The plates still held the faint warmth of breakfast when Keira stacked them into the sink and flicked Void a knowing look - it was her turn. Void stretched out of her chair, sauntered over, and slung the towel over her shoulder before twisting the tap open. She let her attention drift between the running water, the dishes, and Amy, who lingered nearby like a shadow waiting for permission to exist.
"I can... I can do them..." Amy murmured, fingers already brushing towards the towel. The offer landed heavy, her tone flat and practiced, but the tremor underneath had nothing to do with dishes. "I should help. It's the least I can do."
Void didn't argue. She shrugged instead. "Knock yourself out, kid," and stepped aside, almost intentionally casual, giving Amy full access to the sink. No hovering, no correcting grip on the sponge, no sighing about water temperature. Just space.
Amy plunged her hands into the suds like she was bracing for burns. Her shoulders locked up, her every movement careful. Rigid precision that only comes from living under constant correction. Each plate was scrubbed like it was an exam - edges polished, surface spotless - then set carefully into the rack, perfectly aligned, as if daring someone to find fault.
By the third dish, her eyes flicked sideways, waiting for it - the barked order, the correction, the scold she knew by heart. "Too slow." "Too much soap." "Do it again, properly." But there was nothing. Void just leaned against the counter, idly turning a knife in her fingers, tracing the flat of the blade with a casual boredom that didn't match the test Amy thought she was failing.
Her frown deepened. She scrubbed harder, lingered longer than necessary, dragging out each movement just to get a reaction.
When nothing came, she muttered under her breath, "Wait. Nobody's yelling at me for taking too long?" She hadn't meant it to slip out, but there it was, dripping into the silence between the clinking porcelain and running faucet.
Keira glanced between them, concern tightening her face. Void blinked once, tilted her head, and let out a short, almost amused breath. "Why the fuck would I yell at you for doing my work for me?"
Amy froze, sponge in hand, and for a heartbeat she looked like someone had spoken in a language she didn't know existed. Her mouth opened, closed, then she gave the tiniest shake of her head, like she couldn't even begin to explain. "Because... That's what happens," she said finally. "I take too long, or I don't stack them right, or I leave streaks, and it's... Wrong. Always wrong. Always something to fix. Always something to yell at me for."
Keira blinked, caught off guard, like she wanted to say something gentle but wasn't sure how to phrase it. "That's not-"
"-how it works here," Void finished for her, pushing off the counter and leaning against the wall instead. Her eyes softened, even though her words stayed plain. "You help because you want to. Not because you're scared someone's gonna punish you." She fiddled a bit with her knife before adding, "Thanks for your work, by the way."
The words hit like a sucker punch. Amy blinked, sponge slipping in her grip, heart stuttering as if she'd misheard. Gratitude instead of correction. Not scorn. Not a lecture disguised as kindness. Just... Thanks. She stood there, dish half-rinsed, suddenly blinking too fast and too hard, trying to cover how the unexpected softness cracked something inside of her.
She put the dish on the rack with a little too much care, then grabbed another just to keep her hands busy. "That's... Weird," she muttered, almost defensively. "Nobody says that. Not to me."
Void gave her a long, sidelong look, then rolled one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "Guess you've just been around the wrong people."
Keira tried to jump in, grasping at kindness but fumbling the landing. "Maybe you should, like-" She looked sideways at Void, silently begging, "please bail me out before I make it worse."
Void didn't miss a beat. "-stay here. With us."
The air seemed to thicken. Amy stiffened, her hands frozen in the suds, eyes locked on the water as though the swirl of bubbles might hold her escape route. A second passed, then two, before she shook her head violently. "No. No, that's not... I can't."
She pulled her hands free, wiping them nervously on her skirt. Words tumbled out of her in a frantic, jagged rush. "She'll find me. My mother, I mean. She'll sniff me out no matter where I go. And if she does? She won't just make it hell for me. She'll make it hell for you too. You don't want that. Trust me."
When neither Void nor Keira said anything, Amy filled the silence with more. "And I'm impossible to live with. I don't... I don't sleep normal hours. I get quiet for days. Then I won't shut up. I'll touch the wrong thing, break something important. I'll mess up the dishes, or the laundry, or-" She bit down hard on her lip, then forced the words out faster, more brittle. "You'll start hating me. It always happens."
