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“This is so corny, I want you to know that.” Abby’s voice rings out across his mind as Dennis sets the table. “Like genuinely all we need is two random guys watching us and playing music and this is a straight up Disney moment.”
“I’m doing my best here,” Dennis places the little dollar store candle down on the table. A tea-light and nothing more. “The presentation will be lacking but the food will be divine.” Dennis tells her with a smirk.
The apartment smelled like a starving man’s wildest fever dreams. The air was thick with the scent of garlic, alive with the hiss of bubbling fat and the rumble of the oven working it’s little heart out. Dennis Doe isn’t sure of much but he is sure of food and he’s very certain he knows how to do food correctly.
“It’s lovely,” Abby tells him, “I mean it’s also kinda really weird but at the same time it’s sweet.”
“Hey, really weird and sweet are exactly what it’ll say about me in the yearbook. You should pitch them that quote,” he holds up his hands, “Dennis Doe- The sweetest weirdo we got.”
“Dennis Doe,” Abby leans out of him, “no better company to have.”
He laughs and she leans on his head. “Can I help?” She asks and Dennis purses his lips. “Hey don’t get all weird you can give me the grunt work. You want me to mash potatoes or skin the steak?”
“You can’t…” He blinks. “I hope you know you can’t skin a steak. I need to know you know that.”
“You just don’t vibe with the current snack sensibilities. You got pork shavings, maybe we do steak shavings and charge an extra ten bucks a bag.” Abby rubs her fingers together and Dennis makes a little noise. “You gotta admit some people would go for that.”
“God they would.” He nods slowly. A little bleat sounds out and he turns to the oven. “You could get that for me.” He tells her and Abby leans out from his back, popping the oven open and without the need for gloves she just levitates the pan out. Placing it down on a table she smirks.
“I can’t fucking believe that.” She rests her chin on her fist. “There’s no way that should have worked. You cheated. Dollar store bacon and dollar store potatoes legally can’t become something that looks this nice.”
In a baking tray for cupcakes, sat four ‘roses’ that is to say they were not genuine roses. No they smelled much nicer than actual roses and honestly if you tried to eat an actual rose you’d be called kind of crazy. These though- these were fine to eat.
“It’s easy just slice potatoes real thin, layer them in bacon and roll it up. Blast them to hell in an oven and voila,” Dennis grins, “the only damn roses I could afford.” His tone turns sour and Abby wheezes at that. She grabs his shoulders and shimmies them back and forth.
“The first set of roses I’ve got in years, dude. I don’t give a rat's ass.” She watches him reach over and grab some flaky cheese and a few green bits. Sprinkling them on top of the ‘roses’ before he puts them back in the oven and sets it for five minutes. “Ughhh I hate this part, I can’t even GET hungry and this part kills me.”
“Anticipation whets the appetite,” Dennis kicks the oven closed, “cooking is the ultimate Dominant act for your partner.”
“Buddy if you think in any universe you are the dom in this relationship,” Abby slides into his body and pops out of his chest, throwing her arms around her neck while leaning out of him, “you are so fucking adorable. Also wrong. Adorably wrong is what you are.”
“I mean you’re the one whose demanding food aren’t you?” He swivels back around to the frying pan, hissing and spitting. He smirks at her and stares through her at the steak sat in the pan. “Man I sometimes feel bad about stealing luxury stuff like this,” he mutters, “then I remember I get to eat it and I don’t feel so bad.”
“It was getting tossed out anyway.” Abby tells him. Their food theft often came in two flavours. Messing up the rich and walking through the Booper-Market (yes I went there) and finding the food they were about to throw out. Plenty of food got tossed, despite it being fine. Maybe it looked a little lumpy, maybe it was a day before the best by date but hey…Dennis was already dead.
Besides those things are suggestions on everything that ain’t bread or milk or fruit….
In the pan sizzles a steak, surrounded on all sides by popping fat. Dennis nods his head to one side. “I kinda gotta,” Abby blows out the corner of her mouth and she slides from his chest, across his side and over until she rests on his back. Her arms loop around his neck and she leans on him. Weightless but he can still feel the pressure of her. “Thanks.”
Her nose presses into the top of his head and he has to keep focused on the food or he’s gonna lose it. Since Abby could get out of him, even just a little bit. Things have been…Different when they were alone. She’s so, tactile is a sterile word and its accuracy notwithstanding it doesn’t say enough. She’s just sort of always clinging or touching and well she’s already inside of him.
She’s already always there, always present. He can feel her move through his body at all times, a sensation not unlike a tremor that circles and enfolds him. It’s as if someone breathes a second after he does, he feels a smile that rests over his own, a little series of motions and sensations that exist. He feels her fingers move against him, he feels her descend and rise through him. Floating without effort, scaling the edifice of his spine. He was used to an entire buffet of alien sensations and stimuli that comes from sharing your physical vessel with another being.
