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."
Void closed the door behind her and leaned against it, arms crossed. "You say that now. Wait until you realize I only have one chair and it's technically a stool."
Keira raised an eyebrow. "Even better."
"You have low standards."
"I have specific standards," she shot back, crouching beside the nearest workbench to examine a half-dissected motion controller. "And apparently, you meet them."
Void ignored the little thrill in her chest. "You're here for the cutter, not the ambience."
"I'm here because you invited me," Keira said, glancing up. "The cutter's just foreplay."
Void blinked. "That's one way to put it."
Keira stood again, unzipping her jacket and tossing it onto the bed without asking. Underneath, she wore a black tank top with a faded logo of Void's favorite band: SAMURAI. Her arms toned and inked with diagrams - some real, some abstract, all sharp lines and intent. She looked like she'd been built from leftover schematics of gods who'd gotten bored and decided to try lesbian chaos instead.
"So," she said, rolling her shoulders like she was gearing up for a fight. "Show me your girl."
Void gestured toward the laser cutter with a mock formality that didn't quite cover the way her throat tightened. "Aereth. Model V14, revision C, fully customized. She was half-dead when I found her."
Keira stepped over a pile of multimeter probes and squatted beside the machine with reverence that somehow didn't feel fake. Her fingers skimmed the housing. "You name all your machines?"
Void hesitated. "Only the ones that earn it."
Keira smiled at that, then leaned in close to the paneling, eyes scanning the cable routing and cooling system with surgical focus. "Shit, you re-engineered the airflow?"
"Had to," Void said. "Original chassis design choked under pressure. Replaced the inline fans with a custom 3D-printed array. Pulls about 15% more air now."
Keira let out a low whistle, eyes still on the hardware. "Sexy."
Void cleared her throat, "I was talking about airflow."
"I wasn't."
Void turned away to hide the small smile threatening to bloom across her face. "You're incorrigible."
"I'm curious," Keira corrected, standing again and dusting off her knees. "Big difference."
"Is there?"
"Sure." Keira moved to the desk and started poking at the project spread across it - a cluster of sensor nodes wired into a custom PCB. "One gets you a fist fight. The other gets you into my room."
Void leaned back against the wall, watching her like someone might watch a firework that hadn't exploded yet. "And which one are you?"
Keira looked up, grinned. "That's the fun part. You'll find out."
Void didn't reply. She watched Keira move around the space like it wasn't tight and awkward, like all the clutter didn't faze her. Most people got weird after five minutes in here - asked about the lack of a living room, wrinkled their noses at the solder smoke, got uncomfortable when they realized the bed was within arm's reach of three active power supplies.
But Keira didn't just tolerate the chaos. She seemed to feed off it. Like she was vibrating at the same frequency as this cramped, flickering little world Void had built.
"Why mechanical?" Void asked suddenly.
Keira looked up from a tangle of servo cables. "Why not?"
"You don't strike me as a patient one. Engineering's all about precision and planning."
Keira shrugged, grabbing a wire stripper and fiddling with it absent-mindedly. "That's the thing. You have to be precise. That's what makes it fun. You push metal and tension to their limits. You gamble on every weld. You know something's gonna fail eventually - you're just betting it won't be today."
Void narrowed her eyes. "You sound like you're describing a relationship."
Keira shot her a glance that landed like a spark in a dry room. "Maybe I am."
There was a pause. The hum of Void's laptop filled it, soft and mechanical and comforting.
Void cleared her throat. "You ever build something and then hate it when you're done?"
Keira nodded slowly. "Yeah. Once. An exoskeleton for a cripple. Client wanted cheap. I told him not to cut corners, but he insisted. Thing snapped under stress testing. I wanted to throw the whole contraption off the roof."
"What'd you do instead?"
"I did throw it off the roof," Keira said, deadpan. "And then I made him a better one for free. This time my way."
Void blinked. "That's... unexpectedly noble. I don't have that kind of mercy for men."
"It wasn't for him," Keira replied, picking at a loose piece of insulation tape. "It was for me."
Void studied her face - careless posture, eyes like cyanide-laced jade. Reckless, yeah. But not heartless.
"You're not what I expected," she murmured.
Keira smirked. "You keep saying that like it's a bad thing."
"I didn't say it was bad."
Keira tossed the wire stripper back on the bench and waddled over to Void's 3D printer. "So... what did you expect?"
