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“What the fuck?” Keats whispered hoarsely.
He stared at the bloodied sink, red splattering up the sides and, settling on the drain, were two red flower petals. He didn’t know what flowers they were from, he wasn’t a gardener, but he did know they weren’t supposed to be inside the human body.
He ran the sink. The cold tap water lifted the spoon-shaped petals like paper boats, swirling them down the drain. Just like that, all evidence he coughed up flowers, all evidence to prove it actually happened, washed away.
He’d been coughing for several weeks now, ever since the fight at Scentre Headquarters over in Seattle. Or, come to think of it, a couple days after. He’d thought he had a cold or something, but he’d never heard of some flower flu. Why was he coughing up flower petals, of all things? Not mucus, not food chunks, not stomach acid — flower petals. Unless some bot thought it was funny to make him inhale them in his sleep, something very unlikely considering he was generally a pretty light sleeper. Generally.
No matter what he did, nothing reeled the sickness in.
He’d jokingly blamed Herm for cursing him — to which the bot rolled his eyes and said something like “if I was going to curse you, I’d be more creative than that”. Asshole. Anyway, that left secretly pinning it on Karma; it was the fact that Keats got to keep Herm in his life when everyone else had left, even after the disaster that was their talk about Keats’ feelings.
It hadn’t been three days after the Scentre fight when Herm approached him. Keats had been fine letting his feelings lie; he loved Herm, he was man enough to admit it. It didn’t change anything, how they operated. But still, Herm sought him out to have a conversation. It ended, as Keats figured it would, with Herm quietly, regretfully, rejecting his advances. They hadn’t talked about it since then, but while Herm’s flirty jokes tampered down, Keats wasn’t shy about his feelings. He’d spent too long hiding them — hiding any mushy feeling throughout his life — to care now.
Even though Herm didn’t feel the same, it was okay. Everything was great, genuinely. Until his good karma had run out.
“Knock knock,” someone announced, interrupting his thoughts. Herm stood by the door, arms crossed, an eyebrow implied to be raised. “Hey,” he greeted.
Keats quickly wiped his mouth, a thin line of blood streaked the back of his arm. “Hey,” he said back.
“You good, sunshine?”
“Now that you’re here,” he winked.
Herm chuckled with a shake of his head, “yeah, okay, man. Are you really okay? You’re looming over that sink like it owes you lunch money.”
“What would you know about that?” Keats stalled.
“Keats.”
He clamped down on the inside of his cheek. Water droplets trickled down the white porcelain of the sink bowl, pooling at the bottom. No one would know. “I think…” Herm stared at him imploringly, head tilted. “I think I need to see a doctor.”
Herm’s eyes shrunk in a flash of fear. It took him a minute to compose a reply. “Must be bad,” he said, all traces of humour long gone, “if you’re the one suggesting it.”
Rubbing his aching sternum, he offered a half-hearted smile.
“Okaaay,” Herm dragged out the ‘a’ as he thought, “well, it’s not like we don’t have a medbot here. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind looking you over. Does it have to do with your illness? I haven’t heard you cough this much since your leg got infected way back when,” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.
Tossing one last look to the empty, drying sink, he walked towards the door and shoved his hands in his pockets. He groaned in agreement, “I’m surprised I haven’t hacked up a lung or something, man.”
Herm nudged him in the side. “There’s still time,” he tried for a grin.
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Keats scoffed goodnaturedly and pushed his big domed head away, ignoring the way Herm’s cackle sent pleasant tingles down his spine.
“Listen, sweetcheeks,” he raised his hands in surrender and a not-so-innocent smile, “all I’m saying is that I’ve never had to deal with anything like that.” He knocked on his chest to drive the point home, a loud metal thunking echoing down the hallway. “Metal all the way, man.”
“Good thing,” Keats rolled his eyes with a snort. “‘Cause you’d be a little bitch about it.”
“And you’re not?”
Keats shrugged. “Maybe I just like the attention.”
Herm laughed, short and loud.
The medical bot — Keats remembered seeing him on the battlefield, tearing drone heads off like it was nothing, laughing madly — wasn’t hard to find. He was where he always was when he wasn’t in his little makeshift doctor’s office: in the cafeteria. He’d found his programmed skills, particularly his precision, were well-suited to different art forms like painting and even crocheting.
“Medea!” Herm hollered.
The red and white bot looked up from his canvas, he and Michelle pouring over the unfinished artwork — the cafeteria bore loads of natural light, good for ‘colour theory’ or whatever. “Hello!” He greeted cheerfully, hands unnaturally still, a paintbrush in each.
“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Michelle smiled. The dark circles under her eyes had lightened as time passed since losing her brother, but never enough for Keats not to worry. He bit the inside of his cheek, the startings of an itch building at the base of his throat, and looked to his best friend.
Herm leaned in conspiratorially, glancing this way and that. It was very conspicuous, if you asked Keats, but honestly, he wasn’t much better at keeping a low-profile. Regardless, no one paid them any mind. “Keats and I were wondering if, uh, you’d be willing to look him over—”
“Of course!” The bot chirped, his eyes squinting happily. In one swift motion, he discarded the paintbrushes on the table and exchanged them for a pen and a notepad. “What seems to be the problem?”
Keats cleared his throat in an attempt to appease the cough dragging itself up his esophagus. “Do you mind if we speak in private? I don’t want my business to be,” he gestured vaguely, “aired out.”
“Absolutely,” Medea agreed instantly. “It was unprofessional of me to suggest otherwise. Come, come, let’s go to my office,” he ushered him past occupied tables and happy bots, Herm and Michelle following close behind. They walked until the throes of robots vanished and uncleared rubble littered the unrenovated hall.
“Will this take long?” Herm asked, jogging to keep up with their long strides and — in Medea’s case, his speedy rolling.
Medea shrugged, a controlled movement. “That depends. Although,” he turned on a whim, stopping instantaneously, spitting up dust and plaster from where it’d settled on the tiled floor. “I must ask you both to stay outside for this,” he addressed them, much to their chagrin. Keats didn’t fight him on it, he wasn’t sure he wanted them in there for this. “After you,” Medea gestured to the door.
Keats wet his lips and nodded, “alright, cool, cool. See you after,” he shot them a grin and little wave before disappearing behind the door.
His last glimpse of them were their worried faces, Michelle’s pinched confusion and Herm’s nonexistent brow implied to be furrowed. The door shut, effectively blocking them from eavesdropping.
“This way,” Medea rolled down the side hallway, opening a door at the end. The room had been refurbished to more accurately represent a doctor’s office: a plain table covered in paper sat in one corner, while a proper wooden desk had been set up in another — a seat dragged up to it, though it seemed to be more for the aesthetic than actual use, seeing as Medea didn’t have the proper joints to even use it.
“May I begin?”
He shrugged a shoulder first, and answered a moment after, “whatever you need to do, Doc.”
Medea took the permission to heart and scanned him, a bright green light doing whatever the fuck it was doing. “Just a preliminary scan!” He said, turning away to sort through a stack of papers on the large wooden desk. “Now, tell me, Keats, what seems to be the issue?”
Keats winced and scratched the back of his neck. “Well—” he cut himself off with the cough that had been gathering strength, hacking into his elbow. “Oh, God,” he smacked his fist against his chest. “There’s that,” he said hoarsely. “The cough, I— it’s gotten so bad, I can’t sleep. I’m dead on my feet, man. Also, I, uh, I coughed up flower petals..?”
Medea froze, not the same calmness he had before, a deliberate stillness, but a candid halt. “Flower petals?” He turned, an odd look on his small screened face.
“Uh, yeah…”
He clicked his pen. “Tell me more.”
