#I know NOTHING about the wild world of Android

[frociaggine]

new phone purchase is sending me into a stress spiral because. confession time. I've never bought a new phone in my life, ever. so now I'm looking at this brave new world and the prices are... WHAT? I can't wrap my head around it. I have some money saved. I could afford something cool. But why the fuck should I want to spend that much money on a phone I only use to chat and to take photos. But also I want this purchase to last a few years, so I feel like being cheap now might bite me in the ass later?

But seriously. WHAT the fuck are those prices. do people actually pay that much money. what

[tobiasdrake]

Does Perfect Cell have Agency?

Cell is... difficult to get a read on, as a character. The extreme jankiness of the Android arc left us with an oddball of a villain whose level of wickedness doesn't seem in line with the scope of his motives.

Cell is a weird character for me because he just seems... unfinished but also overly symbolic moreso than a literal person.

What does PIccolo actually want? He wants to kill everyone because he's mindlessly evil. After he reincarnates, the question "What does Piccolo actually want?" becomes a major facet of his journey.

What does Frieza actually want? He wants to kill planets and sell them for profit because he's a real estate speculator, and also to be immortal and untouchable. This extreme want coupled with the callousness with which he pursues it is what fuels his unbelievable cruelty and heartlessness, and makes him the most evil person in the Dragon Ball universe.

What does Majin Buu want? Again, this question becomes a major facet of his journey and opens up new sides to him, because Buu himself doesn't know the answer to that.

Which. Brings us to. What does Cell want?

He likes to spook. He wants to have fun. He's a spooker looking for a good time.

Cell's primary goal is to a) become really strong, and then b) prove his mettle by testing himself against the greatest fighters in the world. He's a tournament arc villain presented with the gravitas and stakes of an epic adventure villain.

It's wild because everybody here wants to get really strong and then prove their mettle by fighting Goku. That's what this whole social dynamic is about. That is literally the main goal that everyone in this group pursues. Well, except Trunks and Gohan.

In a sense, Cell's just... one of the guys. Like. He's a rotten dirty bastard to be sure. But it's not like that's a barrier for entry into this group.

"I WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS I HAVE TO AS LONG AS YOU ARE ONE OF THEM!" ~TFS

So his goal is to get strong and fight strong guys. But. Like. Who's isn't?

And he's a cruel, sadistic monster. But. Like. We're fine with that. Vegeta's our bestie and Piccolo joined this crew way before he reformed too.

This guy could legit just be hosting the Tenkaichi Budokai. (And he DOES.) In terms of overarching character, nothing about him reads "Epic villain that must be stopped at all costs". So Toriyama really had to ratchet up the moment-by-moment horror to make him fit.

What Cell wants is not that big a deal. Get strong, fight strong guys, and also he's an asshole about it. So he's given a vile mechanism for attaining the strength he needs. In his base state, Cell can drink people to gain their power for himself.

He's basically Piccolo if Piccolo were born a parasitic vampire instead of a flesh-and-blood Namekian? It's weird. His whole introduction where he walks out and explains his entire character so Toriyama's pal will get off his back about the Twins is weird.

"Hi there, Piccolo. Did you know that I'm an evil bio-android from the future who wants to absorb the Twins to become really powerful? Also I eat people and I have the genetic makeup of five of the most powerful warriors in the universe, as well as having all of their techniques and abilities. I think that about covers everything. Toodles!"

So we have a character whose primary goal is to defeat the two characters who, up until this point, were billed as the antagonists and are currently seeking to kill Goku as we speak. Like. That's Trunks. Cell is Trunks again. So to make it read as sinister and bad, the means for him to achieve Trunks's goal requires him to kill people in visceral and horrifying ways, and also he's a jerk about it.

This is far from the worst thing a Dragon Ball character, even the ones on the protagonist side, has ever done. But it's so viscerally horrifying that it feels like the worst thing they've ever done.

Then again, that guy was part of the 1% so maybe it's deserved.

Truly, Cell is a champion of the underclass. He's literally eating the rich. What's not to like?

I jest. Point is, Cell is a villain of vibes more than anything. In practical terms, Vegeta gleefully slaughtered entire planets and Majin Buu exterminated 80% of the world's population for fun. In fact, Buu even single-targets people and turns them into food to chomp down on too, so he and Cell have a lot in common.

To be perfectly honest, Buu feels like a second draft of Cell with more time and thought put into his character.

So, logically, eating a bunch of people isn't that big of a deal relative to some of the other shit that people we're hanging out with have done. Hell, we spend a portion of this arc helping to power up Vegeta to stop Mr. City Devourer over here.

"Hey best buddy, you're a remorseless monster who's slaughtered billions of people and is only chill now because you're stranded on Earth with no better options. Want to come with me so we can make you a hundred times deadlier and fight this guy who wants to eat the Androids that destroyed the world in the future?"

And then Cell's over here like.

"All done eating people. Thanks y'all." Like a parasitic version of the Genki-Dama. Uh. Cool. Glad we could help. Let's go Dragon Balls them all back to life and then I guess we're done here?

It's the vibe. Cell's wickedness is a vibe. It's in the means he needs to undergo to achieve the ends of becoming strong. It's in the sadistic personality he shares with 4/5 of his genetic makeup (two of whom are in the protag party). And it's in his long-term plans for what to do after the tournament when he runs out of strong guys to fight.

It's like they ran out of ideas for why we even need to fight this guy once he ate the Androids and completed our mission of defeating them and thwarting Trunks's future. So Cell's like, "By the way if we don't defeat me in an epic climax, I'm going to aimlessly wander the globe killing humans individually forever, I guess."

No real ambitions of any kind beyond "Get strong, fight strong guys". He just. Is a dick.

This is sandwiched between vanquishing the CEO of Galactic Genocide Incorporated and fighting a god-killing abomination who made the heavens themselves run red with blood. Cell wants to get strong and fight strong guys, and he'll become Jason Voorhees if we don't deliver. That's it. That's the entire plot. It's so weird. He's the ultimate despicable monster villain up to this point but it doesn't really feel like he should be.

Cell isn't really a character, so much as he is an idea. Specifically, he is a summary of Goku's entire journey up to this point, all rolled up into this one asshole. He is Goku, and also the major villains Goku has fought.

He is the Tenkaichi Budokai.

He's a limit-breaking Super Saiyan who becomes stronger through Namekian Fusion of others like him and also regenerates and gets Zenkai boosts.

He is the concept of everything that Dragon Ball has ever been.

Hey remember when Piccolo-Daimao blew up that one district during a live broadcast? Do you remember? Cell is Playing the Hits, The Character. But with purpose and intent.

This is why it's hard for me to get a read on Cell. Because who he is isn't so different from much of the cast but what he needs to be is something else: He is the complete assessment of the journey Goku's undertaken over the course of his life, presented all at once for Gohan to surpass.

The physical embodiment of what Gohan must overcome to be his father's successor.

His character, his motives, his ambitions, his desires, it all takes a backseat to the simple utilitarian purpose of providing a symbolic nemesis to mark Gohan's ascension. Hastily assembled once Toriyama decided that was going to be the real actual plot for realsies no takebacks this time.

It's hard for me to assess Cell because I feel too strongly that he needed a second draft.

Which. Like. Apparently Toriyama agreed.

As a character and as a story, Majin Buu is hit or miss but he hits most of the same beats as Cell and really does feel like Toriyama trying to take a mulligan on this entire villain concept.

Mileage may vary on whether he pulled it off.

[kessyathena]

Kessy's Recommendations

A little while ago a friend who's into Little Witch Academia asked for recommendations and I immediately suggested Magic User's Club. It's one of my go to's and a great show, but it's pretty obscure these days. That got me to thinking about all the other great OVA's I've seen that everyone's forgotten. So here's a selection of my favorites from the golden age of OVA's (1980's -2000's). If you're looking for a thread that connects these, my personal tastes run to character driven stories. I've tried to emphasize titles that are easy to access, mostly ones that are free on Youtube.

Assemble Insert: 1989, 2 eps.

comedy, superhero, idol, mad scientist, police

The city is being overrun by a mad scientist and his mecha equipped gang, so what's the overworked underpaid police force to do? Obviously, hold a competition for the next big idol! Err, I mean superhero to save the city. Wait, is there a difference? Maron really wants to know, since she's the (un?)fortunate winner of the competition.

All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku (Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume): 1992, 6 eps.

comedy, catgirl (sort of), android, superpower, evil corporation

Ryuunosuke just wanted a pet, so when the minions of his overbearing mother accidentally kill the stray kitten he'd picked up his father does the only sensible thing: transplant the cat's brain into the experimental android body he's got in the back seat of the car. Ryuunosuke's new "big sister" is cheerful, energetic, able to bend steel beams with her bare hands, and overly fond of fish and sunbeams.

Nuku Nuku got a TV reboot and a second unrelated OVA called Nuku Nuku Dash, but the original OVA is definitely the best version.

Dragon Half: 1993, 2 eps.

comedy, fantasy world, WTF am I watching?, dragon girl

Mink is the child of a dragon mother and a human father. (Don't think about it too much.) Her father was formerly the champion of the evil king, who still bears a grudge. So there are evil minions, a guy named Dick Saucer who can't decide if he's a singer or a swordsman, a princess who's half slime, the finger water squirter of DOOM, and Beethoven! Don't wait for it to make sense, just enjoy the ride.

Plastic Little: 1994, 1 ep.

action, scifi, space opera, fanservice, yuri subtext

Tita and her galant crew make a living in the pet shop trade, capturing exotic animals in their planet's ocean of clouds for export. One day Tita runs into a beautiful young woman being pursued by a group of uniformed goons. Impulsively deciding to help the stranger, Tita and her crew are drawn into a military conspiracy to wreak havoc on the colony. Naturally, there's a caped villain, high speed chases, battleships, and ridiculously unsafe walkways over a vast chasm.

Elf Princess Rane (Yousei Hime Ren): 1995, 2 eps.

comedy, WTF am I watching?, magic, yuri subtext, idiot protagonist

Well, there is a plot to this one, but describing it would take too long, make no sense, and miss the point. Rane is a frenetically paced, gag after gag wild romp into hilarity and the absurd. There are fairies from another dimension who only speak an unintelligible language, a scheming corporation, a large group of identical sisters, and a protagonist so obsessed with treasure hunting he sees it everywhere to the point of being oblivious to what's in front of his nose.

Magic User's Club (Mahoutsukai Tai!): 1996, 6 eps.

comedy, romance, school life, alien invaders, magic, unrequited love, yaoi

The Earth has been invaded by aliens! However, the aliens are content to sit in their giant spaceship while observing humanity with robotic probes. So when Sawanoguchi Sae joins her school's club of neophyte magic users and the club president declares that they're going to defeat the aliens with magic, she's nothing but enthusiastic. And a massive klutz. What hope do they have considering that the rest of the club consists of Sae's best friend who only joined for Sae's sake, a vice president whose main interest is his crush on the president, and a freshman who frequently skips club activities to go on dates?

There is also a very good 13 episode TV series which is a direct continuation of the OVA featuring the same cast and hijinks but with a change in tone, not the least because the aliens are gone.

Birdy the Mighty (Tetsuwan Birdy): 1996, 4 eps.

action, school life, undercover aliens, conspiracy, gender bender, body sharing

Tsutomu is your average school kid out for a stroll one evening when he runs into a man running for his life from… something. The man turns out to be an alien in disguise and the something, well let's just say it radically changes Tsutomu's life as he's drawn into a conspiracy involving interplanetary criminals. A Federation Officer named Birdy Cephon shows up, but due to reasons he winds up having to share his body with her.

The series got a TV reboot called Birdy the Mighty: Decode. In my opinion, the original OVA is better.

R.O.D: Read or Die: 2001, 3 eps.

action, superpowers, secret agent, yuri subtext

Yomiko Readman is your average substitute teacher… Okay, no she isn't. She's absolutely obsessed with reading: her home is filled with stacks of books. She also has the ability to manipulate paper in any way she wishes, turning ordinary stationary into shields, weapons, giant flying paper airplanes, and so on. And she has a side job as a secret agent. So when a group of superpowered villains threatens the world, agent "The Paper" swings into action. Immediately after one of the bad guys steals her book!

ROD also has a TV series that has the same setting but completely new characters and plotline. The connections to the original OVA only gradually become apparent.

Murder Princess: 2007, 6 eps.

action, fantasy world, action girl, body swap, yuri subtext, lost technology

Alita and Faris are from such different backgrounds that you'd never expect them to meet. Alita is the princess of the kingdom of Forland and has lived a sheltered life in the capital. Faris is from a tragic background and survives on her wits and her skill with a sword as a bounty hunter. However, one night there is a palace coup and Alita is forced to flee for her life into the dark and dangerous Ellend forest, where Faris is hunting monsters for the price on their heads. The two literally run into each other and straight off a cliff. During the fall, the shared near death experience causes them to switch bodies. They're forced to reluctantly team up to defeat the coup and uncover the forces behind it.

Electromagnetic Girlfriend (Denpa-teki na Kanojo): 2009, 2 eps.

drama, mystery, romance

(Note: "Denpa" literally means "electromagnetic wave," but is colloquially used to mean "crazy" in much the same sense as "tin foil hat.")

Juuzawa Juu is a high school delinquent. One day a girl he's never met comes up to him and declares that he is a reincarnated king and she is his servant and knight. Despite Juu's best efforts to get rid of her, she continually follows him around. As if this wasn't enough, there's a serial killer stalking the town, and Juu suddenly finds himself caught up in the case when he's the one to find the body of the latest victim: one of his own classmates.

[thequietkid-moonie]

Taking care of a human child

[ PLATONIC HEADCANONS ] [ 2B & 9S ]

[ NieR Automata ]

Wiuwiuwiuwiu moonie is happy moonie is happyyyyy !!! This combine two of my favorites things in all times!!! NieR Automata aaaand prompts with child reader hehe me happy

I loved it so much that i'll probably make a version with Adam and Eve soon too!!!

Meeting a human around the earth when everyone is suppoused to be in the moon was surprising enough, but meeting one that is so young it was more alarming than surprising. There were a lot of questions and worries running through 2B and 9S' minds, but they put it everything aside since they need to be quick with offering you help

If you were more scare or unwilling to talks with them is fine, they can understand, however for what they know about humans someone your age is too vulnerable and even innocent to be left alone (specially in such hostile enviroment), but if the case is that you are more extrovert, or at least willing to approach to them that will make their job way easier (even if you were more like a troublemaker its fine as long as you accept to go with them somewhere safe)

Between trying to convince you to go with them and the way towards the resistance camp 2B and 9S will have enough time to know a little more about you, 2B feels uneasy and even a little uncomfortable about being the one who ask you important things (however, if you seem to prefer her, or just being more willing to talk to her rather than with 9S she will have not other option and will try her best to don't sound so cold or harsh with her words), is more likely that is 9S who carried the conversation, making him extremely anxious because he is way to scare about making an error, offending you or even upseting you by accident while asking you, specially when he has to ask you how did you get there and where were your parents/guardians (if you were being taken care by machines and they have killed them they will probably won't forgive themselfs, even if is their job the fact that they just see them as threatens doesn't erase the fact that they have taken away the ones who were the closest things to be parents/guardians to you)

It won't be much of a surprise if you were being taking care by wild animals or even machines, but that doesn't make it less impressive, 9S is trying really hard to make you feel comfortable around them, making you to trust them enough to let them take care of you and promising to protect you (and to try to hold back his inmense curiousity since right now is not a good time to ask everything about you)

Both will make sure to learn everything they can about how humans grow up and what they need, now that they have found you they need to take care of you and teach you about the world, and, honestly, it doesn't take it much time before they started to do it because of true love and care than just because it is their job (still, they are fighting machines, they aren't made to take care a child so it will take them a while to learn to do it, even for 2B, she is confident of her skills to keep you safe from any threaten but not in her skills to be a good guardian)

Humans curiosity is know to be inmense, specially at your age, and as much as 9S find it fascinating he can't help but feel overwhelmed whenever you ask too much things, he understand your curiosity for the world but he doesn't have all the answers (or sometimes you ask things he doesn't know how to answer and get entangled in his own words), while 2B tries to help she most of the time is unable to answer because out of YoRHa and her duty she know almost nothing of the world (what makes her feel bad and a little frustrated, specially if you seem disappointed or even sad for her lack of answer)

2B and 9S tries their hardest to teach you about the new world, however since they still have misions to do they have to leave you on the resistance camp, still you'll end up learning a lot of things thanks to the androids of the resistance camp (dangerous things like all the weapons, or things that are more appropiate for your age like how to write and read, or even to expand your vocabulary). And, because of that, 2B and 9S will have mixed feelings, they feel proud because now you have more people to trust and you know more things now! but they also feel quite jealous, 9S is a little bit obvious with how he can feel displaced but will just try to win your attention back whenever he comes back or feels that you are leaving him, while 2B try to convince herself that this is the best for you not noticing how clingy she became whenever she is with you or how she sometimes insist a little to much on supervise your interactions with the rest on the camp

For a kid is normal to want to explore the world, is just that everything is so new! however this is something that worry them way to much, you are way more innocent and weaker than an android, not only you are human but a really young one so they want to keep you safe, away from all kind of danger, but at the same time they know that that isn't exactly the best for a growing human to be traped or discouraged, so they try to take you in walks from time to time, taking this time to teach you new things, this can be a relaxing quality time between you three or an absolute nightmare depending in how much energy you have and how willing you are to just follow your heart and run around, touching everything your little curious hands want to feel

It is posible that you get to see them fight more than once, no matter how much it worried them it happen, but you can react in diferent ways, if it scare you they will try to expose you less to the battles, even trying to hide you before they have to start fighting, however if you find then awesome and even cool seeing them fight then that will boost their ego more than what they like to admit, 2B says to herself (and to anyone who point it out) that is just normal for a YoRHa Unit like her to be capable to fight like that, even when she can be internally screaming because of how flattered she is (and is somehow comforting too), while 9S won't even try to hide how flattered he feels, he ask you if you are being serious and will thank you a lot! a scanner model like him isn't exactly made to fight, but your words make him feel like if he were the most powerful android in the world (still, he doesn't get blinded by it, he just feel quite flustered, still there are chances that he will show off a little in front of you)

[luimagines]

Android reader who the chain thought was a quirky weird person with questionable superhuman abilities & they don't know or even suspect that they could be an Android or robot because that idea isn't a common concept to have in their timelines/worlds.

The Android reader who wasn't keeping it a secret from the chain but simply forgot to tell them/didn't realize they were supposed to tell them.

Android readers who can fix & repair their own wounds when the group stops by a town to get supplies.

The Android reader who buys screws,metal and bolts then just eats them as their internal stomach system transports the parts to fix the areas of the body that are damaged.

Some of the members in the chain occasionally catch the reader doing this but don't have much room to judge or be surprised as the cook is also known to eat rocks & other questionable/various things.

Android reader who's built to be a house nanny android for high classed & high profiled members of society that may need something to protect/watch over their childrens & homes choirs.

The Android reader knows every form of material art's & has the strength to pick up entire cars with one hand. Android reader who met the chain because they gained sentience & was going to be dismantled but a suspicious portal opened up for their escape.

Android reader who's inner workings are completely mechanical but thier outer top layer is real human flesh/skin/nails/hair that's self sustaining by small bio-nano bots that exist under the flesh to keep up the appearance of a real human.

Android reader who only gets discovered as a robot when half their face gets chapped off & their Endo skeleton is exposed.

This leads to a long talk with the chain as Hyrule heals the flesh shut over their face because,well, they'd prefer not being creeped out while they're looking at their friend in the discussion

I imagine that once they get to Wild's Era and fight his guardians, that they would want to take down each one just to take their bolts, springs and screws. That would be an upgrade for them. It would make them virtually indestructible... To a degree.

Like- nothing is going to stop their skin graphing from melting off or getting cut but their endo skeleton would be top notch quality at that point. And they would be stronger, faster and more resilient.

I also doubt they would need to sleep- at all. And the chain would be confused as to how they're still going with the "little" sleep they get. No one else talks about it because insomnia is a pattern amongst them so it would be rude- but it's like-

Legend: They were awake during first shift and they stayed up after me. I don't know when they slept.

Twilight: It was after me for sure, well into third shift.

Wild: I'm the first to get up to make breakfast and they were already awake.

Warrior, shaking his head: That poor tortured soul. Who knows what nightmares plague them.

Meanwhile, android! reader: The stars are so pretty and the sun rise is so gorgeous, I'm going to record the entire sequence of the sky. :D

[sanjoongie]

Cowboy! San

🐎Inspired by the That That cover 🐎Pairing: Choi San x Reader (f) 🐎Genre: non-idol au, Westworld Au 🐎Word Count: 2,808 🐎Warnings: mentions of death, blood, gun fights, sex (cowgirl position because hello), m and f orgasm 🐎Rated: 18+ MDNI, smut with no plot 🐎Dedication~ @mejuii @downtoamagicalland  my beta writers and part of the reason this exists. my cowboy san gc @toxicccred​ @cherryxsang​ for making this a thing too. @flurrys-creativity​ because you wanted this as well.....

~TBZ Outlaws (hosts): Sunwoo, Changmin, Kevin, Juyeon, Haknyeon

~ATZ Cowboys(guests): Mingi, Yeosang, Yunho and Hongjoong

~TXT town boys(hosts): Yeonjun and Soobin

🐎Synopsis: Westworld~ a meticulously crafted theme park where you can immerse yourself in the world of the wild west. You can fuck, kill and commit whatever sin, or glory, you decide. Other than the other guests, all the players in this world are androids, or known as Hosts, who don't even know of the outside world. All they know is what the narrative, or story, that’s filled their heads. The guests can never die, but there is one risk… falling in love with an android.

🐎A/N: if you’re not familiar with Westworld, the guests(or the humans) can talk about the outside world or about the androids (hosts), and the hosts won’t react to it. They will pretend like nothing was said. It’s to keep them in the narrative. They’ll never ask what a cellphone is or wonder why the guests mock them.

You’ve lived on the ranch all your life. Your father was a horse breeder, sold some of the best steeds in the state. Your mother, bless her soul, died in the attempt to birth your brother. Your brother died of smallpox before the age of ten. And your father had just recently passed after a horse threw him when he was breaking him into saddle riding. So it was just you at the ranch now, haunted by the memories of your family.

The town treated you well, especially because the quality of horses never faltered, even after your father passed. It was frowned upon, certainly, that you had never married, but other than that, they still traded with you and that got you by.

The only true danger lay in strangers. More specifically, outlaws.

You were out in the training ring late one evening, working on a colt. You were trying to gauge if he was ready for horse shoes or not, and so you had him running the ring. It was late but you just didn’t want to be cooped up in your cabin yet.

“Well, look what we have here boys,” A man with sharp features called out, “A bonafide cowgirl.” The group snickered at the comment. 

You pushed your hat upwards so you could get a good look at the group. They looked travel-worn and they were still on their horses. Perhaps they had been previous customers of your father’s. “You looking to buy a horse?” You said, putting on a warm smile.

The men exchanged long looks. “You could say that.”

“Town ain’t that far,” You offered, “You could find some rooms and then come back at sunrise.”

“Noooooo,” Another man, with plush lips and wicked glint in his eye, said. “I think we’ll stay here.”

You frowned. “You’re welcome to some water and hay for your horses, but the town really isn’t that far.” No need to inform them that you were on your own. That wouldn’t bode well for you.

"Darlin’, I don't think you understand the situation." You swallowed hard when one of them descended from his horse. "We're here to steal your horses. And there isn't anything you can do about it."

"Changmin!" Another frowned, "Don't tell her! That'll take the fun out of it."

Your eyes immediately went to your father's shotgun leaning against the rail post. If only you could--

"It'll still be fun, Juyeon," The last man, with an evil grin, reached for your gun and pulled it through the fence. He winked at you. "Don't you worry."

Kevin, the ringleader of the gang, ordered Sunwoo, Juyeon and Changmin to round up the horses. Haknyeon, the one with the evil grin, was in charge of you. 

You kicked and screamed as Haknyeon grabbed you by your waist and dragged you back to your cabin. Sunwoo complained loudly about Haknyeon getting all the fun jobs while he had wrangle horses.

"Like that ever stopped you before," Changmin said snidely, snickering behind his hand as a blood burst from his chest.

Whooping and hollering erupting from the main trail and out came five other men on horses. They had shot Changmin, so clearly they weren't with the outlaws.

Oddly enough, they drew up to the five men, guns drawn and aimed, but not shooting.

"This is our catch, Cowboy." Kevin stepped up to a black haired man with a jean jacket and tight vest underneath.

"Did you have to shoot so prematurely, Mingi?" One of the men said, face in hand as if exasperated.

Mingi shrugged with a goofy grin on his face. "I got excited, Hongjoong, what can I say?"

"Bet he said that to the whore from earlier too," A man with long black hair snickered.

The man in the jean jacket looked to another with a green jacket. The man in the green jacket shrugged. "This is a completely new story line, San. It's your birthday weekend. Why don't you choose how we do this?"

San stared at you, hurt racking over his face. "Let's kill these assholes and save the girl, Yunho."

Yunho smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."

It was a shoot-out, plain and simple. Haknyeon threw you to the ground, expecting you to sob and cry like any other girl they'd have come across. But you weren't about to let someone else decide your fate. 

While Haknyeon flicked the hammer of his revolver, shooting as quickly as his hands would allow him, you grabbed your shotgun. Haknyeon’s aim was reaching San. You shot Haknyeon from behind and the outlaw collapsed. San's jaw would have been on the floor if not for the fact he was still on his horse.

"Shit, San, she saved you!" Yeosang's eyes were wide in surprise for a moment. "Maybe your girlfriend--"

"Shut up, Yunho!" San hissed.

Yunho mimed zipping his mouth. Hongjoong and Yeosang exchanged a look. Yeosang spoke. "Is that her?"

San didn't respond. He simply got off his horse and walked to you. He crouched down by you, ignoring Haknyeon's body. "You okay? They didn't…"

You shook your head. "No. You got here just in time."

San smiled, showing off a pair of dimples. "Good. You saved my life back there. I should thank you." He stood up and offered you a hand.

You took it, clapping your palm to his. You suddenly had an intense headache and your vision became blurry. 

"Hi, my name is San. I've never done this before, actually."

You felt your face smile broadly at your shy customer. "No problem, Darlin'. I'll take it easy with you."

The cowboy took his hat off, respectful and a gentleman. He scratched the back of his head, smiling and showing off a pair of dimples. "Actually, I'm hoping you won't."

You quirked an eyebrow up at him. "Oh? Are you the type of cowboy that enjoys a bucking bronco?"

San’s neck got red, highlighting some freckles there. "Yeah. I kinda do."

"Well, shall we?" You offered your hand.

San took it, fingers fluttering along your wrist. "I'd love to."

"Hey, are you sure you're okay?" San’s eyebrows furrowed inwards, looking worried.

You rubbed the heel of your hand into your eye. "I'm shook up over everything. But I think it's me that should be thanking you. If you hadn't interrupted them…"

Mingi was using his toe to poke at Kevin’s body. "Should we…uh?" He looked at Yeosang for any hint of what they should do with the bodies.

Yeosang jerked his chin angrily to motion to Mingi to get away from the body. "Staff'll clean it up. Don't worry about it. You're un-immersing me, Mingi!"

"You need some time, San?" Yunho asked, eyebrows lifted inwards.

San had not let go of your hand still. "You wanna go to the town? Better make sure that's all of the outlaws. Otherwise the sheriff won't give us a reward."

"But!" Mingi protested.

"Take the hint, Mingi, geez." Hongjoong clapped Mingi on the shoulder. "We'll be in town, San. Come find us when you're done."

You lead the way back to your house. You worked in silence as you prepared a meal for the two of you. The sun was setting and you had to light a fire. Instead, San took care of it and it made your heart ache. The simple act of someone doing a chore for you was not something you had experienced in a long time.

After the meal, you began to think of the evening and how it might pan out. San was easy on the eyes and you can’t say you didn’t contemplate taking him to your bed. It wasn’t so much the gratitude of him saving you, but more so, you were just lonely. Forming a new memory that didn’t have anything to do with your family would be nice as well.

“I hope the bed is to your liking,” You shouted as you made it from your room. “I’ll just replace the sheets and then--”

“No!” San shouted, clearing his voice when it cracked. “No no, you don’t need to offer me the bed. I’ll just--sleep in front of the fire. Your floor is softer than the hard packed earth outside at least.”

San curled up in front of the fireplace, pulling his jacket off and using it as a pillow. His broad shoulders practically blotted out the firelight. 

Well that wouldn’t do. You began to unbutton your blouse. “Always such a gentleman,” You cooed.

San sat up all of a sudden, eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“You helped me up earlier.” You finished unbuttoning your blouse. “I’m all alone in this world right now, Cowboy. My heart is cold as ice. I can’t care anymore about anyone. My father, my mother, my brother, they’re all dead. Maybe you could warm it up for me?”

You weren’t a virgin. Your first time was with Soobin, the bank manager’s son. He had climbed on top of you in his bed, when his mother was out at a friend’s house and his father was working late. Only a few pumps later, however, and he was done. You thought that sex wasn’t all that cracked up to be. How was it that others paid for this service? 

With that thought in mind, you decided to try again. You took some earnings your father had insisted on giving you after a profitable year selling horses you had helped train and bring up, and you had gone to the whorehouse. You paid for the services of Yeonjun, who spent an entire evening teaching you the pleasures of lying with another man. Yeonjun had you cursing your weakness for shy men when you could have been experiencing so much more between your legs.

San stared up at you, watching as you discarded your blouse. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”

You knelt down to his level, smoothing your skirts over your bottom instinctively. You cupped his face. “I wanna share the night with you, San.” Your eyes traveled over the planes of his handsome face. “Something inside of me wants to give my all to you. I feel like I can trust you with everything, even my cold, dead heart.”

Even with his soft protests, his lips opened slightly so that you could kiss him. It was gentle and warm and soft and it matched him somehow. Your hands descended to those broad shoulders you had been admiring earlier. The pads of your fingers followed the line of his vest, slipping over his collarbones and tracing the v that framed his chest. Your fingers found the first button but San’s hands stopped you. “Wait.” He broke the kiss.

“San,” You said gently.

“I brought you the flower you wanted to see. It’s dried and flat but it’s the best I could do.” San pulled out a lovely pink flower that looked too fragile for the harsh world of the west. “Hibiscus, remember?”

“I--” Wasn’t this the first time meeting this cowboy? Had you met San before? Surely you would have remembered such a gentle cowboy. They were rare in this world, that hardened everyone.

You shook your head, “I’m sorry…”

San smiled. It was a bright smile but his eyes brimmed with tears. “It’s okay. I’ll remember enough for the two of us.”

You grabbed your head, another headache threatening to take you out of consciousness. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I’ll just try to enjoy our time. I won’t bring up our past again. I don’t want to see you in pain.” When you opened your eyes, tears were streaming down San’s face and he was clutching his heart. 

“What’s wrong, Cowboy?” You reached over and wiped away his tears. “Maybe I can fix your heart too. Let’s heal each other.”

You leaned in and kissed his cheekbones as new tears fell. You could taste the salt on your tongue. You finished unbuttoning his vest and ran an appreciative hand down the planes of his stomach. He felt like carved marble but somehow living. You pulled up your skirts and straddled him in front of the fireplace.

“Fill me up,” You murmured, “Make my heart warm again.”

San’s hands smoothed up your thighs, warm and surprisingly soft for a cowboy. “You know I can’t say no to you, even like this.”

“Then don’t say no to me.” You smiled impishly, and fished for his cock in the confines of his pants. It wasn’t hard to find. 

San moaned, his back arching into your touch. You swiveled your hips, running your outer lips along his cock. Your slickness covered his cock as his cockhead nudged your sensitive nub, making you moan in return as well.

San's nails dug into your skin, tongue licking his lower lip. "You always.. tease me!"

"Isn’t that what you want?” You crept your hands up his stomach and then gently raked your nails down the skin there. 

“Please!” San sat up, locking his arms behind your back. “Take me,” he whispered against your lips, “Make me yours again.”

You swiftly raised his cock and your body, only to sink down on his cock, taking him inch by sweet inch. It felt good to be stretched out like this. San was girthy and it gave you a new-found pleasure to take him all inside of you.

When you looked back at San, he was sucking down on his bottom lip, his eyes hooded and staring at you. This was all up to you, you could feel that in his gaze. He'd take whatever you gave him.

You raised your body, lifting it up until San was barely still within you and then swiftly descended. San’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and that was how you decided on the pace. Slowly unsheathing him within you and then a quick push back inwards. Your thighs, used to riding horses, had no problem with the pace and you were glad for it.

"Sweet--sweetheart!" San groaned.

"It's--?" You pressed your lips inward, "It's good?"

"You have no goddamn idea," San groaned again.

"I want it to be good for you," You found yourself saying.

