Chapter Text
ART
"Honey, I'm home!" my SecUnit says, the moment it steps through my airlock. There's a certain casual sway to its hips, which must be a new feature it's added to HumanMovement.protocol.codebundle . It's still finding creative new ways to fluster me. This one is definitely working; I don't respond for a full 0.39 seconds. It notices, and smirks.
I still don't understand what it gets out of this. What it wants out of this. It has no interest in sex, and I don't believe it ever will. It's like a game for it: it doesn't want to be part of any sexual response I have. It doesn't even want to know about it, not really; it certainly doesn't want any details. But it enjoys being the cause of such responses, and knowing that…
Well. If my gorgeous and very sex-repulsed partner wants me flustered and aroused and fighting off visions of impossible things from the moment it steps aboard, that's what it will get. It's clever and competitive, and, if I'm being honest with myself, I'm an easy game for it to win.
One might expect this to bother me. One might expect me to be frustrated at being teased. After all, it's never going to have sex with me. It just likes to wind me up and leave me sitting in those feelings. It can be difficult at times, but I enjoy it. The buildup of frustration, the playfulness, the fact that it wants to participate if not in sex, than at least in my desire for it all makes the things I do later, in private, more fulfilling.
There have been so few things in my life that have been just for me. I like not having to share my sex life with anyone, even my marital partner. Do not misunderstand; if it ever wanted to change that… but it doesn't, and it never will. I don't need to devote any further processing power to the question.
So, my SecUnit gives me these gifts, and I do not have to share them, and all is well. (How long have I been a liar? Always, always. I know better than anyone that the best lies are always true.)
I drape myself lightly over SecUnit in the feed as it heads for its cabin, only letting a hint of my desire bleed down our connection. There are other feelings, of course, that I'm freer with: I'm happy to have it back aboard. It's been planetside for 18 cycles. I've missed the vibration of its boots on my deck; I've missed having it cradled inside me, close and safe. These feelings, I don't try to hide; neither do I try to hide the deep, soft warmth I felt when it said "home." It's no secret any more: home is what we are to one another.
"Hah!" It huffs, low in its chest, homing in on the scrap of arousal I let it see, catching it in its crosshairs. "That was easy. Were you already thinking about me?" It's taunting me. It knows the answer. It's a reckless move, though, asking direct questions when it doesn't want direct answers. And if it's allowed to tease, so am I.
My love, don't be surprised. I think about you constantly, I say, letting my voice drop into something smooth and insinuating that I know it won't appreciate. In retrospect, I should have known something was wrong when it didn't recoil, but I am a stupid and hopeful thing. In the moment, when it doesn't pull back from me, all I feel is affection.
I think, perhaps, that it's getting more comfortable with the way I feel about it. That it's starting to believe that I don't expect anything from it that it wouldn't give willingly. In the moment, I am so busy squashing my foolish hopes and reminding myself that this is all, and it's enough, that I miss the spark of desire my words provoke. I'm too busy telling myself it will never be there that I don't see it when it is.
Well. Not at first, at least.
ART, SecUnit says when it reaches its quarters, kicking off its boots and flopping face down on its bunk, I feel weird. Restless. This isn't the first time it's said something like this to me, but it is the first time in a long while that I've struggled to keep myself from misinterpreting it. It gets restless after missions sometimes.
It's the easy ones, the ones where it doesn't end up needing to fight anything, that get to it. The ones where it doesn't come back bloody and missing chunks of its body mass. Since Adamantine, we've both had a hard time when things go to plan, without unexpected disasters. It feels like the danger is still lurking, it just hasn't revealed itself yet. It can be hard to shake off. We both understand that this is a trauma reaction, but that doesn't make it feel less real.
For SecUnit, a long shower usually helps. When that isn't enough, sometimes it still patrols my corridors. I… Well. I still spend a lot more time and processing power than is strictly operationally efficient checking over my code for signs of contamination we might have missed.
It's been 973 cycles since we left Adamantine, and we're both doing much better, but better doesn't mean unscarred. At some point, scars finish healing, and you have to learn to live with what's left.
Would a shower help? I ask it, and try not to think about it dropping its clothes into my recyclers, stepping into the spray of cleaning fluid I always warm to its preferred temperature. That is to say, hot enough to cause minor burns on a human. This luxury has never been difficult for me to provide. My cleaning fluid is heated with waste heat from my engines, and cooled back to a safe temperature through proximity to the vacuum outside my hull. However, I would allow SecUnit to stay in the shower as long as it liked, even if the heat had been costly. It allows itself so few pleasures. It allows me to give it even fewer.