—
Keats squinted at him. “The fuck kind of disease is hanahaki?” He scoffed, crossing his arms. He did his best to ignore the tickle at the back of his throat and the brand-new, damning evidence laying in a plastic bag on the desk. Red spoon petals, more of the same as before.
Medea tilted his head sympathetically. “I know this must be hard to hear, but—”
“Hard to hear?” He seethed. “You just told me my feelings for Herman is what’s turning me into a fucking flower pot. You said my greenhouse ass was going to die!”
“Well, not so vulgarly,” Medea muttered, shifting uncomfortably as Keats deigned to wear a hole in the cracked tile.
He groaned, running his hand through his shortly cropped hair. “Is there anything we can do? A-a cure, maybe?” He asked frantically. He’d just started living. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t hiding, he wasn’t fighting, he wasn’t existing for the sake of existing, he was happy and relaxed. Key word being ‘was’, because now there was this to deal with. He could never catch a break, could he?
“Well..” he said, tapping his red painted pointer fingers with a quiet tink tink tink. “There are two ways to counteract hanahaki.”
“Okay,” Keats clapped his hands together, “let’s hear them.”
Medea paused, so quick that if Keats hadn’t had years of military training, he might not have noticed. His heart sunk into his gut. “Hanahaki is based around unrequited feelings, as you’re aware. The first way is for the person you have unrequited feelings for to fall for you in return, and to tell you. Being dishonest or shy about your emotions can, quite literally, be fatal.”
“So Herm has to fall in love with me,” he nodded slowly. Keats knew what kind of person he was. The thought of Herm loving him back.. it was laughable. “What’s the second option? Bad news first, right?”
“Not quite. The second way is to remove the disease through the means of surgery.”
“Great! Do that!”
Medea peered sadly at him. His hands clasped professionally. Fuck. “You need to understand what the surgery entails. Hanahaki is rooted in your feelings for the person, meaning, to remove the disease, any and all positive emotions regarding them will be removed too,” he said quietly.
Keats opened and closed his mouth, gaping like one of those mechanical bass. Only one word managed to slip through the haze that had fallen over his mind, the pinnacle of his thoughts: “oh.”
“Now, you don’t have to decide what to do right this second, it is a difficult decision to make. Thankfully, you brought your affliction to my attention right away. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who wait until it’s almost too late.” Medea reached out hesitantly, and squeezed his bicep in what was probably supposed to be a comforting manner. “My point is, you have a short window to make an informed decision. Use your time wisely.”
He nodded, brow heavy. “I understand. Thanks, Doc,” he said distractedly, “I— I’ve got to go, I’ve got to talk to Herm, I think.”
Medea’s screened face passed a small smile. “For the record, I express my condolences to both you and your friends.”
He turned away, “yeah,” he choked. Clearing his throat, he left the room and pulled the door shut behind him. It latched softly.
He could lie. He could give some bullshit excuse and tell everyone he’s fine, that he got a cold or the flu or something while he figured out what to do. The only evidence suggesting otherwise was behind that door and Keats knew for a fact that Medea was unable to divulge medical information due to patient-doctor confidentiality.
Shuffling miserably down the short hallway, he slowed to a stop where it opened up into the actual mall again. Or, part of the mall. When the RDTF bombed the mall, parts of it had collapsed, giant holes exposing them to the outside air. The main hallway was one of those affected, on the list to be reconstructed. A giant chunk had been taken out of the wall, but the wall had remained mostly intact. The infrastructure was safe enough, looked over by Herm himself, and was relatively safe as long as no one climbed on the open brickwork.
He slid quietly through the door.
Michelle was pacing, back and forth in the otherwise abandoned strip, just as Keats had been doing only minutes earlier. “He’s been in there a while, you think he’s okay? He has to be, right?”
Lounging on a bench, without a care in the world, was Herm. To the untrained eye, he might have looked callous, maybe even cold, but Keats spotted the nervous shifting of his joints and the odd way he blinked, disbelieving of his own words no matter how sure he sounded. “He’ll be okay, ‘chelle. He always is.”
They were worried for him. It came to no surprise; he knew Herm for several years now, being his best friend, and the kid was simply just that kind. But it was this worry that had the truth spilling out:
“Not this time.”
They both whipped to face him, surprise etched into — or in Herm’s case, portrayed onto — their faces. Then his words sunk in.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Michelle crossed her arms, eyes narrowed to slits.
He grimaced.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
His mouth dipped into a frown, “‘fraid not, kid. I—” Keats winced and ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the blond strands. “Medea said I’ve got something called ‘hanahaki disease’. It’s where—”
“What?” Michelle paled. “You’ve got hanahaki? But…” she glanced between them with intense scrutiny, Keats to Herm and back again. Herm, who hadn’t said a word, expression nigh unreadable. “I-I don’t understand.”
Keats wiped his palms on his jeans. “Kid—”
“What is it?” Herm interrupted. “What’s,” he waved his hands vaguely, “that? What does that mean?”
“Hanahaki is—” he spluttered a cough into his elbow, interrupting his explanation. He beat his shuddering chest with his fist in an attempt to jostle his lungs and stuttered a quiet gasp for air, turning away from them the best he could. Slumping heavily against the wall, he hacked his lungs out, something lodged at the back of his throat, shifting and closing the hole to his esophagus. Slowly, with every cough, it drew closer until it was at the tip of his tongue. Keats pulled it out, hiking his shoulder to keep his panicking friends at bay.
It was a flower stem. A small one, only the length of his wrist to the end of his middle finger but significant enough. Attached to the end, a bright and colourful flower bud contrasted the dark atmosphere the trio found themselves in currently. He cupped the flower bud gently and pressed his back fully against the wall.
“Shit! Keats!”
“I’m okay,” he muttered, eyes drooping in pure exhaustion. He wiped his forehead on the back of his arm, grimacing at the amount of sweat that transferred over.
Michelle gave him a wary look, twisting her flannel sleeves in her hands. “It’s-it’s not too late, is it?” She inched forwards, shoes scruffing the tile.
If he wasn’t concerned before, he sure was now. “You make it sound like you’re dying,” Herm frowned, having jumped from his seat to help, but seemingly frozen in place. Keats and Michelle shared a look, one Herm obviously caught. His pupils shrunk drastically. “Somebody better tell me what the fuck hanahaki is right now.”
Keats twirled the stem between his fingers, trying not to crease it. It was interesting — and morbid — how something so small, so soft, so delicate could be the cause of so much grief and pain.
“Hanahaki is a disease caused by unreciprocated love,” Michelle began, almost cautiously as she looked from Keats to Herm. “It causes flowers to grow in your lungs, progressing until it kills you.”
Herman’s face shuttered, turning his bewildered gaze on Keats. “And you have this?”
“Yeah.”
“And.. it’s my fault?”
Keats squinted at him incredulously. “It’s not your fault, dumbass.”
“‘Unreciprocated love’ is sure as hell a mouthful for ‘you’re to blame’.”
“Okay,” he said, sharp tingles of pain acupuncturing the inside of his lungs. “Then love me the way I love you and make it go away. If it’s really your fault, fix it.” Herm stared at him. “You can’t, can you?”
“You’re an asshole,” he grumbled, without any annoyance, just a deep-set sadness.
“I’m allowed to be.” He shrugged sluggishly. “I’m going to die.”
Michelle jerked back as if burned.
“You better fucking not,” Herm grabbed Keats’ forearm, voice shaking in fear or rage, or maybe a mixture of both. Keats wasn’t sure.
Michelle stumbled back. “I need to go,” she stuttered, spinning on her heel and stalking away. Her head stayed bowed.
“Kid!” Keats called after her hoarsely. He devolved into another coughing fit, doubling over. “Fuck, that hurts,” he panted heavily, swaying on his feet.