He…He rather enjoyed some. Which makes him feel creepy. But how do you explain to someone you enjoy that!? How do you tell someone you love the feeling of someone rising up from inside you, their presence building from a dot in the darkness to a brilliant buzzing energy. That he loves it when she slides her presence over his and it’s like being held. Just…Held so tightly and snugly. It’s like thunder dancing on his skin and he’s never felt more energised, more comfortable than when she and he get in sync.
“I always thought it was pronounced Thigh-me.” Abby mumbles and Dennis smirks. “I can hear you laughing at me.”
“I mean it depends where you’re from. They say it like that back home?” He asks and Abby makes a gutteral sound in her throat and Dennis swears he can FEEL the length of his entire spine. “Ughhh.”
“Ach aye, yer pure deed rite wee man, back in me native tongue wi wis awl cawlin it at. So we were.” Her brogue snaps in, thick enough to scrape windows with. A proper Scottish drawl and just as soon as it’s here. “Nah I just heard it said that way once or twice I think.”
“I mean it’s just said like time. Thyme.” Dennis goes on, he pushes the steak around in the pan and using a spoon he bastes the steak in the melted butter. The air around here causes a little stinging in his eyes. Used way too much garlic for sure. Ah well you live and you learn. Or he supposes in his case you die and still learn.
You never stop learning.
Abby outside of him and holding him, leaning on him, looking at him. It feels different. It feels very different to meet her eyes every day. It feels very different to put a face to the name. He’s met her before, he’s seen her millions of times. She’s the furthest thing from a stranger he could possibly know. She’s a part of him and he’s a part of her. Their union is utterly inseparable.
There are hard lines between them and they keep it that way. Certain things are impossible by design and certain things are impossible by choice. They once a long time ago debated, several drinks deep…A proper union. A blurring of all the lines between is and was to find out what could be. A melting down of the big steel walls between him and her and seeing what would come of it. Who would survive, would it be either of them? Someone new? A potlatch of the two of them. They had no idea the idea felt…While interesting…Sacrilegious.
They both had things they wanted to get away from and both of them had pasts that were just that. Past, finished, over and done with them. They’d walked out stranger, missing pieces and yes stronger too.
Tossing themselves away felt cruel. So they would remain as they were.
Together but not the same.
Dennis can’t help but notice the way her grip grows tighter in places. Does she have thoughts like this? Long winded asides about who they were and who they might have become if things were different?
Deep down and she goes deeeeeeeeeeep there’s something genuinely fucked up about this. She knows there is, you don’t have to go far to work out that it’s unusual.Her and Dennis are close, they can’t not be. Still you have to wonder what exact chemical of fuckery has to occur for the bird in the cage to decide they adore the cage. She’d locked herself in to keep him alive. She’d lived every minute with him for three years and in those three years she’d managed to do something stupid.
She’d fallen in love with this weirdo.
He didn’t talk about himself, she knew his name and scant little else. He lived in the moment, he was always trying to find something to do or someone to help. He’d done nothing but help people since they met up. Heck trying to help her was how they met. An act she rewarded with her jaws and a skinny dip into the world beyond. He should have hated her, he has every right to despise her. She tries to make his life at least amusing, with these powers and the things they let him do.
He repays her though. Gives her private time with his flesh, lets her experience those lost sensations of life and feeling. He gives her something for every gift she gives him. He stands between the world and her snarling rage but he insists he’s not needed for that. He has patience and he gives a shit and god…She wants to hold him.
She squeezes him and Dennis tenses slightly. She wants him to feel good, she wants to be the reason he feels good. If he smiles because of her then that’s wonderful, if he laughs with her that’s amazing. She moves through him, she glides the length of his spine, bathes in the electrical flow of his nerves and sometimes she looks at his mind. Sometimes she thinks about knocking and asking if she can come in.
Not full time, not permanently…Just to see it, just to see how he thinks and works and understand him utterly. It’d be nice but they don’t do that, she won’t mess around in his head like she has so many others. This is an agreement, a partnership despite how often it feels like a hostage situation.
“I think…” Dennis plates the steak and lets it sizzle, “I have timed this…” He points at the oven. He points at the oven. Oven.
“Doing terrific.” Abby snickers and he swats at her, she responds by sinking into his back. Then the oven dings and she emerges from his chest to pull out the bacon wrapped potato rose things. “These are so fucking cheesy it hurts.”
“I actually really wanted to make something with cheese,” Dennis admits, “but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“If you had your way you’d be making stuff like this for every couple we know.” Abby places the tray down on a counter. “Admit it you’d love to do that. Just make a big corny feast of these for everyone.”
