Work Text:
One thousand years isn’t very long at all.
-
What really bothered Stede was the rust, honestly. It was just the absolute worst. It got everywhere, into every nook and cranny. It fell onto his books and littered his sofa. Nightmare to get out of the rug. He tried to keep it at bay as best as he could, but it had started five hundred and fifty-two years ago and simply wasn’t letting up. Vanity was difficult to keep up on a deserted planet.
He evaluated himself thoroughly in the mirror. He scrubbed some wily rust off of his— well, he called it his neck. It didn’t look much like the crooked, gilled, meaty things that his creators had had. More of a skinny, hingey, swivelly thing that turned his optical center about. He blinked at himself— a trick he’d learned nine-hundred and seventy three years ago. Then he squinted his eye coverings. Then, with practiced grace, gave himself a saucy wink. The light that shone from his eye cut out, then reappeared. Like a flashlight turning off and on again.
He could turn the grit shields upwards, into eyebrows of sorts. He raised one up, pressed one down. Attitude, charisma. If only captain Thomas could see him now! Well, admittedly he wouldn’t be impressed, but at least Stede would’ve been able to give him lip about it— metaphorically speaking.
Stede got up from his vanity with a pleased beep. Mimicking facial expressions was always a fun little challenge. Especially since he hadn’t any recent reference points. It was all pure memory and descriptions from books— the ones he’d had access to before being cut off from databases. And here he was: giving exemplary eyebrow attitude. Impressive, if he did say so himself.
He hung up his robe on its hook and moved through his bedroom (bedroom, of course merely being a turn of phrase. What use would he have for a bed? Ha!) and into the walk-in closet. He began his daily surveying of what clothes to wear. Some of it was getting a little tired, truth be told. Perhaps it was time to cycle some different pieces up from the auxiliary closet. Hmm.
The word “cycle” got lodged in his head. He hummed a sweet diddy about tandem bicycles as he dressed himself. The facial expressions had him feeling like the hero of an adventure series. Dashing, expressive, vivacious. A billowing shirt, laces on the front and on the sleeves. Light blue, which made his brass coloring (rust aside) glint. Lovely.
Then came journaling, as he did every day. Routine was important— he’d found that out after only half a century. Keeps you sane. Less stir-crazy.
He only had a few short sentences for today’s entry. Nothing of note. (There was never anything of note.) (Which he was fine with, truly.) He beeped to himself and threw on his overcoat and a sensible sort of hat. He was due a stroll in the vents, perhaps.
-
Of course, some might argue that one thousand years is a very long time, but they would be wrong—
-
Stede stood in front of a picture located in his Art Museum Hall. It was one of his newest pieces: a painting of a bird. When he’d first been left alone, he’d sat still for an entire day. The bird had perched on Stede’s arm for a half hour. He’d fancied it a friend. He’d been struggling to encapsulate how he had felt about that bird ever since. This didn’t cut the mustard. Not even a little bit.
He readjusted his glasses (he’d made them two hundred and ninety seven years ago to give himself an air of wizened elegance) and peeled up a corner where he’d pasted it to the wall (in one of the planet’s long, cacophonous, ugly-ugly-ugly vents). He paused, considered, squinted, and let it go. What’s an art museum if you don’t dislike at least one of the pieces?
He smoothed the parchment down, then gave it a regulation pat. Safe for now, you hideous little image.
Then, as if through a pillow: BOOM.
Clumps of dust rained down around him and Stede thought, frantically, Oh god, I hope that was just a meteor.
-
Well you can’t phrase it like that. “Millennium” sounds like ages. A thousand years? Hell, that goes by in no time.
-
Stede poked his head out of the vent hatch. Scan: fine. Scan: peachy. Scan: swell. Scan: a crashed flight vessel. Shit.
Stede let out a long and low beep. Because fuuuuck. It was all well and good to protect a pirate captain’s secret treasure for a millennia all by yourself. It was another altogether to do so when there was someone else around .
He drummed his fingers on the hatch. Okay, alright. He could hide in the vents until they leave. He spent four consecutive years in the vents, once, just for shits and giggles. He could do it again.
The hatch on the vessel opened. Someone was coming out.
Stede beeped again. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. He wasn’t a security bot. The captain had been a bloody idiot! He was originally programmed to do house chores, for Christ’s sake. What was he going to do— vacuum this someone to death? Fuck! Fuck!
He looked back into the vents. They made a gurgling, clinking sound at him from within their hollow depths. He didn’t want to stay in there for four years again. He shook out his hands. Alright. Alright. He can do this. He’s adequate. He’s a perfectly adequate machine. Yes. Alright! Yes!
He crept out of his hiding place, as stealthily as possible. He only made the brush rustle somewhat and only snapped one twig, which was incredibly impressive for him. There was one time he’d actually managed to tumble down not just one, but two hills consecutively. Practically broke his foot off—
Something grabbed his neck from behind and tugged. Hard. Stede let out a beep that was too close to a scream.
Something that was alarmingly gun shaped pressed to the backside of his main control unit. The hand around his neck was pulsing electricity right into Stede’s neck. It was disrupting his motor systems. It was also making him panic way, way more, which was neither here nor there, really, but—
“Who else occupies this planet?” A voice from behind him, undoubtedly connected to the hand and the gun and the— “Spit it out. Now.”
Stede flipped through his audio files. He hadn’t had to use them in so long, he’d become unaccustomed. He was beeping nervously. None of his files were answers to that question. Not even slightly. Oh fuck. Oh god. He was going to die! He was going to die on this bloody sham of a planet! In all honesty, he’d always figured he would, but he’d assumed it would be a very boring death, with all of his parts giving up at once, and then he would become a perch for a bird’s nest in his stillness, and—
There was a click from the direction of the gun. He was beeping wildly. Oh, he was panicking. He blindly grasped for an audio file and heard, “Hello, I’m STEDE! Your most cleanly companion!” before it all went dark.
-
The universe is billions of years old. A thousand years is the bat of an eye, if you think about it.
-
Stede rebooted.
He sat up quickly, fans whirring. He was exactly where he went down. His clock told him only thirty-four seconds had passed since he’d passed out. He looked side to side, then up… and back…
The assailant was still there. Standing, gun trained on Stede. “You okay there, man?” He asked, rather kindly for someone holding someone else at gunpoint.
Stede beeped. Assailant tilted his head. Long, silver locks flowed from a mostly metallic head. Stede had never met a cyborg before. It had also been a very, very long time since he’d seen hair. He found both rather pleasant to look upon. He played his introduction file again. “Hello, I’m STEDE! Your most cleanly companion!”
“Yeah, you said that. Before you passed the fuck out.”
Stede moved to get up. He didn’t get shot for his efforts, so he continued on his way. He straightened his hat, his coat, took off his glasses and tucked them safely into his breast pocket. He beeped and arranged his “eyebrows” into the position that he always fancied made him look the friendliest. He held out his hand. “Hello, I’m STEDE! Your most cleanly companion!”
His very pretty attacker looked him over, then… smiled. Oh. Wow. Wow! Okay. He had a nose, too, instead of gills. It was very aesthetically pleasing. He put the gun into a holster at his hip. “Limited dialogue. I didn’t know that was still a thing.” He took Stede’s hand, metal on metal, they clinked. This time his hand wasn’t seeping electricity like a live wire. “I’m Ed.”
His first time hearing a new person’s name in one thousand years. Stede beeped. Shook his hand. Was that normal? He hoped so. Protecting secrets be damned, he wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of embarrassing himself again in front of his New Person. First impression was botched. Time for a good second one. He wanted to tell Ed he liked his name. Very much. Some terrible trill spilled out of him and he nodded vigorously.
Ed pulled his hand away, eyebrow raised. “You’re lively.” He paused. “You sure you can’t talk?”
Stede nodded, yet again.
“Hm. Yes or no, is this planet occupied?”
Stede shook his head, then considered. He pointed to himself.
“Just you?”
Nod.
Ed sighed and shook out his hair. Stede marveled at how it spun in the light through it— the hair a loom and the sun the thread. He looked to his vessel, then back to Stede. “You know anything about fixing ships, cleanly companion?”
-
Okay, well, even if it’s a long time to you—
-
Stede stepped into his home and gave a grandiose spin to display it with pizazz. Beepity beep!
Ed walked in behind him, and, mouth slightly agape, looked around with wide eyes— one fleshy with a brown center, one a large black ocular lens. “This is where you live?”
An affirmative beep.
A huff. “How did you get all of this?” He paused, looked up. “A chandelier?”
Stede tapped his fingers together for a moment. An idea graciously popped itself into his head. He scuttled over to his sofa. He’d left his journal on it this morning. He flipped to the last page and started scribbling.
Hello, Ed! I’ve not been able to say your name. I wanted to write it down. To answer your questions: I made everything here! The chandelier is the piece de resistance, as it is. Took ages for it to come together. Do you eat? I could find you some fruit that’s most likely not poisonous!
