Chapter Text
You’re here.
The Prototype’s head lolls on his shoulder, eye trained on the observation window on the opposite side of his cell. He can see nothing through the glass, but he knows you’re there, watching. Your biweekly visits have became routine. He had been waiting.
The door swings open exactly two minutes and twenty two seconds after he’s become aware of your presence, by which time the Prototype has grown restless, claws clicking against each other, head swaying gently in his bonds.
“Good morning, 1006,” you greet him with a welcoming smile. Clad in your usual white coat, you slip into the room with a clipboard tucked under your arm, your badge clinking gently against your breast pocket.
You’re alone, this time. He prefers it when you’re alone.
“Good morning,” his voice crackles from his voice box, a mixture of the cadence he’s chosen for himself and your own familiar drawl.
You smile at his mimicry, the soles of your shoes tapping gently against the floor as you approach him. There’s no hesitation in your footsteps, no fear in your stance. The others are nervous around him, but not you.
“You’re getting better at that,” you muse, jotting a few notes onto your clipboard. “Pretty soon, no one will be able to tell the difference between us.”
The Prototype tilts his head, inner workings buzzing as you step into his orbit. You creep closer than anyone else ever dares, even with the protection of the bonds preventing him from moving his legs and claws. It’s his teeth the other scientists seek to avoid, the wide spread of his smile looming ever larger the closer they drift, and yet you ease between the splay of his spidery limbs without a second thought, lifting your chin to peer into his porcelain face and jagged maw without care, without pause. Without fear.
“This will only take a moment,” you promise him, and the Prototype nods, the bells on his three-pronged hat jingling softy as you set to work.
He remains still, obedient, while you record his vitals, the room silent save for the scratch of your pen as you jot down information onto the clipboard tucked against your chest. The Prototype uses the opportunity to study you, much as you’ve studied him, his lone, orange pupil drifting across the planes of your face, cataloguing every shift in expression, every facet, every dip and curve.
You’ve always looked so… soft, to him. Like your flesh would give if he pressed his claws against it - not hard enough to bruise or draw blood, but enough to leave a mark, if you would allow it. And you would. The Prototype knows you would. You allow so much else.
You allow closeness, taking another half-step toward him until his shadow swallows yours, your small, curious face open, upturned. Eager.
Eager to learn about him. As eager as he had become to learn about you.
Your resting heart rate. The color of your eyes. The cadence of your voice. The spike in your breath whenever you stumble upon a chip in his porcelain flesh, your fingers tightening around your clipboard and a shadow passing over your face as you catalogue its location, depth, severity.
“What happened here?” you ponder, your voice carefully blank. You tuck your pen into your breast pocket and reach out to touch the divot in his flesh, fingertips gentle as they probe at the break. Your fingers are always gentle, the Prototype recalls. You do not tug, or jerk, or scratch at his flesh like the others do, when they are brave enough to creep closer.
“An… accident,” he hisses softly, unable to resist tilting his head into your hold. Your lips part at the pressure of his cheek sinking into your palm, and then firm into a thin line at his words, a flash of irritation in your gaze - not geared towards him, but towards your colleagues, who have made no secret of their fear and contempt for his existence.
“Who?” The query is hushed, nearly a whisper. Soft enough, the Prototype knows, so that the cameras overhead cannot hear.
The Prototype’s bonds creak as he dips his head, the mechanical clicking of his neck joints swallowing the utterance of a single name, spoken quietly against your brow - near enough that he can feel traces of your warmth seeping into his porcelain flesh.
He watches your lips form the name, your brow darkening for a moment as it settles on your tongue, before you nod, thumb brushing along the edge of his jagged smile. “Thank you for telling me,” you murmur, and the Prototype sags another half-inch into your hold, his bonds pulling taut.
The watch affixed to your wrist chooses that moment to emit a series of rapid chirps, your expression crumpling as you pull your hand away. The Prototype tries to follow, a low, mechanical groan spilling from his voice-box, and you swallow, throat bobbing, before forcing yourself to step away.
“I’m needed elsewhere,” you confess quietly, fingers fiddling restlessly with your clipboard before you force it under your arm, shooting him a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “It was good to see you, 1006.”
You turn to leave, taking your warmth with you. The Prototype can feel it seeping from his flesh already, leaving him cold. Stiff. Alone. He cannot bear to be alone.
And so he does the only thing he can - he parts his maw, porcelain flesh creaking, and he pleads, “Do… not… leave.”
Your shoes squeak against the floor as you grind to a halt, shoulders taut, a soft gasp slipping past your lips. It takes you a long moment to speak again. To breathe.
You glance over your shoulder, gaze catching his. Holding. Under the dim fluorescents, your eyes look wet.
“Tomorrow,” you tell him, your lips trembling before you urge them into a smile, and then you’re gone, the door to his cell slipping shut quietly behind you.
The Prototype’s head sags, bells jingling softly, but the usual yawning void that settles in his throat whenever you depart is tempered by the promise you’d just made - a promise he knows you’ll be compelled to keep.
Tomorrow.