slick... oil slick...

[mengu]

She reaches for Heather and the world slips away. It always does; Heather's eyes bring galaxies into crowded bars, starlight to a disused parking lot.

Now Bill stands in an unreal world and it crumbles beneath her. What is a spaceship to the void itself? What is that thin crust of metal to the endless rushing nothing she could dance through, they could dance through, together? Everything and everything glitters in the space between their palms.

She could take it as a gift, delight in it. The present is real enough. But— Offered everything, she expects nothing.

She pulls away.