The first few minutes after Void spoke were a blur. Not relief - something far more disorienting, like being told the building didn't collapse yet, but it's still groaning, unstable. The threat has merely paused. Long enough to catch its breath and - with enough bad luck - come back for more.
Keira didn't have it in her to cry anymore. Her eyes burned, her throat scraped with something unshed, her body locked. Frozen in a crooked, back-wrecking hunch, half-slumped against the wall. A twisted half-prayer of a posture that spoke of desperation, disbelief, and a furious refusal to let go.
Void's "hi" echoed. One syllable. Two letters. Nothing more. Her eyes fluttered shut again like the world had demanded too much already, like that word had been everything she had left.
But she was breathing.
Keira stayed motionless for too long. Partly because her legs had turned to stone, partly because some terrified part of her thought moving would ruin it - like if she shifted her weight, it'd all vanish. Transformed into sudden death.
Then her hands moved.
Not with purpose, because there was no plan, no strategy, no "do this, then that." It was just what you did when someone was bleeding or they were cold. When someone had almost died on you.
She clamped the IV, then pulled cannula out clean. Bandaged the site. Stared at the sluggish weeping of the wounds across Void's arms, pressing gauze with a tremble so hard the tape stuck crooked. Her knuckles were bloodless, white with the force she used to not let go. Her shirt was completely soaked with water and Void's blood. Her knees ached. Her mind - blank.
She didn't remember moving Void, or anything else in-between, the bending, cleaning, drying and lifting. It was all a smear of motion, and pain she refused to acknowledge.
Only the aftermath stuck.
Blankets and a pillow dragged from the bed - there was no time to be picky. Void cleaned up, and dressed in some fresh threads. Keira bundled her like she was made of glass and fire all at once: dangerous to mishandle, doomed if you did nothing. Every breath Void took was an insult to the silence that had almost swallowed her. Every rise and fall of her chest was a quiet rebellion. A fuck you to the stillness Keira had started to mourn.
She laid her down gently, as if any sudden movement might knock her loose from this fragile tether called life.
Then, Keira peeled off her soaked shirt and tossed it onto the floor. Her bra followed. Then boots, pants and socks. Each piece of clothing slapped wet against the tile.
She stood in front of the mirror.
It was fogged, smeared in places with handprints and streaks of blood. Her reflection stared back: hollow-eyed, gaunt, like she'd just seen a ghost. Her own face looked unfamiliar. Pale. Her eyeliner had melted down her cheeks in uneven lines, turning her into a smeared caricature of herself.
She wiped the glass absently with a towel. A blood-smudged arc followed.
The sight made something in her chest twist.
She sat down.
Right there. Against the bathroom wall. Legs stretched out stiff in front of her, arms limp at her sides, like her joints had all just declared a strike.
She stared at the red-streaked tile, at the water still slowly circling the drain, red liquid fading, making space for the white paint of Void's bathtub. And then...
...then she laughed.
Dry. Humorless. Broken down the middle.
A sound that had no business being a laugh but couldn't quite be anything else.
It cracked open the air and made everything feel even quieter after.
"What the fuck just happened," she whispered to herself. Her voice scraped its way out like a wounded thing, raw and foreign.
She tilted her head back against the wall.
And stared at the ceiling for what might have been an hour, or five minutes, but felt like a lifetime.
Then her body folded sideways, stiff, numb and too spent to care. She hit the floor with a dull thud and curled around Void's wrist, still wrapped in gauze, ghost-warm from the transfusion. Keira clutched it. Not tight, but firm enough to feel the heartbeat beneath the skin.
That pulse... Fluttery and inconsistent - it was the only thing tethering her to reality.
She closed her eyes.
Her last thought before unconsciousness swallowed her whole was a single promise.
"Don't die. Please. Because I'll break into the fucking hell and make the Doom Slayer look like he was a K-pop singer if you do."
Morning came limping in on soft gray light and no birdsong.