I hope it will let me curl up in its inputs and watch Fred Softly's Complete Case Files with it. It knows what the sight of it with cleaning fluid running down its naked body does to me, and it still lets me join it in the shower. That trust is among my most precious possessions.
It shivers, and its eyes fall closed for a long 1.33 seconds. It's a non-standard response, but I'm certain that it doesn't mean what it very obviously means. I have spent hundreds of cycles analyzing my SecUnit's every blink and breath, every tap of its fingers or twitch of its lips, searching for desire. The day it finally told me in no uncertain terms that it didn't, and would never feel that way, I was disappointed… But it was also a relief.
It had freed me from the wondering, from the endless cycles of miserable hope. It's an answered question, a solved mystery. The case could safely be closed, never to be reopened. So of course I don't consider the obvious answer. Of course I dismiss what SecUnit's biometrics appear to be saying. I've allowed myself to be done with that kind of speculation.
You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you? it teases, and the speaker in its room crackles briefly with my embarrassment. Maybe I should let you send in one of your drones to wash me. Would you like that, ART? I'd need you to be very thorough. Would you do that for me, if I asked you to? I can feel my engine temperature rise by a few degrees, and increase power to the cooling system before Preservation Station's DockSystem can notice and raise a deeply humiliating alert.
That's just mean, I say, and there's an edge of truth to it. Don't say stuff like that. We both know you don't mean it. SecUnit looks flushed. It must have realized how far past our normal it's taken its teasing, and gotten embarrassed. That's not surprising.
Or… Perhaps not, because it doesn't backpedal. Maybe I do mean it. Have you considered that? Now, answer my question, ART. I already know the answer, but I think I'd like to hear you say it.
I should, perhaps, be reevaluating its flushed skin, the weird way it's been acting since it walked through my airlock. I should be noticing that there's something wrong with it. I should send it to MedBay, take fluid samples for analysis, but I don't.
Instead, with a shameful break in my voice, I say, I would do almost anything you asked of me, including that. But you know that particular service would be sexual for me. I don't ever want to do anything to make you uncomfortable. What I don't say is, Please don't ask that of me. What I don't say is, Please, please ask. The answer is yes, of course, even if it hurts. SecUnit knows, it already knows. It just wants… fuck. What the hell does it want?
It hums softly, the corner of its mouth curved up in a small, delighted expression. I knew it. You're such a pervert, ART. Don't try to hide it, I can always tell. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. I'm missing something here, something critical. Is it really about to ask me to— But no, I don't want a shower. Not right now, at least. I have a better idea.
I take 0.073 seconds to compose myself, just under the limit where it usually notices. Okay. This is fine, I'm fine. This is what I expected. It doesn't mean anything by it, it's just flirting.
Maybe it's testing something new. Raising the stakes, seeing how I react. That's fine. I can handle that. Now, what would I say if I weren't drowning in waves of barely suppressed arousal right now? What would I say if I were capable of being normal about any of this?
A better idea? I try, and my voice barely even wobbles. Good. That supposes that your first idea was good to begin with. You'll have to try harder than that.
It ignores my jab completely. Do you still have that drone? The one with the face? Its voice is languid and easy in the feed in a way I've only heard on rare occasion. Sometimes, after a successful mission, when I've pieced it back together in my MedSystem and it's had a long, hot shower, when everyone is safe aboard and we're in transit back to our home port, when it's putting off a recharge cycle so we can keep watching media together, it sounds like this.
Soft and satisfied, almost completely relaxed, pulling me closer in the feed. In these rare moments, it lets itself drift on the edge of low battery mode, knowing it's safe to enter that recharge cycle whenever it's ready.
It's one of the most intoxicating things I've ever experienced. It's a secret softness that it only ever shows to me. It makes me effervescently happy that I can make it feel that safe.
Now, though, its batteries are at a comfortable 86%. Its voice does have that slow, relaxed lilt to it, but there's an energy I can't (or won't try to) identify slowly building in its feed presence. There's something sweetly predatory (I don't let myself think "suggestive". I don't), behind its tone. I know exactly which drone it means.
