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It was hard for Roxy to let go.
Well, truth be told, it was hard for either one of them to let go. They had entered the session amidst a whirlwind of confusion and Jake kissing a severed head, but as soon as they were safely in the game, the very first thing Roxy did was walk up to Dirk, wrap her arms around his waist, and bury her face against his chest. Surprising no one more than himself, Dirk put his arms around her in turn and placed his face against the top of his head.
The two of them stood there like that, wrapped up in each other and ignorant of the world around them, for long minutes on end without a single word to the other two who were witness to the moment.
Jake had strange ideas as to why they were so into hugging each other, but Jane figured it out. And though she couldn't identify with their need, she understood.
Here were two people who had never, in the whole of their nearly sixteen years, seen the face of another human being. Dirk especially, who didn't even have the company of carapaces and was instead privy to the lone company of robots and seagulls, had been alone his entire life. This was the first hug that either of them had ever gotten to experience, and they were soaking it up for all they were worth.
They could have turned and hugged Jane or Jake. In fact, for all that Jane was Roxy's best friend it probably would have more sense, at least a small amount of it. But she turned instead to the one other person who could really understand; even Jake had been with his grandmother for a time, had been given the chance to know and talk to and hold another human.
Dirk and Roxy lived at the very literal end of humanity. They were the last people on Earth, and they weren't even given the opportunity to live near each other. Thousands of miles apart and separated by hundreds of years from their only other friends, their meeting was one that they had both waited for a long, long time.
He was just so warm and solid and real and there and Roxy found herself nuzzling against his chest with just the largest grin on her face that was possible. The happiness that gripped her chest was so intense that she was able to ignore the tears that were starting to fall from her eyes, getting his shirt wet. Dirk would deny it later, but Roxy was fairly certain that she felt one fall against the top of her head, too.
It wasn't until there was a small, rather uncomfortable clearing of the throat from Jake that the two of them finally pulled apart. Roxy heard him utter a quiet ow and she could only assume that Jane had smacked him upside the head. But she still couldn't focus on them. Instead, she stared up at Dirk's face for a long time before she promptly reached up to snatch his glasses off before he could even move.
He stared down at her in silent shock and made a grab for the glasses but they disappeared in a second, captchalogued away. "You'll get them back in a minute, Dirk. But for fuck's sake let me actually look at you. I mean christ, you don't have a top hat to remove from your head to greet a classy broad like me properly, the least you can do is take your glasses off so I can get a good look at you."
She brought her hands up and placed them on either side of his face before she pulled him down so that she could place her lips against his forehead. "Idiot. You're a giant nerdy idiot who smells like oil and fish but you're my giant nerdy idiot who smells like oil and fish--seriously the first thing you're doing is taking a god damn bath, how can you take hour long showers and still smell like this I don't understand--and you're here now and I'm here and I'm not letting you or anyone go anywhere again, you got that? We're together now and we're going to make the most of this."
Her wine rack appeared and Roxy took one of the bottles, shattering it against the side so that Dirk's glasses could pop out, and she placed them back on his face. "There. You can have your stupid anime shades back." Dirk adjusted them in the most stoic manner possible as Roxy finally pulled away from him, and all that could be heard was a squeal before Roxy launched herself at Jane, knocking the both of them to the ground.
Dirk shared a private smile with the empty green land around them before he turned around to finally join his friends.
All of them.