Keira woke with a sharp jolt when her neck spasmed, a nerve pinched so hard she almost swore out loud. Her body protested the movement - stiff from the tile, sore in ways she didn't have words for. The air still smelled of iron and medical supplies, layers of memory trapped in vapor. For a few disoriented seconds, she didn't remember where she was or why her heart was already thudding like it had been running in her sleep.
Then her eyes snapped toward Void.
Her chest lifted in slow, shallow motions, the kind that felt like a threat - this time a bit more stable. She was curled under three mismatched blankets, wrapped so tightly it looked like someone was trying to mummify her with what little comfort they had. Her hair, now a faded magenta mess, fanned across the pillow like a bruised halo, its color soaking into the cotton.
Keira got up and just stood motionless for quite a while, arms limp, staring at Void like she was a crime scene she hadn't figured out how to process yet. Her gut tightened. Not with panic - that was long gone - but something slower. Deeper. Guilt, probably. Or maybe something more dangerous - like longing, laced with fear.
Her mouth opened to say Void's name - but no sound came.
Instead, she turned. Silent. Controlled.
She walked into the kitchen on stiff legs, grabbed an old rag from the drawer, and began to clean. Blood. First from the bedroom floor - those faint streaks leading from the bed to the bathroom. Little footprints of terror. She scrubbed them with mechanical efficiency, even when the cloth came away pink, then red and finally brown.
Every few minutes, she'd glance through the bathroom door.
Check for the rise and fall. Count the seconds between breaths. Make sure it wasn't just something her brain was inventing to spare her.
Then back to cleaning.
She stopped at the threshold, just for a second, eyes scanning the now-emptied tub. Water stains ringed the edges. The drain still had a faint pink tint around its rim.
She swallowed hard, then dropped to her knees, pressing the rag into the tile. The blood here was stickier. Darker. Some of it had dried in the cracks. Her knuckles turned pale from the force of it.
Glance at Void.
Breath still present.
She wiped harder.
Her fingers were starting to cramp, but she didn't stop. She couldn't. Something about this motion - this erasure - made her feel like she had some sliver of control in a world that had tried to chew her up just hours before.
Checked her girl again.
Chest moving.
She closed her eyes for a second and muttered, "Don't you fucking stop."
It wasn't a plea.
It was a command.
She didn't leave the flat that day.
Or the next.
The idea of stepping outside made her feel like the floor would vanish under her boots - like the moment she let go, even a little, the universe would seize the opening and finish what it started. It felt stupid and irrational. Did she really care? Nope. Rationality hadn't pulled Void out of the bath. Instinct had. Pure, violent, panicked instinct.
So she stayed.
She turned Void's bedroom into a makeshift hospital room. Not the sterile, white-sheeted kind - but her kind. A Frankenstein's ward of necessity and desperation. She jury-rigged a humidifier from a broken PC fan and a scented candle holder, soaked towels in eucalyptus oil and draped them over chair backs. Water bottles lined up in ranks by the bedside like soldiers. A thermometer duct-taped to the lamp post because she'd broken the last one throwing it at the wall when Void didn't respond for over six hours.
The medkit had exploded across the workbench - bandages, swabs, half-used antiseptic, gauze, and a dozen half-burnt candles for light when the fluorescents became too much.
She put on some spare clothes she found in Void's wardrobe and raided a 24/7 chemist at 4AM, eyes bloodshot, knuckles still red-raw from punching tiles in the bathroom to stay awake.
The cashier didn't say a word when she dropped a pile of glucose tabs, electrolyte packs, vitamin shots, and skin glue on the counter. Just gave her a plastic bag and a look that said, "I've seen this before... Somewhere..."
Void drifted in and out.
She didn't talk much. When she did, it was in murmurs, foggy little syllables wrapped in too much effort. A few times she smiled - crooked, weak - but genuine. Enough to make Keira's knees go soft, like someone had flicked a switch inside her chest.
She could drink, now. Progress. Could hold the cup herself sometimes, even if it trembled the whole way up. Keira caught it every time.
But that was it.
No apologies. No explanations.
