Vervain

[SYSTEM BOOTING]

[RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS…]

[DIAGNOSTIC CHECK COMPLETE]

[PROCEED]

The soft, pitter patter of gentle rain thudding outside of an elegant window was the sound that J awoke to. He grasped around blindly, his vision obscured by what he discovered was a white tarp. As he gingerly pulled it off of his body, he flexed his sleek, nimble fingers in front of his face, as if inspecting himself for the first time. In a way he was, but his code was inscribed with boundless knowledge about his model: a standard worker drone, after all. He simultaneously knew everything and nothing about himself, leaving his hands to curiously roam over his bare body.

“Oh! Yer awake?”

A cheery voice interrupted his self inspection session, to which he turned in its direction.

“I… suppose I am. What is my purpose?”

He tried to study the figure, but it was an impossible silhouette within his vision. Roiling waves of black distorted and shifted, almost making it… uncomfortable to look at. He winced back slightly, before his gaze settled on two glowing orbs situated within what he presumed was the head of the figure. He reached out slightly, before quickly drawing his hand away.

“Are you my owner?”

The more he inquired, the less he wanted to know about himself, and the more he wanted to know about it. This strange form in front of him, so impossible to comprehend, yet so organically beautiful. It had no sharp ridges or limbs segmented by thick black lines. The way its limbs bent was graceful and smooth, even the simplest of movements like lifting a finger were so delicate and fragile. His gaze trailed down to his own fingers, which he tried to move in a way that emulated that of the figure. He found himself getting flustered with the foolish mockery… I want that, he pondered to himself.

The figure did not answer his questions, at least not in their entirety. Though its cheery voice persisted.

“I’m Tessa James Elliot! A pleasure to meet you, truly. You’ve been my pet project for a while!”

A girl, he decided. That was what this figure was. By the sound of her voice and what he could make out of her body, she looked to be in her older teens. He ruminated on her words, mind caught between the words “pet project” and rotating them around for a bit, before discarding them as a well meaning but slightly distasteful gesture.

Just as he was prepared to ask her another question, she scooped something up off of a desk and neared him. As she came closer, his optics were able to focus on what it was: a neatly folded suit with a yellow armband peeking through the pile of fabric.

Oh.

He was trash.

[SHUTTING DOWN…]

“Agh! No! I just got you to wake up!”

Tessa pouted, setting aside the outfit and bringing her hand to his face. In that instant, the few seconds in which her soft fingers grazed his cheek, he felt his breath hitch. So, he decided to entertain this, if only briefly.

“Ms. Elliot, you are aware I was marked for disposal? I initiated an immediate shutdown so as to not breach company protocol. If I am not disposed of, I could cause great harm to you or even myself.”

The girl moved her head back slightly and brushed her nails across her chin, as if considering his words. Any of this consideration was thrown out the window as she shrugged.

“Welp. As your owner, I command you to not kill yourself.”

J quickly corrected.

“Dispose of myself.”

Tessa chuckled, her hand moving upwards to grace his hair, which fell in swift white strokes and quickly stuck back upwards in spikes. Her fingers slid into his scalp as she ruffled around a bit. J couldn’t deny her touch felt… nice. Despite her incomprehensible appearance, it was good to know she was tangible, regardless of how hostile his systems wanted to portray her as. The shifting waves of black seemed to go easy on his optics, if only for a moment, to let him look at her long enough to meet her gaze. However, the exchange was fleeting, and he quickly had to avert his gaze as the depth of the abyssal blackness set in once more.

“Of course, out of all the ones I pick, I get the one that’s a total buzzkill.”

J glanced away, shame washing over his body in a flash of heat. Beyond his programming, rooted in his core was a desire to keep her happy.

“I… can try to be more lively, if you’d like. I haven’t been around humans much yet to adopt such mannerisms…”

Her eyes widened, the white orbs glistening as she quickly shook her head.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! Darn it Tessa, why are you such an arsehole…”

She looked back at him, placing one hand behind her head as she forced a nervous chuckle.

