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Kris knows how she looks. The large wide eyes that makes it look like she’s staring off into space, when in reality her thoughts are running a mile a minute and trying to process what’s going on. Expression blank. This is normal for her whenever something sudden and traumatizing happens. It’s the state she’s in right before the breakdown. It’s as if her body doesn’t understand how to react emotionally and has to buffer before letting it out. A delayed reaction if you will.
It’s the way she looked when she found out her mother wouldn’t be visiting home from her travels the first few times. It’s the way she looked when her dad dragged Josh away, when she snuck into the hospital and he said to stay away. It’s the way she looked when Levi fell to his death and his parents kept reassuring her he was missing and would be home soon.
It’s the way she looks now, after Levi, with eyes turned red, is standing before her crying his heart out. She found herself in a hug less than a second later, frozen in shock, mind reeling, not hugging back, knowing he wouldn’t take it personally. The other two teens in the room took this as a negative though, and tried to make Levi let go, and Kris had to find her voice to hiss at them a “no I’m not freaked out by a random guy hugging me, this is my best friend back off!!” Before hugging back, which earned her a wet chuckle from Levi and, god, she thought she’d never hear that sound again.
Now, come to find out, technically this Levi wasn’t her best friend, but another Kris’. Interdimensional variations and all that. No matter, for how she sees it is that the dead Levi and Kris are together now and friends and so the alive ones can be too.
Levi after learning this, bless his heart, tried to not make it weird, and Kris has not had an opportunity to tell him that it changes literally nothing because Wyatt and Jackson hadn’t stopped talking yet. Kris is gonna have to ask the other teens, Derrick and Ashley, for notes because she & Levi sure as hell aren’t paying much attention at that moment, instead opting to keep sneaking glances then straight up staring at each other. Can you blame them?
This comes to a head when Jackson is injecting them all with some ‘adapting thing?’ Kris’ll worry about later. Derrick and Ashley already got their shots, Levi was about to get his and instinctively went to hold Kris’s hand, only to hesitate. She, of course, grabs his hand before he gets a chance to back off. He shoots her a grateful smile, he never was a fan of needles.
They haven’t stopped holding hands since, not when Kris got her injection, not when their rooming situations were explained (and they actually payed attention this time), not when they were heading to the dining hall, and not now, when they’re finishing eating their dinner.
Kris is just pushing mac ‘n cheese around with her fork, not really feeling up to eating anymore. A white eyed spirit stared at their joined hands and gagged, “Huh. Cute. You disgust me.” Oh yeah, Null’s still here too. Kris has made it a point to not acknowledge her around other people.
“Grim?”
Kris blinks, “Sorry, say it again?”
Levi snorted, “I asked which room of yours did this place copy? The one at Lewis’ place or Josh’s?”
Each of them had a room that was basically a copy of their room back on their home dimension. Kris split time between 2 houses though, “Josh’s. Which makes sense because that’s the one I spent the most time at.”
Levi nodded, “Ah. Yeah.”
Kris scrunched up her face, stabbing a piece of pasta with more force than necessary, then scraping it back off her fork, “I’m not looking forward to sleeping in there though.”
“No?”
“No. I legit trashed my room freaking out after you…after Levi…Y’know a week ago. And now here’s a room that’s mine, identical but totally clean and I didn’t do it? My skin is crawling with a distinct sense of wrongness that will lead me to be sleeping on the floor in the living area.” Null rolls her eyes, “Overdramatic much?”
Levi shrugged and offered without hesitation, “Or just sleepover in my room.” Null failed to hide a laugh as he stilled, shrunk in on himself a bit and stuttered out, “Sorry, I-“
“I will absolutely be taking you up on that.” Kris cut off, pointing her fork at him.
Levi blinked, “Oh! Cool.” His free hand anxiously tapping on the table, “Also, you’re still always welcome in my room, just like, knock first?”
Kris nodded, “Cool. Yeah. Same.”
“Nice.” Levi pointed at her plate, a silent ‘can I finish that?’ And she passed it over. No point letting perfectly good macaroni go to waste. It’s not its fault sensory problems aren’t letting her eat much right now. After a few mouthfuls, Levi questions, “Can I ask, how did I…y’know?”
