@kusatta & for keith, my very best friend in the whole wide world

with the constant night outside her window and the cool metallic touch of every surface, pidge seeks her warmth from other people. keith is here, sitting in some convoluted way, legs propped up on a piece of clunky metal space garbage she refuses to throw away. it's been quiet - not so many days that it unnerves her, but enough that she can feel the ache as it settles into muscles, enough to spare a moment to breathe and do something, anything else but clamor their way through crisis.

she likes keith (and this is likely the biggest understatement she can imagine) for his quiet, his lack of expectation of her to be any way in particular, his occasional outburst that matches hers in intensity. he is like her, in ways she didn't know another person could be, and certainly never expected to find like this. like her, in all her irregularity, he comes by in his own time, brings something like a blade to fiddle with, and sits near enough to warm her. the way he speaks, his very presence, warms her, too.

"i'm thinking of turning that into a coffee table now, honestly." she nods towards the mass of metal he rests his feet on. "i'm attached to it now. so are you. they can't make us throw it out."