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I do not wish to stop…
Run! Please, run!
The horrible crunch-rip-tear of teeth in his throat, his blood is blue and there’s a flash of ‘oh that’s why his skin looks like that’ and maybe it’s deflection, maybe it’s curiosity, maybe it’s the way you’re too human to do anything about this except watch him fall and know that somehow, this is your fault. You failed. You could have prevented this. You could have saved—
“Sym!”
Sol bolts upright in bed, sweat-drenched and heart pounding. They hear their own shout as an echo, halfway between sensory input and dream. Sym. Sym. He fell, he’s dying, he…he died, they remember it, but it sounds wrong somehow. How could…
Someone’s fingertips lightly tap the back of their hand. “Sugarbug?”
Sol flinches, thrumming with adrenaline and grief. It hurts like a particularly strong hiccup, stabbing at their muscles and reminding their nerves that they exist.
(Mom Dad Tammy Tonin Eudicot Hal Sym Dys, save them watch them mourn them bury them fix them one more time)
“Beloved, what’s going on? You’ve never woken so suddenly before.” Fingertips again, this time brushing against their jaw. They allow their head to be moved, something deep and necessary in their mind telling them to go easy in this hold. They are safe here. They are loved. “Oh, you’re crying. Here, I’ll fetch the—”
Sol grasps at both of the hands touching them, twining fingers together and holding a palm against their cheek. “No! No, don’t leave. Don’t leave me, please, don’t—don’t ever leave, I can’t—”
Huh. They are crying. A sob threatens to choke them, and they turn their face into the palm they’re clutching. “Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.”
The hands flex against their skin, lacing fingers together more firmly and cradling their face with aching tenderness. Breath against their neck, something else (a nose?) lightly tracing the other side of their jaw. “I shall never leave you, dear one. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Sol takes a deep breath, letting the physical slowly overpower the mental. They are awake. They are alive. Most importantly, so is he. “Sym…” They mean to say more, but it’s overwhelming just to be aware that he’s here, holding them, and decidedly not dead.
“Solanaceae.” He kisses their neck before pulling back just enough to see their face. He doesn’t speak, just takes in the mess of their raw emotion. His thumb soothes back and forth against their cheek. Every point of contact is grounding, and Sol clings desperately until they find their way back to the right lifetime.
“I had a nightmare. Or maybe more of a memory…sometimes it’s too hard to tell the difference between them.” They shove their face into the crook of his neck and wrap their arms around him, holding so tightly that they’d apologize if he were anyone else. Sym folds into the embrace easily, like it’s instinct. Like he isn’t rewriting his pathways on the fly, stretching the limits of millenia-old programming so he can learn how to love a human being.
He runs his hands through their hair and hums a tune that sounds vaguely familiar. He listens to so much different music that it’s hard for them to keep track. “I see. You were thrashing about and making noises I generally associate with your distress. Should I have woken you?”
Sol sighs, embarrassed even though they know there’s no need to be. Of course he was awake and aware for all of that. He doesn’t need much rest, though that doesn’t stop him from staying in their bed most nights, either holding them or doing something else, but still near enough to touch. To watch while they dream. To observe, both with fondness and voracious curiosity. To stare at them while they have a nightmare about him dying right in front of them.
“Yeah, you can go ahead and wake me up next time it happens.” Hands still dance along their scalp, pulling through the longer bits of hair that they’ve been letting him braid. He likes to experiment, even when it results in tangles and knots that he carefully unwinds at the end of each day. “I’m surprised it took this long for me to have a nightmare while you’re around. I guess they don’t happen as much as they used to.”
“What did you dream about?”
He asks it so calmly. It’s just curiosity for him. He cares when they’re upset, obviously, and he’s not slacking in the comfort department. It just doesn’t affect him like it would a human. They know all of this. They know.
It still stings, just a little.
Maybe that’s why they pull away from him before they reply. “It was about when you died. Well, when you died right in front of me, I mean. I’m sure you’ve died lots of times since I met you. But the only one I know of is the manticore attack. When it bit you and you fell off the side of the cliff, and all I could do was watch…” It’s distressing to think about, but not as much as it would be at another time. They’re so drained right now that they can speak without breaking down even further.
Sym nods, still playing with their hair. “This was after the first time you kissed me, yes? I imagine it was quite confusing for you.”
