Work Text:
It’s a night like any other, or so B muses. Progress has been steady, but it’s not the Seed of Light he’s worried about… no, far from it, really. It’s a night like any other when Benjamin is walking through the dimly lit corridors of their research facility during nighttime, squinting to make out text on the clipboard of research papers he’s to bring to Ayin—his beloved work partner. Refining protocols, progress upon gaining L Corp, running simulations and testing…
Benjamin sighs, tucking the clipboard underneath his arm. He’d rather not think so much about work at this hour of day. Another hour more, and he’ll bid Ayin goodnight, go to their separate rooms, and try not to think of passing time as he lulls himself to sleep. Not that it works, of course.
There’s a lot of things Benjamin thinks about before he falls asleep. Of course there’d be—the man he’s devoted his life’s work to is deteriorating before him. It meant everything seeing the spark reignite in those dulled yellow eyes, but he ponders, oh he ponders, what will become of them? Once they recreate Carmen, once the… the time-loop begins…
He quickly shakes his head. Trying to focus on the sound of his footsteps in the lonely corridor, he approaches the door to Ayin’s study, and pauses as his hand hovers over the door’s handle.
Everyone else is gone now.
Is that really so far from the norm in the City? Benjamin is used to hearing rumours, whispers, tales of life in the backstreets, outside the nest which he and Ayin met in—millions die every day, and millions step in to replace them. The wings that govern them pay no mind as the gears that keep their city running fall in and out of place. No, him and Ayin would know this better than any other. In this city, their lives are meaningless. That’s why they’re doing all they’re doing, right? To fix this… to fix this. He wants to fix this. He wants a city which he and Ayin can live in.
He decides to stay outside of Ayin’s study a bit longer, a sigh leaving his mouth as he turns to lean his back on the door. Benjamin raises his arm, his other fingers finding the clipboard and holding onto it, pressing it against his chest. All he wants is a city he and Ayin can live in. Their affluent backgrounds would well enough allow them to live happily in a nest… under the pretence that the wing that governs over them won’t collapse over them and thrust them forth to survive on the scraps left.
But he wouldn’t be happy with that. He wants Ayin to live someplace that he himself can be proud of… he wants Ayin to smile warmly, to watch the ocean with him, to open his eyes to a beautiful breathing earth, not the machine of a City that birthed them… he wants Ayin to open his eyes and see him breathing beside him, to have their hearts beat together, to inhale, to exhale, to live, to—
Benjamin can’t help but chuckle at the thought.
If it’s what Ayin desires, he’ll see it through to the end. He’d go to any length, he’d rid himself of his own humanity to further Ayin’s… and oh, when he sees those dulled yellow eyes fall upon him, when he hears the softness that arises in Ayin’s voice when addressing him, there’s a pride that arises in him. A fire that burns brighter inside of Benjamin. Sometimes he ponders, he ponders if anything would stop him from keeping Ayin all to himself like this.
The two of them in this outskirts facility, with Ayin grown too weak under constant overwork to resist being kept from seeing his—no, her plans come into fruition.
Sometimes Benjamin feels resentment for Carmen. It’s a horrible feeling. The grief that wracked the team, that tore them apart after her death—the grief that wracked Ayin specifically. It’s a horrible feeling, to see the man you’ve devoted all of yourself to spilling tears over a girl that’s long dead. They could break themselves free of this, they could leave, run away from it all and watch the ocean together… why? Why do they have to hold themselves back…? Hold him and Ayin back from living, all for the wishes of his long dead crush.
All Carmen is is some, some stupid nervous system kept in a vat of stupid preservative fluid, she’s dead, she’s dead and she can’t be remade like he wants her to be, so why? Why is it Carmen that makes those yellow eyes shine, why can’t he turn and see him standing beside him, why can’t—
—Benjamin is snapped back into reality by the sound of the papers wrinkling around his clenched hands. He blinks, once, then twice, and takes a sharp inhale. He turns.
The door creaks when Benjamin opens it, but he hears no stirring from Ayin, or any hums of notice that he’s here. Ayin’s study is swallowed by the dark, save for the limited reach of the lamp at his desk. He tries to be quiet, moving forward, waiting with bated breath for Ayin to come into view.
His heart feels heavy in his chest hearing the sound of his own footsteps. It’s almost as if his blood stops flowing, his lungs coming to a pause. Benjamin is anxious as he walks towards the desk. He’s anxious, guilty, afraid… afraid. It’s hard to wrap his head around it.
When he sees Ayin, he’s surprised by how his heart revs back into motion, the rush of blood to his cheeks, the pounding in his chest. A head of messy black hair is buried in arms, arms covered by the same ever so slightly baggy lab coat that Ayin always wears. He can see how his chest moves, hear him breathing softly in the quiet of their facility.
He remembers that it really is just the two of them here.
“Ayin—”
Adjusting his glasses, he moves forward a shaky hand, hovering it over Ayin’s shoulder, right about to lower it to gently shake Ayin awake, to remind him not to sleep at his desk, that he’ll get cold if he sleeps at night, that he remembers how low his tolerance for cold is, why he always kept his coat on even when they’re not meant to be working, how the feeling of wind on his arms would make him shiver, how…
He’s stopped in his tracks. Cut off by his work partner stirring, head tilting to allow for Benjamin to see his shut eyes, to see how his brow furrows then relaxes as he moves, how he lets out a near whine, however quiet it may be.
“Benjamin…”
His heart skips a beat—or two. Benjamin nearly gasps upon just hearing his name. He hurriedly puts the clipboard down at the desk, somewhere where it won’t mess with any stacks of papers or binders or folders, and pauses where he stands to just stare at Ayin in disbelief. Like this… his colleague, his, his love, he looks… so exceptionally…
“A-Ayin…”
…Cute.
“You must be tired. It’s alright.” He rests his hand down, patting Ayin’s shoulder… ah. It’s always so good to be able to touch Ayin. He can feel how his body moves with each breath, he can feel how he warms up wherever he touches him…
His touch is gentle, moving his caress to Ayin’s face, where he tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear and feels the soft skin of Ayin’s cheek, of Ayin’s body warming at his touch, how Carmen wouldn’t be able to treat him like he does, how Carmen wouldn’t remember where Ayin reacts the best to embraced, how she wouldn’t ever hear him sleepily mutter her name, how it’s him who gets to do this with him, not her, how…
Ayin stops his thoughts from running on again with a hum, shuffling in his seat a little as he does so. It warms him, it warms him to see him rest. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
He shrugs his lab coat off, carefully laying it atop Ayin’s sleeping body, and gently ruffles the sleeping man’s hair. Benjamin finds himself smiling, intertwining his fingers with Ayin’s, and pulling up the chair he brought to this study long ago.
Benjamin seats himself quietly, trying his best not to disrupt his work partner’s sleep, and folds his hands on his lap. He has another hour before their designated bedtime. He has some time to kill.
Neither he or Ayin are good people. If they were, they wouldn’t be secluded in this outskirts facility, they wouldn’t be breaking the AI Ethics Amendment, he wouldn’t be assisting Ayin to do so. So it’s… fine. It’s alright. It’s alright if they don’t see her plan come to fruition… at least for himself, that is. Benjamin sets his glasses down, and lets his body melt back into the office chair. It’s a far cry from the comfort of his bed, but watching how Ayin curls into himself in his sleep seems to make him forget all about that.
For such a cold man, Ayin sleeps so soundly.