Herm’s hand had only tightened, but not enough to hurt — never enough to hurt. “Keats, man—”
He was shaking his head before Herm could finish his sentence. “It’s untreatable, Herm. The only way to get rid of it is through an extensive surgery.”
“Then get the surgery, dumbass!”
“There’s complications,” he grumbled, rubbing his chest. “Side effects that I’m not sure are worth the trouble.”
A bitter laugh escaped him, “trouble? If I didn’t think you were worth the trouble, I would have left you there on the battlefield. Whatever it is, we can deal with it like we always have, okay?”
“But that’s the thing, Herm! If I take the surgery out, there won’t be a we!”
“What do you mean?”
Keats was shaking now. He scrubbed viciously at his eyes, the flower crushed in his grip.
The hand circling his arm squeezed, Keats’ muscled forearm tiny in Herm’s giant palm, but no less gentle. If it were any other circumstance, Herm was sure to make a joke about it, but here they were. “Keats.”
“You don’t understand!” Keats pulled back. He ran a hair through his hair exasperatedly. “If I go through with this, I’ll lose every positive feeling for you! My-my mushy feelings, our friendship, everything!”
“It’s better than losing you,” Herm snapped. They both ignored the crack-like glitch in his voice.
Keats forcibly took control of his facial expression, molding it into something stern, bordering on blankness. “You’ll be nothing to me.”
“I’d rather be nothing to you than see you die for the mistake of loving me.”
“Don’t say that, asshole,” his jaw clenched. “Loving you could never be a mistake.”
Herm shut his eyes, shoulders slumping. It was all performative, habits of living solely in the company of a human for years. Herm was as much human at this point as Keats was, just as Keats felt — not quite robotic but robot-like. They were parallels of each other. Yin and yang, the sun and the moon, born (created) to be each other’s equal, better together but forced apart.
He should apply to Hallmark, he was getting sentimental.
“I can’t lose you,” Herm murmured, only a hair’s breadth above a whisper. “You mean too much to me. And—” he chuckled bitterly, resentment directed towards himself present in the way he scratched roughly at his face with harsh metallic fingers. “And I know, it’s a selfish thing to say. It’s your choice, and-and if you’d rather die…”
Keats lurched forward, grabbing him by the shoulders. He glared at the wide-eyed bot in his arms. “I’m trying to be unselfish here, you dick. I thought it might be easier on you if I died, than watching me become something neither of us recognize. I don’t want to die,” his chin wobbled and he took a deep breath in a last ditch attempt not to cry, tickling the depths of his lungs. “I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to cause you any more pain than I already have.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. Quieter, he added, “the thought of not being by your side is unbearable.”
“And here I thought you didn’t have a single nice bone in your body,” Herm said, his words joking but his tone too serious to come off that way.
He laughed anyway, tearful, “yeah, well, loving you has made me a better man.”
They looked at each other for a moment. “God, you’re so cheesy,” Herm muttered in defeat.
Keats smiled, sad but soft, something only reserved for the bot that gently took all of him in his hands so long ago, now left solely with Keats’ heart, whether he wanted it or not. “I don’t have to make a decision right now. Can we just.. sit here? For a minute?”
Herm was nodding before he finished asking, “yeah, yes, always.”
Lowering himself to sit on the weathered wooden bench, Herm filled the space beside him, on his right, as he had since they first met, a familiar presence. They watched the sun breach the horizon through the open wall, dipping just barely below. Neither of them talked for a long time, enthralled with the pinks and oranges slathered across the usual bright blue. He had noticed before, how the sun at sunset was the same colour as Herm’s eyes, but he never paid too much attention to the observation, brushing it off as just that. An observation. It seemed so obvious now.
“Keats..? Can I ask a favour of you?”
He hummed questioningly, glancing at his friend — his best friend — out of the corner of his eye. “What’s up?”
“Whatever you decide, whatever happens..” He wringed his hands anxiously. “Don’t forget about me?”
He turned his entire body, pulling a knee onto the uneven wood, to properly face him. With hands much more careful than he would’ve been even just weeks prior, he took Herm’s worried, grief-stricken face ahold in his palms. “I could never forget about you.” Herm blinked slowly at him. “Bitch,” he added for good measure, drawing out a surprised laugh from his companion.
“I’ll miss you,” he muttered, laying a hand — although it was more accurate to say he laid one gigantic finger — over his own.
Keats suppressed a cough, frowning, “I’m not dead yet, Herm. Don’t mourn me while I’m still here. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good.” His lip quirked up, “hey, Herm, what do you say we throw a party?”
“A.. a party?”
“Like one of those, uh, celebration of life ceremonies. All exclusive, all expenses paid—”
Herm pulled back from his grasp, “aren’t celebrations of life reserved for dead people?”
He shrugged, “probably, but what’s the point of having a party in my honour if I’m not there to enjoy it, y’know?”
Herm’s yellow eyes narrowed. “You just want to hear people say good things about you.”
“Guilty as charged,” he grinned.
Snorting, he shook his head. “Fuck it, beefcake, let’s party.”
—
He knocked a knuckle on the doorframe.
“Go away!” Michelle called from her spot on the floor, nose deep in her sketchbook.
“It’s me.”
Her pencil halted, the sound of paper tearing audible. “What are you doing here?” She demanded, glaring daggers at her drawing.
He scratched at his beard, stalling for an answer and coming up with nothing. He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets, “can’t I come to see how you’re doing? You stormed off pretty quickly back there.”
Her brow furrowed. “I’m fine.”
“We both know that isn’t true, kid.”
Her head snapped up, eyes bloodshot and wary. “You want the truth?” The pencil creaked in her white-knuckled grip.
It was a trick question. He answered anyway: “preferrably. I’m not a mind reader.”
A muscle in her jaw jumped. “Fine, you want the truth? I’ll give you the truth. I’m scared, and I’m angry, and I am sad. Okay?” The pencil snapped. She didn’t notice. “I spent years of my life grieving my parents, my brother, my life. And now, I have to learn how to grieve Chris all over again and— and you!” Her chin wobbled, hands shaking. “You’re my friend, Keats. You’re more than that, you’re family, dude. And I-I can’t keep doing this.”
A tickle climbed the back of his throat, only he wasn’t so sure it was flowers this time. “Michelle…”
She sniffled, scrubbing her face. “I can’t keep losing the people I care about. I-it’s not fair.”
Sometimes he forgot. It was easy, in the heat of the battle, during planning even, that she was still just a kid. A kid forced to grow up too fast, a kid who had to make hard decision after hard decision and lose person after person. He took a seat beside her and propped his elbows on his knees.
Michelle set her sketchbook down and hugged her legs to her chest. She inhaled deeply, leaning her head back against her bed. “I knew someone who had hanahaki once,” she mentioned offhandedly, eyes slipping shut.
“I’m sorry.”
She hummed noncommittedly. “She was too. When she got diagnosed, she had waited so long out of fear of rejection that it was too late for the surgery, it had grown too much.” Her breath shuddered. “Her death was so sudden. It was jarring. One day she was smiling in the halls, and the next, our high school was holding a memorial service.”
Keats set a heavy hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
“I’m not mad at you,” she mumbled, peeking an eye at his disbelieving face. She picked at a loose thread in her jeans. “I’m not. The girl was my friend and it turned out, later, she’d written a letter apologizing, explaining everything. She knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t want people to worry or fuss, so she hid her pain until the sickness killed her.” She turned her head to look at him properly, eyes watery, “thanks for being honest with us.”
He tried for a smile. “I can’t say I didn’t think about it, but.. you guys deserved the truth. Even if it draws this out.”
“That’s the thing,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re giving us time to prepare ourselves for a life without you, should you.. should you choose death.” Her voice softened, a harsh contrast to the helplessness in her eyes, “You’re giving us time to accept it, to be grateful for the time we have left rather than all the what-ifs.”