He handed over the book. He was treated to Ed’s face as he read. First, his eyebrows (he had normal ones) were scrunched up, then they relaxed, then they raised. He was smiling. Stede found this to be wonderful. He found it to be more than wonderful.
“You made all of this?”
A most affirmative beep boop.
Ed ran a hand over the back of an armchair. Then he switched. His other hand still had two fleshy fingers. He ran those over the upholstery, a soft look on his face.
Stede gestured for his journal back.
Do you fancy a fine fabric?
Ed sighed and swirled his fingers around an embroidered leaf. “I think maybe I do.”
I know we need to fix your ship, but can I show you something?
Ed looked up at him, and his eyes seemed to sparkle more than his hair.
-
To me, well—
-
“Oh, fuck off.”
Stede beeped. I’m a bit of a clothes horse, he wrote. Ed read it, then looked around, eyes wide and wondering. Stede wanted to detail it all out: the summer linens, the winter breeches, the spring florals. He’d never had someone to tell before.
Ed was too enraptured, though. Stede felt guilty taking him away from it. He touched most of the pieces. He even rubbed a couple against the fleshy side of his face. It made Stede feel all— all— all wiggly inside. If it was possible to be made of metal and feel wiggly, that is. Something he’d spent so much time on, treated so kindly. Stede wasn’t sure even he himself showed his clothes that much appreciation.
He touched Ed’s arm gently. He looked up, all big eyes and expectancy. Stede felt the sudden urge to reboot again. He wrote, Would you like to try some on?
Ed opened his lips. Some of his teeth were white, some were silver, and he breathed, “Yes.”
-
Really, it’s only one hundred times ten.
-
Stede was finishing pinning Ed up. The dress was a replica from a romance novel that was an old favorite of Stede’s. It was fairly young— only a hundred years or so. Red, feathers, beads, Stede had made it more for a bit of fun than to wear himself. Maybe he had the gift of prescience— Ed with his lovely eyes and soft hair was the spitting image of Scarlet. At least, as Stede pictured her.
Ed was holding his hair up in a knot at the back of his head so Stede could fiddle about. He was turning his head back and forth with a not-quite-regal-but-not-quite-not-regal lilt. “Does this make me look stupid?”
Stede trilled at him, because what a stupid question.
Ed looked at him with his fleshy eye narrowed. “What does that mean?”
Stede beeped. This was frustrating. Had it been this frustrating to communicate with the captain back when? Better question: had he ever needed to? Mm, maybe he was just rusty— literally and metaphorically. He flapped a hand at his journal.
Ed raised an eyebrow, fetched the journal, held it out to Stede. Stede, who was holding a bunch of pins in one hand and gatherings of Ed’s dress in the other. He looked around frantically, until—
“Here.” Ed held out his other hand, cupped and waiting.
Stede blinked. He held out his hand, drop, drop, dropped the pins into Ed’s palm. They tinkled against the zirconium like the teeth in a music box. He took the book and rested it on the table. He had to stretch to hold the dress in place as he scrawled, OF COURSE NOT! Which he then underlined thrice. Ed read it, huffed.
Ed went back to watching himself in the mirror as Stede worked. He kept his hand up as a cup for the pins, and Stede’s fingers would occasionally clack against Ed’s palm. It was strange— being so close to someone so… person-y. Or, even, someone to talk to, in a relative sense. Someone who made coherent responses. Someone who didn’t fly away after a taught half hour.
Ed, startlingly, was also body-warm in some places, metal-cool in others. Stede was starting to wish his heat sensors weren’t quite so proficient— the ability to map out Ed’s body under the dress was becoming distracting, stressful, and all around flustering. (Why was it flustering? To know another entity after so long of only knowing your own?) He tried to work quickly.
He finished and smoothed the bodice, fluffed the skirt. Ed dropped his hair, and it unraveled down his back like the water on Captain Thomas’ home planet. Stede thought to touch it, but he wasn’t keenly sure of what was rude. Also it might be overwhelming to touch that after feeling the hot and cold and ridges and dips of Ed’s torso for so long. Overheating didn’t seem to be off the table.
Stede fished out two rings and an earring from a drawer and offered them up. Ed looked at them solemnly and pushed his tongue against his bottom lip. “Where did you get these?”
Stede lifted a practiced eyebrow (confusion). He touched his own chest.
“You made these too?”
Stede wasn’t sure why he was being pop quizzed. He nodded and offered the jewelry again. Ed eyed the handful, also looking confused. (Some sort of confusion-circuit was going on.) Regardless, he picked them each up, one by one, and decorated himself. He finger-combed his hair and Stede fluffed out the feathers.
They both watched Ed in the full-length mirror. He dithered with his hands for a moment, then clutched at his skirts. He looked lovely.
Ed swallowed, and Stede had forgotten what such an organic behavior had looked like. Mesmerizing, wasn’t it? The throat moved as if it was liquid, a living movement all its own that fascinated.
Stede beeped and went around Ed to pick up the journal.
You wear fine things well, Ed.
Ed’s lips parted slowly, flesh peeling away from flesh, metal silently separating from itself. Lips were enthralling, Stede wondered what it would be like to have a pair of his own.
Ed breathed a small huff from between those lips, and Stede didn’t know what it meant, but he thought that he liked whatever this moment was.
-
It had been the fashion show of ages. Probably. Stede hadn’t much experience with them, but he felt it in his hinges that it was.
Ed sat on his sofa, drenched in crystals and the red dress and even a wide-brimmed hat he’d found deep within the forgotten trenches of Stede’s closet. His feet, which were curved paddles that he bounced on to walk, were propped up on the coffee table. Their heads were close as they looked over Stede’s journal as he wrote away.
Why are you this far outside of the galaxy?
“I’m looking for something. Why are you here?”
Stede tapped his pen on the paper. Once. Twice. I was told to stay here.
“...By who?”
Stede shrugged.
Were you always a cyborg?
“Think that one’s pretty impossible, mate.”
Well, how should I know?
Ed held up the hand with two fleshy fingers left. The chandelier light reflected against his metallic fingers, making them sparkle. “You give some shit up, chasing dreams.”
Stede blinked at him. Very deliberately. Beep?
Ed put a finger to his lips. “Secret dream,” he whispered. “Shhh.”
Stede thought it was rather unfair that he, the protector of the best kept secret of the galaxy, was forbidden from knowing a secret. It’s Ed’s business, he tried to reason with himself. He couldn’t tell Ed his secret after all.
“How long have you been here?”
Blink. Blink. Stede went beeep boop.
One thousand and ten years, thirty-nine days, six hours.
Ed seemed to take a great while reading that. When he looked up, he looked Stede right in the eyes.
“That’s a very long time.”
-
It’s not.
-
“God, it’s fucked!” Ed threw a screwdriver across the clearing.
Stede, who knew nothing about the odd looking spacecraft Ed was mucking about in, nodded sagely. They had finally pried themselves away from chats and dress up to get what they’d originally gone to Stede’s house for: tools and wires and other bits and bobs. Stede had helped carry it all back to the ship, and now he was sat on a rock watching the proceedings.
“Are there any other fuckin’ ships on this planet? How did you get here?”
Stede beeped nervously. Shrugged.
Ed gave him a long, cool look.
Stede shrugged again, to the most convincing of his abilities.
“Hm.” His hand, which was currently a blowtorch, rotated about to become a regular hand again. “What shit do you do for fun around here?”
Stede beeped once. Then twice. Then many more times. By god, he never thought he’d get to show someone— to do things—
He gestured for Ed to follow. Practically skipped his way towards the hatch in the brush. He turned to Ed, put a finger underneath his eyes, where a mouth might be, and beeped very quietly. He lifted the cover, and the hiss of cooped up air spilled out. He looked over at Ed.
He was staring into the vent, a crease between his eyebrows. “The fuck is that?” He mumbled.
Stede went into the vent, climbing down the ladder. He gestured for Ed to follow him down.
He did.
-
It’s not.
-
The Book Corridor was one of Stede’s favorites. The shelving alone had taken ages and ages. And the books…
“You transcribed all of these. By hand.”
Yes! Every book in my database. After that, I decided to start writing my own.
“And you’re a cleaning bot?”
I like to believe I’ve outgrown the rudimentary programming.
“Yeah, no shit.” Ed looked around, then pulled his hand over the spines. He plucked a book out, started leafing through. “I’ve not held real books in fuckin’ years. All digital now.”
Stede emitted a very sad, low whistle. Really?
Ed smiled at him. “Yeah. Sucks.” He snapped the book shut. “This all you got? Just books and books throughout your whole… vent system?”
Stede laughed (a clicking, whirling noise), because he simply had to— as if! One thousand years and only one gimmick. He could do better than that.
He wanted to hold out his hand for Ed to take, but wasn’t sure that that was… done. He gesticulated with a good degree of enthusiasm instead.
