The plates were pushed aside, half-crusted with crumbs, tea mugs emptied. Keira sat cross-legged on the floor tiles, chewing the inside of her cheek as Void leaned against the wall beside her, her blanket now pooling around her waist like some kind of goth monarch in exile. Silence between them was anything but awkward. Comforting, even.
Void glanced over at her without moving her head. "You don't have to stick around, you know."
Keira tilted her head, expression that couldn't be easily deciphered, but not unkind. "Do you want me to leave?"
Void took her eyes off Keira for a brief moment, unsure what to say. She picked at the seam of her blanket with two fingers before finally getting it out.
"No."
There it was. Small. Straight to the point. Typical Void behavior.
Keira let that sit in the air for a while, like she was watching how it shaped the space around them. "Cool," she said eventually. "I'm too lazy to go back out there anyway. Cold. Loud. Full of people pretending not to be starving."
Void smirked, tired. "You love pretending."
"I excel at pretending," Keira replied. "But in this little place of yours I feel like I don't have to. That's kinda... New."
"I don't usually do this," she said, voice barely audible.
"Do what?"
"This," she gestured vaguely. "Let girls in. Sit with them on the floor. Share food I don't care to buy frequently enough."
"Yeah, well." Keira leaned back, palms against the cool floor. "I don't usually sleep with someone after one fight over fan brackets, but here we are."
Void let out a half-laugh. "You're a chaos incarnate."
Keira grinned. "Said the absolute antithesis of entropy."
Void looked at her for a bit. Not staring this time - watching. Like she was waiting for Keira to peel off the mask and reveal she'd been joking about this entire... Thing. But she didn't.
The moment stretched. Not tense, not charged. Rather, slow. Safe. Both of them trying to memorize the quiet before the world barged back in.
"You ever think about how fucked it is," Keira said finally, "that we get these rare-ass seconds of calm, and all we do is wait for them to shatter?"
Void blinked, startled by the sudden sharpness. "Yeah. Every day."
"I used to think I wasn't built for calm," Keira continued, eyes on the window. "Every time something felt too still, I'd wreck it first. Beat it to the punch. Safer that way."
"Sounds... Familiar," Void said softly.
They sat like that for quite a while. Side by side, not touching, breathing in sync. Two biological machines finally tuned to the same frequency. Around them, murmured arguments from neighboring apartments dragged on like a low-level virus Void had long since given up trying to quarantine.
"I told you to stop putting your forks in the knife drawer, Antek!"
Void closed her eyes trying to summon patience from another dimension. "Every morning. Same couple. Same fucking drawer..."
Keira tilted her head. "At least they're passionate about cutlery organization?"
Void side-eyed her. "If I had a frag grenade and no moral compass, we wouldn't be hearing this."
"Oh damn." Keira grinned. "She's got the war crimes voice on."
"Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you."
"No, no, you're right. That man does sound like he'd die on a hill labeled Knife Adjacent Is Not Knife."
There was a pause in the argument, a loud clatter, then someone shouted something about "sanitary boundaries" and "your disgusting gym socks."
Void exhaled slowly, fingers twitching. "I swear they make up drama just to hear themselves echo through the walls."
Keira leaned over slightly, lips near Void's ear. "You sure you're not just mad they're louder than your machines?"
Void didn't look at her. "I'm mad that I've lived next to them for three years and I still don't have a slightest idea what Antek actually does for a living."
"Sabotage," Keira whispered. "Definitely sabotage."
Void finally cracked a smile. "If he's not a psy-op sent here to destroy my peace, I'll eat my entire box of screwdrivers."
"Murderous Void? What a turn-on."
"Buy me noise-canceling insulation and I'll say it again slower."
Keira let out a soft, smug chuckle and leaned into her shoulder. As the arguing neighbors carried on with their deeply personal war on domestic civility, Void felt - against her better judgement, she assumed - less alone in the noise.
"So. Your 3D printer - Eitria, right?"
Void raised a brow. "You remember her name?"
"She has vibes," Keira said, standing and offering Void a hand. "I figured we could give her something to do, since she's been just sitting there like a pouting teenager while I was busy stealing all of your spotlight."
Void took her hand without thinking. Keira's grip was warm, firm, and when she pulled her up, it felt less like a gesture of help and more like a move to reclaim. She didn't let go right away either.