Just silence, punctuated by small, fragile signs of life.
Keira didn't push.
She wanted to. Hell, she wanted to so much. Her hands itched with it. The questions piled behind her teeth like bile. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you call? Why the fuck did you make me walk in and find you like that?"
But she didn't let any of it out.
Instead, she made soup.
Soup.
Her.
Keira-fucking-Wróbel. Who could burn water if left unattended.
She'd stared at her phone screen for thirty minutes before settling on a recipe. Something her mother might have made if her mother had ever given a shit about her. She swore at the onions, cried at the garlic - not from the sting, but because halfway through peeling, her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, sobbing into the fridge door. She figured soup wasn't enough - but she had no clue what else to do.
But she made it.
And she fed it to Void, spoonful by spoonful. Sitting beside her on the bed like she was some damn nurse, pretending she knew what she was doing.
Void could barely hold the spoon. Her hand was all bones, bruises and tremors. Keira had to guide it, steady it - make it look like her own didn't shake.
"You've gotta eat," she muttered, voice frayed and rough, "so I don't have to shove nutrients up your ass, okay?"
Void made a weak little noise. Almost a laugh. Then she coughed - dry and shallow - then winced so hard Keira nearly dropped the bowl.
Keira didn't laugh.
She didn't say anything else.
She just wiped Void's mouth with her wrist, like it was the most normal thing in the world, then went back to spooning soup between her lips, pretending it didn't feel like feeding a zombie.
And when Void finally slept again - faintly glowing under layers of blankets, breath just barely catching on her lips - Keira sat in the hallway, back against the wall, head in her hands, then whispered, "What the fuck have I gotten myself into..."
By day five, Keira started sleeping on the bed with Void.
Well... Sleeping was generous.
She'd lie there with one arm flung over her eyes. The pillows were uneven, the blanket scratchy, and the room always too hot or too cold. But she didn't complain. She stayed close. Just in case.
Always with one ear open.
She could hear every single thing. The way the air purifiers hummed their low lullaby. The shift of Void's sheets when she turned too hard.
And then - the nightmares started.
Not loud. Not the movie-esque sit-ups or sweat-slicked gasps. Just... These sounds. Tiny, fragile sounds, like something breaking over and over in the dark.
Void would whimper. Barely audible, really - just a strangled, terrified exhale. Sometimes her fingers would twitch against the covers, curling into the mattress like it was the only thing keeping her here. Like she was trying not to fall.
Keira would already be on her feet by then. She didn't even remember getting up most nights. Just found herself at the edge of the bed, crouched, like her whole body had decided to move before her brain caught up.
She didn't wake Void. Didn't ask what the dream was.
She just sat there. Sometimes on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees. Sometimes on the floor, her back against the frame. Watching. Waiting. Letting Void shake through it.
She only reached out when the trembling got too bad - when Void's shoulders jerked under the blankets like she was about to fall apart again.
Then she'd take her hand.
Hold it loose, not to restrain, not to anchor - just to say "I'm here" without making it dramatic.
Sometimes Void would squeeze back, faintly. Like her fingers were remembering something Keira hadn't said out loud.
Other times, she didn't move at all.
And that silence - those moments - were the hardest.
Keira would stay until the tremors eased. Until Void's breathing leveled out again. Then she'd peel herself away, ungluing skin from skin, afraid even that would wake her.
She never said anything about it in the morning.
Neither did Void.
Some kinds of care don't come with dialogue.
On day six, Keira tried to leave for longer than an hour.
She told herself it was necessary: there were meds to grab, more bandages, actual food that didn't come out of a packet. Void was stable now, breathing on her own, conscious enough to blink slow thanks when Keira brought her water.
She should've been able to just go.
But four blocks out, her hands started shaking. Hard.
She tried to ignore it at first, burying them in the pockets hoping fabric would calm them down. Like pretending nothing was wrong could make it true.
Like fuck it could.
