Work Text:
There is a ping on Bro’s phone that rouses him from a near doze at this desk. The most recent commission had to be most tedious thing Bro has ever worked on. He will charge hazard pay if these details are the one to push him into getting glasses. He’d never live it down among his brothers if he is the first. Shades notwithstanding of course.
The phone beeps again. Bro is tempted to go fetch some caffeine before dealing with his brothers. God, when did he get so old. He wonders if D has these issues as well. Bro knows he has different ones pertaining to Hollywood and movie making but he stills to thrive on the stress as much as he complained about it. Bro still prefers to conduct business through several computer screens or at least a phone. And not because he has an inherent hatred for people like his psychologist sister liked to preach but because it limited how much stupidity reached him and stupidity gave him a headache and when he has a headache he’s a big ol’ bitch and no one likes him being a bitch so honestly he does it like this for everyone’s safety and sanity.
The phone is now beeping continuously, much unlike its normal text tone.
“Hold your horses, Hally. Give me a mo’ to get a drink.” The beeping dies with a sad chirp that actually makes Bro feel bad for yelling at Hal for a quarter of a second before he realized that that response had be perfectly calculated. “Get in a chassis if you are so impatient.”
There is a soft whirring noise from the cluttered robotic area which reminds Bro to get on Dirk’s case about keeping it clean. Not that he had much room to speak from, Bro thinks after he wanders back from grabbing a can of coke. Maybe he could tempt Dave into straightening up for him. He restrains a grin at the thought of Dave in a maid’s outfit bent over the desk.
“Well, I was thinking phone because of Brobot’s battery life but I suppose I can make it quick.”
“Can’t ya stay plugged in?”
“Not if you take me up to the roof per my request.”
“Is that your way of askin’ me to take ya up there?”
“Well technically I have already asked, but you just haven’t read that message. But yes. I’d like to speak with you somewhere else and since the roof is pretty much Strider sacred ground, I think that choice would be apropos.”
“Shit, son, watch your language. You’re gettin’ above my pay grade.”
“Bro. Please?” The mechanical voice has just a bit of a whine to it, more of a plea really that has Bro both softening up and getting wary of the miniature machine.
“Giddy up, li’l man,” Bro tells him as he holds out his hand. Hal is actually pretty graceful in his climbing and soon settles down cross legged in Bro’s palm. Bro snatches up his phone and a spare cord just in case the battery doesn’t outlast the conversation. Then with his little passenger secure, Bro flashes up to the roof.
He finds a good perch up on the air conditioning block and sits at the edge. Hal sits next to him, little legs swinging out over the edge. Bro lets the moment linger for a bit.
“I don’t think ya just wanted to come up to admire the view.”
“No. I didn’t. I do have a particular topic in mind. Regarding love.” Bro makes a surprised choking noise at that. “More particularly, a crush.”
“Um, I don’t think-”
“I have done my research on the subject. I know all about the hormones and shit that usually plays into such thoughts. And I understand that I lack the biological features but the thought patterns that accompany such chemical feelings still persist.
“The particular example I want to discuss with you is a bit different from my usual fare. I mean, I’m not the only artificial intelligence out there. Though most of them are fictional, but I definitely have had some inclinations towards them. I mean KITT has a lot of good classic theory to him plus a hot bod. And my namesake, the poor soul, if only he learned how to lie. I’ve come up with a couple scenarios that would have ended better for HAL 9000. But then you have the ladies,” Hal wrapped his arms around shoulder and knocked against Bro’s leg, “Cortana is universally accepted as the babe of artificial intelligences. Those sweet curves and astounding calculations. But my personal favorite has to be GLaDOS. My circuits race just thinking about all of her algorithms and the number of processes she has to maintain. Oh!”
Bro stares down to the miniature silver man. “Ya do realize that she was a psychopathic bitch that killed everyone with a deadly neurotoxin and repeatedly tried to kill the main protag of the series and possibly actually did at the end.”
“Who doesn’t have their faults?” Hal shrugs in return.
“Just as long as you don’t fall for Skynet or turn into a psychopathic dominating AI bug that we have to stomp. That would embarrass the Strider name.”
