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“are you positive you’re comfortable with this?”
collective was hovering over classic with a curious gaze, almost studying as their arms carefully caged the corpse. their head tilted like a confused puppy’s, wide blue and green eyes mapping every little expression on classic’s face. this was a risky task, certainly one they didn’t want to get wrong especially with their lack of knowledge on proper humanisms.
“yes, yes, yes, i’ve already told you yes, just get on with it,” classic shoved himself back into the pillow lining of the closet, forcing out his anxieties with a huff. “i need to get over this, i can, i just gotta.. get used to it,” he took another breath, letting his eye sockets flutter closed as he braced himself. he had desensitized himself before, he could desensitize himself again.
collective gave a hazy hum before they pressed their face into the crook of the corpse’s neck. for a moment, all classic could feel was the brush of papery lips against long rotten skin, so gentle the thought of a tear occurring didn’t even come to mind. then those lips opened, instead of a flesh tongue or hot breath against his neck, all he got was an increase in that formaldehyde smell and four cold wires squirming against his neck and exploring the small rips in his skin. the feeling made his blood freeze over and his hair stand on end. he took another breath and forced himself still. he wanted to be able to handle the wires, he knew he could, he would get over it.
“are you okay?” the soft voice emanated from the taxidermy against him without their lips even bothering to move, those big eyes simply shifting to look at at him. he peeked his eye sockets open just enough for those pinpricks of light to shine through as he made eye contact.
“mhm,” was all he could get out before shutting his eyes again, trying to push back any unwanted thoughts or memories that resurfaced. he could do this. he could do this.
collective continued to trail along classic’s neck with their wires, the more mature of them pushing back the crude comments in their head from a certain someone who was upset about things not moving fast enough. this was about trust. they had to be careful… but a little more likely wouldn’t hurt, right? they tentatively brought a hand to run fingers along the sewn up gash in classic’s chest, pressing gently into the gaps between the thread. they’d done this a million times with classic, but now that the wires were involved, it was potentially pushing it a bit too far. so they studied, eyes watching every little twitch of muscle beneath the surface of classic’s torn skin for any sign of discomfort.
the pressing against his chest cavity was too much for classic. normally it’d be fine, but with the wires against his neck, it recontextualized the fingers slipping beneath his skin and only made him feel nauseous. he tried to push through it, tried to get over it, but it was too much. a strained noise leaving his throat as he tapped at the padded floor as fast as his had would go.
“tapping- tapping, tapping,” he forced out as his hand sped up even faster, the only thing running through his head a chorus of get out get out get out get out.
collective pulled off him immediately and pulled their wires back into their mouth, hidden away behind their teeth. folding their hands unnervingly, perfect in their lap as they sat back on their heels. their eyes were as wide and glossy as ever, the tiniest frown on their face as they tried to analyze what exactly they’d done wrong. “sorry! we can refrain from any more touches,” they blurted softly through their teeth, still looking for the exact issue and refusing to take their eyes off of classic, who was now across the closet, still shaking a bit. a chorus of suggestions clamoring over each other to try and point out the flaw in their head.
“no, no it’s fine, i just..” classic bit at a scabbed, chipped lip, trying to get the words to properly form sentences in his head before he could speak them, though they only seemed to jumble together, harder to get out coherently the more he thought about it. he took another breath. he seemed to breathe a lot for a man without lungs, but it helped him so he didn’t bother with that sort of thought dissection. “the wires were too much, i thought i could handle them, but i couldn’t, we can try again some other time..” the words biting his tongue as he spoke. he averted his ‘eyes’ from meeting with collective’s, not wanting to meet that glassy, curious gaze that always seemed in some way, wrong. though he supposed that wrongness was by design. there was a beauty in that, he supposed, in what appeared just human enough to be off putting. then again, not even he himself was unaffected by the uncanny valley that collective ever so gently sat themselves in.
collective, meanwhile, still sat perfectly still on their heels, that small little frown growing ever so slightly at classic already trying to push himself back into uncomfortablility. “you don’t have to, really, we really don’t mind keeping our wires hidden, we understand-”
“then you’d understand why i have to get over this,” classic cut them of bluntly, wishing he could convey the tapestry of words and images in his head coherently enough through his long decayed vocal chords as easily as any other word. he’d never understood why words had to become more difficult to say based on context. complexity made sense, syllables getting twisted the more were stacked on, but context was a fickle thing. humor at his own expense came easy, he could talk about his flaws till his his throat ached from words running like water, but no matter how much he tried to express to collective how exactly he felt in that moment, the ideas themselves swirled in his head and the english language became incomprehensible. throat closing up and tongue going numb and heavy in his mouth. words shouldn’tve been that hard and yet they were. not the oddest paradox he’d had to deal with in himself, but one of the more annoying.
“but you don’t have to, you shouldn’t have to,” collective spoke up after a while, wires visibly shifting under their cotton stuffed skin with the nerves despite their efforts to still them. it should’ve been easy to keep the wires hidden away for classic’s comfort, they did it all the time running the shop, so why was it so difficult to keep them in now? why did every single wire that made up their skeleton, nervous system, and consciousness crave for touch.
“i want to though,” classic interjected, trying to put those swirling images in his head into meaningful words. breath after breath, lungless chest heaving as he tried to sort himself out. strings of half sentences came and went before he could properly get them out until he just decided to word vomit his way through conversation. “i want to be able to hold all of you, to love all of you, not just the surface. is that so hard to understand?”
collective’s face would’ve flushed red if it still had the blood to, a faint orange remnant glow the only substitute they could easily muster to represent that feeling that made the wires in their core curl inward. “we.. hm..” they paused, no one making any good suggestions for what to say in response. they all took the chance to mull it over, never breaking that uncanny gaze even if they wished they could. “we.. appreciate the sentiment, but you really don’t have to, we know how it affects you and we’d rather not replicate those memories for your sake.”
“i don’t care, i want to get over it, i want to love you,” classic still refused to make eye contact but scooted a bit closer to collective, pulling his legs into sitting crossed and pushing himself up so he was also upright and not laying on the pillows and beanbags that littered the closet. he grabbed those folded hands and felt the wires slither underneath the skin. the sensation made a wave of nausea roll over him but he brushed it away. “let me love you.”
“may..” they paused, mulling over their own question as they unconsciously shifted their hands to wrap around classic’s. “may we hold you?” they sounded almost pleading, they wanted, no, needed some sort of physical sensation to stop the squirming inside them. if they hadn’t liked classic so much in the form he already took, they’dve turned him into a weighted blanket by now.
classic gave a little nod followed by a soft, “mhm,” slumping into collective’s arms without much fanfare. they’d both shifted until his head lay on their chest and plush soft arms held his shoulders and ran fingers through his hair. a soft slithering could be heard where a heart might’ve once beat, and strangely enough, when he didn’t picture it to be the sound of wires in his head, no nausea or cold flash washed over him. instead all that came was a soft warmth pulsing from within his own empty chest and spreading out to the rest of him and weighing him down further into collective’s cotton soft chest.
eventually he’d managed to get out the words he’d been meaning to say this entire time, not a declaration of what he wanted to do, but a simple statement. one that likely only slipped out because the warm fuzz that spread throughout him had already mostly lulled him to sleep. a very soft, yet just as concrete, “i love you,” followed by the muffled sound of snoring.
“we love you too.”