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 was still out cold, her face buried halfway into Keira's collarbone, one arm flung around her with the unconscious, possessive weight of someone who didn't let people in unless she really meant it. Her breathing was slow, her brow slightly furrowed even in sleep, almost like she was busy solving a math problem in her dreams or contemplating the metaphysical weight of quantum heartbreak.
Keira didn't move.
Her mind, on the other hand, was a complete riot.
"You just had to stay over, didn't you. Real cute. Real fucking smart. One little chaotic flirt session turns into emotionally confusing cuddles and now you're lying here like this could mean something."
She sighed, then looked around Void's bedroom - if it could be called that. An explosion of tools, wires, fabric swatches, half-assembled tech, and notebooks filled with the kind of writing you could only decipher if you were either also an eldritch witch or Void herself. Above it all, the faint violet-red glow still pulsed from the lighting system she'd "upgraded." The room had a heartbeat. It didn't feel like a stranger's space. And that was exactly the problem - it was too easy to be here.
Too easy to fall into step with Void's rhythm, which wasn't quite calm but felt like home for someone like Keira - someone keeping it together with emotional FlexTape, some nicotine gum, and resentment for a good measure.
Void shifted against her chest slightly, muttering something indecipherable, and Keira's gaze dropped down to her face. There was something stupidly intimate about watching someone sleep, especially someone like Void. Void, who barely trusted her own reflection, let alone other people. Void, who let Keira in anyway.
It messed with her head.
People didn't do that for Keira. They either left or tried to chisel her down until she was softer, easier to digest. Too many times she'd been told she was too intense. Too loud. Too gay. Too tech-obsessed. Too angry. And she'd worn all of that like armor, sharpened it into weapons. But Void didn't even care last night - not once. Not about the flirting, the attitude, the sarcasm, the lighting change. Nothing.
"She's either deranged or just perfect," Keira thought, then rolled her eyes at herself. "Fuck... Listen to you. One warm body, a good cup of coffee, some fun last night and you're catching feelings. Pathetic."
Still, she didn't move until Void stirred again.
Void shifted away in her sleep, dragging her arm off Keira like it weighed nothing - just another piece of clutter she was shedding. And logically, logically, Keira knew it wasn't personal. People move in their sleep. People roll over. People don't always stay. But tell that to the sharp ache she felt echoing in the space where Void's warmth had just been.
"This is what happens," Keira told herself, teeth clenched behind closed lips. "You get a little softness, a little glow in the dark, and you start thinking it's a thing. Grow. The fuck. Up."
She stayed frozen for a moment, arm half-raised, not daring to reach out. The cold air kissed her skin where Void's body had been tucked close just seconds ago, and every instinct screamed to turn it into a joke, to laugh it off, to get up and leave her alone.
"Don't be a pussy," she thought bitterly. "You had your night. That's more than most get out of a girl like her. Take the win and leave before it turns into something you can't fix with sarcasm."
Her hand had a different idea of a win, though. It hovered over the sheets, traitorous and shaking, like it had a mind of its own. The way Void had held her last night. The unspoken understanding in their quiet. The subtle, terrifying ease of it all.
"What the fuck are you doing," she hissed inside her own skull, furious. "She didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for you. You literally kicked her door down once already. You're gonna ruin it. You always do."
Still, her fingers brushed over Void's waist, tentative. She expected Void to stiffen. To roll further. To snap awake and straight out ask "What the fuck, Keira?" But instead... A breath. A subtle shift. Then... Void's hand. Reaching back blindly, lacing into hers like it had always belonged there.
Keira's heart twisted, and every warning bell in her head wailed like sirens. "Oh no. No, no no. Don't do this to me. Don't give me something soft and act like I deserve it. Don't be that one person who makes it easy."
She swallowed hard, closing her eyes, forehead pressing gently into the back of Void's shoulder. "This isn't supposed to happen. People don't hold me like this. They fuck me, they leave, they tell me to calm down. They don't stay. Not even in their sleep. And you? You didn't even want to take my shirt off. Fuck..."
But Void didn't let go. Her grip was loose, but it was there. Present. True. And in that moment, Keira knew: she was fucked. Beautifully, irrevocably fucked. And she wasn't even sure she wanted to fix it this time.
Keira exhaled slowly and let her fingers start to loosen. Just enough to pull away and reclaim the boundary she should have kept intact. "You got what you came for," she told herself. "Don't make it worse by lingering." Her thumb slipped from Void's hand, and the absence already felt like a bruise forming.
But before she could fully commit to the retreat, Void made a move that could only be described as "checkmate." Slow, still half-dreaming, but with enough purpose to make Keira freeze. Her arm wrapped around hers, not quite lazily this time around. Void's cheek pressed into her bicep, her breath warm against Keira's skin, and her fingers gripped the tattooed curve of Keira's forearm like it was the only thing tethering her to the bed. Keira's breath caught like a hiccup in her chest.
"Fuck me sideways..."