Kris took a deep breath, held it for a moment, “We took the shortcut through the woods after we saw a movie, there was this massive hole in the ground, you fell in. I passed out. Woke up at Josh’s place with no idea how I got there. When they searched the woods they couldn’t find a hole or any sign of you and you were declared missing. I wish I could tell you more but, uh, that’s it.”
Levi leaned in, eyes wide. “Woah…that’s…”
“Mysterious?”
“An inconvenience?”
He shrugged, leaning back, “Well I was gonna say spooky but yeah that works too.”
“Yeah.” Kris agreed as Levi finished the last of the pasta. “What about me?” It’s only fair.
Levi stacked the plates and utensils before starting, “We saw a movie, we were walking through town back home when a kid was about to get hit by a car. You shoved him out of the way and took the hit instead. The paramedics were called and you were rushed off in the ambulance, but you either died on the way or just when you got to the hospital.” He stopped talking in the way you know someone wants to say more, but doesn’t know if they should. And Kris has a pretty good idea why.
“…you know what I’m gonna ask next.”
Levi’s grip on her hand tightened, “Lewis didn’t recognize your face when you were wheeled in, no.” Null gave a whistle in sympathy.
Dr. Neglectful father for the win. Kris squeezed his hand back, “Oh wow, who could have guessed.”
Levi continued, “He was late to the funeral and didn’t stay that long. Which was at least better than ‘what’s her name’ who didn’t even show up.” Null raised her eyebrows “And I thought my family was bad. Well. He is. But yours suck too. Damn.”
‘What’s her name’, of course meaning Amanda, her mother who left the country as soon as she could and hadn’t come back since. “Shocker”
Levi scoffed, leaning on the table resting his chin on his hand, “They didn’t even plan the funeral, Josh & Benji took it over with no fight from your dad. They let my parents help too.”
Kris tilted her head, “You met Benji?”
Levi raised an eyebrow, “What? You didn’t?”
Kris started stimming with her fingers on her free hand, tapping on the table in a pattern, “Dude, Benji works out of town all the time. I’ve only ever talked to him on the phone. And honestly still a better parent figure than dad. Not to mention Uncle Joshua got himself dragged away to some weird psych ward.”
Levi leaned back and looked at her in shock, “Ok. That’s…wow. Just. Yeah none of that happened in my world. Are you serious? You seriously have never met Benji??”
“No? Why is that such a shock?”
Levi gestured up and down at her, “You’re still alt emo and I always thought you got your style from him.”
Kris’s jaw dropped before her eyes narrowed, “…okay well now I’m incredibly jealous.”
Levi started talking faster in the way he always does when he gets excited about something, “He showed us pictures from back when he was in high school and he wore heavy goth makeup, the eyeliner looked pretty similar to yours right now!”
“Mine?”
“Yeah!”
Kris’s hand reached up and felt along the veins growing under her skin from her eyes, “Pretty Boy this isn’t makeup. These are scars.”
Levi looked at her face in confusion, “They’re…huh?” Kris brought the hand she was holding to her face and she could tell when he felt them because his eyes widened in concern. Null watched them, unimpressed.
Kris sighed, “Look, I don’t remember all that much from yesterday’s talk with Wyatt since my head wound but the basics I have are as follows: The eye is a reaper eye, a species that doesn’t like or get along with this place. The scars, are from being possessed or directly attacked by the endite, y’know. Who also doesn’t like or get along with this place.”
Levi grimaced, “Yikes”
Kris continued, “Basically you woke up with a new eye color, I woke up with these scars and apparently I’m not even human anymore.” Null threw her hands up in annoyance, “What is with you and overdramatics?? It’s like you like to monologue? Don’t tell me I’m stuck with a fucking theatre kid-“
Levi looked concerned, “Grim-“
“So every stare I get is someone looking at the eye of one enemy and the scars from another and I can feel the disgust and anxiety from them and-“ Kris buries her head in her one free hand and mutters out, “this is just high school all over again but somehow much worse.” “Oh my god I AM stuck with a theatre kid. Kill me now. Again. Kill me again.” The spirit snaps her fingers in front of Kris’s face, “Hey! Quit ignoring me, I’m right here!!”
