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It is not unheard of for two things to overlap. Objects, usually; matter slides into itself, somehow, tapped with the wrong force at the wrong angle, and only ever very briefly, surface colors overlapping but not mixing, rippling in random shapes like the ocean plane before simply ceasing to do so, as if having realized it was wrong.
Sometimes, it can happen to something living- and that wrongness is only amplified, causing whoever owns the guilty vibrating limb to end it, like a knee-jerk reaction away from touching a scalding stove. By the time they realize what happened, it’s over. And good luck trying to reproduce it.
Either way, “clipping” is rare. An unpleasant, glossed-over little defect of reality.
Yet you can't help but muse on it now, in the presence of someone much more prone to it.
Mr. Lopee's half-corporeality is currently the most intriguing, to you, of the many odd facets of his existence. He is, in simple terms, a ghost, complete with the basic quirks of being able to ignore gravity and walk through walls. But he can also choose not to do so, particularly when making contact with another being (i.e., you). (And you know that's not a constant, because you absolutely swiped a hand clean through him on one of your first meetings.)
It leaves you with many, many questions, but it's not like you're going to sit him down and pester him for hours on how being dead works. Who's to say he even has the full answers himself? You probably couldn't explain how all of your organs work, and you had textbooks to teach you about them.
Instead, you decide on one act to focus on.
Sometimes, seemingly by accident, his skin dips slightly through yours even while the rest of him is “solid,” a visually imperceptible slip but impossible to miss from the distinct frigid jolt it causes. Neither purely solid, nor purely incorporeal; an in-between that appears to allow clipping with relative ease. The questions, and the want to feel that again, properly- they gnaw at you.
So: you persuade him to reproduce it on purpose.
His expression is unreadable, formal as always, sat next to you with one of your hands in his own. His fingers press lightly against the back of it, testing the surface and leaving patches of cold behind shifted tendons. It seems to require some concentration on his part to find and maintain that in-between; it isn't a state that he ever needs to use, you suppose.
Predictably, your face gradually reddens from this. You can’t bring yourself to watch. You remind yourself it's just a short experiment.
You jump a little when his fingers finally breach the skin, sending a wave of intense cold down your arm. It feels like they're resting directly on your tendons, rendering the hand immobile in numbed shock. Plucking up the courage to actually look, you watch as he pushes a little deeper, the surface of your hand as smoothly unbroken as water, more flesh now intersected than just skin, and you shudder. It's like your muscles are splitting apart with the combined jittery density of you and him, yet it doesn’t quite hurt. There is that pervasive sense of wrongness, but it isn’t so strong as to make you jerk away. Alright. Great. That's what it feels like.
Contrary to what you expected, however, he doesn't let go just yet, apparently just as curious as you are while the opportunity stands. Instead, he lets his hand run slowly up towards your wrist- and when he gets there, you really shudder, your free hand flying to your mouth in embarrassment as well as… something.
Your hopes are both answered and shattered when he finally lets you go at that, needlessly readjusting his sleeves as you clutch your freed wrist to return some warmth to it and rid it of the residual tingling. His hands are an ever so slightly lighter shade of green with the brief warmth you lent him. Nervousness burning to your ears, you glance away; there's no way he didn't notice your reaction and you think you'd rather pick up D-227 than try to explain that right now.
By the time you process him telling you he'd in fact be willing to experiment further, he's gone.
You have no idea how you concentrate enough to stumble through the rest of the Blacksite alive that day.
~~~~~~~~~~
One hand is decidedly too small of a volume to work with.
You bite down on the inside of your cheek, staying as still as you can as he flattens his hand against your chest. You can feel the cold all too easily already, even through your clothes, and there's no doubt he can feel your racing heartbeat. Perhaps that's what his grin then widens at. The weight on your ribcage grows, and-
It's like leaping into ice-cold water, in reverse, if it also made the inside of your chest feel like it was being both compressed and stretched apart. The shocking numbness makes it hard to tell exactly where his hand is, but it's fully underneath your ribs for certain. The sensation is bizarre; if anything, you'd have expected having someone's hand literally inside your torso would be painful, yet, as before, it really isn't. The buzzing, fluttery pressure of it makes your thoughts scatter.
You still manage to worry for a moment that your heart might just freeze up and stop.
His hand turns, slow as if uncertain, and you tense as fingers pause against the inside of your lower ribs. Apparently, partly phasing through one material doesn't mean it applies to all of them. The suspense ticks by slowly, blood rushing in your ears. Then, he tugs slightly upward and you squeak out loud- not in pain but more so surprise, the inside-out touch utterly alien (and unexpectedly… good).
With some difficulty, you find your tongue to assure Lopee of this, your reaction having given him pause. It kills you twice over how sweet he can be despite… everything about him on the surface. You're already blanking again by the time he nods in acknowledgement, hand still cradling your bones.