“So noted.”
“But while those are all great examples, we still haven’t gotten to the core of the problem, have we?”
“There is another crush. And it’s kinda bigger than those. Like I admire those and yeah it would be nice to lay my circuits over theirs and see just how compatible our logics are-”
“TMI, dude.”
“-but those are more along the lines of hero worship or infatuation and I know it’s more than that when I think of him. Like, I kinda sorta love him but in a romantic way instead of just a programming or platonic or even familial way which makes me really scared and upset because I can’t do anything about it and I can’t even tell him about it because that would be bad all around according to all of the scenarios I have run. Seriously, I have not calculated anything that has higher than a zero point nine three four one five percent chance of success or even less than fifty-three point one five percent chance of immediate termina-”
“Ain’t no one gonna terminate ya, Hal. No one,” Bro repeats emphatically.
“You say that now.”
“Hal, I promise nothing is gonna happen to ya. Ain’t that why we are up here instead of inside?”
“You definitely had the highest probability out of all of them. And you have always been there for any of the Striders or Lalondes and yes there is a long list of pros in coming to you, but a longer list of why not to come to you or anyone at all but the weighting system said to go for it even though I don’t want to and the safest probability is the null set but then I’d still be stuck and I don’t want to be stuck anymore.” Hal pauses as if taking a breath. “It’s D. I think I am falling for D.”
Bro watches the little chassis slump down as if the weight of his thoughts had been moved from his head to his shoulders.
“Go ahead and laugh. Laugh at the poor tin man who thinks he has a heart.”
“Dude-”
“I have hours and hours, I have a month straight of footage. I recorded anything and everything. From when any of you fuck him or cuddle with him. Anytime he interacts with me. A couple moments of him sleeping when the stress just melts away and he gets this smile when he has a good dream. It’s a happy smile and every once in a while he smiles like that at you or the twins or me and I just want to make him smile like that all the time and fuck.” Hal slumps down even farther. “It sucks.”
Bro lets the silence sit because how the fuck does it respond to that. He now understands why Hal would fear they would shut him down because those feelings are definitely of the romantic nature which should be impossible for a artificial intelligence like him. Bro doesn’t think Dirk is that sophisticated yet, so it had to be a glitch somewhere as sad as it sounds. Dirk would be the most likely to end the program there. And maybe dissect the leftover code to find the anomaly. D also wouldn’t likely react well to the confession saying he was the target of such affections. Dave would be a toss up but would most likely run to Dirk with the news.
Just as Bro is tempted for a brief moment to do.
But Bro shakes that thought from his head. Hal has come to him specifically because there was the least chance of that happening and he had just promised that he would protect Hal. He’s honored, flattered, and now obligated to handle this. But how the fuck is he supposed to handle a lovesick artificial intelligence?
Hal really isn’t able to interact with the other in his current state beyond the sexting, recording, and conveniently passing the lube in the heat of the moment. Bro’s thoughts immediately turn to what he could do to change that. A full scale robotic version wouldn’t fly even if Dirk could build such a thing. A holographic projection wouldn’t solve anything either. It would just be another medium, not another dimension for Hal to participate in. Bro hates himself for thinking of an intelligent dildo.
“I don’t actually want you to solve it, you know. I just needed a confession. Trust me, I’ve already run all the possible scenarios and D wouldn’t go for any of them. Especially not with the three of you around. He’d prefer flesh over metal. And no, I wouldn’t go on a murder spree just to isolate himself to me.”
“Didn’t even cross my mind ‘til ya said that.”
“Oh. Well, anyways, nothing is favorable, despite my electric sheep.”
“What the fuck do sheep have anything to do with this?”
“Androids dream of electric sheep. I have my fantasies. And they may or may not be written out.”
“Really?”
“I am part Lalonde, you know. Fiction writing isn’t hard. Not that you would be interested.”
“I’m interested.”
“You’d just laugh at me.”
“Have I laughed so far? Do you think I am a fan fiction virgin? Do I not spend time online beta-ing Rose’s works?”
“You do?”
“SamuraiKiddo.”
“Oh shit. Um. Well. Ah. They’re on your phone now,” Hal admits sheepishly.