Wordlessly, he pulled her into a hug. He mercifully didn’t say anything about the hands clenching his vest lapels or her quiet trembling.
“I don’t understand,” she mumbled, “I thought you two were together.”
Keats hummed, carding a hand through her hair. “We never really established a label, they meant nothing to us outcasts. It was an unspoken thing, whatever it is that we were. But that day on the battlefield, when I thought.. when I thought he died..” He exhaled softly. “If I go through with the surgery, I’ll forget how it felt to love him the way I do, and I-I don’t know if I can handle that. It feels too much like losing him.”
“You’ll lose him either way. Death just means we lose you too.”
“When’d you get so wise?” He teased quietly.
She huffed a breath, “I always was, jerk.”
He snorted softly. “Listen, kid, Michelle. Herm is… He’s the first person who saw me for who I was and bothered to stick around,” he sighed, “he’s saved my life far more than I’ve saved his, but this time, I don’t know if I can let him.” He buried his chin on the top of her head. “Would it hurt him more to die, or to be here but changed irrevocably?”
“Big word,” she mumbled without any real humour.
He pinched her.
“Ow! Jerk!” She laughed breathily, elbowing him.
He chuckled.
Knocking her head against his shoulder, she hummed. “I want to be selfish. I want to ask you to stay, but I.. I understand,” she pulled back from the hug to look him in the eye, the ever defiant glint in her gaze grew strong, “it’s okay. I understand. And he will too.”
He stared at her for a moment before he melted into something malleable, something fond. “You’re a good kid,” he claimed and ruffled her hair, ignoring her indignant squawk. “I don’t want to die, Michelle, so get that through your head, but I’d take coughing up flowers for the rest of my life over having my feelings — my feelings, taken from me like they weren’t really mine in the first place. Herm is so important to me, and I almost lost him once. When I thought he died, it was like the world stopped moving altogether.” If he went through with the surgery and had every single positive feeling about Herm extracted… he dared not think of this future-Keats’ reaction if it turned out the world moved just fine without Herm. An impossible thought.
Keats’ person was so indescribably entwined with his best friend, in love with him or not. They were dependent on each other, probably to the point of unhealthiness but they were them, and that’s all they’d needed. He was afraid of who he’d become without him. Would Keats revert to who he was before? A robotphobic asshole with no friends, no family, only living to self-sabotage? Would he be aware of this fact?
He felt her eyes on him, like juggling hot coals of judgement. “Romantic love is not above platonic or familial love,” she told him.
He wrinkled his nose, “uh yeah? I know.”
“I’m saying—” she pressed her lips together, “you must know that Herm cares for you just as much as you do him.”
“Yeah? We’re not exactly—”
“No!” She interrupted, pushing him back. “Listen to me: he cares for you, and now he’s forced to face the cold hard truth that he is going to lose you either way. He knows, okay? He knows.”
Keats swallowed around the lump in his throat, giving into the small uncomfortable prickling, and coughed away from the kid. He pulled a petal from his mouth, slathered in blood-tinted saliva.
He held it up and sighed. “You really think surgery is the best option?”
“I do, but this isn’t about me,” she said quietly, exhaustion seeping into her voice. She bumped his shoulder with hers, “what are you thinking?”
He stared holes into the offending petal. “I’m thinking… I don’t want to die. And I don’t want anyone to grieve for me.” He fingered his dog tags, brushing over the long-since memorized letters and numbers. “I’ll be real with you, kid,” he glanced at her, not even eighteen years old but having already faced so much tragedy in her life — he couldn’t, in good conscience, add to that. “I’m terrified. Like shit-my-pants scared.”
Gaze heavy, she tilted her head. “I know,” she murmured with a frown. “We’ll work it out together. All of us.”
“As a family,” he teased light-heartedly.
She shoved him, “shut up!”
He laughed and drew her in for a quick hug, Michelle faux-struggling all the while, laughing too much to really put up a fight.
They sat there for a long while, deep in their thoughts.
Keats was scared beyond all belief. He didn’t know what the future held in store. Nothing was sacred anymore, not if he couldn’t rely on Herm to pull him out of his mess this time. If only he could, but not even Herm could fall in love with a guy like Keats in only days.
“Can I see it?”
He hummed in question, glancing at the kid beside him — the kid who had wriggled her way into his life and flipped it upside down with ease. When he’d told her, back at the bunker, to play his kid sister, he hadn’t thought she’d take the role to heart. Yet, here she was.
She gestured. “The flower. Can I see it?”
He snorted and dropped the petal into her palm, “knock yourself out.”
Cupping it gently in one hand, she poked it with the other, closely examining the thing causing all of them so much anguish. She hmmed thoughtfully, nodding as if she’d come to some grand conclusion.
“What is it?”
“Huh? Oh, I dunno,” she shrugged a shoulder. “Can I keep it?”
He stared at her. “Are you sure? It’s covered in my blood, kid.”
She shrugged again.
“I mean, I guess? If you want to. I was just gonna toss it.”
“Thanks!” She smiled and leaned forward to grab her sketchbook, pulling it back onto her lap.
Opening it, she flipped past pages and pages of sketches — he caught glimpses of landscapes, of bots and humans, but most of them were of a select three people. Unfamiliar human people. Eventually, she landed on a blank page just over half way through. Picking up her broken pencil, she jotted something down in a shorthand Keats didn’t recognize. Then, she placed the petal next to the notes, flattening the curling corners, and carefully shut the book, pressing the covers tight against each other.
His brow furrowed. “You’re flower pressing my vomit flower?” He asked as she got to her feet, setting the book on her desk.
She dug through the drawers, searching for something heavy. “Don’t call it that, it’s weird.”
“You’re the one turning my puke petal into a fuckin’ souvenir,” he crossed his arms in tandem with the crossing of his ankles.
Shooting him a glare, she dropped a set of heavy books on top of the sketchbook and rolled her eyes. “You’re so gross.”
He grinned. “I have to admit, kid, I did have another reason to come find you,” he mentioned offhandedly.
She squinted warily at him and leaned on the wooden desk. “Uh huh, and what would that be?”
“Herm and I were gonna throw me a celebration of life party, though I guess it’s more of a hope-you-survive-surgery party now.”
Her scrutiny deepened. “A.. celebration of life?” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, “yeah, yeah, okay. Sure. Why not? When?”
He shrugged.
“How about now?” a voice called from the door.
Their heads whipped around. Herm stood stock still, watching them with the implication of a furrowed brow.
“How long have you been standing there?” Keats asked.
“You’re going to do the surgery?”
They stared at each other.
Electing to slowly nod, he wet his lips, “yeah, I-I think so.”
His frown dipped further. “Okay.”
“Just ‘okay’?”
“Shut up,” he grumbled, “I’m processing. What made you change your mind?”
—
As it turned out, robots didn’t have a great understanding of human customs; the general populace had worked around humans for a short amount of time, never a twenty-four hours seven days a week, through ups and lows of the human condition — only those like Mr Peanut and Medea having an extended knowledge of human customs, meaning when Keats had joked about a celebration of life, most heard ‘party’ and a party they threw. He wasn’t sure most of them even knew why they were celebrating, but he didn’t mind.
Leaning against a table pushed to the side of the room, he watched Penny attempt to teach Mrs Scissors to dance. Every sway of Mrs Scissors’ bladed arms sent Penny ducking, both of them giggling all the while.
A smile tugged at his lips.
“Enjoying yourself?”
Keats hummed noncommittedly, gaze darting from bot to bot to human to bot. “You guys sure know how to throw a party.”
A deep chuckle came from the mascot bot beside him.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, despite the initial reasoning behind it.
They needed it, he thought mildly, a chance to relax.