They wove through the vents, into ducts, out of hatches. Stede wanted to think his thousand years had made him graceful, agile, like knew the vents better than the back of his hand. This, well, it wasn’t not the case—
Ed caught him by the arm, again, as he tripped. “Jesus, Stede. How the fuck are you not totally busted?”
Because he had gotten very good at repairing himself, if he was being honest. He just beeped awkwardly.
They went around one more turn, and ba-bam! Tadah! Sha-bow! It was the Jam Hall. Stede did a skip-step-turn and held his arms out in a grand display. He went, Beep-baaaaahhh!
Ed’s face was scrunched up again, but there was a smile in it. How expressive faces more biological in nature were! He’d forgotten. Or maybe he hadn’t paid as much attention to such things back then. Or maybe it helped that Ed was pleasant to look at.
“Music…?”
The place was littered with instruments, some failed, some successful. Stede whistled and stepped up to his marimba— it wasn’t his finest piece of work, but it was functional, mostly. He tapped out bing bing bing-bong bong—
“Two bits,” Ed sing-songed back. Stede felt a certain amount of sparkiness in the vicinity of his main circuitry. He mildly hoped that wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
Ed picked up a small box— Stede had painted that one bright blue, with flowers. He held the tiny crank jutting from the side between thumb and forefinger, then round, and round, and round—
Stede would have sung along if he could’ve. As it was, he just beeped the tune. But you’ll look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two. What a coincidence— the song he’d had lodged in his head before Ed crashed here.
“Music boxes. You made—” He looked along the wall lined with box after box after box. He giggled, amazed (hopefully). “You made hundreds of music boxes.”
Stede dug his journal out and started writing. Ed leaned over his shoulder to watch as the words appeared. It made the mildly alarming sparky feeling start up again.
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. I only had particular success with music boxes sounding right. Other instruments don’t seem to agree with me.
Ed stared at him. Stede blinked at him. He wrote, I call this vent the Jam Hall.
Ed put a hand on his shoulder. Pat, pat. “Jam Hall? Love that.”
Being touched. ‘ Love that.’ Stede’s ocular expression situation was doing something he didn’t know how to identify. He didn’t remember practicing whatever this was in the mirror.
“Ooh! Your lights turned pink. Are you alright, man? Is that a low battery thing?”
What? What? He looked around. Down at himself. There was pink shining through his jacket, too. Where his reactor light usually glowed blue— yellow, if he was feeling especially awful. Pink hadn’t happened before. You’d think one thousand years of solitude and self-reflection would’ve ensured a guy knew every last bit of himself. Obviously not. Obviously he was capable of malfunctioning in new and creative ways.
Ed was still staring at him. The sparking feeling was starting to verge on perturbing. One of his internal fans kicked on. “Do you have dialogue options for malfunctions?”
Stede could only beep pathetically. He forcibly made himself step away from Ed. He shut his eyes. Calm down. Calm. Calm.
When he opened his eyes, his chest light was shining through the gaps in his jacket the normal, steady blue. He held a thumbs up to Ed. All better.
Ed pursed his lips. “Huh. Easy fix.” He grabbed another music box off the wall and started fiddling with it. “Do you only have the one dialogue? Seems weird.”
Stede shook his head. He shuffled through his meager and rusty options. “Let’s get this place vacuumed up!”
Ed snorted.
“Looking a little dirty— no problem!”
“This is what you’re stuck with?”
“Oopsie-daisies! A spill!” Next: “Let’s get this straightened out!” Next: “Dust: Begone!” Last: “Laundry, watch out, here I come!”
Ed was giggling into a hand. “You’re like if a furby was a cleaning lady.”
Stede wrote in big, blocky letters, IT SUCKS!
Ed threw his head back and cackled.
-
And it’s not like I was lonely or something—
-
Stede held Ed’s hand. He’d never held someone’s hand before. Ed pointed out he was pink again. Stede ignored him for the sake of his sanity.
The gravity always cut away very suddenly around this area. He walked ahead. Ed trailed behind him. Close, close, it was right… about…
His next step didn’t drop to the ground.
He pushed himself into the faulty gravity zone, then pulled Ed right with him. Stede never could figure out why gravity didn’t work in this part of the vents. It went on for a solid mile. He’d spent three months floating aimlessly, once. Just for funzies.
Ed yelped and held on tight to Stede’s arm. He pressed it close to his chest, and Stede was concerned that there would be something melting internally any second now.
“Why the fuck did it just cut out!?”
Bee-beep!
Ed looked him right in the eyes. It was quite a lot. Wow. “How long does this go?”
Stede made one looooong whistle.
“Huh.” Ed stuck out his totally automated hand. It flipped around to the torch. Stede cocked his head curiously.
Ed didn’t just turn the torch on, he let that bastard rip.
They went spiraling madly. Stede screaaaaamed and Ed was laughing maniacally. They whirled through the air, Ed clinging to Stede’s arm, Stede clinging back out of necessity. They spun aimlessly like a top. They’d come close to hitting a wall, and Ed would adjust his aim and they’d go shooting off the other way.
Ed cut the torch and they slowed immensely. A slow twirl, adrift in space. Ed was still cackling. Stede started laughing too— clicks and beeps. “I always wanted to do that when I was working on the ship,” Ed wheezed.
Stede be-be-beeped.
Ed flipped his hand back around to hand and brought it to rest on Stede’s chest. His hair fanned out around them, a halo or a cloud. They orbited around slowly, a very tiny solar system. Ed looked at Stede’s eyes very seriously. His eyebrows weren’t scrunched, and his mouth was a calm, flat line. Stede thought, I wish I could tell you how fantastic you are.
-
It’s been much longer, here, with you, probably.
-
They were in the Auxiliary Closet Corridor. Ed was bundled up amongst lots of old clothes piled upon the floor. He looked snug as a bug. He yawned, big and wide, and Stede looked at his tongue and his teeth and his lips. Ed had to sleep less than most organisms— certainly not daily— but still, occasionally he’d tell Stede it was time for some shut eye, and they’d stop exploring for a little while. Stede had stopped counting the days. He pondered if he could work out how long they’d been exploring the vents based on Ed’s sleeps alone. A week or two, perhaps.
Comfy? Stede wrote.
“Mmhmm,” Ed sighed. Stede wanted to climb in there with him, but he couldn’t physically sleep, anyway.
“Stede?”
Beep?
Ed’s hair was sprawled across a floral nightgown. He had a coat tucked up close under his chin. His eyes were as wide and shiny as the night sky. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Stede started beeping— beep-beep-boop-beeping. It was a nervous habit, he couldn’t help it, or shut the fuck up. The glow coming from his eyes and touching across Ed’s face went from blue to yellow. He shook his head. Nope— no, nothing. Nope.
Ed blinked at him, and Stede didn’t know a blink could be used to say things like “alright, then” and “I don’t believe you.” Perhaps Stede still had a lot of blinking to practice.
“Goodnight, Stede,” Ed said.
Stede wanted to say goodnight back. Out loud. All he could do was beep.
While Ed slept, Stede shuffled through the meager amount of words available to his voice box.
-
One thousand years isn’t long at all. Please believe me.
-
Ball Corridor, Hall Of Snazzy Trinkets, Vent With All The Slime, Stede thought they were making great time on the grand tour. Dare he say it, it was the most fun he’d ever had.
They were walking through a very dark portion, Stede’s eyes worked as flashlights. He’d unlaced his shirt deeply enough that his chest light could shine too. Their hands were clasped again. Stede’s sensors picked up the heat off of Ed’s flesh fingers. Their palms went clink, clink, clink softly as their footsteps jostled them together.
“Stede,” Ed said. “Is— is it getting darker?”
Stede looked over. Ed was crowding close. His other hand was resting on his gun. He looked nervous, eye darting about. Stede stopped walking. He reached out, very, very tentatively touched the side of Ed’s face, turned it towards him.
Ed’s eye was very wide, and very scared.
They’d been working out a few hand signals the past few days. Stede pushed his free hand gently down on the air. It’s okay.
Half of Ed’s face had beard scruff. The other half was a cool platinum. Stede watched as both sides crumpled. Ed’s breaths were coming heavy now. “Stede.”
Stede was beeping. What was wrong? Ed had been fine, maybe a little bit distant today, but—-
There was a ka-klang, ka-klang, ka-klaannngg somewhere distantly in the vents. The planet’s core was moving.
Ed shouted, let go of Stede’s hand and stumbled, backwards, away, into the dark.
The sound Stede made was too dire, too desperate, and too loud to be called a beep.
He stumbled after Ed, feeling frantic. The light coming from him was bright yellow, anxious. What was wrong? What happened?
He had to close his eyes briefly. Calm down. He wouldn’t find Ed if he was making so much noise. If he was too upset, he’d be no use. Calm down.