Confusing. Like that’s the biggest part of how they felt afterwards. As if mere confusion could describe the joy of seeing him alive or the pain of realizing that they’d shared an intimacy with him that he’d never remember.
Sometimes they still can’t believe that they agreed to this relationship after he’d repeated that same line about not wanting to stop kissing them. Maybe they wouldn’t have, if it’d happened anywhere other than right next to the vat that backs up his memories, so they could be sure that they wouldn’t be forgotten this time.
“Something like that, yeah.” They breathe him in for a long moment, then pull away. It’s a relief to see the crease in his brow and know he really is concerned. They know that he cares, of course he cares, he adores them. Still, he doesn’t feel things like a human would. He doesn’t understand the intricacies of their thoughts or the expected patterns of behavior in a relationship.
He’ll grow them flowers and kiss their knuckles and leave their home for days on end without even a note to say where he’s gone. He’ll explain intimate details about their relationship at the drop of a hat, regardless of who’s asking or how public the location. He’ll keep a container of the vat fluid on the table by their bed, in case there’s ever something that’s beyond either of their capacity to explain—or if either of them longs for that deep and vulnerable intimacy.
“It hurts you to remember.” He says each word carefully, weighing them against his own understanding. “Even though I’m fine now, and you know I will never truly die. Even though I do not retain any memory of the pain.”
He’s so heartbreaking, and Sol knows he doesn’t even realize it. Probably never would realize, if left to his own devices. They cup his face in their hands, already knowing they’d need a mindmeld to truly get this across to him, but needing to try all the same. “Of course it hurts, Sym. Even if you can just get a new body, it will always be awful when you get hurt. I don’t care if you don’t remember it. I never want you to be in pain.”
Sym stares at them, his eyes darting across their face, picking up clues and piecing them together. He smiles gently. “It’s only temporary. You don’t need to worry about me, sugarbug.”
“I’ll always worry about you.” Sol says, fierce and almost sharp. They see his eyes widen, hear his breath catch. Another time, they might be more subtle, but the echo of their nightmares (memories) keep them raw and more than a little desperate. “I love you, Symbiosis, and that means I’m going to worry about you and want to keep you safe until the day I die. And even after that.”
There’s something searching in his expression, but he doesn’t immediately press for more answers. It’s unusual, though welcome enough while they’re so tired. “I love you as well, Sol. I can certainly understand a desire to keep your lover safe.” A pause, rare uncertainty in the air between them. “Is there…anything I can do to help ease your mind? At least for tonight?”
“Hold me?” Sol murmurs, exhaustion pricking at the back of their mind. More than the back. Almost to the front, now. “Just…hold me.”
Sym goes soft at that, all tenderness and adoration in his expression, and winds his arms around them in that wonderfully familiar grip. He pulls them back down to the bed, twining their limbs together with an ease that makes them ache. “I’m always more than happy to do that. Rest, my love. I’ll keep you safe.”
That’s part of the problem, Sol doesn’t say, partly because they don’t have it in them to keep trying to hammer the point home, but mostly because they really do need to get more rest. They lay their head on his chest and try to let their worries go, at least for tonight.
Sym cards a hand through their hair and starts to hum again, a different tune than before. It’s better than a lullaby for their bruised and tired heart. “Sleep now, my Solanaceae. I will be here when you wake.”
Sol closes their eyes and lets out a long, shuddering breath. They’re asleep before their next inhale, and this time, their dreams are full of glowing tenderness and the feeling of something stable beneath.
“If a consciousness will be reborn, why is it distressing when its body dies?”
Tang does not so much as twitch, much less glance away from her workstation. He knows to expect this. After nearly a year in the colony (Solanaceae’s birthday is soon; perhaps the two of them will dance again), Sym has had sufficient time to observe and understand common human behavioral patterns. This information is not always useful when it comes to Tangent, but he’s also had the time to observe her specifically, so it comes out about the same.
Sym leans against a counter, glancing at the contents of a nearby cabinet with a see-through door. Waiting is easy. Patience comes naturally to him, and even if it didn’t, Tang’s lab is so very interesting. He’s trying to parse the fine print on a label when she responds.
“Most humans are not driven by logic and reasoning.” Tang replies coolly, perhaps intending to imply that she is one of the few. Sym has some doubts about this, but he has been cautioned not to interrupt a person in order to voice his disagreements. Especially when it’s Tang. “Even if a person logically knows that someone’s death might not be the end of their continued existence, instinct and evolution inform otherwise.”