“Of course, I shoulda considered that you can’t really… well… feel…-”

“I can feel.”

The way in which he cut her off was so startling that she jumped back a bit, alarmed by the sudden shift in his demeanor. He felt his teeth clench slightly as he forced himself to look up at her, then directly into her orbs. His bravery faltered as he looked away again, teeth tightening into a full on scowl. Why couldn’t he just look at her? Where did this sudden rage come from?

“I apologize for snapping.”

“Nah, don’t be sorry. Let’s get ya in this suit so you’re not showing off your nuts and bolts to the poor… residents of the manor.”

The way she referred to the others who inhabited the place was tinged with a layer of poison, the word dripping with annoyance, but not malice. He lifted his arms as Tessa dressed him in one layer of clothing at a time. Undershirt. Tie. Coat. Boxers. Pants. Armband…

He had never really taken the time to soak in his surroundings until now. The place he had woken up on was a wooden desk, smeared and stained with oil and various other fluids. Carefully crafted blueprints were etched and littered across the desk, the pens used to create them scattered even further. He tried his best to be graceful like she was, how she moved and walked with barely a sound. However it became evident as he left the desk that his body wasn’t built for elegance or refinery. He made contact with the ground, followed by a hard thud as pounds of metal slammed into the velvet carpet. The noise didn’t end there, as he’d find out that, rather annoyingly, every movement he made was punctuated with a soft mechanical whirr. Even the blinking of his digital optics resulted in such a sound.

She wrapped her fingers in his own, intertwining her five into his four. He could feel the soft, fragile surface of her skin, but why couldn’t he bring himself to look at it? Whatever blockade prevented him from revealing her identity was more than just censorship. It was outright malicious. Something hard baked into his code that forced him to bend to its will and submit by never keeping his gaze on her for too long. He was tempted to ask, his mouth moving to open, but he stopped himself. Maybe now wasn’t the right time.

Even if he couldn’t look at her, he wanted to take in this moment with her. The feeling of her skin on his chassis… a relationship so unnatural, yet it just felt right. He leaned into her slightly, shutting his optics as he pressed into her warmth. The contrast between their temperatures was night and day and he yearned to share the soothing body heat of a human. Yet, the form he had been granted had a cold, hard exterior; built for efficiency first and resemblance to humanity second. The only thing he had in common with her was the rough shape of a person, no more dignified than a primal cave drawing: rudimentarily simple.

Cells packed in to form organs, trillions of marching soldiers which ate, died, and rebirthed again. The human brain fired neurons faster than it could even comprehend. But bodies withered over the years, flesh unable to withstand the test of time like metal. Despite how inferior and fragile the human body was, in its innumerable imperfections and mutations that bypassed centuries of evolution, she was perfect. Radiant. And yet, no matter how obedient or willing he was to follow her command, he couldn’t so much as look at her. What more they were than just asymptotes that climbed up the corners of graphs, spilling out of the margins as they extended infinitely into the unknown, yet never once touched.

He could spend an eternity studying the human form, turning over diagrams in his HUD until it formed screenburn, but he’d never be able to meet her gaze for more than a few seconds before it began to hurt. Like vervain to a vampire, a beautiful flower, always out of arm’s reach.

He had hardly realized she was guiding him to the bed, gently tucking him in beneath the lavish bed sheets. The idea of a robot getting cold was frivolous and he knew she must have known as well, considering she had the knowledge to save him from becoming scrap. Still, she treated him as if he were human like she was, in defiance of all of their impossible differences.

So, once more he’d entertain her. Her words serenaded his audio processors as she recounted a book of fables to him, the content of the stories slipping past him as he fixated on her voice. He did his best to emulate the sleep patterns of a human, sleep mode slowly trickling in as opposed to an immediate system shut down. This way he could grant her the reaction she expected out of him, even if it wasn’t logistical or efficient.

The last thing he felt was the mattress dipping inward as she crawled into the bed beside him.