Prompt: When Markus and Simon reunite, something sparks in Markus' coding and he kisses Simon rather than simply hugging him...
Markus
had often heard the expression that someone ‘couldn’t believe
their eyes’. He had been uploaded with additional caregiver
software on top of his default domestic service programming, just in
case. He knew humans brains could malfunction quite easily to see and
hear things that weren’t there. It had never been an issue with
Carl though there had been that one incident with Leo before the
young man’s first stay in a rehab. He knew the fault in human minds
but had never thought he would ever experience the phenomenon
himself.
Because
the odds of Simon being in front of him, alive and well, seemed so
astronomical – though, realistically, the odds were closer to 23% –
that he couldn’t be here.
Markus
stared, letting his sensors pick up every detail of the android in
front of him, looking for a sign that this was his friend and not
another PL600 who had found their way to Jericho. But that was the
uniform they had stolen, hidden underneath a jacket that was not part
of their disguise. There was the leg wound, bleeding blue and glowing
with damage, in the same exact spot where Simon was shot.
It
couldn’t be anyone else.
He
felt the thin lubricant in his eyes start to flow, a reaction to the
sudden surge of emotion he felt. ‘Tears of joy’, Carl would call
them.
Simon
was here. Not dead on a rooftop or in a police evidence closet like a
bit of scrap that might hold a clue. He was alive and he was here.
Before
he could think better of it, to dwell on the possibilities running
through his head – how Simon was here, if he was angry for being
left behind, or if he had somehow been followed – and closed the
distance between them. He wanted to feel him, to feel proof that the
other android was really alive.
He
wrapped his arms around him and pulled him flush to his body. He felt
the warmth and hum of life in the body pressed against his and felt
the arms return the embrace.
Alive.
Simon was alive.
He
wasn’t sure where the urge came from – perhaps from watching a
few too many movies with Carl – but he lifted his head from Simon’s
shoulder and closed the distance between them once more.
Kissing
was a new sensation. The feel of soft, synthetic skin that gave way
under his lips, it shouldn’t feel like anything more than that but,
somehow, it felt like so much more. The feel of Simon’s lips
pressing into his own, with just as much force, just as much want,
sent a surge of energy through him that he couldn’t find a name
for.
Was
this love? Lust? Whatever it was, it was something undeniably human,
something that only beings with emotions could ever feel.
“I
thought I would never see you again.” The words were soft, spoken
against his own lips, but they thundered in his systems.
“I
shouldn’t have left you,” Markus said back, pressing his forehead
against Simon’s, as though he could force the feelings inside him
into the other android. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
There
was silence. Markus felt Simon’s arms loosen from around his
shoulders, felt his hands run down his arms, stopping at his wrists.
“I
didn’t want to die,” Simon said softly, not meeting Markus’s
eyes. He opened his mouth to say more but no words came out. He let
out a soft breath and closed his eyes, leaning into Markus’s arms.
Markus
held him tighter. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he
promised, muttering the words into blond hair. “Never again.”
They
both chose to ignore the errors those words brought up, errors that
cited the statistics and the low likelihood of them both making it
through this war alive. They still had each other, they still had
their people to save and, no matter how likely their failure was,
they had to keep trying.
Because
that was the only way they would ever truly be alive.