His optic coverings slid open. His light wasn’t yellow anymore. It was red— solid, mildly scary red. He didn’t have the time to ponder yet another new color. He listened, carefully. Heard a sniffling just down that way, towards the wall…
He approached Ed gingerly. Ed, who was curled up against the wall of the vent. He’d wedged himself on the floor between two pipes. His head was tucked to his knees.
Beep.
Ed looked up, slowly. Stede kneeled before him cautiously.
Ed’s eyes slid back to his knees. “I don’t like the dark,” he said. He looked small.
Stede shuffled forward, until his knee almost touched Ed’s foot.
Ed sniffed, wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. (Stede’s shirt.) (He’d clean it later.) He gestured vaguely to himself. “This happened in the dark.”
Oh.
He heard Ed swallow. “The ship had lost power for three days before—”
Stede laid a hand on Ed’s knee. Beep. Stede wished he could say his name.
Tears were flowing from Ed’s one eye. They shone in Stede’s lights. “I was going to dismantle you.” Ed sobbed. “Today. I was going to take out your hard drive.” He took one long, shaky, hiccuping inhale. “I was going to— to scan it and see what you knew about Captain Thomas’ treasure.”
If a machine could make a sound like a word, Stede made one that sounded like “Oh.”
Ed sobbed again. Stede took his hand off his knee, fished out his journal.
And is that still in the cards?
It took a few moments for Ed to collect himself, wipe his eyes. Stede kept his eyes trained on the notebook so Ed could read it.
“No,” Ed said softly, and it sounded a bit like a beep.
Stede shuffled forward, until his knee pressed against the paddle of Ed’s lower leg. “I’m not a good person, Stede. That’s why I’m alone.”
Now, that just wasn’t bloody true. Stede scooped up Ed’s chin. His one eye was wide and wet, the other was big and black and deep. Stede pointed to himself.
“No— no.”
Stede pressed his thumb against Ed’s lips to quiet him. His flesh gave underneath Stede’s silicon. Stede pointed at himself more firmly.
Ed grabbed Stede’s wrist, pulled his hand up to cradle the side of his face. Stede swiped his thumb across Ed’s cheek. “I don’t want you to be dismantled,” Ed said softly.
Like a heart monitor: beep… beep… beep…
It was difficult to say who pulled or who came first, Ed crawled towards Stede, and Stede scooped him up against his chest. Ed pressed his face into Stede’s shoulder. Stede, very carefully, touched his hair. Ed cried on him, and Stede wondered if he’d have rust spots where his teardrops fell. He’d be okay with it.
Ed slowly calmed down, sniffs making way for slow, steady breathing. Stede’s rhythmic beeps matched with each breath. Peaceful, peaceful. Stede was reminded of the bird that had sat with him for so long that first day alone. He was connected to something else. Breath… breath… beep… beep…
“It really is dark as fuck in here,” Ed eventually rasped.
Stede leaned back on his haunches, pressed down on air. It’s okay. He gathered up his journal and put it into their little bag. Ed was rubbing at his eyes, looking ready to get up, but Stede wasn’t entertaining it.
He scooped under Ed’s legs, around his back. Ed looked askance at him. “Stede?”
Stede played: “Let’s get this straightened out!”
“Wha— ack!”
Stede picked him up. Easy as anything.
Immediately tripped, caught himself.
“Fuck, Stede! I’ll just walk myself.”
A, perhaps, slightly bossy sound emerged from Stede— more of an error message than a beep— and he gripped Ed all the tighter. Ed gave up the squirming, sighed. His head slumped onto Stede’s shoulder.
The only noise for a long stretch of time were Stede’s footsteps, Ed’s breathing, and the occasional hiss of steam or gurgle from the vents. Suddenly, Ed wiped his eyes again. “Sorry. For thinking about killing you.”
Stede looked at him, lit up in red, big eyes looking up at Stede. Stede moved his head down, carefully, until their heads touched. Ed’s eye scrunched up, he gasped this tiny, tiny gasp. Stede’s sensors picked it up and held it as it blew across the bottom of his head.
Beep.
Ed sniffed. His hand softly went clank as it touched the side of Stede’s face. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Beep.”
Stede’s light flickered, pink, then red, then pink, then back to red. He wondered if he was actually malfunctioning. He felt fine. He straightened up and kept walking.
They were coming on a corridor he hadn’t visited in a long, long time. Seven hundred fifty-three years to be exact. It was a painful area to be in; Stede supposed it was because the nature of it had something much too toxic baked in.
Slowly, progressively, spots that glowed silver in the dark started littering the walls. Stede knew their shapes and their intentions. He hadn’t thought about them for a near millennium. They grew multitudinous, so small and intricate some clusters looked like puffs of clouds, meanwhile others were larger than a fist. Clunk, clunk, clunk went Stede’s feet on the vent floor. Quietly, Ed went, “Stars?”
The trinkets started showing up. Models of star boats from ages now gone by, some imperfect telescopes, journals. Many journals. It was his second least favorite place on this planet: a terrible Hope Room.
Ed wiggled and Stede let his legs slide down to the floor. He kept his hands on Stede as he looked around, mouth agape and eyes glowing from the false stars. “Fuck off,” he muttered. He looked back to Stede. “Hey, you’re blue again.”
Stede touched an eye. He hadn’t noticed the change, so focused on Ed as he was. Be-beep.
Ed smiled, then turned away, then, “What the fuck! It’s a stardust skipper. Fuuuuuck me, never thought I’d see one of these that wasn’t torn to shit.” He went over and ran his hands over the little dinghy, the retractable sail, the thruster at the back end. He looked to Stede, starstruck, “Was this Captain Thomas’s?”
Stede froze.
He beeped— some amount of beeps. He was shaky as he fished for his journal. Had he ever been shaky before? Oh, god, he couldn’t remember. Not for the life of him. Oh, god, fuck, oh—
“Hey.”
He looked up. “It’s alright. We both know I know this was his treasure planet.”
Stede was trapped in ice, probably, or he’d rusted over in the last two seconds, never to move again. A very nervous, warbly, beep. Just because they knew he knew Stede knew, that didn’t make Stede equipped to talk about The Secret. He’d spent a very long time practicing Not Talking About It.
Ed extended the sail of the skipper and climbed in. He patted the inside invitingly.
It was the oil to his joints. He went over, hesitated a nanosecond, and climbed in next to Ed, book on his lap. Ed tapped the journal, and Stede flipped to the next clean page.
“So the old captain put a cleaning bot in charge of guard duty?”
Stede started scribbling. Yes, god, I don’t know why.
“You’re capable.”
The light reflecting on the page flashed pink.
“So was this his?”
Stede paused. It was.
Ed’s hands clenched into fists, and Stede had a small crisis about where this was going until Ed giggled high and light and elated. He kicked his feet a little against the wood of the skipper. “That’s so fuckin’ cool!”
Stede laughed back. Is it?
“Yeah, it fuckin’ is. I’m in a legend’s boat! My ass is touching legend ass remenants!”
Stede’s face screwed up of it’s own volition.
“It’s fuckin’ cool! I wanted to be him, as a kid.”
Why? Written in a very heavy hand and underlined twice.
“He was the pirate man! Richer than kings, didn’t take shit from anyone… Seems pretty sick when you’re a kid— to be able to swoop in, grab what you want, and disappear without a trace. How did he do it?”
Stede watched him carefully, then, I’m not supposed to tell you things.
Ed pouted. Stede was neverendingly bewitched by his lips.
A giant door.
“A door?”
Why would you want to be like that complete asshole, anyway? He was horrible!
Ed’s eyebrows rose as he read, then he tittered. “Yeah, of course he was a dick.” He sighed and looked up at the stars. “Guess I didn’t grow up to be far off.”
Oh, to hell with that. Scribbling, a rough poke to the page. Ed looked.
You’re wonderful.
Ed scoffed and looked away. Stede wasn’t having it. He underlined the sentence rather violently, then grabbed Ed’s chin, gently turned his head to the page. The error sound popped out again.
Ed pressed his lips together. His fleshy eye was shining with tears again. “Yeah, well,” he croaked.
You’re wonderful, Ed. All of you.
Ed swallowed, that beautiful movement. The dance of sinew and skin. “Stede…”
Beep?
Ed darted forward, and… and his lips pressed against the side of Stede’s head.
Stede’s internal fan kicked in. He blinked. Kisses were something he’d only read about. And whatever that was, surely hadn’t been that, because— because—?
Ed moved, tilted his head, and planted his lips against the space between Stede’s eyes. The metal side of his lips made a little tink against Stede’s face. He wasn’t an expert, but— Ed cupped his face, Stede turned more towards him, his hand found his shoulder— he was fairly certain this was kissing.
Ed drew back, and the homemade stars watched them as they sat, watching each other.
-
You’ve ruined me. You’ve ruined it.
I don’t want to be alone again.