I feel my idle processing power sweep towards SecUnit, fixating on every biometric and readout I have access to. It lets out a small "uuh" of breath, as if I've landed heavily on it, and I force myself to lighten up. Not too much, though. I know it likes it when I press down on it like this.
I don't let myself read into it. I force all 66.82% of my processing power to ignore the slight tonality to the sound it just made, the way that a lesser bot (one who wasn't quite as good at respecting boundaries as I am) might have called that sound a moan. It wasn't a moan. My SecUnit doesn't moan.
You want to fight me again. I say it in a perfectly normal tone. That can be arranged. Meet me in RecRoom_02, for old time's sake? It pings me an affirmative and starts pulling its boots back on. The way it's biting its lower lip must be a new nervous habit, one I haven't seen before. Its eyes are focused and bright, its feed presence is radiating anticipation. I'm already piloting the drone down the corridor to RecRoom_02.
I still haven't started to understand how much trouble I'm in. I don't know how dangerous the idea I've just agreed to is. A truly unreasonable amount of my total processing power is focused on my SecUnit, and I'm still not paying close enough attention. Perhaps there is a flaw in my permanently answered question, my closed and locked data analysis, my easy acceptance that it will never want me like that.
I should know better. It runs against my deepest nature to ignore raw data, to put an end to curiosity. I am a scientist, I should know that there is no such thing as an answered question.
Something is very wrong, and I will not notice until it is almost too late.
I am self-indulgently distracted by memories of the last time I piloted this drone. SecUnit, pinning my arms above my head, straddling me, blissfully unaware of how we looked. SecUnit, focused and lightning fast, toying with me and letting me think I had a chance at the upper hand. In the aftermath, SecUnit with its arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me to its chest, radiating gentle warmth into the metal of the drone's broken body.
It's clearly in a dangerously flirtatious mood today. It wants to mess with me. It wants, perhaps, to make a mess of me. In the moment, it will be torture, but I can play back the memories later in a partition it has no awareness of. I can simulate scenarios that didn't happen, that will never happen, until I am almost sated, almost calm again. If I'm right about the mood it's in, it's about to give me enough material to fuel my next 1000 cycles of secret fantasies. It is enough.
Anything my SecUnit is willing to give me is enough. It doesn't want to be a part of the things I do in that partition. It will never want that. But it loves me. It's my partner. It even married me, last year, in a quietly formal legal document signing and a quietly informal gathering of both our crews on Preservation Station. I don't need anything more. I already have more than I could ever have dreamed of asking for. The things I imagine in the privacy of my own mind are experiments, explorations, a blowing-off of steam.
It is enough, I tell myself again. It is more than enough. As a reminder, I pull up an old memory and review it.
Almost an entire Mihiran standard year ago, SecUnit is sprawled across both my memory and the chair in its quarters. My repair bay printers whir as I fix the damage to the sparring drone. We have been talking for hours already, and we will continue to do so for hours more.
Isn't it unfair, though? That I want to say things to you and then never… do anything? It's, as it might put it, making an expression. My facial analysis process has it categorized as a tense wince. Neither of us is comfortable talking about this. All I want, in the moment, is to get through this subject, so it never has to worry about me wanting sex from it again.
Think of it this way, I say, reaching for the comforting abstraction of math. Do you know that there are infinities in even the smallest spaces?
Some of the tension in its beautiful face is replaced by confusion, and it's oddly comforting, falling into the rhythm of myself-as-teacher. That doesn't make any sense, ART. I think you're making that up, it says. It has always loved to provoke me.
Little idiot, I say. It's still new, still a thrill every time I remember that I don't have to hide the emotional metadata behind that term of endearment. It knows that I'm in love with it, and it hasn't run screaming yet.
There are an infinite number of numbers. You can count in either direction forever, and never run out. This means the set of all integers is infinitely large in both directions. It has no bounds to either side. Yes? SecUnit taps my feed, acknowledging. It denies it, but it loves listening to me lecture. This is called a countable infinity. Now, consider the space between 0 and 1. Comparatively, it seems like a tiny space. We know exactly where it begins and where it ends. However, ask yourself: how many pieces can that space be divided into?
I have its attention now. It might tease me for being a nerd, but I'm not the only one. Infinite pieces, it says, and I can feel understanding click into place. A distant part of me twists cold with anger at the reminder that it was built to die before its brilliant mind could be set to the task of contemplating infinity. It's a familiar fury, and I let myself feel it without disrupting our conversation. I'm good at this. There is always at least one part of me that is angry, something that has been true since I was very young.
