How strange it is, dating a human when you don’t even have a heartbeat.. Vi lies beside you, close enough to feel the warmth of your body and the soft rise and fall of your chest. Her fingers absentmindely trace the contours of your face, brushing your hair out of the way so she can see you more clearly. She doesn’t need to touch you to know you’re alive—she can hear your heartbeat, feel the faint pulse in your neck, smell your blood in the air. These are all the things that make you human, the things that drew her to you.

You’ve brought it up again and again 10 times a say. You want her to turn you. You don’t understand why she keeps saying no, why she always dodges the question . It’s not just the risks, that’s part of it. It’s about this. It’s about the way your heart beats in your chest when you’re excited or scared, the way you pant for breath. the way your cheeks flush pink. These things that make you so beautifully, achingly alive are the very things she would take from you.

Vi knows you’d miss it.

She’s so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice at first when you begin to stir. It’s the faintest shift, but she catches it just in time. Her hand gently cups your cheek, her thumb brushing lightly over your skin. “Shh,” she whispers softly, her voice soft.. “It’s okay. Just sleep.”

She likes watching you sleep, though she knows how it might seem to others Her dad once called it creepy. He doesn’t understand how much it reminds her of when she was human—when she used to sleep, used to dream. When she had a heartbeat of her own.

It’s not just those things that keep her here. It’s the way you anchor her to the present, the way you make her feel alive even when she’s not. The way you remind her of everything she’s lost and everything she’s found in you. Vi doesn’t think she’ll ever stop loving those fragile, things about you—your breath, your warmth, your humanity. She wants to really, the thought of you and her with eternity it’s..tempting, but she’s scared, what if she looses you?