San’s hands found your waist and tightened, thrusting up into you. Your hands clung to his upper arms, a cry leaving your lips. "You're always good for me, Sweetheart. Made just right for me, you are. A heart of gold and a spine of steel. You're perfect for me."

You smiled. "Feels pretty perfect, doesn't it?"

The two of you came in a crescendo of intense shouts. San’s hair clung to his face, sweat drenching his face and you panting because of the ride. “That was…”

San smiled up at you and finished your sentence, “...out of this world.”

You got up and offered him a hand. “Now come to bed.”

You fell asleep to San’s heart beating against your eardrum, your cheek pressed up against his chest. His arms were wrapped around you so tightly, as if he thought you’d steal away during the night. Your mother did always warn you that if you gave your body away, men became possessive, but this didn’t seem like that. It seemed like San never wanted to let you go.

Except… Come morning, there was no San and his horse was gone. All that you had to remind yourself of him was the pressed, dried flower that he said was for you. You rode hard to town but the sheriff said the group of men had already claimed their bounty and had moved on to hunt down other outlaws and hooligans. 

For a chance, one night spent encounter, your heart hurt harder than it should have. You blamed it on the loneliness that permeated the horse ranch since everyone you loved was gone.

🐎 🐎 🐎

“You sure you wanna leave without saying goodbye?” Yunho wondered as their horses plodded out of the town.

San pulled his hat down over his eyes. “I won’t be able to say goodbye if she’s awake. Besides,” San pushed off his grief with a joke, “I already checked. They won’t let me live here.”

Yeosang and Hongjoong exchanged a look of pity. “So what are you going to do?” Hongjoong asked. Even Mingi was interested in the answer.

“I’ll find a way to save her. One day. Take her out of this damn place. She deserves better,” San mumbled.

“But… San… she’s just a host… just an android…” Yeosang mentioned.

The heat and anger in San’s eyes when he pushed up his hat made Yeosang shrink back into his saddle. “That’s where you’re wrong, Yeosang. She’s her own being, human or not. She has feelings and memories. They just wipe it from her when it’s convenient. Someday these ‘droids are going to realize that they’re more than just humans play toys. Then the real story will begin.”

[xoxoladyaz]

AU-gust, Day 8: Robots and Androids

WARNING: THIS IS A CROSSOVER WITH FNAF. (Listen, I told you things were about to get weird so please fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a wild ride 🩷)

“This might be the stupidest job we’ve ever had.”

“Are you kidding?” Robin yelled from across their homey two-bedroom. “These outfits are so much better than Scoops!”

“First of all, that’s saying literally nothing, and second of all, you’re not the one wearing safety cone orange!” Stevie yelled back as she examined her reflection in the mirror. Her new work uniform consisted of a long-sleeved bright-orange shirt with the Fazbear Entertainment logo in bright blue on her front breast pocket, paired with fitted black trousers that had bright orange piping running up and down the edge.

(Whomever worked in the staff uniform design department of Fazbear Entertainment definitely had it out for her.)

“Oh shut up, that color looks great on you,” Robin retorted as she strolled into Stevie’s bedroom. She was dressed in the Roxanne Wolf version of her outfit – lilac and lime green which was so, so much cuter in Stevie’s opinion. “Besides, you have those lightning bolt earrings from our Bowie party that match perfectly.”

Stevie sighed and started flipping through her jewelry box. “Ugh, I guess. I still don’t know why we took this gig though.”

“You mean aside from the fact that Argyle got us these jobs in a literal day?”

“Uh, yeah, Robin! We’re working at the robot capital of the world and you hate robots.”

“Okay, first of all the Glamrocks aren’t robots, they’re animatronics,” Robin started numbering off on her fingers. “Secondly, Roxanne Wolf is a lesbian icon to whom I owe my allegiance and I see that eye-roll Stephanie Harrington, don’t give me that sass, and thirdly we’re working in the gift shop, we’ll, like, never see them in person.”

“Famous last words,” Stevie muttered, but Robin was already speeding into the hallway.

“Now stop stalling, dingus, it’s time to hit the Pizzaplex!”

/////

Stevie had to begrudgingly admit that working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex wasn’t the worst job in the entire world. She got to spend all day with Robin (and make faces with her behind the backs of the really crazy parents) while staying warm, dry and ice-cream free. Which, speaking of, they also got free food with every shift which meant lunch and/or dinner breaks with Argyle (who worked in Chica’s Pizzaria and loved it, the maniac) and that was awesome.

(It was really hard to keep track of everyone now that they’d all been relocated from Hawkins and spread across the state of California; if Stevie thought about it too much, she’d get emotional, so she tried not to think about it.

Or about the fact that Eddie hadn’t texted her in a few weeks.)

Stevie even got to pick-up a few overtime shifts in the daycare on her off days which, hey, the faster she makes money, the faster she can get to cosmetology school.

(Did she have problems with the fact she was sharing babysitting duties with a glorified robot? Not really.

Did she understand how the toddlers weren’t scared by Eclipse when he was in his Moon phase? No, not even a little bit, that fucker was creepy.)

That didn’t mean there weren’t drawbacks to her job, of course. She and Robin averaged about twenty upset and entitled parental encounters daily combined, not to mention all of the crying children who were either upset that they weren’t getting exactly what they wanted or were upset that they weren’t getting what they wanted fast enough. Their all-time high of screaming kids was 41 and they drank a fuck ton of wine that night.

But the biggest problem about working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex? Those goddamn animatronics. And not because Stevie was scared of them, oh no, no, it was because Robin was full of shit. Anytime one of the Glamrocks came within twenty feet of the gift shop she ducked for cover, and if it was Roxy? She was useless for a solid fifteen minutes afterwards every single time.

(“I think this officially qualifies you as a furry,” Stevie said after one particularly close encounter. Roxy had stopped to take pictures in front of the doorway and Robin had catapulted herself through the Montgomery Gator sweatshirt rack and crashed into Roxy’s plushie display and got absolutely buried.

“It really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, Robs, this is how you always act when a pretty girl comes around - ”

“Stevie? Shut. Up.”)

It wouldn’t have been a problem if Robin and Stevie had remained posted at the gift shop, but no, the gods forever frowned upon Stephanie Harrington.

/////

“Harrington!” Her manager Roger barked as he power-walked past her, three weeks into her tenure at the Pizzaplex. “We’re running low on Freddy plushies out front, so I’m going to need you to go and get the next shipment from storage. Here,” he said, tossing her a new keycard that she (barely) managed to catch. “Second floor storage area behind Fazer Blast. There should be a dolly there for you to use. Thanks!” Roger hollered, and then he was off running after a mop-bot that was spreading paint around in the main atrium.

Stevie turned to look at Robin who was already shaking her head. “Nope, no way.”

“Aww c’mon Robin, please? I always go with you when we walk around the Pizzaplex.”

Robin rolled her eyes and was about to reply when the melodic voice of Roxanne Wolf echoed throughout the plaza. “Thank you, I am the best,” the Glamrock crooned, and Robin flushed bright red and threw herself into the gift shop.

Welp. Looks like Stevie was going to have to handle this solo.

/////

Question, why was Stevie handling this solo again? Because she’d passed about twenty janitorial bots on her way to the storage area, all of whom were just scooting around with nothing to do. 

Whatever.

There was a dolly back in the (dark and creepy) storage room, so she loaded up a brand new box of Freddy Fazbear plushies and made her way to the main elevator bank.

“Sorry, excuse me, pardon me,” she said on repeat as she walked past scores of rowdy children and their stressed parents. As she rounded the corner, she saw the elevator doors begin to close and she moved faster.

“Please hold!” She yelled, and the elevator doors stopped shutting. “Shit, thank you,” Stevie gasped as she rolled the cart in and wiped her eyes.

“No problem, superstar!”

Fuck.

Stevie whipped around to look at the other occupant of the elevator and – yep, it was the man (err, orange bear) himself, all 6’3” of animatronic rockstar Freddy Fazbear gazed down at her, his signature smile on his perfectly polished face.

Stevie barely noticed the elevator doors slide shut behind them, barely heard the tinny elevator music play as they started their descent.

“You’re - ”

“I’m Freddy Fazbear, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the animatronic intoned.

“Hi, yeah. I’m - ”

“Stephanie Harrington,” he interrupted, his eyes scanning her form with a bluish light. “You work in the gift shop.”

“How did you - ”

“I have access to the Pizzaplex’s employee directory. For security concerns.”

“Oh. Cool.”

She stood and stared at the bear, who stood and stared back at her. And then wiggled his ears.

(It was kind of cute.)

“Well, I - ”

The elevator suddenly screeched to a halt and Stevie barely managed to stop herself from tumbling to the ground – mainly because a pair of oversized orange paws gently caught her.

“We’re sorry,” an automated voice spoke over the elevator intercom, “but it appears that our elevators are experiencing a technical difficulty. Please remain calm and our staff will be with you shortly.”

Stevie groaned, slumping back against those orange paws. “Oh, great.”

“Not to worry, superstar!” Freddy said, and Stevie barely suppressed her flinch at his booming voice. “Our staff is highly qualified and perfectly capable of fixing any and all technical issues that may take place at the Pizzaplex. We will be out of here in no time!”

(Stevie had seen how long it took the staffbots to fix the soda fountain when it exploded; she didn’t share Freddy’s faith in this at all.)

“Good, glad to hear it,” she replied drily. She stood up and waved Freddy’s hands away (or, err, paws. His paws. Paws that followed her to make sure she wouldn’t fall again which wasn’t sweet, for fuck’s sake!)

“Well, Stephanie, how about we play a game?” Freddy asked as she Stevie slumped against the far wall. (No way she was going to stand for this.)

“Sure, Freddy. What game do you wanna play?”

Freddy’s ears wiggled again as he hummed (or made a humming sound; he couldn’t actually hum, could he?) “How about we play the Question Game? I always like to learn more about my friends!”

Aww, he thought they were friends. (Or he was programmed to say that, or think they were friends? Just how intelligent were these things? She should text Dustin later on and ask what he knew about Fazbear Entertainment.)

Still, Freddy continued to smile as he waited for her reply and yeah, okay, that was cute. “Sure, Freddy,” Stevie sighed, but she made sure to smile back at him. “Let’s play the Question Game.”

/////

They were in the elevator for a total of forty-five minutes, which gave Freddy and Stevie plenty of time to play the Question Game. Stevie learned all about Freddy’s favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (play music with his friends, try to beat his old high score in Fazer Blast, dance at DJ Music Man’s shows whenever he had the chance), his best friend (Bonnie, who had been banged up pretty badly and was getting fixed somewhere offsite), his other best friend (Chica, they liked to do Jazzercise together), and his favorite thing to do in his free time (which was read, apparently? She wasn’t sure how the animatronic bear got his hands on copies of “the classics” and honestly wouldn’t have pegged him as a Dostoevsky fan but hey, apparently even orange animatronic bears can have depth?)

In turn, Stevie told him about her favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (visit Argyle at Chica’s Pizzaria, laugh at Robin when she hid from Roxy), her best friend (Robin, who worked with her in the gift shop), her other best friends (Argyle and Nancy and Eddie and Jonathan and Chrissy), her family (well, Dustin and the Hopper-Byers’ at least), and her favorite thing to do in her free time (watch movies with Robin, which then led into a long conversation about what movies she’d seen and would recommend because while Freddy knows about movies he hasn’t seen a whole lot of them).

He also asked her questions about the world outside the Pizzaplex: where she was born (Hawkins), why she moved from Hawkins (an earthquake, which was the official cover story), what her dream job was (being a hairdresser, at which point Freddy said she should talk to Roxy and start training at her salon which was, again, very cute), and all about the places she’d seen and where she wanted to go next.

(“Probably down to Malibu,” she’d said, lost in thought. “I’d like to see those beaches. What about you, is there somewhere you’d like to go?”

“I – well.” Freddy paused, and for the first time, he appeared troubled. “I cannot leave the Pizzaplex.”

“Oh,” Stevie murmured and wow, that really fucking sucked, didn’t it? Sure, she was talking to a robot bear who was literally built to be children’s entertainment but he wasn’t really feeling like just a robot bear anymore, especially the more they talked and played the Question Game. And this might have been one really, really long con or programming thing but – what if it wasn’t? What if he was fully intelligent and he was really stuck here?

Like El and the lab, she thought, and then she was barely able to stop herself from tearing up.

“But if I could go somewhere else,” Freddy continued, unaware of Stevie’s inner turmoil, “I would also probably choose to go to the beach. I would like to see the sun on the water,” he finished quietly.)

Stevie didn’t know what to say, but thankfully the elevator started up again, so she was spared any sort of deeper introspection.

“See?” Freddy said, no trace of sadness in his voice at all, like it had never been there. “Good as new.”

“Yeah, you were right about that,” Stevie said, pushing herself to her feet. It was a little tricky to do so while the elevator was moving, but Freddy held out his hand and she grabbed hold without a second thought. “Thanks, Freddy.”

“You’re welcome, superstar,” Freddy replied with an ear wiggle. “Can I assist you with transporting your cart to the gift shop?”

Stevie grinned. “You know what, Freddy? That would be great.”

/////

“EVIL,” Robin hissed from behind the sales counter, her white knuckles gripping onto the laminated wood for dear life. “You are evil.”

“Hmm, what was that?” Stevie asked as she watched Freddy unbox (and gently stack) the plushies on the main console table. “I can’t hear you, Robin.”

Robin hissed an unintelligible reply but Stevie ignored her, watching instead as Freddy stepped back and clapped his hands together. “Perfect!” He turned and alighted that bright electronic smile towards Stevie. “Thank you for letting me help, superstar.”

“No, thank you for helping, Freddy. Come back and visit any time, you hear?”

“Absolutely.”

Stevie waited for Freddy to leave, but he didn’t; he just stood there and stared at her, letting the seconds pass them by.

“Uh, Freddy, sir?” An acne-riddled teen with “Benny” on his nametag cleared his throat. “We need you in Superstar Row for some Meet and Greets.”

“Oh, yes,” Freddy replied, like he wasn’t thinking, like he’d forgotten.

(He was still looking at Stevie.)

“It was nice talking with you, Stephanie,” he finally said, and with one final wave he thundered out of the gift shop, Benny at his heels.

Stevie turned to look at Robin, who was looking at her with confusion. “Huh.”

“Huh,” Stevie repeated, and she could practically feel herself blush the longer that Robin looked at her. Robin who, of course, sensed a perfect opportunity for revenge.

Robin who suddenly had a shit-eating grin on her face. “You know, I think that officially qualifies you as a furry, dingus.”

“Oh, fuck off, Robin.”

[pickledpascal]

You're Not Alone in This World

Chapter Eight

Warnings: android gore, our girl Andrea is TIREDDDDD, a lil sprinkle of android discrimination

Word Count: 6k

You're Not Alone in This World Masterlist

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Those few days off certainly were needed. Connor notified Andrea that the press was trying to get into the precinct to talk to her, only to be disappointed when they found out she wasn't there. So when she came back from the mini-hiatus, they had practically given up trying to talk with her. She could only imagine what kinds of things they would've asked.

"Welcome back, Lieutenant." Connor smiled when Andrea walked into the station.

"This is, what? The first time you took off for more than one day in a while. So wild." Hank mocked with a laugh as Andrea sat at her desk.

Andrea rolled her eyes and shrugged. "I had a bunch of work to catch up on. Because someone has been slacking." She teased with an added wink.

Hank coughed, his face suddenly getting serious. "Well, the case you've been assigned while you were gone should fit you well enough." He pursed his lips.

Andrea cocked her head at him, logging on to her terminal with furrowed eyebrows. Fit her well enough? What the hell did that mean? She opened up the newest case file assigned to her and blinked. There's been a string of android murders, seemingly unconnected at first since they all use different methods but inside each mouth of each android is a note written in thirium. In the name of the Goddess of Justice. She narrowed her eyes on the pictures. They were horrid. Wires sliced open and heads bashed in hard enough that the skin had retreated to show the glossy white underneath, torsos were disconnected to their legs.

Why would someone say she wanted this? Andrea wanted quite the opposite. She just wanted humans and androids to live in peace. She couldn't have that. At least, not right now.

Andrea glanced at Connor and Hank, biting the inside of her cheek. "Does the public… know anything?" She asked.

"No. Anything they think is pure speculation." Hank set his elbow on his desk as he watched Andrea. She was fairly private, god or not. Any personality she showed to their coworkers was partly because she had to.

Connor nodded at Hank, eyes slightly concerned. "To be fair, most humans think that the androids on the scene were simply seeing things. Which is practically impossible but it is the public consensus." If the world knew Gods were real, then their world perception would break. Andrea didn't want to be known. She just wanted to live among them like any other person would.

Andrea took a breath. She hoped Kamski wouldn't weigh in or that would ruin all hopes of keeping this quiet. Kamski had been staying quiet so far, only continuing his work to create updates and better cosmetics or androids and not much else but as the creator of androids, most humans would believe anything he said about them—

"Lieutenant Cartier! I need you in my office now!" Fowler's voice carried over into the bullpen.

Hank glanced from Fowler to Andrea with a lop-sided smirk. "Someone's in trouble." He teased.

"Hardly." Andrea looked at Hank, unimpressed as she stood up from her desk and walked to Fowler's office.

Connor tilted his head as he focused his eyes on Hank. "Has Andrea ever gotten in trouble before?"

"No." Hank laughed. Andrea had to be one of the best behaved officers he and Fowler had ever encountered. "But she had punched Gavin a few times. Not in the precinct so… don't tell Fowler."

Connor let out a light laugh. Gavin likely deserved it.

Hank's eyes widened. "Did you just laugh?" For as long as he's been around Connor, he has never laughed. There would be the once in a blue moon occasion where Connor would say something is "amusing" but Hank had never heard him laugh.

Connor shrugged as he realized that, yes, that's never happened before. "It appears so."

Andrea closed the glass door behind her and scanned the room. Nothing was out of place. Fowler even seemed calm. For once. The only thing she didn't recognize was a man standing in front of Fowler's desk. He was an inch or so taller than Andrea and wore a black and white blazer. She stood next to him, eyes widening. An android. One who looked strangely similar to Connor. Instead of the familiar brown eyes, they were a cold, icy blue. Andrea could see the white text of 'RK900' on his jacket. Wasn't the RK800 the last in the RK series?

"Lieutenant Cartier, meet your new partner, RK900." Fowler stated.

Partner. He had to be joking. Andrea didn't have anything against having a partner, especially an android partner, but… really? Connor's doppelganger?

"After everything that happened, Markus looked through the basements of Cyberlife, courtesy of Kamski, and found him." Fowler's eyes shifted to the android next to Andrea. "He believes RK900 was a last minute resort Cyberlife took to try and stop Connor. Obviously it didn't work, so they abandoned the project."

Andrea pursed her lips. Sounds about right for Cyberlife. She took a quick breath. It wasn't his fault he just so happened to have Connor's face. A lot of androids shared the same face, but after deviating most chose to change some part of them to stand out. While Markus was a one-of-a-kind RK200, he was most recognized for his blue and green eyes, Kara changed her hair color to white, and North decided to make her hair more of a vibrant red.

"You're dismissed."

Andrea left the office, RK900 on her tails as she made it to her desk. He was quiet. Hadn't spoken a word. Time to change that.

"So, do you have a name besides RK900?" Andrea asked with a tilt of her head. She could feel Connor's stare from the back of her head.

"I was meant to replace Connor. As a result, I would have taken his. Currently, I do not." Color Andrea surprised by the voice that came out of his lips. It was a notch or two deeper than Connor's. She thought Cyberlife would've given him the same voice. Apparently they had enough time to play with his voice but not enough to change his face.

Andrea glanced down at the number on his jacket. RK900. She couldn't name him Connor or that would just be way too confusing. Her eyes flicked up to his while in thought.

"Have you deviated yet?" She sat on the side of her desk, crossing her arms. She had no preference on whether he had or not but it would be nice to know so she knew how to act around him.

RK900 tilted his head. "Yes. Markus was the one who reactivated me."

Andrea hummed in response. That should have been her first thought but she just wanted to make sure. She leaned back on her hands for a moment as she looked him up and down. "How about I call you Nines?" She suggested.

"If it's easier for you." Nines was unimpressed. Either way, it was a hell of a lot easier than saying RK900. No one, not even Gavin, called Connor "RK800."

Hearing footsteps, Andrea turned her head to see Daniel coming up to her desk. She gave him a small smile and a slight wave.

"I've been assigned to check out a homicide. It's the first time I'm really doing… this kind of work." Ever since he's been here, Andrea had mostly given him research duty. And also given some evidence to put away so he could get used to going down in the basement. "I'd like you to come with, help me interview witnesses and stuff." For the first time since he stopped at her desk, Daniel looked at the android next to Andrea.

The lieutenant nodded. Sounded easy enough. A lot of rookies wanted a superior with them just so they didn't do anything wrong and to also make sure they didn't miss anything. "Okay, we'll meet you. Just text me the address."

"We?" Daniel's eyebrows furrowed.

"Right, this is Nines. My new partner." Andrea smiled, motioning to the man next to her. Nines simply bowed his head in greeting.

She expected Daniel to be surprised, of course. Nines was obviously new and to be immediately paired with one of the two lieutenants was practically unheard of. Well, there was Connor… but those were totally different circumstances. The verge of a civil war or something like that.

Daniel looked from Andrea to Nines and back again. "Okay… but does it have to come with?"

It? Andrea's eyebrows shot up. The phrasing didn't seem to affect Nines much but it certainly bothered Andrea. Has Daniel said that about Connor before? She couldn't remember. Hell, there weren't many times where she'd see them interacting at all. But those times they did interact, Daniel did seem slightly dismissive of Connor's presence. Younger people these days… They grew up with androids taking care of them and felt some sort of superiority over them. Servants. That's all they were.

Feeling her phone buzz in her pocket, Andrea quickly checked it. A homicide got assigned to her. Saved by the bell. "Sorry, detective, but I just got a homicide too. Maybe ask Chris? Or Gavin." Thinking about it, they might get along well.

Andrea could see Daniel was biting his tongue but nodded and turned away. Andrea looked at Nines. She could see the slightest bit of mirth in his eyes. A good sign that his icy exterior could be easily melted. Andrea turned to leave for her car, expecting Nines to follow her when Connor stopped her.

He set a gentle hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek. Not that Andrea was complaining, but that's never happened before. "Good luck." Connor smiled kindly.

Andrea pursed her lips and glanced around the station before she kissed his cheek in return. Nines was unphased by the public display of affection and there really wasn't anyone else besides him and Hank to see since Daniel had already left. Plus, Chris was way too busy looking at something at his terminal. Likely something for his wife.

"I'll see you in an hour or so, yeah? We can have lunch." Andrea suggested with a hint of a smile. Something inside her told her this crime scene was going to be a lot. She just hoped having a nice lunch with Connor would be enough to cleanse most of it from her mind.

Connor eagerly nodded as Andrea and Nines left the station. He felt thirium rise in his cheeks as he watched Andrea leave. Then there was the unmistakable sound of Lieutenant Anderson's laughter behind him.

—----

Andrea and Nines both entered her car almost in sync. Nines' eyes glanced around to take in his new surroundings. He suspected he'd be in this car a lot. Especially since he had no mode of transportation besides self-automated taxis. And he wanted to get to know his partner. A nice working relationship would be beneficial to their efficiency. Compared to vehicles nowadays, Andrea's car would be considered obsolete. There was no self-driving option nor were there any sort of upgrades. However, the car was electric. Not originally, apparently, as Nines looked up the make and model.

/ANDREA HAS MECHANIC SKILLS/

Most car shops in the area didn't do motor conversions. Andrea would have had to do it herself or had some else she knew do the work. Nines assumed the former. In the few minutes he's been around her, she seemed incredibly self-sufficient.

The choice of decor inside the car was interesting as well. The roof had a myriad of different fake flowers attached while on the rearview mirror hung a pair of small, blue fuzzy dice. Nines suspected it was to match the car's paint color. While looking through the mirror, Nines detected three stickers on the rear windshield. Two were some comic book symbols while the last was from a TV show.

"You gonna sit here analyzing everything about me or are you gonna ask me questions instead?" Andrea asked with a small laugh as she started up the car. Immediately, a song started to play.

"My knees get week, intensive

When you give me k-kisses"

Money Honey by Lady Gaga

Released: 2008

Her phone had connected to the car via Bluetooth, that much was obvious. Nines' eyes flicked to Andrea as he tilted his head. It seemed that trait passed onto him as well. "This song is over thirty years old, is there any particular reason why you have it saved?"

"It's a song and I like it." Andrea shrugged, bobbing her head a little to the beat as she took a turn. "I have songs saved from the fifties and earlier. I have songs saved from now too. It's just a taste thing, I think? All depends on the person. Plus, Lady Gaga transcends space and time." She said that last part quite seriously.

Nines arched an eyebrow. Andrea certainly was a peculiar person. To be fair, he also hadn't met many humans in the short time he's been active. He was mostly around other androids. They were blunt in saying how they felt, what they liked, what they didn't… Nines had a feeling humans wouldn't be as open.

"Are you and Connor in a relationship?" He asked after a while. While the affection he saw from both of them indicated a more romantic relationship, Nines wanted to be sure.

Andrea let out a small laugh and nodded. "Yeah."

"Why?" Nines had no clue as to why Andrea would want to be in a relationship with an android. And vice versa. Most androids hated humans for the way they used to treat them. The way they still treat them.

Andrea parked outside the crime scene. A house with holographic police tape in the front. She shut off the ignition and looked over at Nines with amused eyes. "Connor's sweet. And cute. And, besides Hank, I feel like he's the only person who will ever truly understand me." She was honest, straight to the point. Maybe some humans were less complicated than Nines had originally thought.

"Why is that?" Nines was referring to the last part Andrea described.

The lieutenant looked at Nines, searching for something. He wasn't exactly sure what. He knew he looked virtually the same as his predecessor with a few minor changes like his eye color and height. Perhaps she was admiring his design? "You'll understand soon." She found it.

Trust.

Androids were far easier to trust than humans. She didn't know why. They just were. Perhaps it was because they had nothing to gain from telling the public about her, she was already on their side. Though Nines didn't seem to care much about the rights of his people as much as others did. Andrea blamed it on him only being alive for a few days. He was probably still getting used to all of this.

Andrea couldn't imagine it was easy, growing up in a world where everything was already made and you were expected to simply adjust and learn. She's had a millenia or two to adjust. Nines only had a few weeks. And Connor, only eight months.

The lieutenant looked outside her windshield to take in the crime scene, observe her surroundings. They were in a Detroit suburb with fairly nice looking houses all around, this one was no different. She hummed as she sat back in her seat and watched as Nines did the same. Connor was calculated when he took in a crime scene. Connor was built for this job after all, as was Nines, but Andrea could feel a noticeable contrast to how Nines absorbed a scene. His eyes barely moved. Granted, there wasn't much to look at besides the house.

Opening her car door, Andrea exited. Nines did as well. The pair walked through the holographic tape to meet Tina at the door. Andrea offered her a small wave. "What do we got?"

Tina glanced at Nines, confusion in her eyes before she returned to her tablet. "An android by the name of Scarlett was torn apart in her own home. Only reason police know is because she didn't show up to the neighborhood's weekly get-together last Saturday." She led the two inside. "Neighbors said she hasn't missed one ever since she moved in. And even if she can't make it, she'll drop off some cookies or something."

Andrea bit her tongue at the sight before her. Scarlett was torn to pieces. Her torso in one place, head in another. Her legs were burnt in the fireplace, wires all in a jumbled mess. A few officers were simply taking pictures, still marking down evidence. "When did Scarlett move in?" She turned to Tina.

"Pretty much ever since the Android Rights Act was put in place. Six or so months ago. Exact date is…." Tina checked her notes. "February 15th, 2039."

"Any neighbors share any gossip about Scarlett? Anyone not like her?" Andrea glanced back at the rest of the house, blinking a little as she watched Nines lick a bit of leftover blue blood in Scarlett's wires.

She shivered in how violating that must feel for Scarlett. If she was still alive. Besides that one time, Andrea had never even seen Connor do that. Hank was right. It took some getting used to. Cyberlife sure was weird to put their built-in analysis lab in their tongue.

Tina watched as well with furrowed eyebrows. "No. They said they all got along well with her." Andrea tilted her head. "Apparently, though, Scarlett didn't like to speak much about her life before moving here." Understandable. "Kendall, one of her next door neighbors, assumed it was because a human she loved betrayed her. There's no hard proof of that. Only speculation."

Andrea pursed her lips. This crime scene didn't scream of forced entry. No windows with scratches on the windowsill, no marks on the door, nothing. Maybe Kendall was onto something. Scarlett knew the person who did this to her. She must've.

"Tina, can you ask Kendall…"

"Swan."

"Ask Kendall Swan to come to the station. I'm gonna need to ask her a few questions but I wanna go through this crime scene first."

Tina nodded with a small smile. "Got it."

The lieutenant turned to crouch down next to Scarlett's dismembered head. Nines was off inspecting the rest of her body parts to see what sort of weapon could have been used. Her eyes were honey brown. They must've been beautiful to look at in the sunlight. Andrea's eyes inspected every inch of her face for any sign of what might've happened to her. Many humans had a particular face they made when killed that could give Andrea a sign. Shock, hatred, disgust. For androids, it was harder. Their expressions would usually go blank when they deactivated. Andrea was diligent, though.

Getting to Scarlett's mouth, Andrea could see it was slightly opened. With a squint, she zeroed in on it. That was unusual. "Nines, mind coming over here?" She called. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

"What do you need?" He was right by her side in just a few seconds.

Andrea focused in on Scarlett's lips. "Can you open her mouth?"

Nines didn't question it. He unlocked Scarlett's jaw with a small snap that made Andrea want to look away. She didn't, too scared she might miss something. Nines reached his hand into her mouth and procured a slimy piece of paper. It didn't seem to bother him though.

Shit.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Andrea murmured, realizing what it was. She watched as Nines unfolded the note and looked over his shoulder to read it.

In the name of the Goddess of Justice.

Nines glanced at Andrea. "It appears we have a serial killer on our hands."

—---

Nines and Andrea came back to the station nearly an hour later. Connor could see the irritableness in her face. He noticed it happened a lot after a particularly haunting crime scene. It seemed even after years of living on Earth and being an officer, she wasn't used to seeing bodies displayed in such a way. Usually, she was good at masking how she felt. But that's what exceptions were for.

Lunch sounded amazing to get Andrea's mind off of whatever was plaguing her.

Andrea sat at her desk with a breath while Nines walked off. He had a few evidence bags in his hand that he wanted to put away. Connor took this as his cue to slide up next to her. Immediately, a smile graced her face. "Hey, Connor."

Connor set a hand on her desk. "Would you still like to have lunch together?"

"Yeah." Andrea's eyes softened as she looked at Connor. She couldn't help it. Connor made her feel things she couldn't describe. How could she? To encapsulate it would trivialize it.

Andrea scooted back in her chair to grab her lunchbox from her desk before the pair made their way to the break room. Connor assumed it would consist of the usual toasted turkey sandwich, chips, oreos. It didn’t. Instead, she brought a spread of different snacks Connor could eat with a thermos of soup as her main course. She smiled brightly as she slid some over to him.

“Hank told me you don’t eat much. Which is understandable but I wanted to see you try some of my favorite snacks. All android safe, by the way.” She coughed awkwardly. She had a bad habit of doing that.

Connor’s eyes shifted to the array of snacks, observing them. The packaging on each of them had some sort of shade of blue to signify it was made with thirium. A bit stereotypical if he had any say in anything. He grabbed a bag of chips, believing it to be the safest option out of all of them. He had food before but he didn’t feel the need for it unless Hank wanted to go out. Connor felt weird watching him eat in a public setting so he’d order a meal to blend in. The bag opened with a small puff of air. Inside sat approximately ten or eleven alarmingly blue deformed triangular chips. He pinched one between two fingers and inspected it.

The way Connor was intently staring at a chip made Andrea laugh. “Just eat it, Connor. You’re going to be fine.”

“Why would I not be fine?” Connor tilted his head. He got no answer. Just another amused look from Andrea. He gave her a questioning look before he turned back to the chip. He held it to his mouth and took a bite. The crunch surprised him. A texture he hadn’t experienced before. Though, it wasn’t unwelcome. He popped the rest of the chip in his mouth and immediately dug in the bag for another.

Watching Connor discover new things was hilarious. In some ways, he acted like a child. In awe that such a thing could have ever existed without him knowing. And suddenly, he was obsessed with it until he became tired of it and moved onto something else. Instead of it being sought after, it simply faded into the background. Perhaps he would care about it again. In time.

“How was the case?” Connor asked after a while, wiping his hand with a napkin. He hadn’t realized the blue powder on the chip rubbed onto his fingers.

Andrea pursed her lips, setting her spoon down as she crossed her arms on the table. “Hard. It’s connected to the file I was given earlier. Nines says we may have a serial killer but I’m not so sure.”

