It was a quiet evening at the Elliot manor, the guests have left hours ago leaving the drones to clean after them, it was a successful night of making Mr James and Mrs Luisa Elliot look good for their imagine, while Tessa remained in their shadow, which left her alone with her drones,
.
.
Walking through the empty and unwelcoming halls of the manor everything always seemed grey here, aside from whenever she hung out with her drones, Tessa found the door she was looking for, the door to her room where four specific drones hide in sometimes to avoid the angry parents, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a soft click, the four drones look over at her happy to see Tessa has returned "hey Tessa!" N greeted cheerfully, "how was the event?" Cyn looked back at what she was doing, which was playing with tessa's old dolls she hadn't touched in years, but she only kept them out for Cyn to play with, V sat in the corner cleaning her glasses, J sat on her bed since she found it comfortable (it carries tessa's scent of lavender oil)
Tessa sighed "well ye know just busy making mom and dad look good then being ignored, it was okay" she plopped down next to J, "I have a question though" she looked over at them, she had their attention since she saw silver eyes staring back at her, "how do you guys see humans? Like does your systems make us seem different? Or is it just regular?" She tilts her head curiously, V squinted her eyes at Tessa, N shrugged, "we can't see humans, we can only see your silhouettes" J answered, Tessa looked surprised and confused, "Why? Is that like some kind of rule or something that you can't see us?"
"We don't really know why we can't see humans It was just something in our programming with no explanation" J replied, N sat down with Cyn "maybe it's for privacy reasons" he suggested, "I mean that could be it," Tessa lays down on her bed, "that kind of sucks I wish you guys could really see what I look like" J thought about it for a moment, she had always wanted to know what Tessa looked like, the color of her eyes, her hair, everything about Tessa she wanted to see and know, did Tessa have pale skin or not? ...did her lips.. wait- no stop.
They heard footsteps approaching, which made everyone nervous, V ran and hid in the closet with N dragging Cyn following behind her, J hopped off the bed and climbed under the bed, once they were out of sight the door swung open revealing tessa's mother, "Tessa, surprisingly, you haven't embarrassed us today" she steps in, her heel clicking with each step on the polished wooden floors, Tessa stiffens a little, her mom never openly came in her room, she saw the older woman towering over her, "we have something to discuss." She says firmly, "..yes mother?" Tessa asked, her voice soft and making her seem scared, "we have decided to set you up with a suitor" Tessa's eyes widen, meanwhile under the bed J tug her metal fingers onto the carpet that was rolled up beside her untouched, covered in dust, 'suitors!? No one is good enough for my Tessa! My human! Who the hell does her parents think they are??' she glares at the heels she had her eyes on from her limited view,
".a.. s.. suitor?? What for??" Tessa fidgets with her hands, "to make more money Tessa, you wouldn't get it, this is grown up talk, after your 20th birthday you're getting married, do I make myself clear?" Tessa stared at the ground, her chest tightens with a slight ache, "..yes mother" she wouldn't dare speak back, last time she did that she had to hide the bruises with makeup, and keep J from going on a murder spree of course,
Next day Tessa found J in the garden, staring at the water of the pond, in deep thought, "penny for your thoughts jaybird?" She asked softly, her tone gentle, J looked over at the black silhouette with white eyes,
J internally screaming, 'robo Jesus what does my human look like!?' "Tessa?" J murmured shyly, "yes?" Tessa sat next to her, her thigh touching J's, "...is it weird that. I've always wanted to know what you look like?" Tessa turned to look at her, "you do??" She asked with an excited tone, J nodded sheepishly, "you don't think it's wrong??" "Of course not!" Tessa giggled softly at how silly that sounded, J reached up but she paused, her hand a few inches from tessa's face "can I..?" Tessa seemed to understand, "just don't poke eyes alrighty?" She winked jokingly, the drone rolled her eyes playfully, she uses one hand to cup the side of Tessa's face, warm, soft, her thumb stroked the side of her cheek gently, to get a good idea of how tessa's skin felt, "what color are your eyes?" J asked softly, "green" the drone mentally tried to picture that in her mind, emerald green eyes, "..do you have any marks on your face? Or no? Is there anything?" "Freckles"
Noted, "what color is your hair?" Her hand reaches, gently taking some of the soft strands in her hand, careful not to tug, before releasing the strands, "brown" J tried really hard to picture tessa's face, there were so many different ways she could look with those details, she mentally cursed the company for taking this away from them, she couldn't see Tessa's face! She could only feel it and imagine it! J's hand moved to tessa's chin, holding it, "I need to see it for myself." were her lips soft? Wait why was she thinking about that,
Tessa is her boss! Tessa is human! ...and she isn't,
Flashback
Child Tessa, (they were basically the same age I'm not doing age gaps)
J was picking up the scattered socks all across the carpet, boss was really messy when she got excited, "JJJ!" She began folding the socks neatly before a very energetic girl hugged her from behind, nearly making J drop the socks "Tessa! Careful!" J sighed, though she did admit the hug wasn't unwelcomed, "I missed you!" Tessa rests her head on the drones shoulder, stepping on her tippy toes, J set the socks down before turning to face Tessa, "alright I missed you too" she embraced her in return, "how was it with your grandparents?" J asked, Tessa huffed, "grandma kept talking about how when I'm bigger she couldn't wait for me to have children, grandpa only took me fishing on his ship, but made me not do much because it's not 'lady like' to get dirty!" J raised her brow, was there anyone in her family normal??? "Sounds...fun.." she says,
Within the hour she saw Tessa drawing on her bed with some kind of pen, looked odd "what's that boss?" J climbed onto the bed, looking at the strange pen, "it changes the ink color! Lookie!" Tessa clicked the blue and suddenly the ink now only shown blue ink, J was taken aback, she never seen a pen like this, only the JC Jensen branded ones with black ink or if you got lucky, red ink, "you wanna draw with me?" J didn't have time for such- (she started drawing pictures with Tessa, Well because Tessa wanted to of course. Not for any other reason..)
