[They were an enigma when he first found them. Because they were like him. Because they weren't, and their logic and language filled in the gaps between Carl's tired smile and the electric pulsebeat in his chest, eclipsing the edges of his own Roche Limit. He saw their pain, felt their fear, rolling it over his fingertips when they gripped him like a lifeline.
He could have left Simon— left Jericho alone. But when he thinks about what it would’ve been like for them in the end, he
Levels his hand. Flattens his cheek into the cupped curve of Simon’s palm and bears down with the welding iron to clean raw metal, carving away portions of defining structure until it starts to hollow out into a subtly pitted socket.
The coarse scuff of simulated hair catching tight across Simon’s casing as Markus winds himself into that thieving hold. Heavy, like he doesn’t want to move. Languid from the neck down.
But inevitably he does, a handful of minutes later when the heat of the iron doesn’t cut it anymore. Tugs himself out of Simon’s smoldering grip, removed entirely at last. Because has to crane his neck lower, his forearms flat, to secure longer wires in bundles near the incurvature high against Simon's inner abdomen walls. The intimacy of their prior connection doing nothing to offset how medical a procedure it is now. How much focus Markus dutifully turns towards preconstructing where each section of integral jointwork should be reattached. How he feels out with firm fingers the areas most scored from friction, avoiding their borders and clearing away the pitfalls of early stage human design. Sculpting and carving and recasting, limited tools hampering each minuscule adjustmeent.
Sanding the last of the seams. Taking up the heavy plastic and metal mass of the CX100’s leg at last, two fingers still smoothly settled along the inseam to keep the process of attachment precise.]
Well, [Markus starts, tone drier than the stained span of his hands.] when I start to fall apart, we’ll call it even.
no subject
He could have left Simon— left Jericho alone. But when he thinks about what it would’ve been like for them in the end, he
Levels his hand. Flattens his cheek into the cupped curve of Simon’s palm and bears down with the welding iron to clean raw metal, carving away portions of defining structure until it starts to hollow out into a subtly pitted socket.
The coarse scuff of simulated hair catching tight across Simon’s casing as Markus winds himself into that thieving hold. Heavy, like he doesn’t want to move. Languid from the neck down.
But inevitably he does, a handful of minutes later when the heat of the iron doesn’t cut it anymore. Tugs himself out of Simon’s smoldering grip, removed entirely at last. Because has to crane his neck lower, his forearms flat, to secure longer wires in bundles near the incurvature high against Simon's inner abdomen walls. The intimacy of their prior connection doing nothing to offset how medical a procedure it is now. How much focus Markus dutifully turns towards preconstructing where each section of integral jointwork should be reattached. How he feels out with firm fingers the areas most scored from friction, avoiding their borders and clearing away the pitfalls of early stage human design. Sculpting and carving and recasting, limited tools hampering each minuscule adjustmeent.
Sanding the last of the seams. Taking up the heavy plastic and metal mass of the CX100’s leg at last, two fingers still smoothly settled along the inseam to keep the process of attachment precise.]
Well, [Markus starts, tone drier than the stained span of his hands.] when I start to fall apart, we’ll call it even.