Deskyl. Deskyl Deskyl Deskyl.

"Hi, Daisy."

He picks up the wrong arm again, to gesture or reach out or something like it, and silently lets it fall once he realizes.

She ducks her head in a gesture Deskyl recognizes as deferential, almost conciliatory. The Sith squeezes her hand reassuringly, and she rallies a little.

"Has she told you about me?"

“She told me you’re important.”

‘Me’ feels wrong. It sticks in his throat, feels odd and oily on his lips.

Deskyl shoots him a concerned look, and squeezes Daisy's hand before taking hers back to shift him onto her lap for a hug.

    "Is something wrong?"

"We're-" are they just fundamentally together, now? She hadn't intended this entwinement to be permanent - the link, yes, but the thing where they're leaning on each other for basic functioning was supposed to be an emergency measure. But...

Oh. Hugs are good. He returns it as well as he can.

He thinks he can pick it apart, the places where they’re separate. He can feel where the veins have grown in with each other, in some places, and he knows that—they’re one thing, now, but they’re still distinct, him and her. He doesn’t want her her-ness to disappear.

That doesn’t help to explain why just referring to himself in the first person makes his stomach drop.

Maybe there’s just not enough of him to make up an “I”, right now.

If it’s anyone’s right, to be that lost, it’s hers. His identity — that’s always been strong, it should still be enough that he can carry her when her whole Me was ripped away from her. Kai-zi was always so very much of himself.

He’s not sure if this is the same question as he was answering before.

Her thoughts are a chaotic swirl of worry, at first - not for herself; for him. There's no doubt in her mind that she'll be okay; she's been getting better every day, and she knows she's been through this before, and recovered.

Him, on the other hand - she can't bear the thought of leaving, of even pulling away, not now, not when he's hurting, no, no - she flinches away hard, shuts that idea down, I'm not going to do that, before the rage and despair that it evokes overwhelms her.

But she can't stand to lose him, either, to watch him drift away and disintegrate. Where the idea of leaving brings on the heat of rage, this evokes the icewater chill of terror. And here, she doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what he needs, doesn't know whether this close connection will be a stifling deathtrap or a lifesaving framework. What do you need, Love, what can I do?

He's glad, so glad, that she doesn't want to pull away – because he would do it for her, if she needed it, he would even if it killed him and left him completely empty. But she doesn't. And she won't.

i don't...know.

i don't know–

    what i am, now. because...

Someone hurt him. Really hurt him, took him apart, and Kai-zi is safe from that because he would like it but he wasn't safe and so he's not Kai-zi.

Oh. Oh, Love. He is so very hugged.

I'm not going anywhere. We'll figure it out together.

He trembles a little and ducks in close.

okay.

i love you

Love you. Love you.

"We're figuring it out." And they can be 'we', as long as he needs to be.

"All right."

"Dinner, please?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

She goes.

He watches her leave.

(He’s a little worried that this important person doesn’t like him. It’s important that someone important to Pradnakt will want him to stay.)

Hugs continue. They will continue until there's a reason for them to stop, and it's going to have to be a good one.

She wishes she remembered the droid better. It looks, from what she does know, like it'll be fine, but it's hard to be sure. But he knows she's a person, that's one important thing taken care of, at least.

He hopes there isn’t a reason.

And yes, she is a person. Of course she is.

He's so good.

Whatever else he is or isn't, he's that.

It’s a little hesitant, but

he smiles.

She loves him loves him loves him. She glows with it - not literally, but it feels like it should be literal.

And he is good. She remembers (they remember) him with the prisoners; how could he doubt it?

Practical, too. That was a hard call, with the screaming man. Thinking about it is a bit of a mood killer, though; not that she considers it a flaw in any way, just that it makes her a little sad.

!!!

♥️

...yeah. That was sad.

He thinks it must have been better, though, than leaving him to live like that.

Yeah. She bends down a little to nuzzle his forehead. But it's still sad to need to be practical like that, that the world's a place where that's a good trait to have.

Now that she's this close, it turns out that she wants to kiss him. But that's happening in her mind, and she's thinking in his, and that's enough of a separation for it not to interrupt her; it's as much of a surprise to her as it is to him when she does.

—oh.

Oh!!

He melts and sighs and clings to her and — swells with contentment, overflows, fills their mind with the golden haze of an overwhelming and almost disabling love.

(He’s hers.)

Gosh.

That's not going to stop anytime soon either.