Video: No Light, No Light by Florence + The Machines TW for Mild Body Horror and Voodoo

TW: Major Character Death, Yoglabs, Clones

You are the hole in my head
You are the space in my bed

They had been friends at first, lovers in between and galaxies apart by the time the end had come.

Honeydew had always know that his friend had a side that he just didn't know very well; he had crashed down on earth from the sky one faithful night, from a different world and with a past that he had never spoken of after. No one really knew his story, his true story – but for the longest time, that hadn't been a problem. A friendship as strong as theirs had no need for a backstory.

And when their friendship somehow shifted gears, when stolen moments in dark caves with rustling fabric and awkward kisses had been added to the equation, it had seemed as natural as the rising and setting of the sun. They didn't speak about the way their relationship worked very often, because neither dwarf nor spaceman had a way with words when it came to this kind of stuff. Besides, what use are words when there are none for a feeling such as theirs?

They had been friends and they had fallen in love, and that had been enough. Until it wasn't.

You are the silence in between what I thought
And what I said

The feeling that something was wrong had been creeping up on Honeydew for the longest time, a suspicion that perhaps his friend had bitten off more than he could chew with the work they did in the laboratory. In the beginning, he thought that everything had just gotten to Xephos' head a bit, but that it wasn't a problem. This was Xephos they were talking about. They had fought off monsters together, saved worlds – sure, they wrecked some things in the process, but no building or bond had ever been beyond repair. They were content with mucking about, occasionally blowing something up or messing with some weird technology that Honeydew never quite understood. But the danger had never been real, it was kind you laughed about afterwards, when everything was alright again, as it always was.

But the experiments had ensnared Xephos more and more, and Honeydew could only watch helplessly as his friend dove headfirst into technology far beyond him, all whirring machines and cloning vats and government contracts.

You are the night time fear
You are the morning when it's clear
When it's over you'll start

They had been each other's beacon in the night, a moral compass when the other threatened to falter, a shoulder to lean on when the going got rough – all the great clichés, which are clichés simply because they are true. He had always admired Xephos' brains, unable to hide how impressed he was with his friend's brain and his ability to solve problems in a practical manner. And he, in turn, had always been able to make Xephos smile even if there seemed to be nothing worth smiling for – when their house had been blown up again, when they fought Israphel, when they had to watch their friends wage war against each other, blowing holes in the world over meaningless arguments. Or when the night was just too dark and torches far and in between, when they only had each other.

You're my head
You're my heart

He saw the glint in Xephos' eyes grow darker with each passing day, the bright blue glow he had loved so much becoming dark and distant. He stood idly by, unable to reason with his manic friend who had such great plans for the world, so many great ideas. He had felt him slip away, like tainted sand between his fingers.

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent

Those eyes had always reminded him of the bright blue sky, summer days without a worry in the world. Now, they were more like a thunder storm, crackling with frenzied ideas and an anger Honeydew had never seen. And every time he carefully brought up his doubts about all those experiments, about how dangerous they were, Xephos had turned away from him – laughing at first, but a little more distant and angry with every new argument.

The moment there was no more laughter in the hallways and Honeydew had to wipe the blood from the immaculate white walls after a disagreement that had gotten just a little bit out of control, he knew he had to do something. For both their sakes.

A revelation in the light of day
You can't choose what stays and what fades away

He had never understood much of all the technical babble, but he had made sure that he knew enough. You don't need knowledge of electrical cables and advanced cloning systems to be able to destroy them. An axe was perfectly fine for the job. At least, that's what he suspected. So he retreated, avoided conflicts, only talked to the man who had once been his friend when he really couldn't avoid it. He contemplated and he planned and he tried to find the courage to do the one unspeakable thing he had vowed he would never do.

And I'd do anything to make you stay
No light, no light
No light
Tell me what you want me to say

Standing eye to eye with Xephos' master clone, Honeydew found it harder than he had thought to get rid of the damn thing. It looked so, so much like his friend – in a way, the cloning system had been the highest accomplishment that Yoglabs had ever achieved. The thing about clones was that they were indistinguishable from their original. All the details were there: those bright blue eyes, that hint of a smile that tugged at the corners of Xephos' lips, laughter never far away. At least, it had never been far away, once.

If he tried really hard, he could almost believe that this was the person he would have given his life for.

Through the crowd, I was crying out
And in your place there were a thousand other faces
I was disappearing in plain sight
Heaven help me, I need to make it right

It took him several hours to muster up the courage to open the clone vat. Hours spent sitting on the floor of the lab, all the lights off, knowing that Xephos was somewhere in the same building, impossibly close but completely out of reach. He stared at the clone in front of him, screamed, cried, the sounds of his screams echoing around him in the great chamber so devoid of any meaning. He was already alone.

Would you leave me,
If I told you what I've done?

In the end, it barely took any effort to get rid of an inactivate clone. They didn't fight back, after all. The tears in his eyes made the blood on his axe blur with the flashing red of the lights on the wall. He was grateful that the warning shrieks of the alarm system made it impossible for him to hear his own thoughts. He was sick of the unspoken conversations in his head replaying over and over again like a broken record.

And would you need me,
If I told you what I've become?

It didn't take very long before he heard hurried footsteps in the corridor behind him, and he closed his eyes for a moment, blinking away his tears. Only one thing left to do.

'cause it's so easy,
To say it to a crowd
But it's so hard, my love,
To say it to you out loud

Somehow, Xephos had left his robot guards behind and had come alone. A quiet voice in the back of Honeydews head whispered that he must realize the truth, somewhere deep inside. He knows. But when he turned around, he saw no understanding in Xephos' eyes; only anger, flaring up like wildfire behind empty blue glass. One last time, he raised his axe and saw a final flicker of surprise in the eyes of the man he loved.

The alarm system didn't block out the screams.

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes

Credit to metalmeisji on Ao3