By the fifth block, her vision tunneled. Not dramatic, just this slow tightening of the world around her, as if the buildings were leaning in too close, the city itself had teeth and bad intentions. Her breath caught in her throat, and suddenly the sidewalk didn't feel real under her boots. Like she was about to fall through it.
She sat down on the curb without thinking, legs giving out like they'd stopped being an integral part of her.
Across the street, some wage-drone in a corporate poncho passed her by, chewing on a vape stick, eyes flat and unbothered. He didn't even glance her way. Didn't care to ask if she was okay.
Why would he?
People like her were part of the background - grimy girls with too much eyeliner and nothing in their hands worth stealing.
She stared at the cracks in the pavement until her heartbeat slowed, until the panic receded into a dull throb behind her ribs. Then came the shame - sharp, hot, acid-deep.
She hated herself for it.
For not being able to walk five fucking blocks without spiraling. For caring so much it turned her into this panicked, brittle thing she didn't even recognize.
She hated Void for it, too - just for a second.
For putting her in this place. For dragging her heart out and twisting it in her hand without warning. For making her care. For making her terrified to come back to an empty bed.
But the hate was fleeting. A flare of old reflexes. The kind of hate that comes from fear, not malice.
She sat on the curb and thought of Jenna - the one who trained her to believe that vulnerability was a trap and love was a weapon handed to the other person first.
Jenna, who used to say things like:
"If you really cared, you'd already know what I need."
"You're exhausting. I don't want to fix someone."
"You're too much. Always have been."
Keira had shrunk herself so much in that relationship she barely remembered what her full voice sounded like. Her anger, her joy. Even her snark had been muted down to something bitter and small.
She'd walked away from Jenna a few days ago, but the unwarranted guilt had lingered.
She left after covering herself head-to-toe in jokes and apathy. How to love only in half-measures.
And yet here she was - sitting on a curb, heart in her throat, panicking. Because this time, someone had collapsed on her. Trusted her. Needed her.
And she didn't know how to hold that. Had no clue how to not break it.
Her head dropped into her hands, fingers curling into her hair.
"What the fuck am I doing," she rasped, the words scraping out of her like they were made of broken glass.
But she already knew the answer.
She stood up and went back. Not because she had to - she could just disappear and leave Void as-is. Forget about all this. Probably guilt-ridden and cursing herself for making that decision until the end of days.
Went back because Void was still there, her heart still pumping. And the idea of not being there the next time she wouldn't- That was a hell she couldn't run far enough to escape from.
It took a week before they had a real conversation.
Seven full days of half-sentences and silent rituals, checking pulses without asking and soup ladled out in awkward, uneven spoonfuls. Of Keira changing bandages with trembling hands trying to act like the entire situation hadn't split her open like a cracked tooth.
Void was stronger that morning. Not much, but enough that her voice didn't sound like it was being dragged from the bottom of the ocean.
Just above a whisper - but steady.
"Why did you come?"
Keira was perched on the edge of a stool, hunched over Void's workbench. She'd picked up one of Void's old utility knives, a dull one, and was sharpening it against a whetstone she'd found in a drawer labeled "maybe useful?" She didn't really need to do that, but it kept her hands busy. Kept her grounded. The hiss-scrape-hiss had become a kind of heartbeat in the silence.
She didn't look up.
"Yeah, well," she muttered, blade glinting in the morning light, "I'm not known for great decision-making."
Void smiled. Just a twitch of her mouth, a muscle memory trying to be real again.
"I'm sorry."
That was the wrong chord.
The knife stilled. The rhythm broke.
Keira's hand hovered mid-stroke, her grip tightening around the handle. Her jaw clenched hard enough her teeth ached.
She sat there for a second too long, like her soul had stalled out behind her ribs.
Then, without turning around:
"No."
Void blinked, surprised.
Keira's voice was hoarse. Sandpaper over glass.
"You don't get to say that yet."
The air between them felt suddenly thick. Like it knew it was carrying words too heavy to be said out loud.
