manage to hold up the world that they've built up around their love.

—