Chapter Text
Sandrone is not the most personable woman. She is aware of that fact; she just doesn’t care. Many people will come and go, but, dedicated entirely to her work, she finds that adapting herself for the comfort of others is an inconvenience.
You have always been her exception, a fatuu she kept around initially out of the necessity for a helping hand to hold the torch for her or aid in the testing of her creations. There is always something that needs doing, and with that workload, the demand for an extra set of hands arises to make a place for you. Assistant isn’t quite the right word, her first inclination settling on lapdog and staying there as she took great pleasure in her cruelty towards you to see how long you would last under the thumb of her snappy and curt demeanour.
Evidently, you proved to be more resilient than she expected, and with time, her intentional tormenting died down to the bare bones of her attitude. Sandrone no longer requested you complete such dangerous tasks alone or begin spiels of the unnecessarily specific detailed demands she had of you. She relaxed into a state of simply accepting that, for a little while longer than the rest, you would be there to stay.
It’s almost nice to hear sounds around her workshop, formerly filled only with mechanical dolls and spare parts she keeps. A person flitters about moving tools from her wall to her hand, living, breathing, capable of speaking with or without her prompting and all too inclined towards doing it. She listens to you as you work across the room—your footsteps, the humming whenever you start when you forget she’s there, the clatter of gears, even the rubbing fabric of your clothes sometimes—and it’s pleasant for the silence to be filled with life.
The thought almost confuses her, really, but she’ll get over it.
What she may never get over is why. There are plenty of places you can go, a transient, run-of-the-mill worker she picked at random from a pile of names and didn’t care to know anything about you beyond your capabilities until you showed up.
You remain steadfast by her side and don’t show any signs of dissatisfaction, lost in your own little world some days. Maybe you cope with her by blocking out her presence. That would explain the humming and why you seem so happy to work here.
People always find something wrong. You have found nothing, and it makes her suspicious.
“Why are you here?” she asks one day, speaking out of the blue, out of character for her.
“I work here” is the response you offer, short as she usually is and with a bit of sass of your own that you picked up.
“I know." Slightly annoyed, she rephrased the question. "You could have transferred jobs before now.”
“Paperwork’s not worth the trouble,” you joke, though she doesn’t get that or doesn’t find it funny, and her expression only sours at you. You throw your hands up in defence. “I kid, I kid! I don’t have any reason to.”
Sandrone knows what people say about her. She doesn’t trust such a superficial reason, especially after your comment. "You’re satisfied here?“
You shrug. "The work is easy, the conditions aren’t gruelling. It’s better than most places.”
“I see,” she says, falling silent. Her curiosity is mostly sated, save for some remaining questions she hasn’t roused the courage to ask you yet.
“Should I be more unhappy?” you question, “You stopped making workplace hazards, and it’s not unbearably cold in here. It’s not like you’re that difficult anymore.”
She presses her lips to a lip line, a frown tugging the corners of her mouth. “You speak too carelessly.”
You only offer her a smile and an unbothered “I know.”
“I should reprimand you,” she adds. Her hand absently finds a pleat in her skirt and toys with it, fingers running over the fabric as a background to the conversation. She considers what to say if you’re so flippant with her again. Perhaps you think she’ll go soft on you if you act friendlier towards her. She lifts her head with another thought. "If you have an ulterior motive, speak.“
From the corner of her eye she sees you turn to glance at her for only a second before your focus is back on the tools you stand arranging for her. You always put them away just as she likes them.
"Is it a crime to just like you?" you retaliate with something unexpected, something gentle.
Sandrone opens her mouth to speak, bitter words on the tip of her tongue that die the moment she gains a hint of a conscience against ruining it. Nobody likes her. Sandrone is disagreeable, has a terrible personality, is snappy and disdainful, and is downright rude at times. People don’t simply like her.
"People believe I’m terrible.” She settles on a half-hearted grumble as she turns away. There’s nothing more to be said, really.
“That’s ridiculous.” You say it too quickly for her liking.
She glares back at you like sharpened daggers looming inches from your back, though she’s across the room and would have a hard time getting to you so quickly. “You’re lying,” she spits.
“A little,” you admit, trying to ease the damage, “I don’t think you're completely terrible.”
She can’t keep the frown from her face this time. “But I am still terrible.”
“To an extent,” you admit, cautious, but not nearly enough. “You have good qualities as well. It’s not enough to just say you’re terrible."
Seconds pass in silence, awkward on one side and impatient on the other as you shift your weight between your feet. Sandrone merely stares ahead, clearly having no intention of speaking and every intention of watching you squirm for as long as she can prolong it.
"What? You wanted me to be honest.”
“You’re reprehensible," she mutters. Her hands ball to fists in her lap and then relax again as she lets out an irritated huff. It’s not worth working herself up over something she has heard many times before, a fact she has long accepted.
You sigh, a strangely upsetting sound. She doesn’t like it, she knows that much. It’s not the kind of sound you make when you’re happy, and she’d much rather hear you hum your little songs across the room. "Don’t end up a self-fulfilling prophecy."
"I’m doing no such thing,” she says, sending another sharp glare your way to accompany her retort.
You crack a lopsided smile at her. It’s a ridiculous face you’re making, really, and in response to a perfectly reasonable statement. “Aren’t you?” you question.
…Perhaps she might be. Perhaps a part of her does search for abhorrence. There’s no greater reason to suspect you secretly despise her than her own belief—paranoia, one might even say—but to expect anything else is setting herself up for stark disappointment.
“Do you mean it?” she says quietly, eyes more focused on the fabric between her fingers to stave off the nervousness she’s strangely riddled by.
You're nobody. Your opinion means nothing to her; it never should, never has and never will. You can lament all you like and–
“I could see the worst parts of you and still think you are the most beautiful person I’ve met.”
She pauses, hand stilling in place, skirt pinched between her unmoving fingers. Her head tilts up, and she twists in her chair to meet the back of your head in a one-sided staring contest. At the first sign of you turning to her, Sandrone turns away, determined to hide whatever face she makes to gawk at you.
You are not real, fake, an imposter. She made a doll to curb her loneliness and programmed it to speak. You must be. You must be saying what she wants to hear. It is not new for lowly grunts to fear Harbingers to the point of reverence, though you have never shown signs of false flattery in your time with her.
Yet all of that is a lie; you are not another lifeless creation that operates on a mechanical heart. Perhaps you have simply gone mad in your time with Sandrone, or she has. Madness might suit her a little more than you.
“You jest,” she manages to say after a long stretch of silence, browns furrowing to hide her shock at the sentiment, though you can’t see her face. “I should cut out your tongue.”