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[gitanes]

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[luckless]

[She falls into him and for her, it's like a sigh of relief; but for Komaeda, it's as if he's just inhaled his first taste of fresh air after holding it in for so long. It's overwhelming to have someone inside of you, and it's so very intimate. He's suddenly more aware of every breath, every beat of his heart.

Can she feel it now? The way it races whenever she's near?

And when she turns his head and snaps his eyes open, is it different, he wonders? His senses as a mer are sharper than a shade's. Every prickle of electricity in the air buzzes through his scales, to even the feeling tips of his fleshy hair. His large, pelagic eyes can see better in the dark of her apartment, and he can hear the sounds of shuffling movement two doors down.

Is it new in a way that overwhelms her just as her presence within him does?

But more than anything, he feels a comfortable weight within him. As if he's been a half-empty cup his whole life, just begging to be filled. For once, he has the conscious thought of being thankful he's alive, simply to be her vessel. And then Atem comes to mind—this is what it must have been, for him. This is that comfort he had talked about, all those months ago. Komaeda understands it now.]

I won't leave you, [he responds in the safety of their shared skull,] I need you, too.

[gitanes]

[Sharing space with someone in this way means no hiding. That's the other thing. She hasn't ever voluntarily entered anyone who wasn't a future meal, and even then she rarely does. It's too revealing. All of her emotions are laid out raw. She can lie in words, but the feelings resonating in the shared space will always give her away.]

[Dizzy with incoming pain, she swallows hard around the playful assault of physical and sensory input. She's wanted her body back for so long, and this isn't it, but it feels so close, as strange and inhuman as it is. She's crawled all over this body already. She's made it home in almost every way.]

[She lays a hand on the kitchen island for balance. It's not hard to take pain, but it takes a little concentration. The subtle touch of cool tile under her hand is so overstimulating that she shudders.]

[If she looks down at the sink, she can almost see their — his — reflection, the color of his eyes strangely vibrant in the steel. She looks, and the softness of her own expression seems alien to both of them.]

[There's no lying, really. There's no way he can't already feel the resonance of it.]

. . . I love you.

[luckless]

[Those words echo in his mind, and for a moment, he can't tell if they're hers or his own. This feeling—so full and vivid, his heart beating out of tune as it competes with itself—is it his or hers? This love that resonates so viscerally between them in a shared body, does it stop or start? Or is it simply existing—warm, trembling, afraid in the same way a child fears the bumps in the night.

This naïve feeling. It's theirs, isn't it?

Lila places his hand on the tile, but Komaeda folds his stump-arm over his middle, as if it were a mockery of hugging himself—her. He likes this feeling, he's sure she knows that without him saying it. And where one might panic in the face of such vulnerability, his own emotion—acceptance, joy—radiates through her anxiety.]

I love you too, Lila.

[He's said it a thousand times in affectionate glances and soft smiles—in the way that he touches her delicately, as if she were fine china instead of leather and barbwire. This time, it's forward. This time, she can't second guess the reason why he would show up on her doorstep unannounced, time and again. There's no running when they're together like this.]

I've loved you for a long time.

[gitanes]

[Something about the way he does that, like he's trying to hug her — it feels good, but it hurts, too. She wishes she could hug him the normal way. She wishes she could hold him. He's okay with this, she doesn't know why, but he is, but is she? She wants to be able to make him forget. She wants to hold his face in her hands and kiss him like a real girl.]

[She wants to be real. But he's really holding her. He really loves her.]

[I love you too, Lila.]

[That's what makes her start crying, messy quiet fat tears that fall from Komaeda's eyes and splat on the counter, the noise they make too loud in the silence of her barren kitchen. When she reaches up to rub them away, they just knock more tears out from behind his eyelids. Sniffling, she shakes her head.]

Ugh. [Out loud; and then in the privacy of their head, shrinking down close, trying to get a feel for it, trying to tuck herself into him, to make the metaphysical shape of herself as close as she knows how. She's needy, even if she doesn't recognize it. This is the safest space in the world that there is.]

Sorry. I don't cry about this kind of— [All current evidence to the contrary, of course. She blinks out another couple of tears.] I love you. I already said that. I love you. I'm . . .

[Scared. Sad. Desperately grateful to see him again.]

Bath?

[luckless]

[It's weird. All these feelings so decidedly not his own, but felt with such tremendous compulsion that his body reacts to it. In a way, he sort of prefers this. Understanding others is difficult... but occupying the same vessel means that he knows everything. He feels everything.

His chest seizes as tears roll down his cheeks, breath stuck in his lungs like he's drowning in the sensation. Is it relief? Is it like pressure being lifted too quickly, and the blood rushing to his head? He can't place it, but in the space of this body, his soul leans against Lila's. And his hand lifts, but he isn't the one to do it—rubbing raw at his eyes, coaxing the dam to overflow.

He wants to hug her. He wants to kiss her. Kiss away all these tears and tell her she's perfect in her imperfections, and that he loves it when she's messy. He loves her the most when she finally lets the wall around her crumble, so that he can crawl in beside her.]

I love you, too, [he repeats it, because he feels like she needs it. A thousand I love yous tied to a thousand red roses. And then he's walking—carrying them to the bathroom mindlessly, like he knows the route without even having to rely on Lila's memory of this apartment.]

I missed you, Lila...

[When he was on that cold slab—a shudder of the memory rolls through them, a flash of sterile lights and a macabre dead mask hovering just out of view.]

I don't like being apart from you.

[gitanes]

[She used to hate crying. Now . . . she still hates it, but differently. It's uncomfortable, it's so fucking gross, it feels vulnerable and horrible. But at the same time, now she knows what it's like not to be able to cry, to be in such a strange form that can't express remorse in the natural way.]

[Now it's like a dam bursting, like all of the awful things she's had to hold back for months coming out in a rush. She chokes on it, but she doesn't mind, not really, because losing her breath for a second makes it all the more meaningful when she catches it again. And Komaeda just holds her through all of it, physically and in the shared space in their brain, like that's something she deserves. Like that's something he's happy to give her.]

[She's in control, following him as he leads. The whole thing is messy and muddy, but it feels good. It doesn't feel like getting lost in him exactly, not how she thought. It's just welcoming, safe. He let her in and now he's got her and they're not the same, he doesn't make her less, all of this just makes her — more. More and more and more.]

[There are no red roses, but she feels the way they bloom, somewhere in the deepest places of her heart.]

[Right behind them, a pulse of rage at the flickering memory, at his feeling of loneliness. Someone took this from her. Someone took him, made him live without her, frightened and in pain without her — one of the few people she actually cares about, ripped away in the worst way. Don't they know that Komaeda's special? That he makes her happy? He should be protected, he should be treasured, they should die.]

[Her tears run hot down her face, as messy as she ever is. There's sterility in her shade form. In his body, she can be imperfect. She can just be.]

I missed you, too. I was really scared. I wanted to find you, I wanted to fix it.

[Absently, she makes his teeth gnaw his lower lip.]

I don't know how to take care of anybody. But I want to take care of you. Even when you're not happy, I want you to at least be okay.

[Shaking hands lean over the tub, grab the handle on the second try, stopper the drain, turn on the hot water. She leans against the edge, the one whole arm between them wrapping around Komaeda's opposite shoulder.]

I'm going to hurt him. But when I do, I won't be gone for long. I won't leave you alone.