continuation of the previous post
and bonus markus
we did it
protect
hanahaki!au, but flowers grow through the veins
does it have a name?
kariki
Anonymous asked:
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.
