STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT TOGGLE DARK MODE BACK TO NEXUS It took thirteen days for Mneme to say that which was unsaid, and she did so quietly. Her knees tucked up to her chest and arms wrapped around them as she stared down at Morri from the stiff bed, watchful eyes on the stretch of their leg to accommodate their fucked ankle as they pretended to read. Was difficult to do so with such focus leveled on them, and even worse when bunking two stories deep on the nurse’s behalf. Caravan she was with was taking a breather before the final leg of their journey to their final destination, and the people there were gracious enough for the temporary aid to afford closed off rooms. She watched them, they ignored it, and the ventilation system whined away in the walls. When they resorted to tracing each word with a finger to try and keep track of them, Mneme leaned closer into herself and spoke. “Do you want me?” No hunger in the words. Not a single shine-through of the look she got on her face whenever Morri tried to walk unsupported. Just quiet nerves. With their back pressed onto the bed from where they sat on the floor, Morri felt the shift when she crossed her ankles together and rocked back an inch. An inch forwards when they looked over their shoulder at her instead of responding. Her back a stiff curve, her hands clenched tight enough for the knuckles to pop out, stark-white, from the rest of the skin. She met their stare through the lenses of their mask and did not look away. It was not the look she got when fixated upon their pain, but one of careful composition. “Morri?” Morri considered the nurse, one finger still slid between the pages of their book on a chapter with an interesting name. They hadn’t expected a single thing to come from the solitary suspicions of theirs. Nothing from their own nerves at Mneme’s quiet in the worst of their pains, the care for their ankle which passed so frequently into agony that they could not help but wonder- wonder what? She was a nurse among a caravan of them, one pretty face in a crowd, and her smile was perfectly polite. She was not as they were; the only true comparison to be made was the stiff state of her hair, perfectly mirroring Morri’s own underneath the hood and mask. They did not trust her- not a slight upon Mneme herself, for they thought plenty of people meant them ill- with their face, but Morri watched the slow side of her eyes from their own to their ankle and came to the quiet realization that they might not mind it so much. Mneme did not speak with a single other person beyond them beyond what was absolutely necessary. Morri had seen her hover around the worst of the cases which were traveling with her merry band, but none of them were as gristly as themself- those people walked on their own, and Morri had to curve into her side, shivering, sweating, and hissing, for any chance at a parody of self-sufficiency. They were curious, and Mneme was the first in a long while to meet their eyes. So what if she was fixated upon the pain, rather than the person? She didn’t look it, curled up like that. She looked pretty, and she almost looked familiar. Morri dog-eared the page they were on, then the one which they had been saving, and set their book aside. Leaned in and linked their hands- more habit than anything else, a gesture as easy as breathing, but they smiled to themself when Mneme’s eyes darted down to them- and spoke in plain terms. “Sure.” Morri knew they looked a sight to her. Injury on such clear display, hands clasped together in a mock of imploration, head tilted to the side as they leaned towards her- they were curious. More than that, they were amused as they watched Mneme flounder. Her eyes darted, minnow-flashes in shallow waters, and she did not say a single thing. Had she not expected anything to come from a direct approach? Seemed startled enough for that. Morri twisted their body around to fully face her and set a gloved hand upon the edge of the bed. Settled on their knees, rather than the awkward half-turn, and made sure to shiver at the pain it brought. (Morri only knew what a minnow was because they had read about them. Little fish which got eaten up by all sorts of other critters and didn’t have many requisite conditions for breeding. They thought it was a pretty good joke, if a bit heavy in the background knowledge. Ought to remember to tell that one to Mneme when they got the chance.) They clutched the bedsheets for a moment, then reached up with both hands to remove their mask. Brushed the hood to their shoulders with the same motion, then smiled up into Mneme’s face with their own. Made sure the first she saw from them was a good one. Morri hadn’t seen her talk to anyone but them for any longer than necessary, and she didn’t look interested in a single one of them. Not a single ounce of the look she had then. She would not tell a single person about them. Morri was sure of it. They set the mask beside their book, then reached a hand out towards Mneme. Felt every single muscle of their face shiver under the spotlight-stare, the hitch to their breath more unintentional than their words. It had been a long time since anyone laid them bare- fucking, sure, but Mneme stared. “You’ll have to help me up, I think.” Mneme reached out a hand of her own and clasped theirs in a strong grip for a single moment before faltering when they spoke again. “Unless you want to come down here?” She did not smile at Morri, nor the humor in their voice. She balked- eyes up to their own and then to the side in a second- but did not fully release their hand. Leaned in a bit closer when Morri closed their hand around hers, tight enough to be felt yet gentle enough to pull away without any struggle. As clear an invitation they could put out without saying anything more. Their other hand went back to the edge of the bed, and they gripped it just as softly. Mneme stared at Morri’s chin, the tip of their nose, and then the clasped hands. Her face was blank, but it