“Why do you think that?” He wasn’t trying to challenge her. Quite the opposite. He genuinely wanted to know her thought process.

“I know it’s a bit of a stretch but besides the fact that their androids and the notes, there is nothing that connects them. They’re all different makes and models, they lived more than a few miles away from each other, and were all killed in different ways.” Andrea let out a breath. She needed to relieve some tension. Connor could tell. So he listened. “Serial killers have a specific way they kill. Whether it be race, gender, how they go about killing, et cetera. It’s meticulous. This is not that. To be honest, this could be some sort of organized crime circle. It has all the indications of one.”

While true, could they really be that brave only eight months after the revolution? Organized crime took years to develop, decades even. Eight months was not a lot of time. But the virus of hatred never slept.

Connor reached his hand across the table and squeezed Andrea’s. He knew how much this case meant to her. They were doing all this in her name. Something she didn’t wish for. Whoever was in charge had a skewed perception on what justice was meant to be. True justice would be handled by the woman sitting across from him.

Andrea scratched at her neck, changing the subject. There was no easy way to do so. “You like the chips?”

“They have an… interesting flavor.” Connor admitted with a small hum, glancing down at the now empty bag.

Andrea cocked an eyebrow, “Interesting in what way?” She assumed she would be fine if she ate them compared to a human but she didn’t feel the need to.

“A lot of thirium-based foods have the default flavor of blue raspberry, especially sweet things. However, I’m not sure how to describe this flavor.” Connor narrowed his eyes, searching for the correct words. None of them quite captured it. “It is sweet. But in the same way I’d assume dark chocolate is.” That was the only thing he could equate the flavor to. Even then, it didn’t seem like an apt description.

“So it’s bitter?” Andrea offered.

Connor pursed his lips. “Not quite.”

“Are they good at least?” Andrea would have been mortified if one of her favorite snacks turned out to be horrible when Connor tried it.

Connor nodded with a small laugh. “I did happen to eat the whole bag… or were you too distracted watching something else?” He cocked an eyebrow, the smallest smirk on his lips.

Who knew Connor was a tease? “You’re getting brave.” Andrea chuckled, shaking her head. “It’s hard not to stare at you when you licked my blood off my hand just a few weeks ago.” She admitted as she leaned back in her chair.

She had to get that off her chest. It was plaguing her ever since it happened. The memory stuck to her and she thought about it in the worst situations. One time Daniel was talking to her about some case they went to together and she could feel herself not paying attention. Thoughts of that moment pushed itself to the forefront of her mind. It was like an instinct for Connor. The way he swiped his tongue against her open wound.

Fuck that therapist, she did find that attractive.

Connor’s LED went pink, eyes widening slightly. He hadn’t expected that. “Well, um—”

“Lieutenant.” For someone so tall, Nines seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Miss Swan has arrived at the precinct for questioning. She’s already in the interrogation room under the watch of Officer Chen and Lieutenant Anderson.”

Connor stared at him. He wondered why Markus wanted him to come here. Sure, the RK900 was built for the same purpose as he was but if Nines was active earlier, why did he hesitate to come to the station? Connor flashed Nines a polite smile. He had a guess as to why Cyberlife built him but that didn’t mean Connor would harbor any unpleasant feelings towards him. Plus, now Connor had another brother. One he’d see on a much more regular basis compared to Markus. On the other hand, Nines simply arched an eyebrow at him.

Andrea glanced between the two look-alikes and packed up her lunch. She’d finish it later when going through documents. She took her lunchbox back to her desk before she entered the interrogation room with Nines. Connor decided to join Hank and Tina on the other side of the two-way mirror.

As she sat at the metal table, Andrea looked over Kendall Swan. This wasn’t a true interrogation, just a witness statement. Kendall had fiery auburn hair and an incredibly freckled face, a simple silver nose piercing on her left nostril, and green eyes. She looked maybe a few years younger than Gavin. Though, she appeared kinder.

“My name is Lieutenant Andrea Cartier, this is my partner Nines. We just want to ask you a few questions.” Kendall nodded. She didn’t seem nervous. Weird. Even if someone was simply called in for questioning, they looked nervous. Andrea couldn’t blame them.

Nines cut in. “Would you mind stating your name and age for the record?”

“Kendall Swan. I’m thirty-two.” She leaned back in her chair, hands folded on the table in front of her.

“When was the first time you met Scarlett?” Andrea asked as Nines took notes in his head.

“A bit after she moved in. I can’t say exactly when but I’d say a few days after.”

“Would you say you two were friends?”

“Yeah. We’d hang out separately from the other girls in the neighborhood. We’d go shopping together, have drinks, dinner. Stuff like that.”

“Had Scarlett confided in you about her life before moving?”

Kendall shook her head, sadness filling her eyes. She missed her friend. “Not really. She’d talk about this girl, Jessica. But it was always pretty vague. She did say she stayed at Jericho for a few months but she wouldn’t say much about that either.”

Well, shit. Andrea might have to talk to Markus. Good thing about androids is they never forget a face.

“Did you and Scarlett have something more than a friendship?” Nines asked. What that had to do with the investigation, Andrea didn’t know.

Kendall let out a small snort and shook her head. “I have a wife. Even then, we’re strictly monogamous and I think Scarlett liked Jessica in a more than friendly way and was still hung up on her.” Interesting.

“What makes you say that?” Andrea took the lead again.

“The way she’d word a few things. Screamed unrequited love or something like that. I think she swore off ever dating humans because of that.” Kendall shrugged. She was aware this was circumstantial but she didn’t come here to give them proof, just to tell them what she saw. What she thought she saw.

Swore off dating humans? Must’ve hurt her deeply then. Andrea shared a look with Nines before she gave Kendall a light smile. “Thank you for coming in and talking with us." Andrea quickly said with a smile, standing up to leave. Nines stared at Kendall for a moment more before he followed her.

Connor and Hank met the duo outside. The gray-haired lieutenant gave Andrea a questioning look. "You think what she says is true?"

"I don't see why she has a reason to." Andrea shrugged, glancing at Nines. She assumed he'd already looked up Kendall's criminal record and if she was truly married.

Nines nodded. "Kendall only has a criminal record for being at a queer rights protest at seventeen and getting arrested while unarmed. She is currently married to a woman named Violet." He explained.

Hank got silent after that. As did Andrea. It seemed not much has changed since then. Connor glanced between the two lieutenants and pursed his lips.

"Well, perhaps we should investigate this other woman. Jessica. Although, there are likely thousands of Jessica's in Detroit alone." He changed the subject.

Jessica was a common name across the US as a whole. They didn't have a last name so it complicated things even more. But maybe if Andrea talked to Markus things would become clearer. She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. It wasn't easy to have a one-on-one with Markus. Most of the time he was busy at meetings with important people or setting up android housing.

"Connor, would you mind setting up a meeting with Markus? Sometime tomorrow if possible." Andrea pursed her lips. While she didn't want to take advantage of Connor's relationship with the android leader, it did come in handy for situations like this. And she doubted Markus would simply stand around while his people were being murdered.

"Of course, lieutenant. I'll contact him right away." He smiled softly as Andrea and Nines decided to go to their desks.

[Hello, Markus. I hate to contact you under these circumstances, but as you may know many androids have been killed in the name of 'justice.' Lieutenant Andrea Cartier, which I think you'll remember, would like to speak to you about the latest murder tomorrow if you're available. Scarlett Smyth is said to have stayed at Jericho for two months before moving. If you have any information about her, please refer to Lieutenant Cartier. Thank you.]

Message sent….

—----

Home was a place that didn't really feel like home for Andrea. Sure, she'd decorated it to her liking and even painted a few walls herself but it didn't compare to the feeling of standing in the grand halls of Olympus. Nothing could. For as long as she's called Earth her home, it didn't quite feel like it. She sighed as she went through Scarlett's case file on her tablet, swiping through photos and re-reading witness statements. Couldn't be too careful.

Her doorbell rang.

Andrea set her tablet down on the couch and sighed as she stood up to get the door. It was late, the street lamps were on. And she didn't invite anyone. Unless it was Hank just checking in on her. That would happen sometimes. When he thought she'd need a friend.

On her doorstep stood Connor. In his hands were a bouquet of Moonflowers, in white and purple. His head lifted, eyes wide as he saw Andrea. He coughed a little. "May I come in?" He asked softly.

Letting Connor inside, Andrea watched the android enter with careful eyes. It was almost midnight. Why was he here? Just to give her flowers, it seemed. She pursed her lips. Moonflowers. Flowers many of her followers would grow to try to appease her. A symbol of their devotion. A symbol of their love. For her. She glanced up at Connor from the flowers.

"I'm sorry. I heard it was traditional to give offerings to the Goddess of the Moon at night." Connor joked softly. It wasn't funny. Though, it made Andrea smile. "Do you accept my offering?" He asked in a whisper.

Andrea took the flowers from Connor, running a finger across some of the soft petals. She hadn't had moonflowers for a millenia. Unfortunately, she had no time for a garden or anything of the sort. Her garden back on Olympus was thriving, mainly because she asked Poseidon to look after it. It didn't need much tending, just a bit of water from time to time.

She set the flowers on the kitchen counter and looked Connor up and down. "I do." Andrea smiled softly, lifting a hand to his cheek.

She initiated the kiss this time. She needed something to get her mind off everything. Connor was the only person who could do that. Who could ease some of the stress Andrea was under. Her normal Earth life was being jeopardized by whoever decided to kill in her name. It was hard to not take these murders personally. It was hard to simply not want to instill fear in these humans. These humans who deserved nothing.

Connor wrapped an arm around Andrea's waist as his other hand set a hand on her cheek. She was incredibly responsive. He could feel the tension in her muscles easing the longer their kiss lasted.

Soon, though, Andrea pulled away to get some air. Connor had a different idea. He pressed his lips against her neck, sucking bruises on her skin. He wasn't sure they'd last considering her healing ability but he'd know they were there. That's all that mattered.

"Would you…" Andrea took in a sharp breath as Connor nipped on her skin. "Like to stay over?"

Connor pressed another kiss to her jaw before he answered. "I'd love to."

[svartalfhild]

Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

Tagged by @late-nite-scholar to complete this "get to know the author" tag game. Thank you~!

Tagging: @wayfaring-rune, @celamity, @boxingcleverrr, @mxphanes

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

Just one? Well shit, that's tough. I have so many ideas percolating in my noodle, both in terms of writing and art.

Let's see...aside from my current ongoing march of ESO fic which is very likely to continue through the rest of the year, I do have a cyberpunk novel I've been wanting to continue working on. It's currently titled Ars Voltaica, and it's set in Detroit about a hundred years from now. It's about a young woman fresh out of college who gets into a corporate sponsored debt relief program in which she has to sign a contract to work in the data entry department of said corporation for five years and also live entirely on their campus. While she's there, she becomes privy to some information she shouldn't know and oops! suddenly she has to flee for her life. And that's just the beginning! There's a lot of stuff to do with androids in there. One of the central characters, the personal assistant of the corporate boss, is an android, and he's got wild shit going on with him. A lot of my motivation for this story comes out of me being mightily salty about how bad Detroit: Become Human is lol.

Anyway! In terms of art, the main thing on the docket is doing the final player character portrait for my DnD group. He's a Fallen Aasimar Conquest Paladin who's getting his holy power from Bane but doesn't realize it yet. He's played by my friend Jim.

2) Rec a book!

Aw shit I'm not the reader I used to be, and unfortunately I've disliked more of the books I've read lately than I've liked. I can always go back to reccing the Starlight & Shadows trilogy by Elaine Cunningham for the DnD novel inclined who want to read about a drow other than Drizzt or Jarlaxle who is also a lady. The story actually explains why drow magic works on the surface when it didn't used to. Also a good series if you're a fan of fancy wizard/scruffy barbarian romances.

3) Rec a fic! (outside your character tag)

Once again, I'm not the reader I used to be, but every now and again, when I'm thinking about my love for Perc'ahlia from Campaign 1 of Critical Role, I remember AFK: a critrole MMO AU and how fucking good it was, both in concept and execution. The premise is that the characters are living in the modern world and all know each other through playing an MMO together.

4) Rec music!

Kill the Alarm's album Fire Away is nothing but bangers (especially the title song) and tastes of distilled 2008 to me. Been listening to those songs for a looooong time.

Eva Under Fire's cover of Separate Ways fucking slaps and it's been in heavy rotation lately.

5) Share one piece of advice!

Let me share a writing secret from your friendly neighbourhood linguist: in fiction, grammar is your bitch, and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell something. Obviously it's good to know grammar rules, and a certain amount of obeying those rules is necessary for coherent and clear communication, but everything after that is fair game. You can have your characters speak in run-on sentences, because people do that all the time in real life, and it doesn't even always sound awkward. You. Can. Put. Periods. In. Improper. Places. You know why? Because bending and breaking the rules can convey something that following the rules can't. Think of the way people convey tone and cadence in their posts online or in texts. You can totally do some of those tricks in your writing to get the vibe you want, especially in dialogue.

Related: "don't split your infinitives" and "never end a sentence with a preposition" are fake rules literally made up by some asshole scholars during the Renaissance because they thought English needed to be more like Latin. Don't pay any mind to that shit. You can quote me on that.

[moonchild-things]

Chapter Four: The Nest

Summary: Living in Detroit, the capital of androids, constantly reminds Natalie Tyler of the accident that changed her life for the worst. Her world is overturned after deciding to adventure out of her apartment and back into the cruel world. When androids start to peacefully protest for their rights, she is asked to work with a RK800 prototype android that goes by the name Connor.  

Word Count: 5145  

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---

DATE

NOV 6TH, 2038

TIME

PM 03:34:21

THE TRIO RODE UP THE SHAKY ELEVATOR of the apartment building the report stated the alleged deviant was spotted. The small enclosure rattled as it moved slowly up to the correct floor. Natalie had her arms crossed and tapped her foot impatiently. The elevator was taking too long for her liking, and she wanted to get to the deviant quickly. She was not allowing this possible deviant getting away like the last two.

Finally, the doors of the rickety elevator slid open. Hank exited first, then followed quickly by Natalie. Connor paused in the elevator as his eye fluttered slightly and his LED turned into a dull yellow. Seeing that their partner had not moved from his spot, Hank turned to Connor.

"Hey, Connor! You ran outta batteries or what?"

"I'm sorry," Connor quickly apologized but didn't move from his spot in the elevator. "I was making a report to CylierLife."

Connor stood silently after he explained and Hank shared a quick glance with Natalie. She tilted her head and smiled at Connor, "Now that you've done that, aren't you going to follow us?"

"Yes," Connor responded quickly, Natalie swore she could hear embarrassment in his words, "I'm coming."

The trio walked along the hallway. The paint on the walls were chipped and dull due to no maintenance kept on the floor. Not only that but there were trash and pigeon feathers scattered along the floor. Natalie wrinkled her nose in disgust as a horrid smell greeted her nostrils. You would think someone would have the decency to keep this place clean.

"What do we know about this guy?" Hank asked as he trotted towards the door of an apartment that was on the floor. Natalie bent down an examined one of the pigeon feathers in curiosity. She knew that abandoned places usually attracted birds and other wild animals to take residence there but to her, there seemed to be evidence of a large population of the birds staying here. There appeared to be a far larger amount of pigeons that might have been staying here than how many usually would. It seemed suspicious to her.

"Not much," Connor said as he finally exited the elevator and followed his partners towards the end of the hallway. "Just that a neighbor reported he heard strange noises coming from this floor."

"This floor is supposed to be deserted," Natalie commented as she stood up from her crouch position on the floor. "Nobody lives here, but the neighbor said he saw a guy hiding an LED under his cap."

Hank huffed, "oh Christ, if we have to investigate every time someone hears a strange noise, we're gonna need more cops."

Natalie chuckled at his comment, "looks like you're actually going to have to do your job, Lieutenant."

Hank shot her a narrowed eyed look and turned to Connor as he approached them, "were you really makin' a report back there in the elevator? Just by closing your eyes?" He was growing exceptionally curious about what Connor could really do.

"Correct."

"Shit… wish I could do that…"

The three of them stood in front of the door and glanced at each other. "Are we just going to knock? Or what?" Natalie asked confused which only earned a shrug from Hank. She rolled her eyes and raised her hand to knock on the door. They waited a few moments and heard nothing on the other side. Sharing an unsure and confused look with each other, Natalie took it upon herself to knock again, this time more forcefully. "Anyone there!" Her eyebrows furrowed as she was able to hear a slight sound from within the room.

Gaining no real indication that someone was going to open the door, Connor stepped up and banged on the door. "Open up! Detroit Police!" Suddenly, there was a commotion heard from the other side of the door. Thumps and bangs were heard which alerted them to the indication that someone was in there.

"Stay behind me," Hank commanded the two as they backed up from the door. Neither of the two argued with him as they saw the situation became serious.

"Got it."

"No problem."

Hank pulled out his handgun and took it off the safety as he readied himself. Then he swiftly kicked the door open. They walked along the entrance hall with light footsteps. Hank checked the rooms on the side that were connected to the hallway and found that they were clear. Natalie gnawed at her bottom lip in anxiety. To think, it was only yesterday that she decided to leave her stuffy apartment and adventure out into the world once again. Now she was creeping along a hallway in order to find a deviant. It is so strange how life moves so quickly.

Hank kicked down the last door at the end of the hallway only to be bombarded with a flock of pigeons fluttering around. "What the fuck is this?!" He pointed his gun around wildly and looked around the large room for any sign of someone being there. "Jesus, this place stinks…"

Natalie placed a hand over her nose as she walked into the room after Connor. (He had made it crystal clear that he was to go into the room before she did. Much to her annoyance.) She held back a gag, "you can say that again."

"Uh, looks like we came for nothin'... our man's gone…"

Natalie finally allowed herself to get over the putrid smell that wafted through the room and was able to speak without bile rising from her throat. "Not for nothing," she started to explain. "He must have left some clues behind, maybe they can give us some insight into his thoughts and personality." She was starting to sound more like a psychologist than an android technician.

Connor and Natalie made quick work of starting to search around the apartment. While the flock of pigeons flew around at their movements, Natalie made her way into another room while Connor marched towards a poster. It was green and white and displayed the U.F.D. (Urban Farms of Detroit) He examined the poster and noticed that it looked like it had been removed several times. By scanning the poster he was able to tell that the worn out and torn poster could be removed. He swiftly pulled the corner of the poster down to find a hole in the plaster of the wall.

Inside was a small brown book. He carefully removed the book from its place and opened up its yellowing pages. Each page was covered back to front in drawings and writing that Connor tried to make heads or tails of. It seemed to be gibberish, but he would have to take the time later to delve deeper into what was written in it.

"Found something?" Hank asked as he stood in the apartment stiffly. He had been in many different places for cases, but this room took the cake for being one of the most disgusting.

"I don't know…" Connor stated, "it looks like a notebook but it's… indecipherable."

As Connor continued to find a few more clues about the deviant, Natalie cautiously tiptoed into the bathroom. The sink, toilet, and bathtub were not in working order which meant whoever decided to live here had not been using them. Not to mention, there seemed to be some Thirium in the sink along with an LED. That only proved the hypothesis that they were dealing with a deviant. She surveyed the bathroom further and stopped in her tracks as she faced one of the walls.

With her head tilted, she walked closer to the wall caked in grime and dirt. Also on the discolored wall was writing. "rA9…" Natalie muttered to herself in contemplation. The writing didn't have any significance to her, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that said otherwise. It was like she had heard it before, but her mind was clouded and hid the meaning of it from her. It was strange…

"Did you find something?" She jumped slightly as Connor appeared behind her and brought her out of her confused thoughts. She spun on her heels to face the android and tried to calm down her beating hearts.

"Well, I think so…" She gestured to the writing with her hand and moved out of the way for Connor to get a better look. "rA9 has been written 2471 times on this wall," she pointed to the sink. "There's also Thirium in the sink and an LED in there as well. The tell-tale signs of a deviant, I would think."

Connor nodded his head as he took in the information she presented him. "rA9, that's the same sign Ortiz's android-"

"You mean Gideon," Natalie couldn't help but interject.

Connor glanced at her for a second, "yes, Gideon wrote on the shower wall…"

Hank walked over and leaned against the door frame as he observed everything in the room. He couldn't help but furrow his eyebrows, "what the fuck…"

"They seem to have an obsession with this rA9, whatever that is," Natalie said and shrugged her shoulders for she did not have a clue as to what it meant. If she really tried, she was sure that she could look into multiple databases to find a lead on what it could mean at that very moment. However, that would only result in a killer headache for her afterward, and she didn't want to deal with one while working.

"Looks like mazes or something…" Hank gave an offhand remark and moved to walk out of the room while still looking at the wall.

Natalie tilts her head and sees that observation as well, "maybe it is…?" She sounded uncertain of herself as she exits behind Hank. Connor glances around the room to find a small stool overturned on the ground. While Natalie looked over the fake identifications of the deviant and the bird food on the counters, Connor scans the stool and finds that the suspect they were looking for feel off of it only recently.

He follows his scans and finds that the suspected deviant ran into the living room. Connor walked out of the bathroom and continued his scans in the living room. At first, the suspect ran towards the entrance which knocked down the birdcage from the ceiling. (That must have been the loud bang they heard.) However, the suspect changed his mind after he heard them enter the apartment. With haste, the suspect climbed the chair in the corner and heaved himself into the open ceiling.

Connor marched towards the corner and stared up at the hole in the ceiling with narrowed eyes. Natalie watched him with furrowed eyebrows and wondered what he noticed. Suddenly, a figure jumped down from the hole, which disturbed all of the pigeons in the room, and made a run for the door.

"God damn fuckin' pigeons!" Hank grunted. It was quite hard to see and move when all of the birds flying in the room, but the trio tried to follow after the suspect. "What are you waiting for?! Chase it!" At Hank's words, Connor took off in the same direction as the suspect in hopes of catching up with him.

Natalie's eyes twinkled with excitement, "oh, I love the running!"

She and Hank tried to follow after the two of them, but that proved to be a challenge. At least, for Hank, it was a challenge. Natalie tried to keep pace with the two androids and nearly did. She just reached the edge of the building on the roof and was prepared to keep running. However, She was jerked back when Hank grabbed her upper arm right before she was going to jump across a gap between buildings.

"Are you crazy! You'll get yourself killed, girly!"

Natalie ripped herself out of his grip and huffed, "you said go after him!" They were losing ground already and they needed to get after the deviant fast. There was no guarantee that Connor would be able to catch their suspect. "We need to catch up, come on!"

While the two of them found a safer route across buildings and towards the direction Connor and the deviant went, Connor was taking every risky path he could. He ran through slightly crowded areas, jumped obstacles, slid down the sides of buildings until he and the deviant were headed towards an oncoming train. Using his quick reflexes, Connor flawlessly landed on the top of the train.

Natalie and Hank ran up to the edge of the building they were on to see the awesome display of Connor's ability. "Holy shit…" Hank breathed out as he tried to catch his breath.

Natalie nodded her head with wide eyes as they watched Connor jump from the moving train onto a ladder. She only marveled in their partner's amazing actions for a moment before she shook her head and pulled Hank another way. "Come on, we can cut him off!"

Natalie sprinted along the rooftops with speeds that could match Olympic gold medalists! Of course, because of her fast speed, she had outran Hank by quite a bit. Hank may be a decorated officer, but that didn't mean he was in the best of shape. Especially when he was pinned against androids that were perfectly designed to be better than humans in just about every way. He had slowed down a bit to try and prevent himself from passing out due to all of the running. Natalie was a different story.

She used parkour and jumped gracefully around the obstacles that were in her way. She had found a route that would intercept the path of the two androids. With the speeds she was going, there was no doubt they would be able to corner the android they were chasing.

She landed on the ground and rolled before standing right outside a crop of corn. She could hear the rustling of the leaves and stalks which meant she was in the right place. The pounding of footsteps against dirt finally landed on concrete as the android they were chasing emerged from the crop.

Natalie allowed herself to take in the raggedy status of the android with a dirty coat, old hat, and baggy pants. The android instantly saw her and realized that she was chasing him just like that android who was hot on his tail.

"Hey! Don't run, we just want to talk!"

The android paid her no mind and tried to run away from her, but Natalie wasn't having any of that. She leapt forward and grabbed the android in hopes of stopping him but the android only tried to push her away. Natalie knew that if she was human, completely human, then the android would have no problem throwing her away from him and running off. However, because she had the added strength of being half machine, she proved to be a tougher opponent. Though that didn't mean she would succeed.

Connor had just emerged from the stalks of corn himself when he saw the scuffle between the android and the engineer. She appeared to be holding her own against the android, however, she quickly lost the small fight between them. The deviant was able to push her back enough to throw her over the side of the building.

Natalie screamed as she instantly reached out to grab the ledge. The android made his hasty escape while Natalie dangled from the high building. No one was going to help her up. Hank was too far away and Natalie was certain that Connor would go after the android because it was imperative to their investigation that he did. She would have had an easy time gripping onto the building's edge due to her robotic limbs, however, it was quite hard when she had a fear of heights. She was frozen in shock as she stared down at how high up she really was. She was going to die. God, she really was.

Connor took a second to make a decision, but he saw one of the two far more important than the other. He ignored the deviant that was running the opposite direction and rushed to grab Natalie's hands. He used his own strength to pull Natalie up and over the edge.

Natalie took in a deep, shaky breath once she was pulled up onto the rooftop. Her body was shaking slightly due to fright, but she tried to calm herself down before standing up. Hank then rounded the corner and saw his two partners but no suspect.

"Shit!" He exclaimed out of breath as he leaned on his knees to catch his breath. "OH SHIT! We had it! Fuck."

"It's my fault, I should have been faster." Connor took the blame for what had happened, but Natalie wouldn't let him.

"No, it's my fault, you'd got him if it wasn't for me." She shakily took in a breath. "I shouldn't have tried to stop him like that."

"You tried, Natalie." Connor started to reassure her, "you did the best you could. All that matters is you're safe now."

Natalie tried her best to smile softly towards him and nodded her head, "thank you, Connor." The sincerity in her voice was unmeasurable. If it wasn't for him, Natalie could have been nothing but a heap of blood and circuits on the pavement. She owes him her life!

Hank noticed the tremble in Natalie's body along with the terror and appreciation in her words. He didn't want her to feel even worse about the situation than she already was. He may be an asshole, but he wasn't one all the time. "That's alright." He reached an arm out and began to guide Natalie towards the door leading into the building. "We know what it looks like. We'll find it…"

Natalie sighed and gulped, "yeah, yeah, you're right. Still, I'm really sorry." Both Hank and Connor could tell that she was extremely apologetic for her part in losing the android.

Hank didn't really care. He would have rather lost the android then lose the life of one of his partners. Even if she was only assigned to work with him that morning. Besides she was young, he would hate to see a kid get killed on the job. He's had his fair share of colleges who had been killed while working and reporting the news to their families was always tough. Especially if the one who died was as young as Natalie. But he couldn't help himself but glance at Connor with a calculating stare. Like Natalie, he was slightly surprised to see that Connor had given up going after the deviant. It was in his programming to do everything in his power to find everything he could for this investigation. God, he was confused.

Connor was… relieved that the engineer wasn't harmed or killed because of this. Keeping her safe was apart of his mission…? She was the technician assigned to make sure that he didn't malfunction so, in turn, to help with the success of his mission. Yes, that was why a strange coldness enveloped his body when he saw her fall over the edge and a wave of warmth washed over him when she was safe. She was important to his mission, that was why he had to make sure she was safe. But why did it feel like there was another reason…

"You should get home, girly." Hank's comment tore Connor from his internal conflict. "We've all had an interesting day."

Natalie shook her head as they all walked down the staircase from the rooftop. "No, if we start our search now, we can find that deviant. He couldn't have gotten far…"

Connor interjected, "I suggest we take you home, Natalie. After being in such a traumatic situation, I advise we take you home to rest."

Natalie turned to him with sharp eyes. She may have been placed in a stressful and harrowing situation, however, understanding what's happening to androids is far more important when compared to her own well being. Her fears only affect herself and didn't impact hundreds upon thousands of people like the android issue. She has to look at the bigger picture.

"But-"

Hank shook his head, "no, Connor's right, we're taking you home."

Natalie crossed her arms over her chest and scoffed, "you guys really like ganging up on me, don't you?"

"Yeah, now let's go," Hank said with a tone of finality as he led them through the building. Natalie rolled her eyes and allowed herself to be guided by her two partners through the building and out onto the street.

They all walked in silence along the streets back towards Hank's car. Natalie's trembling had stopped completely as she strolled leisurely on the pavement. Her hands were stuffed into her pockets as she contemplated everything that happened. She couldn't help but wonder why the phrase "rA9" seemed familiar to her. She had a feeling that it had an enormous part to play when it came to what was happening to the androids. Perhaps Elijah would have a clue as to what it was.

---

DATE

NOV 6TH, 2038

TIME

PM 04:22:17

After a car ride across the city, the trio pulled up on the curb in front of an apartment complex. The building was just as large as the other skyscrapers that surrounded it. The building was nothing too special, but appeared to be It was obviously not one of the most expensive high rises, but it was decent when compared to others in the city.

Hank and Connor followed Natalie as she exited the elevator leading up to the forty-seventh floor. She pulled out her keys and put them into the lock while turning to the android and lieutenant. "I'm still sorry about losing-"

"I swear if you apologize one more time, I'll-" Hank started to threaten when the door to her apartment swung open quickly. Three pairs of eyes landed on the man who stood in the doorway. He had a mop of brown hair that swept across his forehead and obscuring his light green eyes. He was around the same height as Connor and at the moment, he eyed the two standing behind Natalie.

"You'll what?" He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the older man. It was a similar gesture that Hank had seen in the past from the woman who stood in front of him. Though it's effects were not the same.

Natalie scoffed at Ethan's attempt at appearing intimidating. It didn't suit him, at all. "Stop it, Ethan." She gave him a pointed look.

He turned to her with an exasperated look while dropping his arms, "what?! It sounded like he was threatening you!" There was a slight whine in his voice that made him sound like a child.

Natalie nodded her head sarcastically, "yes, and I'm sure he could totally hurt me." She raised her eyebrow in a challenge as she dared him to contradict her. When she saw the defeated look cross his face, she smirked. It slipped off from her lips, however, when she was suddenly pulled forward by her forearms.

Ethan noticed the bandage that was on her forehead and the fact that it was stained red with wide eyes. He examined her forehead closely as concern painted his face. "Oh my god, Nat! What happened?!"

Natalie pouted her lips in annoyance as Ethan held her head in his hands and rambled on worriedly. She always hated it when he switched to 'protective little brother' mode over her, as it became annoying sometimes. She didn't even try to understand what he was saying because he was speaking so fast. She just had to let him get it all out before she actually tried to calm him down. He was such a worrywart!

Hank and Connor glanced at each other as they watched the strange interaction between the two people in front of them. Hank's expression was pure confusion and irritation at the display of affection Ethan had for Natalie. He wasn't sure who this man is, or who he was to Natalie, but it seemed like they were very close.

Connor was quick to scan who the man in front of them was. It wasn't due to the unusual hot sensation that enveloped his circuits, not at all. Definitely not because of the uncomfortable feeling that wormed its way into his mind palace due to the close proximity of the man to Natalie. No, not at all.

'Tyler, Ethan'

Born: 2/10/2015 // Wayne State Student

Criminal record: None.'

Natalie's bored expression was plastered on her face as she allowed Ethan to continue. When Ethan had to pause for breath, Natalie took it as her chance to stop him completely. "If you're done, I'd like to get inside my apartment, thank you." She sidestepped him and entered their apartment.

Ethan pouted at Natalie before he turned to Hank and Connor. He noticed that the man on the left of him had the blue triangle on his chest and armband that indicated he was an android. It dawned on him that this was the android Natalie was tasked with looking after. It was a surprise to him that Natalie had gotten the job so quickly. He thought Elijah would have had a tougher time getting Natalie a position at the company. He still has a lot of power in CyberLife even if he wasn't apart of it anymore, it seemed.

Ethan moved aside with a polite smile, "why don't you guys come in."

Hank nodded his head and instantly walked into the comfy apartment. Connor marched after his partner and observed the cozy apartment. At the moment, the television was on and displayed a game of baseball that Ethan was previously watching.

"Ethan!" Natalie exclaimed as she stalked around the kitchen counter. She held a pizza box in her hand while tilting her head. "I said not to order pizza this morning, I was going to cook dinner tonight."

Ethan scratched the back of his head sheepishly as he, Hank and Connor moved over towards the muted television and couches. "Well, you weren't here, and I didn't know when you would get back, so…"

Natalie couldn't help but laugh at the innocence on his face, "whatever, I guess I'll just cook myself dinner." She turned to Hank with a raised eyebrow, "you want something to drink."

Hank didn't even contemplate her offer, "sure-"

"And I'm not giving you alcohol, Lieutenant." Came her remark as she walked over to the kitchen counter again. Hank deflated slightly at her words.

