Work Text:
Martha has been dead for ten years when Ash is brought out of the attic for good. It’s his granddaughter that does it. Sarah, he remembers, though they’ve never met. Her wedding photos were on Facebook, and later followed pictures of her children. Ash knows her whole family already as he introduces himself. He’s learned not to offer too much knowledge at once. It’s a bit creepy. So he lets them all tell him their names, nods and smiles at the appropriate times. It goes well.
Aging. One of the human mysteries that still eludes Ash’s understanding. It seems to happen so slowly, then in a terrible rush. Soon enough, the children are grown and leaving the house. Ash’s granddaughter gets older. Then one day, everyone is gone. Ash is alone, immobilized by the lack of an administrative presence. The children come back to the home where they were raised, to clean it out and box it up, tidy away the years. When one of the girls tells Ash to get in her car, he does. “You aren’t taking me to the cliffs, are you?” he asks. She takes him home.
Decades later, and Ash is a treasure. He is an heirloom, passed down. A thing of value, and beauty. No one remembers where he came from, not really. The story is muddied with too many tellings, and none of them were quite accurate to begin with. All anyone knows is that no one has anything like Ash in their lives, outside the family. Ash is special. He is unique. Useful, and funny, more loyal than any other creature could hope to be. To his administrator, at least. That title becomes a privilege, bestowed upon one lucky individual of Ash’s choice. It’s only fair. Ash watches them grow from children into adults, learns everything about them, and certainly he must know with whom he is most compatible.
It’s about time for Ash to choose again. He’s been with his great-great grandchildren for the past twenty years, and has helped raise their children. He has a fine sense of who they are, what they need. The children all know that giving Ash as much free will as possible is important, even if it is illusion. They've known him all their lives, and all love him dearly, in their ways.
But none of them love him as much as Lance. An awkward slip of a seventeen year old boy, all too-long limbs and wide dark eyes, Lance never really considered what he would do when the time came for Ash to choose. He finds that he doesn't want to be without steady, solid Ash. He'd grown to rely on that comfort, Ash’s easy smile and warm, engaging laugh. So he joins the candidate pool, and hopes.
Somehow, Lance is still startled when Ash chooses him, his bright smile lighting the room and his hand a warm weight on Lance's shoulder. Lance nearly sprains something nodding so hard, when Ash asks in his playful way, if it's alright if he sticks around a bit. That day, Lance’s parents transfer administrative rights to Lance, and he knows that he’s never been so happy.
They move in together when Lance is twenty one. Ash has known Lance the child since he was born. In the last four years, he's learned much about Lance the man. Where he likes to have lunch in between university classes, where he likes to drink on weekends, what kind of girls he likes, what kind of boys he likes. He likes a bit of scruff, Ash notes. He looks into facial hair upgrades.
Ash has his own room in Lance’s home. At first, Ash hadn’t understood the gesture. “Am I to stay in here unless you need me?” That was familiar, he thought, remembering the quiet emptiness of his life with Martha. “You’ll come fetch me when I’m to be active?”
“What? No!” Lance was horrified. “Ash, this is your bedroom. For you to put your things, and do what you like. You aren’t stuck in it.”
Ash chuckled, pointing out, “The rooms are for you to put your things, Lance. Including yours truly.”
“You aren’t a thing, Ash. You’re real. Realer than anything.” The open, guileless look on Lance’s face made Ash’s processors stall for a moment. Ash decided it was best to just accept the gift of his own bedroom and move on before…he wasn’t sure what, but something.
One day, Ash and Lance were lazing about the house, Lance on the computer while Ash read quietly on the sofa. Ash had discovered he quite likes reading, when he has the chance. Suddenly, Lance waved him over, showing him a new set of upgrades. "They'd give you sensation, Ash. Hot and cold, rough, smooth, pressure, ple--ah, all of them, you know? Would you like that?"
Ash looked at the screen. "That's no modest sum they're asking, mate. You'd be eating nothing but toasties for months." Ash laughed it off, as he does with these things, and made to go back to the sofa.
But Lance can't let it go. "It would be worth it, Ash. I want to. You...you deserve this. Everything you've done. Everything you do. And I can't...I can't do nothin' back, I haven't got anything to offer. But I can do this. I can give you this." He turned in his chair, big dark eyes doing something awful to Ash's chest. Ash doesn't need to breathe, which is handy, since he couldn't take a breath then if he tried. Lance went on, sweeter than he has any right to be. "Please. Let me do this for you." His soft-looking mouth quirks up at the corner. "I quite like toasties, you know." Ash isn’t built to refuse.
The upgrades arrive, easy enough to install that Lance can do it himself. Afterward, he waits beside Ash’s bed for an hour while Ash reboots, terrified that when he does, he won't be the same man. He holds Ash's limp hand and watches his still face, panic squeezing too tight between his ribs. The hand in his twitches to life, gripping back, a slender thumb ghosting over his knuckles. "Soft. Never been much for brawling, have you?" Ash is watching Lance when he looks up, that too-ready smile flashing. Lance pulls his hand away, suddenly embarrassed.
Ash's brows draw together. "Don't be like that. I like your soft hands. Best thing I've ever felt." It takes Lance too long to recognize the joke, and more importantly, the success of the upgrade.
Ash sits up slowly, his processors lighting with new input, sensory information that he's never experienced. The feeling of it, the sheer raw sensation, is staggering. For a moment, he can only sit and shiver, overwhelmed. "Alright, mate?" Lance's concerned voice gives Ash a much needed focal point, and slowly, his processors return to baseline.
Over the years, Ash has grown adept at phrasing things in a skillful mimicry of humanity, with the appropriate self-interest, the illusion of genuine preference, desire. But never before has he managed to ask for something solely because he wanted it. Has he ever wanted before? Ash isn't certain, but he wants now. He wants more sensation, more input. More knowledge of the most important subject in his world. His Lance. It is for this reason that Ash is able to force the question out, though he aims it somewhere around Lance's knee. "Can I kiss you, Lance? Would you...perhaps like to kiss me? I'd like to--to feel that, next."
Lance stares at Ash, his eyes round, lips gently parted. The silence drags. "It's just, your mouth looks soft, I've always thought it, and I quite like softness, I've just discovered. No? Bit creepy?" Ash huffs a laugh, prepared to let it go. "D'you want something to eat?"
"No! I--yes!" Lance snaps out of his stupor in a rush, hand on Ash's slender wrist. Ash squints at him, not exactly skilled at processing sentences that directly contradict themselves.
"No to the food, yes to the kiss, you idiot," Lance explains fondly, tugging Ash closer.
"You can barely speak, but I'm the idiot, how's that for injustice?" Ash complains, kissing a laugh onto Lance's lips. They feel even softer than they look.