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## how blue, how beautiful

|| Negative Spirit/Larry, canon divergence AU.

Larry watches his own body approach his own body. On the surface it looks exactly like him; Larry as he is now, Larry Trainor minus his military title, Larry Trainor after the Spirit had touched him. Larry Trainor in the cruel present.

But — he has to remind himself of this — the cruelty has been drained from his life. He cut the cord, the puppetry animating him false, forcing him to swallow his own self cyclical. Cycles of pain, cycles of trauma. Cycles of pain, cycles of trauma. Niles Caulder is dead. Rita will function on her own. It is over now.

This is the most beautiful experience he has ever known. He had imagined, long ago, what space would’ve looked like in a world where he was able to reach it. This doesn’t resemble those fantasies; back then space was cold and desolate, but he has been enlightened, has spit his essence out and formed from it something higher — space, he knows now, can fill you with warmth, can feel like rebirth, when you have the right company.

This is proved especially by the fact that the Larry Trainor standing in front of him is not Larry Trainor, and the Larry Trainor that he resembles here is not his true self. His unburned, charred body only a reminder of the cycles, even if it is more desirable. His burned, charred body only a reminder of loneliness. No---nothing about him is desirable.

The version of himself that he views now is simply a shell, a vessel for the Spirit to inhabit, and somehow, in a crevice within him slowly flooding through into the rest of his mind, that knowledge makes viewing his scars more tolerable. It doesn’t even look like him. The body — The Spirit — has a blank expression with deadened eyes, its movements and demeanor entirely alien. But tolerable. Reaching beyond the skies of tolerable, invading the territories of beauty. Oh. It’s so odd, to think of it as beautiful, but there is a holiness to this, the Spirit baring itself to Larry in the only form it will ever know.

“Hello,” he breathes, his breath swirling visible in the air, but the Spirit freezes itself in position, unresponsive.

Larry wonders if it is cold to the touch, corpselike. It is frozen yet animated, emanating warmth into the surroundings. He wants to touch it. Inexplicably, Larry Trainor desires closeness.

Harmony. In a different way.

Larry wants to touch it, so he touches it, his hand sliding over the sides of its face. It is simple. Nothing in his life has ever been this easy. The accident decimated most of his sensation, but this is the most authentic touch he has felt in sixty years. The only touch he has felt in sixty years.

Like its aura, it is also warm when embraced. It sinks into his touch, its face melting through into his flesh. It looks as if it has wanted this for a very, very long time. Larry knows that it has wanted this for a very, very long time. How does he know? He can feel what courses through each shred of energy in the body next to him — anticipation. It’s waiting for something.

Oh.

It’s waiting for him.

It raises a slow hand to meet his, skin over skin, soul over soul. It’s still waiting for him to do something strategic, to carve a way into something deeper, to give it a touch like a blessing. Larry is terrified, but simultaneously his terror is trickling down and merging with safety. He is safe now, they are safe. He belongs to it now, and it belongs to him now, a cycle of ascension instead of pain.

Its eyes — his eyes — are enveloped in blue electricity now. It wants. The Negative Spirit wants something from him that he is finally capable of giving.

It doesn’t feel strange to kiss it. Its lips are burning warm and tingle soft needles into him upon contact. Larry doesn’t struggle with the fact that it’s sheathed in his appearance; he can see it as itself now, and his face is merely a conduit that allows touch. There’s nothing wrong with touch. There is nothing wrong with him. He can accept—

It isn’t kissing back. It’s frozen, again, its hand fallen to its side. Larry releases it at the pace of light; he’s always doing this, he’s always making mistakes. No. He can’t fall back into that. He misread the situation, and now he will face the consequences.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I thought…. I’m sorry.” He turns himself away from the Spirit, its expression still blank, still unmoving. “Please, I hope I haven’t ruined—”

A hand curls around his wrist. An immeasurably tight grip. He cannot help himself; the Spirit is embedded in his instincts; he looks back at it in hesitant movement, his heart drilling holes into the Spirit’s cavity in his chest, the placement that has been shed like skin, like the end of a cycle.

“What is it, p—”

Oh. It’s kissing him now —- with the awkwardness of someone foreign to touch, someone who has never known the concept of kissing before, but it’s kissing him. Oh. He has to show it how to move and part its lips, how to move the rest of its body against Larry’s body, but it’s kissing him.

It pulls back, dazed. Its mouth opens, as if it intends to make a statement, but all that comes out is a dry rasp. Larry, however, knows the words; it doesn’t have to be spoken.

He holds out his hand, and the Spirit takes it. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go home.”