The screen flickered softly in the dark. Void leaned back in her chair, half-drunk mug of something-caffeinated (as always) at her side, the glow of her monitor painting magenta shadows across the metal shelves and scattered soldered scraps. The call was already on, audio-only. Dee never liked showing her face unless she was in control. Void got that. Hell, she was that, in so many ways.
She lit a candle regardless. Lemon. For her. For them.
Dee's voice cracked gently over the headset. "I've been... quiet lately. Sorry."
Void scoffed gently, more warmth than bite. "Tch. You think I'm keeping tabs on your daily emotional weather forecast?"
A soft laugh. Barely audible. Void grinned to herself, closing her eyes. Victory, in its gentlest form.
"No," Dee said, voice trembling a little. "But I've been thinking. About things. About us. About... why I'm like this."
Void kept her hands folded on her lap. Not typing. Not cutting in. Letting the silence sit, stretch, breathe. She knew the art of waiting. Pain always spilled when it was ready, not a moment sooner.
"I've never really told anyone this," Dee started, then stopped.
Void filled the gap. "Hey. No pressure. But also? No bullshit. If you need to scream, sob, or spill your soul in bits, I'm here."
"I don't scream," Dee said flatly.
"That so?" Void smirked. "Guess I'll have to change that."
Another soft breath. Dee's turn to smile, even if it didn't quite reach her lips.
"I was... hurt. A lot," Dee said finally. "Not like your kind of hurt. I mean, I didn't get-" Her voice broke again. "It was my parents. My mom, mostly. She had this way of loving me with knives. Said everything was for my own good. That I was 'too emotional,' 'too much.' I started actually thinking I was too much."
Void's heart clenched. A familiar ache. She knew that voice. The way it tried to stay even while unraveling at the seams.
"I used to draw when I was a kid," Dee went on. "To escape. You know? Little scraps of beauty in all that rot. I'd show them to her, and she'd tear them in half. Or laugh. Or say it was 'cute that I was trying to be talented.'"
Void ground her teeth silently. "Fucking witch."
Dee huffed. "Don't insult witches."
"Right. Sorry. Corpo-brained witch."
"That's better."
Dee was quiet for a long time. "Boys never treated me better. I was just... a thing. A prize. A fixer-upper with tits. I tried to be what they wanted. I tried so hard to be... perfect."
"Fuck perfect," Void spat, louder than she meant to. "Perfect is the excuse abusers use to strip you down and remold you into something that serves them. You're not perfect, Dee. You're real. And real hurts."
Another beat of silence.
"Thanks," Dee whispered. "But it's not easy to believe. When it's all you've ever known. I used to think... maybe I deserved to be ignored. To be lied to. To be invisible."
Void's throat was a fist. She leaned forward, elbow on her desk, voice suddenly quieter. "You didn't deserve any of that. Not the silence. Not the coldness. Not the weight of someone else's shame on your shoulders."
"What did you deserve then?"
Void paused. Her own words caught in her mouth like fishhooks. She swallowed hard.
"Kindness," she said. "Soft hands. Loud laughs. Someone who remembers how you take your coffee and actually gives a damn whether you ate that day. Someone who looks at you and sees you. Even the ugly bits. Especially the ugly bits."
Dee's breath hitched.
"I used to think I could get that if I just tried harder," she murmured. "Like love was something I had to earn. Like if I was sweet enough, quiet enough, sexy enough, useful enough - someone would finally fucking stay."
Void's knuckles whitened around her coffee mug. "Dee... I know exactly what that feels like."
She didn't mean to say it like that. Not yet. But it was out there now, trembling in the open air like a secret daring to take up space.
Dee said nothing, but she didn't hang up. Void took it as permission.
"I was used too. In... other ways. By someone who thought my body was his to break. And I was strong, yeah. I fought him off. But I still felt like I lost something."
Dee's voice was soft. "Your... body?"
Void shook her head. "My... self. My sense of safety. That part of me that could walk into a room and feel like I belonged there without checking every exit first. And after that? Everyone I loved ran. Or lied. Or left without so much as a fucking goodbye."
There was a long silence. Then Dee whispered, "Void... Did you ever want to just stop existing?"
Void stared at the candle. Watched the flame flicker.
"I did," she said. "And for a moment, I- she did. She jumped, Dee. Off a bridge. The girl I used to be - Aura - she didn't come back from that fall. I did."
A pause.
"...Void?"
Void swallowed. "Yeah?"
"That's what you meant before. About losing something."
"Yeah."
"You mean... you're her?"
"I'm what's left of her. Or what she became. Or maybe I was always here, just waiting for her to stop trying to be soft when the world kept cutting her open. I don't know. All I know is... Aura was the part that kept hoping people would treat her right. Void is the part that won't beg anymore."
Dee exhaled. "I think I love both of you."
Void froze.
Dee rushed in before she could speak. "I- I mean- I don't mean love-love, not yet, I just - God, I'm bad at this. I meant I love that you let yourself be both. The one who hoped. The one who protects. All of it. It makes me feel like... maybe I don't have to choose anymore either."
Void blinked rapidly. "Dee... I've been living like love is a war zone. Like the second I got attached, the person would vanish. Like if I gave too much, I'd lose myself again."
"And?"
"I still feel that," Void said. "Every time you go quiet. Every time I hear a guy's name in your past. Every time you call yourself a burden."
Dee whispered, "I do that a lot."
"And I hate it every time," Void said. "Because you're not. You're this brilliant, bleeding girl who turned her pain into art instead of poison. Who chose kindness when she had every right to shut down. Who lets me see her even when it terrifies her."
Dee's voice cracked. "And you're still here."
Void leaned close to the mic. "I'm always here."
A long pause. Then Dee asked, voice trembling, "Even if I don't know how to be touched without a jolt?"
"Even then."
"Even if I can't say 'I love you' without crying?"
"Especially then."
Dee laughed - wet and raw and real. "You're kind of a dramatic bitch."
Void grinned. "Takes one to know one, emo fringe."
"I hate you."
"I know. It's why I lit your favorite candle."
"You did not."
"Lemon, baby. Smells like you left your shampoo in my bathroom."
Dee giggled. The sound filled Void's chest like a warm summer sunrise.
Then Dee whispered, quieter, "You won't leave me?"
Void didn't hesitate. "No. I'm not them. I'm not a boy who saw you as a project. I'm not a parent who taught you love with bruises. I'm Void. I'll destroy myself before I quit."
Silence again. But this time it was warm. Safe. Holy, even.
"Okay," Dee said finally.
"Okay?"
"Okay... I'll believe you. A little. For tonight."
Void smiled. "That's all I ask."
They didn't say "I love you." Not quite the time for that yet. But in the quiet moments between their words, it pulsed.
Not quite a promise, but not a performance either.
Two broken hearts, stitched loosely together by trust and lemon-scented light.