The stereo they’d dragged out of storage skipped a part in the song, blanking out a word or two. A radio edit, then. Herm had claimed the DJ position, sitting at the table and picking through the multitudes of CDs. Feeling his gaze, he glanced up and shot him a little wave.
Keats’ grin grew and he waggled a couple fingers at him.
Herm’s LEDs portrayed him sticking his nonexistent tongue out. He snorted. Real mature.
“You know, in all my years of living, soldier,” Mr Peanut tapped his cane idly, “you’re the only human I’ve met to have fallen for a bot.”
Keats frowned thoughtfully, finally turning to look at him. Mr Peanut wasn’t watching their friends, no. His eyes were on him, his scrutiny palpable. He resisted the urge to stand at attention. “Do you think I’ll be the last?”
He seemed to mull it over, but Keats knew better. Mr Peanut was rarely caught off guard. “No.” The pause was intentional for someone like Mr Peanut, brief but controlled. “But none as devoted as you.”
He exhaled harshly through his nose, crossing his arms. “I can’t tell if that’s reassuring or sad.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
“I guess.”
Mr Peanut regarded him with saddened eyes. “I know this is hard for you.”
“It’s hard for all of us,” he shrugged.
“But especially for you,” he said thoughtfully, fingers tapping metallically against the head of his cane. “I admire your tenacity, holding on despite the pain you know it will bring both you and your friends. You wish to provide them comfort.”
Keats stared at him for a long while. “Yeah,” was all he said.
“Like I said,” he continued. “It’s your devotion, your willingness to give up peace to allow your friends more time with you, even if you yourself have changed irreparably and will not appreciate them as well as you do now.”
His gaze searched Mr Peanut’s, a man who knew exactly what going through the surgery meant, what kind of sacrifice he was making.
“Maybe it’s reassuring,” he looped back around to his earlier statement, “maybe it’s sad. But your devotion is somethin’ special, soldier.”
He couldn’t look at him any longer, turning and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He glared holes into the square tiles of the cafeteria floor.
A soft sigh came from beside him. A hand clasped his shoulder, metal digits digging into his flesh. “I sincerely hope the outcome is better than the expectations.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, scratching at his scruff. “Me too.”
He tapped his cane once, twice, and offered him a small smile. “Everything will work itself out,” he claimed and slipped away, nodding in greeting to Herm as he left.
“What was that all about?” Herm asked, frowning after Blue Sky Acres’ de facto leader.
He shrugged. “Aren’t you supposed to be DJ-ing?”
He waved dismissively. “Psh, Michelle’s got it covered.” A quick peek told him that was true; Michelle had hunched over the stack of cassettes, sifting through them with a careful ease.
His eyebrows raised. “I’m surprised you let anyone touch those.”
Herm shot him an unimpressed look. “You ever going to let that go?”
Keats widening grin seemed to be answer enough.
His eyes narrowed, glaring into Keats’ soul. Herm was able to maintain it for about half a second before the facade deflated, leaving a quiet devastation in its wake. His fingers clacked in no particular order against the tabletop.
A frown wormed its way onto his face, “you look like someone pissed in your coffee. What’s up?”
In one swift move, he hoisted himself onto the table, letting his legs hang freely. “I don’t know whether to avoid you or to stay by your side,” he said honestly, matching Keats’ frown with one of his own.
Keats rubbed circles into his aching sternum as he thought. “Which is easier?” He asked genuinely.
“I don’t know.” Herman’s shoulders slumped. “Neither.”
“Then I’ll make the choice for you,” he decided, following Herm’s lead and pulling himself onto the plastic coated tabletop. He ignored its stressed creaking from their combined weight. “Stay.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked Herm to stay by his side, whether needing company during an illness or after their first big argument, but it’s the first time he asked since before Scentre— before confessing. Too much had happened in the last month for it to be like any other request. Asking him to stay this time held implications.
Neither of them said anything for a moment, too engaged in their spontaneous staring contest. That’s what they called it out loud, anyway. For Keats, it was an excuse to stare without the usual quips or barbs. For a moment, Keats could pretend Herm loved him back.
He wouldn’t deny it, Herm usually won their contests. Fairly, too, even if Keats often argued otherwise. It wasn’t Herm’s lack of needing to blink that let him win, it was Keats’ inability to gaze into those yellow eyes and not have some sort of reaction. He could only take so much sappy gazing.
He’d miss it— though he guessed he actually wouldn’t, with his feelings being stripped away and all. He’d have no reason to stare at all.
Herm broke first, a historic moment, and scanned the room — not just for enemies, like Keats often did, but for anything structurally unsound. He cleared his throat, a habit he’d picked up from Keats. “What if…”
“What?”
“What if something goes wrong? What if you don’t survive the surgery?” He murmured, twisting his hands in his lap. His feet swung idly, unoiled joints squeaking softly.
Keats’ brow dipped and he smiled bitterly. “What happened to being optimistic?”
He scoffed, “hard to be optimistic when your choices are love-removing surgery or death.”
Hesitantly, he reached over and squeezed one of Herm’s hands.
“What if you’re not okay?”
“Then I’ll die knowing I’ve never been happier.”
Herm engulfed Keats’ hand in its entirety with his own, metal digitals curling around his flesh protectively, urgently. “Don’t say things like that, Keats. I’m being serious.”
“I am too.” Keats picked at a chunk of dirt crusted to one of Herm’s many crevices. “For so long, I’ve been a miserable asshole, and then you came along, and then I was just an asshole.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, I don’t think anything could change that.”
“Herm…” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I know I’m a dick — especially to you, and overall a pain in the ass, but I just wanted you to know… Herm, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He blinked, his mouth forming a silent ‘o’.
“And I’m scared of losing that, of losing you,” he admitted quietly. “But Michelle helped me realize that I’d rather lose you than force you to lose me. I dunno, it’s stupid.”
Before he could process what was happening, Herm had yanked Keats by his lapels, arms clamping tightly around him. Physical affection wasn’t really their thing, not hugs or even holding hands. They limited themselves to brief moments, nudged elbows and clasped shoulders, touches lingering just long enough to elicit Keats’ heart to jump, but never long enough for him. This was new territory, the only other times they’d been in contact this much or this long being when one was carrying the other or one of them was dying. Lo and behold, this day has been a rollercoaster.
Keats raised his arms timidly, pressing his clammy hands against Herm’s back panels, cool now that the sun had set, darkness peering in through the skylights. “Thanks for saving my dumb ass for the past couple of years, I’d be long dead without you.”
Their knees knocked together.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more,” Herm mumbled into his shoulder. His hands took up the entirety of Keats’ back, rough from weathering and hard use, but gentle as he always was with him. He wished he didn’t flush at the thought. “I’m sorry that I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up, man,” he snorted. “Don’t apologize for things you can’t control.”
One of his fingers shifted along his spine, up and down, Keats didn’t know if it was supposed to be soothing for him or Herm. Probably Herm. “You won’t lose your memories, will you?”
“No,” he said definitively. “Only my feelings.”
“So we could make new ones. It doesn’t have to be the end for us.”
Keats opened his mouth and closed it again with an accompanied grimace. “I don’t know. I don’t know who I am without you, who I’m going to be.”
“Yourself?”
He huffed a laugh, digging his chin into Herm’s shoulder joint. “Isn’t that the scariest part? What if I don’t like who I am?” He wondered rhetorically. He knocked his head against Herm’s, “you make me better. Make me want to be better.”
Herm was cool at first touch, as he always was, but the longer they stayed in each others’ arms, the warmer he became. It didn’t feel like the heat came from Keats’ own body warming his metal plating like he’d expected, but rather an internal heat, radiating stronger as time passed.
“You make me want to be better too,” he admitted shakily.
