Void sat cross-legged on the cold tile of her lab, a can of half-drunk energy drink slowly losing its fizz beside a half-eaten bar of raw instant ramen. She wasn't even wearing pants - just a hoodie and a vague sense of shame - as she stared at Eitria's disassembled guts like they might offer her some kind of answer. The printer sat silent, mid-surgery, gantry half-stripped, Bowden tube dangling like a vein from the extruder's throat.
"You ever think maybe I keep fixing you because it's easier than fixing myself?" she asked, yanking the zip tie from the wiring loom. "No? Just me?"
The wiring splayed open, copper tendons laid bare. She exhaled. There was something ritualistic in this - methodical, predictable. Unlike people. Unlike words. Unlike vague messages from girls who made her chest hurt.
She unplugged the stepper motor, labeling the wire with a strip of masking tape - X-axis, just in case. Her fingers moved precisely, confidently, like they always did when she needed to fake being put together. "You don't judge me when I'm greasy, Eitria. I like that about you."
A pause.
"Dee probably would. But only in that soft, artsy way. You know, the way she looks at mess like it's just another form of poetry."
Void clicked her tongue and reached for the hex driver, tongue between her teeth as she loosened the bolts holding the rail mount. Each turn was tight. Resistant. The good kind of fight - the kind she could win.
"She'd say something like, 'Your hands look strong when you work,' and I'd have to pretend I wasn't melting."
The bolt came loose with a satisfying pop. She set it aside, one in a neat row of six, like tiny metal soldiers lining up for war.
Void hated this. The not-knowing. The quiet between text bubbles. The absolute fucking emptiness of it.
No word from Dee since yesterday. Just that careful message. The not-quite confession. The hesitant breath in sentence form.
"Here I am going delulu about a potential future. I don't know what this is. But I don't hate it."
Void had reread it until the letters bled. She could still see it behind her eyes. Burnt into her retinae. That single line was currently occupying 82% of her processing power.
She moved to the linear rail and peeled it from the gantry, careful not to lose the spacers.
She remembered the last time they'd video called. Dee had been curled up on the couch, a blanket around her knees, Miso draped dramatically across her lap like he was king of all he surveyed.
"Your cat judges me," Void had said, watching Miso blink slowly into the webcam with an expression that could only be described as "fuck you, peasant."
"He judges everyone," Dee had replied, giggling. "That's just his face."
Void smiled at the memory, a small, reluctant thing.
She set the rail down and began wiping it clean with a lint-free cloth and alcohol. The grease smeared across her fingers, thick and gritty, and she stared at it for a long moment.
"Even your filth makes sense," she whispered to the printer. "It has a source. A cause. Me? I'm just permanently dirty on the inside."
She grabbed the degreaser and sprayed the mounting bracket. It hissed like a dying snake.
"Do you think she's reading my messages and regretting everything?" she asked the machine, rhetorical and raw. "Do you think she's sitting there with Miso, petting that little bastard while he glares at my digital ghost and she wonders what she ever saw in me?"
She scrubbed harder.
"She probably is. She probably should."
Because Void knew the type of person she was, herself: the emergency exit girl. The one you talked to when everything fell apart. The one who held your secrets, made you laugh, fixed your printer, your code, your crisis - but not the one you chose.
Never the one you chose.
She removed the extruder assembly with a twist, catching the hotend before it dropped. The nozzle was fine. The throat tube, though - burnt. Caked with residue. Blackened on the inside.
"Yep," she muttered, inspecting it like a biopsy report. "That tracks."
She tossed it into the parts tray and reached for a new one. Not because it was urgent - just because she needed something clean in her hands.
While she replaced it, her thoughts wandered. She imagined Dee curled up in bed, phone forgotten beside her, Miso snoring softly on her chest. Or maybe she was in the kitchen, painting something tiny on her sketchpad while the cat tried to knock over her mug. Maybe she wasn't thinking about Void at all.
The thought made her stomach turn.
She aligned the new throat tube and tightened it in place, her knuckles white from tension.
"I don't blame her," she muttered. "I wouldn't bet on me either."
Void hadn't ghosted anyone. That wasn't her style. She didn't burn bridges; she just quietly walked off the edge of them and pretended it was a choice. She left before she could be left. Neat, efficient. No mess.
Dee though? With her soft voice and hurricane eyes and that trembling need for safety she never said aloud. Void had seen it. Had felt it.
And now she didn't know if she'd done too much or not enough.
She dropped the extruder housing back into place and reconnected the harness. Click. Snap. Lock. Done.
She tightened the last bolt and wiped her forehead on her sleeve.
"You know, if I were a normal girl, I'd just say it. I'd message her and say I want to see where this goes. But no. I'm a fucking coward with a torque wrench."
Void moved to the gantry, checking the eccentric nuts on the wheels. Too tight. She loosened them with a quarter turn and rechecked alignment.
She remembered how Dee had looked the first time she got on a vidcall. Nervous. Sweet. Like she was holding her breath just to see if Void would laugh or vanish.
"I don't want to be forgotten," she said softly.
It slipped out before she could stop it.
"I want to stay."
She held the wrench in both hands, staring at it like it might suddenly come to life and jump at her throat.
"I don't know how to do that," she admitted. "But I want to try."
The silence answered her.
And in the corner of her mind, Miso flicked his tail across Dee's face in some dumb cat show of disapproval. Like, "stop being so fucking dramatic and go cuddle her, you moron."
Void almost laughed.
She sat down again, floor cold beneath her thighs, and stared at the completed assembly. Eitria gleamed, spotless and waiting.
Ready.
Void wasn't.
But she powered her on anyway.
The printer booted. The fans whirred. The custom MIDI remake of the intro to "Never Fade Away" as a startup chime sang in zombie-like rebellion.
She loaded a calibration test and hit "Run." The stepper motors immediately rang with a familiar, soothing sound.
Void exhaled.
She picked up her phone. The lock screen was blank. No new messages.
Fine.
Whatever.
She unlocked it anyway and opened Dee's chat.
"I don't know what this is. But I don't hate it."
Void stared at it for a long time.
Then, finally, she typed.
"I don't know what it is either. But I keep thinking about Miso. And how he looks like he knows I'm falling for you faster than I should."
She hovered. Her thumb shook.
Eitria's toolhead, mid-calibration, whirred unexpectedly and gave her elbow the gentlest nudge - just enough to jolt her hand forward.
Message sent.
Void blinked. "Wait, no-fuck, fuck..."
She stared at the screen, horror and adrenaline curling tight in her gut.
Then she froze.
And laughed. Just once. Sharp. Breathless.
"...about fucking time you gave me a sign, universe."
She tossed the phone onto the bench and sat down hard beside Eitria, heart pounding.
The printer made a strange grinding noise during its bed-leveling sequence, stuttered once, then froze with the toolhead awkwardly skewed to the left.
Void stared at it.
"Wow. Mood," she muttered. "Guess we're both having an identity crisis today."