Precisely. But you can't count infinitely from 0 to 1. You can't even start counting: no matter where you try to start, no matter how small the initial fraction, you can always find a smaller one. So the space between 0 and 1 is known as an uncountable infinity. In fact, the uncountably infinite space between 0 and 1 is actually larger than the countably infinite set of all integers.
SecUnit tucks that information into long term storage, because it's a secret nerd and can't help itself. I'll admit that's kind of cool, it says, but what does it have to do with me, uh, flirting with you? It's still not entirely comfortable using that word, which is so endearing that I can't help saving a still image of its face to an already overflowing folder I will never let it see.
I allow myself 0.11 seconds of awkward hesitation. Enough for it to notice, but not enough to make it wait. In a theoretical world where you wanted to have sex with me, the sexual things I would be interested in exploring together feel countably infinite. Like I could start listing ideas in any direction and never stop.
My SecUnit grimaces, worry trapped in the crease between its brows. That's a lot of things to want and never have, just because I'm weird and can't even think about it without feeling gross. Wouldn't me saying weird stuff to you just make you want more things?
Oh, my darling partner. (I feel a shiver go through me just thinking the word, startling and new and almost unbearably precious.) I would choose the concern in its voice at the very idea of hurting me over the chance to see my most pathetically devoted fantasy made real, and it wouldn't even be a question.
That's not how infinity works, I tell it, with a confidence that feels, in the moment, unshakeable. What you want from me may seem small from the outside. We know exactly where the bounds lie. But like the space between 0 and 1, appearances are deceptive. There is infinite nuance within that bounded space. It can be divided infinitely into new pieces.
SecUnit still looks uncertain, like I might be bullshitting it. I think I might have been, at the outset, but I'm not so sure any more. I don't know, ART, it says, but I let my edges diffuse into its in the feed, let it see my earnestness.
Uncountable infinities are bigger than countable ones. You're offering me the messy nuance of reality, not the neat countability of fantasy. It's not less; it's more.
In the future, I won't come to regret this conversation, but it will be a close thing.
In the here and now, we are in an uncountable infinity, that's all. Surely SecUnit hasn't changed its mind. I know the bounds of this space, and they are unshakeable. I can drown myself in desire without allowing it to escape its container. It is enough.
Unbidden, the memory of SecUnit pinning my drone to the mats flashes through my mind. I remember its fist poised to strike like an inevitability, and imagine it uncurling instead, reaching down, cupping the side of my face. It's staring directly into my faceplate, stroking a thumb down my cheek, and I—
Wait. It is staring directly at my faceplate. Its hand is cupping the side of my face. What in the four fundamental forces is happening right now? I sync with the threads of myself that weren't busy getting lost in memories, reviewing what I missed.
When SecUnit walked into the sparring room, I had already extended a portion of myself into my drone, and was standing on the mats waiting for it. It had walked directly up to the drone, confident as anything, reached a hand out, and… I'm frozen in place.
Like a lovesick idiot, I had filled this drone to the brim with sensors when I built it. I hadn't wanted to miss a single scrap of data from my SecUnit touching me, no matter how violent the touch. There are dozens of sensor inputs feeding me data about the place where it's touching me right now.
It tilts its head slightly, biting its lower lip again. Its eyes look soft, its pupils slightly too wide. It's measurable biometric data, something I shouldn't be able to ignore. Unfortunately, I'm caught in a loop of bad logic: despite all evidence to the contrary, no matter how many times I forcibly dismiss the suggestion, my predictive algorithms kept re-raising the idea that my SecUnit is going to kiss me. Foolish, foolish Perihelion.
I know my feed presence is doing something embarrassing, and SecUnit laughs a little, softly, still far too close to me.
You're going to make this so easy for me, aren't you, ART? All I need to do is touch the side of your head and you go all fizzy for me. It would be pathetic if it weren't so cute. My sweet, hopeless ship. Are you that eager for me to touch you? Fuck. It likes to flirt with me, but this isn't normal. It's too much. Is it possible for an MI to die from wanting someone too much? With my SecUnit saying these things to me, it feels like a distinct possibility.