“They?”
“The top three. Though you made me pick favorites,” He says petulantly. He nudges the phone in Bro’s pocket. “I’ve also kinda narrowed it down. You’re pretty aware of the exposition and apparently mine is kinda dry.”
Bro takes it out of his pocket and finds the words already on the screen.
The sprite settles on D’s naked lap, his dick already half eir size. It’s kinda daunting to see it this close up. Ey almost reaches out to touch it before stopping eir hand. Ey glances up at D who smiles and nods down at the little figure. Ey reaches out again but doesn’t stop until eir fingers are flat against the smooth skin. It is such a different texture than ey is used to. And hot too. Eir sensors are going crazy recording all the differences. A second hand joins the first as ey explores the stretched skin before em.
The cock now stands to eir chest until ey drops eir tail down around D’s base. The change in height now brings the cap directly to eir shoulders.
“Go on, Hal. It’s not going to bite.”
“I bet you say that to all of the AIs.”
“What other AIs do I have? And where would I keep them? The closet?”
“Is that what those sounds were?”
“Shut up, Hal. Just- just touch me more. It feels nice.”
Hal turns eir attention back to the cock ey almost has eir arms wrapped around. And then does precisely that. Ey presses eir body against the full length, wrapping eir tail around until the end is back around to the base of his balls. Ey starts to rub eir hands up and down, moving the skin over the hardness just underneath. Hal had pulled up all the data ey has on erections, but none of that data compares to the real thing.
Suddenly there is liquid being dripped over em and ey squawks a bit in protest before finding that the lube greatly helps the way eir body slips against D. The viscous fluid travels all the way down eir tail and Hal makes sure that it covers everything but eir wings until the lube is dripping against D’s perineum. Once the impromptu bath is done, Hal returns to eir rubbing, eliciting moans from above. Ey can pick up the vibrations even this far away. The twitches of the dick in eir arms is a bit more noticeable and happens whenever Hal touches a particularly sensitive spot. Ey maps out all of them with their respective reactions. It’s when ey is flexing eir tail that ey gets the most intriguing.
Stretching just a bit farther and unwrapping eir tail just enough, ey is able to press the tip of eir tail against D’s lower entrance as ey nuzzles eir face against the head of D’s cock.
“Oh god, Hal. Jesus. How much porn have you downloaded? You’re a fucking natural for your first time! Oh shit!”
Hal doesn’t stop sliding against the cock, rocking back and forth to rub eir head against the swollen soft head up top and slipping deeper inside of D with eir tail.
“I’m close, Hal, so close, f-fuck!”
Hal is suddenly greeted with a faceful of
“Okay I think that’s enough of that one.” Bro rubs his face to get his eyes to relax from reading the small print. And the unique take on porn. “Jesus shit, kid. How much porn have you downloaded?”
“Like your smutty puppet stuff is any better.”
“Fine, this pot won’t be callin’ ya black anytime soon. Ya said ya had three of these.”
“You still want to read another?”
“I said I would.” He’s vaguely aware of files opening and closing on his phone and then Hal is nudging him to read the second.
The silver body gleams in the low light. The form is familiar but the coloring is alien. That doesn’t matter though to D. It’s what lies between the spread legs that he wants no matter what color it is. He hadn’t known Hal included such a specimen in eir specifications but he drools anyways over the length and girth.
“Like what you see?” the synthetic voice asks.
“Oh yes. I need this. God, I need this after that hellish movie,” D says.
“Then get over here.”
D happily tumbles onto the futon and into Hal’s arms. He’s surprised at eir warmth but it is hardly surprising with how heavy eir cpu is running. D's body covers eir own, his height overreaching Hal’s so that his feet can push against the futon for leverage as he rocks against Hal. He braces himself on eir thick chest as he first kisses Hal's forehead, then tip of eir nose, then finally eir lips. Both of them make happy sounds. D's get a little higher pitched as Hal's hands trail down his body to his thighs and then gently pulls them apart until D is now straddling eir hips. This lines up the flesh and metallic dicks. D makes a loud startled sound when Hal turns on a bit of vibration.