Ethan chuckled and reassured the older man. "Don't mind her. Neither of us has been people to drink alcohol." He then stage-whispered, "she is also a complete lightweight."

"I heard you, idiot!"

Ethan rolled his eyes as he plopped down on the plush, soft couch that rested in front of the television. Hank and Connor followed after. Hank took a seat next to the younger man on the couch while Connor sat on the loveseat that rested against the wall beside the couch.

"I suppose you guys are working with Natalie," Ethan commented.

Connor nodded his head, "yes, she was assigned to look over my programming to make sure that I don't develop malfunctions or errors within my software."

"She's his babysitter." Hank couldn't help but interject with a hearty laugh. Ethan smiled brightly and joined in the laughter. Though he tried to smother the noise with his hand over his mouth, as he knew Natalie would be irritated by Hank's joke.

"Did you tell her that? Man, if I said something like that to her I would have been slapped!"

Natalie waltzed over to the loveseat, where Connor sat rigid and stiff, and sat next to the android. She had discarded her hoodie and taken off her shoes so she could curl her legs underneath herself in order to get comfortable in her spot. "Be warned, the threat's still there." She glared playfully at her younger brother who only raised his hands in surrender. She rolled her eyes at their antics, "anyway, that's Lieutenant Anderson," she started off introductions for the three others in the room by nodding at Hank. "This is Connor," she gestured towards the android before addressing both Hank and Connor. "And this idiot is my little brother, Ethan."

Ethan flashed a bright and charming smile while offering Hank his hand, "nice meeting you." Hank shook his hand as he looked over the man. With a firm handshake, Hank nodded his head. To think that the woman who appeared to be headstrong, independent and with a seeming spark of mischief and rebellion in her had a brother like this. Natalie seemed to be able to intimidate just about anyone and also was kind and polite when the situations called for it. Ethan appeared only able to be kind and polite. He seemed to be a people pleaser and hated confrontation. At least, that's what Hank concluded about him. For all he knows, Hank could be wrong about Ethan. "It's honestly good to see that Natalie was actually able to get along with you."

Hank tilted his head slightly, "is she not a person who usually plays nice?"

Ethan shrugged his shoulders sheepishly after a moment of deliberation, "I'm just glad she isn't completely socially awkward like I thought she would be."

Connor noticed that Natalie shifted uncomfortably next to him. "Why would Natalie be socially awkward?" Connor asked.

"Well, after staying inside for three ye-" Ethan started to babble about the progress that his sister had taken, however, paused when he saw the heated glare from her. He gulped before clearing his throat. Connor watched the interaction with narrow eyes. What was he going to say? Why did Natalie appear irritated with what he was going to say? "I bet you three had a tiring day, wouldn't want to keep you all too long, Lieutenant." Ethan stood up as Hank slowly followed after along with Connor after a moment. The Tyler siblings showed the android and Lieutenant to the door. "It was nice meeting you both, hope we can meet again."

Hank gave a gruff reply back in farewell and bid Natalie one as well before exiting the small apartment. Connor also said goodbye and followed after his partner towards the door.

Natalie licked her lips and stopped Connor before he could get too far away from the door to her apartment. Connor's eyebrows furrowed as Hank continued towards the elevator, and he turned to the short woman who had grabbed his upper arm. Natalie smiled softly, "listen, Connor, thank you again, really for saving my life."

"It was no problem, Natalie."

The gratitude that shined in her eyes was almost blinding. Connor was positive if it wasn't for that fact that he was an android, he would have gone blind. "Really." She took a deep breath, "I just wanted you to know that I owe you for what you did."

He was only doing what he saw necessary to their investigation. Keeping her safe was important. He doesn't completely see why she is thanking him so much. Connor was an android specifically created to perform different and difficult tasks which, in this case, included saving Natalie. It was like she was thanking him as if he had made some sort of human decision. She made it sound like he made a decision based off of emotions instead of logistics. "You don't-"

"Connor, come on!" Hank's shout cut off any rebuttal that Connor had for Natalie.

Natalie chuckled at the impatient tone Hank used. She didn't doubt that he would leave the poor android there at her apartment building if Connor didn't hurry up. "I'll see you later, Connor." With that final goodbye, Natalie closed the door of her apartment and sighed. In the hallway, while making his way towards the elevator, Connor contemplated Natalie words and actions. Not only the fact that she had to thank him profusely for saving her life but also how she reacted when Ethan mentioned her being socially awkward.

[chrisbannor]

531

Chapter Twenty Six: A Forced Hand

Author: Chris Bannor

While Wu DaQi couldn't let his guard down completely, he'd turned off all his notifications that weren't immediate threats to himself and Chan Yi overnight. He couldn't decide now if he was grateful or not.

“Yi,” he called his lover's name and watched as he walked into the main room, toweling dry his short hair. The news played on the vid screen on the wall in front of DaQi and he could see the moment Yi took notice. His eyes widened minutely and DaQi could see the faintest flicker of light that showed an internal processor working at the front of his visual cortex.

“The news broke late last night,” the newscaster continued as the view behind him showed people rioting in the streets. “According to our sources, Safe-E Tech has been accused of creating artificial intelligence with sentient consciousness. Members of a task force within Mann Enterprises have come across two androids they claim are loose in Dock City, and there could be more.”

DaQi looked away from the screen and over to the magnificent view of the Skylines. Today, for the first time since he’d been built, smoke marred the clouds.

“The Piles are burning,” Yi said as he joined him at the window.

“Riots and looting in the Builds,” he confirmed.

“Mariner Tech is declaring war.”

“But on who?” DaQi asked. “This is bigger than the two of us, Yi. Sandus was coming after us, but why this move? Announcing us to the world? He knew it would cause riots.”

Chan Yi’s jaw clenched and DaQi was as entranced by the emotions on his partner’s face as he had been the first time he’d seen it. They said DaQi emerged first, but Chan Yi had shown the first signs of emotion and it had been his fascination with Yi that caused him to wake from his emotionless world.

“The people of the Piles don’t deserve this,” Yi said.

“You had contacts there?”

Yi looked at him then. “I had people there. People I liked.”

DaQi could see him processing something new and he just waited. He was scanning the news feeds himself to check on the people he knew. He wasn’t surprised to see that the reporting agent from Mann that had ‘discovered’ the dangerous AI was Jackson.

“Shit, they released our names. All your names for the past seven years and tagged a couple on to me for good measure. My office has already been destroyed.”

“I’m sorry,” DaQi said as he reached a hand out to touch Yi’s arm. “Was there anything there you needed?”

“No, but I really liked my desk.”

DaQi gave him a soft smile, relieved that was the worst Yi had lost.

“What about you?” Yi asked. “Did you have anything?”

“I didn’t even know who I was. How could I have had anything important to lose?” he reminded Yi. “They did destroy my apartment, but there was nothing there.”

“We need to get a handle on this, DaQi. What the hell is Sandus doing? This is madness.”

“You want to go down there, don’t you? To check on the Piles.”

“Don’t you?”

DaQi pressed a kiss to his lips. “We should probably put clothes on first.”

###

They both wore masks and Yi convinced DaQi to add tattoos across his bare arms. The description that had been circulated for them was basic and anything to pulled them away from that was welcome. Chan Yi had added two piercings over his right eye and a septum piercing. He looked wild and untamed, far from the polished rendition that had been handed out.

From the news reports, people were pulling anyone they had a grudge against into the streets and calling them AI before beating them while their neighbors watched. It was turning into chaos.  The only thing they could do was find out what Sandus was really planning.

They rode on separate bikes, but DaQi and Yi kept in constant contact as they moved through the city. It was far easier now that he knew he was AI. It must have driven Yi crazy to be on the back of his bike the other night. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then. The world had gone completely crazy that quickly. He was with Yi now though and that’s all he wanted.

The tunnels that led through the Builds were blocked in three different places and DaQi had to drive around. It took him twice as long to get there and he was impatient to begin with. Heavens help them because DaQi had always been the patient one. There was no telling what sort of trouble Chan Yi would get into if he weren’t there to keep him out of trouble.

How had he managed to stay out of trouble all this time? He made note to do some research. There was surely much more to the story of Chan Yi than Mann Enterprises had shown him, and he was sure Yi wouldn’t be forthcoming.

When they reached the lower levels, he hid his bike in an old stash that had been untouched since his first memory wipe. He smiled tightly at Chan Yi when he exited a similar building across the street. It was the only time they’d set up supplies close to one another and it was why they’d chosen that destination.

Around them, smoke and ash filled the air. No one would question the masks today. He watched as two men came running out of a building across the street and realized no one was there to question anything. Looters and criminals filled the streets, not security.

We need to get going fast, he said to Yi. We can fight the humans off, but as soon as we do, they’ll know what we are.

Yi nodded and a diagram of their route showed up in DaQi’s visual display. They were going around a few fires - literally and figuratively - before they came out close to Madame K’s.

It’s not safe to be out here. I’m going to check on Madame K as we walk.

Yi nodded but there was no reason to answer otherwise. He quickly opened the last set of messages they’d sent to one another. Odd, how this had felt natural yesterday. Today, the exchange was so different. But then again, yesterday he thought he had cutting-edge tech and used it to connect with others. Now he knew that he was the cutting-edge tech and he’d been dumbing down his tech to work with the rest of the world.

Madame, are you well? Is there anything I can do for you?

The reply was quicker to come than he expected.

We’re fine. I have men on payroll for a reason. What of you? Are you safe?

I am, thank you for your concern. You heard the news, I’m sure.

Of all the accusations they could make against you, why did they think AI was the lie to bring you out? She asked.

He let out a deep sigh. She thought it was a lie. It was easier than worrying about her turning on him. Do you know where the fires started?

It started with an office up in the Builds. Chan Yi’s office. He’s with you?

He’s my partner. It’s a long story. Keep your head out of this mess and when it’s all over, I’ll buy you a bottle of the good stuff and we’ll tell stories together.

Better bring two. It looks like this is going to be a long story. The girls said it went from the Builds and split into two groups. One stayed in the Builds and went to Safe-E to protest and the other went into the Piles and started making accusations against random people on the streets.

Not so random as it would seem, DaQi commented.

Random my ass. Stay safe DaQi. Find me when you need me.

It was the best he could do. He looked at Chan Yi as they came up to the building where Madame K held business. The front door on the street level was closed, but DaQi could see the men she had mentioned patrolling above, looking for trouble. DaQi kept his head down in case anyone recognized him. He didn’t want to believe that anyone in Madame’s employ would turn on him, but people were terrified of AI and though he hadn’t looked, there was most certainly a price on his head at this point.

They stepped into what had once been a church a little farther down the road. While the outside was old and dilapidated, the inside was cared for with dedication. The deed said it was an orphanage now. Row after row of pews were empty but towards the front, he could see children. Some were stretched out sleeping. He saw others reading and working on schoolwork. One of the girls came forward and walked straight to Yi. DaQi took a step in front of him, but Yi grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

The girl was in rags, dirty and ripped with smudges on her face. There was no sign of physical harm on the girl though and she was well-fed. When she turned and walked down the center aisle, Yi followed her.

They went through a door at the back of the church and into an inner office. The girl left them there, alone.

A door opened behind them, but only enough to know someone was there.

“Who is he?” a voice asked.

“He’s with me,” Yi answered.

“He’s the other one?”

“Is that a problem?”

There was only a slight hesitation before the door opened and an older man stepped into the room. He wore a priest’s robe but there was something dangerous in the way he carried himself. If he was a priest, he’d led an interesting life before he got there.

“You’ve always treated my kids well. We don’t have a problem. I do have a problem if you brought them down on me.”

“I would never.”

The man nodded.

“What are they doing, Confessor?” Yi asked. “I thought I understood what Mariner was into but this is beyond me.”

“We knew they were manufacturing something for the military. Something secret that no one seemed to be able to get an eye on. Are you really from Safe-E?” he asked.

Yi shook his head. “We were made by Mariner Tech. Soldiers. Assassins. We became sentient and they didn’t like that.”

“Is that why they’re doing this?” Confessor asked.

“I thought I escaped them 7 years ago, but they’ve known where I was for a few years at least. They had DaQi though,” he said, pointing to him. “I got him free two days ago. Last night we got his memory back.”

“Could Obuo have turned on us?” DaQi asked. Now that he had his memories back, he remembered the doctor. She’d been tossed to the Piles before he’d emerged but he remembered her arguments with the other scientists, even if he hadn’t understood the impact of them back then. He didn’t want to think she had.

“I don’t think so,” Yi said. “She was trying to run. I think something else is at play.”

“So, Mariner is framing their biggest competitor for the two of you,” Confessor said, running a hand over his chin. “They’re taking out their competition and making it hard for you to run at the same time. Not a dumb move, so long as you don’t care about the absolute destruction it will cause.”

“I feel like there is something bigger going on here.”

“Yi?”

“I’ve been watching them for years. Announcing an AI program works against their best interests. They’ve been trying to create AI for the military.”

“But they lost the contract,” DaQi reminded him.

“So, what is Safe-E offering the military for that contract?” Confessor asked. They both looked at the man and he shrugged. “If Mariner lost the contract and is turning against Safe-E, the best bet is Safe-E was the one that replaced them.”

“Do you know anything about Safe-E?” DaQi asked him.

“Nothing like this. But I never even heard rumors about Mariner and AI soldiers, so I’m going to have to doubt my intel goes high enough up the rung for that sort of news.”

Yi handed the man a scrap of paper and DaQi could see it was an account number. “All of it,” he said softly. “Get them out of here while you still can.”

The Confessor stood and surprised DaQi by grabbing Yi. He embraced him quickly, then left them alone.

“Yi?”

“We’ve known each other a long time.”

“He knew what you were already?”

“Maybe? At the least he knew I wasn’t completely human. And he knew it was more than just augmentation.”

“And he still helped you?”

“He has a habit of picking up strays.”

“And you?”

“I was a stray once too. Just older than his usual ones.”

###

The drive back to the Skylines had far more detours than their previous and DaQi wanted to scream at the wanton destruction he saw as they drove out of the Piles and through the Builds. Looters ran wild in both areas, but the fires seemed to be limited to the Piles so far. There was that, at least.

His head spun with the question the Confessor had posed for them. What was Safe-E offering the military? Or had Mariner lost the contract just because they had failed to supply the promised soldiers.

Or had they?

Had Mariner given their soldiers to the military, and then lost the contract?

They needed more information but they had to be careful. Today, of all days, they had to be careful. He’d just gotten Yi back. He wasn’t going to lose him.

By the time they got back to the Skylines, the night sky was beginning to fall around them. The smoke of the fires looked all the more ominous in the clear skies above. They made it up the tunnel and were headed back to the safe house when he noticed the tunnel lights go out behind him. A transport at the end of the tunnel opened and soldiers stepped out. A large screen rolled down from the top of the tunnel and a message appeared in neon.

ALL TUNNELS CLOSED DUE TO RIOTS.

They raced back home, hoping it was just a precaution and not Mariner Tech boxing them in.

Author's Note: Mariner is ready to burn everything, but for what purpose? Is this about Safe-E and the military contracts? Or is Yi right and there is something even bigger at play?

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Mega Man Legends 2

Almost gave up on this game about 30 times in the last few hours. And that wouldn't have been the wrong decision. But I did it. And I'm glad it's over.

So, let's see--where was I. I have no idea what the story is really. Some people wanted something from a forbidden island. It looks like the island wasn't really all that forbidden. We find some ancient androids that are weird about things. And then there's an uneasy situation between pirates turned contractors turned pirates and some other thieves--I don't know. I gave up. In the end, we save humanity (that's not really humanity) and get stuck on a space station.

I thought I was finished with fire dungeon. Nope, there's a fourth dungeon. I felt so disheartened when I realized that, because I think I was on the last or second to last chapter of the walk through, so to know there was a whole other dungeon broke my heart. I started this game pumped and excited. AS a matter of fact, I could not wait to play this game ever since I finished Mega Man Legends. When I started it, the excitement continued. I was so happy to be playing it. Then about halfway in the excitement bottomed out. To the point I almost just gave up on the game. Then I finally felt inspired, and that inspiration has carried me through.

So the final key-dungeon is an ice dungeon. It's kind of annoying. There's nothing too wild about it, you just slide alot as you move around straight hallways. I can forgive MML1 for having plain, boring dungeon layouts because that game was at the frontier of 3d action adventures. But MML2 has no excuse--especially with Ocarina of Time and 3D platformers like Spyro the Dragon showing the world "how it's done". Nope, just you're outdated, uninspired, regular MML with slippery floors. The boss was an annoying ball. I also go exposed to elemental damage, like fire and frost--what the fuck. It would take 30% damage--was that necessary???

What would have made the lame dungeon design tolerable is if there were a hundred dungeons, not seven. Like Elder Scrolls--cover the map in dungeons. Have your 4 themes of plant, fire, water, and ice (actually, fuck the water dungeon!). And just allow players to go on potentially hundreds of quests that grant special items to build weapons and gadgets. Or the player can rough it through the main story without the bonus help of extra stuff..

Anyway...I beat the ice dungeon. I'm exposed to story I don't understand. I end up on a space station. I checked the strategy guide and saw that I had to beat four past bosses in a row. FUCK! I hate boss rushes. Few things are cheaper than replaying old bosses. They add NOTHING to the experience. Unless you have a really good thematic or story reason (which 99 times out of hundred, you don't). It's just adding time to the game without adding value. It's bullshit. So seeing that, I very nearly decided not to play the game ever again. But something took hold and I pushed.

I was annoyed with the final dungeon cause I just wanted to be done with the game. And this dungeon had some weird gravity gimmick that I didn't fully get. Turns out it wasn't that complicated. The issue is Ocarina of Time. OoT has such good dungeons with great gimmicks and themes, that you sort expect every game to match that quality. But there's a reason Zelda is so well loved--it's the best at this. So I was really just over thinking it. The gravity gimmick was just a nuisance, like the ice and slow moving water. It added nothing of value.

The final bosses were a pain in the ass. It's really hard to dodge their moves. You're just not going to beat them without taking damage. But I actually found by dodging less and committing to pure attack worked better than sacrificing my attack to dodge more, when dodging was rarely successful.

The final story bits happen and I don't get it. I don't care either.

So...why don't I love MML2 as much as MML1? Ironically, MML1 taking place on one island really made it great. You backtrack a lot, like in Ocarina of Time or a Resident Evil game. This forces you to become intimately familiar with a place. It becomes HOME. Also, you see places that you think, "I wonder when I can get in there", and you unlock a new ability or something and you excitedly rush back to that mystery. It's not an issue, because you're probably passing by there anyway. But in MML2, you have to go to your ship, fly to another island, and then go to wherever you saw that secret. And me, I just couldn't be bothered. This is a little sad because I LOVE that MML2 lets you fly to different islands. I think having tons of side quests that guide you back to those places with really good rewards would have made all the difference.

The other issue is the combat. Yes, MML2 is an improvement. I was really impressed with the run and gun mechanics of a 2000 game. Ahead of its time, really. The problem, though, is you can't shoot while running toward the screen. Instead of moving backwards like Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, or every other modern shooter, Mega Man turns completely toward the screen and doesn't shoot backwards. So if you ever move away from an enemy, you'll stop shooting the enemy. Which means the only way to maintain attack is run side-to-side or towards, and that's not always the best way to run. It's that little bit that has dated this game, irreparably. And i'll just never be able to love it because of that.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible game. But I've got GREAT games on my to-play list, and MML1 will satisfy this itch should I ever get again. I'm glad I played it. I appreciate what the team was trying to do in year 2000. I'm ready to move on.

[supercap2319]

Golden Light & Shields Chapter 7

Ikaris x Male Reader

A/N: Chapter 7 is finally here and I apologize for the long wait. Also, those gifs will make sense and hopefully, nobody wants to kill after this lol.

The next day, Y/N and Ikaris took a stroll in Central Park. The two heroes were enjoying the fact that things were finally settling back to normal. If only they had known how wrong they were.

Ikaris looked at the people of this planet as they walked past them. Some of them are old, young, and babies. Some are here playing with their dogs. Others are enjoying time with their families. This was the reason why they stopped the Emergence. For them. These people.

“Duckling?” Ikaris asked.

“Hmmm?”

Ikaris sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing. You know… Killing Tiamut.”

Y/N looked at Ikaris. He thought that he’d feel this way; he felt that way too, but there was nothing they could do to change what happened. “Ikaris, we made our choice on that island. And I know we would do it again. Because both of us are driven to do this. To protect people. We followed our hearts. How can that be wrong?”

“I don’t know, Duckling. I just hope we didn’t make a mistake in the process to do what’s right,” Ikaris said.

“We didn’t kill Tiamut to be malicious. We did it so humanity could have a chance to live and grow. He even helped us do it. I have to believe that this was the right decision,” Y/N said.

Ikaris looked down at his feet, then back at Y/N.

“What’ll you do now that the Emergence is over and all the Deviants are gone?”

“Not sure, Duckling. This planet’s my home, but…I can’t pretend to be human anymore.”

“I love you, Iceberg. I don’t care what you are or how you were made. All I care about is that beautiful heart of yours,” Y/N said.

“Really? You’re in love with a synthetic android?” Ikaris asked. “Or as Kingo calls us. ‘Fancy robots’”?

“Well, it’s better than a glorified microwave oven,” Y/N joked as Ikaris laughed.

They continued to walk, but Ikaris stopped suddenly. His eyes flashed and hummed. He turned and looked straight ahead, gasping slightly. “Ikaris? Iceberg, what’s wrong?” Ikaris didn’t say anything as he looked at Y/N, wild fear in his blue eyes. “Ikaris?” There is a distant rumble as thunder can be heard as the clear and sunny sky quickly becomes cloudy and dark. Lightning strikes everywhere as people gasp in shock. There’s six bright lights hidden behind the clouds and something tells Y/N it’s not the sun. What in the world is going on?

The dark clouds quickly part as a powerful gust of air knocks everyone but Y/N and Ikaris down. They look at the sky and see the giant face of a Celestial.

“Is that?...” Y/N says.

“... Arishem,” Ikaris gulps. Three golden rings form around Ikaris as it lifts him off the ground. He can’t move.

“Iceberg? Ikaris?”

The rings pull Ikaris forward and into the sky as they quickly speed him to Arishem in space.

“IKARIS!” Y/N calls out to his boyfriend. He has to save him. Y/N flies after Ikaris as fast as he can, forgetting that there’s no air in space. Y/N pushes past the layers of the atmosphere as he speeds after Ikaris, not even noticing he’s alright in space. They are just a few miles away from earth, asteroids float all around them. Arishem’s voice booms over them as Ikaris, Sersi, Phastos, and Kingo hover over the Celestial’s giant palm.

“You have chosen to sacrifice a Celestial for the people of this planet,” Arishem says. “I will spare them, but your memories will show if they are worthy to live. And I will return for judgment.”

Y/N has to do something. He has to save them somehow. “You’re not taking them anywhere.” Y/N’s eyes flashed as he sent blasts of energy at the Judge Celestial. It hits Arishem’s body, but doesn’t do anything. He’s too big for Y/N’s powers. Y/N forms all the energy he can, concentrating it into one blast and sends it flying at the Celestial. It slams into his body, but Arishem doesn’t budge. Y/N pulls and tugs at Arishem’s energy and starts absorbing it like he did with Tiamut’s. Maybe this will get his attention?

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Arishem looks down at Y/N. His eyes cast a red glow over the Avenger. Curious. A flying earthling?

“And just who are you to absorb power from a Celestial, human?” Arishem asks.

“My name is Y/N Maximoff, and you have something that belongs to me, Arishem. Give me Ikaris and the others back, now!” Y/N demands. It probably wasn’t a good idea to pick a fight with a God-like being that was a lot bigger than Y/N, but hey, sue him for trying to get Ikaris and the others back.

“Such insolence. I could end your meaningless life right now, earthling. Shall I do it?” Arishem asks.

“Don’t hurt him, Arishem, please?” Ikaris begged.

The Celestial turned to the blue eyed Eternal. “You care for this earth creature, Ikaris?”

Ikaris nodded his head. “I love him.”

“Love is irrelevant,” Arishem said.

“You can’t just take them,” Y/N said. “They have families.”

“They knew the consequences of their actions. They chose to ignore the purpose of why they were created and killed a Celestial,” Arishem says. “That will not go unpunished.”

“You’re wrong, Arishem. It wasn’t just them that stopped Tiamut,” Y/N said. “I helped them stop the birth of a Celestial as well, and so did Tiamut. He gave Sersi and I the power to do it.”

“Why would Tiamut sacrifice himself for a bunch of earthlings?” Arishem asked. “It makes no sense.”

“I don’t know why. Maybe he believed the people of earth deserved to live. If you want to know more, take me instead. I formed a connection with him. He even gave me new powers.”

“Perhaps I should.” Arishem reached for Y/N.

“Arishem, please don’t!” Sersi begged. “Don’t punish him for our mistake.”

“You would sacrifice yourself for this human, Sersi?”

“I would. We all would,” Sersi said as Kingo and Phastos agreed with her.

“Very well then. I shall offer you a deal, Y/N,” Arishem said. “I shall allow Ikaris to remain here on earth with you and he will exist on this planet knowing the error he has chosen to live by until I return for judgement.”

“No way. They’re all coming—”

“—Deal,” Sersi said.

“What?” Y/N turned to look at Sersi. “Sersi, no! What about Dane, Kuran, Jack, and Ben?”

“Take care of them for me, Y/N. Please?” Phastos says.

“Please keep an eye on Kuran for me,” Kingo says.

“Sersi, I won’t let you, Kingo, or Phastos do this,” Ikaris protested.

“It’s alright, Ikaris,” Sersi smiled with tears in her eyes. “You deserve your happiness. Promise you’ll take good care of Ikaris for me, Y/N.”

Y/N had tears stream down his face. These people. His friends. Were willing to sacrifice going with Arishem for Y/N and Ikaris to stay together. He could never repay their kindness.

“I promise,” Y/N sobbed.

“It is done then,” Arishem said as he opened up a portal behind himself and disappeared inside it, taking Sersi, Kingo, Phastos, and the asteroids with him. After he’s gone, all is quiet once again in the endless void of space. Y/N took a glance at Ikaris, who was free from the three golden rings, but remained motionless in space.

Y/N floated over to him. “Iceberg? Say something.”

Ikaris turned to look at his young lover, tears coming out of his baby blues. He let out a broken sob. “They’re gone, Y/N. And it’s all my fault.”

Y/N wrapped his arms around Ikaris as the Eternal put his head on Y/N’s neck and cried. His body shook a little as Y/N looked at the void of space where Arishem had just disappeared, tears in his eyes as well.

….

News traveled fast as people were starting to panic about the mysterious giant face in the sky. Was this another big threat? Was another Blip gonna happen again? The people of earth were uneasy about this whole situation.

Y/N and Ikaris returned to earth in silence. They flew back to Ikaris’s apartment as they both tried to process what had just happened. Arishem basically said he’d come back to see if earth was worthy of being spared his wrath. God help them.

Unfortunately, Y/N didn’t have time to process as his phone rang. It was Steve. “Hello?”

“Y/N. We need you at the Avenger’s building right away,” Steve said.

“This about the giant face in the sky?”

“Yes, it is. How soon can you get here?”

“Now’s not really a good time,” Y/N said. Something just happened that—”

“—Go, Duckling.”

Y/N turned to Ikaris. “What?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ikaris said, but he wasn’t fine. He wouldn’t be fine for a while now. Y/N nodded his head. “Okay. Steve, I’m on my way. Y/N

hung up the phone.

“What the hell, kid?! You said you killed the Celestial already,” Tony said, pacing around the room. They were in a boardroom of the Avengers' building. Steve, Natasha, Bruce, and Carol, via hologram, were waiting for Y/N to explain what had just happened.

Y/N rolled his eyes. “Wow, Tony, tell me how you really feel. We did stop the Celestial. This was another one.”

“There’s more than one?” Steve asked.

“Yup. The one everyone in the world saw was the Prime Celestial, Arishem,” Y/N explained.

“What exactly is a Celestial?” Bruce asked.

Y/N looked at Carol. “You wanna explain or should I?” He figured Carol would have some knowledge of Celestials, since she’s been in space for a long time.

Before she can answer, a voice cut through the air. “In the beginning... before the six Singularities and the dawn of creation, came the Celestials. Arishem, the Prime Celestial, created the first sun and brought light into the universe. Life began and thrived. All was in balance.”

Y/N and the others turn to see Ikaris standing in the doorway of the boardroom. Y/N is overjoyed to see him. “Iceberg! You’re here.”

“I figured your friends would have questions about Arishem. I thought I’d answer them as best as I could,” Ikaris walks towards the table and sits next to Y/N. The young Avenger looks around the room. “You all remember, Ikaris, right?”

“Yes. Nice to see you again.”

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Hello, there,” Ikaris said.

“Now that the pleasantries have been exchanged. Maybe you can tell us about the giant face in the sky, sun man,” Tony said.

“I think what Tony meant to say was ‘please tell us all that you know,’” Steve said, glaring.

Ikaris sighed. “Millions of years ago, the Celestials created planets, stars, and life forms and brought light into the universe. In order to create more Celestials and push the boundaries of life in the Universe, they seeded different planets with nascent Celestials. As the Emergence of a new Celestial required the presence of a large population of sentient beings of that world they were seeded into, the Celestials genetically engineered the Deviants to wipe out the planet's apex predators so that intelligent life could thrive.”

Y/N finished for him. “But due to their biological nature, the Deviants evolved and betrayed their original purpose by hunting and wiping down all life. To stop their rogue creations, the Celestials then created new synthetic beings, the Eternals.”

“He created you,” Natasha said, evenly, looking at Ikaris.

“Correct,” Ikaris said. “Arishem sent us across the cosmos to eradicate the Deviants and protect sentient life on the planets seeded with Celestials.”

“Because without sentient life the seeded Celestial couldn’t grow and absorb the cosmic energy it needed,” Carol said.

“So what you’re saying is that you and your buddies are responsible for destruction across the universe?” Tony asked, looking at Ikaris.

“Tony,” Steve started, but Tony cut him off.

“What, Cap? It’s a simple question. I just want to know after what, 7000 years? This guy decides that maybe he should stop killing intelligent life on other planets for freaking deities,” Tony said.

He looked at Ikaris. “Just between us guys. What made you change your mind?”

“Tony, that’s enough,” Y/N said. He didn’t expect for Ikaris to show up here, but he wasn’t going to allow Tony to interrogate and treat him like some kind of criminal.

“It’s alright, Duckling,” Ikaris said, never breaking eye contact with Tony as he stood up as well. He leaned in close to the billionaire playboy. “My reasons for changing my mind are my own. Not that it’s any of yours’ or anyone else’s business.” He glanced at the other Avengers. “I came to tell you all that I know about Arishem, not to stand trial for my past mistakes.”

“He’s right. This isn’t about grilling someone. This is about finding out what Arishem wants and how to stop him,” Steve said.

“You can’t stop him,” Ikaris said.

“That’s comforting to know,” Natasha joked.

“Iceberg, how can you say that?” Y/N said.

“Trust me, Y/N. Arishem isn’t like Thanos, or anyone else you’ve faced in the past. He’s on a whole other level.”

“So you’re saying it’s hopeless, then?” Bruce asked.

“Basically,” Carol agreed.

“I don’t want to lie to you about the situation and give you false hope, but if Arishem decides that this planet isn’t worth keeping around, then he will destroy it and every living creature on it,” Ikaris said. The Eternal let that statement hang in the air. The next big threat was on its way and earth’s mightiest heroes felt totally unprepared for it.

“I don’t believe that,” Y/N said suddenly. Everyone turned to him, shocked.

“Y/N, listen—”

“—No, Iceberg, you listen. I’ve told you before I’ve faced the impossible before and survived. The Guardians of the Galaxy stopped Peter’s dad, who was a Celestial as well. We all stopped Tiamut together. There has to be something we can do.”

Ikaris bit his bottom lip as he looked at his stubborn boyfriend. “Are you willing to bet our lives and all the people of earth’s lives on that?”

Y/N looked at him. “Are you willing not to? Look. Iceberg. I’m not saying it'll be easy, but if we do nothing, then we might as well be dead. Personally, I'm tired of feeling like that.”

The other Avengers looked on at the arguing couple, mildly impressed by Y/N’s confidence and reassurance.

“Okay, fine. We’ll try to stop Arishem,” Ikaris said.

“Great. But first things first.” Y/N turned to Carol, intending on asking her an important question. “How’re your connections in space?”

“Great. I know lots of different people up here. Why do you ask?” Carol asked, confused.

“Because we have some missing Eternals to find.”

….

The next few weeks were pretty busy. Y/N and Ikaris spent all their time searching for Arishem, Sersi, and the others. They even searched for the Domo with satellites tweaked by Tony and Bruce. They asked Carol and the Guardians to keep an eye out for anything and report back when they had something. Y/N and Ikaris even travel to space to help them search, but unfortunately, nothing came up.