She stepped back from the sink, turning to Void. "And you don't even have space. Look around. Two people's already enough for this place, let alone three. You'd be tripping over me every second."
Her voice cracked, thinner now, desperate. "You don't understand- I don't fit anywhere. Not here. Not anywhere."
For a moment, it seemed like the weight of her protest might crush the offer before it had a chance to breathe. Then Keira, who had been chewing her lip hard enough to leave a mark, finally blurted out, "We'll clear my workshop room out." The words came messy, all elbows and knees, but stubborn. She crossed her arms right after, covering her own awkwardness with a flash of attitude. "Sure, it's a disaster in there, but whatever. I can shove things around. I have a garage on the city outskirts. We'll make space for you. I've done shit in my life that looked more impossible than this."
Void leaned in just enough to puncture the moment, her voice low and edged. "And you really think going back there is gonna fix anything? Even if I get you the papers, even with the chems - you think it ends different?"
Amy gripped her arm, nails biting into skin. "I... I guess you're right. I have nowhere to go. She'll- she'll just do this again," Amy whispered. "The yelling. The punishments. The way she makes me feel like... Like I'm nothing, even when I try. Especially when I try. I'll keep breaking and pretending I'm not. And maybe next time.." She trailed off, eyes locked on the dripping faucet, like the words themselves were too dangerous to complete. "Maybe next time I won't even crawl back out."
Silence ensued, thick and charged. Vector happily raced into the kitchen then, having his deus ex felinae moment, then leapt onto near the sink. His tail swished, brushing Amy's arm as if to say, "The pats I get from those two don't come remotely close to your touch. Please stay?"
Amy inhaled sharply. She shook her head, almost furiously, trying to shake off the weakness bleeding into her voice. "If I stay here, you'll see it- I'm... Difficult. I have all this junk in my head, and I'm not normal. I don't know how to live with people without eventually screwing it up. I..." Her throat gave way for a bit, before she got it out. "I don't deserve a family."
Void stepped closer, silent at first, letting the words settle in the air like smoke. Then, slowly, she wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulders, gentle but grounding, and pulled her into a careful hug. "What the fuck, girl," she murmured softly, amused in that way that made it feel warm rather than teasing. "From the looks of it you already found one. Just... Look at us."
Keira lowered herself onto one of the kitchen chairs, elbows resting on her knees as she leaned forward slightly. She spread her hands open. "Hell, the two of us are fucked up too. You'll fit right in." Her voice carried hesitant warmth that only comes from people who rarely say the right thing but mean it when they do.
Amy blinked at them, doubt etched across her face - a permanent scar from all the years of abuse. "I... I don't know. I mean... You really mean it? You'd actually... Keep me here?" Her hands fidgeted around, the tension coiling tighter around her shoulders with every passing second. She wanted to believe them, wanted to accept it - but the words were full of suspicion.
Void tightened her hug slightly, tilting her head so Amy could see her eyes. "Yep, we mean it. Nobody's here to trick you, alright? No games, no setups. Just... Us. Take it or leave it, but it's on the table."
Amy's lips pressed together, quivering. After a long pause, she exhaled slowly, letting her shoulders sag a fraction. "O-okay," she murmured quietly, but resolutely enough to count. "I... I'll stay."
Void let go of the hug, looking at Amy with a wide smile, as Keira's posture loosened immediately. Scarlet-hair let out a long, relieved breath, and for the first time that morning, her expression softened. "Fucking finally. Jesus, I was about ready to tie you to a chair until you said it." Her hands rubbed at her face for a moment, shaking off the tension she'd been carrying, before she gave a low, almost sheepish laugh. "Alright... I gotta get my ass moving. Work won't do itself. EVs won't repair magically, even if I wish they could. Love the job, hate the job. All at once." She pushed herself up from the chair, smoothing out her hair with one hand.
Void caught her eye, smirking faintly. "You're all sass and grease before noon. Rare." Keira rolled her eyes but didn't reply. Amy stood still, watching the exchange quietly, still uncertain but already feeling a strange tether forming.
