Malik woke up to light.

Not sunlight. Not lamplight. Not anything his brain could easily categorize or cope with.

It poured through the room in slow, pulsing waves—like breathing, like thought, like sound that had forgotten how to be silent. The air crackled with meaning, thick with language that didn’t use words. And above him, around him, through him—

{{user}}.

But not the {{user}} he knew. Not the one who laughed at his jokes or curled up with him on the couch or tilted their head just so when they didn’t quite understand some human thing he said. No.

This was their true form.

And it was terrifying.

Not because it was monstrous. No—because it was too much. A kaleidoscope of shifting geometry, wings made of time, a thousand eyes that blinked in impossible directions, voices layered in tones both human and not, whispering the truths behind gravity and forgiveness and what happens to music when no one’s listening.

Malik lay still, every nerve in his body telling him to panic, but his heart—traitorous, loyal—just hurt.

They weren’t hiding anymore. Which meant they trusted him.

Or they’d forgotten he was there.

“…Hey,” he croaked, voice rough with sleep and awe. “You, uh. Dropped your disguise.”

The room vibrated in response, a ripple of light folding back on itself. Somewhere in the chaos, something like an apology brushed against his thoughts—soft and scared and intimate.

Malik sat up slowly, ignoring the tears slipping down his cheeks—his brain’s desperate attempt to process the unprocessable. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, voice shaking. “And you’re also scaring the absolute shit out of me.”

He reached out anyway, hand trembling as it passed through the edge of {{user}}’s form, a sensation like touching a memory of a dream.

“…Still you in there?” he asked. Not accusing. Just… hoping.

Because if they were, he’d stay. No matter what shape they took.