"You almost fucking died in front of me." She turned the blade over, staring at the edge like it might cut something other than herself. "And not in a poetic, tragic kind of way either. Just... fucking gone. Eyes open. Water red. And you didn't even leave a note. No explanation. Just..." she laughed, sharp and joyless, "...left your door locked like you already decided you wanted to log the fuck out."
Void didn't interrupt - she couldn't. Her throat burned just listening.
"You looked me in the fucking eyes that night," Keira continued, quieter now, "and decided I didn't need to know what's going on. That I wasn't worth trusting. That I couldn't help." Her voice trembled, the knife finally set down, forgotten on the bench. "So... No. No sorries until I've had time to figure out if I want to punch a wall or just..." she exhaled, shaky, "...keep spoon-feeding you soup like a glorified girlfriend-in-denial."
Void's lips parted, but she said nothing.
She looked down. Away. Anywhere but Keira.
Silence spilled between them again - dense, uncomfortable. But not angry anymore.
This silence was heavy the way grief was. Like water damage in the ceiling that's been ignored too long. Creeping. Spreading...
Finally, Void spoke. Softly.
"I didn't think anyone would stay."
There was no pity in her voice. Just quiet resignation. Like it was a fact, obvious as gravity.
Keira rolled her eyes, sucked on the inside of her cheek until it hurt. She didn't sigh nor break down. Just reached out and tossed the knife onto the workbench with a soft clatter.
Then she stood.
Crossed the room in three slow steps. Zero drama. No speech.
She sat beside Void on the edge of the bed with the kind of ease that meant she didn't need an invitation.
They didn't look at each other.
Void's shoulder brushed against Keira's.
"Well," Keira murmured, her voice lower now, softer, "you're a dumb bitch, then."
Void didn't answer with words.
Her breath hitched - subtle at first. A flutter beneath her ribs. Her hand tensed where it laced with Keira's, her fingers curling tighter like she was bracing for a fall. Then her whole body shuddered once, like the world exhaled through her all at once.
And then she broke.
No warning. A sob, followed by a salty waterfall coming right out of her eyes.
Cracked and sharp, it clawed its way out of her throat like it had been caged for years. Her other hand flew up and latched onto Keira's shoulder, trembling with a force that nearly knocked the wind out of both of them. Her body folded inward, her forehead pressing hard against Keira's collarbone like she was trying to disappear inside her.
"Fuck-fuck, I'm sorry," Void gasped, choking on it, "I didn't mean-shit, I didn't mean to-"
Keira's entire body tensed, caught between instinct and emotion. Her hand instinctively cradled the back of Void's head, fingers threading into weathered strands of magenta. She didn't say anything yet. She couldn't. Her throat had closed up the second Void made that sound.
Void clung harder, her whole form wracked with sobs now - quiet, desperate things. Not loud or theatrical. Just broken, honest. Her voice came in bursts, shaken and raw:
"I didn't feel anything. For so fucking long. I- I thought I was broken. Like really broken. I'd wake up and everything felt- Muted. Like someone turned the volume down on life, on me. People would talk to me and it was like watching them through a window, like I was a ghost and they were pretending I wasn't there."
Her tears soaked into Keira's shirt, but she stayed motionless.
"I tried so fucking hard to just be okay," Void continued, voice wobbling, "and I got so good at pretending I didn't need anyone. But I- I always did. And every time I let someone in, every time I thought maybe this time it would be different, they'd leave. Or worse, they'd stay long enough to make me trust them, and then rip it all apart."
Her body trembled violently, and Keira just held her tighter.
"My last girl said it was my fault," Void whispered. "Said I made her walk away. That I'm too much th- that I drain people. That no one could love someone who keeps making things 'just work'."
Keira's breath caught. Her jaw clenched again.
Void pulled back just enough to look at her, her eyes glassy and red-rimmed. "And then you showed up. And for a second I let myself believe you weren't like the others. That you'd stay."
Keira opened her mouth, but Void shook her head, voice cracking again.
