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"So you're probably wondering why I asked you to come here."

She probably wasn't, actually. It was pretty clear from the last time that Abzu had thoroughly enjoyed getting to sleep in the cuddle room, and it was nice to have a friend to curl up with. He had expressed interest in returning and she had agreed. The space in the mansion was perfect as well, but there was something about Pendour's wonder that was innately relaxing, and he was still a bit on edge.

He was happy for Alastor! He was happy for the chaos being gone!

He didn't like that Chaos knew his mind so innately it summoned a facsimile of Pendour.

"Helped a senshi clear chaos from his world. Senshi's name was Alastor, I think? One of the alien ones." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "The chaos on his world tries to mimic people. For me, it mimicked you."

A spy story might have been more fun, honestly. Sneaking through enemy lines, getting ideas on how to infiltrate, maybe a cool moment where he used his charisma to get a deeper look or a scandalous one he could spread throughout Order--

No. It was just... Chaos.

He laughed.

"Sounds weird aloud, right?" Never mind the fact that she was transcendent. So far as he could tell, her being Chaos was literally impossible anyway. "But it was pretty good at mimicking you, enough that for the first couple minutes there I was wondering if you had somehow found me to save me from Chaos yet again. But there were a few things that were off-- like your markings seemed oddly dim but not missing."

She was so insistent that they leave and get away from the Chaos, and it had seemed consistent enough.

"And I didn't see you when I had gotten there. The mimic spoke in vague terms about the danger of the shadows when I asked what it had seen, but was pretty insistent about protecting me and telling me to be more careful. Close, but not quite close enough."

His smile was a bit lopsided.

It had been enough to trip him up for sure. How did Chaos know his mind like that?

She had a point.

The chaos on Alastor's world wasn't just trapped and permeating through chests, it was infesting the world. Perhaps it was just a side effect of just how prevalent it was, and in some ways that brought him a bit of relief. It couldn't regularly read from his mind without his knowledge. Was just an element of how... Present it was.

That made him wonder if how they defeated it was even repeatable. Perhaps for the other aliens, but the chaos on earth seemed to be its own monster with the way it had directly infested people.

... Figuring that out sounded like work.

"It tried to mimic something that means a lot to me, I think. Or someone, I suppose." He glanced toward Pendour and threw her a wink, but nothing was flirty about it. Friendly, hinting-- "Alastor said something about how it looks into your heart and tries to lure you like that."

He chuckled.

"It failed, for what it's worth. I was a bit uneasy the whole time," not as much as he would have liked to be, but he definitely was, "but then the Chaos illusion blinked and somehow your eye swapped."

And her missing eye was a battle scar, part of what made Pendour her in a way that showed her history and her strength. He wouldn't picture her differently.

The concept that Pendour might have fallen for it in the reverse scenario, the concept that the chaos might have scared up some strange facsimile of him to try and get at Pendour, the fact that the feeling of affection was mutual to even any degree--

Well, it was nice, and the friendly expression morphed from something a bit less jocular to a bit softer in its own right.

"Aww, shucks," he chuckled. "Appreciate that and you. Though I am glad you didn't have to deal with that in the first place."

The spare thought had come to him a few times that it might have been nice to have Pendour there. He was ultimately glad she wasn't. Better that way. Abzu never wanted anyone to suffer, and having a chaotic mimic of someone who met a lot trying to drag Pendour into the darkness sounded like suffering. It had been suffering, in some ways.

He watched her as she worked. What she was putting together looked pretty cozy-- "Glad I saw through it, too. Don't really wanna think about the consequences if I didn't." No more cuddle piles of a bed, for one. "Glad to be here. And mostly fine."

He shifted.

"Just a bit off. The concept that something can mine the mind like that is probably gonna stick for a while."

Abzu took the tug with ease, though his brain temporarily met a record scratch as he considered what she had just said to him, the scenery, the action--

Well, he wouldn't mind that at all really. He was a fan of many forms of physical contact--

But this was Pendour, and he knew that, and he also knew that his mind temporarily wandering off to the gutter was nothing at all that she could have meant. "Right. I'm here, you're here, we're both real and you're not a mimic with less glow and an incorrectly placed eye." He laughed. "No psionic chaotic forces to be found here."

Why couldn't he be a psion instead--

He liked the sound of nice dreams. Abzu could use a ******** nap.

"Agreed," he murmured, as he settled on the bed. "Good choices, by the way."

He could definitely sleep here.

When she let go of her power, he did too. He had been dressed much like he was when he was lounging at home, wearing a robe with softer pants primarily because it was getting cooler out.

Comfortable, like she was and the cuddling was.

He had a light smile when she brushed a piece of hair out of his face, and it remained even as she started to drift and he did too.

"You, too," was the last thing he said before he went off to find those best dreams somewhere behind lidded eyes.