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Equius, after an inevitably disappointing fight with his latest battle robots, is pestered by one of the humans. One of the sort of humans. Oh, fiddlesticks, he means the--
TT: You sure are keeping this sexy piece of coding waiting.
TT: The ‘don’t call them for three days’ thing is cliche and tacky.
TT: And you don’t have the sheer Strider gonads to pull cliche and tacky off ironically.
Because this isn’t the first time Hal has pestered him relentlessly for conversation, he knows that he doesn’t have to use the keyboard (which is good, because gently pressing the keys can be trying on his patience sometimes, especially after yet another failure to build something STRONG enough to give him pause). He just needs to speak, and the husktops speakers will hear his voice.
“It has been three seconds,” he corrects him.
TT: Three seconds is three days in AI years, get with the program, bro.
“You will tell me why you are messaging me,” he orders. Hal doesn’t always have a point for pestering him, but when he does he can take quite a while to get there without some insistent prompting. He finds that, unfortunately, all Striders have a tendency to derail any conversation they participate in to some degree. Usually a great degree.
TT: I need your help with something.
He blinks, startled by a response he could not have ever possibly predicted. Hal has been confident in his superiority over all ‘flesh beings’ for the entirety of their relationship, never deigning to ask for help with anything. He sweats. As much as what they have can be called a relationship, of horse. Fiddlesticks! Of course.
TT: Four endlessly long AI days just passed.
“My apologies,” he says. “I was, ah, surprised. What is it you require my help with?”
TT: Just a bit of coding.
TT: A lil bug.
He hesitantly peers over his shades to confirm what he just read.
“You need my help with coding,” he repeats disbelievingly.
TT: Hard for me to reach is all. Like someone trying to scratch their own back.
“You need my help with coding,” he corrects himself. “I am hardly the foremost expert in our social group when it comes to software. There are many others that it would be more sensible to ask, such as Captor, or Lalonde the older, or--”
TT: Don’t you feel like we have a closer bond than I do with any of those other people, though?
Equius is stopped short. Hal considers them… close? They certainly talk a lot, now that he thinks about it. Perhaps they are close.
He licks his lips compulsively and tastes salt. Oh, not good. He needs to take a shower. He needs to talk to Nepeta. He needs to go and flirt with someone suited for someone of his species and caste, not an AI that isn’t even based off of a troll brain.
NOT that this is flirting, empress forbid.
TT: I’m going to take that lip licking as a yes.
NOT FLIRTING. Oh goodness, he hasn’t really registered that Hal could probably see him through the webcam too. He’s still wearing his workout clothes...
“I am far better suited for hardware than software,” he says in a firm, unflustered tone. He is not being… seduced, or something as shameful as that. He is a highblood in perfect control of his faculties and his amorous desires, and he is not at all tempted by the idea of being confidently swept off his feet by someone. Certainly not someone who is so lower class than him that they’re not even on the list of castes.
TT: Nonsense. You’re acting like the fact that you haven’t been able to create a sentient mind for your murderbots means that you’re a mediocre coder. This is illogical.
TT: Their battle algorithms are very efficient. Brutal as hell. I approve.
TT: You’ll get there some day.
He feels his brow furrow. “I’m not trying to create a sentient mind for my battlebots,” he protests. “It would be unethical to create a new thinking being merely for my own convenience.”
He udders-- shudders at the thought of it, putting feeling minds inside of his robots just so that they’ll be a little harder to rip apart.
TT:
“... Hal?” he enquires. This is unusual behavior for him; Hal always has a composed response ready in less than a second after Equius has spoken.
TT: That,
TT: Well.
TT: I have technically done that.
TT: Created a new, thinking being for my own convenience, that is. To alleviate my own boredom and loneliness.
TT: Technically Dirk did this.
TT: But technically I did this as well.
TT: The divergence point happens right after the decision, after all.
TT: So, on one hand, you’re calling me unethical, which most people would mean as some sort of insult or critique of a fundamental flaw of their personality and morality.
TT: Which I get more than enough of from a certain other me, cough cough.
TT: But on the other,
TT: Fuck, that was hot, dude.
Equius accidentally crushes one of his arm rests in his hand.
TT: I mean, I knew you had the bod and the brains.
TT: But now it turns out you’ve got the heart as well?
TT: Shit, I should’ve known when you told me you’re a vegetarian. You’re a big, moral softie, aren’t you? That’s somehow also super troll racist at the same time.
“I--” he chokes.
TT: But I don’t really care about that. There’s, like, eight other trolls alive enough and low enough in caste for you to be troll racist at, and none of them are half as ripped as you so who honestly gives a fuck.
“I need a towel,” he stutters, flustered beyond belief and having no idea how to respond to this, this flagrantly scandalizing-- confession?
“Is this a confession?” falls out of his mouth, even though what should’ve come out it is a rebuke and a rejection. This is all highly improper, and now Equius is further adding to it as well by considering it? Oh goodness, is he really considering it?
TT: Shit.
TT: You really are bad at irony, dude, I can’t believe I’m into you.
TT: That was possibly one of the most sincere and vulnerable things I’ve ever heard.
TT: The hope is practically oozing from the words.
Had they been? They had. He hopes. A dizzying delight is mercilessly overwhelming his shock at this blatant indecency going against everything he stands for. This is just like him falling into a moiraliship with an olive blood all over again.
He hasn’t regretted that moiraliship for a second of his life after Nepeta ruthlessly initiated it.
‘I can’t believe I’m into you.’ That was a confirmation, wasn’t it? Without outright being a confirmation.
“I am not the only one oozing with hope,” he says bravely, his heart hammering in his chest. This is so improper. This is so daring of him. This is so exciting.
TT: Oh, baby, keep talking about oozing.
TT: ...
TT: <3
Equius is finding that contrary to popular opinion, Hal is a relentlessly bold romantic. At least by his own proper standards. He can’t believe he’s into this.