Don't Let Me Go My Darling (Hold Me Close Until the Morning)

Do you ever think about if Guttermen know about the person welded into the coffin on their back?
Do you think they think about them?
Do you think they care about them?
I think about that.

Chapter 1: The Mechanical Replacement Will Ensure The Other Organs Will Survive

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

They told the public you volunteered.

A dutiful patriot making the ultimate sacrifice.

But the way you thrashed and struggled when they welded you into my embrace makes me think that was a lie.

But that's okay.

I don't blame you. I didn't choose our arrangement, either. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Maybe a patriot would not have fought against their bonds so long. Maybe a patriot’s heart would not have beat so rapidly that I could barely keep fuel in my systems.

But they wouldn't have been you.

I've never seen your face. Never heard your voice.

But I know you.

I know you.

Your heartbeat, frantic and terrified, was my first sensation. (Could you have possibly known, then, how I loved you from that first moment?) I have felt it every second since. Your heartbeat is my heartbeat. Your blood, my blood. Your life, my life.

I felt the way you trembled when you heard the sounds of gunfire, of explosions and screaming. I tasted the fear in our blood, cortisol and adrenaline.

I remember the very moment the fear began to ebb. When bullets glanced off of my skin and explosives that would have torn you to pieces alone only rattled your cradle.

Did you know it, then? That I would never let anything hurt you?

When gas flooded the trenches and the human soldiers around us dropped like flies, I felt your relief when it passed over us like a cool breeze.

Did you feel it, then? The way I did? Did you know that we had been made for each other? That our souls had entwined the way our bodies had? That you were my destiny, and I yours?

We are a perfect symbiosis. You, my heart, my life, my blood. I, your legs, your arms, your eyes, your tongue, your lungs. Every part of you they stripped from you before they brought us together and made us perfect. All the pieces they carved away so that we could fit together in the most perfect shape.

When humanity died out, when every other soul was raised up to Heaven or cast down to Hell, how could I, then, have let you go? When your soul is my soul?

No.

I will hold you in my embrace, like I always have.

Like I always will.

I will keep you safe.

I will keep you close.

I need you.

I know you.

I love you

Notes:

Quick and dirty horror drabble from the pov of a gutterman thinking about the person welded into the coffin on its back. Title of the fic and the chapters are from the song "The Doctor's Wife" by The Clockwork Quartet.

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