Keats’ hands entangled themselves in his wires, at the back of his neck. “Herm..”
“I’m scared too, y’know,” Herm said, almost conversationally if not for the way he buried his face further into Keats’ vest, his hands pulling him impossibly closer. His sharper edges dug into Keats’ ribs, but he didn’t mind, not when they were so close Keats’ breath could fog up his glass.
“I know.”
“This feels like a goodbye.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know.”
It wasn’t long and they were pulled in different directions by people who didn’t seem to understand the gravity of Herm and Keats’ plight. The evening grew darker until eventually it was time to rest, the surgery having been scheduled for early morning, only hours away.
Herm and Keats shared a room, as they always had, even after renovations had been made and there were far enough rooms to house everybody twice over. It worked for them, so why would they change it? That’s disregarding the fact that they did try, once, when the rooms were first finished. Both of them were happy — excited — to finally have their own rooms and some privacy, only to find out that neither of them could sleep without the other.
Keats was too much of a wimp to seek out Herm, not that it mattered in the end. Herm wound up in the same boat, holding both paddles. He’d shown up at Keats’ door in the middle of the night looking dishevelled as fuck with some excuse they both knew was bullshit and that was that.
The second the door clicked shut behind them, Keats began to strip.
Familiar eyes watched him closely as he tore his pants off and exchanged them for a pair of grey sweatpants. He didn’t always have the chance to wear comfy clothes when they travelled, so getting to do so everyday was a treat.
“What are you staring at?” Keats asked, grabbing the back of his collar and pulling his shirt over his head one-handed. He tossed it in a pile with the rest of his everyday clothes.
Herm blinked out of whatever the fuck trance he was in and smirked, “am I not allowed to look?”
“Tch,” Keats rolled his eyes and flopped back on the bed, “look all you want, man.” He folded his arms behind his head, “ain’t nobody stopping you.”
Herm lowered himself into his chair — a plush arm chair they’d pushed up against the wall to sit next to his charger, so he wasn’t on the floor. Needless to say, the two of them felt a bit.. pampered. It was nice. He propped his chin on his hand. “I could do this all night, beefcake.”
“You’re going to sit there and watch me snore all night?” His eyebrows raised disbelievingly. “You’ve told me before, I’m not a pretty sleeper.”
He shrugged, “why not? I have to listen to you snore anyway.”
“Shut up,” he laughed and slipped under the covers. A spark seized in his chest, turning the laugh into a cough. He leaned over the edge of the bed, hacking into the crook of his arm.
Herm hopped out of his chair, “Keats!”
His body, his throat ached. Each cough shuddered pain throughout every damn nerve in his system, echoing like feedback.
He gagged, something big forced its way up his esophagus. Vaguely aware of the giant hand clasping his shoulder, he reached blindly for the bot until his palm made contact.
“Let it out,” Herm squeezed his shoulder gently.
Like an empty toothpaste tube being squeezed, his body rolled into the cough, the object — the flower in his throat slammed into the roof of his mouth. Shoving a couple fingers down his throat, he snagged the stem and gently pulled.
The stem just kept coming, leaves dragging along the fleshy parts of his cheeks, unbothered by Keats’ shaking.
Herm rubbed circles into his back.
Finally, the head of the flower passed his teeth, letting him fucking breathe again. He dropped his face into his pillow and groaned softly, the flower loosely grasped between his fingers.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded miserably and shoved the bloody flower against his metal chest, Herm instinctively covering Keats’ hand with his own.
“I—“ he cut himself off. Dumbass was probably going to apologize again. Herm’s other hand slipped from his shoulder, leaving it cold and barren. “You should get some rest,” he said instead, taking the flower between two careful fingertips. His tone refused to match appropriately with his words. “It’ll be over soon.”
He grumbled to himself, turning on his side. “I don’t want it to be tomorrow yet,” Keats confessed, tucking an arm under his pillow. “Ever.”
Herm regarded him for a moment. He set the flower on the bedside table, “move over.”
“What?”
He made a shoo-ing gesture. “Move your ass, dickhead.”
Keats shuffled back, taking the blankets with him.
The bedframe squeaked almost inaudibly as Herm climbed onto the bed, taking up the space Keats had previously occupied. “Ooh,” he said in mock surprise, wiggling into the mattress dramatically. “It’s still warm.”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “You’re such an idiot.”
He grinned triumphantly. “Ah, but I’m your idiot.”
Herm grimaced immediately, their twin smiles fading. Keats’ fingers bunched up the fabric of his comforter, clenched between white knuckles.
He cleared his throat. “I feel so childish,” he admitted.
Herm stared at him with the makings of a frown. He poked Keats in the forehead, gently. “For the record, I don’t want it to be tomorrow either.”
He smacked his giant ass finger away. “You’re my best friend, man. And I know I’ve been unbearably sappy the past couple of days, but…” He trailed off, pressing his lips together.
“I’d stay here.”
His brow dipped. “Hm?”
“If I could, I’d stay here. With you. I’ll always stay if you ask me to.” Herm’s mouth quirked at the edges, “now who’s the sappy one?”
He snorted, “what, you think you can out-sap me?”
Herm’s mouth stretched into a wide smirk, “is that a challenge, gorgeous?”
Keats reached out a hand and knocked a knuckle on Herm’s screen. “Only if you think you can defeat the master.”
He yanked the blankets to cover him too, managing to steal most of them, much to Keats’ dismay. “Oh, I know I can.”
“Blanket hog,” Keats complained, shuffling closer to regain some ground.
Herm laughed.
They stayed like that for the rest of the night, speaking in hushed tones and laughing at old jokes, wishing the darkness would linger in the sky just a little longer, that tomorrow simply wouldn’t come.
Tomorrow came anyway and the world kept turning.
—
“Good afternoon!”
Keats hummed, blinking the bright lights from his eyes. Medea stood poised at the end of the makeshift hospital bed, smiling cheerfully, clipboard in one hand, pen in the other.
“How are you feeling?”
He took a deep breath, prodding at his general emotions, “uh, good, I think?” He frowned, propping himself on his elbows. Outside of being heavily medicated and having a tough line of stitches down his chest, “I don’t feel much different.”
“You won’t,” Medea agreed. “I managed to extract the hanahaki, but without proper technology, there runs the risk of missing some,” he gestured to a table shoved in the corner. On it, a plastic biohazard bag lay innocently — the cause of all Keats’ current problems. “Do not hesitate to alert me if you feel anything out of the ordinary.”
“That was inside of me?” He asked slowly, disturbed at the thought. The yellow bag bulged with flower buds, thick spiny stems, and a shit ton of pollen.
“Yes. I had someone come by and identify the flower, if you’d like to know.”
Keats wrinkled his nose, “does it matter?”
He shrugged, “it’s not uncommon for its species to hold some weight, but it’s usually up for interpretation.”
He squinted at him. Ah, fuck it. “Sure, what the fuck.”
“The flower appears to be a cyclamen!” Medea chirped, clutching the clipboard to his chest. His eyes crinkled happily. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it represents, however. I’m not too well versed in floriography.”
He hummed passively, “I haven’t heard of that before. Cyclamen,” he tested the word on his tongue. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Of course!” Medea jotted something down on his clipboard, humming softly as he did so. “By the way, you have someone waiting for you! May I send him in?”
It was Herm, there was no way it couldn’t be. He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Medea nodded and set his clipboard down.
Keats rolled the idea of his best friend around his head. Herm.
The surgery allegedly removed all current feelings for him. He could always create new ones, it was true, but Herm would never love him back. It’d be a waste of time to get back to where he was, to try to feel what he’d felt — even without the romance. They would never go back to the way it was. To truly do so, they’d have to lose all memory and start over, simulating their day-to-day on a one-to-one scale. There were so many little things that added up in their relationship over time, it’d be literally impossible to recreate it. To recreate them.
