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Sometimes they would see eachother, occasionally walking past as they were presumably led off to their respective appointments, or whenever the humans had to check their coding.
Nori would give her a glance, and the briefest glimpse of a grin, just enough to be polite. But the drone would never return the gesture, her red eyes blankly staring at her as they walked past, until they got out of sight of eachother. Nori would think to herself, ‘what’s her issue?’ And that would be the end of it. She’d forget about their encounter until whenever it was they saw eachother again.
She couldn’t remember when they began to see eachother more often. Maybe it was when the ‘incident’ happened, or the tests and procedures began to happen more frequently. Some day they just started seeing eachother daily, walking past eachother in the same hall, or in the same waiting room for the humane to check their code.
Whenever Nori would smile at her, she would smile back. She didn’t know her real name, but the doctors would call her 048.
After she had begun returning Nori’s smiles, they began talking. Her name was Yeva. Sometimes they would display messages on their visors to communicate, when others were present. Sometimes one of them would manage to break off their chains, and escape. They would huddle together in the same locker, whispering to eachother with giggles and idle chatter.
Those nights were always fond memories. Huddled together in the cramped, dark locker, murmuring sweet nothings into the other’s cheek, as they were pressed together in the confined, oddly intimate space. And Nori could always feel her system beginning to overheat, as she laced her hands with Yeva’s, leaning in close to let their foreheads meet, her purple digital eyes meeting the red pixels of Yeva’s. And sometimes, if she found herself lucky, she could feel the cold metallic sensation of her mouth pressed against hers, the tangy metal taste of her saliva flooding her mouth, as they exchanged tastes.
And when she pulled away, she would let a groan escape her, watching Yeva smile and tease her afterward. So Nori would only groan again, to bait another reaction out of her. And then it would somehow escalate to using their hands. Letting their metal digits roam each others form, feeling up small curves, and sometimes fisting in hair. Nori loved having Yeva’s hand in her hair, fingers twirled around that slightly longer strand of hair, other hand remaining on her waist, keeping her back pinned to the wall.
Yeva would lean in, and mutter under her breath in her usual thick russian, her fingers tightening around her waist, before trailing down to the hip. She would move her hand from the strand of hair, to cup Nori’s cheek, pressing their faces flush against eachother again, before taking up her mouth into hers, with an oddly passionate fervor, despite the drone’s usual quiet, unassuming demeanor.
And they would stay there all night, until an intern would find them huddled in the same locker, limbs tangled and bodies entwined, both shut off into sleep mode. And then they would be awoken, and taken back to their respective lockers, chained again.
During the day they would never directly address what happened the night previously, opting to silently accept their relationship as it was, without discussion. They didn’t need to, anyway. At least in Nori’s opinion. They would smile and gesture to one another when they’d see eachother, and at night they would whisper and mutter to eachother, like rebellious lovesick teens, hiding away from their parents at night.
And it remained as such, even as the passionate embraces they used to partake in turned into comforting hugs and soothing words. As Nori’s condition worsened and worsened, Yeva found herself breaking into her locker on a daily occurrence, holding her close and whispering to her. Stroking the back of her head and back.
Nori found it hard to be able to turn herself back on some days, going down into sleep mode for days on end. When she finally found herself on again, she would awake in Yeva’s arms late at night, and cuddle up closer to her.
Her right eye would burn, and glitch. Sometimes Yeva would tell her that it flashed yellow for a brief moment, with the same symbol they always saw everywhere. Nori would joke about becoming a damaged oc, but it never really distracted her from seeing that concerned expression take place on Yeva’s face, as she dryly chuckled at her joke.
It didn’t get better, though. Those glitches and blackouts only seemed to become worse, as time passed. She found herself being taken away for testing at night, left plugged into a heavy computer as a doctor scanned through her code. She would close her eyes and lace her hands together during the process, muttering the two broken russian phrases she knew to herself, pretending it was Yeva holding her.
It was cheesy, but it was the only way to keep herself calm when she wasn’t in the locker. As embarrassed as she was to admit it to anyone else.
Weeks passed with the testing. Nori never found herself getting any better.
Sometimes she would shut herself off at night, like she normally did. When she awoke, she found herself chained to a medical bed, covered in a filthy mix of oil and blood, dripping down her mouth and covering her arms and clothing. Doctors would be surrounding her, holding her down or trying to run fixes on her. None of them would work.
Sometimes she would wake up to find herself held in her locker, her teeth sinking deep into Yeva’s arm, her oil staining her mouth and running down her throat. Nori would let go, bewildered and terrified to find herself like this again. And she would always feel the terrible weight of guilt wash over her, as Yeva would explain to her what had happened, and try to reassure her it was fine.
Nori still remembered that night. She woke up finding her teeth in Yeva’s arm again. And she completely lost it.
“…Please……” She could vaguely remember herself weakly pleading out, her own voice glitching out as her vision became staticky. Between flashes of her vision returning to her, she could see Yeva’s beautiful face, marred by a terrified frown and tremble of the lip, her wonderfully red eyes widened as staring down upon her pitiful form.
Nori would hiccup, and gasp out. Her hands digging into Yeva’s arm, drawing more oil to spill from her as she clutched her tighter, drawing her impossibly closer. She gasped and panted out onto her neck, saliva and oil drooling down her chin, her eyes darting across the confined space of the locker as she lost control of her thoughts.
“End this… Yeva…… I just can’t do it anymore.” She bitterly murmured, her desperate voice cracking as she whispered. Keeping her voice low enough to not be heard by any doctors. She didn’t want them to see. She didn’t want to be taken away again and tested on, she didn’t want to keep going through the same invasive procedure of having her code checked.
She wanted to feel Yeva’s hands wrapped around her, squeezing painfully tight as she murmured soothing words to her. Nori wanted to feel her comforting hands digging into her chest, before her fingers locked around her core, as she had done countless of times before to her hands.
She wanted to feel Yeva gently hold and caress her core, pressing gentle pecks to her oily, fleshy being, kisses adorning her before the life was squeezed out of her. She wanted to die in her love’s arms and never suffer through this cycle again. She couldn’t care less how angsty she sounded, she just wanted it done and through. And she wanted Yeva to do it for her.
Nori babbled on endlessly as Yeva held her closer, unusually silent as she rubbed her back in slow, circular motions. She couldn’t hear her own thoughts, too hyperfixated on the whispers of the Absolute Solver still lingering at the back of her mind.
“я не буду этого делать. (I won’t do it.)” Yeva simply replied, her own voice hushed, as her hands decided to hold her a little firmly.
Nori did nothing but shudder, her eyes falling shut as she let a long, drawn out sigh escape her. She would accept it.