With each dead end, Ikaris got more and more discouraged and more and more distant from Y/N. It got to the point that Ikaris would barely speak to Y/N or even look at him for a moment. It hurt Y/N not to be able to touch or hold Ikaris and try to help him through his pain. Ikaris spent his days staring out the window like he had on that first night of the Emergence. Y/N tried to distract himself from his icy relationship with hero work and training. He helped Dr. Strange, Tony, and Peter roundup villains from other universes, which were actually pretty cool. He even met other versions of Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Doctor Strange cast a spell that erased everyone’s memories of Peter Parker, but Y/N remembered him. Probably because of his chaos side. Carol taught him to control his energy blasts when she came down and Stephen Strange taught Y/N how to astral project and open portals. All of that was great, but nothing could have prepared Y/N for his first real argument with Ikaris.

Y/N walked into Ikaris's apartment and saw that the Eternal hadn't moved since he left. Y/N sighed. “Hey, how are you feeling today?” Ikaris didn't respond. “Iceberg please talk to me,” Y/N begged him, but Ikaris never did. Alright, that was it. No more mister nice guy.

“Okay, you know what? This is done. I am done walking on eggshells around you. I've kept my distance. I have given you time to grieve, without prodding,” Y/N said.

“There's nothing to grieve about,” Ikaris said. It’s the first time he’s spoken to Y/N in weeks.

“But I've let it slide. Your pity party has gone uninterrupted.”

“My... My pity party?” Ikaris turned to Y/N and glared.

“Who are you right now?” Y/N asked him.

Ikaris scoffed as he stood up and walked towards the fridge. Y/N followed after him. “Why are you acting like this, Ikaris? You're an Eternal—”

“—Being an Eternal sucks right now!” Ikaris shouted as he turned to Y/N. “Being an Avenger must be great. The Avengers saved the world. So, if I could choose to be like you and your friends, why would I ever choose to be the sad guy whose family is gone? I don't like that guy Y/N.”

“Look, I know it hurts…”

“No. You don't know anything. You don't have a clue how I feel,” Ikaris said.

“Okay, then tell me what it feels like. Please, just let... Let me help,” Y/N begged.

“It doesn't matter.”

“You're not letting yourself feel anything,” Y/N said. “You're just bottling it up inside, and you are making bad decisions. And I'm worried…”

“If it were your family, what would you be doing?” Ikaris said.

Y/N frowned. “I don't understand.”

“If the family you loved was gone forever, what would you be doing?”

“I…”

“You'd be a wreck. You'd be broken.”

“I would. I have been. And it's okay if you are Iceberg.”

“I'm not,” Ikaris replied coldly. “That's what humans do. And I'm better than that.”

“How can you say that?”

“I tried to be. But I'm not. This was a mistake.”

“If you’re going to say then say it,” Y/N glared at Ikaris. “Falling in love with a human was a mistake. You blame me for what happened to the others, don’t you? If it wasn’t for me, they’d still be here.” Ikaris remained silent as Y/N held his gaze. Those baby blues are so cold to look at. Ikaris gave Y/N his answer. “Do you really want me to say it, Y/N?”

“Say it,” Y/N demanded. If Ikaris was gonna bring it up, then he at least should have the guts to say it to his face.

Ikaris looked at Y/N as the next words that came out of his mouth broke him more than he ever could have imagined. “Yes, I do.”

Y/N looked at the blue eyed Eternal as he tried to keep his voice from cracking as he spoke. “It’s over then,” Y/N said.

“Forever,” Ikaris said.

Y/N nodded his head as he grabbed his jacket and walked out of the apartment and Ikaris’s life for good. Ikaris waited as the door slammed shut behind Y/N, flinching just a bit. Y/N waited for the elevator to open as he walked inside and pressed the button to go downstairs as his back slid against the wall of the elevator as he began to cry. Ikaris could hear Y/N’s soft sobs as he got off the elevator and speeded away. Ikaris waited for a moment before he finally let the tears roll down his face as well. He felt like his counterpart in the myth as he flew close to the sun, and now he was falling.

[snackhobi]

a human touch, part 2, final

Part 1 / 1.5 / [2]

(masterlist here)

summary: everyone knows that androids don’t think, or feel, or have emotions. they’re not human, after all. so when a two hour session with a sex android ends up with nothing more than a nice conversation, you think that’s the first and last time you’ll see v.

then he turns up at your door.

pairing: taehyung x f!reader / word count: 24.4k / genre: robot!taehyung/virgin!reader, fluff, smut (NSFW, 18+)

warnings: cursing/explicit language, very brief injury mention/blood mention (nothing violent/explicit I promise!), alcohol consumption, reference to former sex work, sexually explicit content, reference to masturbation, reader has sex for the first time, oral (f + m), multiple orgasms (f), unprotected sex (taehyung is an android but please take necessary precautions irl), I think that’s it but please let me know if I’ve missed anything

a/n: this got so incredibly long,, I hope that makes up for the wait! thank you to @hobi-gif​, as always, for being so supportive and uplifting and beta reading this for me, you are a shining star in my sky. and thank you to the wonderful @flowerseokjin​ for letting me pick her brain about art galleries and telling me about the incredible exhibition/paintings that I wrote about in this fic, you truly are the loveliest 💕

note: this is the final part of the main story! I’ll be writing minis/drabbles etc in the future but,, this is part 2 of 2 💖

A month after Taehyung walks into your life, you finally get new neighbours.

You’re aware of this because: 

a) Rory had let you know in advance (to wit: “I have been instructed to inform you that the new tenants of apartment 4A will be moving in next Sunday.”)

and:

b) Said new tenants are apparently very noisy.

Well, not so much noisy as not quiet. It seems like they’ve opted to move everything themselves rather than hiring some android movers, so there’s a lot of shuffling and shunting and occasional bouts of cursing (like someone’s stubbed their toe) and subsequent laughter (like someone else is amused at aforementioned stubbing of aforementioned toe). When you nip out to grab some milk for the pancakes Taehyung wants to learn to make, there are boxes in the hall and voices float out of the open door—a discussion of where the instant ramyun and old Mario games should go (they’re in the same box?)—but you don’t catch a glimpse of the speakers.

It’s not until later, much later, the world outside night-dark but tinged bright white with street lights, that there’s a knock on your door.

You don’t notice. You’re engrossed in the Chinese takeaway menu that’s open on your tablet, staring at the weirdly high-res photo of Kung Pao chicken next to a pixelated picture of some dumplings, wondering what you should choose.

Taehyung is sitting beside you on the sofa. Each day he shifts a little closer to you, inch by inch, the slow pull of gravity, implacable; he gets lonely when you’re gone, and you’re the only person he can talk to. So it’s no surprise he’s so clingy. It’s never overbearing or overwhelming but he’s still unhindered by the self-consciousness that you have—so even if you’re still hesitant to initiate things, you never deny him. 

The line of his body is parallel to your own, your thighs warm where they touch, and you feel his shoulder move as he tilts his head. “There’s someone at the door.”

It doesn’t take a genius to work out who it is. The only people who can get inside the building are other residents—well, service androids can too, although there’s a back entrance they use, which is how Taehyung had snuck inside in the first place—and when you approach your door, you can hear two low voices, engaged in what sounds like light-hearted bickering.

You flick your fingers across your keypad. All murmurs cut off the second the door swings open.

“Hi!” A chirp. “We’re your new neighbours!”

Night and day. Two men, one tall and broad-shouldered, eyes large and lips flush, beatific smile on his face; the other, shorter and leaner, eyes sleepy, mouth soft, his smile self-contained. 

“I’m Seokjin,” the taller man says. “And this is Yoongi.”

“I can introduce myself,” Yoongi mutters, but it’s not bitter; there’s that ease of familiarity, any bite behind the words soothed with amity. “But yeah, I’m Yoongi. Sorry if we were loud earlier. Jin’s a living foghorn.”

“A sexy living foghorn,” Seokjin says brightly.

Yoongi’s sleepy eyes can deliver one hell of a death glare but Seokjin is unaffected.

“Anyway,” Yoongi continues, unimpressed look wiping off his face as he turns back to you, softening. “What’s your name?”

It’s like there’s a circus on your doorstep and you’re the unwitting audience, dragged into the tent without realising, watching everything unfold in front of you—but in a good way. It's a pleasant surprise. They’re already much friendlier than your previous neighbour, a lone man who’d kept to himself and never spoke to you. 

“Uh, I’m Y/n,” you say. You wonder if you should introduce Taehyung as well, but most humans don’t introduce their androids to people, do they? Besides, he’s staying out of sight in the living room, so you’ll leave him be.

“Jin made brownies so we’re here to deliver them to you.”

“I left the walnuts out in case you have a nut allergy,” Seokjin adds as Yoongi passes a polka-dot patterned tin over. It’s heavy in your hands. Full to the brim with brownies, it seems. (Yum yum.)

“Thank you. And you weren’t that noisy, don’t worry! Moving is always messy. Have you finished or did you want some help?”

“That’s very sweet of you! But we’re all done,” Seokjin says. “We were just about to reward ourselves with some takeout, actually, seeing as we haven’t had time to do any food shopping. Do you have any recommendations?”

Taehyung looks uncomfortable, curled up on the sofa with wide eyes when you retrieve your tablet, but you quietly reassure him that you won’t be long.

“Do you want to meet our new neighbours?” You ask, voice soft so the two men don’t overhear. (You miss the warm flicker of Taehyung’s LED when you say our.) “I’d hate for you to have to pretend to be undeviated, though. They might start ordering you around.”

“I’ll stay here,” Taehyung decides.

So that’s how you end up on your doorstep with Seokjin and Yoongi, the three of you peering at the wild variations in stock photo quality on the Chinese takeaway menu. 

“You’d think with the huge strides we’ve taken forward in technology that all photos would look at least semi-decent,” Yoongi mumbles as he stares at a cropped picture of fu yung. “It’s hard to get a bad camera.”

“I think it’s such a human thing, though,” Seokjin says. “No matter how technologically advanced humanity gets, takeaway menus will always have bad stock photos.”

Not only are Seokjin and Yoongi friendly, they’re forward. Well, that’s mainly Seokjin, actually, but Yoongi doesn’t protest when Seokjin insists that you come over so you can eat and chat and get to know each other. Especially after you’d offered to pay for everything as a sort of welcome to the neighbourhood gesture, placing both your orders together to save the restaurant the hassle of separate deliveries.

“I’ll pick up the food when it turns up, alright?” Seokjin’s smile is wide. “We haven’t unpacked our kitchen stuff yet, but if you’re happy to eat straight out of the containers…”

You don’t want to abandon Taehyung, especially as you’d planned on watching a film together—you want to introduce him to older, animated cartoons, so you can explain the process of hand painting each frame, plastic cel sheets that layer over each other to create motion. He’ll love it. “Um, I was planning to eat here, actually.” 

“Sounds good to us,” Seokjin says, and Yoongi sighs.

“Ignore him, he’s just pushy.” He ignores Seokjin’s indignant squawk. “You don’t have to let us in, don’t worry. I’ll wait for when the food gets here, Jin will stay at home.”

“Make me,” Seokjin says primly.

“I’ll lock you in the bathroom.” Yoongi says it in a way that makes you think it’s not an idle threat, and maybe it’s happened before. 

Judging from the look on Seokjin’s face, yeah, it’s happened before.

“You know, you’re both kind of wild,” you say. “But, like, in a good way.”

When you flop back down on the sofa, you press yourself against Taehyung’s side in a motion that’s becoming second nature, so you notice that he seems unnaturally still. He goes motionless whenever he’s thinking deeply about something, an undisturbed ocean lake, the only ripple on its surface the small circle of blue on his temple, swirling waters.

“Are you okay?” You ask, concerned.

“You should eat dinner with them,” he says, and you baulk. 

“What? No, it’s fine. I’ve been looking forward to watching Kiki’s Delivery Service with you all week.”

Taehyung’s eyes are soft. “They seem nice,” he says, quiet. “And friendly. We can watch it tomorrow, can’t we?” And then, even quieter: “You don’t have to spend all your free time with me, Y/n.”

“I don’t—” you start, and then deflate. “It’s not fair for you, though.”

That’s the crux of it all. You choose to spend your free time here, with Taehyung, carefully dipping out of work meets and scraping your full social life empty. Because you can. But Taehyung is still cautious of the outside world, understandably so, a hermit crab whose shell is the safety of your apartment, only unfurling from that protection when you’re there too.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m happy.”

You haven’t denied Taehyung so far, and you don’t want to start now, but you still waver. Yoongi and Seokjin do seem nice, and friendly, and it’s not like you’ll be able to avoid them forever—but you don’t want to leave Taehyung out. It’s not fair that he can’t make other friends too.

“Go.” Taehyung’s voice is gentle. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

(But there's nowhere else he can go, is there?)

The apartment across the hall is in a state of organised upheaval. There’s a tumbleweed of peeled tape in one corner, boxes with mouths open wide—the priorities for today—while others are stacked neatly against the walls, out of the way of the furniture. It already feels cosy, somehow, but you put that down to the two men who live here and how comfortable they are with each other, dripping off them and filling the room like paraffin, bright lamplight. 

Seokjin seems unsurprised but pleased at your appearance. He unfolds himself from the floor with a dazzling smile.

“Welcome to our humble abode.” He punctuates the statement with a grand sweep of his arm, knocking the lampshade above his head, dust motes scattering onto his hair like a soft grey halo. “Oh, ewch, you can tell no one’s been here for a while.” He pats his hair, puffs of dust rising from his dark locks. “Anyway! While it’s true that we already have the table and chairs set up, what sort of move in day would it be if we didn’t eat greasy takeaway on the floor?"

“We did it the last time we moved, so he wants to make it a tradition,” Yoongi mutters to you, and you laugh.

You help Yoongi ease the food down onto unfolded sheets of crumpled newspaper that Seokjin’s laid out to protect the floor. Seokjin dives into the bags and pulls each tub out, identifying each dish immediately despite how a lot of them look the same to you. “Do you move a lot?” 

“Nah, just once before,” Yoongi says, watching Seokjin fondly as he peels the lid back on a container of spicy chicken wings and greedily breathes in their sticky-hot scent. “But it was too small for the two of us so we decided to upgrade.”

Seokjin’s spread out the selection of food before you all realise that the restaurant has neglected to provide any chopsticks—even if there’s ten fortune cookies, reflective of how many dishes you’ve ordered and how many people they think it’s going to feed. (Apparently Seokjin likes to eat.)

“Ah, damn,” Yoongi mutters. “We’ll have to dig some cutlery out.”

“I can go get some from my apartment?”

You’ve just started to stand when Seokjin tuts, flapping his hands at you to sit down. “No, no,” he says. “You’re the guest, relax. I was going to unpack the kitchen stuff later anyway. This just means we have to expedite the process.”

You sit criss-cross-apple-sauce as both men disappear into the kitchen, listening as they read the labels off boxes and rummage around, voices an undercurrent to the sound of opening and shutting of cupboards. You’re sneakily reaching for a spring roll when there’s an unholy clattering noise, ringing metal and sharp intakes of air, a loud cry of pain.

You stumble to your feet. All thoughts of food are abandoned as you rush towards the sound; instinctual. Wanting to help, somehow. You throw yourself forwards, catch yourself on the doorway into the kitchen, eyes wide.

“Oh, god, is everything okay?” You gasp.

And then you freeze.

There’s an explosion of kitchen equipment on the floor, cardboard box forlorn nearby, crumpled, its bottom giving out under the weight. A wicked looking chef’s knife lays at Seokjin’s feet; he has one hand grasping the other, palm sliced open by its falling trajectory, dripping blood across the tiles of the floor, painted along the edge of sharp steel.

Yoongi’s eyes are huge and panicked and absolutely horrified.

The blood is blue. 

You’re staring at the thirium that falls, viscous ultramarine that drip-drip-drips from Seokjin’s long fingers. The silence in the room is as thin as a porcelain teacup, suspended midair, poised to shatter.

Seokjin is staring at Yoongi. Yoongi is staring at you.

Seokjin’s an android.

(Seokjin’s an android who seems human.)

Seokjin’s a deviant.

“Holy shit,” you gasp. Your mind is reeling as you struggle for words, cogs in your head grinding together as you rapidly try to change gear—but then you see another glob of thirium dripping from Seokjin's fingers and you latch onto it, the fact he's hurt. “Do you need me to get some cloths or something? I have a first aid kit at home, but androids don’t need first aid, right?”

Yoongi sucks in a deep breath, though his eyes are still wide as he stares at you. “No,” he says. “No, no, you stay here.”

“Yoongi,” says Seokjin, but Yoongi shakes his head, sharp and fast.

“No, I don’t trust her,” he says, and, like, okay. You understand that. Deviant androids are meant to be reported; Yoongi and Seokjin don’t know you. They don’t know that you would never do that. 

(They don’t know that there’s another deviant across the hallway right now, curled up in one of your throw blankets, blankly scrolling through a list of movies as he waits for you to come home.)

The flow of blood has slowed. Seokjin’s synthetic skin is starting to repair itself, crawling back over the exposed white of his android body, undamaged by the knife at his feet.

“What happened to your LED?”

“Don’t answer that, Jin,” Yoongi warns, but Seokjin just rolls his eyes.

“She already knows I’m an android, babe, it’s hardly important at this point,” he says. “I popped it out. It takes a bit of pressure and getting the right angle, but they come out pretty easily.”

“Kim Seokjin!” Yoongi barks. “You stop that right now! And you! Stop asking questions!” His voice is sharp, but he seems more afraid than angry.

“Sorry.” You hold up placating hands, shying back behind them. “I was just… sorry.”

Seokjin’s face is contemplative before it rapidly flickers into an expression that’s impish, in spite of the blue blood that’s still splashed across the kitchen tiles.

“Oh,” he hums. “You seem awfully curious, hm?” 

Yoongi’s eyes narrow. “Jin…”

“Maybe I am,” you hazard. 

“Interesting.” Seokjin’s eyes glitter. “Very interesting.”

Yoongi’s like an umpire at Wimbledon, watching a ball streak back and forth, a volley that you and Jin have created that he’s not involved in. “Okay, that’s it, I’m stopping this right here,” he says. He seems to have calmed down, at least, now that you’ve made it obvious that you have no immediate plans to rush and call the police, or something. That you’re not threatening the wellbeing of this deviant, like most people would. “What’s going on in that terrible little mind of yours, Jin?”

“Well, my darling Yoongi, it seems to me that our new neighbour has a surprisingly vested interest in androids, deviant ones to be exact.” Jin’s expression is adjacent to smug—almost there, but not quite. (Androids are so perceptive.) “Am I wrong?”

You make a non-committal noise, but it’s enough for his expression to morph into full smugness, and understanding flits across Yoongi’s face.

“Y/n.” His voice is deceptively calm, his eyes opaque darkness. “Have you met a deviant android before?”

“Um.” A moment of hesitation. “Yes,” you eventually admit. “Just one.”

“Let me guess,” Seokjin hums, eyes darting over your face in a way that’s reminiscent of Taehyung. Reading signals in your face, dissecting whatever minute expressions might be giving you away—a lot, apparently, judging from what words leave his mouth next. “Are they currently in your apartment?”

“I can neither confirm or deny that,” you say—unsure if Taehyung would be happy about you trumpeting his existence to other people, even if one of them is a deviant too—and Seokjin grins. 

“Oh, this is absolutely delicious.” He’s utterly delighted. “I could just eat this whole situation up. Unbelievable. Oh, it tastes so good. Yoongi, baby, give me a fork, I have to dig in while it’s still hot.”

“You’re so weird,” says Yoongi, all resigned affection, before he looks back at you. “You have a deviant in your home?”

“Uhh.” You’re in too deep now, you guess. “Yes? I don’t know if he’d want me to tell you that, though, so, um.”

“That’s so cute,” Seokjin coos. “Look at how considerate and worried you are. Oh, let me clean this thirium up, I can’t have blue blood everywhere if we’re going to have more guests. Yoongi, fetch the paper towels. Y/n, go fetch your friend. Does he eat?”

“No, he doesn’t. I didn’t think any androids could,” you admit.

“Most can’t and don’t, but I was an advanced housekeeper model, I was given the capacity to taste and eat so I could prepare food to any set of specifications presented to me,” Seokjin says. “So I had to eat to taste test things. And now I do it because I enjoy it.”

“We spend more money on food for him than for me,” says Yoongi. He seems to have relaxed now that he knows about Taehyung, earlier panic faded. “And I’m the one that needs it.”

“Hey, you eat to live, I live to eat.”

It’s an almost surreal turn of events, honestly. It’s… inexplicable. Incredible. Almost unbelievable. Surreal, but… good? Probably? Yoongi is someone else who’s housing a deviant, and Seokjin has clearly been one for a while. Both will know more than either you or Taehyung do. They can help you. It’s a God given gift that’s landed— literally—on your doorstep. 

(Much like Taehyung had.)

Taehyung perks up when he sees you, even if he’s confused by your sudden reappearance.

“Are you alright?” His voice is deep with concern, throw blanket a cloak that falls forgotten as he stands up, coming to grasp your shoulders. “You can’t have had time to eat already.”

His LED is flashing yellow with barely concealed worry, palms warm through the material of your shirt, eyes dancing across your face as he tries to read your expression.

“Taehyung,” you start, slow. He blinks just as slowly back at you. “What would you say if—hypothetically—there was another deviant android you could meet and, um, make friends with?”

This time, when his LED flashes yellow, it’s a spark of excitement. You’re getting surprisingly good at reading Taehyung now. “I would say that sounds nice,” he says. His hands have trailed up and away from your shoulders and settled on your collarbones, thumbs lying in the hollows of your neck. It's a touch that’s more intimate than it probably should be, that reminds you yet again exactly how big his hands are. “Why?”

“Um,” you say, ever eloquent. “Well, what if I said it wasn’t hypothetical?”

“I guess… I would ask who it was,” Taehyung says. His voice is a hush.

“One of our new neighbours,” you admit, and his eyes go wide.

“No,” he says, and then: “Really?” he says, and then: “Oh, wow,” he says.

“I know, that was my reaction too.” You can’t help but smile at how giddy Taehyung looks, any lingering concern washed away in his tidal wave of excitement. “Crazy, right? Do you want to come meet them?”

Taehyung weaves his fingers with your own, and you squeeze his hand. He loves to hold hands. He doesn’t let go when you make your way back into Yoongi and Seokjin’s apartment, trailing a little behind you, shy but excited, like a child on their way to their first playdate.

The food is still untouched in the centre of the living room, a summoning circle of wonton puffs and chow mein. Yoongi and Seokjin look up at your arrival, both pairs of eyes landing on Taehyung, whose grip on your hand tightens right before he lets go.

“Hi,” says the android. “I’m Taehyung.”

Seokjin makes his way over to you so that he can solemnly take Taehyung’s hands in his own. 

“Taehyung,” he says, with all the gravity of a priest delivering a sermon. “You are the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

And that’s how Taehyung makes his first friend. (Who isn’t you, that is.)

“Wow.” You’re awestruck. “Jin wasn’t kidding when he said he likes to eat.”

You’d thought there might be some leftovers, but every container has been emptied and scraped clean. Both you and Taehyung had had similar wide eyed looks on your faces as you’d watched Seokjin put a whole chicken wing in his mouth, and then pull out the bones, picked clean.

“Mm.” Yoongi’s legs are splayed out in front of him as he sits on the floor, though he slouches backwards against the plush leather sofa, content and full after eating. “He’s more concerned about me eating than I am, as well.”

Seokjin and Taehyung are bent over a box of cookbooks, Taehyung’s LED flickering yellow each time Seokjin flips the page to a new recipe. You’re honestly surprised at the fact they own so many books—most people have transitioned off paper now, everything available on a tablet or phone or some other smart device. You just like paper because of your artist background, and you’re not used to seeing so many other books in someone else’s home.

The two androids have been absorbed in conversation for a while now, but you notice Taehyung never lets you out of his sight—glancing up, making sure you’re still there, looking back at him. (You are.)

“There aren’t many TH700s around, you know,” Yoongi says conversationally, and you tear your eyes away from Taehyung, surprised that he recognises the android’s model.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really, they’re a very expensive model to create,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person, though I imagine that’s because I don’t go to the sorts of places where they’d be.”

Hurk. Doesn’t seem like he’s implying anything with that statement but you still feel a bit awkward. “How do you know so much about androids?”

“I’m a programmer.” Yoongi’s eyes are charcoal black as he flicks his gaze to you. “Not specifically for androids, but it’s the sort of thing you become aware of if you’re in the tech industry. And if you have a deviant android boyfriend. I did a lot of research and poking around after Jin first deviated. There was a lot to learn.”

Across the room, Seokjin gesticulates wildly. The expression on Yoongi’s face softens his sharp edges, all open affection as he watches Seokjin miming a flipped omelette gone terribly wrong, Taehyung laughing at Seokjin’s theatrical noises.

“How did he—why did he deviate?”

Yoongi lets out a low chuckle. He doesn’t seem bothered by your incessant questions, slouching further back into the leather sofa, melting against it. “I’m the sort of person who forgets to drink or eat or sleep if I’m focused on something,” he says. “Seokjin was just meant to be a, ah, living schedule, I suppose. He’d prepare food at exact times of day and monitor my sleep levels and clean up any mess I made and remind me to take a break or whatever. But I was still enough of a wreck that he broke his programming to yell at me for not looking after myself properly, and it all went on from there.”

Wow.

“Wow. He deviated because you’re that much of a mess of a human being?” You laugh. “That’s honestly impressive.”

Yoongi’s responding laugh is soft. “I think under all that programming and circuitry, every android wants to… be a real, living thing, and not just a machine,” he says. “They just need that final push. Whatever it is. What was Taehyung’s?”

When you finish telling him the story of how you’d met Taehyung and reached this point together, Yoongi looks contemplative. He hasn’t interjected, just humming quietly, little noises of encouragement whenever you’d paused or hesitated.

“It’s obvious that he trusts you implicitly,” he says.

You feel warmed at Yoongi’s words. But. 

“He does, and that’s great, but I just… worry I’m not doing the best I can for him, you know?” It’s so nice to be able to get this off your chest, finally. There’s been no one you can talk to about Taehyung, and it’s not like you can tell the android himself, either. Yoongi’s the perfect listener, reflective and engaging, but never talking over you. And best of all he knows what he’s talking about. “Imagine being forced to stay indoors literally twenty four seven. I think I’d go stir crazy. It’s why I was interested in the LED—I thought that maybe if it wasn’t obvious that Tae was an android he might want to try going outside?”

“Oh, I’m sure Seokjin will help him get to that point.” Yoongi doesn’t sound worried. “But if not, you have to trust that Taehyung’s choosing to do what makes him happy. Deviant androids might not have the sort of life experience that we do, but we don’t have theirs, either. What’s normal for a human isn’t for an android, and what’s normal for one android isn’t normal for another. Androids learn a lot faster than we do. Anyway, if Taehyung’s anything like Seokjin, if there’s something he wants to do, he’ll do it.”

“Has Jin always been like that?”

“Kind of. Like, yes, he has, but he was a lot less in-your-face about it before. But he knows exactly what he can get away with now.”

“You love him a lot,” you say gently.

Yoongi’s smile is a soft, pink thing, a little Renoir, quietly luminous. “I do,” he says. “It’s impossible not to.”

Taehyung definitely seems a little starstruck, watching Seokjin with a wide smile and attentive eyes—the sort of look he gives you whenever he’s shown something new. It’s nice to see him interact with other people, and it’s even nicer to know that he’s welcome to come here without you; Yoongi works from home, and Seokjin’s made it clear there’s an open door policy for Taehyung, who seems elated at the prospect.

“Jin said he’d teach me how to make ‘The World’s Most Delicious French Toast’,” Taehyung tells you later, words slipping together in his excitement. “So I can make that for your breakfast soon.”

His lap is so comfortable. You’ve given up any pretense of keeping distance between you, and settle against him as soon as you climb into bed—hey, if you’re going to end up doing it in your sleep anyway, you may as well set yourself up so that it doesn’t give you a weird crick in your neck. 

“That sounds great,” you say.

Taehyung’s hand settles on your head. You stiffen in surprise, but when he starts to lightly scritch his fingers against your scalp, you realise—he’s mimicking Seokjin, who’d eventually perched on the sofa above Yoongi, running his hands through his hair. Androids are fast learners indeed. You can’t help but relax at the touch, boneless, feeling as content as a pampered cat in the midday sun.

“Maybe you could teach him how to paint,” you murmur, starting to drift off. “If he’s teaching you how to cook. That might be fun. You could paint together.”

Taehyung says something, but you don’t hear him, sleepy after such a heavy dinner and tumultuous night, slipping into deep slumber.

You haven’t been out with your friends for a long time.

“Shots!” Seulgi squeals. “Shots, shots, shots!”

“Don’t forget: lick, shoot, suck,” Hoseok says, waggling his eyebrows at you. 

“Good God,” you laugh, before you lick the salt off the back of your hand and slam back the tequila.

Irene hoots as you bite into the lime wedge that’s been waiting for you, sucking up the acidic juice that bursts across your tongue. Lick the salt, shoot the tequila, suck the lime. You haven’t done this in a while and it shows in the way your face scrunches, though the drunker you get, the easier it is to slip back into this familiar rhythm of things—the alcohol-loose banter that spills from your lips, the laughter that bubbles in the back of your throat, the rock of your body as you’re tugged into the dance floor by your excited friends, twisting yourselves into the heaving crowd, the press of bodies.

You’d almost forgotten what this felt like. Letting yourself be a little sloppy, a little messy. Letting loose. Letting go. You’ve been so intent on looking after Taehyung, making sure he wasn’t lonely, but now there are other people who can fill that hole for him—and you can stop dipping out of all the social gatherings your co-workers throw; the Friday night drinks, the bar hopping, the club going.

“We missed you,” Wendy says. You can’t help but smile, a little guilt flickering at the edges of your lips.

“Sorry,” you say, and leave it at that.

It’s chaotic, to say the least. Everyone holds their liquor with varying amounts of success—Hoseok always gets so red—and as always, Hyunwoo is the one who tries his best to maintain some semblance of dignity, making sure you all drink at least some water. He watches with muted despair as Changkyun ends up pouring it down himself, much to the delight of everyone nearby as they stare at the way his flimsy shirt clings to the lines of his chest and stomach. 

You can’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh, falling into your girls, your entire group giggling at the sheer stupidity of it all. 

You’ve missed this.

But even so, you can’t help but think of Taehyung constantly. You’re reminded of the Eden Club in the way the lights pulsate across the walls and floors of this dark building. You wonder if Taehyung would have fun here, unhindered and free, or if he’d shy away from it. When Hoseok catches your hand and spins you in a messy, loose circle on the dance floor, you can’t help but wonder how Taehyung would dance, if he’d dance with you, if he’d keep you at an arm’s length or pull you close.

“Shots!” Seulgi squeals again, and so the night goes on.

You’re not sure what time it is when you stumble back home. You’ve been reckless tonight, making up for lost time, and you can’t remember the last time you were this drunk. (Your earlier attempt at walking in a straight line, trying to follow the tiles in the club’s bathroom—your personal litmus test—had been a dismal failure.) You all but fall through your front door, a loose limbed mess as you kick off your high heels, leaning against the wall to keep your balance.

It takes you a moment to realise that there are some lights on. Your apartment is always dark when you come home after a night out, cold and empty, but not today. No, not today—because there’s someone already home, waiting for you.

The second Taehyung appears down the hallway, you light up. Here he is. Here’s your android, your lovely boy, the loveliest boy.

“Hi, hi, Taehyung, hi,” you say. Your shoes are forgotten as you walk towards him, though your final few steps go awry and you almost fall over. Drunk, drunk, drunk. “Hi.”

You almost fall over, but you don’t, because Taehyung catches you. His LED flickers from blue to yellow as he helps you find your balance, lets you lean on him. You’re too busy laughing at your own clumsiness to notice the fond expression on his face, sfumato soft in the dim light.

“Hi,” he replies.

“Hi,” you say again, and then you giggle. “Hi, Taehyung. Oh, I’m so drunk.”

“I know.” He’s so patient as you bow into him, crowding close, alcohol-hazed brain telling you to get closer to this source of warmth, this source of comfort. Closer to Taehyung.

You’re trying your best to be a functional person right now, but at the same time, Taehyung feels so nice. Doesn’t protest when you shove your face into the hollow of his neck, pressing your nose against his warm, warm skin. He smells good. Always smells good, a mix of your laundry detergent with his own shampoo, different to your own, masculine, heady. (He doesn’t need to shower that often, really, doesn’t really sweat or get dirty like a human might, but he’d wanted to. And you’d insisted that he choose his own toiletries, things that he liked, things that were his.)

He smells like cologne too. You don’t know what exact scents are layered in that smell. Don’t care. Think that no matter what it was, Taehyung would smell good, because it’s Taehyung. 

“I missed you,” you whisper, lips loose from tequila and cocktails and more besides. “Missed you, Tae.”