"You know? If you were human I'd marry you" Tessa simply said when J drew herself as a human, (not for any reason of course)
J looked at Tessa with a flushed expression, did she really mean it?? Or was she just exaggerating?
Current timeline
Tessa and J watched the car pull out of the driveway and leave once the gates open, Tessa waited for a good moment, frozen in place to see if the car came back, "they're gone!" Tessa said happily, she took J's hand and ran down the halls with her, knowing none of the drones would snitch on her, "Boss slow down you're wearing heels!" J squeaked, her optics hallowed in fear for tessa's safety as she is dragged along,
Tessa then jumped onto the couch with J, giggling excitingly, "Boss you get too excited!" "Well duh! When they are gone I can do whatever I want for once!" Tessa hopped off the couch, looking back to see if her loyal drone followed, which of course she did, it was hard to believe Tessa would be in her twenties in a week, the age of being married off, it hurt J more then she'd like to admit, no one was good enough for Tessa, she thought about it, especially since Tessa still kinda acts childish, well it wasn't her fault, Tessa's folks never let her do anything.
'if I can't have Tessa, I at least want to see her face first!' J walks right up to Tessa and tugged her sleeve, "Tessa?" "Yes?" Tessa responded, "..is there a way for me to see your face?" Tessa paused, she thought for a moment, before getting an idea, pretty risky, "I think so" she says mischievously, J rolled her eyes, "alright what is it?" Tessa took J's larger hand in hers and leads her to the other side of the manor, "we have to sneak into father's study, he keeps those kind of files in his desk" "...how did yo-" Tessa laughs nervously, "I may or may not have been... Borrowing from him..?"
J looked horrified and impressed, how did Tessa do this without getting caught? "Boss! If he finds out he'd lock you up and starve you again!" Tessa continues on, putting on a brave face, even if they were gone Tessa was still pretty scared of getting caught "heh, I picked the locks last week" okay, when was Tessa doing all of this!?
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System rebooting....
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Back online!
The white optics opened once again as she takes in the environment around her, it was pretty much the same as soon as she woke up, she then heard a voice "so J is supposed to see what Human's look like?" Ugh. N.
"Exactly mate," Tessa says proudly, "which should kick in a minute after she sets her eyes on a human, yours truly" she bows jokingly making N chuckle, J sat up from the take, she did notice tessa's hair was down, and the bow was gone, but.. She was still a silhouette.
....
...
Tessa turned to J, "jaybird? Is it working girl?" No response, "you alright there?? J?"
".. perhaps I should have left your code alone... Or.. N grab my tools!" That stupid voice responded back, "on it Tessa!" Suddenly, the silhouette faded, revealing the real Tessa, she looked even better then what J imagined, "..this is what you look like..?" J's tone was shaky, she reaches out and touched Tessa's shoulder, Tessa told N he didn't need to grab the tools anymore and she turned to J "crikey it works! Did I meet your expectations of what you imagined how I look!?" Tessa asked, looking very excited as always and intrigued, it was taking so much self control to not kiss all over tessa's face, kiss each freckle, "...you look... amazing." J whispered before suddenly shutting her mouth with her hand, she had said that without thinking about the words coming out "really?" Tessa asked,
Deep down Tessa had struggled to find herself pretty thanks to her mom always judging her or putting her on diets, 'your make up skills gotten better' it sucked to not get any kind of approval for her appearance, she was really relaying on J's answer, "..yes" J hid her face on tessa's shoulder embarrassed "you're so pretty boss.." those words meant everything to Tessa, she picks up J happily and hugs her tightly, but not too tight,
J eagerly hugged her back, nuzzling her face on tessa's neck, if she had a tail it'd for sure be wagging. "Tessa James Elliott!" They quickly pull away from each other, "I'll distract her long enough So you can sneak out of the basement without being spotted" N said as he quickly left the basement to buy Tessa some time,
Sneaking passed was easy, acting like She wasn't doing anything in particular even easier, She was just scolded for something dumb as usual and sent to her room for 'rolling' her eyes at her mother,
It was fine with Tessa especially since it ended up as a moment alone with her favorite drone as they cuddled together, "tell me I'm pretty?" Tessa asked, "you're beautiful." J whispered, Tessa rests her head on J's shoulder, she liked being held,