Work Text:
#0
They stopped walking on the way back from a particularly long mission, just a few minutes short of the Resistance camp. Angel was the one to go abruptly still, reaching for something into his pocket and kneeling onto the dirt without a word, and Aki had no choice but to wait for him.
Their partnership had not been ideal thus far – their own core-deep exhaustion prevented them from having constant arguments, but what must be evident differences in their wirings created a chasm no amount of patience could ever hope to bridge. Neither of them even wanted to attempt that cross; partnership mattered very little to Aki, who loathed every single copper bolt stolen from machines and fashioned into something vaguely resembling an android, and even less to Angel, who cared about nothing in general.
Patience wearing thin on the third minute of pointless wait, Aki looked ahead. His companion was still digging.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Planting seeds,” Angel said, face still downcast. “A machine gave them to me as thanks for helping it.”
“You’re helping the enemy?!”
A shrug. “It wasn’t hostile. And not much of an effort either, for that matter.”
Machines fraternising with one another – it made harsh energy spark through Aki’s worn circuits. Angel took in the sight of his companion’s fists tightening in outrage with his usual careless disinterest, and spoke again: “I tried eating some, but they’re bitter. Planting them is the next best thing.” He stopped for a second, then added, “Even if it’s tiring.”
Why not throw them away, Aki wanted to say, but it would have been too close to conversation. He had no interest in the odd habits of malfunctioning machines, no wish to hear what that thing thought about the world it was made to destroy.
“Just get a move on. We don’t have all day.”
“Alright, alright.”
#4
When Aki saw that place again, he was the one who stopped first. Angel was a few steps behind, struggling with his share of the heavy cargo they had to recover by request of the Resistance.
Amidst a plank of rotten wood and rusted pipes was a sapling, a tiny, crooked thing timidly making its way above the surface. Its trunk had grown slanted – the pips, thought Aki, must have been buried too shallowly for its thin roots to hold on to the ground tightly enough. It looked like it could topple over at the slightest hint of wind.
“What’d you stop for?” Angel asked. He eyed the growing plant with a look of concentration, as if he could ever hope to recognise the carelessness of his own handiwork in the odd arch of that tiny tree. Of course, he had forgotten – Aki had made him forget, through the sharp end of his blade.
It was bothersome, going through the same routine each time that half-machine wandered too far. Kill it, bring it back, listen to that trite repeat of ‘I’m calling you Aki, it’s easier to remember’, ‘I know we’re partners, but don’t expect too much from me’, ‘Most androids don’t like to get this close to me.’ Drag a reluctant Angel through their first mission, listen to him complain about hating work, about not caring for humans, about being exhausted.
But those pips Angel had only planted once, before any of his rusted circuits ever learnt how it felt to die by Aki’s unwavering hand. That tree, sickly as it looked, was the only proof that they’d been alive so many years before, that they had trudged along the contours of a line and not a circle.
Swiftly, Aki reached for the back of his head and pulled on his hair tie. It was a simple, dark band, but the material had been strong enough to withstand a good amount of fights. There was an iron pole close by, no doubt part of a building that was no more, and he wedged it deep into the ground next to the growing sapling. When he tied the two together, the ribbon clung onto that weak trunk and straightened it.
“Huh,” said Angel, who had witnessed that strange display from start to finish.
For the first time since his activation, Aki felt foolish. “We must make the world less hostile,” he told his partner. “For mankind.”
“For mankind,” Angel echoed, looking away.
#???
The apple tree towered well above them, its thick roots clinging deep within the soil. Aki stared up at it from the pleasant coolness of its shade, feeling as if its rustling leaves and familiar presence could ease every scratch and dent he’d received during the latest mission.
Without uttering a word, Angel picked up a fallen apple, half-heartedly polished it and gave it a bite. “‘S sweet,” he said; “You should try one.”
He must have been expecting a scathing answer, as was often the case when he insisted that Aki try something he’d picked off the ground, but none came. Perhaps encouraged by the silence, or simply thinking his partner didn’t care enough to listen and argue, Angel spoke up again. “You know, back in the old world... they would’ve hacked this thing to pieces, I think.”
Though far and impossible, the thought made something within Aki ache. “How do you know?”
Angel shrugged. “The machines, they know a lot about mankind. When I reach into their server, I see all sorts of things – and cities like this one, they would be full of humans, day and night. A tree this big would just be a bother to them.”
“I see.”
“Sometimes I’m glad the world is the way it is.”
Had that tree been smaller, had it been sprout or seed, a statement like that would have made Aki grit his teeth and tremble with anger. He would have lashed out, called Angel a traitorous unit, a half-machine ready to turn its back on the androids the moment it grew tired of them.
Indifference or anger would have been the wise choices to make, but none of the time he’d spent with Angel had made him wiser. It had only made him different. “Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand – you’re a true city boy, made with cooperation in mind.” Angel looked at the apple in his hands, the mark of his bite onto its flesh. “But me, I like the quiet. If humans were here all the time, telling me what to do... I don’t think I’d last a day.”
Aki knew. He’d seen, somewhere between their tenth and fifteenth first meeting, the relaxed slump of Angel’s shoulders, the wistful longing in his eyes when a meaningless mission had led them to a crumbling, lonely lighthouse on a cliff by the ocean. He had looked away, back then, thinking himself naïve for even considering something halfway between a machine and an android could muster a feeling so personal.
He tried – and failed – to recall how long it had been since then.
“Angel?”
“What?”
“If you hate working so much, why do you...”
“Bother?” At his partner’s nod, Angel shrugged. He’d finished eating, and threw the leftovers on the ground. “If I leave, they’ll look for me. If I die, they’ll bring me back. What else is there?”
“Right,” said Aki. He’d been hoping for a different answer – his own would have been. “Let’s get going, then.”
The apple’s core lay forgotten onto the soil. Aki wondered if those seeds wedged deep into it would, in time, birth more trees. If Angel would keep passing by them, always new, always forgetting. If he was destined to bear the weight of knowledge, alone, until the end of a war they could not win.