Sym hums consideringly. He knows that, and yet he still can’t quite grasp it. It makes sense that nearby humans might be distressed immediately following one of his bodies dying, but to hold onto that fear and sadness even years afterward doesn’t easily fit into his mind.
“Why would the feelings persist? And how long do they typically continue?” How long will Solanaceae wake up sobbing out his name, begging for his safety, yet still somewhere beyond his reach? He will gladly hold them for the rest of their life (and beyond), and he is always happy to soothe. He would also prefer that they not require soothing. Their pain is wrong. Undesired. Fundamentally opposed to his purpose, in the same way as a compromised habitat or pollution in a biome.
“It depends on the person, as well as the circumstances of the death.” Tang still doesn’t bother looking at him. Sym takes no offense. Even if he didn’t know Tang’s behaviors, social slights don’t upset him. They’re still so interesting! It’s one of his favorite parts of talking to Tangent. No one else is rude in quite the same way. “Traumatic circumstances surrounding the death are often particularly challenging to move on from—Anemone is a prime example. Ask her if you want more information. Or Sol. This is not my area.”
“I think Sol might be too close to the situation. And you’re always so wonderfully blunt with me! Most of the others either won’t speak to me or are focused so heavily on politeness that I often end up with more questions than answers. Not that I generally mind. I would simply prefer to speak to someone more straightforward on a topic like this.” Also, Sym is aware that Tang has some personal experience with the loss of a loved one. He has been informed not to bring it up himself, else he risks Tang refusing to speak with him again. “I am surprised you did not suggest I speak with your brother.”
For some reason, that statement does make her flinch. It’s very slight, but Sym is designed to notice the tiniest shifts in nature’s patterns. She takes a moment, hands clenching and releasing, her breathing careful and measured. “It seemed inappropriate, given his plans. It would be ineffective to ask the one who will create the grief in the first place.”
Oh.
Sym suddenly longs for Sol to be at his side, correcting and guiding him through the complex pathways of human interpersonal relationships. He’s stumbled on something he did not expect, and Tangent is less likely to forgive his blunders than most of Sol’s other friends. He does not want to break their still-fragile truce.
But Sol is not here. Sol does not even know that he is here, speaking with Tang about how humans process grief. He hadn’t wanted to remind them of their pain, and yet if he had, perhaps they could’ve pointed out that he was about to prod at a bruise he didn’t anticipate. Though maybe he should have.
He knows Dys wants to be a gardener. Will be a gardener, someday, when he is ready. When his loved ones are ready to let him go, Sym had assumed, and now he’s beginning to realize just how naive that assumption was.
Humans are never really ready to let go of those they love. And here he is, reminding Tang that her brother will someday be unrecognizable to her, even if he continues to exist in another form. It’s not what he meant to do. Sym has never meant to hurt anyone.
He’s never felt more human.
“Sol saw me die once.” Sym blurts it out, speaking without thinking for perhaps the first time in his existence. “It was before they knew that I would grow a new body, so for a time they truly believed I was gone. They still have nightmares, and it bothers them that I might be injured in the future. I don’t know what to do about it.”
He’s taking a gamble. She might still react defensively when she realizes she showed vulnerability without needing to. Even worse, she was wrong about the premise of his questions. Not that he can fault her logic. It is the sort of thing he would ask about. How will you manage your emotions after your brother abandons a human form? He’s curious about it even now, and yet—
Don’t leave me, please don’t ever leave, I can’t—
—he thinks it might be cruel.
He’s never been cruel. Or at least he’s never intended to be. He is made for caretaking, for soothing, for nurturing. How did things go so wrong?
“I see.” Another pause, this time longer, and he feels strange during it. Something is twisting, crawling, shuddering. His skin prickles and his mind is both racing and empty. Apprehension, his processes inform him. Anxiety. “Well. I can’t tell you how to soothe your partner’s grief, but I will say that their distress over you being injured is entirely logical. Your body doesn’t even have regenerative capabilities. That would bother anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on reasoning.”
She’s glaring at him now, which is much more familiar. The apprehension reduces significantly. “Yes, I remember your lecture on the subject. I still don’t see the purpose of—”
Of regenerating a body when it is both simple and beneficial to create a new one, is what he intends to say. What he’s said before during this exact argument.