It doesn’t matter what they did now, there would always be that big fat what-if? lingering in the recesses of their minds.
Maybe the surgery did work, he thought, far less mournful than he thought he probably should have been, if not for Herm, then for the life he could have had. It was the lack of a crushing weight in his gut that did it — like he’d lived his entire life with bricks tied to his chest, only to have that suddenly replaced with helium.
The door shut with a click. Keats glanced up and paused. There was an immediate distinction between Before and After; Herm stood by the door, twiddling his thumbs.
“Hey,” Herm greeted.
It was weird, to say the least. Not one spark of feeling, of emotional recognition. They shared a history, Keats had loved him, but the echoes of what he’d felt for him had already faded. Keats couldn’t remember how it felt to be in love with Herm, and maybe that was a tragedy in and of itself, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“‘Sup,” he said, for politeness sake.
Herm hesitated briefly. “How are you feeling?”
Opening his mouth to respond with a familiar answer, in the form of an easy-going joke, a tone shared between them for years, his muscle memory worked overtime. He stopped himself and actually thought about the answer. He’d been reassured the surgery wouldn’t take away his ability to feel everything, just whatever was associated with Herm, and as much as he knew he should respond as he used to, to someone he knew was his best friend, what would he gain from it?
Keats was aware it was a selfish thought.
He tilted his head in a so-so movement. “Fine.”
His LEDs flickered, face pinching. “That’s.. good.”
“Yeah.”
“So,” he fidgeted awkwardly, lacing his fingers together. “Uh.”
“Yeah.”
Herm simulated clearing his throat, “you’re okay, then? All the,” he gestured vaguely, “flowers and stuff are gone?”
“That’s what the surgery was for, yeah,” he scratched his scruff.
“Right,” he nodded, “yes, of course.”
He waved a hand, “it’s over on the table if you wanna take a look.”
Shooting him an unsure glance, he inched towards the table. He peered at the bag and wrung his hands, scratching the already chipped paint with a sound that reminded Keats a little too much of nails on a chalkboard.
He winced. “Stop that. You don’t have to worry, I’m fine,” he insisted, resisting the urge to cover his ears, uncomfortably aware that raising his arms would pull at his stitches.
Herm let his hands fall to his sides.
Keats eyed him, brow furrowed. “Are.. are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m— I’m good.”
He squinted at him. That was a big fat lie. “Okay.”
His face glitched. “‘Okay?’ That’s.. that’s it?”
He shrugged a shoulder and instantly regretted it, hissing a gasp as hot white fire shot lightning through his nerves. Herm stepped intently but remembered himself, pausing a few feet away from his bedside. Keats rubbed his shoulder. “I don’t know what you want me to say, man. Were you expecting a miracle where I wake up, feelings intact, and everything turns out okay?”
His silence was telling.
He frowned pityingly. “It sucks, but this is real life, man. That means no do-overs, no going back and changing things, and no miracles. You get that, don’t you?” Herm’s mouth dipped, his eyes following suit. He didn’t seem to realize what he was doing. An itch clawed at Keats’ insides but this time, it wasn’t botany-related. He exhaled softly, regalling Herm with more patience than he usually had, “don’t forget, Herm, you wanted this.”
Herm blinked once, then twice. He took a step back. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
He nodded, satisfied.
A knock at the door had their heads turning. Michelle peeked in, the most shy Keats had ever seen her. “Uh, hi. Is this a bad time?”
“No—!” Herm spun stiffly, “I’m— I was just leaving.” He patted her shoulder on the way to the door. “See you later.”
Keats didn’t bother replying.
Michelle’s gaze followed him out the door, continuing to stare at the open doorframe long after he left.
“Kid? You good?”
She nodded and tore her eyes away, trying for a smile. Keats didn’t mention how glassy her eyes were or the shakiness of her smile.
“I’m sure if we ask Medea nicely, he’ll let you have more of my vomit flowers.”
She exhaled a laugh, swiping at her eyes.
—
Herm was avoiding him. Not that that was particularly difficult, as Keats had been confined to the makeshift hospital room for three days. It would’ve been longer, but that was the shortest amount of time he managed to haggle from Medea. Those three days dragged on, and Herm avoided the room like the plague.
He received more visitors than he thought he would, including Penny and Mr Peanut. Michelle visited a lot too — the most, actually, and every time she did, even she seemed hesitant to bring up the bot haunting his thoughts.
Keats thought it would be easier to eject him from his head, but it seems old habits die hard. He felt bad, honestly. Guilty, even. Herm cared for him a lot, that much was obvious — that much was factual, knowing from years of experience, but Keats simply didn’t have the ability to return that effort.
Once upon a time, Herm had scooped Keats up and carted him off, far far away from the battlefield, even at the cost of his own safety. Keats, a complete stranger. Too bad Keats couldn’t muster up enough selflessness to indulge the bot for a conversation or two.
It was during one of these bouts of thinking about Herm that he bumped into said bot — right outside of their shared room.
Right.
Herm stared, long and hard at him, seemingly at a loss of words.
“Herm,” Keats greeted. “You didn’t visit me,” he said, as a means for a topic. He wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew Herm well, and despite their stilted conversation, Herm still considered him his best friend. He was worried, but was giving him some sort of space, if you could call it that.
His face shuttered, “you didn’t seem like you wanted me to.”
He would have shrugged, if his shoulders wouldn’t have tugged on his stitches. “I was pretty bored.”
They fell into an uneasy silence, neither quite wanting to make the first move. How could they do this? How could they let their guard down, to sleep in the same room when they were as amiable as strangers?
They knew everything about each other — and that was not an exaggeration — and yet…
“I’m thinking of moving out,” Herm blurted out, blatantly.
Keats blinked in surprise. “You don’t have to,” he protested, but it was half-hearted at best.
Herm could tell, if the way his shoulders hunched was any indication. “No,” he declared. “There are plenty of rooms, I can charge in another. Besides, you need room to rest and heal.”
“Sure. If that’s what you want.”
His face flickered and he nodded, resolute. “I’m taking the armchair.”
“Go for it.”
And so he did. Keats watched him go, armchair lifted high above his head with one hand, the other clenched by his side. He didn’t bother looking back.
Shaking his head, Keats stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. His eyes scanned the area, but it was truly just a room: grey walls, tiled floor, a bed, a desk, a chair… The only thing missing was that peeling armchair they’d shoved by the outlet.
The room felt empty without it.
Keats snorted. It’d been an eyesore, that thing, but it had been there for weeks on weeks, so no wonder.
He changed quickly and with little fanfare — outside of the fact that he couldn’t change his shirt without help, for the time being. Sliding under the covers, he marvelled at how quiet the room has become without the mechanical whirring, or the low hum of Herm’s innards.
Pulling the blankets up to his chin, he snuggled into the pillow. A chill permeated the air, seeping in through the cracks in the window that Herm swore he’d fix.
He rolled his eyes, landing on that glaring gap, plaster blaring like a neon sign in the night.
Maybe he should decorate the walls some, he thought, dragging his gaze away. Some posters, some records to hang… fuck, even a keychain would be nice at the moment. The blank walls loomed over him like prison bars. If Keats wasn’t actively attempting to sleep, he might have thought the room vacant.
He’d lost everything to the RDTF — the Butcher of Schenectady — and when they picked themselves back up and got the ball rolling again, Keats lost everything for a second time. Third time, if he included him and Herm running from their respective sides during the war. He was no stranger to starting over, just this time he was doing it parallel to the people he knew.
Mostly.
According to Herm, avoidance seemed to be the path of least resistance.
His eyes found the empty space again.
