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"Giggle. What's wrong, Jaybird?"
Don't look. It's not worth it. J kept her eyes shut tight, trying desperately to steady her breathing. The wound on her neck still bled freely, staining her suit with her own oil. A barbed tendril slid down from the gash on her neck, unwrapping it's length from where it had coiled around her and dug into her chassis, and came to a stop under her chin, tilting her head up slightly.
"Jaybird?"
Fuck. She didn't know how much longer she could hold herself together. The familiar voice made her core ache with an unbearable pain. Was she shaking already? J balled her hands into fists, digging her claws into her palms almost hard enough to draw oil.
The tendril slowly pulled away from her, much to J's relief. Just a little bit longer. A little longer and then it would get bored and let her go. She just had to not react.
"What's wrong, jaybird? Cat got 'yer tounge?"
A pitiful whimper escaped her voicebox against her will. She choked back another as it moved its hands to cradle her face.
Safety. Warmth. A reminder of a moment in time long ago where she had felt truly seen, genuinely loved, actually cared for. She had held J just like this. Had called her... What was it she said to her? Right, she had called her 'honey'. She had held her so gently, so lovingly, with such care in her... What colour had her eyes been again? All she could see in her mind was a silhouette. She looked beautiful even like that, with the freckles on her body almost looking like like silvery white stars against a midnight black sky. She hadn't looked like that, not really, but it was all J could remember. And she had been kind. Gentle. Loving. She had looked at J like she saw who she truly was instead of who he was forced to be. And cared about her even despite it. She hadn't hurt then. She had been clean and unharmed then, hadn't she?
Before she knew it, J was leaning into the touch, letting her body relax and her shaking slow. Its hands weren't gentle with her. They never were. Nobody was, not anymore. But it was the closest she had gotten in so long...
This time, J barely even tried to stop the low whine that worked its way out of her. She leaned fully into its her arms, letting herself relax and rest more of her weight on Tessa. Tessa simply just chuckled and brushed a stray strand of hair out of J's face.
"That's it, Jaybird. Be a good girl for me, okay? You need to rest."
J still didn't open her eyes. She couldn't bear to see what she had pressed herself up against. She tried to nod, but Tessa was holding her too tightly for her to move comfortably.
"Jaybird? Ya heard me, right?"
"Mhmm," J mumbled, too tired to form the right words for a proper response.
"Then get some rest. We've got a busy day tomorrow, alright?"
" ...Anythin' for you, boss..."
Tessa pulled her in closer to hold her properly. She slung one arm around her lower back, resting the other up higher between her wing hatches. "There we go. Not so hard, now is it? All ya gotta do is let yourself relax a little bit more!"
J didn't respond. The conversation felt hollow. Unessecary. It was her voice speaking, but it lacked any of its usual warmth. Tessa clearly wasn't happy with that. She moved her arm up from between her shoulders and placed it on the back of her neck. J didn't think much of it until she started to press her thumb into the still-healing gash. She let out a hiss of pain, and Tessa dug herself in farther.
"Hey, calm down girl. We talked about hissing. You know I don't like it when ya do that to me, right?"
J held back a choked whine. She nodded gently, trying not to accidentally push any harder on the wound.
It pressed itself in farther anyway, forcing J to hold back another pained noise. "Use your words, jaybird."
"Y-yes, boss. It won't happen again." It finally pulled away, letting the wound heal over.
Didn't talking to Tessa used to feel fulfilling? She was pretty sure it used to feel like a reward, not a chore. Her mind felt too scattered to really tell. It was like she was only thinking in short bursts, each one a slightly different observation. Why wouldn't it just fit together cohesively? What was she doing wrong?
She supposed it didn't matter. After all, she was laying in Tessa's arms again. Tessa somehow always made her worries melt away without even needing to speak. Just being with her was enough.
Why wasn't it enough?
It's not really her. Tessa's dead.
The body J was pressed against now was cold. The clothes it wore were tattered and torn. Even the bow it wore was dirty and stained. She didn't look, she still couldn't stomach opening her eyes, but she had seen it enough times to know. But she could pretend. She could pretend the arms that held her too tightly were Tessa's, even if Tessa had known that J didn't like being held so tight. She could pretend the voice that started humming a song she didn't recognise was Tessa, although Tessa herself had only ever memorised a few songs that she loved, all of which J knew by heart. She could pretend the body she had pressed her head against was really Tessa, even though she couldn't hear her heartbeat.
That thought calmed her down. Everything was okay now. She was in her favourite place, laying in Tessa's arms. Everything was going to be okay, because Tessa was there for her. That's how it has always been.
"Sleep well, jaybird."
J let herself drift off. She was safe. Just for once. Please, god, just let her be safe just for a moment longer. She couldn't take any more. All she needed was a few minutes of quiet...