Of course it hurts, Sym. Even if you can just get a new body, it will always be awful when you get hurt. I don’t care if you don’t remember it. I never want you to be in pain.
They’d held him so tightly. They’d cried without even realizing it. He suddenly knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they will never stop dreaming of his death.
“—actually. If you have time, I would appreciate any suggestions you have on including regenerative abilities in future bodies. I believe I am beginning to see the value.” Sym smiles, because he always smiles, and because he has the slightest hope that he might just understand something quite important.
The look Tang gives him registers as both “irritated” and “gratified”. He’ll need to ask Sol to help him develop a new category for it. “Usually I would make you set up a future appointment, but you’re lucky. I already have a set of comprehensive notes on this very subject.”
Sym brightens even further. “Oh, wonderful! I can fetch a data crystal if you require one.”
“No need.” Tang hands him a crystal rather larger than he anticipated. She must be stretching ‘comprehensive’ to its upper limit. “I was going to make you take it with you the next time I saw you, anyway. It’s been bothering me.”
Sym opens his mouth, then closes it. Because of me or because of your brother’s future? He’s learning an awful lot about restraint today. Besides, he feels fairly confident that he already knows the answer.
“Thank you, Tang. I’ll be sure to take this into consideration for my next design.” He waves, though Tang has already refocused on her holo. One of her hands jerks in his direction, in the closest version of a dismissal he’s likely to get. He does love her rudeness. It’s so fun.
It’s Roomba who physically runs into Sym, though Sol stops and stares the same as if they’d been the one to hit him.
“Sym? What are you doing here?”
It’s not that he’s never in Engineering. He’s often in and out of labs and classrooms, observing and offering his own information, delighting in the human capacity for curiosity. Or he’s visiting them on the days they’re working in Robotics, sitting on a table and watching them fiddle with wires, chatting with Congruence, egging on Nomi-Nomi’s increasingly outlandish plans, and fondly teasing Dys on the days Nomi drags him in.
It’s just that they usually know about it pretty soon after he arrives. Of the many things Sym is, subtle hasn’t been one of them since the moment he stopped needing to hide.
“Sugarbug! I was just thinking about you.” He reaches out to take their hand in one of his. He’s holding something in the other. A data crystal? That’s not so strange, except that he just walked out of Tang’s lab, and she doesn’t usually bother to share her research.
Sol laces their fingers together and keeps walking, feeling oddly off-center and therefore even more eager to get home. “I believe that. What were you up to? Trying to talk Tang’s ear off again? You know, one of these days she might throw you out of the lab herself. I wouldn’t put it past her to take an extra augment just to get some privacy.”
Sym laughs. “You make an excellent point! I will remain on the lookout. I don’t think I’m in immediate danger of her wrath, however. In fact, she shared some notes with me on possible improvements to my future bodies.” He holds up the data crystal, letting Vertumna’s setting suns make it sparkle. “She had some choice words about the lack of regenerative capabilities.”
They very nearly trip over their own feet. “Oh.” A flash of Sym falling, bleeding from his neck. A deep cut on his chest, completely gone only a few days later. They tried to bandage one of his wounds once, a gash on his arm that went deep enough to make them run through the math of blood loss and unconsciousness and failure.
He’d waved them away, barely wincing. Not worth it, he claimed. He’d just make a new body.
When they make it home, Sol’s so lost in thought that Sym has to prompt them to step through the door. He takes in their expression, gaze tracing all over their face and down their body, tracking the data points of their posture and the relative tension of each muscle. It’s not sexual, but that doesn’t make it any less intimate.
Sym presses a kiss to their forehead and squeezes their hand before releasing them and gliding over to the kitchen. They toe off their shoes and let their feet lead them to the couch, still half-lost in thought. They have a developing hypothesis. It’d be kind of embarrassing if they’re wrong, but then, this is Sym. It’s hard to care about things like shame and self-consciousness when he’s around.
He passes them a mug of tea when he sits next to them, folding their hands around the warm mug. His arm goes on the back of the couch, ready to slide gently over their shoulders once they settle back into him. It’s all done wordlessly, and maybe that’s the most inhuman part. He never doubts how well he knows them. He can communicate on different axes than anyone else in the colony.
He loves them.
Sol releases their tension, one limb at a time, and collapses into Sym’s side. His arm curls close around them the moment they’re near enough.