“I mean…” Dennis rubs his hands together. “It wouldn’t be bad.” He mutters. “Most of this is simple stuff and it always looks so good.” He leans over and looks down at the crispy roses, melty cheese giving each one a shine. “It's almost a shame we have to eat this.”
“No it isn’t. Bitch I’m hungry.” Abby mumbles, rubbing her stomach. “I mean I’m NOT but I can be and that’s your fault.”
“Oh I’m so sorry I returned the gift of cuisine to you.” Dennis smirks as he lifts the roses from the tray. Placing the four of them on a plate. “Steak has to take ten minutes to cool down. Which gives us time for a crispy treat.” He chuckles as he moves over to the table. Abby leans out of him and rubs her fingers together over the wick lighting the candle.
A soft green flame in a place already sweltering with heat. Oven off, pans off the heat but still with the window open the place was still a furnace. Dennis reclines in the folding chair he bought specifically to sit at this fancy table- also a folding table that he stole from from the school. He didn’t bother with the pomp of it all but for Abby he wanted to make a little effort.
She was worth it. She was so worth it and he loved to see her face break into a big delighted smile.
“So how do you eat this art project?” She leans this way and that. Dennis holds one up.
“Like savages my dear.” He takes a bite and there’s a crispy crackle, he exhales steam and waves a hand at his mouth. “Oh that’s hot.” He mumbles around a scalding. “That’s so hot!” He chuckles and Abby folds her arms over her chest, doing her best not to laugh at him.
“You good?”
“Yesh.” He gestures for her to come closer with the crook of his finger. “You want to try it?” He asks and she slides into him. He opens his mouth and flames lick over his face, consuming him utterly and leaving Abby there. She’s using his body to feel these things.
She stares at his hand and it pauses.
“Oh no.” She tells him. “You gotta feed me yourself. You can keep your hands.” She opens her mouth and makes a little sound. His hand shakes for a moment before slowly moving towards her. It’s double vision he’s seeing through her eyes which are just layered over his own. It’s like seeing a sea of green and over that sea there’s the world he knows.
He moves the food to her and she takes a bite. She sits up straighter, eyes screwing shut in total delight.
“Dennis, this is the bougiest crisp I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, I want you to know that.” She tells him and below, somewhere in the dark of them she can hear him laughing so much it rattles her chest.
When they swap she wonders where he goes, somewhere below the surface same as her. Is he floating around in his own chest now? Somewhere inside her? The exact physics of this thing were a bloody pain.
The rose twists between fingers, beckoning for another pass and Abby takes another bite. “Oh these are good. These are gooood.” She mumbles, letting her head flop back. “I have no idea how you stay so skinny with all this junk.”
All the running around. His voice by her ear. Madly fixing messes and cleaning up after people tends to burn your energy.
“Oh yes. Surprised you took today off.” Abby tells him, her tone isn’t as prickly as she worries it might be. “Are you sure the world can survive without your timely intervention?”
Whole world is right here today. He tells her and he wonders at once where that came from, Abby sits up. She swallows, she doesn't chew and so she wheezes and the illusion snaps as Dennis tumbles back into his own flesh and gropes for water.
He chugs it while a ghostly arm sticks itself into his chest and quickly tugs out a chunk of potato.
I GOT IT!
“....Okay that…okay now we KNOW you can do that.” Dennnis mutters, his eyes wide. The chunk of food flies across the room into the trash. “Thanks, that coulda went bad.”
What did you say? She slides out of him. “What was that line right before that?”
“I…” He stares at her. “I ummm.” He feels like he’s sinking into his seat and she’s growing taller. “You’re the important person today. I mean…I thought you’ve not really had one of these in-”
Her hand slams down on the table, the little candle goes out and all the plates float upward. “That’s not what you said. Say it again.” She stares at him.
“...Whole world is right here today.” He repeats, a little red in the face. “I guess I just feel corny.” He can’t avoid her, he can’t evade her. She’s part of him and right now she won’t stop looking at him.
“Dennis do we…should we talk about something?” She asks him. “I feel like we need to…maybe…Address an elephant in the room.” She’s rehearsed this. She’s practised. She’s spent hours in the dark trying to justify her tangled up little feelings for him. The man she murdered, the cage she put herself in, the eyes through which she sees the world.
The haunted house she keeps standing through blood, sweat and yes sometimes tears.
Dennis takes a breath and exhales through his nose. “I mean there’s not much to talk about,” he scratches at his cheek. “It’s all really obvious, isn’t it?” Dennis looks at Abby. She’s known him for about as long as anyone ever has, she was there at the start of all this and god willing she’ll be here at the end of it all. He has no idea quite what that means for them. Do ghosts age? What the hell is he?
Some soul-starved thing who falls apart without help. Held together by spit and hopes and the fact that he knows he’s got stuff to do here among the ambulatory.
