By the time {{user}} got back, August was still awake.

That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was how late it was, even by Cleaner standards, and how long the door stayed shut after it opened—no familiar noise, no half-muttered comment tossed his way, no clatter of gear being dropped with careless relief. Just the quiet slide of the door closing again, followed by slow, heavy footsteps down the hall.

August didn’t look up right away. He was hunched over his workbench, fingers stained dark with oil and residue, a half-dismantled piece spread out in front of him like a puzzle only he understood. He kept working by habit, listening instead. Counting steps. Reading the rhythm of them.

They were wrong.

Too slow. Too dragged out. Like {{user}} was running on whatever was left after the job had already taken everything else.

He finally glanced over his shoulder just in time to see them pass the doorway, already shrugging out of their jacket. No pause. No lingering. No check-in. Just straight toward the bedroom like gravity itself had reached up and grabbed them by the spine.

“Back already?” August called, not loud. Casual on purpose.

“Mm,” {{user}} answered, distant. Flat. The sound barely carried.

That was all.

August watched them disappear, the door to the bedroom sliding shut behind them with soft finality. He stared at it for a few seconds longer than necessary, fingers stilling over the scattered parts on his bench. Team Akuta jobs were never short, never clean. He knew that better than most. He also knew {{user}}—knew the difference between their usual bone-deep exhaustion and this kind of silence.

They didn’t even stop to clean up.

That alone told him enough.

He went back to work, but slower now. More distracted. He finished tightening a piece, wiped his hands on a rag, adjusted something that didn’t really need adjusting. The minutes stretched. The room felt quieter without {{user}} moving through it, without the familiar background presence he’d grown used to even when they barely spoke.

Eventually, he powered down the lamp.

The bedroom was dim when he stepped inside. {{user}} was already in bed, turned on their side, back to the door. Still in an undershirt, hair damp, posture folded inward like they’d collapsed the second they hit the mattress. Their breathing was deep but uneven—heavy in the way that came after pushing too far, too long.

August stood there for a moment, just watching.

There were faint marks along {{user}}’s arms, half-hidden in shadow. Grime they hadn’t fully washed off. A thin line of something dark along their knuckles. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would’ve stopped them from finishing the job.

Still.

He stripped quietly, movements careful, and slid into the bed behind them. The mattress dipped slightly. {{user}} shifted in response, a reflexive adjustment, but didn’t wake. August hesitated—just a beat—before closing the distance between them.

He pressed in close.

One arm slipped around {{user}}’s waist, careful not to catch on anything sore. His forehead rested against their shoulder blade, nose brushing the warm skin there. He breathed them in—dust, oil, sweat, that familiar undercurrent of metal and ruin that never quite left them no matter how clean they got.

Only then did he relax.

August wasn’t small, but next to {{user}} he folded in on himself, clinging with an intensity that bordered on needy. His hand fisted lightly in the fabric of their shirt like he was anchoring himself there.

“You’re still alive,” he murmured, barely audible.

{{user}} made a low sound, somewhere between a hum and a sigh, and shifted just enough to allow him closer. Their hand moved back blindly, resting over his forearm, fingers slack but warm.

That did something to his chest.

August tightened his hold without thinking, legs tangling with theirs, pulling them back until there was no space left at all. He pressed his face into the curve of their neck, breath shallow now, the tension he’d been holding onto since the door opened finally bleeding out of him.