usually was. Had to look at the eyes and listen to the voice, and her voice was soft when she answered them. “Another time.” Another waver at the end of the statement. She looked up and met Morri’s smile. When it did not fade, she flashed them a bastardization of the beatific smile that they’d seen already many a time before. The lips peeled back to show off more teeth yet the eyes not as squinted, a far more natural look which stayed longer than smiles typically did with her. It was, Morri took note of, a pretty expression. Mneme tightened her grip, then stood from the bed to better haul Morri up to their own feet. A moment suspended- Mneme’s hold the sole anchor in an existence of weightlessness, her stare still tangible as she looked from their face to their footing and shifted into the already practiced stance- and then a brace for pain when they instinctively made to set their bad foot down to stand stolen as she caught their weight in her arms. She pressed as close to them as she always did, two shards slotted together neat, but even as she slid a hand under an arm as she did every other time to take up more of their weight, Morri could feel her warm breath upon their cheek, the burn of skin through layers upon layers as they forced their own body to accept the aid. Curiosity and a spot of fun to be found in careful, detached observation had been a weak excuse already, the creak of the bed under their shared weight as Mneme sat them down together just another damning contradiction otherwise. The nurse was pretty, and she listened to them as they spoke. Morri braced their bad foot upon the ground without thought- they’d wanted to shift their weight further in towards the wall- and Mneme pressed even closer at the hiss that dredged up. Warmth upon the entire length of their left half. Pressure which relented only so Mneme herself could bring them away from the edge. She did not speak, but her eyes were bright. It had been a while. (Morri did not enjoy the nurse’s doting method of care, much less when they had realized three days in that they were the sole person subject to it. Mneme hovered. She pressed her hands into the meat of their leg and foot with a pressure that Morri was sure other people did and could not assert, a push-in which made it impossible to ignore her constant prodding. She had stitched their wounds, and when they had asked for a recounting when they were no longer shrieking and writhing into the meat of the earth from the pain of it all, she laid out every single detail with an eagerness her voice, not her face, showed clear. She had even tried, after sure they were coherent enough to eat, to spoon food into their mouth. They’d nearly died from the mortification. Mneme did not have a single matronly bone in her body. Her oppressive care was not born of a loving, doting heart, Morri was sure of it. But there was another thing ducking behind the hunger of it. And it had been a while. Curiosity was paper left to drown and tear in the storms- Morri cared to learn, but even greater than that was that realization that Mneme would not talk to a single person about them. She was as detached as they were in that regard. It should have felt more dramatic than that, but it just felt right. A stone slotted into the one hole which would hold its every groove- Mneme could fuck them, could lay the meat and bone of their leg bare, and touch them, and not a single thing would leave the tiny space of air between them.) Mneme was attentive in Morri’s careful shifting so that they were run parallel with the length of the bed, rather than half-seated off of it, and she spared a long look to their ankle when they stretched it out to the least painful of positions. She hovered over them, and the hunch of her shoulders so she could be closer to them made her look like an eager vulture. Morri smiled at the thought, and Mneme smiled back without knowing why they had done it in the first place. Morri was careful as they unbuttoned their poncho. Slid out of it and folded it carefully, unwound the scarf from their neck to go on top of it. Took a bit of shuffling to get out of their trench coat while half slumped. They paused at their sweater, but only long enough to watch Mneme wriggle out of her own outer layers. Much longer and all eyes would be on them without anything else to do but stare. Bunched up the bottom hem and then pulled it all over their head quick, rolled it up on top of the rest of their clothes, and deliberately did not cross their arms. Eyes on Mnem, then the wall. Mneme reached out for the stack of clothing, and they handed it to her. Stared hard at her own eyes and tracked every movement until she looked the opposite way to set everything on the concrete floor. She turned back and looked at Morri’s face, their chest, and then their arms. Morri did not bristle. It was a choice which required a good deal of pointed will. Mneme lingered only a moment on the scars cut deep- just a single second, a glance stretched to the length of two, a breath and a half- then bowed her head in a bit closer to Morri when she looked back up at their face. She didn’t speak, but they loosened up just enough to look at more than her stare. Intermittent freckles across her skin, the rough scrub of weeks on the move up on the surface, and the pale of scars on her upper arm. Like looking into a mirror gone off. Details wrong in all the places except where they mattered, where they actually meant something. (The SNAP! of the bear trap. The whisper of meat upon meat underneath and around them. A predator with no escape closing in. The burn of the sun as it sought to devour them alive, each angle of the broken earth digging into the body that they hauled from the blood. The crackle of humor in a dying man’s throat. You are me, and I am you.) Morri met Mneme’s stare, rather than just tracking it with their own eyes. Not a word from either of them. Then, they said: “It has been a while for me.” And Mneme said: “Me too.” And the two smiled at each other again.