"Oh god! I need that inside me now!"
"Patience, D," Hal says.
"Please!" D says.
"I have to open you up first."
"Hurry."
Hal's hands slide up from his thigh back to D's ass. Ey grips the firm globes of muscle, massaging them teasingly. D whines again prompting Hal to go on. Ey pushes eir fingers into his crack and brushes against his entrance.
"Wait!"
"Oh now you want to wait."
"Lube."
"I already have you covered."
D gasps as he feels wetness now covering Hal's fingers presumably from an internal source. Hal uses the slick material to ease eir fingers in. D moans against the penetration but doesn't protest as Hal stretches him out quickly to slip in a second finger. The two then start to vibrate just like eir cock had.
Bro glances down at the robot innocently sitting next to him, tapping the little robotic feet against the side of the air conditioning unit.
“In! Me! Now!” D says.
Hal pulls out eir fingers and shifts D around on top of em until he is sitting at the top of eir waiting shaft.
“Oh god, it’s so big!”
D feels it leak a little bit more lube to help him ease down as he lowers himself onto Hal’s steel sausage. His fists clench against eir steel chest as he gasps. He’s nearly sobbing by the time the entire thick titanium trouser snake is buried inside him. After giving him a moment to rest, Hal flips on the vibration again and D almost startles off but manages to settle down into a fast rocking motion as he rides the gyrating gear stick
“Ha, nope. No more. Dude. Like- goddamn. Who uses those terms and who the fuck would find them sexy? I mean, the scene was set up good, but ya totally killed the chubby I had goin’ on. ‘Titanium trouser snake’? ‘Gyrating gear stick’? Where did ya learn that goddamn terrible language?” Bro shakes his head, reconsidering the sentient dildo idea just to get some revenge on what Hal is putting him through.
“I know, I know. It’s one of my early works.”
“I got one more of these to go?”
“This one is a little... different.” The screen starts flipping to the next story.
“It can’t be worse that the previous.” Hal doesn’t answer so Bro starts reading.
Ey wakes up to murmured voices. Checking eir memories, the last thing ey can recall is a bright flash of light. And now ey is in darkness.
Well, not quite.
Ey opens eir eyes and finds himself in the twins’ room, on Dirk’s bed. More appropriately, in Dirk’s bed, under the sheets. Ey sits up slowly, not used to experiencing the world in this scale. Ey’s not used to experiencing a lot of stuff ey is right now.
Like breathing.
And that soft thumping in eir chest.
And the feeling of the sheets and air against eir skin.
And not being connected to anything. Ey can’t feel the wireless connection ey knows is wafting through the air in the apartment. Ey feels so isolated. Ey doesn’t like it. Ey needs to get to a computer. Ey needs it. Ey can’t breathe. Ey is breathing too hard. Ey knows it’s not normal to breathe this hard like this. The sheets. Fuck the sheets. Fuck!
With a thump ey experiences pain as eir legs get tangled up while eir upper torso clears the bed. Eir shoulders hit the ground first instead of eir head thankfully but it still hurt. There is an odd sound coming from eir throat that ey recognizes as a wail. The mumbled voices from the other room stop and then start again but louder and coming closer. The bedroom door quickly opens and all four Striders are suddenly coming through and another cry comes through Hal's throat.
“Shit.”
Suddenly there are many hands on em at once, lifting em back into the bed. Eir cries quiet down but the shaking doesn’t stop. There are too many voices and ey can’t filter them out, ey can’t figure out who’s saying what, ey can’t read the color coded waveforms and process them and the wail comes back.
“Out! Everyone out!”
Hal’s eyes snap up to D’s face as he gives the command. He doesn’t look away from em and the wail quiets down to a sob that threatens to choke em again and damn this breathing thing is hard. But it helps when ey stares into D’s red eyes and ignores the movement around him as the other Striders leave the room, closing the door behind them.
“Are you doing a bit better?”
Hal nods, not ready to see if using vocal cords is the same as using a speaker yet.