-
Maybe they spent a little longer in the Constellation Hall than they should’ve. Days kept rushing, tumbling, mixing together. The clock was Ed’s biological one. There was merely what they did when Ed was awake and what Stede did when Ed was asleep. When he was awake it was everything: it was stars and boats and talking and kissing. Ed seemed to have managed to turn the skipper on once, not that they were able to go anywhere. There was also the time when Stede had been picking at a small swath of rust on his arm:
Ed had beckoned with his hand.
Stede looked up at him, confused.
“Gimme. I can probably get it.”
Stede entrusted his arm to Ed. He listened as Ed told him a story about scaring the shit (literally) out of another group of pirates, then robbing them blind with only seven paper clips, a very bad perfume, and a dog costume. When he was done, a section of Stede’s arm was matte black and rust free.
When Ed was asleep, Stede sifted through his dialogue options and practiced. He was getting closer, he could feel it.
“Maybe I could learn to speak beep,” Ed was saying. They were laying on their sides, cooped up together in the skipper.
Stede beeped doubtfully. He slid one arm to lock tighter around Ed’s torso. He wanted something. He didn’t know what.
“You don’t think I can. See? I’m already half fluent. I’m gonna make you eat your beeps.” He wiggled closer, close enough that their legs had to tangle to retain the lack of distance.
Stede let out a low trill. He probably would. Ed could do anything, Stede was certain.
Ed looked up at him through his lashes, his other eye cradled the stars.
Stede wished he had the ability to kiss.
Ed must’ve heard his thoughts somehow, through the static of their corner of the universe, because he shimmied forward and pressed his lips to the space under Stede’s eyes. He was blinking as he leaned back, a wink by default. Stede fought the urge to wink back.
“How much of that can you feel?” Ed whispered. Stede’s sensors picked up on the heat from his breath as it ghosted over his face.
Stede had to wriggle his hand up between them. Two fingers pinched together, then they yaaawned wide open. Many, a lot, most, all. I feel everything you give me, Ed.
Ed had this way of humming, it almost seemed like a purr. He did it now, pressed impossibly closer to Stede. He kissed him again. Another peck. Stede swooped his hand down Ed’s back, then back up, making his shirt wrinkle and Ed’s lungs sigh. He pushed his hand back down— Ed’s shirt had ridden up. Stede kept his hand pressed to where Ed was exposed. He felt the heat of skin under his thumb and forefinger. His palm felt the coolness of steel plating. Ed sighed again.
A hand pawed gently at the front of Stede’s shirt. “Why do you always wear clothes? Like the feel?”
Stede considered this thoroughly. He shrugged. There’s an amount of safety in clothes, isn’t there? Keeps you wrapped up in yourself.
Ed undid one of Stede’s buttons.
Stede made a sound like a hiccup, or an electronic heart skipping a beat.
He slipped the hand on the small of Ed’s back up under his shirt. He flicked a finger into the groove of a panel, against the seam where metal met flesh. Ed gasped and moved his hips closer, close enough that Stede could pick up the warmth of his pelvis through their clothes. Ed undid another button.
“Can I touch your reactor?” Ed asked. Another button.
Stede moved his hand again, fingertips digging in slightly as he trailed them down, down. They swirled across Ed’s back, to stroke down the side of his hip. Stede had read of lovers pressing thighs against intimate places in many books. He always wondered what it felt like. He pressed his leg gently upwards, until it felt Ed. Ed made a sound, and everything felt momentous, volcanic, yet it was a little bird, precious and small, delicate and scared. Stede wanted to be Ed’s perch. He beeped and nodded. Touch me anywhere, darling.
Ed’s lips connected with Stede’s face. His fingers connected with Stede’s reactor. A sudden shock, like accumulated static. Ed made a breathy sound against Stede as he mouthed at him. Two fingers, metal, clinked around the outside of the reactor. They pressed against it again zzt! The spark seemed to shoot straight through Stede and fizz out the other side. Like a hit of Ed that shot him right through the heart. Felt absolutely lovely. He made a strange, warbling sound, and instinct— did he have that? Did machines have such a thing?— took over. He grabbed a handful of Ed’s ass and brought his hips roughly against himself.
“Ah, fuck,” Ed’s tongue left Stede’s surface for but a moment before it was back, wet, hot, heavy. He sent another zing! into Stede’s heart.
Ed’s hips were rolling against Stede in a rhythm. He was trying to resist beeping in time with them and failing spectacularly. Zing, zap, zing. Roll, thrust, roll. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Ed made a high-pitched noise. Stede wanted to trap it within himself, let it bounce around his metal shell for the rest of eternity. He rolled them, until Ed was underneath him, thrusting upwards, hand latched firmly to Stede’s reactor. Stede used his newfound leverage to grind down on Ed— was this giving him more? Was it giving him too much?
Ed choked on a sound, and his free hand whipped around to scrabble at Stede’s back. He sent two shocks into Stede, not even a quarter of a second between them, zip zip! Stede wanted more, he wanted all of it. He wanted to crack them both open and intertwine their wires. He wanted Ed’s flesh and his servos and bolts. He wanted both eyes and both lips. Ed cried Stede’s name and jerked in the middle of a kiss. His teeth knocked against Stede’s face with a clack.
Stede pulled his face back. Had that hurt him? Was Ed hurt? He be-be-be-beeped at him. Not that Ed would understand. He cupped his face, so gently. Ed was bathed in red light. Stede thought he looked like a flower.
“‘M okay, babe,” Ed panted, eye shut. Maybe he had understood. Maybe he was already fluent in Stede. Stede moved his hand to cup his neck instead. “Pull—” Ed gasped. He groaned. “Pull my hair, Stede.”
Stede made a fist at the nape of his neck, all of this hair gathered up within it. He squeezed it, pulled oh-so-slightly. Ed cried out. His hand was shocking. His hips were rolling. He was red. He was a rose blooming under starlight. He was Stede’s Ed in this moment. In this moment, which a millennium was all built up for. He’d been waiting for someone to steal something. He’d been waiting for Ed.
Stede caught hold of Ed’s hand as it clutched wildly— at the skipper, at Stede— and pressed it up above his head. He pulled the hair tighter. The electricity shooting through his core was so fast, it was a constant stream. A stream of him and Ed. Stede was blissed out, maxed out. There was a deep thrumming coming from inside his chest. He hoped, if he exploded, that he wouldn’t hurt Ed at all.
Ed was growing noisier, Stede noted through his blissed-out, whited-out state. His head thrashed— as little as it could— against Stede’s hold. His legs couldn’t seem to stay still. “Stede— fuck, man— shit— as soon as we can, we’re f-finding you a— mmm— a strap-on and— ah— ah—”
Stede pressed their heads together. Beep.
Ed whimpered. “Beep,” he said back.
Stede was a little busy short-circuiting, but he was aware enough to watch as Ed’s orgasm welled up and washed over him like one great wave. Stede had never seen anything like it. How odd fleshy bodies are that they could do this strange malfunction. How lucky Stede was to see Ed perform it. A very small exploding star right in front of him. His rose was blooming.
The electricity was dying down from Ed’s fingers, and Stede slowed his hips, gentled them. Gentled his hands where they touched Ed. He smoothed his fingers over Ed’s now happily limp hand. The static left as Ed’s other hand dropped. Stede cupped his face, two hands (he had to hold him completely). His sensors were registering wetness around the pelvic region through the clothes.
Beep?
Ed’s eye fluttered open. He touched Stede’s face (right where he’d been kissing) and smiled. “Beep boop,” he mumbled. His fingers moved across Stede’s chin (as it was— his sort-of chin, perhaps) and he chuckled. “Got you wet right here.”
Stede was fully aware. It was enormously sexy. He beeped about it.
Ed giggled and smoothed his hand down Stede’s chest. “Did that feel good? You acted like it did.”
An incredibly enthusiastic and maybe too loud BEEP!
Ed grinned, looking between Stede’s eyes. Stede found it difficult to process what he was feeling. He narrowed on the most negative thought— comfortable territory and all that. Did Ed enjoy it? He hadn’t been, well, playing it up to be kind?
A very small and nervous, beep?
“Yeah, no shit it felt good.” He pressed his hips up against Stede’s. “If you can’t tell by the mess.”
Stede laughed. Relief. Oh, he was delighted, and embarrassed, and amazed and every other thing. He sat back on his haunches, and unbuttoned his shirt.
“The strip show is supposed to come before the intercourse, babe” Ed said, lying with his hands tossed carelessly above his head, languid and satiated.
Stede shucked off his shirt and brought it towards Ed’s crotch. He beeped questioningly.
Ed looked sleepy. He raised his eyebrow. “What? Mate, I can’t go again that soon—”
Error sound. Stede made a wipe-wipe motion with his hand. God, if he could just speak. How much easier life would be.
“Wh— You— you want to clean me off?”
A vigorous nod.
A very small, “oh,” and then a, “yeah, alright.”
