Work Text:
V2 didn't have a need to sleep. It could power down temporarily to preserve energy, but it wasn’t a necessity . It was a function implemented and intended for dire circumstances, inducing a state of rest to keep the expensive equipment enduring. It could spend its entire existence awake, so long as it sustained a fuel source.
The Ferryman, of course, was different. He would get tired, lethargic, and eventually would drift off when his exhaustion caught up with him. V2, however, in their time together, had observed how combative the husk was about this fact. Perhaps it was a lingering habit from when his manning of the ferry was still an important task, when he would push himself beyond his limits to try and earn the favour of Heaven. The Ferryman would get tired, but he simply would not sleep, not until his proverbial and non-existent eyelids were beginning to fall shut against this will, not until he was so worn out that he embodied the air of his tattered cloth.
V2 had decided that it didn’t like this fact, and thus, it had started to sleep as well. ‘A necessary system reset’ it had excused it as, when suddenly it dropped a newfound need for rest. The Ferryman had been confused by this, for it had not been required before now. V2 brushed it off, saying it had gotten reckless and had simply been ignoring the needs of its processing unit. But now, with someone important to reserve itself for, it wanted to take better care of its frame. It could tell that the Ferryman had smiled in that moment, even with the white fabric that covered his face. He always tilted his head in the slightest motion whenever he was happy, and V2 was surprised that no one else seemed to have noticed it yet. But then again, much to its frustration, it seemed the quiet husk was used to being overlooked.
How anyone could gaze upon someone as beautiful and kind as him and then just look away, V2 simply could not make sense of it.
It felt guilt for its little white lie, a fib to urge its partner to lie with it for rest, but it was hard to regret the deceit too much, when its dear Ferryman was now sleeping so consistently. It had become routine for them, they would retreat to the bedroom together, cuddle up under the embrace of soft blankets and each other’s arms, and drift off together long before the Ferryman’s body would start to protest its own inactivity. The segmented ribs of the husk made not for a good pillow by any means, his firm and bony body was hardly a thing of comfort, but that meant very little to a machine that was far more solid, and its own rest was simply not a concern to V2.
Mostly, it would lie awake with the Ferryman in its arms, simply enjoying that presence beside it, basking in the quiet revelry of that soothing company. It would watch the twitching in his fingers and wonder what he was dreaming of. It would listen for every quiet murmur that slipped free for it loved the way his voice sounded. It would hold him and know that he was safe, that he was comfortable in the embrace of a machine. It would stare at him freely with every bit of love and yearning that it felt for him, and it would know that it was so lucky that their paths had crossed at all.
Eventually though, it would force the power down it claimed it needed, ebbing into that darkness for the final few hours before the Ferryman would awaken again, just so that it could pretend that it had been resting the entire time. It had repeated this process many times, had watched over the husk and been stirred by him come morning. It was a routine it had become so immensely fond of.
This night, however, a few hours in as its helm lay resting upon the bumpy surface of the Ferryman’s ribs, barely cushioned by the soft fabric of his cloth, it felt those slender fingers brush gently against the rim of its optic casing, and it knew it had been caught. It quickly considered excuses, trying to figure out how to twist the implications of a shutdown sequence being overridden during the night with no outside influence, but it heard a quiet hum, a soft and humoured sound, and all its worries ceased.
“Thank you,” the husk whispered then, his words carrying that familiar warmth, that gentleness which always had heat spreading throughout the machine’s cold plating, “I needed this.”
V2 gazed at him, only to have its vision filled with white, as the husk leaned close, pressing a kiss to its helm through the barrier of the cloth.
The Ferryman did not remain awake for long. He was tired, of course, it was the whole reason V2 had dragged him to their bed. His head laid back down against his pillow, and his consciousness drifted once more.
V2 watched him a while longer, felt his fingers twitching again, heard those soft murmurs, before it finally let its own helm fall as well. It did not need the rest, as long as it had blood it could continue to function without issue. But, for the first time since they had started this, it called upon its power down early, and it let itself sleep as well.
It would miss those extra hours perhaps, that opportunity to ruminate in longing and in silent appreciation. But it knew that, as always, it would awaken with the gentle husk still in its arms, and that it would have their entire lives to bestow upon the Ferryman the love that he deserved.
It knew not which of them would last longer, all it knew was that it would sooner tear out its own engine than exist without him. The husk getting his rest, him being safe and healthy, it was a means of preserving them both.