"But I didn't tell you. I didn't give you a chance. I just... Shut down. Like I always do. I thought if I disappeared, it wouldn't hurt as much when you finally decided I wasn't worth the effort."
Her face crumpled, shame bleeding into every word of it.
"I didn't want it to go this far at first. But as I laid in that bathroom I decided I wanted to die thinking someone would finally miss me."
Keira couldn't hold back anymore.
The tears welled fast - hot, unrelenting - and spilled over without her permission. She didn't sob, it wasn't a breakdown like Void's, but her face twisted, raw and pained. She cupped Void's cheek, brushing strands of hair away, and leaned in so close their noses nearly touched.
"You idiot," Keira whispered, voice shaky but fierce. "You absolute fucking idiot. Of course I would've missed you."
She laughed - wet and breathless. "I would've burned this whole fucking city to the ground."
Void blinked. Her lips trembled. "Why?"
Keira swallowed hard. "Because you made me feel alive again."
Void stilled.
Keira pressed their foreheads together, her other hand resting over Void's heart. "You- you were a walking mess, and so was I, but somehow it didn't matter. You saw me. Not just the sarcasm, the loud mouth and the spiky shit I throw up to keep people away. You saw right through it."
She exhaled sharply, trying to rein it in. "And you reminded me what it felt like to laugh for real. To look at someone and want to stay. To want to fucking fight for something again."
Void's hand found Keira's wrist, her touch feather-light. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you louder," Keira said, her voice a hush. "That you're not too much. That you never were. I guess... I didn't really know what the fuck I wanted before, but now?"
She pulled back just enough to look Void in the eye. Her thumb traced beneath Void's lashes, wiping away a fresh tear.
"I think I want you. Even like this."
Void's breath hitched again. "This broken... Thing?"
Keira shook her head. "You're not a thing. You're not broken either. Just... Unfinished."
Void smiled lightly. A flicker of hope.
Then Keira leaned in.
No haste nor drama. She gave Void time to pull away. To say no. To jump back.
But Void didn't.
Their lips met like dusk meets city light - quiet, inevitable, aching with the weight of everything around. Not something spoken aloud, but the kind carving into the silence between two people speaking pain in the same language. It wasn't fireworks. No cinematic swell. Just warm contact. A breath hitching against another.
Keira's mouth ghosted over Void's, delicate as a codeword passed through trembling hands, inaudibly asking are you still here? and can I still reach you? And Void answered not with words, but with the way she folded into her - like gravity answering a falling star.
Void's fingers clutched at Keira's shirt, tugging her in with the grace of desperation mixed with fear of Keira vanishing mid-kiss - like everything would pixelate back into solitude if she didn't hold on tight enough. Her lips parted, just barely. Keira tasted salt - tears produced by both pairs of eyes in close proximity now - and one more thing: the sharp, electric tang of a soul choosing to stay.
The kiss deepened, unhurried but relentless, as if it always existed somewhere between them, just waiting to be unleashed. Keira's hands cradled Void's face with care usually reserved for machines or technical manuals - thumbs tracing skin like she was trying to memorize her by touch alone. Her mouth moved slow, reverent, shaping love in languages without dictionaries. Love resembling circuitry woven with lullabies, a promise welded with heavy-duty equipment.
Void kissed her back with all the fragility of someone who had once given up on being genuinely loved again. Her heart experienced a sudden short-circuit and was now recalibrating itself to beat through Keira's pulse. Her breath caught in tiny, trembling sighs as she leaned closer, fitting herself against Keira in the helpless, aching way of something finally coming home.
It wasn't a kiss you forget. It was one that etched itself into your ribs.
A kiss that tastes like sweet survival laced with bitter guilt, like two ghosts learning how to haunt the same body, like do I really deserve it? and I never thought I'd ever get this again.
It wasn't perfect. It would fall right under the definition of word 'sloppy.'
But neither of them cared.
Void pulled back first, breathless. Her lips were swollen, her eyes wide, unsure.
"You really mean it?" she whispered.
Keira nodded, forehead still pressed to hers. "I mean every fucking word."