Back in the "bedroom" - which still looked more like an electronics graveyard with a bed in the corner - Keira crouched by the printer, peering through the side panel, acting like she was investigating a small god.
"Damn," she murmured. "You weren't kidding. This thing's got personality. Looks even better in the daylight."
"She's... Temperamental," Void said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "One of the stepper motors jitters if the humidity spikes."
"Relatable," Keira muttered, trying to massage her own back.
Void grinned, tapping the control panel. "You ever tried modeling?"
Keira raised an eyebrow, smirk creeping in like a challenge. "Depends. You asking if I do CAD, or if I've ever strutted in combat boots for a post-apocalyptic fashion shoot?"
Void snorted. "That... Was not the direction I expected."
"But it's the direction you needed," Keira shot back, winking. "You wish you'd seen me in that fishnet-meets-flak-vest combo. It was art in its purest form."
Void rolled her eyes, but the grin stayed. "Okay, poser, I meant 3D modeling."
Keira stretched lazily. "Ah, the other kind of modeling where I swear every time I get the tolerances wrong. Yeah. I dabble."
The printer sprung to life, its mechanism twitching in anticipation. Void loaded her usual test print - a geometric keychain. Keira watched the nozzle move with focus, her fingers brushing the edge of the casing.
"I love this shit," she said quietly. "Not just the machines. The... Making of things. Proof you were here. That you built something that didn't fall apart..." She stopped for a few seconds before adding, "...Unlike relationships."
Void looked at her then. Not at her hair, not at the eyeliner nor her attitude, but her. The person underneath it all. Keira must've felt it, because she turned and met her gaze head-on, flashing a smirk worthy of a royal jester.
"Don't get sappy on me now," she said.
"Too late."
They talked as the print ran, slowly circling each other like wolves that weren't sure if they were meant to snarl or lie down together. Keira flopped onto the bed eventually, one leg dangling off, her scarlet hair spilling across one of the pillows. Void sat beside her, cross-legged, sipping the rest of her cold coffee from the last night, eyes flicking to the printer occasionally as the 0.2mm nozzle swirled around inside with surgical precision.
"What would you print," Void asked, "if you could make anything?"
Keira was quiet longer than usual. Her mouth twitched, but the smirk didn't come. Not right away.
"A working spine," she said finally.
Void snorted on instinct. "You already have one. You just use it to start fights."
Keira's laugh was delayed this time. Softer, different than her usual jolly vibe. Like she had to warm it up first. "You're not wrong."
Void leaned back on one arm. "Okay, seriously. What would you print?"
Keira didn't look at her. Her eyes stayed on the printer's slow dance, watching plastic thread melt and solidify. Her fingers toyed with the hem of Void's blanket, picking at a loose stitch like it was more interesting than this conversation.
"I wasn't joking," she said. "About the spine."
Void blinked. "Wait, what?""
Keira finally turned toward her, but her expression wasn't sharp like usual. It was... Empty. Flat. "I have a congenital issue. My spine's garbage. Always has been. I get nerve pain, stiffness, partial dislocations when I move too fast or sleep the wrong way. It's manageable, but-"
She stopped, clicked her tongue, looked away again. "-but it fucking sucks."
Void sat up straighter, the blanket sliding off her shoulder. "You never mentioned that."
Keira scoffed. "Yeah, because I'm super into opening up about my body malfunctioning like a cheap bootleg drone."
Void stayed quiet, trying not to overreact, but something knotted low in her gut. She'd seen Keira's sharpness, her fire, the wild way she took up space like she'd dare the world to shrink her. But this? This was a different kind of resistance. The brittle kind, one that lived under the skin.
"Is that why you sleep curled up so tight?" Void asked gently.
Keira tilted her head. "That, and your mattress is harder than most moral dilemmas."
Void's lip twitched, but the weight hadn't lifted. "Do you need anything for it? Like... Meds? Adjustments?"
Keira waved a hand. "I manage. I've got my stretches, painkillers. And if I end up needing spinal surgery in five years, then I'll just swap out the whole fucking thing for a titanium upgrade and start biting people on command."
Void didn't laugh.
Keira sighed, the kind of sigh that deflated her more than she meant it to. "It's just one of those things, you know? I learned early not to expect people to get it. Or stick around long enough to try."
Void's fingers tightened around the coffee mug. "You thought I wouldn't get it?"
Keira shrugged. "Didn't think about it. Didn't want to." She paused, then added, "I didn't want you to treat me like some kinda cripple."