Ed watched him silently as he unzipped his flies, took him out, soft and sensitive, and gently wiped him off. Stede was feeling sparks of soft adoration for a flaccid penis. Let alone the rest of the individual, who was wide-eyed and…
Beep beep?
Ed was wiping at his eye. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he croaked.
Stede finished what he was doing quickly, tossing his shirt and deftly tucking Ed’s cock back into his trousers. He refastened them and came back down to the bottom of the skipper, lying on his side once more.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Ed said smally. He turned to Stede, grabbed his hand, and tucked it under his cheek.
Very carefully, he pulled up the bit of dialogue, fast forwarded through the first word, and let the rest play: “—I’m STEDE. Your cleanly companion!”
Ed snorted, then dissolved into giggles. Stede went with him. They giggled together in their little boat under the stars.
Time passed sluggishly as they talked (relatively. Stede would say he was getting quite good at this whole communication thing!) Some of his books had talked about “pillowtalk” before. There was a distinct lack of pillows, but he was certain this probably counted. He was pillowtalking, with the most beautiful man in the universe, after a thousand years of never having talked at all. Talk about whiplash.
“Hey,” Ed whispered.
Beep boop?
“What if we just— we took some of the treasure together? And flew off?”
Some of Stede’s internal processes cut off. His mind went blank.
What?
“You don’t want to be here for another thousand years— and the fucker is long dead. We could go off together, escape.” Ed’s face took on a wistful quality. “Buy a fancy ship and run away to the other side of the galaxy.”
Leave?
He stuttered out some sort of sound. Ed was continuing, “We could restart, reset… We wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.” He laid one hand on Stede’s chest, the other touched his face.
You’re gonna rot here alone on this fucking planet, and you’re going to do one job right.
“What do you say?” Ed said, and he sounded so vulnerable, and so delicate.
Leave. He could… leave.
He nodded his head, exactly once.
“Yes?” Ed was lighting up like the day. He was the most beautiful creature in the galaxies. Stede didn’t deserve him.
Stede nodded again.
“Yes!” Ed leaned forward and gave him another kiss— this one went clunk, smek!— and he was still all encompassing. He, Stede was starting to suspect, would always be. “We’ll take the skipper, only take as much treasure as we can carry, and we’ll fly off.”
That… that could work. It could. And Ed, and him… Be-beep.
Ed was grinning. He was glowing. “Okay. Okay. Let me sleep first, and then we’ll do it. Go time.”
Stede slid his hand along Ed’s side. Go time. He nodded once more, and beeped goodnight to Ed, who fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Leave?
-
I’ve been thinking, about time, through this long, long time. When you’re alone, it sludges, it folds. There’s nothing to act against to cause reaction. You fold into yourself, hibernate within your own mind. You change, but it’s so slow that you don’t notice it. Then there’s an opposing force. Then there was you. Everything changed. A big bang within my chest.
-
He was sleeping awful long, wasn’t he? It was so quiet. Why was it so quiet? Couldn’t they have been camped out in the Music Hall? He needed— he needed to move about. That was what he needed.
Stede extracted himself from Ed’s arms carefully. He mumbled something, but didn’t wake. Stede watched his face, half relaxed in sleep. The ocular lens never closed, it seemed to watch Stede expectantly, Where are you going?
Ed was lit up in soft, wavering yellow. Stede thought, Just need to stretch my legs, that’s all.
Stede wandered the vent. A nervous clicking was tick, tick, ticking away inside of him. Was he broken? Maybe he needed fixed.
Everything in here was covered with dust, except where Ed had touched. Where he’d touched with Ed. He’d made many model ships. Painstakingly glued teensy parts together and imagined them growing to a hundred times their size, so he could fly away. He hadn’t thought the skipper worked.
He hadn’t tried to fix it.
His hand hovered over one ship. He touched the tip of its mast, then ran a finger down the solar sail. He’d built this one only a hundred years into his isolation. He had been so frustrated that he couldn’t get the weathering right; he hadn’t had the skill down yet.
Stede picked the ship up and turned it over in his hands. He’d have thought the memory would seem distant, but, he supposed, a machine doesn’t go fuzzy at the edges, does it?
This was a replica— of Captain Thomas’ last ship.
The one that was still buried within the pit of the planet.
Stede picked a clump of dust off the deck. Technically speaking, Stede was part of Captain Thomas’ great treasure. He’d been stolen from a starlet’s home on Thomas’ way out from a hookup. Stede thought he might’ve had an amount of affection for the woman, because he always kept Stede around, never shut him off— despite Stede’s clumsiness and penchant for florals. He was a memento of sorts. A strange one— most people would keep a bra or a necklace, not an especially meek vacuum cleaner.
Maybe it was this deranged affection that made Thomas use his dying breaths on Stede. Not in a kind way, obviously. ‘ You’re gonna rot here alone on this fucking planet, and you’re going to do one job right.’ And: ‘If you let anyone through the door I’ll come back and tear you apart bolt by bolt myself.’ And other such sweet nothings. He was a machine, with a single job to do.
He looked over at Ed in the skipper, then up at the stars. They were accurate to the night sky when he’d painted them. Charted them all and spent painstaking hours blotting them all to the ceiling. He’d pictured which systems he’d run away to.
He looked back down at the ship in his hands.
He’d forgotten, maybe. He’d been alone with own ideas so long that he’d forgotten he was just a machine. Designed to follow simple commands. He wasn’t meant to think for himself.
He needed some air.
He started walking— it would just be a short walk. He’d come back. He’d just been— he’d been too cooped up. He’d been in this hall too long. There was a hatch to the surface right above the skipper; if Ed needed out before Stede got back he could get out. Stede just needed a walk. He needed some air. Not that he could breathe it, of course, but—
Ed fast asleep behind him and eyes flickering yellow, Stede walked away, deep into the vents.
-
Stede’s feet were operating on a program all their own. Stede wasn’t privy to where they were taking him. If he was honest, he wasn’t privy to much outside his own frantic mind.
For the first time in centuries, memories of Before were sweeping him away. Swirling, desperate, violent oceans from Captain Thomas’ home planet. He hadn’t been built to be fully waterproof, and Stede had always broken when he took the ship back to his home. Maybe this was why he was like this— replacing bits of him again and again had ruined his original programming. Maybe that was when he’d started having the gall to have a mind of his own.
Stede tripped, and ran face first into a wall. He beeped miserably and rubbed his head. Ow.
Ow?
He pulled his hand away and looked down at it. When had that become a thing? To hurt? To feel? It was all data input: heat and pressure only. When had he decided to start feeling pain?
When had he decided to feel pleasure?
He wasn’t, was the answer. He wasn’t feeling anything. You don’t decide to start feeling things. You’re born doing so, or you aren’t. Stede wasn’t. He’d always been derided and degraded so often before he’d been left alone— he had too much personality for a cleaning service. He had too many thoughts for something that wasn’t alive. It was a bad thing.
Stede was feeling sick (another thing machines aren’t actually capable of doing). He wanted— he wanted— he needed to go home.
Home, he realized with a start, was where his feet had been taking him all this time. He looked up the ladder to the hatch located in the corner of his second parlour. He was home.
One by one he climbed the rungs and thought of Ed. He hadn’t felt what had happened— it had been a series of feedback. It was data lodging itself into his hard drive. He had always been a machine. Ed had been all flesh at the beginning.
Stede stood in his parlour. He’d always had a certain favor for this room. It was especially cozy, with nice happy yellows and darling blues.
It felt bleak.
He felt wrong within himself. He felt wrong within his house— a place he’d spent a thousand years perfecting.
He stood dumbly in the middle of the room for some time before he finally beeped.
I’m home.
He decided, after much more standing and staring, that his routine was the answer. It was why he was feeling so out of sorts in the first place, surely. One thousand years. He knew the answer to staying sane was his routine. He’d sussed it out long ago. Routine was key!
He went to the closet, shucked off his pants, and didn’t think about where his shirt was. He chose a new shirt, loose and lacy, and stood in front of the mirror for a long moment. You could see his reactor core through the material. The sight felt revolting at this present moment. He plucked up a thick coat and buttoned it up, nice and snug. No blue glow, no yellow glow. (There wouldn’t have been a red or a pink, anyway.)
Dressed, he sat in front of his vanity— was this the order he did it in, usually? Maybe this was already backwards. He didn’t know.
He missed Ed.
He wasn’t going to go back.
Ed was better off. And Stede was stuck where he belonged. He was doing what a machine was designed to do.
The same thing, ad infinitum.
Forever.
Anyway.
He focused on his face. He closed both eyes, opened them. Closed one eye, then the other. He raised both eyebrows, he lowered both eyebrows.
He touched his chin. It wasn’t wet anymore. It hadn’t been wet for some time now. He touched his arm under his coat, the place that was black now. Black and no longer rusting.
This was useless. What did he always do next? Journaling, right, journaling. Everyday he wrote something down. It was his oldest routine. It should be the most ingrained.
He stood up, glanced around, and remembered.
