[It's not a perfect arrangement, all this. Nothing is fixed, nothing they've lost has been salvaged. But in most ways, it's enough. They're safe, for the most part. And they're together. He's adjusted, mostly, to the odd inbetween state the Natha had negotiated for him. Not quite here but not quite there. Makes the times he's confined entirely to the Transistor all the more bearable to know they're not indefinite. Even if it's not the same, it's more than he'd let himself hope for, once.
So he doesn't much feel the cold of the air, but he's solid enough to feel the tap at his shoulder when she pulls him short before they can leave. Solid enough that when she stumbles and pitches forward, he closes the distance and reaches reflexively to catch her and steady her. But then—
(He freezes, but his reflexes recover faster. Even as he plays the sound of her again and again to be sure he'd heard it right. Low, rough, kind of croaky. As if from disuse. But he'd never mistake it. He still regrets not being able to stop what had happened to her.)
She's not falling anymore, but he fumbles to catch her, anyway. The Transistor clatters loudly to the floor as he drops it, forgotten to free himself to face her. Hands lifting to cradle her jaw and tip her head up toward him urgently, head bowed close enough to see the surprise in her own eyes.
Oddly, his own voice seems to have vanished, for a moment. Then, hushed but urgently, inanely—]
no subject
So he doesn't much feel the cold of the air, but he's solid enough to feel the tap at his shoulder when she pulls him short before they can leave. Solid enough that when she stumbles and pitches forward, he closes the distance and reaches reflexively to catch her and steady her. But then—
(He freezes, but his reflexes recover faster. Even as he plays the sound of her again and again to be sure he'd heard it right. Low, rough, kind of croaky. As if from disuse. But he'd never mistake it. He still regrets not being able to stop what had happened to her.)
She's not falling anymore, but he fumbles to catch her, anyway. The Transistor clatters loudly to the floor as he drops it, forgotten to free himself to face her. Hands lifting to cradle her jaw and tip her head up toward him urgently, head bowed close enough to see the surprise in her own eyes.
Oddly, his own voice seems to have vanished, for a moment. Then, hushed but urgently, inanely—]
Red?