Void didn't answer. Because she wasn't really sure. She hadn't expected Keira to come at all, let alone make herself at home. Hadn't expected her to feel like this much - too much - real. She expected swagger, sure. The cocky smirks, the flirtation, the firecracker one-liners. But not the way she listened. Not the way her gaze lingered on things that weren't bodies: machines, builds, circuits, unfinished prototypes like little gold rivers across Void's life.
She walked over to the bench, and started tidying things that didn't need tidying. Her phone buzzed once against the metal - just a soft little vibration, but it cut clean through the soft buzz of the room. She glanced at the screen. Dee. No preview, just that name - familiar in a way that tugged more than she wanted to admit. Her thumb hovered over the notification, just a flick shy of opening it. She tapped once. A blank message window. The typing bubble blinked. And then... nothing. She locked the screen with a quiet sigh and set the phone face-down in a nest of wires, too gently for it to be casual.
Keira, crouched beside Eitria like she was casing her for a joyride, caught the motion. Her eyes flicked up, sharp and interested. "Well, well," she drawled, grinning as she rose. "Did someone's little heartbreaker send a late-night 'thinking of you?'"
Void shot her a dry look. "Jealous?"
"Fuck no," Keira said, crossing the room with that maddeningly fluid gait of hers. "Just curious which poor cunt gets to be the ghost in your machine tonight."
Void gave a noncommittal shrug and turned back to the bench, voice flat. "It's not like that."
Keira tilted her head, still grinning. "Of course. It never is."
She got back up, walked towards the bed, then plopped down onto it, boots still on, bouncing once like she was testing the spring. "Okay, yeah. This is terrible. You sleep on this willingly?"
Void rolled her eyes. "It's not like I sleep much."
Keira flopped back dramatically, one arm over her eyes. "Goddess. Of course you don't. You're one of those. Runs on code, caffeine, and self-loathing."
Void snorted. "You say that like you're not the same."
"I am," Keira agreed. "But I at least pretend I have boundaries."
"Like breaking into people's spaces at midnight with coffee and opinions?"
"I knocked."
They both laughed. It was quiet, but genuine. The kind of laugh you didn't have to earn - just fall into.
Keira turned her head to look at Void, expression softer now. "So... what do you do when you're not saving Aereth from death?"
Void hesitated. "I design things. For other people. Sometimes dumb LED lighting. Sometimes full systems, maybe sensors. I used to work corporate - just firmware patches and tech debt bullshit - but I bailed."
"Why?"
"They stopped seeing people. Just users."
Keira nodded. She understood that too well. "Same. I was in a startup. Bright ideas, no ethics. When they pitched 'emotion-sensitive surveillance systems for schools,' I walked."
Void winced. "Jesus."
"Yeah."
They sat in silence again. Stillness shared, like the city was finally outside instead of pressing in.
Keira sat up, kicked her boots off finally, then curled one leg beneath her on the bed. "Okay. Real question."
Void raised a brow.
"What made you trust me enough to invite me here? Coulda just tossed that piece of paper into the nearest trash can if you wanted."
Void blinked. That question. She hadn't let anyone in here in... what, three months? Maybe more? The last girl who'd stepped inside left after twenty minutes with a polite smile and a clear "this is too much" look.
Void shrugged, but it was a defensive gesture. "You talk to machines the way I do."
Keira looked at her for a long time. "That's a weird fuckin' reason."
"It's the only one that currently makes sense."
Keira leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "I like it."
"Don't make it a thing."
"It is a thing," Keira said, voice light but not mocking. "You and I both know it."
Not a word made it out of Void's throat. She just adjusted the position of a screwdriver set. A moment passed. Then she felt Keira move behind her - soft footsteps across the cold floor. Not touching. Just close.
"You're not used to this," Keira said gently.
Void's hands stilled. "What?"
"This. Company that doesn't need something from you."
She wanted to snap back. She really did. But all that came out was: "I don't know what to do with it."
Keira paused. Then said, "Good. Don't. Just... let it be weird for a while. Enjoy the presence of someone who isn't broken for once."
Void turned to look at her. She was closer than expected. Not invading, not pushing. Just there.
"Okay," Void said, barely a whisper.
Keira smiled. "Okay."
And that was it. No kiss. No fire. Just a low current, buzzing under skin.
Keira pulled her bag closer, dug out a toolkit, and said, "Now show me what the fuck you did with those fan mounts. I want to copy your brilliance and pretend it was mine later."