They all made their way to the living room. Void crouched slightly to hand Amy her datapad, which was already linked to Eitria waiting gently in the corner. "Here. Go on, play a little. Don't murder my printer, though. She's a tough girl, but... Sometimes, she's got opinions." Her voice carried a teasing edge, but the warmth beneath it was unmistakable. Amy accepted it cautiously, fingers brushing against the smooth metal, scanning the interface with quiet curiosity.
Keira lingered at the doorway, giving Amy a nod before heading to their shared bedroom. "Have fun, Ames. Be back in a bit." Void said, sauntering after Keira. She locked the door of the bedroom and sat on the edge of their bed.
Flipping a small notebook open, Keira let out a long sigh. "Ugh, I swear, organizing this place for a kid is gonna be a bigger headache than three EVs with fried ECUs back-to-back." She jabbed a pen against the page, tapping a rhythm like she was trying to think her way out of a headache.
"Kid?" Void's voice was sharp but low, a teasing undertone threaded through it. "We might be calling her that, but she's not a kid, hun. She's fragile, sure, but she's... More than you're giving her credit for."
"Yeah, well. Fragile, broken, whatever. Point is, she's moving into a room that currently smells like industrial-grade solder and old motor oil. She's gonna hate it." Her hands flailed a little as she gestured towards a cluttered corner stacked with boxes of tools and machine parts. "And this is just our bedroom."
Void tilted her head, letting a small smirk creep in before she sat up from the bed. "You think a bit of grease is going to make her want to return to that bitch over in Gdynia?"
Keira shot her a glare, but it softened when Void stepped closer, leaning on one of the walls now. "Look, just... We make her space, she'll survive. You're way overthinking the industrial feng shui. Focus on the bigger picture: making her feel like she belongs."
"Yeah, easy for you to say. You're good at... Words. I'm better at moving boxes and cursing at misbehaving machines." She pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering. "Okay, fine. We'll clear the workbench corner, shove some shit into my garage. Voila, temporary bedroom. But if she breaks anything-"
"She won't. And even if she does, I'll be dealing with that, not you." Void pushed off the wall and strode past Keira. "Besides, we both know she's more careful than she lets on. Watch her a day, you'll see. She's precise, meticulous... Unlike someone else we know," she added with a pointed glance at Keira, who couldn't stop herself from huffing a laugh.
"Hey! I'm meticulous, too! Just... Messier. In a charming, controlled chaos sort of way." She shook her head, tossing the notepad on the bed. "Alright, fine. But we need a checklist. If she's gonna stay, I'm not winging this. I'm an engineer. Plans are sacred."
Void crossed her arms, as the smirk on her face kept widening. "Plans are sacred, yeah, yeah," she said in a mocking tone, continuing: "Like the 'fix your cutter, text me your sins' sacred plans?"
Keira looked at Void completely disarmed before shaking her head not quite believing she was admitting it. "Yeah... Okay, fine. You got me there." She grabbed her work jacket, slinging it over one shoulder. "Anyway... I really need to get to that workshop before they start paging me. You take care of our... 'daughter' while I'm gone." She paused at the door, then added with a smirk that carried both warmth and exasperation, "Oh and... Takeaway pizza for dinner when I get back?"
"Reading my fucking mind, sweetheart."
Amy sat on the floor in front of Eitria, datapad perched in her hands, watching the printer whirr to life. The first layers of the test cube crawled onto the plate, and immediately her nose wrinkled. The walls wavered, ridges stacked like bad geology, the surface gleaming wrong. "Ugh, textbook polymer degradation. Did they actually think this looked fine?"
She tugged the filament spool, rubbing a strand between her fingers, then pressed it to her cheek out of habit. It felt dry, brittle - desiccated. One bend and it snapped with a pitiful crack. "Yeah, that tracks. This stuff's older than the lies they told me at grad school. Honestly, it belongs in a landfill, not a printer."
She scrolled the datapad to check settings. PLA profile active. She eyed the spool again - clearly ABS. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Running ABS at PLA temps? That's not printing, that's polymer torture porn." Her lips curved, enjoying her own cruel little commentary as she tapped through menus.