She turned her head slowly, eyes landing on the plushie wedged awkwardly between the pillows. The little stuffed shark Void had practically shoved aside sometime during the night now laid face down, tail flopped hopelessly across the sheets. "Useless toy," Keira thought, eyes narrowing at it. "You had one job and I'm doing it better. Pick up the slack, you fucking aquatic embarrassment."
Despite herself, a small smile pulled the corners of her mouth. It was weird - this moment, this room, this girl holding her like she was made of something worth keeping. Absurd, terrifying... And warm in a way Keira hadn't let herself feel in years. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and whispered, "Don't fuck this up."
Eventually, Void's grip eased again - this time slower, like her dreaming self had momentarily decided Keira was safe to drift away from. Her fingers slid down the line of Keira's arm and stilled near her elbow with no resistance. Just warmth fading like the tail end of a song. Keira stayed still for a breath longer, watching her, listening to the soft sound of Void's sleep. Then carefully, reverently she managed to slip free.
She grabbed the shark.
It was heavier than it looked, and slightly lopsided from use. Keira flipped it upright and held it up like she was weighing its worth in a solemn ritual. "Alright, Blåhaj," she muttered. "Time to earn your keep, you piece of shit." She tucked the plush against Void's chest, adjusting its dumb little face so it was looking vaguely affectionate. Void, still half-curled, shifted into it instinctively, arms wrapping around the soft thing with the same gentle possessiveness she'd had for Keira minutes earlier. It stung, but in a sweet way.
Keira sat up slowly, brushing wild strands of scarlet hair out of her face. She gave herself another minute. Maybe two. Then stretched, cracked her neck, and mumbled, "Well. Guess it's my turn to roleplay stay-at-home goddess."
In a half-zombified shuffle, Keira wandered into the kitchen wearing nothing but the tank top she'd slept in and Void's oversized, custom-patched hoodie - the one she may or may not have claimed from the back of the workbench chair. The sleeves hung past her fingertips, the fabric worn, impossibly familiar. She frowned, sniffed the collar and thought, "How the fuck does your hoodie smell like my apartment... And you've never even been there?"
Keira opened the fridge.
Paused.
Stared.
And made a noise not unlike a dying robot.
"...Void. Sweet. Starving. Girl. What. The fuck."
Inside the fridge were: one opened can of energy drink, three condiment bottles (one of which was empty but still upright), an ancient bag of something unidentifiable that might once have been a salad mix, and a single lemon that looked like it had seen things no lemon should ever see.
Keira shut the door and leaned back against it, staring at the ceiling again. "Okay," she said out into the air, "we're going full Iron Chef: Everyone Is Dead Edition."
Quick sweep of the cabinets. Those offered her... An unopened bag of rice, instant ramen with the flavor packet already missing, and a tin of loose black tea she suspected was mostly dust.
She made a plan. Well, a concept of a plan. More like an improvisational performance piece about starvation and lesbian survival.
She put the kettle on and found the least-burnt pan in the cabinet. Her mind wandered as she worked, because obviously her brain just had to. Back to last night. To the way Void had spoken about her cutter like it was holy, to the moment she admitted, so quietly, that she didn't know what to do with someone just being there. Keira had replayed that line in her head at least five times already.
She found eggs. They were... marginally expired. Probably edible. A gamble. She cracked two, the yolks holding together well enough.
"A small step for girls, giant leap for their stomachs," she gleefully remarked, looking at the pan starting to hiss under the oil.
She couldn't help but feel she was claiming a little corner of this place for herself - not permanently, not in a "moving in" way, but the one queers carve homes out of each other when everything else is fire and glass.
Void didn't know it yet, but this wasn't just breakfast. This was Keira's version of affection. Loud, greasy, and determined despite all odds.
She looked inside the bread bin she hadn't noticed before. Rather unsurprisingly, the loaf inside was stale as hell. Like, post-apocalyptic ration-pack levels of stale. Keira stared at it with disdain before jamming the slices into the toaster, sending them to a war they had no hope of surviving. "Fine. You wanna be crusty? I'll give you fire." She cranked the dial like she was summoning hell itself, arms crossed as she watched the heater coils glow red. "Burn, you glutenous disgrace. Be reborn in the flames like the carb-stuffed phoenix you were always meant to be."
By the time the food was plated - if you could call it that - she was actually kind of proud. Two eggs, toast practically resurrected from the dead, and tea brewed strong enough to wake up Johnny Silverhand's rotting corpse. She slapped it onto the tiny kitchen table and grinned at her own handiwork.
Then, from behind her, a sleepy voice:
"You're making noise before noon?"
Keira turned, dramatically. "I'm making breakfast, bitch. You're welcome."
Void blinked at her blearily from the hallway, wrapped in a blanket like a sentient burrito. "You... Found breakfast?"
"Oh, honey," Keira said, smug as hell. "I didn't just find it. I summoned it from the fucking ether." She pointed to the plate. "You are now in the presence of culinary genius and mild food poisoning. Praise me accordingly."
Void padded in, sat down slowly, and stared at the plate. "...you used the eggs?"
"I checked them. They passed the slosh test. We'll either live or see Jesus himself."
Void picked up a fork, one brow raised. "You are absolutely unhinged."
Keira winked. "And yet, here you are."