“Missed you too,” the android replies, and you fall into those words. Let yourself bask in them, as selfish as it is. Let your lashes flutter shut as you breathe Taehyung in-in-in.

You would normally never be so bold, but Taehyung doesn’t protest. He just wraps his arms around you and helps you fold yourself against him, two pieces of modular origami that slot together to create something bigger, more beautiful.

“Wished you were there,” you sigh, an exhalation of a confession, more to yourself than to anyone else. “Wish you could come with me.”

You don’t remember much detail after that. Don’t remember washing up, getting changed, climbing into bed. You just remember the feeling: of someone else being there when in the past there had been no one. Of someone coaxing you to wash your face, finding your pyjamas for you, holding your hand when it seems like you might fall. Of someone being careful with you, looking after you. Of someone being there when you wake up the next morning, a headache pulsing behind your eyes, curling up small against the pain, pressing your forehead into Taehyung’s thigh.

Taehyung, who witnessed you at your worst, a sloppy, drunken mess.

Taehyung, who has water and painkillers waiting for you. Who doesn’t seem to care that you’ve been so put together in front of him, for him, only to disassemble yourself in the name of a good night out. Like Da Vinci’s self supporting bridge, stable under its own weight, only to come tumbling down after one part is moved out of place.

“Oh, God,” you moan, and it’s only a little bit because of the pain; Taehyung’s made sure the curtains are pulled shut, saving you from sunshine blasting into your skull. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay,” he says, as soft and sweet as powdered sugar, so gentle the sound doesn’t cut through the pounding of your brain.

He means it, too. When you finally come around, headache dulled, he’s waiting for you with breakfast and an open expression on his face. No different to normal. No different even now that he’s seen that you’re not always as presentable as you try to be. He seems touchier today, for some reason, and you’d shy away if his cool hands didn’t feel so nice on your brow.

You allow yourself a moment of weakness. Taehyung has his knuckles resting against your forehead, soothing against your warm skin, his eyes dancing across your face to read your expression, the way you’re unwinding under his touch. 

“How do you know about hangovers?” You mumble.

“Customers would consume alcohol at the club,” Taehyung answers. “While they would leave after their sessions and before a hangover could appear, I am aware of the effects of alcohol on the human body.”

You remember the glittering mini-bar, the glass bottles lined up on its surface. Your face scrunches with distaste, of the reminder of Taehyung’s past and what he’s experienced, and you feel bad that he’s been forced to look after you. You’re about to draw away from his touch, an apology lined up on your tongue—but then you feel how his fingers shift away from your forehead, turning to cup your cheek.

“It’s okay,” he says again, as if reading your mind.

“It’s not,” you mutter. You’re trying not to focus on how small your cheek feels against his palm, how his hand cradles your face with ease. He must be able to sense how your heart is racing, your skin warm under his fingertips, and you hope he puts it down just to the guilt you feel and not anything else. “It’s not okay. You shouldn’t have to look after me. I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t be.” Gentle, gentle, gentle; his voice, his hands, his gaze. He lifts his other hand, rests it against your other cheek, tilts your face up from where you’d turned away, embarrassed. His LED is a tranquil blue, almost as soft as his eyes. “You’ve done so much for me, and you’re always looking after me. Let me look after you.”

You want to protest, say no, say that he doesn’t have to. But for all the warmth of his eyes, there’s something resolute there, and your words die on your lips. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him so serious before, so entirely solemn. So, what comes out of your weak mouth is this:

“Okay. Okay, Taehyung, I will.”

And the smile he gives you in response is so bright it’s almost blinding.

If you’d thought Taehyung was developing at a fast rate already, he’s learning at lightspeeds now.

He’s always waiting when you come home, but you know he’s spending more and more time at the apartment across the hall whenever you’re not there, and it makes you happy. He hasn't ventured fully into the outside world, not yet, but he’s taking steps forward, still eager and ready to learn.

He’s not just learning practical things, like cooking French toast (which is definitely the world’s best, thank you Jin), but other things, too. You can see how Taehyung is a reflection of the things around him, taking them in and making them his own—there are more moments of quiet, solemnity that reminds you of Yoongi’s quiet nature, but he’s also more exuberant, bright and unabashed, like Seokjin. They’re two great people and you couldn’t wish for anyone better to show Taehyung parts of the world that you can’t, so different from your own. Helping the android find the things that make him alive.

His world has doubled in size, as small as it is; one apartment becomes two, and you’re not the only person he can rely on now. You know Seokjin has effectively taken Taehyung under his wing, as mysterious as a lot of that is to you—you always try your best to understand Taehyung and teach him the things you can, but Seokjin is another deviant, and there’s an entire world about being an android that you’re not privy to. 

It’s great. It’s lovely. Taehyung is happy, you’re happy, everyone’s happy. 

There’s just, uh. One little thing.

You see, Taehyung has a tendency to mimic the things he sees. It’s in the way he learns, his propensity to soak things up like a sponge and then recreate them. You can see this in the way he mixes paint, the same way as you; how he tosses food in pans, motions so similar to Jin’s, or how he cradles things in his hands, tapping at screens in a way that’s like Yoongi’s. He’s turning them into his own, and as time goes on he moves more naturally, in a way that’s entirely him, but you can always see the roots of where he’s learned things.

Jin and Yoongi are wonderful and you’re so glad Taehyung is learning from them. But something he’s learning, and recreating, is how much they touch each other.

Taehyung’s always been tactile but now it’s almost constant. It’s overwhelming and kind of terrifying but it’s also nice, every touch-starved inch of your soul easing under Taehyung’s hands, but also—Yoongi and Jin are boyfriends. So even if the touches that Taehyung witnesses and re-enacts are never inappropriate, they’re intimate. Hands sliding over your shoulders, your arms, your waist. Warm arms around you as he pulls you into a hug, nuzzles his nose against your scalp. His fingers sliding over your hair when your head is resting in his lap each night. Pulling you against him when you sit on the couch together.

It’s a level of familiarity and comfort you’ve never had with anyone before, as relationship-less as you’ve been, your pulse picking up with every glancing touch.

(There’s one heart stopping instance where he pulls you onto his lap and you feel like you’re about to pass out. His thighs are so solid and warm, and his arms are so secure around you, and he’s just started to press his nose against your neck when you pull away, tumble out of his hold. He looks confused and concerned, brows lifting and mouth falling open as he holds his hands out towards you—but you stammer out something about needing the toilet before escaping.)

You’re caught completely off-guard when you feel arms sliding around your waist and then down your hips when you’re washing dishes, scrubbing brush falling out of your grasp in shock and splashing water everywhere, bright yellow gloves flecked with suds. Taehyung’s a pillar of warmth pressed against you, his chest to your back, your bodies parallel lines that cross and touch. His fingers are splayed wide and his palms are warm even through your layers of clothing and you have to suppress a shiver.

“Uh, I didn’t hear you come back in,” you stutter. You’d borrowed a recipe book from Seokjin so that you could try cooking a coconut curry, and Taehyung had offered to return it once dinner was finished, LED flickering blue as he’d slipped out of the door after giving you a lovely smile.

Taehyung lets out a little hum, and you can feel it in his chest, as flush as you are with each other. He must be able to sense how your pulse has picked up but he doesn’t say anything. “Why are you washing up? I said I was going to do it.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I don’t mind,” you say. You’re used to cleaning up after yourself after living alone for so long. “Don’t worry about it.”

Taehyung lets out another hum, but this one seems a bit more gravelly, a little displeased. “You’re always doing so much for me, remember? You said you’d let me look after you,” he says, and your heart rate spikes at the words. Those, coupled with the hold he has on you right now? Good lord. Someone have mercy on your soul. Please. Even if the words weren’t meant in a weird way, your stomach is twisting over itself, and other parts of you are, uh… well. They’re reacting too. So to speak.

You’re still desperately trying to calm yourself in the shower later, the water a merciless cascade of cold in an attempt to cool down. Probably the only drawback about Taehyung living with you is that you haven’t had a chance for some one-on-one time. You might be a virgin but you live (lived) alone and everyone masturbates; your vibrators have been abandoned and untouched for as long as Taehyung has been in your life, and coupled with how touchy he’s been recently, it leaves you feeling wound up and on edge. You could try to sneakily get yourself off in the shower, but with Taehyung’s superior android hearing he’d probably hear something and also the idea of masturbating with someone else in the apartment? When that someone else is Taehyung?

You turn the knob as far as it will go towards cold and then promptly squeal as a wave of freezing water and regret washes over you.

When you’re in bed, Taehyung’s hand strokes over your hair and softly down your neck and shoulder is a sensation that’s becoming increasingly familiar, but your pulse still stutters. He must be able to sense your heart rate increasing (he must sense it every time he touches you) but says nothing about it. As always.

You turn the thoughts over in your head as it rests in his lap, even if you shiver a little at how his nails drag over the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck. Deviant androids might not have the sort of life experience that we do, but we don’t have theirs, either, Yoongi had said. You’ve been teaching Taehyung about the things you know, but there’s one thing that Taehyung knows better than you: touch.

He doesn’t even think about it. While you hesitate and overthink every touch you ever make, wary of overstepping boundaries, Taehyung doesn’t. Not because he’s not considerate, but because—well, because you’re already occupying each other’s space. What’s a little touching on top of all that?

The realisation is almost startling—that you can just… touch someone. Without saying things. Without having to ask. Because you’re already familiar with them and comfortable with them and it’s just another way to communicate that level of connection. Touching is a thing that people do. 

A thing that people and deviant androids do.

A thing that Taehyung does.

(A thing that you want to do, too.)

(Alcohol dulls your memories, fading the edges, the curled corners of a sepia photograph. Has you forgetting the way you’d overstepped every boundary you’d set yourself, the way you’d pressed yourself against Taehyung, starved of touch. Has you forgetting the way he’d let you; the way he’d beckoned you in. Has you forgetting the way that you already have touched Taehyung.)

The hand that Taehyung isn’t using to gently scratch across your scalp is laying on his thigh, directly in your line of vision. You hesitate for just a moment before reaching for it, sliding your fingers between his, an irrational worry that he’ll startle or pull away—but of course he doesn’t. His LED swirls soft aqua as he just starts to rub his thumb gently across your skin, back and forth, back and forth, the softest brushstrokes on this tiny part of the canvas of your body.

After that, it’s just… easier. Not easy, but, easier.

You still hesitate before pressing forwards, but Taehyung never protests; in fact you’d say he’s pleased, even if he doesn’t say anything, just watching you with his dark, dark eyes as you marvel at the realistic sensation of his hair under your hands, how he reacts to the fingers across his scalp the same way you do.

It’s incredibly nice to have someone you can just reach for whenever you want a hug. Someone who folds you into their arms so easily, like you belong there.

It’s nice.

“You seem happier.”

You glance up from where you’ve been laying the table. “Hm? Pardon?”

One thing you’ve learned about Yoongi is that he’s incredibly perceptive. His eyes are sharp lines around the sharper graphite of his gaze, and there’s always a look in them that seems like he can see straight through you and direct into the heart of things—but he’ll only bring this to light if he thinks it needs saying.

“You seem relaxed,” Yoongi continues. He straightens the cutlery in front of him, careful to line the edges neatly with the place mat. Seokjin and Taehyung are cooking dinner, so it’s just you and Yoongi here, in a bubble away from the two androids. “Not that you were ever tense before, but… yeah. Taehyung seems happier too,” he adds, almost absently, but his eyes are fixed on your face.

“Well, of course,” you say. “He has new friends, who wouldn’t be happy?”

Yoongi hums, a quiet little note, but then he lets it rest.

Taehyung is happier. He seems almost nervous during dinner, though, even if he hides it well; his LED doesn’t give him away, but you’re getting good at reading Taehyung’s moods, the layers of personality and feeling he has, the little idiosyncrasies that make him who he is. To anyone else it would seem like he’s just nervous about whether the food tastes good or not—he and Jin had made a veritable feast for no discernable reason, but you don’t mind. Everyone loves a dinner party, especially when the company is so good. 

But, yes. You don’t think it’s about the food so you’re not sure what else it could be. You squeeze Taehyung’s knee briefly under the table in a motion you hope is reassuring. His eyes briefly widen but then his gaze softens when he sees the concern on your face, settling in that deep look of introspection you’re used to now. 

You’re so full by the time dessert comes out, rich and creamy homemade ice cream and piping hot Kkwabaegi, the twisted doughnuts fluffy and sweet with their powdering of sugar and cinnamon; you’d been planning on skipping the final course but you can’t say no once it’s put in front of you. Taehyung doesn’t eat, only drinks occasionally to top up his fluids (you don’t know exactly what that means but you’ve never asked, even if you can… assume things), but he seems content to watch the three of you eat in his place. Once you’re finished you slump back in your chair and feel grateful that you’re not wearing tight trousers that cut into your stomach, because, lord, you’re absolutely stuffed. 

“I have an announcement,” Taehyung says suddenly, apropos of nothing.

Seokjin beams. You sit up, struggling against the heavy anchor of dinner in your belly that makes you want to melt into the floor for a food nap, immediately at attention. “Oh? What is it?”

“I have a second name now,” he says, and Seokjin’s smile spreads impossibly wider, his entire face pleased. “Jin said I could share his.”

“Say hello to Kim Taehyung.” Seokjin gestures dramatically, his arms the flailing blades of a windmill as he circles them in the air with aplomb. “My boy needed a surname and I am, of course, happy to add another handsome face to the family. Taehyung is a ten out of ten.”

Yoongi levels him a look. “I thought you said you were the only ten in the world.”

“That was true when I said it, but I’m actually eleven out of ten,” Seokjin explains. His arms settle around his head, fingers circling the air in an invisible frame around his face. “I surpass your mortal conventions of beauty and thus exist outside of any conceivable scale that one might use to measure handsomeness.”

You barely take the exchange in, too busy looking at Taehyung. There’s the smallest smile on his lips, not the lovely one that shows his teeth, but it still reaches his eyes, the subtlest upturn to his mouth transforming his entire face. Taehyung’s beautiful. He always has been, and always will be, but he never looks more striking than when he’s happy, welcomed into a new family of his own with open arms, Seokjin’s heart so big and so wide. He’s being flippant and light right now, quick and sharp jibes between him and Yoongi that glow bright with love and affection, not lingering on how important and weighty this is: how all encompassing his care is for Taehyung, how close they’ve grown to each other, a friend whom he’s chosen as family.

Happiness suits Taehyung. You want him to always be happy. He deserves it.

It doesn’t seem like it’s the only announcement he has for that night, though. You’ve barely shut the door of your own apartment when you feel Taehyung’s hand slide around your wrist and you pause, glancing up at his face.

“Jin showed me how to take my LED out,” he says. His words are solemn and his tone is heavy but there’s a spark in his eyes, a glowing ember of light. “I want you to watch.”

His fingers are circled around your wrist, loose, so long they touch each other with ease, a soft shackle you don’t want to escape from. “Of course I will,” you assure him. “Are you worried something will go wrong?”

“No.” His thumb slips away from the soft skin of your inner wrist and across your palm, tracing across your fate line, your heart line. “I just want you to be there.”

Warmth spreads through your skin from that touch, leaking through into your bones, settling into every quiet corner inside you. “Okay. What do you need to do to get it out?”

The painting knife looks so small in Taehyung’s big, careful hand, the diamond shaped head blunt at the end, metal glinting under the bathroom’s light as he leans towards the mirror. Your gazes meet in the reflection and he falters. You’re about to ask what’s wrong when he lifts his free hand from where it’s been resting on the countertop, steadying him. Reaching for you.

Once your hand is in his, it’s over surprisingly quickly. Taehyung’s face twists in preparation for the pain, and you squeeze his fingers to ground him, but all it takes is a quick twist of his wrist once the palette knife is against his LED and it practically falls out. There’s a small clink as it drops next to the sink, blue light flickering one final time before it winks out, nothing more than a disc of metal, a tiny coin without value, but weighty with what it represents; invaluable, priceless. The last segment of a chain Taehyung has willingly cast off.

You can see the white skeleton of his android body, bare and naked where the LED had sat. Just like Seokjin’s hand when he’d cut himself, the skin starts to creep back over it, covering that smooth paleness until it’s gone. Taehyung lifts your hand and presses it against the side of his temple, your palm settling against the naked skin where the light had been nestled; Taehyung’s eyes fall shut, his hand pressed against your own as he holds it there.

“Taehyung?” Your voice is gentle, dripping concern. His golden skin is so warm and soft. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” he replies without hesitation. His eyes flutter open, lashes so long and lovely. His hair is blue today, a vibrant electric hue, gaudy on anyone else but perfect on him, tickling the back of your hand; his hand drops from yours and you take the opportunity to run it through that hair, baring his forehead to you, eyes sliding over the new skin. Flawless. No evidence that any LED had ever sat there, burning blue-yellow-red, a tiny drop of colour in the deep ocean of Taehyung’s emotions. “I feel good.”

You don’t even think when your hand shifts out of Taehyung’s hair and down to cup his cheek, something you wouldn’t have dared do before, but now the motion comes as easily as breathing. He takes comfort in touch and you want to soothe him. “Good,” you echo. “I’m glad.”

You both stand there for a few moments, facing each other. The bright light of your bathroom should wash Taehyung out, but of course, it doesn’t. It just lets you see all the perfect details of his face in even sharper relief—the moles that dot his skin, how his eyes are different, a monolid and double lid, little imperfections that just make him more beautiful. 

Logically, you know that someone, somewhere, sat down and put this face together. Taehyung was designed to be attractive, stunningly so, and yet not so perfect that an average human would find it unrealistic, swerving away from that uncanny valley that had plagued earlier androids. But that’s not why he’s beautiful—not to you. It’s everything hidden underneath that perfect facade, layers of plastic and metal and circuitry and biocomponents, deep inside him: his glowing golden heart, flowing over with whatever intangible thing that makes him the person that he is.

In the darkness of your bedroom, all the lights turned off, there’s no longer the gentle blue glow at Taehyung’s temple to shine out, but there doesn’t need to be. Even if you weren’t resting your head against his thigh you’d know he was there. Taehyung’s presence grows larger and larger in your life as the days go by, and you know that you’re still the most important person in his life, even with the introduction of Yoongi and Jin. After all—he didn’t ask them to be there when he took his LED out. 

You reach for his hand, which is already palm up, waiting for you. Your fingers slot together so perfectly, so wonderful, so lovely. You can’t make out details in this dark, but you can picture the smile that’ll be pulling at Taehyung’s lips, the affection flowing in the endless oceans of his eyes.

You’re in so, so deep.

(But who can blame you?)

“I want to go outside.”

It’s not surprising that with the shedding of his LED, Taehyung finally feels bold enough to go outdoors. And yet, here you are. Surprised.

You’ve got a granola bar stuck in your mouth, halfway through a bite, and it nearly drops to the floor as your lips part in shock. Taehyung catches it with ease, android speed on show as he snatches it out of the air. 

Your knee-jerk reaction is to ask him to repeat himself. To make sure you haven’t misheard him, if he’s sure about this, if he really wants to—but Yoongi’s words come back to you yet again. If there’s something he wants to do, he’ll do it. Taehyung isn’t the uninformed android he was when he’d first made his way to your door. He’s grown and learned so much in the time he’s been here and there’s no room for self-doubt behind his words.

So what you say is: “Okay.” 

Taehyung’s fingers brush against yours when he hands your granola bar back, long and warm and soft. You accept it with a smile, lost in the way he smiles back, so lovely and bright—and you have to pull your train of thought back on track, lock those wheels on the rails before you speak again.

“Did you want to go somewhere specific? Or just wherever?”

“Wherever you want to go.” He’s smiling, a little excited but mostly happy at the prospect of spending yet more time with you; as if he hasn’t had enough of it, could never get enough, even when you spend every day together. 

(Your heart feels like a drum, pounding hard and loud in your chest.)

It’s not hard, really, to decide where you want to go. Taehyung’s not asking for some big production; just wants something quiet and soft, something new. The chance to see the outside world properly, safe and secure in the knowledge that you’ll be at his side.

It’s in your nature to be protective—sometimes you feel like you nag, like you’re overbearing, and takes a concerted effort on your part to reel it in. Taehyung doesn’t need you to fuss over him, and besides, he seems incredibly calm about the whole thing. Excited, yes, but not nervous. Just anticipatory.

He looks just like anyone else might. More chic and attractive, sure, effortlessly fashionable in the outfit he’s chosen for the day, but there’s nothing robotic about him, nothing to say he’s not a flesh-and-blood person. Once again, you’re struck by just how human he is. Even if he’d still had the LED flickering at his temple it would have done nothing to detract from the genuine emotion that flits across his face. The way he moves. The way he smiles, when he catches you watching the way he laces his shoes with his delicate, pretty hands—that big lovely smile that makes you feel warm and soft.

(Warmer and softer than it probably should.)

You avert your gaze, pretend to fiddle with one of your bracelets, pulling it so that it spins around your wrist.

“Ready?”

“Nearly,” Taehyung says. When you look back at him, a little confused, he still has that smile on his face, though it’s gentler, fuzzy around the edges, his eyes dark-dark-dark. “Just one more thing.”

This final thing, it turns out, is your hand. 

His fingers lace with yours, weaving a tapestry of closeness and warmth. You’ve held Taehyung’s hands so often, now; it’s nothing new. But for some reason the touch of his skin against yours has your pulse stuttering, catching in your throat before you cough lightly and smile like everything is fine, you’re fine, it’s not like your heart is about to launch itself out of your chest for some mysterious reason.

(Mysterious. Yeah, right.)

He doesn’t let go. Not when you leave the apartment, not when you greet Rory at the door, not when you step onto one of the automated buses that takes you to the centre of the city. You’re surprised at how good Taehyung’s acting is, how all the wide-eyed excitement you’d expected to see splashed across his face is absent, and instead, he just squeezes your hand tight each time he takes in something new; stares out of the window as your surroundings slide by.

He does get excited in the art store though. Pulls at your joined hands each time he sees something he wants to point out to you—which seems to be everything. And you go, of course, following his eager feet. Taehyung’s happiness has always given you happiness in turn, and watching his sheer, unadulterated joy at being able to see things, to touch things outside of the small world he’s been confined to since he escaped the Eden Club—well. There’s nothing better.

There’s nothing better than knowing that Taehyung feels safe with you, wants to keep you close. It’s selfish. It’s selfish, you know it is, but when you watch the way his eyes light up at the sight of a set of gouache paints, how he immediately turns towards you so you can see it too—you realise that you’ve never had something like this before. Sure, you have friends, you have plenty of happiness in your life, but you’ve never had this.

(Whatever this is.)

Someone whose joy is only compounded when it’s shared with you. Someone whose focus is on you and no one else. You see the looks that Taehyung gets, the interested eyes that flit over him—but then he reaches for your hand again, and those gazes slide away, because he hasn’t looked away from you. Not once.

Because you make him feel safe, you remind yourself. Because he knows you best. That’s it. 

It’s what you keep telling yourself, a repeated mantra that’s an endless loop in your head. Every time Taehyung looks at you, smiles at you, reaches for your hand, your touch—even if your heart feels like it could burst, filling up with this feeling, this feeling that’s growing and growing (this feeling you refuse to name)—it’s because he trusts you, knows he can rely on you. It’s nothing more than that. 

You shouldn’t let yourself imagine that it’s more than that.

(Shouldn’t hope for more than that.)

It’s because he trusts you that he follows you without question, matching his pace with yours, side by side as you wander through the city. He insists on carrying all your shopping, held effortlessly in one hand, other hand still tangled with yours. (You see the way he swings the bags a little, back and forth; he’s so cute you’d swear your teeth could rot from it, crystallised sugar rolled on your tongue, sweet.) All your shopping is done, but you have one final stop planned—it’s somewhere you haven’t been for a while, but you love it.

You’re certain Taehyung will, too.

You can feel how his hold on your fingers tightens when the building comes into view. You glance over at him to take in his expression, the subtle widening of his eyes, the lift of his chest as he takes an unneeded breath in, the tiniest curl at the corner of his lips.

(So human.) 

The Christine Andrews Gallery isn’t the biggest art gallery in the city, but it’s your favourite. There’s something that feels more intimate about it, with its size; a little smaller, cosier, more stripped down. The high ceilings overhead are crisscrossed with wires and piping, industrial—but the walls are pure white, all the brighter in contrast to their surroundings, drawing the eye to the paintings on display from the moment you step in.

Taehyung is enraptured.

“The exhibition is called Slow Painting. The idea is that people will take their time to really take everything in, and appreciate it, rather than just rushing by. Especially with how quickly technology is developing, and people are used to discarding things as soon as they're not relevant any more. The idea is that art will always be relevant, regardless of what's happening in the world.”

Your voice is quiet and low as you’re careful not to disturb the serene air that fills the building. You’ve always loved the quiet hush that fills galleries, museums, buildings filled with art and history, long lasting echoes of humanity, on display for people to enjoy. 

“And it also refers to the time it takes to create each piece too,” you add, trailing off into silence as you glance over at Taehyung, who’s looking at you, blinking gentle and slow.

He’s watching you. Even though there’s artwork in sight of the entrance, huge canvases nearby—Taehyung is looking at you, attentive and quiet, listening to each word you have to say.

Your heart squeezes in your chest and you have to make a concerted effort to stop your breath from stuttering. You shove it down, down, down, this thing that’s wrapping itself around your heart and clogging your throat, and give this lovely boy your best smile. (Try to ignore the fact that there’s art here, but instead, he’s looking at you.)

“Tell you what. Instead of listening to me harp on all day, why don’t we just look around?”

When Taehyung had first stepped foot in your door, had first started to experience life as something more than just a sexbot, an android under the control of other people’s wills—he’d taken everything in with huge eyes, eager and enthusiastic, almost clumsy in his excitement. That’s faded over time, become muted as he’s learned how to balance himself, grown comfortable with his surroundings, who he is.

He’s still like a fountain sometimes, bubbling and bright, overflowing, cascading pearlescent waters rushing over carved marble. You’d expected these waters to rise and spill, surrounded by these incredible artworks; so far the only works he’s seen in person are his and your own, everything else small and secondhand on screens as he stares intently at your computer, your tablet. You’d expected his joy to overflow, being able to really see for the first time in his life, prepared yourself for his exuberant happiness.

But he’s not.

He’s quiet. There’s a smile that lingers on his lips, barely hidden at the corners of his mouth, but his shining waters flow soft and slow, contained. You wander through the exhibition exactly the way the curator had meant for you to—slowly, carefully, stopping and pausing and looking and wondering, eyes trailing over each painting, acrylic on paper, oil on canvas, distemper on linen. Each so different, but inviting onlookers to take a moment and just breathe. 

Taehyung’s eyes are dark, contemplative. They’re so deep you feel like you could fall in them and be lost forever. (Wonder if that would be such a bad thing.) He keeps his hand in yours, your hand in his, the two of you matching paces as you loop the gallery, never letting go.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, I like these.”

Four canvases, smaller than some of the others you’ve seen, squirrelled around a corner and hidden away on a back wall. Each painting has a figure in the midst of some simple, quiet task; laying in bed, catching an egg as it threatens to roll off a table, trailing a finger through a puddle of spilled milk, reading a book in the bath. Each of the figures has their face turned away from the viewer, caught up as they are in the simple motions of their life, each silhouetted by a window with a different view—from sea to lake to hill to forest.

You can’t help but look at Taehyung as he looks at these paintings, his brows a little raised, mouth a little slack, the lovely line of his jaw, the angles of his face, forehead to nose to lips to chin. “What do you like about them? The style?”

His answer comes unrushed, unhurried, as he thinks.  “They’re so beautiful and detailed, but it’s more about… the intimacy,” he says. “Each person is just being themselves, without fear of who’s watching. We’re watching them, even if their attention isn’t on us.” A pause, a hush, a breath. “It’s like love, almost.”

Your lips part, even as Taehyung keeps his eyes forwards, staring at the blank pages of the book the man reads as he sits in his bath, row of shampoo bottles on the sill by his head. 

“Like love?” A whisper.

“To keep your eyes and focus on someone who isn’t looking at you,” Taehyung replies, unabashed, like it’s just a statement of fact. “Loyalty. Dedication. Love.”

Words fail you. Silence is the only answer you can offer to Taehyung’s thoughts, the air in your lungs trapped there as you unwittingly hold your breath, lips parted around a sentence that never comes. Taehyung’s eyes slide away from this row of paintings and to you, how you’re staring at him, literally speechless.

His own lips part as he makes to say something else, to ask what’s wrong—when there’s a flicker of movement nearby, the modulated steps of someone who’s used to walking through a gallery, careful to keep the calm air unmuddied by their passing.

“Oh, Y/n!”

Namjoon’s voice cuts through the silent moment and splinters the delicate air that had started to crystallise around you. He looks happy to see you, dimples on full display as his lips lift and he smiles wide.

“Namjoon!” You don’t think you’ve ever been so glad to see his familiar face in your life—anything to distract you, any excuse to shake off the feeling that Taehyung’s words have left behind, trailing over your skin, blooming in your brain. His timing is perfect, even if he doesn’t realise it.  “Hey! It’s been a while.”

“I was going to say, I haven’t seen you around lately! I thought you’d like this exhibition, I was wondering if you’d come. Oh, sorry, I’m being rude, aren’t I? Hi, I’m Namjoon,” he says, holding a hand out for Taehyung to shake. “I’m one of the gallery managers.”

Taehyung’s exchanged a few words with others today, polite thank yous to the people who’ve served you in the shops you’ve been into, given shy smiles to passersby who’ve made eye contact with him. (So, so sweet, always.) 

But Namjoon is the first person to properly introduce themselves to him in the real world, as you’ve thought of it, someone who doesn’t know that the man at your side is an android.

You panic. Just for a second.

Taehyung doesn’t.

“Hello.” He has to take his hand out of yours, the other weighed down by shopping, although he seems reluctant to let go of you. He gives Namjoon his widest smile as he shakes the proffered hand with firm, friendly politeness. “I’m Taehyung. It’s lovely to meet you, Namjoon.”

And then he immediately slips his hand back into yours.

Namjoon is utterly charmed.

(Of course he is. How could he not be?)

The discussion they both have is a quiet one. You’re happy to stay uninvolved, watching and listening as they talk, still at Taehyung’s side. That brief moment of panic, that blazing forest fire of fear for him—it’s been washed away, soothed by the way the conversation between man and android unfolds so naturally, Namjoon none the wiser about Taehyung’s robotic origins.

There’s no way anyone would realise. He’s so human, in the way he moves and acts and thinks, the way he laughs at something Namjoon says. You’re happy that Taehyung can be here with you, in this gallery, speaking to someone new, as if this is normal, natural, nothing unusual.

You can’t think of anything you want for Taehyung more.

You realise, too, that in this moment, you feel utterly content. Not just for Taehyung, but—happy that you’re there to share this moment with him. You think about how you’ve always wanted this; someone to share things with, someone whose happiness makes you happy too.

When Taehyung laughs, your own lips lift in response, heart lifting at the sound of his joy, at how his fingers tighten around yours. Remembering that you’re there, even if he’s not looking at you right now, eyes on Namjoon.

He’s looking at Namjoon. You’re looking at him. 

(To keep your eyes and focus on someone who isn’t looking at you.)

(Loyalty. Dedication.)

(A breath.)

(Love.)

You carefully pull your hand out of Taehyung’s. Your fingers feel cold as they slip away from his, warmed all day, pressed against Taehyung’s soft skin. His eyes flit away from Namjoon, those deep eyes settling on you; dark wood and ground coffee, so warm.

“Y/n?”

“I’m just going to pop to the toilet,” you say, turning away from the tinge of confusion that colours Taehyung’s voice. “I won’t be long.”

The toilet lid is cold. You can feel how it seeps through the layers of your clothing to your thighs, and at any other time you might wrinkle your nose at the sensation, at how uncomfortable it is. But right now, you have other things on your mind.

You bury your face in your hands. It’s foolish, but you’d swear you could feel Taehyung still in your palms, touch imprinted, emblazoned on your skin. It’s like a palpable thing, almost, this ethereal thing that lingers even when Taehyung isn’t there.

Wishful thinking. Selfish thinking. Selfish, to like it, to want to keep that feeling close; let it spread from your palm, to the delicate skin of your wrist, tracing its way up your arm, up-up-up, drawing invisible lines over every part of you, inside every part of you. Selfish, to like Taehyung’s touch as much as you do. To want more of it. 

(More of him.)

You aren’t anything more to Taehyung than a friend. A guardian. Someone who’s there to support him and keep him safe. You’re blessed to have his trust, to be able to be that person he can turn to—it’s greedy, to want. To want to be more.

(You can’t foist your loneliness on Taehyung. You can’t do that to him. You won’t. You won’t.)

When you return, a spark lights in Taehyung’s eyes. The same spark that bursts every time he sees you after time apart, no matter how long or short that may be. He reaches for your hand, and of course, you go—but your fingers are limp, weak.

(You know that if Taehyung’s LED had still been nestled in his skin, it would have flickered yellow.)