Void's gaze locked on Keira that moment. She took her time with it, too. Looked at the way she was lying back a little now, not sprawled like before but measured. Guarded. Like even in this space, where she'd let her mouth run wild and joked about stealing hoodies, there was a line she didn't want anyone to cross.
"I don't," Void said quietly, setting her ceramic companion aside.
Keira's mouth twitched. But again, the smirk didn't come. Instead she sat up and rubbed her neck, her knuckles brushing over the faded edges of a scar that trailed across her shoulder blade.
"Pain's just... Noise at this point," she said. "Always there. Always in the background, following me like a fucking shadow. You learn to work around it. Learn to move in shapes that don't hurt. But sometimes I wake up, and it feels like my body was cobbled together by a drunken dwarf."
Void's stomach turned. She hated the image. Not because it was melodramatic, but because it was too familiar. She knew the feeling of malfunctioning inside out.
"You don't have to pretend around me," Void said plainly.
Keira looked over, and this time her expression cracked just slightly. Like a hairline fracture just starting to widen. "Yeah. That's the part that scares the living shit out of me."
Void leaned forward, just enough for her shoulder to brush against Keira's. Not pressing, just there - a quiet solidarity wrapped in a flesh bag.
"Why?" Void asked gently.
Keira took a long breath, held it, exhaled slow. "Because if I don't pretend, people start treating me like I'm fragile and, dunno, gonna crack in their hands or somethin'."
Instead of immediately responding, Void just watched her, witnessed the hardness behind Keira's eyes flicker and fade, replaced by something resembling resignation. Not surrender - anything but - the ache of carrying armor that had long since fused to bone.
"I wouldn't," Void murmured.
"Yeah," Keira whispered. "That's why I decided to tell you in the first place."
Silence hung for a moment. And then Void shifted, drawing in her own breath this time. Not to respond, but to offer something back. Not out of obligation, but because she knew that depth demanded depth.
"I had cancer," she said simply.
Keira's head turned fast, eyes locking onto hers.
"Breast," Void added, more quietly. "Stage III. Triple-negative. Aggressive as fuck. It came back twice."
Keira's mouth parted, but no sound came out. Void didn't give her the slightest chance to interrupt.
"I was 18 the first time. Spent my graduation in a chemo chair, throwing up bile and trying not to think about the fact that I still had a goddamn final in physics, or how my family treated me like I'm a walking, talking corpse." She gave a dry, bitter laugh. "Like any of that was gonna matter if my body gave out."
"Void..." Keira began.
"I'm not telling you to get sympathy," Void said, lifting a hand. "I just... I want you to know I get it. The pain that doesn't go away. The feeling like you're living in a house that's always burning at the foundation."
She reached for the collar of her shirt and tugged it down slightly, revealing the faint, raised bump under her skin - just below her right clavicle.
"Still got the port-a-cath," she said. "They didn't really bother removing it. Too many relapses. It's easier to just leave it there. Like a fucking bookmark in case they need to finish the story later."
Keira stared at the small shape beneath Void's skin. She reached up cautiously and touched the edge of it with two fingers. Her touch was featherlight, respectful in a way she didn't really show often.
Void didn't move an inch. "You can feel it, right? Still there. Always."
Keira nodded, her voice almost inaudible. "Yeah."
"I've got tinnitus now," Void continued, as if cataloguing a list of scars. "Chemo-fried nerves. Random neuropathy flare-ups. Scar tissue where things used to be." She let the words hang in the air for a while, then turned her head just enough to meet Keira's eyes. "You're not fragile. You're fighting. And so am I."
Keira's hand dropped away, resting in her lap, her stare directed at the floor now. "How the fuck are you still standing?"
Void's smile was slow. Not proud. Not smug. "Because being dead is boring. And expensive."
That made Keira laugh, watery and rough. "Girl..."
Void shifted closer, their knees now brushing, her hand ghosting over Keira's. "You don't scare me," she said softly. "And I'm not gonna break because you let me in."
Keira looked at their hands. Her fingers flexed once, twice - then turned over, accepting the contact. Holding it like a secret they hadn't dared say aloud.
The printer beeped softly. Job finished. But neither of them moved.
"We're both still here," Void said, voice steady but charged. "Because we looked at the shitty cards we were dealt and decided to flip the fucking table."
