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Anytime he sees them, he hates feeling like this. He hates feeling like their mutual closeness will eventually end, just like every little drop of happiness resemblance in his life. He hates feeling like Y/N will fade like dirt in the wind. He hates feeling like this is ephemeral.
What only is constant in his life is pain, in whatever form that comes. It started back when PROJECT used him like a toy and it will probably end in a similar way, like probably dying in a war amongst rebels. Just like every other rebel.
His life leads anywhere. Either dying against PROJECT or losing Y/N. Both feel equally awful. But Y/N dying in his arms?
That’s terrifying. That’s the only reason Pyke is still close. The only light of his life cannot just fade like this, in such a mess. Light deserves to be fought for, to be preserved.
“-Why do you think regular bread has marked lines on top and loaf bread doesn’t have any?”
Pyke hums, his voicebox purring at the reminder that he has a person right on his side, almost sitting on his lap and them resting on the edge of a big concrete tube. Pyke blinks, metallic eyelids detecting Y/N resting their head on his shoulder. “Bakery shit I don’t understand.” he responds. “The crust of loafs is not the same, I guess.”
Y/N groans, soft hair grazing the skin on his left arm. His guts always contort at the physical contact of any kind, especially theirs. “Yeah. I mean, it tastes the same to me.” They scrunch their nose. “Though whole wheat bread? That crap is horrible.” They sigh, breath warm. Pyke himself doesn’t have it. He’s not warm, he’s not positive, he barely has any good trait. And Y/N is still close. The way they wrap his fingers with theirs is just... too much. His rusty mind aches for liberation when his metaphorical heart craves comfort. “Do you like dessert?”
Pyke exhales. “I don’t really eat. You know that, silly.”
Y/N groans, complaining a bit. “I know, but you don’t, like, detect smell? Zero taste at all? Some sort of pleasure?”
How can he tell them that the only pleasure to Pyke is happening right now? There’s barely something else that makes this good. It’s like there’s a little stormy cloud with lighting and rain pouring over him that goes with him everywhere he goes, his sun making it fade whenever they meet up.
“Uh, no taste.” he decides to answer. “Some sorta smell. Like sweat, blood, dynamite. Gunpowder.” He almost disassociates again, tired for the day. “I don’t take pleasure in eating food.”
“That makes sense.” they breathe, the sound of it making him crazy. “If you don’t have taste, food tastes like nothing.” They moves their head enough to look back at him. Oh, those eyes. Very unlike Pyke, they haven’t altered not even the iris of their eyes, still human and lively. Their only augmentations are a metallic leg and their two prosthetic forearms. “Hey, if you do ever decide to install taste sensors, you can try... pasta, that never fails,” Oh, those promises of a future he’s never going to have. He doesn’t want to chain Y/N into an eventually fatal future. “or rice never fails either. Or salads? But I do think if you have a taste sensor for the first time, we gotta start trying it strong, you know?”
Pyke exhales again, more notably. Y/N keeps quiet, appreciating the silence and enjoying the moment. “I know.” Pyke groans, gruff and now more uncomfortable. Not because of the closeness (that would never happen), but because of the exhaustion. He has done a lot of PROJECT snitches persecution and hunting today, and tomorrow even more and more. “Can we...?” Y/N turns their head to him, him suddenly having a flinch of insecurity. “... go home?”
Their home is barely a home. Just a bedroom they turned into an apartment together. It’s the best they could get.
Only the wealthy people living in the center of The City can afford decent to good apartments. Only people from the government and PROJECT are allowed to buy houses.
“Wanna skip dinner and go to bed to cuddle?”
Pyke knows this is selfish. He knows that he should be letting Y/N go, he should leave them alone for them to have dinner, because he doesn’t eat. He knows he should let them go eat in peace as he goes back to a painfully empty room, dark and cold. But when you’re an automaton whose only source of warmth apart from your motor (which is artificial) is an actual decent, amazing person in the whole city, he doesn’t want to let go in the middle of his misery.
He decides to be selfish this time.