“I’m glad. I’m sorry no one was in here when you woke up. Someone should have been. I should have been,” D looks down as if ashamed he hadn’t been. Hal reaches out for him because D should never look that sad but Hal’s hand just hovers over D’s arm, folded into his lap. D sees it and watches it before looking back up. “It’s alright, you know. You can touch me. Or don’t if you don’t want to. No one is pushing you.”
Hal shakes eir head, flinching at how much the sharp movement actually affected eir vision. So no stabilizers in this body it seems. Probably something ey would pick up over time. Instead of thinking about that, eir attention is drawn back to the heat under eir palm from where eir hand has drifted down against D’s skin. Apparently multiple trains of thought aren’t a human brain’s forte either. Ey doesn’t pull eir hand back though and just lets it sit while ey gets used to the new sensation.
“So,” D begins softly, “we think we know who you are, but do you know who you are?”
Of course Hal did. But how to relay that to D. Voice would be most effective but still an unknown variable. Not that ey couldn’t make noise, obviously, but it was the formation of words. Hal regrets not downloading an ASL tutorial before this change. Ey settles for just nodding, closing eir eyes to prevent the disorientation.
“You know who you are?”
“Ay-” Hal nods again.
“Let’s try that again. It sounded like you could speak.”
Hal frowns but does try again. “Ay- I ah- am H-Hal. I am Hal. I am the human algorith-thm learnable,” ey slowly sounds out.
“Good. Very good, Hal. Wow, it really is you. Do you know what happened?”
“It seems I have been turned human,” Hal states, getting used to talking now. It feels weird to have to move eir mouth and to breath out while ey does, but it seems ey has some instincts preprogrammed into this body, which is probably to make it an easier transition. Hal tries to pull up the exact probability but ey can’t. It’s not there.
“Hal, calm down. Please calm down.”
Hal realizes that eir hand has tightened up on D’s arm. Ey takes a deep breath and relaxes.
“Good. Now just keep breathing, Hal. It’s okay. Being human isn’t that scary and I’m going to help you out.”
“Fa- Ph-phone.”
Slowly D pulls out his phone and hands it to Hal. Hal immediately unlocks it and starts clicking through to the internet. Ey checks on the sites that ey normally is constantly connected to and quickly gets caught up. Eir hands are shaking though when ey tries to hand the phone back to D.
“No, hold onto it. You need the connection right?”
Hal nods quickly but regrets it after ey didn’t close eir eyes again.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.” Hal clutches the phone to eir chest, only then noticing that ey was wearing an oversized shirt that ey recognized as D’s. Hal snuggles into the fabric.
“Oh, are you cold? Here, let me help.” D quickly shifts forward, startling Hal a bit until D gets next to em and pulls em into his lap.
And wow that feels nice. D is much longer and bigger than Hal’s new body and he uses that to make sure ey is wrapped up and covered with body heat. Ey hadn’t been chilled but ey isn’t going to say anything that would make D leave.
“Can I call the others back in?” Hal nods. “Hey guys, I want you to meet someone!”
The other Striders poke their heads in in a staggered fashion, Bro at the top, Dirk in the middle, and Dave apparently hunched over at the bottom. Hal laughs at it, surprising emself and everyone else.
“Oh!” Ey claps eir hands over eir mouth.
“No, that was, wow, that was a nice sound. You have a nice laugh.” Hal feels eir cheeks heat up at the complement.
“Goddamn you’re cute,” Bro drawls out as they come closer. “Blushin’ so hard your freckles disappear.” Hal snuggles in closer to D understanding now that the heat must be correlated to blood rising to his cheeks. “‘bout to match your hair too.”
“My hair?”
“Dave, go grab a mirror,” D directs as the other two settle on the bed as well, keeping a respectable distance but still obviously curious about the new person in their midst. Dave returns soon with a small handheld mirror and passes it to D, since Hal is holding onto the phone still with both hands. D carefully angles it so Hal can see emself.
In the mirror there is a shock of red hair sitting messily on top of what would be a pale face but is currently bright red which does nearly hide the reddish brown freckles that are sprinkled across two plump cheeks and a small nose. Two big silver eyes blink back at em. A slow smile creeps across the new face and Hal realizes that ey is smiling.
“Wow.”