Her eyes met Keira's again. Defiant and tired. But still burning with determination.
Then her mouth curled, just a little, into something crooked and wry. "And somewhere out there, Johnny'd be lighting a cigarette and calling us chooms."
Keira let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a scar peeling open.
Another beep. This time louder. Insistent.
Keira glanced at their joined hands, then toward the printer, then back again - annoyed, amused, a little reluctant to move.
"Your mechanical girlfriend's getting clingy," she muttered.
Void smirked. "She's always like that when she finishes."
Keira exhaled dramatically, squeezing Void's fingers one last time before letting go. "Well. Duty calls. Can't leave her pent-up and hot."
She stood, cracking her spine with a grimace and a muttered, "Fuck you, vertebrae," before sauntering toward the printer. Eitria blinked at her with a faint violet pulse - almost like she knew what she'd interrupted.
With a reverent flick of her wrist, Keira opened Eitria's print chamber. The smell of warm PLA filament curled into the air like synthetic incense. She reached in, fingers curling around the still-warm object like it was a relic excavated from some digital tomb.
She pulled it out slowly, holding it between two fingers. The keychain was all sharp edges and obsessive precision - an interlocking pattern of hexagons nested inside angular wings, it looked like it was designed by a geometry-obsessed cult leader with a grudge against circles.
Keira held it up to the LED glow. "Holy shit," she said, voice a low, but impressed murmur. "Did you print a void sigil, or are you trying to summon the ghost of Bauhaus?
Void, still lounging half-curled on the bed, smirked. "Could be both. Depends what mood I was in."
Keira turned the keychain slowly in the light, watching the violet-red glow catch on each brutal little plane. "This is... Stupid sexy for a thing that holds keys."
"It's a reminder," Void said, voice quieter now. "That chaos can still have symmetry. If you design it just right."
Keira whistled, then tucked the keychain gently into the palm of her hand like it might bite. "Better hope it fits on a keyring. If not, I'm wearing it as a necklace and starting a cult."
Void grinned, chin propped on her hand. "Well hell, alright. Under one condition."
"And what would that be? Expecting a kiss as a 'thank-you'?"
"No," Void chuckled. "Just make sure the damn membership fee includes coffee."
"Only if you brew it," Keira said, tossing her a glance lingering a little too long. "Yours tastes like emotional damage. The kinda stuff I'm into."
Void rolled her eyes mockingly, then pushed herself upright, moving slow, deliberate. She crossed the space between them with the certainty of someone who had built entire worlds in her head before making a move.
When she reached Keira, she didn't touch her. Just looked again at her the way a girl like Void only looks at something she wants to build, not break.
"Did I ever tell you," she said, voice low, "you make violet lighting look like it was invented just to touch you?"
Keira raised a brow. "Is that your way of telling me I look hot in something different than pissed-off red?"
Void shrugged. "Something like that."
And then, finally, she reached out. Not for Keira's waist, or her hand. Not even her mouth. The keychain. Her fingers hovered along Keira's knuckles, slow and careful, before she gently flipped it over and traced the inner structure with her thumb.
"I think it will fit," she said softly, eyes on the print. "You just have to angle it properly."
"Heh... Story of my life."
Void looked up. Their faces were close now, and the silence pulled taut between them like a wire waiting for voltage.
Keira whispered, "You gonna show me where you keep your spare keyrings, or am I just supposed to sleep with this under my pillow like some grunge-tech Cinderella?"
Void smirked, stepping aside with a slow sweep of her hand. "Drawer by the window. Top left. Knock yourself out."
As Keira moved past her, their shoulders brushed yet again - enough friction to spark if either of them were braver.
Void stayed behind, now leaning against her workbench, eyes following her like gravity. Something weighty and warm settled low in her chest, coiling slow. She watched Keira excitedly rummage through the drawers like she'd lived here forever.
"Letting her stay might be the smartest stupid decision I've made in years," Void thought, a grin slowly making its way onto her lips.
The keyring glinted in the light as Keira held it up like a war trophy.
"Mine now!" She declared, triumphant.
And maybe, Void wondered, so was something else.
Keira began fiddling with the keyring, swearing softly under her breath as she tried to force the sharp geometry into a stubborn steel loop.
Void's moment was broken by the buzz of her phone. She unlocked it - one message.
Dee :: 2:43PM
Void? Everything alright? You've been awfully quiet today...
"Ah fuck..."