There was very little doubt in his mind when he saw her, when he held her in his arms for the first time, when she and he held one another close. She was everything, she was the light behind his eyes and the warmth in his smile. She’s the world and he’s just everything else that orbits her.
“Abby.” He looks at her and she looks at him. “I don’t feel like it needs to be said but I also admit that I think that about a lot of things that seem obvious.”
“BEFORE.” She holds up a hand. “BEFORE You go on and say something about like…a book or a quote.” She takes a breath. “Let me just really speed-run my thoughts and feelings here.”
“Sure thi-”
“I LOVE YOU.” It’s out there. It’s not let out with anything like grace, that little fire on the table roars into an inferno briefly and throws their shadows across the wall.
“For…how long?” That’s the actual first question out of him.
“I…I DUNNO.” Abby rests her first on her lips. “I mean. A while. It was an itch.” She mutters. “It was a really weird vibe. It…Grew.”
“Oh.” Dennis picks up his drink and takes a sip. “Oh well that’s good.”
“What?” Abby looks at him and he just shrugs his shoulders. They’ve got maybe a few inches between them. She’s sticking out of his chest, cut in half at the waist. There wasn’t much space between them. He reaches out and takes her arm and tugs her closer, he puts his chin on her shoulder.
“Dennis are you-”
“I love you, Abby.” He holds her, her arms fasten around his back, a clap of her palms slapping down.
“For…How long?”
“....” He takes a breath. “A while. Probably a little longer than you.”
“How can you be-”
“The second week. When my nightmares were bad. When I woke up, shaking, crying and I didn’t know what to do to make them stop. The really early days, the days at the very start where I kept sinking into you.” He murmurs. “When I wasn’t solid and you weren’t certain. When we’d rise and fall in each other like the tide. Where we’d fight our way to the surface but the idea of letting the other one drown was a nightmare.”
He rested his head against hers, her body was never warm but it was always comforting to hold her. To feel her hold him, that pressure.
“The really early days.” He mumbles. “When I woke up alone in the dark, my head hurting and my chest on fire and through the sobs I heard you. I heard your voice telling me you were sorry and we were going to be okay. That we were going to fix it all and you kept…” He rubs his hand up and down her back. “Just like that, just like that.”
He mumbles quietly. “You were there in the dark. I never…I don’t think I had a voice in the dark Abby. I don’t think I had someone who would hold me and tell me we’d be fine until you.” He closes his eyes and he’s almost in that apartment on the other side of nowhere. Shaking and feeling something like thunder rumble across him. Warmth that spreads out and whispers into his ear.
“It’s alright. It’s not easy but we’ll do this.” In a quaking voice. As much for her as it was for him. “I’ve got you.” She said it first.
“I’ve got you.” He tells Abby now as he holds her. “I’ve got you, Abby.” She shakes in his arms and her head thumps lightly against his.
“You’re so dumb,” she mutters her voice high, “I had all these fucking…Ideas and…I was so sure you’d find me fucked up. After all that I-” His hand moves up and down and it pushes out the little sobs.
“Shh. Don’t even say it. Don’t. You’re good. I love you.” He tells her and the minute he says he feels her breath hitch inside his own body and she pulls back. He looks at her, she’s doing her best not to cry ugly.
She cries so fucking hideous.
She presses her lips against his and he holds her. It’s not a thing of wild passions or tangled shock. It’s just a kiss that lingers long enough to quash any doubts that either side might have held. The sort of kiss that makes intentions known, simply, elegantly and without the need for words to ruin it.
It’s finding your other half and finally letting them know this was always how it had to go.
There’s a loud ding.
“The steak-” Dennis turns to leave and Abby drags him back over and holds his lips in place, she opens her eyes and there’s fire in there.
The steak can wait.
They waited for each other and so it can hold its damn horses.
Her eyes close slowly and Abby’s arms fold around his shoulders. He supports her back, one hand sliding under her jacket to get closer to her.
“You realise,” she breaks contact with a hiccup almost, “the issue here…Right?”
Dennis looks at her and shakes his head. She smirks.
“You’re gonna have a date…BUT STILL be going to prom alone.” She snickers and Dennis covers his mouth. It’s not funny….It’s not funny. He shouldn’t laugh.
“...So are you asking me to prom?” He manages to say around a smile. “I mean…You’re technically not a student.”
“Shut up. You’d never invite me.” She pokes him in the chest.
“I mean…You’d probably turn me down for Polly.”
“Phwoar too right.” Abby snickers. “But she hasn’t bloody asked me yet so if you hurry up-”
“Wanna go to prom?”
“FUCK. YES.”.
Dennis sighs in relief. “Oh thank god. If you didn’t say I was gonna ask Polly so she wouldn’t invite you.” She starts thumping him on the back with the flat of her hand. “OW OW! KIDDING! KIDDING!”