This definitely isn't just an experiment anymore.
You try to be silent, but Almighty- he shifts his hand again, does anything at all and you unravel under him, sweet small gasps answering every graze and tug at your ribcage, every curious touch of your organs. Your entire torso burns with the cold, though your face feels like a furnace. You have no reason to be enjoying it this much, and yet, here you are. A few of your muscles twitch involuntarily from how much this isn’t supposed to be happening, matter trying and failing to sort itself out.
You wonder, for a morbid moment, what would happen if he simply decided to not be so gentle with this ability. To solidify further, to scramble your innards or rip your bones out through your skin. Somehow, you don't think you would mind all that much.
After scrabbling in vain to find any purchase on the surfaces around you, your shaking hands move to Lopee’s suit, clawing into it. You think a sound escapes him, but it’s hard to tell- it always is when his way of speaking seems half-real, a feeling more than a sound, ignoring the need for air or necessarily moving his mouth at all. The cloth is smooth and somewhat worn, and it feels a bit like it was stitched together with static in the same way his body is. That’s another small thing you wonder on and off about; is the rest of his body just… normal (as “normal” as anything about him can be)? Is there one at all, past a certain point? You’ve never seen him in a different outfit. Can-
Both of you freeze, interrupted, as your hand clips into him.
It’s only for a few seconds, but it’s more than enough for you to vaguely feel how fraying and dead he is through the overwhelming cold, and for him to have a turn tensing at the intrusion, the edges of his constant grin wobbling. For just a moment, before they separate, you see that flickering quilt of polygons where the back of your hand barely breaches the suit. It’s mesmerizing; and then it’s gone, and your attention is yanked back to the turmoil inside your own chest. Maybe you can return the favor some other time.
Your lungs hitch, breaths shallow, his hand squarely between them and grazing its chill against your heart itself. Each breath only shifts the flesh, each movement causing the area intersected by his arm to change, alternately sinking deeper and pulling back, which you feel all too clearly. The sensation creeps up your throat as he pauses there in consideration, and you fight hard against the urge to writhe or cough. Mercifully, or perhaps the opposite, he resumes to drag a finger solidly down the inside of your sternum, which sends your mind reeling into white noise.
Your focus swims back to reality to process that he's leaned closer. Much closer. Unblinking bright eyes, pupils dilated enough to be adorably noticeable, hover inches from yours, the chill of his body already lapping at your heated face. Trembling from the continued exploration of your innards, you reach up further to hook him closer in encouragement and he closes the gap.
As if it wasn't enough to start kissing you silly with everything else going on, he plunges his arm through you deep enough to reach your spine, trailing a numbing, loving touch down the vertebrae in reach one by one. You think if this goes on for more than a second you’ll faint, but it does, and you don’t, not quite, and it’s freezing, and it’s the most bliss you’ve been in since you were carted down to the Let-Vand, no, party specials don't compare, and it hurts-
It… hurts, dull and like nothing that’s killed you before. You think you’re bleeding.
It does not go unnoticed. Lopee pulls back, pupils still blown wide (head spinning, you try to remember how to breathe), to assess the spot where his arm intersects your torso. Apparently, his assessment deems it concerning enough to remove the arm.
You catch his sleeve to keep him there, thoughtlessly desperate as if losing contact would end your life despite the pain. You both stare, motionless, save for your own rapid, shaky breathing. Something is definitely wrong, beyond the obvious fact that there shouldn’t be two bodies in one space. It seems that maybe innards weren't made to be messed around in. At least, not to this extent.
“You are dying,” he observes. The sheen of your blood on the surfaced bit of his forearm is hardly visible against the dark canvas of his skin, but it's definitely there and sets off more sparks in your brain. His tone is nothing but factual, but something in the angle of his head seems apologetic.
“I know,” you manage to say. The air feels strange entering and leaving your body, as if it’s hitting ragged corners and taking detours. It probably is. “Fi-inish the job, will you?”
It takes a moment, but his grin melts back into place over his significantly brightened face. “As you wish.”
What’s one more death to the tally? This was more than worth it, you think, as your flesh fractures and reassembles in the wrong order.
The pain only gets worse from here, although fortunately, it’s considerably lessened by Lopee’s constant dulling cold and static. The skin is ruptured by now, you’re sure of that at the least if the rest of the damage is incomprehensible. Blood continues to seep through to stain your jumpsuit, and at some point trickles to the back of your throat. Something in you fails, sharp lines skewing organs apart even without direct contact, the result of your body trying to solve equations with no solution and simply fragmenting like a corrupted image. You’ve fallen even more limp than you already were.
Somewhere through the red-tinted haze of your senses shutting down, you’re aware of the pressure in your chest relenting, and of being cradled close and gentle to a death-cold, unbeating heart.
You hope this all gets to happen again.