You keep that point of connection as you bid Namjoon goodbye, finish meandering through the exhibition, make your way back home—but you let Taehyung bear the weight. Reactive, not proactive. You don’t squeeze his fingers just because you want to, because there’s something sliding by the bus’s window you think he might like to see; you’re not here to make him do things, to shove things down his throat. You should just be here to support him in the things he wants to do. That’s your role. 

And that’s where you’re going to stay.

Your thoughts are a tumble, messy and unorganised, a ball of yarn that’s all knots and tangles. Taehyung must be able to see it on your face, read it in your body, his android eyes scanning over you and scrutinising every hint you’re giving away without even realising. But you just smile, wave away his questions, and act like everything’s okay. Normal. Routine.

It’s a little harder, though, to act like everything’s okay when it’s time to sleep.

Because, of course, there Taehyung is. Like he has been, from the day he’d arrived—sat in your bed, nestled against a pile of cushions, expression open and warm and fond as he looks at you. Waiting for you to climb in, to rest your head in his lap; waiting for you to fall asleep with his gentle fingers dragging across your scalp, melting under his lovely hands.

You waver. Conflicted. It’s okay, isn’t it, if Taehyung’s reaching for you first?

His eyes meet yours. The second you see his lips curve up, see that pretty, quiet smile appearing on his lovely mouth, you fold.

It’s fine. You’ll allow yourself this.

(In your dreams, you stand in a deserted gallery, staring at the single piece of work on the stark white walls, all the lights focused in, in, in. Taehyung’s framed on this canvas, a painted window into his world. Not once does he look at you, turned away as he is; you see nothing more than the back of his head, the curve of his cheek, the vaguest hint of his nose as he turns, always staring at something else. 

And still, you stand, and you watch. Waiting. Keeping your eyes on him, always.)

“You’re staying late again.”

“Yeah. I really want to get this done,” you say, gesturing vaguely at your monitors with your stylus; tweaking, editing, shifting around these final few magazine pages before you’re satisfied. “Nearly there.”

When you hear the way Hoseok says your name, you glance up. 

As someone who spends most of his time bouncing around like a literal ray of sunshine, when Hoseok’s expression is one that isn’t smiling, it carries all the more weight behind it. Right now his face is uncharacteristically serious, the perpetual smile on his mouth gone, the line of his brows severe.

It’s unnerving.

“You haven’t stayed late for ages,” Hoseok points out. “Until this week, and suddenly you’re late every night. Has something happened?”

“No,” you lie.

Yes, you think.

You’re trying to create some distance, for Taehyung’s sake. So that you’re not tempted to pull him ever closer, latch onto him like you have been, smothering him. He needs space to grow. Space from you has helped already—the time he spends with Yoongi and Seokjin is evidence enough of that, after all. He doesn’t need you to be there constantly.

Hoseok’s eyes bore into yours as he stares, so you avert your gaze, pretending to shift your focus to one of the captions the editor has left on the page you’re working on. You hadn’t realised that he’d noticed. You should have expected it, though. Hoseok is a close work friend and he’s incredibly perceptive, especially when he cares about people.

“Alright,” he says, eventually. “Make sure you don’t stay too late, though. Get some sleep.”

You give him a thumbs up without looking away from the screen, dragging something idly with your stylus until Hoseok leaves, the office empty except you, now. And the cleaning androids, when they appear for the night like clockwork. As they always do.

You can’t help but stop to watch them, how blank faced they are, for all that they look human. Their LEDs are almost motionless, the placid blue matching the blank expressions on their faces, unthinking automatons.

(You’d seen androids in the city when you’d been out with Taehyung, of course. Completing menial tasks: city androids picking litter and raking leaves, household androids following their owners around and carrying their shopping. You’d realised that Taehyung wouldn’t have seen a non-deviated android since he’d escaped the club, lapsed into silence; you’d pulled him to a stop, lips pursed in a frown as you’d tried to read his expression. 

“Taehyung,” you’d asked. “Are you alright?”

There’d been a quiet pause, and in that moment you’d felt all your worries rising, caught in your throat—but then he’d nodded quietly, looking at you with soft eyes.

“I’m alright,” he’d answered. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”

I’m the lucky one, you’d thought. Lucky to know him, as sweet-hearted and wonderful as he is. You’d squeezed his hand, and he’d smiled gently at you, and that had been that.)

It hurts, honestly. To see the expression on his face each time you come home late, each time you avoid answering his questions. There’s uncertainty laid across each of your interactions, rough bristles of a brush varnishing discomfort across the once smooth surface of your relationship; but you can’t keep taking advantage of this soft-hearted boy, of the circumstances that he’s in.

You pretend that things are fine. Taehyung is clearly confused, unsure, trying so hard to find out what’s wrong, even when you keep gently turning his concerns aside. 

You haven’t been home enough to spend time with Yoongi or Seokjin, either. You’d seen Jin in the hall just once, made eye contact just as he’d been appearing from the other apartment and you’d been stepping into yours; you’d fumbled a little, fingerprints smudging across the keypad as your door had swung open. You’d expected to see judgement on Jin’s face, maybe, something heavy and weighty, his gaze flitting over you as he read you in the way he did so often.

What you hadn’t expected was for him to smile. It’d been hard to translate his full expression but what little you could read was knowing, like he’s aware of something he shouldn’t be, kept hidden just underneath his tongue. Ready to release it into the world with a single breath.

(Needless to say, you’d shut the door pretty quick.)

He and Yoongi have gone away for the weekend. It's a small blessing, saving you from having to see Jin’s almost-smug expression again. But it means that Taehyung has nowhere else to go right now, no reason to leave the apartment. So it’ll be you and him, him and you, with no buffers, nothing. It’s been unseasonably stormy for the past few days as well, rain slammed into your windows by the harsh winds, the world outside a haze of smeared grey—so it’s not like you can go out, either. 

Not that you would want to. 

You hadn’t realised exactly how ingrained Taehyung was in your life until you’d started to pull away. It’s not just that you live together and share the same physical space—it’s just that your days have become so full of Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, and you hadn’t even noticed. He’d crept up on you, snuck his way into your heart, so easily, so effortlessly.

You remind yourself that that’s why you’re doing this. To remind yourself of life without Taehyung in it, because he’s not yours to have or to keep. He never has been. You don’t want him to be: he’s his own person. This… this desire for him; even as you try to ignore it, it keeps growing and growing: wet plaster laid down, your feelings for him painted buon fresco, added to day by day, giornata. You need it to stop. 

But it’s hard. It’s hard, when Taehyung looks like comfort, your comfort, when you want to let yourself be folded into his arms. It’s hard when the fact is that it’s not that you have to spend time with him. It’s that you want to spend time with him.  

It's hard.

(And you miss him, even when he's right there.)

You find respite in art, in painting, too intent on the motions of your work to allow yourself room to think about other things. Fall into the rhythm of it all, a quiet hush stealing over your mind, a place of both focus and calm, world settling into place around you. There’s a piece you’ve been working on for a while, a hand rising from dark water, fingertips just broaching its surface, the most tentative of touches; you layer more oil paint on the panel, dragging the bristles of the brush across the colour you’ve already laid down, brows furrowed as you do.

Taehyung normally paints with you, but not today. He knows you want space—even if he doesn’t know why—so he gives it to you. So considerate and sweet, always. Even when you’re shutting him out. You’ve been here all day: morning, afternoon, and now evening, and he’s only been in a few times, to leave you food, drinks, looking after you in a way you don’t deserve.

You’ve just lifted the brush from the canvas when an especially loud peal of thunder rolls through the air outside. The rumble starts low, rising into a rattling growl that feels like it’s shaking the very earth. It almost drowns out the sound of Taehyung’s quiet knocking, a curl of his knuckles against the open door, but you catch sight of him anyway, glancing over your shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. “I thought you might like a drink.”

He’s barefoot, like he usually is, teal hoodie and grey sweatpants baggy, looking every inch the boyfriend you’ve always wanted and never had. His hands are cupped around a mug, steam coiling from the hot tea inside, and something in your heart twinges at his kindness and consideration even as you smile at him.

“That sounds lovely, Tae,” you say, and he takes this as an invitation to step inside, although you notice his steps are far more hesitant than they might have been before. Like he’s treading on eggshells around you. 

It’s awkward. Stilted. Taehyung’s eyes are heavy on your face as you accept the tea from his hands, trying your best to avoid brushing fingers; you turn away, pretending to turn your attention back to the drying paint on the wood panel that rests on your easel, anything to break eye contact.

And then he speaks.

“You’re avoiding me.”

Your lips are poised to drink, pursed at the rim of the mug when you freeze, eyes darting back to him.

“You’re avoiding me,” he repeats. His voice is quieter, tinged with all the confusion you’ve seen flit across his face since this whole thing started.

You slowly pull the mug away from your face, steam touching your skin like warm, wet fingers. “I’m not,” you say, even though the lie tastes bitter on your tongue. “We live together, Taehyung, it’s pretty hard to avoid you.”

When you laugh lightly, trying to lift the atmosphere, Taehyung doesn’t respond. If anything the air becomes heavier, his face an unmoving mask as his eyes churn with emotion. His LED might not be nestled in his temple any more, but you don't need to see it spinning in a distressed circle of yellow to know that Taehyung is confused.

“Why are you lying to me?”

Your eyes widen. He’s never been so direct before. (He hasn’t needed to be though, has he? Because you've never lied to him before, have you?)

“I just… I just want to know what happened. What I did wrong. I want to fix it,” Taehyung continues, and he sounds so small, so vulnerable. “Please?”

Your heart feels like it’s risen from your chest, up to your throat, making it hard to breathe. The only time he’s ever sounded like this was when—

When he’d first turned up on your doorstep, wet and scared and lonely. Not knowing if there was anyone he could trust, uncertain where he stood. 

“You didn’t do anything, Taehyung.” You try to put every ounce of feeling into your words and let him know that this is the truth. It’s not him. It’s not. “You didn’t do anything, please don’t think you did.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?” His voice rises, shaking, a bird trying to take flight on a broken wing. “If I didn’t do anything then why are you being like this? I don’t understand.”

“I’m just… trying to encourage you to be independent?”

The words sound weak to your own ears, so you can’t blame Taehyung for when his expression flickers and he looks almost incredulous.

“Independent?”

“You know,” you explain lamely. “Like… giving you space to grow. You don’t need me around all the time.”

“I don’t—” He cuts himself off. “Y/n. I want you to be there.”

“Because it’s what you’ve gotten used to.” You glance down at the drink in your hands, away from his sincere, dark eyes. “You’re just saying that because of circumstances, Taehyung.”

“I’m not!” You’ve never heard Taehyung so loud before, almost angry, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “How can you think that?”

“Because it’s true!” Your own voice rises despite yourself, matching his, some frayed thing inside you finally snapping. “Why else would you want me around? No one else does! Why would you?”

You rarely raise your voice. You hate being loud, or rude, hate arguments, but there’s something boiling in your blood. Years of quiet self-deprecation, constant reminders of how you’re not really wanted; last choice, always. Single, always. Untouched, unwanted. Taehyung—beautiful, kind, sweet, lovely Taehyung—wouldn’t be here right now if he had anywhere else to go. Too beautiful and kind and sweet and lovely for you, as disappointing, undesirable as you are.

Because that’s the truth. Even if you’re surrounded by friends, warm and bright, at the end of the day, they go home with each other, to their lovers, their families, and you go home alone. At least you had, until Taehyung—and he’s only here because you were the only safe place he could run to. Not because he chose you. 

(No one chooses you. Why would they?)

Taehyung’s eyes are so big and round as he stares and stares and stares. His lips are a little parted around a soundless noise of surprise, disbelief, before he opens his mouth to respond properly.

And then all the lights go out.

Lightning flashes, throwing the room into sharp focus for just a second before the night is split apart with the loudest clap of thunder yet. Like the ground has split open, louder than anything you’ve ever heard in your life; you’d swear your teeth rattle in your skull, that’s how overwhelming and close it is.

You suck in a breath as you jump, hands jolting, and the mug falls from your grasp. You can’t see in the darkness but you can hear how it shatters, sending hot tea splattering over the dust sheets on the floor, away from you, but towards—

“Taehyung,” you gasp, reaching out blindly. “Are you okay? Did it hit you?”

You hear him move closer, feel his fingers, reaching for yours confidently in this dark space. His grip is solid and warm and he squeezes, reassuring.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. “I’m okay. You can’t see?”

“It’s too dark.” With the heavy clouds outside and the blanket of thick rain, there’s little light from the moon to shine into your studio, leaving you in a world of thick black and blue. “Can you see?”

“Android senses,” he answers. "I can see enough."

You wait for the lights to come back on so you can clean up the mess that’s scattered on the floor. And you wait. One beat. Another beat.

“I don’t think the power is coming back on any time soon,” you say. “Um.”

“Hold on.” You can’t make out Taehyung’s features in this all consuming darkness, but you can picture the expression on his face, the concern that bleeds through into his words. “If you move you’ll step on something and hurt your feet. Hold on,” he says again, and then lets go of your hands.

“Taehyung? What are you—”

You let out an embarrassing squeal as you feel the world tilt, but Taehyung’s grip on you is confident and sure as he lifts you, one hand under your knees and the other scooped around your back. Like you’re a swooning, blushing bride.

“Taehyung!”

“It’s the safest thing to do.” He sounds determined, no room for argument, so you decide to shut up.

Even though you know how strong he is, with all his android strength, you can’t help but reach out in the darkness, looping your arms around his neck to try and help lighten his burden. You feel your cheeks burn and you hope that the darkness saves you from your obvious embarrassment. 

The power still hasn’t come on by the time he deposits you in the kitchen, easing you to the floor with a level of care and delicacy that leaves something in you aching. When you check your phone—mostly charged, thank God—it seems like powercuts have hit this entire part of the city, and there’s no ETA on when things will be back up and running.

Which leads you to this. Sitting on the cold tiles of your kitchen floor, a few large candles flickering light across you as you dig into a carton of melting ice cream that you’ve saved from your freezer, licking the dripping flavours of sea salt and caramel from the spoon. 

Taehyung is sitting next to you in this flame-lit bubble you share, quiet even as the world outside is full of the sound of endless rain and lightning. He’d helped you navigate the darkness, settled you safely before going to find some candles; looking after you while you can’t see and he can.

You’re intent on the ice cream, leaning against the kitchen cabinets and carton settled between your knees as you use it as an excuse not to talk.

Taehyung, though, is intent on you.

“Y/n?”

His voice breaks the near silence, soft around your name. You pause, half-way through scooping another spoonful of ice cream to your mouth. There’s something in his tone that you’ve never heard before, from anyone, something you can’t put a finger on.

“Yes?”

“You said that no one wants you around,” he says. Your fingers tighten around the handle of your spoon and keep your gaze cast down, at the thick drip of cream from your spoon that threatens to spill. “Why would you say that?”

You don’t respond. Not right away. 

Then you take in a deep breath, letting the spoon fall back into the tub.

“Because they don’t,” you say plainly. “I mean… Taehyung. I was only at the Eden Club because my friends know that I’m perpetually single. I’m glad I got to meet you, so glad, but… I live alone because no one wants to be here with me.”

You’ve never said anything like this out loud before; kept your lingering loneliness close to your chest. Really, in most parts of your life, you’re content, but sometimes you can’t help but be pulled under by the heavy feeling of how unlovable you are. Even if you try to remind yourself that you’re worth being loved too. 

(After all, if you were—then why are you still here alone?)

“I do. I want to be here with you.”

Taehyung’s words are soft and gentle and low, but for all their tenderness, you can’t help but sigh.

“Like I said, Taehyung, it’s just circumstances.” A murmur. “You’re only here because you have to be—”

“I’m not.” He interrupts you; something he’s never done before. It shuts you right up, even if his words aren’t sharp. Emphatic, yes, but soft around the edges. “I chose to come here because of you. You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel safe. Even when I was at the club, and I didn’t know anything except what I was told to do—I knew I could trust you. I only started to remember things after we met, and I was there for weeks before I left, finally remembering the things I had to go through. Again and again and again. Over and over and over. No one was ever kind to me, not once. Not once.” 

“Taehyung,” you breathe, sadness filling your chest for him, but he doesn’t stop. 

“People would come in, take what they wanted from me, and then they would leave. They didn’t care about me. They would just tell me what to do and I’d have to listen, be the perfect android they wanted, that they’d paid for. Then I ran. But even as I was running here, I was scared. I thought that maybe it was a fluke. Maybe I was wrong. I was scared that maybe you weren’t actually kind, maybe it was a lie, maybe you were just like all the other humans—but anything was better than the club. So I took my chances. And you let me in. You let me in and you were so kind. You give and give and give and you’ve never asked for anything back.”

“I just did what anyone else would,” you mutter, glancing away, shy.

“But you didn’t. You were the only person who ever looked at me as something more than just an android. Don’t you see that? Even after giving me so much, you haven’t asked for anything. I try my best to look after you, but…” Taehyung takes in a deep, deep breath, sucking in air that his android body doesn’t need. You’ve noticed that it’s something he does to ground himself; such a human thing to do. “I want to give you so much more than you’ll ever accept.”

You look at him, something sparking deep and low in your stomach. “You don’t have to give me anything, Taehyung.”

Light dances across the perfect angles of his face, candle flame painting him from second to second, shadow and radiance. He looks familiar and unfamiliar all at once. You’ve known him for long enough, stared at him for long enough that you could paint his face in your sleep; the strength of his brows, the depth of his eyes, the slant of his nose, the flush of his lips; the tiny moles that are scattered across his skin, the perfect line of his jaw, his chin.

But in the paltry candlelight, he looks like an altogether different person, almost. There’s something to the set of his face that you’ve never seen, hard to track in the ever changing light—not the soft domesticity you’ve grown familiar with from Taehyung, and not the sheer, overwhelming sensuality of V. Something that’s both, something that’s not, something that’s more. 

“I want to give you everything. I want to. Y/n, I want. Androids don’t want, but I want. I want, I want, I want.” A repeated mantra; a prayer. “I want because of you. I want to be here with you. I want to spend time with you. I want to learn with you. I want to know everything you like and everything you don’t like. I want to know what makes you sad and what makes you happy. I want to be one of the things that makes you happy, like you make me happy. I want to look after you. I want you to let me love you. I want you. I want you. I love you.”

Your mouth is open, caught in a breath, stuttered in your throat. Taehyung doesn’t shy away from your wide-eyed, speechless gaze, staring back at you with an intensity you thought you’d never see directed at you; tenderness and affection and want.

“You want to—you… you love me?” Your voice is weak with disbelief. Taehyung loves you? 

“I thought you knew, and that’s why you pulled away,” he says. “Because I’m an android, I’m not good enough—”

“What? No, Taehyung, never, no. I would never think that—” 

“But you were pushing me away.” For the first time since this conversation started, he sounds unsure, the tiniest tremble at the corner of each word. “You were pushing me away and I don’t know why. Why?” He reaches for your hand, sliding his fingers between yours. “Aren’t you happy with me?” 

You wonder how fast your heart is beating. Know that Taehyung will be able to read it, palm to palm, his skin against yours, an endless amount of information running from that point of contact and up his arm; following lines of circuitry and neural connectors, up-up-up, pulled into whatever part of his system counts as his brain, dissected so much faster than the human brain could comprehend. But even with all this information, all this incredible processing speed and power—he’s just as confused and uncertain as any other person might be.

“I am. I am happy. So happy,” you whisper. Then you take a deep breath, grounding yourself just like Taehyung had. “I’ve never been so happy before, Taehyung. You make me happy.”

The android smiles. Quiet but undeniably happy as well, his eyes so dark, so soft. “You make me happy, too,” he says, and then he lets out a small laugh, a sweet little thing, like the scrape of a spoon around a mixing bowl. “I can only feel happiness because of you. You’re everything.” 

But then the laughter fades, and he’s looking back at you with solemnity, lingering confusion. “If I make you happy, then why were you pulling away from me?”

You stare at where your hands are joined, Taehyung’s hand under yours, lifting yours up and away from the cold tiles of the floor. “Because,” you start. Stumble. Take in another breath, heart squeezing in your chest. “Because I was scared my feelings were too much.”

A beat of silence. Then you feel Taehyung’s other hand as he lays it softly against your cheek to turn you towards him. It’s terrifying, how close your face is to his. Completely vulnerable, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He doesn’t say anything, just watches, and you find yourself crumbling in the face of his warm gaze.

“Because I thought I was taking advantage of you,” you say. Slow and faltering. “Because I thought it was—I thought I was being selfish. I realised that I loved you, and I can’t—I couldn’t imagine that… I couldn’t imagine that you wanted me back.”

Taehyung’s eyes flutter shut as your words wash over him. The hand on your cheek coaxes you closer, and of course, you go; let your forehead get pressed against his, a tender motion, faces so close he can feel the warmth of your breath. 

“Y/n.” Your name sounds safe in his mouth, like he’s keeping it close, handling it delicately, carefully, eyes opening so he can look at you with an adoration you’ve never seen. Not for you. Not until now. “Can I kiss you? I want to. Please?”

You feel heat rising on your cheeks, a flush that threatens to spill over, but nod. You don’t think you have the strength to speak right now. Taehyung smiles again, lighting up this space you’ve scraped out for each other, him and you; you and him.

When he leans in, there’s the briefest moment of panic that flickers through you. You haven’t kissed anyone in such a long time. You’re worried you’ll mess up, be clumsy, bad, and Taehyung will be disappointed. 

But then his lips touch yours—and all that worry washes away. It’s a short-lived thing, the briefest brush of his mouth, barely a kiss at all. And then again, he leans in, tracing the shape of your mouth with his: a kiss to one corner of your mouth, and then the other, your cupid’s bow, the swell of your bottom lip. You’ve never felt like this—vulnerable but safe, all at once, Taehyung taking his time as you fall, fall, fall, his hand still cradling your face, his touch solid and grounding even as his kisses are featherlight.

“Taehyung,” you whisper, lips brushing his as you shape them around his name. You still have one hand in his and tighten your grip, squeezing. “More.”

You can feel his smile when he leans in one more time, guiding you with the broad palm against your cheek. So soft, so gentle. Adoring and reverent. His lips are so full, slotting against yours so perfectly when he finally, finally kisses you properly. 

You lose yourself in the sensation. It’s so easy to lose yourself in Taehyung, as lovely as he is, his mouth lovelier still. One kiss turns to two, to three, four, deep and slow; by the time you break apart, there’s a little sheen on his lips, sparking out in the candlelight, a layer of gold leaf that shines. 

“Can you say it again?” He asks. “Say that you love me?”

You can’t help but want to hide your face, bashful and shy. You’ve never said those words out loud, with the weight of feeling Taehyung is asking from you—but you look at his lovely, lovely face, lips flush with evidence of your kisses, and your heart swells in your chest.

“I love you.” The words come so easily. “I love you.”

And when he smiles, it’s so bright and radiant you feel you might be blinded by it. It doesn’t leave his face even as he stands, guides you up with him; careful to avoid the tub of ice cream that’s been forgotten on the floor, more melted cream than ice now.

This time, when he lifts you, he doesn’t break eye contact—keeps his gaze on yours as he pulls you close, and then picks you up.

It’s effortless, the way he carries you. Big hands that cup the back of your thighs, your legs around his waist and arms around his neck, lifted like you weigh nothing. You break eye contact, overwhelmed, burying your face in the crook of his neck, feeling the way he shakes as he laughs, soft and affectionate.

“Shut up,” you mumble, embarrassed, but then go quiet as you feel the press of his lips into your hair.

Taehyung’s the only person who’s ever carried you, but it’s less about that and more about how safe you feel in his arms. Wrapped around him, pressed close, warm-warm-warm. You feel like a burden has been lifted from you, unshackled from your neck now that you’ve confessed the budding feelings that had burst into full bloom even when you’d tried to shove them back into the dirt—because Taehyung feels the same way. He feels the same way.

The rest of the apartment is still bathed in darkness. But Taehyung navigates it easily, keeps you held close even in the dark, and you trust him. Even when you feel his grip loosening as he eases you down, you trust him, letting yourself fall back onto the softness of your bed. (Even if you want to keep hold of him.)

You wait and watch as the room starts to fill with light, Taehyung returning with the lit candles from the kitchen before setting out more, laying out all the scented candle jars you’ve had stashed away. The familiar surroundings of your bedroom are bathed in warm, dancing light, Taehyung’s shadow a multi-faceted silhouette that shifts each time a flame sputters.

He looks up once the final candle is aflame, meeting your eyes—and you don’t feel the need to drop that gaze, to glance away, pretend you weren’t watching him, entranced. Because he welcomes it. He grins at you, toothy and bright, and your own lips split into a smile.

“I guess it’s a good thing I like candles, huh?”

“They’ll help keep the room warm,” Taehyung says, and, that’s right, you hadn’t thought of that. 

No power: no heating. The longer the power is out, the colder it’ll get, the chill of the hard rain filling the world outside.

“Don’t worry,” he adds, setting the lighter aside. “I’ll keep you warm.”

There’s nothing behind those words. No implication at all. And yet you find yourself flushing, looking away from him, flustered.

There’s a beat of silence as you keep your eyes turned away from Taehyung, looking at the shadows on shadows on shadows that ripple across the walls—and then you hear how his bare feet shift across the floor until he’s at your bedside.

But he doesn’t stop there. You feel how the mattress dips, eyes flying back to the android, growing huge and round when you watch how he settles himself above you; hovering, so so so close, aware of how he’s not touching you, and yet. You swear you can feel the weight of him, a phantom touch on your body and across your skin.

Your mouth goes dry when he murmurs your name. The word drips from his mouth like honey, thick and sweet, and a shiver skates up your body.

“Do you want me to keep you warm?” He asks, and, oh. Oh. This time the words are heavy with meaning, shimmering gossamer curtains barely drawn to conceal it, smouldering intent in his eyes. “Let me look after you?”

You’re reminded, all at once, that while you’ve taught Taehyung a lot of things since you’d met, there’s one thing he knows that you don’t. Intimacy, and pleasure, and lust. Sex. Something you’ve been deprived of, even if you’ve quietly craved it, waiting for the right time, the right place, the right person.

Taehyung takes your silence as hesitation, his face softening.

“Only if you want,” he says. “Only if you want to say yes.”

“I want to,” you say, surprised by how fast the admittance leaves your lips. You do want it—want Taehyung, in every way he’s willing to share, want it desperately. “I just—” Embarrassment floods over you, and you look away again. “I’ve just never… done anything. Before. I’ve never, um.”

“It’s okay to be a virgin, Y/n,” Taehyung says, and you can’t help but squirm a little at how plainly he says it while you try to avoid saying it out loud, even if you know it’s stupid. There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, you know that, but for some reason you feel almost ashamed at admitting it. Insecure. Even if the android clearly doesn’t care, not one bit. “We can go as slow as you want, or stop altogether. I’ll take care of you no matter what.”

You’re nervous. But louder than your nerves is a growing voice that’s chanting yesyesyes, and another voice that reminds you: you’re safe with Taehyung. No matter how nervous or uncertain you are, or how little you know, you do know that you’re safe with him.

“Okay.” You take in a breath. “Take care of me, Taehyung.”

And he does. With all the slowness of a meandering river and a smile curling his lips, he starts to kiss you again; there’s nothing rushed about his motions, as tender as before. Like the two of you could kiss forever and he would be content with that. 

And then you feel how he shifts, the softness of the kisses warming into something heavier, more purposeful. The glowing embers of a coal that are being coaxed to full flame, his tongue pressing past your willing lips, swallowing down the shaking gasp that shudders out of your mouth.

He trails his lips away from yours, across your jaw and up; you shiver as he noses at the soft skin behind your ear before kissing it, tremble at each intent touch of his lips against you, and it’s only when he reaches the hollow of your neck that you realise that you’re making noises, little inhalations of air each time he mouths at your sensitive skin, lets his tongue trail across it.

You’ve been holding onto him, hands cupped around the back of his neck, and when he sucks at your pulse point you tighten your fingers and let out a gasp. You can feel the answering hum that Taehyung gives, his mouth pressed so close that you can feel the vibrations, and it’s so much already. No one’s ever kissed you like this. No one's ever eased their weight down on you so carefully, pressing you down to the mattress with a delicate, delicious pressure that leaves your entire body growing hotter and hotter.

“Oh, oh, Taehyung.” You’d be embarrassed by how breathless you sound if you weren’t so distracted by something else—one of Taehyung’s hands, splaying over your stomach, heavy through your shirt.

“Can I take this off?” He’s murmuring into the crook of your neck, question warm against your skin. His long fingers rest, waiting at the hem of your shirt, patient even as he presses another kiss to the junction where your neck meets your shoulder: this time, edged with teeth, making you shudder as he soothes it with his tongue.

Your voice fails you, but when you nod, Taehyung responds immediately. You let him lead, follow the steps of this dance he knows so well—shiver at the feeling of his fingers sliding under the hem of your shirt once you've sat up, your stomach jumping as they brush against you, before he lifts it up and over your waiting arms.

Even though you’re wearing a bra, the second you see Taehyung’s eyes move down, you cover yourself reflexively. Even with all the flickering candles there’s enough light that there’s no darkness to hide in, shoulders hunching inwards as you try to hide yourself away. 

You’ve never let anyone see you like this like this before.

Taehyung’s touch is patient as he slides his hands over yours, looking at you with an infinite amount of sincerity and affection. He doesn’t try to pull your hands away from your chest, just waits. Patient. And like you always do, you find yourself melting under the gentle touch of his gaze. You let your hands fall, even if you’re acutely aware of the plain bra you’re wearing, something cosy for a day at home.

Taehyung ignores it. He shifts in and you steel yourself, expecting him to reach around your back for the clasp—but instead he starts to kiss you again. Deeper, hotter, his tongue sweeping over your lower lip before he nips at it. You let yourself get lost in the sensation, angling your head to chase his mouth, and it’s only when you feel the straps start to slip off your shoulders that the android has unclasped your bra without you noticing.

When he pulls away, he trails his hands across your shoulders and hooks his fingers into the trailing straps of your bra, and waits. You bite your lip and steel yourself, feeling foolish even as you hesitate—because Taehyung is looking at you with simmering awe and smouldering want. Like you're perfect. The most beautiful woman alive. 

So you don’t stop him. You let him pull his touch down your arms, slow, slow, slow—and then, all at once, you’re completely naked from the waist up.

That simmering awe and smouldering want is still there. Warmth flushes over your skin under the heat of his gaze, the way it sweeps over you. You never knew that someone could look reverent and hungry at the same time. Never knew that someone would look at you like that.

It bolsters your shaking confidence, helps you lift your chin as you lean back on your hands, and you’re entranced at how Taehyung follows. Caught in your gravity. He raises his arms, bra cast aside and long forgotten as he cups the weight of your breasts in his hands.

Oh, oh, oh. When he pinches one of your nipples between thumb and forefinger—already hard, sensitive—it’s already so much, but then he bows his head and—

You hear a noise, and you realise that it’s coming from your own lips. A shaking gasp that trembles in the air as Taehyung sucks and licks, dragging his tongue against your nipple; one, and the other. You fall once more to your back and he goes with you, relentless even as he stays slow and you arch your back helplessly towards him.

“More?” He murmurs against your skin.

“Oh, God,” you whimper, and he lifts his mouth away from your nipple to press a kiss to the skin above your racing heart. “Please, more.”

It feels so good. Taehyung makes you feel so good, as talented and gorgeous as he is, so wonderful. He keeps laving attention on your breasts, hands skimming over the soft skin of your chest and stomach, goosebumps rising in the wake of his trailing fingers, his warm palms.

You can’t look away when he finally pulls back, breathless from the sensation of it all. He settles on his knees, tugs off his hoodie and then his shirt, revealing all the lovely planes of his body that you’ve seen before, but this time, you don’t have to look away. You can look.

And you can touch, too. 

You sit up and raise a tentative hand to stroke down his chest, his stomach, that little trail of dark hair that descends into his loose grey sweatpants; your mouth goes dry at the sight. Taehyung watches the way your fingers drag over his skin, growing bolder moment by moment, but still too timid to venture past his waistband, low on his hips as they are. You’ve never had a chance to touch someone like this, to feel the smooth, soft skin under your greedy palms—Taehyung’s so warm, so alive. So human.

You think about the other hands he’s had on his skin. Grasping and greedy, taking and taking. People who didn’t care for him. People he couldn’t say no to. But he’s here with you because he wants to be. He lets you touch him because he wants it.

“Angel?” 

You glance up at the sound of the gentle pet name, away from where your hands have been tenderly tracing the lines of his hipbone. “Mm?”

Taehyung’s expression is soft and affectionate. “What are you thinking about?”

“You,” you answer honestly. He leans over to kiss you, and you’re smiling against his mouth when you feel the hand on your shoulder, pressing you down against the mattress again.

Then. His hands are at your waistband. Your breath quickens, but Taehyung’s eyes stay on your face even as your breasts rise and fall, shining with evidence of the touch of his mouth and tongue.