He’d left his journal with Ed. Right. Of course.
He made a shaky little sound. He could just fetch a fresh one. Start over.
Reset, Ed whispered into his mind.
He kept all of his journals in the attic. They lined the walls and sat in boxes and accumulated in waist-high piles. The sheer volume of the volumes meant that some of the load was starting to creep out of merely the attic and was creeping threateningly down the stairs. Stede passed all of these, and started roaming the room. Surrounded by his own thoughts, quite literally. He wasn’t sure he liked it. Then he got frustrated at feeling things so much, and picked up a journal at random.
He flipped it open. The pages had gone yellow with age. This was one of his older volumes. He randomly selected a section and read:
I’ve been really considering ways to get off this planet, recently. I’d considered carving SOS into the planet’s surface initially. But that was rather stupid, if I’m being honest. Who would even see it out here! Anyway, I’ve been drawing up plans for a giant slingshot that would
He slammed the journal shut and tossed it across the room. He picked up another with a certain level of vitriol. Flip, flip, started reading:
Today I hit my finger really hard with a hammer— YEOUCH, as they say. Not much else to report there. So, I’ve been pondering the possibility (great alliteration there!) of building some sort of tower of babel. If I went high enough, I could maybe start exiting the gravitational pull
An angry beep and that journal hit the wall hard enough to rattle a nearby stack of books. Not only was he full of hope, apparently, he was also blindingly stupid. Lovely! He picked up another one. He swore on all that was holy that if this was about escaping—
Today I transcribed a book that was most likely about mortality and life cycles. I’ve not really much use for such ideas, but I was terribly fascinated with the book's take on love. It talked a lot of “taming.” Roses, foxes, and such. I found this interesting. Many books speak of love in regards to ownership or these great big feelings. This one seems to posit that it’s an action to love someone, you tame them. In return they love and tame you. It’s a mutual transaction almost. You will change each other. It proceeds to say that if you engage in the act of loving someone, you are responsible for that love. You are responsible for having changed them. They are responsible for having changed you. It seems fascinating to me. Also, perhaps, appealing. I’ll never experience it, obviously, but it’s quite the thing to contemplate! I’m
Stede stopped reading. He stared unseeing at the book for a long, long, moment. He remembered the book he’d transcribed. He remembered, more vividly, Ed in red.
He took the journal with him as he ventured back downstairs, into the closet. He found the dress. It still had the pins in it. Still was crystallized in Ed’s shape. He thought of Ed, lit in red with water in his eyes, and Ed, lit in red, blooming. He thought, very carefully, the singular word: love.
Oh.
Wow.
He unbuttoned his coat until it stopped blocking out his reactor light. It glowed red gently through the material of his shirt. He touched it, and thought of Ed’s fingers pressing against it. Love— that was new.
The thought made pink ripple through his light, and it wasn’t even a malfunction. He looked up and around him, at a millennia of loneliness, accumulated and solidified into a home. A millennia of a person forming from nothing. Ed hadn’t always been half machine, and Stede, well. Stede hadn’t either.
He stood up, shucked off his coat. He was going back to Ed.
And he was getting off this damn planet.
He went over to his drawer of notepads— he’d need some fresh paper if they were going to be sailing off into the stars, obviously. There was the question of how many to take, of course—
BOOM.
Stede froze. Pencils and cups on the desk began to rattle— his glasses fell to the floor and shattered. Very, very slowly, Stede looked down.
The core of the planet was moving, shaking, throwing a tantrum.
Thomas’ self destruct had been initiated.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Stede shoved a single notepad and a pencil into his pocket and made a mad dash back to the hatch in the parlour. Fuck. Fuck! He hadn’t thought Ed had the key (of course he did, why else would he have come here) or would’ve been able to figure out how to open the portal to the heart of the planet (of course he had; Ed is a genius).
Of course, even if Ed had figured out how to open the portal, there was only one living soul in the whole stinking universe who knew about the booby trap: Stede.
He threw open the hatch and scrambled down the ladder. Obviously Thomas wasn’t going to let anyone have his treasure, even after the rotten bastard had been long dead. If someone had found the key to his portal— his secret to how he could swoop in from nowhere and vanish without a trace— and then proceeded to avoid being stopped by Stede and then figured out how to open the portal, he’d set up a sensor to the entrance of his lair. Anything biological that passed through would set the whole planet to self destruct. Stede, Thomas’ corpse, and fifty years worth of treasure looted from the whole galaxy were going to be blown to kingdom come.
Stede ran through the vents, tremors from the core jostled him as he went. He beeped in panic as he stumbled into the wall. Manifestly, a man who cares that blasted much about his unimaginable wealth he’ll never even use kept a backup door. If the portal had ever been damaged, Thomas would have been able to still access his treasure. He, of course, hadn’t told Stede about this— one thousand years of wandering a planet bored had just led him, quite naturally, to the back door.
He pitched into the keypad and typed in the passcode. (Thomas’ birthday, what else would it be?) The seal around the hatch released with a steamy, dusty hissssss. Stede heaved it open, and looked in.
Well, no liquid metal was dripping down, so that was good. It looked as it always had: a dingy gray chute that dumped you out core-side. Stede didn’t stop to think. He hopped in and slid with a screaaaaaaam.
-
He landed on a pile of shivering coins. He got his wits about him and looked up and around. It was as it always was, a great spread of coins and shining jewels and other such delights coating the whole mini-planet encased within the greater one. The treasure was deep enough to wade in. Stede had always hated this place, wondering when he’d be shut off and left to rot amongst a billion dubloons. The core was breaking off into sections as giant lasers blasted their way through its surface. Gold was melting down to nothing— the whole place was being riddled down to molten metal.
He stood up and looked around frantically. Nerves wracked up in his chest. Was he already dead? No, no Ed wasn’t dead. He felt it, somehow, somewhere, deep inside. They were gonna get off this planet.
All of his practice had led up to this, it was go-time. He pulled up his dialogue script, and with practiced grace fast-forwarded and paused in just the right order to say: “Eh-d!”
He ran through the money-warzone without a hint of coordination. It was more of a dramatic, flailing, beeping skittering this way and that. The longer he failed to find Ed, the more he wondered if he’d already gotten out, or worse.
The ground suddenly gave way and Stede had to jump and perform a stellar bellyflop onto unforgiving diamonds to avoid falling into a brand-new molten cavern. Thomas’ ship, no doubt still bearing his crusty, mummified bones, sailed right by Stede, teetered on the edge of a drop, and took a swan dive to its fiery demise. Good fucking riddance.
“Eh-d!” He cried with his volume turned up as high as it could go. The strain made his old speakers crackle. God, where was he? And how was Stede ever gonna find him in all of this?
A corpse of another bot that hadn’t been as lucky as Stede slid out and clattered down the Canyon of Death, and right behind it was another bot, this one with— hair.
“Eh-d!” Stede ran to Ed, who wasn’t conscious. He slid with the tide of the gold, caught on the lip of the edge, and started… slipping…
Stede caught him by the ankle just as he went over. He pulled him up in a frenzy, a gibbering of nervous beeps tumbling out of him. Ed. Ed. Ed.
He pulled Ed to his chest, and held his head. It was red and dripping above his eyebrow. He tapped his cheek. “Ed.” He beeped in a pleading sort of way, wake up.
Ed’s face scrunched, then he winced, then his eye opened. He blinked up at Stede. His face did something very complicated.
“Ed,” Stede said again.
Ed raised his hand…
Stede beeped softly…
Ed smacked Stede upside the head.
Stede beeped in shock. Ow! And Why!?
“Yooooouuuuu fucking dick,” Ed said, clutching at his wounded skull. “You left me.”
Stede beeped irately. This was not the time.
“Whatever, I’m getting out of here myself. I hope you explode.” Ed was stumbling to his feet. His eye was teary, and he wasn’t looking at Stede.
He started trudging away and Stede followed beeping at him. “No, fuck off— I said fuck off!” Which seemed unnecessarily rude. Stede had just had the epiphany that he was in love with him. He didn’t appreciate being written off so quickly. For one, he, notably, did come back.
A rumbling sort of noise, an extreme trembling of the ground. It was so violent it made his joints rattle. He looked back— another laser, massive and looming, and approaching.
“ED!”
“And when the fuck did you learn how to talk? Another thing you were fucking lying abo—”
Stede flew into Ed and sent them both careening out of the path of the laser. Ed went further, landing on his back with a dull thud. Stede landed much closer than truly ideal. He scrambled for purchase to crawl away, but the ground was tilting, and his heat sensors were in overdrive. He grasped and he reached, but there was no winning in this situation. Everything was working against him, right now. Seemed a little unfair, honestly—
Stede screamed. All his leg felt was white hot, burning pain. Then, not much at all down there. Stede thought: this sucks and oh god I think my foot is gone and oh god I’m going to die here and well this might as well have happened today all— impressively— simultaneously. A day of many feelings and many thoughts, you could say.