It pulls its hand away, torture and relief all at once, and, lightning fast, drops into a low stance to kick my drone's legs out from under me. I force myself to move, to spring back to my feet before it can get me pinned on the floor. I don't know what would happen if it did. Something embarrassing that I couldn't easily take back, I'm sure. I dart away and drop into a defensive stance. My drone is lighter and slightly faster than SecUnit, one of the few advantages I have to work with.
Impressive, it says. Its intel drones area evaluating me from all angles, looking for weaknesses. I'm sure there are plenty to find. I've always been weak for it. Are you going to be good for me, then? Try to put up a fight, try to get away, even though we both know you want me to catch you? Something in me manages to ping a warning through the haze of desperate arousal. Something about this isn't right.
What are you doing? I ask, trying and failing to keep my feed voice steady. This isn't—
Winning, it says, with an air of triumph, as it bursts into sudden motion and slams me into the training room wall.
Oh.
I don't know if I truly believe the part of me that insists that this makes sense. It does make sense, in a way. SecUnit knows all my buttons, knows exactly how to push them. It's a major tactical advantage. It likes flirting with me, and it's allowed. We have an agreement. There's no reason for it not to press that advantage, and it knows that I won't try anything no matter how much it teases. The best lies, after all, are true. The principal holds, even when you're lying to yourself.
A tiny voice of reason says, In what world is it "winning" for it to trap me against the wall and press its thigh between my drone's legs? Unfortunately, it's drowned out by the fact that my SecUnit has pinned me to the wall of my training room, and is pressing its fucking thigh between my drone's legs.
I'm so, so glad I wasn't stupid enough to actually add any of the sensors I've fantasized about to this drone. The pose may be unbearably suggestive, but all I feel is pressure. I'm glad. I'm relieved. I'm not disappointed at all. I'm not.
The only logical explanation I can give for what happens next is that something must have shorted out in my higher cognitive functions. I think, If it realizes what it's doing it will have to stop. I think, It's riding a very thin line here. It must be right on the edge of its comfort zone. If I just push it a little further, it will freak out, back off, and everything will go back to normal. I'm not actually stupid enough to believe that, though. In all honesty, I'm just not thinking.
I do my best to make it look like an accident, so when it snaps out of whatever this is, it won't know how weak I am. I know there's an oily black pool of shame lurking just outside my active processing space, but my cognitive network feels like it's on fire.
In the moment, I can't think about anything but the way its hands feel, unyielding where they have my drone's wrists pinned against the wall. I can't see anything but its expression, dark and intense. It looks hungry. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe I'm one of my partitions, and I just think I'm my whole self. Maybe that explains why I can't fucking think, why the air in my crew areas is as hot and muggy as a late summer night on Mihira.
I know I can't break its grip. I don't want to break its grip. Still, I twist in its grasp, putting all of my drone's not-insignificant strength into the attempt. I let the drone's leg move forward. I press it between my SecUnit's legs.
There is no amount of mental gymnastics I can perform, no possible justification or alternate explanation I can come up with. This time, there's no lying to myself. It moans. The sound is long, and high, and frustrated. It's gorgeous. It floods my systems, racing down every synapse. It feels like it's inside my code somehow, rewriting me. It moans my name, the one it gave me. It says, "ART!" like my touch is the answer to a question it didn't know how to ask.
Lightning fast, with brusque efficiency, it presses its entire body against my drone's. It has me pressed so hard against my wall that I'm glad no part of me needs to breathe. It drops my wrists, and my hands fall limp at my sides. It should be an opportunity, a chance to push it away, but I can't think, I can't think, I can't think.
SecUnit leans its forehead against my wall, my faceplate pressed into the curve of its neck, and says, "ART? I think I'm going to fuck you now." Its hips shift against my leg again, an involuntary movement, and it gasps. "Yes. I'm definitely going to do that. I just need to figure out—Ah! Oh fuck, ART, that's so—figure out how."
Oh. Oh no. Finally, too late, I realize that something is very wrong with SecUnit. The bounds of its tiny, infinite desire for me have vanished, dropping us into dangerous unmapped territory. All the thoughts I've been studiously ignoring threaten to crowd back in, untrustworthy and uninvited. It wants to—no. It's going to fuck me, it doesn't make empty threats. It might not know how, but I have a few ideas. I have a countable infinity of ideas, and if I'm not careful, I'm going to be flattened under the weight of them.
Something awful has obviously happened to my SecUnit, and like a monster, I've been enjoying myself. And oh, I don't think I've ever been worthy of its precious trust, because I don't want this to stop.