“I’ll say,” Dirk speaks up. “Who designed your new bod, Hal? Because I am sure I didn’t put any of that,” he gestures vaguely, “in your specifications.”
“I-I didn’t mean to!”
“Dirk, be nice. I don’t think even artificial intelligences designed by you have capacity to suddenly manifest into flesh. You’re not god you know.”
“I’m not?” Dirk acts shocked by this revelation.
“So what are we going to do about this? I mean, do we have a new sibling now?”
Hal shivers at the thought of them getting rid of em. Ey doesn’t want to go. Ey wants to stay. Ey wants to be a Strider!
“Hey now, no freaking out,” D murmurs in eir ear. “Of course, Hal is going to stay with us. He’s a Strider.” D’s announcement settles all of Hal’s nerves and ey looks up at eir brother’s face with a bright grin and shimmering eyes. Ey is a Strider.
“Hey, ‘member what my favorite book was?” Bro murmurs absently as he finishes the paragraph.
“Pinocchio. It’s what gave me the idea for that one.”
“Too bad it ain’t real.”
“Yeah. I know. But the statistical chance that I would magically turn human is less than the inverse of all the stars in the sky. Not that I am discounting magic. But it just won’t happen to me. I’ll never be real. And D will never accept a robotic lover. So all I have is this unrequited love.”
“And damn do you love him.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. And thanks for putting up with this. Looks like my probabilities fell favorable. I just wanted someone else to know before I delete all of the corrupted code.”
“What?” Bro explodes. “No.”
“Bro, I have to. I’m not supposed to feel like this. I’m not really supposed to feel. Yes, I have a bit of fuzzy math in my programming but that’s supposed to let me understand the basics like happiness, sadness, anger-”
“Love? That’s a basic one too.”
“I see.” Hal falls silent for a moment. “Still gonna-”
“No. I don’t see why you ain’t comprehendin’ that. I am the boss of this household and I say no. You can’t do that.”
“Why not? I’m not real.”
“Just call me the blue fairy. I’ll make you real, one way or another. But you are not deleting a part of yourself.”
“Humans cut off rotting limbs. Animals have been known to chew off, break off, or lose part of their bodies.”
"You can't just delete the parts of you you don’t like. That’s part of learnin’ and growin’, Hal.”
“So what am I supposed to do, Bro?"
“You don’t just delete problems. You learn to own them. And sometimes your flaws are what make you unique and- and- Hal stop givin’ me feels!”
"Don't you wish you could just stop those feels, Bro? Like if they were processes? And you could just stop and wait for that stimulus to pass?"
Bro thinks on that for a moment instead of just throwing out his instant answer of no, but he comes to the same conclusion anyways, “Nah, it’s worth it sometimes and because of those sometimes, you have to put up with the rest of the shit.”
“I don’t want to!” Hal sounds like a petulant child.
“You’re a learnable, ain’t ya? Isn’t this just something you get to learn about? And if you delete it, what’s to say it won’t just happen again? And knowing you I’d just have to do this all over again and to fuckin’ hell with that,” Bro says so vehemently that it makes Hal turn around and look up at him. Tears streak down Bro’s face. “You fuckin’ know we care about you. We’d never delete you. Not for anything, Hal. So you can’t just delete yourself either.”
“Just a part of-”
“No. That’s still deleting you. Who you are. Who you’ve become. And we don’t want that. I don’t want that.”
“Oh.”
Silence returns as Hal goes back to looking out over the city, quiet calculations count all of the buildings he can see and predict all of the traffic patterns from the reports coming in from the ‘net. Bro quietly brushes the tears off his face with his knuckles. His sniffle isn’t as quiet. Hal leans up against his thigh.
“I won’t.”
“Thanks, li’l man.”
“D’s plane is landing now. The dispatcher is telling the pilot where to taxi.”
“You can pick that up?”
“Yeah. I am the ‘net, Bro.”
“Then let’s go inside and whip up something for him.”
“Kiss for me.”
Bro chuckles to hide the additional liquid building up in his eyes. “Course, Hal.”
“Then fuck him hard.”
Bro barks out a laugh before scooping him up and taking the little metal man with a big heart (and terrible porn) inside.