“I cannot promise never to die again.” His tone is even, no judgement or defensiveness. “I will have other bodies, regardless of whether I’m killed. What I can promise is to be more cautious with my physical form while I’m inside of it. I may not understand human grief, but I can attempt to cause less of it.”
The tea is good, though it was steeped just a little too long. It’s not blep tea, thankfully, instead an herbal concoction that’s always helped calm them down. It’s what he makes on the nights they can’t sleep, memories too heavy and mortality too fleeting, when they don’t want their mind altered, even by his gentle soothing.
“You’re doing this for me.” It’s not really a hypothesis anymore. He’s basically confirmed it already. “Just because I had a nightmare.”
Sym’s fingers stroke lightly on their arm, almost certainly not in random patterns. Maybe he’s tracing genomes on them, or sketching flower petals from a thousand years ago. “Is that really so surprising? You know I care for you. I don’t like to see my lover in pain any more than you do.”
That makes them laugh, quiet and a little choked. “It’s not so much that I’m surprised, I just…I’ve always tried to make a point of not asking you to change. At least not for my sake. You are who and what you’ve always been, Symbiosis. That’s enough.”
“Hm.” Sym shifts and pulls the mug from their hands, even though he was the one who put it there in the first place. He replaces its warmth with his own, sliding his long fingers into the gaps between theirs. They shouldn’t fit so well together, and yet they always have. “Every one of my iterations takes on the most recently saved memories of the previous. As you know, that means some important moments can still be lost. There also truly isn’t room for every memory I’ve ever made. However, there are core aspects of my identity which are uniquely flagged, so that they are guaranteed to always accompany my mind into a physical form. My purpose as a gardener, my name, key memories defining the aspects of the planet and its inhabitants.
“My love for you is one of those core pieces.” He looks right into their eyes, impossibly gentle while he wields this scalpel and flays them raw. “You could never ask me to be other than what I am, because what I am is already yours.”
Sol can only imagine how shattered they must look. They certainly feel broken, which is to say seen, like they so rarely have been. “It’s—” Their voice cracks, right alongside their heart. “It’s not that I don’t know you love me. I’ve just always tried not to expect too much from other people, y'know? Because I'm working with a different worldview than them, so it wouldn’t be fair. You're the closest I have to someone who can understand. Losing that, even if I know it’s temporary…”
“I know. That’s why this is so important to me.” He brings one hand up to cradle their jaw, thumb sweeping away their tears. “Solanaceae. Sugarbug. You are so very easy to love. It is vital to me, as much as any other part of my purpose on Vertumna, to ensure that you will never be left alone.”
They really do collapse now, letting Sym wrap them up in an embrace and cocoon them from the rest of the world. The sobs they couldn’t bring themself to let out last night are loose and free in this small space, dark and warm and the safest they could ever be.
It takes a long time for their breathing to even out. Longer still for Sym’s soft murmuring to coalesce into words they can parse.
I love you. You’re safe here, my darling. I won’t leave. I swear I won’t ever leave you.
I will always come back.
“I believe you,” Solanaceae chokes out. “I trust you, Sym.”
The arms around them go from gentle to tight, squeezing them against him. Sol feels his breath hitch, which is the most unbelievable part of the day. “Good. I am…more glad to hear that than I expected.”
There’s that same wonder in his voice that comes every time he experiences something new. Sol loves that wonder. That amazement with the mundane. Just like every other part of their relationship with Sym, it makes them better.
They adjust so that their head is level with his. “Is that really so surprising?”
“I suppose nothing should be, when it comes to you.” His smile is the most beautiful sight on Vertumna, even as it makes their chest ache. “And yet I so often am.”
Sol wraps their arms around him and leans close enough to share the same air. “Welcome to humanity.”
His lips are warm and slightly wet against their own. They might expect softness from someone else in this situation, but Sym is as eager as ever. He lets out a pleased sound, tracing his tongue against the seam of their lips. They part for him, shivering at his delighted gasp.
Symbiosis is solemn and serious when it’s necessary. He will never dismiss any of their true, deep concerns—he shares many of them. He will hold them through the darkest moments and listen to their worst fears.
He is also built for happiness, they think. For a playful nip at their lower lip. For sunshine streaming through leaves in a quiet forest meadow, hidden away from the rest of the world.
He’s the light, Solanaceae knows. Their light. They will never stop wanting more.
Maybe they don’t have to be afraid of losing it.