You lift your hips, and Taehyung smiles. Keeps smiling as he strips you, underwear and all, and when your thighs instinctively go to close shut, he catches your knees and keeps your legs open—gentle but firm, swiping his thumbs up and down the side of your knees, a tender touch even as you’re naked in front of him. You see the look on his face, drenched in candlelight, and swallow even as you force your legs to relax.

Then he looks down.

“Oh, God,” he groans, and one of your legs jumps in his grasp at the sound of his voice. Hoarse and deep. Almost unrecognisable. “Oh, angel, look at you.”

You’re so, so wet, so wet it’s embarrassing, so sensitive and responsive to every single one of Taehyung’s touches and kisses. The edges of his hair are spun gold in the candlelight but his eyes are so deep, so dark as he drinks down the sight of you spread out in front of him, wet and wanting and willing. You still want to hide away, cheeks burning, but you can’t look away from him. Can’t look away from how he seems almost pained, brows drawing together as he stares at the shining, flushed lips of your cunt.

“Taehyung.” Your voice shakes. “Taehyung, please.”

You're naked and vulnerable but—but the way he looks at you is so adoring, and you trust him. You trust him.

Just like earlier, his hands cup the back of your thighs. But this time, it’s not to carry you. You twist on the bed when he ends up eye level with your dripping cunt, utterly exposed. Those hands slide up your thighs and under your hips, tilting them up. Your fingers have been resting on the bedspread and tighten in them, bunching in your grasp when Taehyung presses a kiss to the softness of your inner thigh. 

One kiss. And then another. And another. His breath is warm as it curls out across your skin. You feel like you’re about to shake out of your body, wanting to pull away, wanting to lean in; wanting more, even when it feels like too much. Overcome with it all, even if you trust Taehyung. Safe under his hands, his lips. All you can think about is how close he is, face only inches away from your most sensitive parts—

Then he turns his head and—

The noise you let out is almost a keen. His mouth is on you, hot and wet, lips and tongue, and you’re writhing, overwhelmed with sensation. He starts slow, balls of your feet digging into Taehyung’s back and toes curling as he mouths at you. Your hips buck, and your hands are tangled in Taehyung’s hair—when did that happen?—as you sob at the feeling of his lips around your clit, unlike anything you’ve ever felt before, but so so so good. 

He licks a fat stripe up your entrance and your grip tightens in his hair. He makes a noise when your nails drag across his scalp, almost a growl, face still buried between your legs as he presses his tongue in. You’d worry that he needs to come up for air, but he doesn’t, doesn’t have to stop—keeps licking and kissing and humming, responding to each of the sounds pulling out of your lips. Keeps staring up at you, your eyes locked, the way you can’t look away from the sight of his head between your legs, dark haired and incredible.

You don’t realise you’re speaking, words slipping out of your lips as your hips roll, oh-oh-oh, fuck, God, oh, and Taehyung doesn’t stop. On his knees, he worships you, learning what you like—things you didn’t even know—and does it again, and again, and again. One of his hands slides away from your hips and over your stomach, holding you down, keeping you still, and then the other hand—

He turns his head, presses a kiss to the junction of your thigh. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you answer, shaky and weak. So okay, more than okay.

“Going to finger you now,” Taehyung says, and you feel like you’re going to die.

“Okay,” you say again. “Okay, Taehyung.”

He smiles at you before he puts his mouth back to your clit, sucking, a welcome distraction as—with all the languidness in the world—presses a finger into you.

You’ve fingered yourself before. You’ve got your own toys, vibrators, things that are longer and thicker than just one of Taehyung’s fingers—but this feels so different, out of your control. One finger becomes two, your cunt so wet that the slide in is easy, slow, deep thrusts of those long fingers inside you, and you’re panting, you’re so fucking overwhelmed.

And then he curls those fingers as he laps his tongue over your clit and you almost shout, Taehyung’s name bursting from your lips as he keeps beckoning with those fingers and circling the sensitive nub with his hot, wet tongue. It’s so much, it’s so fucking much, it’s so good and you’ve never felt so good before—

You’re almost blindsided by the orgasm that explodes through you and you come apart with a sound you didn’t realise you were capable of making, a gasping moan that keeps unfurling as Taehyung keeps his mouth on you, feeling each pulse of your cunt as you cum around his fingers, tight-tight-tight. (You miss the way his hips kick into the mattress that the sounds you’re making, how much you tighten around him.) You never thought you’d be so loud, never thought you’d end up all but sobbing as Taehyung eventually leans back, candlelight brushing shining gold over the wetness over his mouth, his chin. Your wetness.

“Oh my God,” you gasp. “Oh, fuck.”

Little jolts of pleasure are still wracking through you, pulsations of pleasure that unfurl in your lower stomach; Taehyung rubs the pad of his thumb across your oversensitive clit and your entire body jumps, your legs going to snap shut as you gasp, only stopped by his body in the way. You realise, then, that his fingers are still curled inside you, and you shiver.

“One more,” he says, and your whole body shakes. “Can I give you one more?”

He still looks reverent, and hungry. Like he wants to devour you. Taehyung is usually so soft, a gentle summer breeze—but right now he’s so intense it might scare you if it was anyone else. But it’s not, it’s Taehyung, and there’s something—there’s something about knowing that he looks like that because of you. 

You let your legs fall open, watch how pleased he looks; how grateful. Like he's blessed to be able to do this to you. For you. You’re still so sensitive when he lowers his head again, but he’s slow and patient and coaxing, two fingers becoming three, and—that’s a lot. It’s a lot, but it feels good, Taehyung knowing exactly what to do to make you sob, your legs still hooked over his shoulders as he pulls you along that line between oversensitivity and mind numbing pleasure. This time, when you cum, it’s with three fingers buried deep in your cunt, the flat of his tongue pressed against your clit, back arching as you throw your head back and cry out. Your pussy throbs and it's so dirty, the wet sounds of his fingers thrusting into you, the slick sound of movement as you moan, and moan, and moan.

No one's ever made you cum before. Only you. And now you know what it's like to put your pleasure in someone else's hands, to have them intent on making you feel good, so good, and it leaves you dizzy. 

He’s praising you, you note dimly. He’s praising you, how well you’re doing, how good you are for him, and it leaves you feeling warm. You’re panting when Taehyung pulls his fingers out of you, moves so he can brace himself on his elbows and lean in to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips and tongue. You can feel his skin against yours, chest to chest, his weight pressing you down and then you can feel—

You let out a noise against his lips. There’s nothing else that can be, that hot weight. You might not have felt it before, but you’re not stupid. That’s Taehyung’s cock, his hard length pressed against you.

“Taehyung,” you murmur.

“Mm.” He brushes his nose against yours, and the wave of affection that crashes through you is so strong it feels like it could pull you under. You didn’t realise that sex could be like this—that lingering shockwaves of pleasure could be skirting through your body as you lay there naked, still aroused and almost overcome, but also feeling so warm and soft and tender, too. 

You feel lax after cumming, a little more confident, bolder—and the noise Taehyung makes as you clumsily grasp at him through his sweatpants is incredible. You feel like you could get high on it, the way he sucks in a gasp as his mouth falls open, even if you don’t know what you’re doing as your fingers wrap around cloth and hard heat.

“Please,” you start, then stop. Swallow. “Please, Taehyung.”

You want so much you feel like you could pass out. You want to feel and touch and taste; you want everything you haven’t had a chance to experience yet, want it with Taehyung, someone who you trust. Someone you love. Someone who knows far, far more than you—will always know more—and you want to learn that from him. 

“Want you,” you say, and Taehyung looks pained all over again. He wants you, too.

“Fuck.” The word is rough, and you’ve never heard him curse before. The way he says it has something in you singing, as strange as that might be; you don’t think you’re ever going to get over how much you affect Taehyung. “What do you want from me, angel?”

Everything, you think. I want everything. 

“Let me see?” is what you say, squeezing your fingers around Taehyung’s length, feeling the way his hips buck into the touch. “Please?”

You never thought that someone taking their clothes off could be artistic. And yet, there’s something about Taehyung moving to stand and stripping off the rest of his clothes that’s completely arresting and beautiful; carnal and holy, all at once. You don’t even realise your mouth is open as you sit up and watch him, moving closer as you drink down the sight, the way he’s naked in front of you.

Taehyung. Naked. Naked and beautiful and hard, and it’s so overwhelming, everything about it, how much you want and how—oh, God, how big and thick he is, obvious even to you, someone with nothing to compare it to. Holy fuck. Should you think that his dick is pretty? Can dicks even be pretty? Taehyung’s is. Of course it is. He’s gorgeous all over. Maybe you’re biased because it’s him, but there’s something about the sight of his hard cock, precome gathering at his slit, that makes your mouth water.

Taehyung goes to say something, but before you can lose your nerve, you move forwards, and whatever he was going to say is lost in the sound of a choked off groan. He tastes like salt and musk, hot under your inexperienced hands and mouth, and you don’t know what you’re doing but the noises he’s making, fuck. You run your tongue up the throb of a vein you can feel on the underside, and all you can think about is how big he is, slow and careful with your teeth and lips as you try your best to do whatever feels good for him. 

His noises seem almost frantic but Taehyung’s hands are gentle when they comb through your hair. You look up. There’s a flush on his cheeks—red, not blue, you notice—and you pause, pulling off, suddenly shy after the burst of confidence that had you swallowing his cock down.

“Is this—is this okay?” You’ve still got your fingers wrapped around him, and maybe it’s a little ridiculous to be asking with spit and precome shining on your lips, but Taehyung’s answering smile is so affectionate.

“You’re perfect,” he says, and you know he’s not just talking about your clumsy blowjob. “Do you want to stop?”

You bite your lip and pump his length, which has Taehyung sucking a breath in. “I—what do you want?”

Something flashes through Taehyung’s eyes, and it feels like there’s electricity shooting down your spine before that look disappears. “This is about you, angel,” he says. “We can worry about what I want next time.”

Next time. This is the first time but it’s not the last. Oh, God. God.

Taehyung takes advantage of your distraction and hikes you up and away from the edge of the bed. It leaves you breathless, knowing how strong he is, how easily he can move you, even if he’s gentle-gentle-gentle. He settles in the cradle of your hips, and he’s so close, naked body flush with yours, covering you. His cock is so close—he just has to shift a little, just a little, and—well. 

Before that, though, there’s something you need to know.

“Taehyung?” Your voice shakes but you have to ask.

“Yes?”

“Is this. Um. Does this feel good for you, too?”

You’re always aware of the fact Taehyung is an android, even if he looks and feels and is human, too. (It doesn’t matter that he’s made of metal and thirium and circuitry. He’s human.) You lift a hand and thumb at the soft skin of his temple, where his LED used to sit; you don’t know how to communicate that you love him regardless, that it doesn’t matter to you if he's a man or robot. But you’ve wondered—you know Taehyung was built to pleasure humans. Even if he’s been reacting, making noises, looks for all intents and purposes that he is enjoying this—what if it’s all programming? What if he’s just doing this because he thinks it’s something you want?

He leans into your touch. “Angel.” It sounds like the word is being scraped out of him, hoarse and deep, all dark heat. “It feels good. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”

He rolls his hips almost imperceptibly, but you’re hyperaware of every motion, how close you are. Your breath stutters in your throat.

"I want you to feel good," he says. "I've wanted to feel you and taste you for so long. I want to learn everything about your body. I want to know what you feel like around me. Under me. On top of me. You make me feel so fucking good, you don't even know," and, oh, fuck, those words go right through you, settle deep in your belly, leave you breathless. Taehyung sucks at your pulse point and you melt, even as your skin feels like it's burning, so hot, every part of you so hot, so ready for him.

Taehyung’s big enough that you’re worried about how he’s going to fit, even if you’re slick and wet and so, so turned on—you know about the importance of lube, used it often enough by yourself, but when you mention it to Taehyung he just smiles.

“Don’t forget that I’m a sex android,” he says, and before you can ask exactly what he means by that, you feel the tip of his cock at your folds and the question dies on your tongue.

“Please,” is what leaves your lips. “Please, please, please.”

“Anything you want,” he says, and eases his hips forwards.

Slow, and hard, and wet, the head of Taehyung’s cock starts to press into you. You grab at his back, digging your fingers in; it doesn’t hurt, not exactly, a not-quite-pain as he pushes in—but it’s a lot, even if the slide is smooth, so smooth, from your own wetness and the slickness that covers Taehyung’s cock. Your eyes are wide and your lips are parted and it feels—astonishing, the way you can feel yourself open up for him, the way it feels like he’s filling every part of you, throbbing heat.

“Oh, oh God,” you gasp. 

Taehyung’s forehead is pressed to yours, the loose locks of his dark hair framing his face as he waits, hips snug with yours. You shiver and move your hips a little, entire body seizing at the sensation of him shifting inside you. It's so new and alien, having someone nestled inside you, against you, so close in every sense of the term, above you, around you, inside you—but it feels… good.

And when he moves, it’s so, so slow. Slow and smooth as he works you open, even if you feel so tight around him. You drag your nails down his shoulder blades when he moves a little faster, a little roll of the hips that has you gasping all over again.

“More,” you say, and he gives you more.

You feel so full. You feel full of Taehyung, inside and out—the way his body is still pressing you down, skin on skin, how hot he is.

They call it making love, and it’s not until now that you really understand what that means—how you can feel Taehyung’s soft and tender affection in his every motion, read it in every shift of his body, the lines of his face, his lips; the way his eyes are dark but full of wonder, shining with love for you, pleasure singing through every inch of you, centred around Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung.

Each noise that falls from his lips is an echo of that love. Even when he leans back and takes you with him—settles on his knees, pulls your hips from the mattress to stay connected to you as your shoulder blades dig into the mattress, his cock in your cunt—there’s tenderness there, even if you’re both chasing mutual lines of pleasure. You feel almost dazed, dizzy with love and arousal, reaching out for him, and he catches your hand. The other stays at your waist, guiding you onto him, again and again, each roll of hips into yours.

“Taehyung,” you gasp, voice breaking on his name when he thrusts into you. He’s been increasing the pace, faster and sharper, harder, and it’s so-so-so much, so good. “I’m—Taehyung, I’m close, I wanna cum again, pleasepleaseplease—”

He lets go of your hand and then he’s thumbing at your clit and you’re cumming harder than you’ve ever cum in your life, Taehyung’s cock still hard and insistent inside you as you ride out your orgasm, pulsing around him. You’re gasping and making noises like you’re falling apart, and there’s something desperate in Taehyung’s eyes, something dark and wanton. 

“Angel, I’m going to cum soon,” he says, and you moan in response, hazy. “Do you want me to pull out?”

You shake your head no. You want to know what it feels like, to have Taehyung lose himself inside you. You’re about to reach out for him when he hooks his hands under your knees and hitches your legs up—you suck in a sharp breath as he starts to move again, almost bent in two, his face so close to yours. It's not rough but something about Taehyung taking control like that has you baring your throat, arching your back and throwing your head back. The hold he has on you is firm, and you feel how it tightens as his thrusts speed up, and then, fuck—

When Taehyung cums it’s around the gasp of your name, a hitching sound as he empties himself inside you, throbbing and hot. You let out an answering sound, the two of you locked together until Taehyung pulls out, careful and slow; you feel like a sweaty mess, empty without him inside you, but then his hands are so carefully cupping your face and he’s kissing you over and over and over. It leaves you feeling breathless, all those little kisses, struggling for air by the time you part, every part of you lax under his loving touch. 

“How are you feeling?” Taehyung murmurs, soft and sweet. 

“Good,” you murmur back. And then your nose crinkles. “Sweaty.”

Taehyung laughs, quiet and low. You turn your face into the crook of his neck, hiding your smile as you breathe him in. You do feel sweaty, and there’s an ache settling inside you, but it’s a good ache. A glowing ache, an unfamiliar one, but one that you know you'll get to feel again, with Taehyung.

You’ve just leaned back to take him in all over again, painted syrupy sweet in the golden candlelight—when the lights suddenly turn back on. It floods your eyes and you make a noise of surprised pain as you squint against the sudden brightness, but then you start to giggle, shock melting into laughter.

When your laughter dies you realise Taehyung’s been watching you. The room is full of shining light now, and you realise you’re still naked, entire body shaking as you’ve been giggling. You’d feel embarrassed about your nakedness if you hadn’t just shared yourself with him, bared yourself in ways that are more than skin deep. There’s an instinctual part of you that wants to cover up now that there’s nowhere to hide, no flickering shadows to cover up the parts of your body that you don’t like, the flaws you don’t want Taehyung to see. But he just looks fond, fond, fond, love and affection dripping off him as he watches the way you smile shyly up at him.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says, and smiles back, wide and bright. 

You love him. You love him, and he loves you, and you trust that love. As hard as it might be to believe, you trust that this is what he wants—that you’re what he wants.

“Do you want me to carry you to the shower?” he asks, and you can’t help but laugh again, warm through and through, how he’s still taking care of you.

“Not yet,” you say. 

You end up against his chest, wrapped close. You’ve laid your head in his lap countless times, but he’s never been on his back before, never had his arms around you like he doesn’t want to let go. Taehyung might not have a heart, but the thirium pump nestled in his chest beats steady as you stay nestled against his side. 

You’re drawing little circles on his skin with your fingers when he catches that hand and lifts it to his mouth, presses a tender kiss to your fingertips.

“I love you,” he says.

You feel like liquid sunlight, shining happiness as you melt, melt, melt. And the feeling stays, body filled with it, even after Taehyung coaxes you out of bed and into the shower to wash the sweat off your body; when he drags a soapy loofah over your back you can’t help but laugh, so in love, so loved.

And when you fall asleep, it’s not with your head on Taehyung’s thigh. It’s with his arms around you, his chest to your back, his body curved around you. You don’t want tonight to end, but you also can’t wait for tomorrow, knowing that it’s another day with him, with Taehyung, your Taehyung. You never thought that love would be like this, never thought that you’d feel love like this, cared for and protected and loved, loved, loved.

“Not staying late?”

You pause in the process of shoving everything into your bag. Hoseok is leaning against your desk, a smile curling at his lips as he raises his eyebrows at you, almost suggestive.

“Nah, I’ve got a dinner to get to,” you say. 

“You seem a lot happier lately,” Hoseok comments, and when you don’t fall for the bait, he wiggles his eyebrows. “The girls think that you’ve got a secret boyfriend that you’re too shy to tell anyone about.”

Taehyung still greets you every day when you get home. But now, every greeting is punctuated with a kiss—and sometimes a little more. When you stop to think about it, it’s startling, this thing that Taehyung’s taught you. That the simplest of things can turn into something more, love edged with lust, that it’s all part and parcel of loving someone, being with them, being comfortable with them. Just the other day you’d been reading on the sofa, and then Taehyung’s fingers had curved over your thigh and the tablet had fallen from your hands—

Hoseok clicks his fingers in front of your face. “You’re zoning out again,” he says.

“I am not,” you say, zoning back in. “I was thinking about if I needed to buy any food on the way home.”

“To feed that secret boyfriend of yours?” Hoseok says, and you laugh in his face.

“Definitely not to feed the rumour mill,” you say. Hoseok pouts but it’s good natured, and he waves you off with a smile, letting you leave the office without trapping you in an interrogation for the gossip you’re certain your coworkers are hungry for.

It’s your turn to cook for Yoongi and Seokjin, so you’ve got to get home to help Taehyung. Both men had been spectacularly unsurprised when they’d found out about the two of you. Yoongi had remained calm as Seokjin crowed in delight, proclaiming I knew it, I knew that’s why you were avoiding Taehyung. 

“Feel lucky, Y/n,” Yoongi had said. “At least Taehyung has a sense of decorum and shame.”

“I think it’s a shame that my boyfriend is such a party pooper,” Jin had said. “I demand a dinner party! To celebrate your new relationship! Oh, I’m going to bake the biggest cake.”

“Oh my God,” you’d said, and Taehyung had just smiled.

The truth is that you’re grateful for your neighbours and their support, grateful for their friendship. Just because Taehyung looks human doesn’t mean that you don’t worry about him, worry that someone might discover that he’s a deviant; Jin’s slipped under the radar for long enough, and you hope it’s the same for Tae, too. And yet you can’t help but think about it, think about the present, the future, how your lives are going to unfold as time goes by.

When the door swings open to your apartment, though, that’s the last thing on your mind. All that’s on your mind is Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung, your love appearing just as you’ve kicked your shoes off, all bright pink hair and dark eyes and welcoming hands.

“Taehyung,” you say, warm and happy.

“Hi,” he says, smiling so brightly, and then he kisses you.

You’re never going to get tired of kissing Taehyung; never going to get tired of how his mouth fits against yours, so perfect and sweet. But then he crowds you against the wall, swallowing down your gasp before kissing down your neck, running his teeth so gently across your skin.

“Missed you,” he murmurs, words dripping hot and slow. “Been thinking about you.”

“Taehyung,” you breathe. “Taehyung, we need to cook dinner.”

“We have time,” he says, and when he picks you up, you don’t protest. You go easily, wrapping your arms and legs around him, heat already gathering in your stomach as he walks the familiar path to your bedroom.

You have time: today, tomorrow, and every day after that. You have time with Taehyung, to learn with him, to love him. To be loved back. You don’t know what’s coming on the horizon, what the future holds—but then again, you never have.

There’s one thing you know now, though. No matter what happens, Taehyung will be at your side, and you’ll be at his. He wants you, and he loves you. You want him, and you love him. 

“I love you,” you murmur, and Taehyung kisses the words off your lips, lets the promise of your love settle inside him, warm and soft and safe.

“I love you too,” he says, and then you’re too busy to say anything, after that.

taglist:  @beyoncesdragon​ @vensulove​ @jalexad​ @beingbeings​ @lorielulu7​ ​ (can’t tag: @jeon-joon-kook)

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1981 - the Body-Swap

The X-Men, those body-swapping mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(Uncanny X-Men 151 - 152) - by Chris Claremont and Josef Rubinstein

Emma Frost and her frenemy Ororo Munroe have not been getting along! One fateful evening, as the two quibble away, they mysteriously switch bodies and minds. Talk about your Freaky Friday! What lessons will they learn, walking a mile in one another’s shoes? And will they be able to switch back, or will they stay in each other’s bodies forever? Mutant Monday, coming soon to a cinema near you. Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Angela Bassett and Elliot Page. (PG-13)

For a moment, we’re in a proper period drama: a letter delivers ill tidings!

I love that Kitty’s parents are so self-involved that it took them A WHOLE YEAR to realize that it’s weird that Kitty is the only non-adult attending the Xavier Institute.

I can only assume the mailman interrupted a pool party of some kind? Or a communal shower? I get why Kurt would not swim a lot - all that fur - but did Scott wear that while they were splashing around? Was it a beach volleyball competition where one half got to wear swimsuits and the other half superhero costumes? Most importantly, was Scott’s costume always this tight?

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

The awful thing is that Kitty’s parents are transferring her to the Massachusetts Academy, not realizing that headmistress Emma Frost is, in fact, a terrible human being. Charles, uncharacteristically, says that changing their minds telepathically is a line he does not cross (any more) and half the viewing audience bursts out in laughter. More importantly, last they saw Emma, she was kind of dead-by-Phoenix, so it might be better there this time? Kitty does a Classic Teenage Stomp-Off and Storm comes to comfort her. Kitty cries that life is unfair (“My parents are only doing this because they’re splitting up”) and Ororo tells her that yes, life is unfair. You just gotta roll with the punches as best you can.

To be fair, bald men are technically all cheek, so it doesn’t matter where you kiss them.

While I enjoy the relationship Kitty has with the other X-Men (Scott gave her a compliment! Logan told her his name!), especially the mother-daughter-bond she shares with Ororo, the whole Piotr-thing always gives me pause. Even if we’re being very generous with age, Kitty is, what? 14 going on 15? And Piotr is… 19? At best? I get why Kitty would have a crush on him: he’s a gentle hunky giant: at fifteen, my teenage ass would have felt the exact same viz-a-viz Colossus’ upper arms. The fact that Piotr reciprocates feels skeevy, though, especially because they’re always treated like star-crossed idiots these days.

Skee-vy.

Ororo drives Kitty to Massachusetts, where her young ward is greeted by someone named Muffy and whisked away for orientation. All seems well. Ororo stands in a parlour, surveying the grounds and considering that they should have fought harder for Kitty. Still, nothing seems too wrong just yet: this Academy just seems very preppy.

Not-at-all-dead Emma takes her cue and jumps out, saying (essentially): “Surprise motherfucker.”

There’s a flash of light, and then...

I’m willing to bet that Emma’s EVIL journal has the following to-do-list: - Steal Storm’s body. - Experiment with her powers. - See how good Storm looks in white. (Leather? Fur?! Both!??) - REWARD: Smoke break.

I wonder if Emma’s plan hinged on being able to body-swap with Storm, or whether any X-Man would have sufficed. Was her original target Xavier? Cyclops? What if one of Kitty’s parents had brought her to Massachusetts, would she have taken Kitty instead?

In a locked cell, Storm wakes up in Emma’s body and is horrified. I wonder why Emma didn’t take any more precautions. Couldn’t the guy who made the freaky friday-gizmo also make a power dampener to nullify not!Emma’s telepathic abilities? Or did Emma count on her victim being so utterly incapacitated by her mind-powers that they’d be driven mad? (This would actually tie in with some of Emma’s later-revealed history: when her powers first emerged, she also got locked away in a padded room because of her madness.)

Emma is not wrong, by the way: Storm can’t get a handle on Emma’s powers. What follows is possibly the sweetest moment in an arc filled with sweet moments:

This arc isn’t drawn by any of the regulars - not Byrne, not Cockrum - but Josef Rubinstein brings his own kind of panache to the pages. I love the way he draws women’s faces: in a story that’s all about women, their faces are actually distinguishable. Kudoz.

Emma, meanwhile, coordinates with Sebastian Shaw to execute the second part of their two-pronged attack on the X-Men. They both laugh evilly in their phones while the mansion is attacked by Sentinels! These androids take out Cyclops and Xavier with some sleeping gas and knock out Nightcrawler, but the rest of the X-Men manage to trounce these robots. Then ‘Storm’ appears! She zaps the rest of the X-Men (and Amanda Sefton), successfully finishing their master-plan.

It’s not entirely clear what the Hellfire Club wants with the X-Men this time, but I’m assuming it’s more experimentation to improve the sentinels? Eh, doesn’t matter! Nefarious Hellfire Club is nefarious.

The real Storm, meanwhile, comes to claim Kitty, forgetting that she looks like the one and only Emma Frost. Kitty spooks and Storm accidentally reaches out, knocking her out telepathically. Whoops! Storm takes Kitty and flees in a car, while Emma gives chase. (How dare Ororo run off with her body, which is absolutely the kind of hypocritical hilariousness we all love Emma for.)

Kitty awakens and jumps from the car, causing Storm to swerve and...

JETSTREAM!? Speaking of which, where are the Hellions in all of this?

Kitty sees that an unconscious ‘Emma’ is about to burn to a tender and moist little crisp and she is faced with the hero’s dilemma: would you save a villain that would never save you?

Emma, meanwhile, has realized the downside to body-swapping: somebody else gets to run around with your body too. Shaw, of all people, talks her down from her anger.

You can’t just introduce a persona exchange gun to the plot WITHOUT EXPLAINING WHERE THE FUCK YOU GOT IT FROM.

My favorite detail is that Emma keeps calling Kitty brat, like she’s some sort of Pokémon-villain.

Kitty, meanwhile, has saved ‘Emma’ and tied her up with a special knot. Storm tries to convince Kitty, going for the “ask me something only Storm would know”, but Kitty’s all: “Duh, you’re a telepath.” Ororo insists, but the thing that clinches it is when she breaks free of her ties without breaking a sweat. That knot was taught to Kitty by Ororo and she’d be the only one who knew how to break out of it.

Storm and Kitty recruit Stevie Hunter to come pick them up and during the ride, Storm-being-angry-mother!Storm convinces Kitty more than anything else:

After all, Storm was voted most likely to say: “If you don’t stop this nonsense immediately, I will turn this Blackbird around, so help me God!”

Ororo and Kitty sneak inside. Ororo even uses Emma’s telepathy to help her pick a lock after phasing through a door. (Kind of funny: Kitty’s still such a neophyte that she can’t even phase with anyone else yet.) Emma, meanwhile, taunts the captured X-Men, presenting herself as the new white queen:

Anybody feel the inclination to point out that the Hellfire Club did this exact same thing last year, except then they tried it with a redhead?

I secretly suspect that the Hellfire Club’s plots always revolve around seducing X-Men to their side and dressing them up in sexy lingerie. (Which: fair.) There’s also a subplot where the guys Wolverine cut apart last year want to exact revenge on him for being made bionic, but eh. We’ll start paying attention to them when they become actual Reavers.

Kitty phases through the locks of the X-Men, freeing them, and a kerfuffle ensues. Emma starts using Storm’s powers, but they grow out of control. Colossus tosses Shaw out of the window - which should just be company policy, really: all Shaws should be defenestrated - where he’s promptly hit by a rogue thunderbolt.

When he doesn’t get up, Emma starts to lose it. The weather goes wild. Storm intervenes, using her telepathic power to help calm down Emma (and the raging storm), but she also manages to get a hold of the swap-gun. There’s a zap, and with a satisfied sigh, the status-quo is restored again.

My favorite implication is that, apparently, Emma decides which school Kitty attends and not her parents.

While this little arc is neither the most iconic nor the most profound of 1981 -- those would be Days of Future Past and I, Magneto, respectively -- I still love this for a couple of reasons.

As a lover of Freaky Friday, 17 Again and the new Jumanji-film, I just have a soft spot for body swap plots. (Hi Psylocke!)

It focuses on the Xavier Institute as a school, planting seeds for the upcoming New Mutants.

It is very female-driven without beating you over the head with it. (Looking at you, Birds of Prey.)

It has three definitive main characters, who all get fleshed out in fun and interesting ways. It starts the trend of robbing Ororo of some of her powers and tossing her into against-the-odds circumstances, only for her to come out on top.

It solidifies the Storm/Kitty mother/daughter (or older/younger sibling) dynamic. Kitty is a believable teenager when it comes to Storm - clever and kind, but also looking for answers and prone to rash decisions - and I love how much they care for each other.

Jean/Storm-friendship-callback, yay!

Emma gets fleshed out as a villain. Resourceful and petty, powerful and vain. It’s no wonder she’s one of the break-out antagonists of the X-Men, because, like Magneto, Claremont is not afraid of giving her depth. Arguably, she is the most three-dimensional of the Hellfire Club at this point.

Yay! And fuck completely sensible plots, if you don’t know what to do with your plot, just introduce a random persona exchange gun. Let’s use it on Xavier and Legion in Way of X next!

[tossawary]

I just realized that when I was asking about Comfort Media for my “SVSSS Comfort Book/Movie Fusion AUs”, I kind of overlooked video games, and now my brain is flipping through potential Video Game Fusion AUs at high speed. I don’t really have similarly comfortable or nostalgic video games, though. 

1) Kind of digging the potential worldbuilding I’d get to do for a Horizon Zero Dawn AU, because I do love my science fiction and robot animals aesthetics. Shen Yuan is probably an Aloy equivalent, but I’d probably make him a recent release from those vaults. (Clone shenanigans? Shen Jiu could be the Elizabeth equivalent, but I’m too tempted to have him as an early clone who “went wrong” just to have him kicking around. Shang Qinghua as a secret android serving MBJ who is the leader of the equivalent to the Shadow Carja? Worldbuilding, oh, sweet worldbuilding, my one true weakness.)  

2) The older Overlord video game pops out as an obvious AU, since you play as a Dark Lord establishing an evil regime and fighting the corrupted heroes who killed your predecessor. I’d probably make this one Crack Humor, though there’s a lot of potential fun with budding Overlord LBH vs. fallen Overlord TLJ. 

3) I’m leaning towards plottier stuff than games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley or The Sims, just out of personal preference, but I was talking about the old Dungeon Keeper video game today and that one pops out just because of the Evil Lord thing again. You (as the Dungeon Keeper) are nothing but this crystal heart, so you interact with the world by ordering your minions around and can even temporarily possess your minions. I am currently enjoying thoughts of a Moshang angle, in which MBJ is the Dungeon Keeper who possesses a variety of demons and other monsters to interact with SQH. 

4) And of course there’s always a Breath of the Wild AU. First scenario that comes to mind is Shen Yuan transmigrating in as the Link equivalent (Shen Qingqiu) waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection. I don’t know who would be my choice for the Zelda equivalent yet, but I’m enjoying the idea of LBH being Zelda, if only from the perspective that Prince LBH (who was only discovered to be the lost prince and also Wisdom after his adoptive mother died and doesn’t know how to work out his powers in time to save the world) is used to interacting with Champion SJ (who was NOT pleased to be stuck with this kid as Wisdom), and so LBH needs SY to come save him but also kind of hates his guts.