“Stede!”
Stede paused his moment of footless wallowing and looked up to see Ed running towards him, coins flying. He dropped to his knees in front of him and scooped Stede towards him. “Why did you— shhhhit your foot!”
Stede beeped with a touch of melodrama. My FOOT.
“Aaaahhh fuck, alright. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Stede beeped and Ed pulled them to their feet. Well. Steded looked down. Foot. Damn.
Ed looped Stede’s arm around his shoulders, tucked his own around Stede’s waist. They started off at a swift hobble. Stede, for his part, was finding it exceptionally easy to deal with the loss of his foot and longtime home if he just focused on Ed’s face. So that’s what he did, with, some would say, reckless adoration.
Ed side-eyed him. “I’m still pissed off at you.”
Stede beeped sadly and looked down at their feet, wading quickly through rapidly disappearing wealth. He looked back up at him. Beep boop.
The side-eye turned into a side-glare. “Yeah, fuckin’ beep-boop yourself.”
Stede whistled, slightly defeated.
Everything was getting shakier now. Stede thought that if Captain Thomas had had a sense of humor, there would’ve been an overhead voice languidly saying, “Total planetary destruction in T-minus—” As it was, there was only the sound of a planet’s core being set to blow the whole kit and kaboodle to smithereens. Which, frankly, was a horrible sound, and Stede could have done right about now with some jaunty music, or a soothing voice, or—
“There’s the door!” Ed cheered.
Stede let out a string of happy noises. There was the door! The portal looked like it always had: triangular and foreboding, opening to somewhere else. It was open to the planet’s surface right now, Stede could just make out the skipper. God, they were gonna make it out of here. He was going to make it out of here. With his new boyfriend. Assuming Ed was interested in such a thing. Stede was feeling somewhat comfortable presupposing— after all Ed not letting him explode and die along with the rest of the planet seemed pretty positive.
Ed’s paddle-feet started slipping the more the ground tilted. Every step was a fucking battle— Stede felt completely useless with only one foot. Shit, fuck, damn, and many other words of distress. They tripped their way through the portal, falling into a heap on the ground. Stede took a moment (that they didn’t really have) to blink up at the sky.
The ground was shaking beneath them, and this was the last time he was going to look at this sky, with any luck, the last time he’d look at this sun.
“If you were gonna leave me you could’ve at least left a note about the fucking booby trap!” Ed bitched with fervor as he pried himself off of Stede and stood up.
Stede knew he wasn’t gonna miss this sky. He sat up and started crawling after Ed. He beeped at him indignantly.
“Like you didn’t know I was gonna fuckin’ go after the treasure. Sure!” Ed was getting real steamed up. He marched over to the skipper with purpose. He put his hand on the engine, then pulled the cord to start it with a vengeance.
Stede beeped back. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, admittedly!
Ed yanked on the cord again. Stede paused. It hadn’t taken him that many pulls for it to start last time. “No, you just go home to change your stupid shirt!”
He pulled one last time, and it sputtered to life with a rumbling growl— Stede couldn’t even be upset over Ed calling his shirt stupid, he was so relieved that the damn thing… started…?
Putputputputput..put…put……. put…..
Stede watched in horror as the thruster died without even so much as a toodle loo. Stede and Ed looked at each other. They were fucked.
The ground started shaking with new purpose, off in the distance, there was one great KRA-KOOM and Stede knew that was the surface of the planet beginning to break apart. Ed sagged, rested a hand against the skipper. “Stede,” he said, and it sounded hollow.
Whatever approximation to a heart Stede had dropped.
He looked from Ed, to the portal, to the skipper, to Ed’s hand laying heavily on the thruster. Something click, click, clicked slowly, then all at once into place in his mind. He whistled, high and excited. When Ed looked at him he pointed at his hand, then at the thruster, beeping emphatically.
Stede could tell the exact moment Ed understood. He looked down at the thruster, then back up at Stede. “There’s no way. It’d cause immediate full thrust, there’s no way we could take off safely. We’d just shoot straight into…” His eye went wide.
Stede beeped at the same time Ed said, “The portal!”
Just then, the rumbling gave way to a crack that formed in the crust of the planet, slowly, only fifty meters out, the world started to peel away from itself, glowing from deep within as the planet’s core became a combusting inferno.
Stede and Ed looked at each other. Ed looked hopeful. “Can you get to the key?”
Stede whistled, winked.
Ed grinned and climbed up into the skipper. He started battling with the cord again. Stede left him to it and began crawling as quickly as he could to the little ball of light not twenty feet away. It was a hologram of the whole galaxy, a doorbell to the giant door. All Stede would need to do is pick a place, far, far, far away from here. Preferably a station, so they could catch a new ship, because the skipper wasn’t going to last them, and—
Fucking hell he was one slow crawler.
Maybe he crawled at normal speeds, or possibly even above-normal speeds, but with the shaking and the noise and the fact that the ground was heating up beneath him— fuck, was it slow! He glanced behind him to see Ed swearing colorfully at the thruster engine and the ground menacingly splitting in two. This day had really gone to shit, hadn’t it?
Finally, he made it to the map. He started scrolling rapidly. The galaxy had no doubt changed in the thousand years he’d been away, so he scrolled to Captain Thomas’ home planet— Montressor was as good a place as any, probably. He hit it. Ding dong— the view through the portal was no longer a molten hellscape. It was a blue planet, floating peacefully through space.
Time to backpedal. He needed to get back to the skipper before—
He turned to see the ground broken and yawning not even a meter away from the skipper and Ed.
Ed ripped the cord one more time, and finally the engine came back to life. His hand flipped to the torch, and he stuck it right in the barrel of the thruster. It worked like a charm, it came bursting to fiery life. Ed screamed, “FUCK!” and pulled his hand away. The ground gave out under Ed, but it didn’t matter, the skipper was off like a shot. On a course straight for the portal, too far away from Stede. He wasn’t making it.
Stede had a split second moment to accept his fate, before the skipper… turned… slightly.
He didn’t have time to wonder what the hell Ed was doing. One second he was over there, and the next he was at Stede. The skipper tilted onto its side, fully perpendicular to the ground. Ed’s foot was planted in the dirt, one arm and one foot braced against the little boat for dear life. Stede’s arm was being grabbed, and Ed grunted with the strain as the skipper did a quarter loop around them. He kicked off the ground and let the momentum throw them both into the skipper as it leveled out. They were off in a flash.
Stede sat up and watched in awe. Ed had steered them right on course. They flew over the rupturing planet and rocketed through the portal.
Everything slowed. If Stede could breathe, he’d assume this is what it felt like. Everything cleared away for clear, calm… space.
Ed and Stede turned and watched the planet continue its demolition. A huge explosion erupted and threw heat into their faces— and then the portal disappeared.
It was gone.
It was all gone.
For good.
Stede started giggling, a tittering sort of noise. He turned to Ed. Giggles were met with giggles. Happy was met was happy. Stede was met with Ed.
With now-practiced grace he said Ed’s name and threw himself at him. Touched their heads together, mindful of Ed’s bloody bits. He tangled one hand up in Ed’s hair. He wished for lips, but Ed kissed him anyway.
“When the fuck did you learn to talk, anyway?”
Stede beeped and— oh, writing, yes he could do that. He fished the notebook and pencil out of his pocket. The pencil was broken and the notebook had warped slightly from the heat exposure, but it was usable.
I can only say your name. I’ve been practicing for a few weeks.
Ed stared at it for a few moments. “Oh,” he croaked.
Stede cupped his cheek. He tried to look at Ed meaningfully and telegraph the more-kissing-please desire from his brain to Ed’s brain. Ed looked fully prepared to heed the message, and then he pulled away. “You left.”
Stede’s shoulders sagged. He picked up the pencil. His hand dithered for a moment. He started writing a few different things, then crossed them all out.
I was scared.
Ed pressed his lips together and looked away. “I was all in,” he said softly.
And I panicked. Stede stared at the sentence and beeped softly. I’d been there so long, Ed. I didn’t know how to move on.
Ed huffed. “Yeah, well, not much choice now.”
Stede put a hand on Ed’s. I would have come back anyway. Ed, I lov
Ed grabbed his hand, forced his pencil to stop. He was staring resolutely at the page.
Gently, Stede pried Ed’s hand away. He turned to a new page, and in big, giant letters.
I love you.
Ed’s bottom lip quivered. Stede circled the words once, twice, three times, around and around. Ed sniffled and pushed the notebook out of Stede’s hands. It tumbled to the bottom of the skipper and Stede received an armful of Ed. He rested his face against Stede’s shoulder, and Stede, gently, rested his head against Ed’s. “Was still a dick move,” Ed mumbled.
Stede beeped in agreement. They’d slowed to a rest, caught up in Montressor’s orbit. “Ed,” Stede said softly.
“Beep,” Ed whispered back.
-
You were worth the wait.