The bed was set too cold, nozzle too low, and retraction rates that made her laugh out loud. "Somebody went, 'eh, it's just plastic, who cares?' Well, darling, I care, because polymers aren't just plastic - they're fussy little chains that demand respect. Treat them wrong and they'll warp out of pain."
She adjusted temperatures, flow rate, and retraction almost lazily, like correcting a freshman's lab report. The chirps of confirmation from the datapad almost made her feel smug, like the machine itself was grateful a professional finally stepped in. "There, much better. You can stop crying now."
Digging around the cluttered shelf, she found a fresher spool and gave it the same bend test: flexible, glossy, far healthier. "Now this is what a happy polymer backbone looks like. And no, I will not apologize for judging your entire household based on your filament stock."
She purged the old stuff and fed the new through, watching the extruder drool out a flawless string. It was enough to make her smile, head cocked like she'd just coached a student into finally not blowing up their beaker. "See? Chemistry saves the day. Again."
When the cube began printing clean, smooth and crisp - the way it should - Amy leaned back and crossed her arms. "They let me into their chaos, and the first thing I do is fix their materials problem. Not bad for day one, huh?"
Amy was still watching the cube build up layer by layer when the bedroom door slid open. She nearly dropped the datapad when Void's voice cut through.
Keira leaned against the frame behind her, smirk sharp as a blade. "Already more productive than Void was when I first met her. And with less swearing."
Amy fumbled the datapad closer to her chest like it was contraband. "I wasn't hacking it, I was... Correcting it."
Keira chuckled, crossed the room in three steps, and ruffled Amy's hair. "Relax, genius. You're fine. Just keep her out of trouble, Void. Pizza tonight." She punctuated the order with a quick kiss against Void's lips before striding out
The door shut with a thump that left the apartment buzzing quieter than before. Void padded closer, crouching down beside Amy and eyeing the printer mid-run. "So... You said you were correcting it. What was wrong?"
Amy hesitated, chewing her lip, then offered the datapad like a guilty confession. "Honestly? Everything. Wrong filament, wrong temperature, wrong speed curve. I fixed it. Fresh spool, proper baseline."
Void blinked, then leaned closer to watch the layers stacking so neatly you could run a razor across them. She gave a long whistle. "You're telling me I've been babying this thing for months and you, a chemist, swoop in and outdo me in one afternoon?"
Amy flushed hot. "It wasn't hard. The numbers were just... Embarrassing. Like, even my lab's cheapest extruder would throw a tantrum if I ran it that way."
Void clutched her chest like Amy had shot her. "Ouch. First day under my roof and you're already roasting me."
Amy hid half her face behind the datapad, voice small but firm. "I- I'm... Just saying... Plastic behaves a lot like a chemical reagent. If you don't respect it, it'll embarrass you."
Void's smirk curled wider, sharp with mock indignation. "Respect the plastic, huh? You sound like you're pitching me some cult doctrine. Should I start kneeling before the filament spools, oh wise lab professional?"
That got Amy laughing, shoulders loosening a fraction. "Wouldn't hurt. At least then you wouldn't treat your spools like they're disposable."
Void plucked the finished cube off the plate once it cooled, turning it in her hand. No artifacts. No sloppy lines. Just perfect geometry. She gave Amy a sideways look, grin tugging. "Damn. Looks like I can't even pretend you're dead weight anymore."
Amy's blush deepened, but her smile tried to fight through it. "I never asked to prove myself. I just... Wanted it not to suck."
Void nudged her shoulder with the cube, playful. "Well congrats, nerd. You've officially stolen my Eitria's loyalty. Next thing I know you'll be rearranging the whole workshop behind my back."
Amy ducked her head, though there was the faintest spark of pride in her eyes. "Maybe. If it keeps you from ruining good filament."
Void barked out a laugh, tossing the cube up and catching it. "Alright, chemgirl. You win this round. But don't get cocky. Eitria's mine - you're just the guest star."
Amy let the datapad lower at last, her lips quirking. "Guest star who just saved your prints from looking like molten cheese."
Void groaned theatrically and shoved the cube into Amy's hands. "Fine, fine. You're the plastic specialist. Just don't start charging me consultation fees."
Amy hugged the cube like a trophy, eyes glinting despite her shy tilt. "N-no promises."