The plates were pushed aside, half-crusted with crumbs, tea mugs emptied. Keira sat cross-legged on the floor tiles, chewing the inside of her cheek as Void leaned against the wall beside her, her blanket now pooling around her waist like some kind of goth monarch in exile. Silence between them was anything but awkward. Comforting, even.
Void glanced over at her without moving her head. "You don't have to stick around, you know."...
Keira woke to the feeling of warmth and the unsettling realization that she wasn't alone.
Her first instinct, buried under layers of practiced bravado, was to jerk away - because waking up next to someone was usually followed by awkward silence, post-coital regret or some kind of territorial claim she had no interest in navigating. But this wasn't it. Not in the slightest...
Void pressed her palm against the cold metal frame of the laser cutter's enclosure, the chill biting into her skin through the thin fabric of her sleeve. The edges were still a little rough - she hadn't bothered to buff them out-but inside, the airflow moved like water, like thought. Precision carved through entropy. She traced one seam with her thumb, grounding herself in the craftsmanship, in the logic she could control.
Behind her, she could feel Keira's gaze - not casual, not idle, but intent. Like she was reading a schematic through Void's posture alone. Like she was waiting to see if Void would explain, or even impress. It wasn't judgement - it was curiosity, sharp and electric. The kind that hunted not for flaws, but for brilliance. For someone who could match the weight of her chaos with quiet skill...
Void had warned her in the text: "Don't expect furniture." And to her credit, Keira didn't even look twice when the door opened and revealed what amounted to a glorified workshop with a bed shoved into one corner as an afterthought. Void's flat was cramped, narrow, and buzzing - literally, with low-voltage leaking from exposed components on every wall. Quite a contrast to what Aura left her with.
Keira stepped inside like she owned the place, throwing her bag down with a thud that echoed off metal surfaces. "Shit, it's worse than I imagined," she said cheerfully. "I love it."...
The laser cutter hissed begrudgingly. Void crouched beside it, jaw tight, the tip of her soldering iron twitching in her hand like a blade she wasn't sure she wanted to use. Another adjustment, another thermal hiccup, another slow exhale. It wasn't the diode - she'd already replaced that twice - it was the goddamn beam alignment, and that meant the clamp mount was slipping again. She pressed her thumb hard against the edge of the component housing until the skin creaked. A sigh escaped through her teeth, sharp and exhausted. "Okay, Aereth," she muttered, voice soft in that way she saved only for the machine that never judged her. "Be that way. I'll just go out into the fucking world, find the rarest goddamn part in the city, and hope to fuck it's not overpriced by some scrap-goblin with a superiority complex."...