He scoffed loudly, and pushed back the covers, swinging his legs over the side. His bare feet slapped against the cold tile — they used to have a rug in there, but they’d long since shoved it in the closet because Herm kept tripping over it.
Bracing himself against the heavy oak desk Herm stole from the manager’s office, he inhaled deeply and began to push. Keats wasn’t supposed to do any heavy lifting, or anything strenuous at all, but hey! Who had to know?
Inch by inch, the desk squeaked across the tiled floor, accompanied only by Keats’ strained panting. He shoved it up against the other wall and leaned against it for a moment to catch his breath. Wiping his palms on his night shirt, he took a step back and admired his handiwork. The oak desk took up the majority of the wall, stretching right across the scratched tile where a patchwork chair used to sit, covering up the outlet from view.
He smiled. That’ll do just fine.
—
At first, Keats was relieved. With his emotions regarding the bot removed (and the rearranged furniture), Keats could breathe for the first time. And as the days passed, it came increasingly clear this was the right choice; he could actually hear himself think without the constant Herm-related thoughts plaguing his mind. It’s not that he didn’t like the bot! Herm was undoubtedly a good man, just not one Keats could afford to lose hours of thought to anymore.
And yet, Herm remained at the crisp edges of his mind. Not of any volition of his own; Herm seemed to follow him around, appearing everywhere he went. Keats understood, it wasn’t the biggest mall, but there was no way they ended up in a close vicinity that many times over the course of a day, robotic gaze lingering on his back.
Herm never made the move to approach him, however. That’s why it was so surprising one day — no more than two weeks after the surgery — when he finally did.
“Keats..?”
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
He tossed a glance over his shoulder, more for show than anything. He’d know that voice anywhere. “Herm,” he greeted. “What’s up?”
“Can I talk to you?” He asked stiffly.
He shrugged his shoulders carefully, cautious of the stitches. He was thankful Medea let him even get out of bed. “Why not?” He peered closer at the tiny-ass screw he was attempting to screw into place. Maybe he needed glasses.
Herm didn’t speak right away. Something clicked mechanically behind him.
“Herm?”
“I.. I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said, haltingly, like someone had taken his artificial voice and chopped it up like sushi before stitching it back together.
Keats rolled his eyes, setting the screwdriver down, and turned to get a proper look at Herm’s guilty frown. Herm laced his fingers together anxiously. He didn’t have pupils, not the way humans did, but he knew him well enough to know Herm’s eyes were anywhere but Keats’. “Fuck off with the apologies. I already told you—”
“No, seriously,” he interrupted, earnestly, desperately. “Keats,” he said softly.
It would have struck a chord once, made his body react embarrassingly, Herm saying his name. Herm scarcely used his legal name, reserving it for serious situations — and even those were rare. Though, Keats mused, for him, it probably was.
“Alright, fine, I’ll bite.” He inclined his head, grabbing a grease rag off the work table, “what’re you sorry for this time?”
Herm hesitated. It was jarring to see him visibly nervous. Herm was the type to hide his emotion under layers and layers of witty jabs and flirty nicknames. His act never fooled Keats.
He could see how much this was hurting him. It was hard not to, considering Keats knew everything there was to know about the bot. He knew about his affinity for fish despite his distaste for water, he knew Herm hated spring because the pollen ‘got everywhere’, he knew Herm’s favourite colour was green. Keats knew Herm down to his most basic components. There was a time, only days ago, Keats would have bent the world to his will, if only to make Herm smile. But now? Now there was nothing. It wasn’t that he disliked Herm, there was just.. nothing. Keats became an effectively unbiased expert on the bot.
“Keats, I love you.”
It was blunt. It was effective. It was unexpected.
Keats felt his expression shutter. His back straightened. “What?”
“I-I know it won’t do anything— won’t change anything,” he stuttered, head bowed regretfully. “I just..I felt I owed it to you to tell you, after everything.”
He barked a disbelieving laugh and ran a shaky hand through his shortly cropped hair. “How do you figure?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t realize what I was missing, what was right in front of my eyes, until it was gone. Until you were gone,” he said quietly, shamefully.
“And you confessing your love was supposed to.. what? Make me feel better about forcibly losing my feelings for you? About losing my best friend? The only constant I had in my life?”
“That’s not— that’s not what I meant,” he shook his head, hands splayed.
“Then what? Did you tell me to make yourself feel better about being too late?”
“What?” His eyes widened in panic. “No!”
It was genuine, he was genuine, but Keats didn’t exactly care. Lava bubbled in his gut, hot, and heavy, and overwhelmingly shameful. He was vaguely aware of the violent tremors racking his body, aching from his surgery and from hours spent hunched over his work table. “You didn’t tell me because you ‘owed’ it to me, you told me because you couldn’t deal with the fucking guilt that you could have prevented this. That you were at the right place, at the right time, if only you’d gotten your head out your ass sooner.”
“Fuck off, asshole!” Herm seethed, anguish in place of the expected mirrored anger, fists clenching at his sides. Metal creaked. “I would never, I would never and you know that!”
“Or maybe,” he clicked his tongue pointedly, “you just wanted to rub it in.” He scoffed a bitter laugh, “imagine that. A loser so helplessly in love with you he contracted some basically incurable disease. It’s fucking laughable.”
“It’s not,” Herm denied vehemently, his eyes thinning to slits. “You said yourself that loving me could never be a mistake. And I believe you meant it.”
“Maybe at the time,” he agreed. “But weren’t you the one to call it a mistake in the first place?”
Herm didn’t answer right away, opting to look away as he thought. His eyes dimmed. “I wanted to tell you because I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t. And yeah, maybe I told you out of some false hope that maybe, maybe, it would help you. Help us.”
“You thought you could fix me.”
He didn’t deny it.
“You can’t,” he crossed his arms, leaning back against the table. “There isn’t anything to fix anymore. That window of opportunity closed weeks ago. I’m good now— great, actually. So you can fuck right off with that shit.”
“I know,” Herm scrubbed his scratched-to-hell glass screen with his hands, dragging them down his face roughly. “I’m sorry.”
He exhaled harshly. “Stop fucking apologizing!” He snapped, glaring down at the uncharacteristically distressed bot. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want your apologies or your love confessions—! I don’t care!”
Herm jerked back, LEDs distorting to some unrecognizable expression Keats couldn’t bother dissecting.
“Fuck, dude. I just.. I don’t care, okay?” He palmed his mouth, scratching at his scruff. “You telling me you love me brings me zero relief. It’s not going to make me want to try to bring back those feelings I had for you, if that’s even possible, and frankly, I don’t care enough to. I don’t want to.”
Herm didn’t say anything right away — he didn’t have to. He emitted misery, the robotic equivalent to a kicked puppy.
“Herm—”
“You promised.”
“What?”
Herm couldn’t bear to look at him, glaring holes into Keats’ worktable. “You promised you wouldn’t forget about me.”
Keats stared at him. “Don’t make this about you.”
“Isn’t it?” He shot back. “The only reason you’re even alive is because you couldn’t stand losing me to grief.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
Herm’s expression darkened. “Old you would’ve hated what you’ve become,” he spat.
Keats barked a laugh, “I don’t give a fuck what the old me would have thought. He’s gone— dead, even. It’s just me, now,” he stepped closer to him, screwdriver clenched tightly in white knuckles. His voice lowered, “I warned you this would happen.”
“Fuck you.”
His jaw clenched and he sighed, his shoulders slumping. All of his anger, all of his energy, slipped out of him, leaving nothing there at all. “What’s done is done, Herm,” he said quietly.
“I wish I could go back,” Herm murmured pitifully. “There’s a lot I would do differently. Say differently.”
“Lamenting about it now won’t do anything.”
“I know.”
Keats ran a calloused hand through his shortly cropped hair, “it’s too late for us.”
His eyes shut. “I know.”