Levi looks down for a minute, “……I have a wacky idea.”
Kris looks at him the best she can with Null waving her hand in front of her face, “I’m listening.”
He clears his throat before standing up, Kris following along with him, still holding hands. They collect their dishes and put it in the bin marked to collect them. He turns toward the other teens and scientists and waves, “Hey guys! Grim & I are going to go up to relax and go to bed. G’night!”
The four bid them goodnight and the two head off to the elevator, Null forced to follow along. They only get lost once which is not too bad if Kris says so herself, take that concussion! “So what’s the plan?”
The elevator is playing some unrecognizable jazzy song. Levi asks, “You kept your facepaint at Josh’s place, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Fantastic! We’re gonna need some of that.”
Null crosses her arms and looks between the two of them, “God PLEASE tell me you two are getting a room. And Dear god please don’t make me watch.” Kris shoots her a look and she feigns innocence.
They arrive on their floor and make their way to the pale green door labeled “Death”. Levi knocks before opening it, getting a laugh out of Kris. They enter and they stop holding hands for the first time in hours for Kris to grab a bin down from the bookshelf she has in the far side of the room. She opens it and Levi digs around in all the pallets before pulling out the red one and holding it next to his face. “Hey look, it matches my eyes!”
Kris squints getting a good look comparing colors, “Close. Your eyes are more warm tone and the paint is cool tone.”
He chuckles fondly, “Ok but close enough right?”
“Yeah”
Null gags again.
“Great! Onwards!” Levi grabs Kris’s hand again and starts dragging them out of the room.
“Wait! Paintbrush!!”
“Not today Grim! Onwards!”
They make their way to the shared bathroom, and Levi tries pulling the lid to the paint off several times before Kris takes it from him and twists the lid off, and hands it back over. “Water stuff right?”
Kris nods, “Water based, mhmm”
Levi turns on the faucet and runs his fingers under the water before flicking the water on them into the pallet and rubbing circles with the pads of two of his fingers. Once the paint has liquified enough, he dragged those fingers over both of his cheekbones. He does jazz hands with his clean hand and rinses the excess paint off the other, “Tada!”
Kris raises an eyebrow and tilts her head, “War paint?”
Levi smiled wide, “Yeah! I figure if I do something it’ll make people wonder ‘what the heck is Levi doing?’ And I can change it up each day so maybe it could turn into a whole ‘what is Levi going to be doing today?’ Thing? Because the more people looking at me being weird, the less people are looking at you!”
And right here, right at this moment, is when the events of the past week decided to catch up with Kris.
He continued on, “So I could change up the number of lines each day, one day I could have something come up over the eye. Oh! If you’re comfortable with it, one day we could copy your scars on me and we could match or hey, you get a wild idea? Boom! Blank canvas right here! Or… hey are you okay? Is this a totally stupid plan? What’s going on?”
Kris didn’t realize she started crying until she reached for her scars and felt tears there too. “No, it’s not stupid. I really, really missed you.”
She started hand flapping and humming for a moment. Levi went to say something but before he could she flung herself at him and broke down into heaving sobs. Kris clung to him as if once she let go he would disappear again. After a second of surprise, Levi hugged back just as fiercely, and guided them both to sit on the floor together. “Oh, shit. Your turn. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot. I’m here. I’m back? I’m here. Im not going anywhere and you’re here too. We’re gonna be okay. We’ll get through this together.”
Null stood off to the side looking very uncomfortable. “This, uh, this is not the direction I thought this would go when I joked about getting a room.”
Levi was rocking Kris side to side, keeping her hands away from yanking her hair or hitting her head as they both sat there on the ground.
Null didn’t like the memories this was bringing back, “I do stand by my not wanting to watch though so, I’m just gonna go.” She looked at the two one last time before wrinkling her nose and fading from view.